Here's the Solid Citizen who started all this, blowing off police, reaching under the seat of his car:
Oh give me a break in Kenosha.
Cops were called to a domestic, the guy resisted, defied multiple commands, then in the video was clearly lunging and reaching under his car seat for something before being shot.#BlackLivesMatter can go fuck itself.
Last week's freak-out was because Trump was stealing thousands of mail boxes. Why? To stop voting-by-mail. Which even isn't legal in most places. Here in Oregon, we do have mail-in ballots, but they need to be dropped off in special mail boxes used for ballots only, the ballots must be signed, and the signatures checked against the signature they have for you on file. It's convenient, but I would give it up in an instant for a system where I would have to go to a polling location and provide proper ID.
This week's freak-out is because Melania redesigned the White House Rose Garden. Which is bad. Because national crisis. Also, you can see the drastic difference from these side-by-side photos of the garden taken in April during one of the Obama years and the other taken in August of this year. So you can add a lack of gardening knowledge, of planting and growing seasons, to the progressive list of accomplishments.
One more thing: The shrubbery along the sides of the garden literally spell out 'KKK'. Melania deliberately designed it this way.
Biden is a confused old man who said he wanted to defund the police. Then he said he didn't. He made some noise about police budget reduction that sounded like he was playing both ends against the middle. So nobody knows if Joe Biden wants to defund the police. Even Joe Biden doesn't know if Joe Biden wants to defund the police. One thing he's sure of, though: Donald Trump wants to defund the police.
Meanwhile, partially sentient tuber Brian Stelter ponders 'Should TV Networks air RNC in full?' Says the media will have to make decisions about "whether to cut away if there’s this stream of disinformation happening live." Really. He actually said that. He actually argued that one party's convention should be "fact-checked", but not the other's. No, this is not from the Babylon Bee. See also this bint.
Finally, in the 4 days of the Democrats' convention, not once did any of their speakers mention the rioting, the looting, and the vandalizing that have taken a toll on blue cities. Some of them, i.e. Minneapolis and New York City, may never be the same again. Mayor Beetlejuice has had to beg retailers not to leave Chicago. And *not one* word of this last week from any of the convention speaks. Not even a 'sorry this happened to you' to their constituents living in those cities. Isn't that kind of creepy? Wouldn't most Americans watching think that's odd?
Last Weekend, a ‘Trump Boat Parade’ Set The World Record For Largest Boat Parade In History! That Record May Be Broken By a Different Trump Boat Parade Occuring Today. (Sorry Joe Biden, Those 6 Golf Carts that Lined Up For You Don’t Count) @realDonaldTrumppic.twitter.com/Eju8bx37IS
Friday's Who Dis: Kevin Sorbo and Sam Sorbo (nee Sandra Jenkins). They met on the set of his 90s-era Hercules: The Legendary Journeys TV series and got married. And they still are.
Today's Edition Of The Morning Rant Is Brought To You By New England Boiled Dinner (With Fresh Thyme):
Good morning kids. The start of a new week and the Republican National Convention kicks off tonight. Meanwhile the beat goes on across the usual fronts, including a fresh conflagration in Kenosha, WI after a policeman allegedly shot a black man in the back during the course of a call about domestic violence. All things considered, the incident happened in a Democrat-controlled city by officers who are part of and trained by a Democrat-run department and Democrat-controlled city administration. Despite the fact that incidents like this are rare to the point of being statistically insignificant - especially when one considers the numbers of black-on-black and black-on-white shootings - the Democrat-Media Complex starts a prairie fire from a single spark (to paraphrase a rather toxic quotation).
In this case, we already have a conflagration engulfing the American body politic thanks to the incident in Minneapolis this past May. The epicenter remains Portland where the city administration has either lost control or willingly surrendered it to semi-organized cadres of domestic terrorists, whose ultimate goal is the overthrow of the United States. For now, they have turned a fairly good-sized chunk of downtown into Beirut on the Willamette. Along with Molotov cocktails and fists (more than likely low-T man-baby sucker-punching fairy fists gripping a set of brass knuckles), they are now hurling feces-filled balloons at the police. No doubt the irony of "flinging poo" is lost on these droogs, but considering what the Democrat-Media Complex has done to President Trump and all of us, it's just perfectly encapsulates who and what they are.
There were incidents in Denver and Charlotte as well, but in Seattle, idiot mayor Jenny Durkan vetoed the city council's near unanimous vote to defund the police department. I assume she'll be run out on a rail by the goons whether or not the council can override her veto. Back in Portland the terrorists got into it with counter-protesters at a "Back the Blue" rally and it turned into a melee. At this point, with law enforcement either willingly or forced to backed down by Democrat politicians who are refusing to crack down with overwhelming force, it is incumbent on the citizenry, alone or in groups, to defend themselves and their right to peaceful assembly. Or just to walk down a street to go about their business. When you no longer have that, you no longer have a society or a country.
The Food and Drug Administration on Sunday issued an "emergency use authorization" for transfusions into [Chinese] COVID-19 patients of plasma donated by those who have recovered from the disease, citing data showing a "significant" -- up to 35 percent in some cases -- reduction in mortality rates.
Americans who have recovered from the disease caused by the coronavirus that emerged in Wuhan late last year are being urged to donate plasma, the liquid component of blood, for injection into [Chinese] COVID-19 patients...
[HHS Secretary Alex] Azar said that number should not be glossed over.
"We dream in drug development of something like a 35 percent mortality reduction," he said. "This is a major advance in the treatment of patients. It's a major advance."
Hahn said that the "convalescent plasma" of donors recovering from an infection has been used to treat others with the same disease for more than 100 years.
Under the evaluation launched in April, almost 100,000 Americans had enrolled to receive the treatment, and 70,000 had already received it, in "one of the largest expanded access programs in the history of FDA."
Meanwhile, the Joe Biden sockpuppet is promising that if he's installed in office, he'll lock the entire country down on day one, to save us from a virus that is marginally more lethal than seasonal flu, and with the peak point of infection and danger occurring probably four months ago. But, never let a crisis go to waste, even like hate crimes, if you have to invent them.
The parallels between 1918 and 2020 are extreme. The mass isolation and quarantine had no effect on 2019-nCoV and ruined our economy. The mass quarantine of the most vulnerable into nursing homes and the use of mechanical ventilators with their high occurrence of ventilator-associated pneumonia (1.5% per day) led to over 60% of the deaths, otherwise 2019-nCoV is far from the mass murderer it was hyped to be. Why quarantine and intubation? Medicare cut reimbursement for non-invasive ventilators, and Congress rewarded the use of ventilators on (presumed) COVID patients and their deaths. Socialist medicine transforms doctors into highly paid executioners of the elderly, weak, and infirm.
You say these were just mistakes of science and implementation? Under "ideal" socialism, the restriction of liberty is still valid? Perhaps mistakes, but an argument over science trumping liberty is a red herring. Lives versus lives is part of the Game of Socialism, which ignores the possibility that liberty is necessary for the public good -- rather, dismisses it.
Social media trolling and unethical reporting exaggerated a cold into a plague, and socialist health and safety advocates panicked the world into surrendering liberty and implementing socialism. All of the damage attributed to COVID-19 was instead caused by the socialism meant to protect us. COVID-19 is a pandemic of socialism.
By the way, I wasn't kidding about the fake hate crime. See the link here and in the Democrat Chutzpocrisy section.
* * * * *
Elsewhere, Kellyanne Conway has announced she is leaving the White House to spend more time with family. This time, it may be true considering the friction in the household. And speaking of friction, George Conway's thighs will emit sparks as he leaves the Lincoln Project to spend more time with pastrami.
As for the RNC, in the wake of the abject disaster that was the Democrat convention, there was no expected "bounce" for Biden, and the words of Mark Meadows defines the moment, stating that Trump "accomplished more in his first 100 days than Joe Biden did in the last 40 years." Boom. Not only does that statement define both candidates, it defines how our government operated for at least the past 50 years if not longer, and the struggle to stop that insanity and restore power back to the people.
Anyway, there are other major things breaking that no doubt you'll see in the links as you peruse them. And if you are in the path of those hurricanes, please stay safe and if ordered to evacuate, get the hell out and get to safety.
"The Back the Blue rally included members of Proud Boys, a multi-racial (yes) group of America-loving and antifa-hating tough guys and gals, who will fight back if the Leftist mob starts something. They come prepared to do battle. And guess what? That's exactly what happened. If antifa doesn't start the violence then no violence happens." Portland "Back the Blue" Rally Turns Into Riot When Antifa Shows Up and Starts Assaulting People
"Rioters threw a bike at a motorcycle cop, set a tree on fire (so much for being environmentally sensitive), set fires in the streets, shot fireworks at police, threw rocks at a sheriff's vehicle, burned an American flag, painted anti-police graffiti, and caused enough mayhem that police arrested nine of them." Rioters Hit Denver, Smash Family-Owned Sandwich Shop
"The mother and son were attending a counter-protest outside of Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden's acceptance speech on Thursday of last week when the mother says the pair of women approached her, stole her MAGA hat, and then taunted the boy, who tried to retrieve the hat for his mother." Police Arrest Two Women Accused Of Attacking 7-Year-Old Outside Biden Rally, Stealing MAGA Hat
"The city council voted 7-1 this month to slash its police budget. The one vote against was not in defense of police; that council member voted against the cuts because they did not go far enough." Seattle's "Summer of Love" Mayor Durkan Vetoes Police Budget Cuts
"New York City public advocate Jumaane Williams has excoriated the police for years -- and now protests that they aren't doing enough to stem violence." Condemn, Then Complain
"The NPR report cites a new peer-reviewed study published in the American Journal of Public Health, which concluded that in-person voting in Wisconsin's April 7 election did not cause a spike in coronavirus cases despite 400,000 people voting.Wow, Even NPR Admits That In-Person Voting Isn't as Risky as Alarmists Thought
"He may be innocent, or he may be guilty, but Steve Bannon faces essentially the same odds in the Southern District of New York as he would have had under the Soviet judiciary." Skepticism About the Bannon Indictment
SHAMPEACHMENT, CLINTON/OBAMA COUP, CONGRESSIONAL PERSECUTION, SPYGATE, DEEP STATE, MUELLER DECEPTION
Democrat floor speeches weren't much different than the virtual speeches made during the convention. Orange man bad, old geezer is good, GOP wants to kill you, and the Postal Service worked perfectly before DeJoy took over and began to 'sabotage' mail delivery." Democrat Convention Continues in DC as House Passes Postal Funding Bill
"Congressional nominee Kimberly Klacik, who launched a massively viral video drawing attention to how policies in Baltimore have hurt the black community, will also appear at the convention. The video, in which Klacik walks the dilapidated city in high heels, pointing to problems Democrats have failed to fix, has been viewed 10.9 million times." Trump Campaign Unveils List of Speakers For "Historic" Convention, Includes Several Congressional Hopefuls
"Described as a set of 'core priorities,' the president's agenda touches on ten broad topics, including the coronavirus pandemic and economic recovery, ending American "reliance" on China, standing up for police departments, and putting an end to illegal immigration in the country." Trump Campaign Unveils Agenda For Second Term In Office
"History repeats, the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce... but the third time, Joe and Kamala, is just boring." Biden Sorta Pretends to be a Nationalist
"If Joe Biden's running mate ever becomes president, she would nationalize California's increasingly feudal political and economic order." Kamala's America?
"President Trump, I know him well, he doesn't care about these types of issues. They're irrelevant characterizations about someone. What is relevant is whether or not they can do the job." Richard Grenell on Trump: "He Doesn't Play Identity Politics"
"So low are expectations of Biden that his acceptance speech at the funereal Democratic convention last week was hailed as a miracle, the best speech of his life, perhaps even in the history of the world. In truth, it was a string of cheap shots and cliches encrusted in saccharine, delivered in a halting, shouty monotone." Joe Biden's Doddering Interviews Prove He May Not Be All There
"The Democrats' platitudes all served the same narrative: the old America is bad, Trump is the old America, and Trump and his supporters will be ousted and punished." Democrats Are the Party of Light, Right, and Revenge
Roger Kimball: "Heroes, promise, opportunity, and greatness versus a round-the-clock obsession with racism and identity politics, climate hysteria, open borders, and higher taxes. Which is the more attractive?" Feeling Good Through Feeling Bad
Victor Davis Hanson: "The point is not what Democrats say against Donald Trump, or the irony of their rhetoric, but the very fact that their opposition somehow exempts them from the absurdities of their own paradoxes." From DNC Irony to Parody
"Sanger, the founder of the Planned Parenthood abortion mill, is not 'problematic' because she once told an off-color joke or flew a Confederate flag. The woman was a monster, a vile racist and eugenicist who praised the Nazi's sterilization tactics." Planned Parenthood Quietly Aborts Annual "Margaret Sanger Award"
"The German Luftwaffe and the Israeli Air Defense Force fly together for the first time." Shalom, Germany
"The group attempted to send the information out via its Twitter account, but the platform suspended their account under its policy against hacked documents. 'We think the public deserves to know about the CCP's attempts to undermine democracy and freedom of expression.'" Hackers Leak Alleged Internal Documents of China's Social Media Surveillance
"Why Biden-Harris is the Chinese communist regime's dream team." The Dems' China Tilt
"Acceptance of the dictatorial rule of China's Communist Party and its leader Xi Jinping depends on the party's ability to keep delivering improving material prosperity. But suddenly, there are signs that an adequate food supply is in question." Clear Signs That Food Shortages Are Worrying China's Communist Overlords
"Should Alexander Lukashenko be forced to exit, America has a chance to alter the strategic equation in Eastern Europe, at little cost to itself." The Left Will Miss This Belarussian Dictator
"At the time of the Houston consulate's closure, we and many others reported that individuals were seen burning documents in the consulate's courtyard. Who was burning them, and for what purpose, we could only guess. There was speculation that the consulate was somehow involved in the ongoing protests and riots in cities across the country." (that would be an act of war, no? - jjs) Did China's Consulate in Houston Use TikTok to Stir Up Antifa/BLM Riots?
"If Californian politicians have proven anything, it's that their appetite for more, more, more, shall not abate. Once they've eaten the rich, they're going to eat you." California's Proposed Wealth Tax Is a Model for America
CRIME & PUNISHMENT, NON-DOSTOYEVSKY
"How the growing trend of criminal-justice reform for its own sake will make policing riskier -- and the city less safe." New York's Department of Overcorrection
"The Justice Department's Civil Rights Division's recognition of Yale's discriminatory admissions process is a pleasant surprise to Americans weary of racial double standards." The Mad Diversity Queen Under Siege
"In the modern social-work paradigm, there is nothing to believe in or hold onto besides your Self, there are no prohibitions and no judgments besides those unfairly imposed upon you by white males the world over." Why I Am No Longer a Social Worker
NOTE: The opinions expressed in some links may or may not reflect my own. I include them because of their relevance to the discussion of a particular issue.
ALSO: The Morning Report is cross-posted at CutJibNewsletter.com if you want to continue the conversation all day.
“I would be prepared to do whatever it takes to save lives because we cannot get the country moving until we control the virus. That is the fundamental flaw of this administration’s thinking to begin with. In order to keep the country running and moving and the economy growing and people employed, you have to fix the virus. You have to deal with the virus.” Former VP Joe Biden
Quote II
Our black, gay mayor is not protecting the women in this city. I have a personal problem with that.” Taylore Norwood
Quote III
“The pricing is still way too high relative to what we’re seeing in the illicit market. If you are someone that consumes cannabis on a regular interval, there’s not a lot of incentive for you to transition over.”Canaccord Genuity analyst Matt Bottomley
Quote IV
This is what happens when malevolent narcissists don’t get slapped and thrown to the ground. The kind of psychology we’re seeing, over and over again, overwhelmingly from the left, is an exercise in bad faith, a fundamental dishonesty. It therefore isn’t amenable to correction with facts or debate, or appeals to reciprocity or some higher purpose. Tolerating such behaviour - and worse, deferring to it – will only encourage an escalation of vanity, malice and sociopathy. It may, however, be discouraged with reminders of physical consequences. Ideally, physical humiliation. A reminder that nasty little egos can be publicly broken.David Thompson
College students say free speech is “unacceptable”
Not any longer. The president and two vice-presidents of the Princeton Graduate Student Government replied to their school’s shocking affirmation of free speech and the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America, calling it “tone-deaf” and “unacceptable.”
In a letter written in response to Eisgruber and the administration, the three opined that the free speech policy protects “hate” at the university. They stated, “We as a student body are not looking for ‘dialogue’ on how to cope with institutional racism,” and averred that an emphasis on the importance of free expression “reads as a typical dog-whistle often used to excuse racist speech and hateful actions.”
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Maybe Garrett can help Charlie out...................
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From humor to stark commentary......Paul Joseph Watson NSFW-Language
So how many of the fleeing New Yorkers will continue to vote the same shitty way they have over the years?
The Kansas City Chiefs announced the organization is banning fans from wearing headdresses at Arrowhead Stadium and there will also be a ban on face painting “styled in a way that references or appropriates American Indian cultures,” according to a release sent out on social media.
While we have discouraged fans from wearing headdresses for several years, effective immediately, fans will be prohibited from wearing headdresses into the stadium.
Face painting is still allowed for all fans, but any face paint that is styled in a way that references or appropriates American Indian cultures and traditions will be prohibited.
A Fleet of Computers Helps Settle a 90-Year-Old Math Problem
By translating Ott-Heinrich Keller’s conjecture into a computer-friendly search, researchers confirmed a conjecture about seven-dimensional space.
A TEAM OF mathematicians has finally finished off Keller’s conjecture, but not by working it out themselves. Instead, they taught a fleet of computers to do it for them.
Keller’s conjecture, posed 90 years ago by Ott-Heinrich Keller, is a problem about covering spaces with identical tiles. It asserts that if you cover a two-dimensional space with two-dimensional square tiles, at least two of the tiles must share an edge. It makes the same prediction for spaces of every dimension—that in covering, say, 12-dimensional space using 12-dimensional “square” tiles, you will end up with at least two tiles that abut each other exactly.
It appears cognitive dissonance runs deep in Portland, Oregon …
During riots Saturday in Portland, where left-wing Black Lives Matter and Antifa extremists have been harassing and assaulting local police and bystanders for weeks, these same left-wing extremists suddenly turned into bawling babies desperate for police protection after someone finally decided to fight back.
At Least 13 Killed In Peru Nightclub Stampede Triggered By Police 'Social Distancing' Raid
In an example of COVID-19-related law enforcement gone horribly awry, 13 people were killed in a deadly stampede, as patrons tried to flee a surprise police raid on a crowded Lima, Peru nightclub on Saturday night.
At least 6 people were seriously injured, including 3 cops.
***
The ONT Musical Interlude
On this day: August 23, 1967 - Keith Moon
Enjoying a wild birthday party Keith Moon drummer with The Who drove his Lincoln car into a Holiday Inn swimming pool. As the party had become out of control, the police were called to put an end to the festivities. Moon, ever keen to avoid the boys in blue snuck outside and got into a Lincoln Continental Limousine and attempted to make a getaway. Unfortunately, in his inebriated state he released the handbrake, and began rolling towards the pool. Moon simply sat back and waited, as the car crashed through the fence around the pool and into the water.
Born on this day: August 23, 1946 - Keith Moon
English drummer Keith Moon. The Who With The Who he scored the 1965 UK No.2 single 'My Generation' plus over 20 other Top 40 hits, 1967 US No.9 single 'I Can See For Miles' and rock opera albums 'Tommy' & 'Quadrophenia'. Moon was voted the second-greatest drummer in history by a Rolling Stone readers' poll. Moon died on 7th September 1978 after taking 32 clomethiazole tablets. via thisdayinmusic.com
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One would think that being on a school board you would take your position seriously. No, not for this Genius Award Winner.
PITTSBURGH — A Pittsburgh Public Schools board member learned the hard way on Wednesday what can go wrong in virtual meetings.
According to Channel 11 News’ exchange partners at TribLIVE, Veronica Edwards was accidentally seen disrobing and stepping into the shower during the district’s agenda review meeting, which was streamed live.
Her excuse, "“During the pandemic, I have experienced an increase of virtual meeting hours … more than ever before. The demand on my time has caused me to attempt to multi-task when some meetings are proceeding.
"Like many women and caregivers across the country, this has been a challenging time to achieve work-life balance, it’s been nearly impossible for me.”" H/T Isophorone Blog
Quite the apology. Not.
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Weekly commenter stats for week of 8-23-2020
Top 10 commenters:
1 [620 comments] 'Insomniac - Ex Cineribus Resurgo' [87.03 posts/day]
2 [483 comments] 'Sponge - China is Asshoe!'
3 [480 comments] 'TheJamesMadison, in a madhouse! A Madhouse!'
4 [416 comments] 'Rodrigo Borgia'
5 [393 comments] 'Christopher R Taylor'
6 [393 comments] 'deplorable unperson - refuse to accept the Mask of the Beast'
7 [377 comments] 'vmom 2020 grammar nazi and write supremacist'
8 [362 comments] 'rhennigantx'
9 [346 comments] 'Skip'
10 [326 comments] 'Fired Dem Consultant Miklos'
Gun Thread: More Basic Information Edition! [Weasel]
—Open Blogger
The weather is finally cooperating, so guess who is heading to the farm tomorrow? That's right, your ol' pal Weasel is heading to the farm tomorrow! Right now, the plan is to spend a day cutting brush and grass, a day doing some other chores around the place, and a full day shooting video. If all goes well, I hope to come back with lots of material for the following week's GT. Yay Weasel! In the meantime, let's pick up where we left off last week reviewing basics, shall we?
More Back to Basics
So last week we went back to basics and reviewed 'zeroing' a rifle, a process in which you simply align the reticle in a rifle scope, with 'zero' adjustment for elevation or wind indicated, to exactly match the point of bullet impact at a fixed distance. With me so far?
Well that's all fine and dandy, you say, but how does one adjust for different (longer) distances and the effect of wind on the bullet flight? You may have zeroed your rifle at 100 yards, but what if you have a target of opportunity at say, 500 yards? This is where the little knobs on the rifle scope come in handy. By turning these, you move the reticle inside the scope by tiny precise amounts. For example, when you dial elevation UP, you're actually moving the reticle DOWN inside the scope body which causes you to raise the barrel to center the crosshair on the more distant target. Same with left and right adjustments for wind; a left wind adjustment moves the reticle to the right, and you re-center the crosshair and bore axis to the left to re-center the reticle on target.
Now the question becomes how much of an adjustment to make. We have previously covered the measurement conventions most commonly used, Minute of Angle or MOA, and milliradian or MIL. That thread can be found in the dusty Gun Thread archives. Remember, don't be a retard and comment in old threads or you will be banned!
Anyhoo, your scope will be graduated in one of the two conventions, and you have a couple of options for computing (this is actually where the term 'computer' was derived) a ballistic firing solution solved in one of those conventions. You can a) break out the slide rule, or 2) use an app like everyone else. As much as I like counting on my toes, I prefer the fast and easy route, and Ballistic AE is the app I use for making calculations on the spot. This is not a substitute for developing good, solid range data including atmospheric variables for your particular rifle and ammunition, but it will generally get you close. Let's see how it works.
Many things affect a bullet's flight to target, but the most significant are the shape and weight of the bullet, and the speed at which it leaves the barrel. With these two pieces of information, you can reasonably predict the amount of additional elevation necessary to move the point of impact at 100 yards, the 'zero', out to 500 yards. Somewhere in the small print of a box of rifle ammunition you will find a velocity estimate and the weight of the bullet. Velocities are given in feet per second (fps), and bullet weight in grains (gr), with one grain equal to 1/7000th of a pound. For the sake of argument let's assume you're shooting a .308 Winchester and using Federal Gold Medal Match ammunition. A quick check of the packaging shows an estimated muzzle velocity of 2,600 fps and a 175gr bullet. Now let's take a look at some screen shots of the app in action.
First we have the relevant portion of the input screen:
Next we see a summary of those inputs
And finally we have the output data
If you follow the third column, Drop (MOA) down to 500 yards you see a value of -10.26. That means you need 10.26 MOA of elevation to move from 100 yds to 500 yards based on your current configuration. Dial UP 10.25 MOA, disregarding the hundredths place, and that should be your approximate elevation for a 500 yd shot. If you look at the 5th column Wind MOA you will see a value of .19 MOA for 1 mph of wind. I secretly set that up during the input and now know the effect in minutes of angle of a 1 mph wind on the bullet at 500 yards, or about 2/10ths of an MOA, so a 5 mph wind will require approximately 1 full MOA windage correction.
The Ballistic App is a very powerful tool, and this is by no means anything other than a very short introduction to its use. As mentioned earlier, many factors, including current atmospheric conditions, bullet form and others, will affect the results and you will need to make corrections to the observed impact accordingly.
Give it a try!
******
Next our pal Scuba_Dude has delivered on his promised report from his Handgun 101 Course at the Sig Sauer Academy in Epping, NH.
Our class had 9 people, 5 males and 4 females and 1 instructor. The first part of the class was in a classroom. We first went over each of the firearm safety rules and the instructor had a blue plastic training pistol and showed us how the rule applied to the gun such as muzzle management and where the trigger finger should be and of course the various parts of the gun. After that he went over the sights of the pistol by drawing on a whiteboard and explaining what a sight picture was and how we should be focusing on the front sight as opposed to the rear sight or the target and gave the explanation why.
I think he was a very good instructor, from what I learned about him he had been in the Army and has Special Forces training. He did not rush through things, he did not berate. He was making small jokes and was not laid back but not overbearing. I found it very easy to pay attention to what he was saying. We brought our chairs into the range room and he showed us the various parts of the gun and what they did.
He first talked about muzzle management and the exercise he had us do with no magazine and the slide locked back was to walk around the range, basically meandering around, all the time being sure not to have the muzzle pointing at the other students who also were walking around. While we were walking around he would say "point down range" or "point up range" all the while moving the muzzle to where he said without sweeping or pointing the muzzle at someone. This was really good as it made you aware of what was around you and you had to consciously think of where the muzzle was at all times. He went through the entire function cycle of the gun and how the bullet is chambered, how the firing pin will hit the primer and will ignite the powder, how the bullet leaves the barrel, the slide moves back and the extractor grabs the empty casing and the ejector ejects the case. Next he showed us how to load the magazine, and gave us each 5 dummy bullets and we practiced loading and unloading the magazine.
Next he showed us how to grip the gun and why we grip up as high as we can on the gun with both hands, and he made a correction to my grip which I think will help immensely. After the grip he then had us work on our sight picture. We would be behind the table, pick up the empty gun with the slide back and bring it into the ready position and getting the sights aligned and trying to see the tritium dial in the front sight as that is the sight you would be focusing on. He would have us go to low ready then bring the gun up to the ready position numerous times. He also explained why we do not lock our elbows but they should be slightly bent. We ran numerous drills doing that.
Next up is the stance, the feet shoulder width apart the dominant leg behind the other foot. Chin over the belt. And when he had us in the stance he showed how you know it is good if while you are in the stance you can go up on your tippy toes and you are not effecting the sight picture.
Then came the time to actually fire the gun. He had us walk to the back of the room with an empty magazine. At the back we each had a box of 50 rounds of frangible ammo in 9mm. We loaded 5 rounds into the magazine and took it back to the table with the gun. He next had us take the gun and the magazine up to the 3 yard line. He then demonstrated with live ammo what he wanted us to do. He did this to get the people who never shot before what it was like when a gun went off. Telling them to look at the gun and not at the target so they could see what was happening.
After the demonstration he had us load the magazine into the gun, tug at the bottom of the magazine to show it was seated and then rack the slide in one of the 3 ways demonstrated that we felt comfortable with. We then took our stance, got the grip we wanted on the gun and kept it at low ready. The drill was this: bring gun from low ready, aim at center of the target, get sight picture, take finger from its position of outside of the trigger guard high on the frame, put and trigger, fire, finger out of trigger, check sights, then go to low ready and repeat until all 5 rounds were expended and the slide locked back and return to low ready.
We would then hit the magazine release dropping the magazine and then do a 3 point check to verify the gun was clear, then look away then perform the 3 point check again. He then analyzed everyone's targets and asked for feedback on the ones where the shots were spread wide. I did have the best group, all 5 shots just above the center square and 4 of the holes touching and 1 just barely above.
The next drill he had us load another 5 rounds. It was almost the same type of drill, but instead of aiming at the center of the target he had us shoot anywhere on the white part of the target and the aiming point of the next 4 bullets was the bullet hole we just shot. Same way, low ready, bring gun up, get sight, shoot, get sight, go low ready and repeat until slide locked back. This was the aim small, miss small. In my target picture I was aiming at my left, top part of target. Again, I was very happy with my group, and all the shots on the target were at 3 yards.
Now, he had us load 10 rounds into the magazine. We did the same drill but this time we selected another part of the target, made the first bullet hole then 4 more at that bullet hole then transition to another part of the target and do the same thing. I selected the left middle for the 1st 5 rounds and the top right for the next 5. I think I did pretty good, though I had what I consider a little flyer with the 1st 5 rounds.
Now the next drill had us working on recoil control. He went to each persons target and if he saw a bullet hole outside the ring he would ask the person what they think caused that. I had one shot outside the ring and I know why it happened. Every now and then I get an involuntary "twitch". I usually catch it before I fire but did not this time. I think I get them because even after a thousand or so rounds I still get a little nervous when I am shooting and I am somehow anticipating the recoil.
The next drill was concentrate on the grip of our dominant hand. Tuck it as high as we can and apply more pressure on the grip with the bottom 2 fingers, then do the same drill as before. The last drill he had us work on incorporating all we had learned. I am happy to say all my rounds were inside the 8 ring and amazingly none of them were low, left like I normally shoot. I really believe what he did with my grip and knowing how to press the trigger eliminated that. I still have to work on recoil control so after a shot I get the sights back on target better after I fire.
Finally we moved all of the tables to the side of the room and removed the cardboard targets and now we were shooting at steel plates. He demonstrated what it sounded like when a steel plate was hit then he had us all line up on the 3 yard line facing our own individual steel plate. We got into our stance, got a grip then we brought up the gun, shot 3 rounds at the steel then go to low ready, when everyone was done, we turned around and backed up to the 7 yard line making sure we had muzzle management. We then repeated and fired 3 more shots, then went to the 10 yard, 3 more shots, then the 15 yard and 3 more shots. Somehow some people had run out of ammo but I was able to shoot my last 3 at the 15 yard again. I did pretty good, I was on steel with all my shots.
After lunch and still on the range we discussed securing a gun at home. He showed us a cable lock and a trigger lock and explained how they worked and that with a cable lock it is impossible for the gun to go into battery and with a trigger lock it IS possible to get the gun to fire even with it on. He discussed why one would have a gun safe but also how in a home defense you really would want the gun to be readily available to you.
He next went to describe the different types of actions on guns, SA, DA/SA, SAO, DAO, SF. Then he went onto the different ammunition, centerfire and rim fire, the different pistol calibers and how 9mm is the most popular. He discussed what made up a copper jacketed bullet. He also told about the different bullet weights for 9mm, that 115gr was more of a practice round and that 124gr and 147gr was more defensive rounds and what a hollow point bullet was. Finally he discussed cleaning the gun. Getting rid of carbon fouling, lubing the gun and the places that you would see more wear and the carbon fouling that can effect the ejector.
And then he ended the class asking us if we felt we got anything out of the course. Needless to say everyone had nothing but positives. All in all this class was well worth the time and money even though I have been shooting for 2 years and a handgun owner for almost a year. I do recommend this course to any of the new shooters out there. I can't wait for Handgun 102, where we work on drawing from a holster and firing.
Nicely done Scuba_Dude! Great report! Thank you especially for the detail on the various drills, which are something we can all practice on our own. My experience with the Sig Sauer Academy, both in shooting and non-shooting courses, have been the same as yours, or very positive. It is a very well run and professional operation. So whether you travel to the Sig Sauer Academy, or perhaps find an instructor near home, taking a course, even a basic one with someone evaluating your shooting is always a good idea. I cannot emphasize this enough especially for the new shooters out there.
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Who needs a rifle for a thousand yard shot? Our pal Jerry Miculek don't!
Online Ammo
Our pal redc1c4 recommends this new (to me) online ammunition supplier, Old Western Scrounger featuring hard to find calibers.
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ATTENTION NoVaMoMe 2020!!
Sad people who cannot make the new NoVaMoMe date of August 29th
Due the Chinese Cooties hysteria in Virginia, the NoVaMoMe 2020 has been postponed until Saturday, August 29th. The time and location remain the same. If you haven't already, please check your email and let the Central Planning Committee know if you are able to make the new date. If not, your registration fee will be refunded and we will open your spot to those on the wait list. Questions? Just email us at NoVaMoMe2020 at gee mail dot com. Thank you!
Please note the new and improved gmail account morongunthread at gmail dot com. An informal Gun Thread archive can be found HERE. If you have a question you would like to ask Gun Thread Staff offline, just send us a note and we'll do our best to answer. If you care to share the story of your favorite firearm, send a picture with your nic and tell us what you sadly lost in the tragic canoe accident. If you would like to remain completely anonymous, just say so. Lurkers are always welcome!
That's it for this week - have you been to the range?
Food Thread: Mussels, Whole Lemons And Crappy Wine
—CBD
Mussels are ubiquitous on the menus of Italian restaurants around here, but they are usually a pedestrian presentation without much in the way of flavor. But yesterday I had a plate of mussels in a spicy light tomato sauce, and they were fantastic. Starting with really good mussels obviously helped, but it wasn't ridiculously spicy, and the sauce wasn't thick and gloppy. In fact, it was served over some rounds of bread so that the sauce had somewhere to go...a touch I would have rejected immediately had I known, but it worked out really nicely. The bread soaked up some of the sauce and added a bit of oomph. And it wasn't toasted, so it was right on the edge of breaking down, which made it even weirder.
There are so many versions of wonderful foods that turn out to be thoroughly boring, so it is a real and rare pleasure to find a common dish that is done exactly correctly...and is a cut above the rest.
Their meatballs were damned good too. Better than mine, and that really pissed me off!
I figure I am about 15 years too late, but since I am usually behind the times, the timing is perfect. Below is my first attempt at a video, so be gentle.
I got a lot of good advice from Weasel, and he also whipped up the intro in about 10% of the time it would have taken me!
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It's a work in progress...I have to figure out which perspective makes the most sense. I have a face made for blogging, so facing me while I pontificate is right out!
The point is to see the technique and the food, so I 'll just play around and see what works.
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I love lemon in cooking. The juice adds brightness and contrast to lots of different foods, and the zest is fantastic in drinks and salads and even steaks. Yeah...a squirt of lemon, some finely minced zest and a drizzle of olive oil over a steak is a fine way to eat.
But this recipe is new to me. Using the whole lemon in a lemon meringue? Sure. I mean...why not? I would peel the pith out of most of them, but aside from that it looks intriguing.
The ultra-aged steaks seem like a waste of time, but the other dishes are fun to read about. The weirdest ways people around the world cook steak. But the best part is the next section, which rates steaks from worst to best. They are hilariously full of shit, and any serious steak eater will just laugh and laugh.
[Hat Tip: JT]
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A friend of mine stopped by a couple of hours ago and dropped off two packages of his latest batch of bacon. Why is there only one package in the photo? Because we ate the first one with great glee!
Fantastic. Far better than store-bought bacon, and I really like all bacon, so that isn't a criticism of commercial stuff, just the recognition that sometimes homemade really is better.
And it's not complicated: Cure. Smoke. Chill. Slice. Eat.
He has recently become obsessed with smoking pretty much everything, and I think his experience has allowed him to smoke the bacon with subtlety, rather than just bombing it with tons of smoke.
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Long-time commenter and chef extraordinaire artisanal 'ette sent this along, and it sure does look good! I am an okra nooby...the last time I ate okra it was pickled in a Bloody Mary, so I will defer to those with experience.
We loved it. I used 2 lbs of shrimp, and about 2 pounds of okra. The only time consuming part is cutting up the okra, but not too bad. I did use more than it called for. My book says 2T of chopped parsley, and 1/2 tsp of thyme, but I would use more. I used extra garlic and ginger as I always do. And I used a jalapeno from my garden. Thyme, parsley and jalapeno from my garden.
This of course makes me jealous of people who can actually grow things. My basil was pathetic, and the thyme simply never appeared.
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This reminded me of a recent family party. I usually have a bottle or two of red and white wine on the bottom shelf of the refrigerator door. That's where I keep my cooking wine. It's usually the dregs of bottles and stuff that was too crappy to drink and stuff that sat undrunk anf forgotten in the refrigerator for a few weeks until it was..um...shitty. But for cooking? All of that stuff is just fine, and don't let the cooking snobs tell you any differently.
Anyway, I walked into the kitchen and there was one of my nieces, happily pouring herself a second glass of the cooking white and exclaiming, "This is really good!"
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Food and cooking tips, Large-breasted Muscovy ducks, young wild pigs, bartenders who use vermouth in Martinis (but not too much), pork belly that doesn't have 5-spice, low-temperature-roast chicken, and good tomatoes that aren't square, pale pink and covered with Mestizo E.coli: cbd dot aoshq at gmail dot com. Any advocacy of French Toast with syrup will result in disciplinary action up to and including being nuked from orbit. And yes, shaking a Manhattan is blasphemy...it's in the Bible!
That's the thumb slide for the utility knife, and it is much less effective when it breaks off! Crappy pot metal combined with lots of use yields a short life span for the tool.
How much extra would it cost to use better metal? The enclosure can be cheap, but that little piece of metal that is exposed to lots of force could be just a little bit better, and the tool would last a lot longer.
How did that happen? Luckily it was after I needed the utility knife. I put it back into my tool holder and...SNAP! Is it too much to ask that the knife lasts longer than the first blade?
What is the corollary to Murphy's Law that governs the propensity for tools to break just as we really need them?
Judging the quality of a tool isn't always easy. Many of us go with brand names and previous experience, but that doesn't always pan out. Craftsman tools is a good example of that.
And this can be extrapolated to most mechanical assistants. How often have we discussed washing machines in these august pages?
So: good tool stories, bad tool stories, and everything in between!
And below the fold; a tool I want but should never, ever buy.
The Future Of America Can Be Seen In California, And It Is Poor, Nasty, Brutish And Short
—CBD
The Dead Kennedys song, "California Über Alles" wasn't supposed to be a guide book, but it is strangely prescient, albeit a few years late. They sang about Jerry Brown being a totalitarian, but the song applies quite well to Kamala Harris, who's a vile combination of police state excess and socialist destruction of upward mobility...at least for you and me.
Don't believe me? Just take a look at California, which in just a generation has gone from a state with endless possibilities to a calcified wasteland of the ultra-rich and the ultra-poor.
By virtue of being chosen Joe Biden’s running mate, Senator Kamala Harris of California has reasonable odds of becoming president someday—and probably better odds than the average running mate, given Biden’s advanced years and sometimes shaky public presentation. That’s cause for concern, not because she represents, as some conservatives fret, the far Left but because she will promote the spread of California’s increasingly feudal political and economic order, which undermines the upward mobility that long defined the California experience. [emphasis mine]
"Go West young man" wasn't just a tossed off quotation. Horace Greeley was serious, and he was correct (even if he didn't actually say it). But today's California is a testament to the worst excesses of American progressivism gone mad, complete with Byzantine rules for doing almost literally everything. Build a business? Be prepared for years of regulatory hell. Feel like building a house? Good luck! Want to clear the brush around your house so it doesn't burn? You might go to jail!
What California's political and business leaders want for you is quite simple...become a ward of the state, and let them make the social and economic decisions for you, because you are just too stupid to do it correctly, and besides, they don't want you becoming wealthy and moving into their neighborhoods.
Rather than seek to democratize and boost competition within the economy, many tech leaders embrace expanding the welfare state, a position that resonates with Democratic activists. Former head of Uber Travis Kalanick, Y Combinator founder Sam Altman, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, and Elon Musk all favor this form of top-down socialism, where a publicly funded guaranteed annual wage helps soften the worst effects of “disruption” on an increasingly redundant workforce. In a sense, the tech mavens have embraced the old aristocratic practice of offering what Marx called a “proletarian alms bag”—not just with guaranteed wages but also with free health care, free college, and housing subsidies—to a growing property-less class. The growth of a permanently dependent citizenry violates the aspirational character of the American republic, as would become more evident if Harris attains the helm.
I had never seen the phrase "proletarian alms bag" before I read this article, and it is both illuminating and terrifying, because that is exactly what the current incarnation of Karl Marx (the Democrat Party) wants for America.
Good morning to all you 'rons, 'ettes, lurkers, and lurkettes, wine moms, frat bros, crétins sans pantalon (who are technically breaking the rules), losers, boozers, snoozers, and other layaboots (for it is in Canada that our scene lies). Welcome once again to the stately, prestigious, internationally acclaimed and high-class Sunday Morning Book Thread, a weekly compendium of reviews, observations, snark, witty repartee, hilarious bon mots, and a continuing conversation on books, reading, spending way too much money on books, writing books, and publishing books by escaped oafs and oafettes who follow words with their fingers and whose lips move as they read. Unlike other AoSHQ comment threads, the Sunday Morning Book Thread is so hoity-toity, pants are required. Even if it's these pants, taken from the lamest ren-fair ever.
For over a decade, Housing Works Bookstore Café & Bar has established itself as a New York downtown institution and tourist destination. All of our stock is donated, and we are staffed almost entirely by volunteers, so 100% of our profits go to fund Housing Works' lifesaving services. There are free and low-cost events many nights of the week, an exceptional range of books, movies, and music, and a fully stocked café & bar. We pride ourselves in being a great place to visit, meet friends, relax, read, write, and shop! Our one-of-a-kind space is available for rent, and we host weddings and special events almost every weekend.
Just don't click on the 'Advocacy' link if you decide to check out their web pages. It's the usual trendy causes du jour which I suppose they think makes their advocacy on behalf of said causes stunning and brave.
It Pays To Increase Your Word Power®
A FUG is a warm, close atmosphere. In 1920s slang, radiators were nicknamed FUGS—and underpants were nicknamed UNDERFUGS.
Some 1969 correspondence, found inside an FBI file on the rock group The Doors, called The Fugs the "most vulgar thing the human mind could possibly conceive".
Moron author Hans Schantz will organizing as many authors as he can for a $0.99 Labor Day sale. The main requirement is, of course, that you're an author of a book or books that you're willing to put on sale for $0.99.
Hans says:
Interested authors should contact me (Hans) through Twitter (@aetherczar) or email to aetherczar at gmail dot com with a link to their book(s). I'll tell you whether you're eligible.
I'll probably approve most any fiction that has about ten or more positive Amazon ratings and looks like a good scifi, fantasy, or thriller tale. No erotica. Authors then confirm to me that their book(s) will be at 99 cents for the exact period, start: 9/2 12am; end 9/9 12am. Then they're in. I'll publish a post the morning of 9/2 listing everyone's book once I verify they're priced correctly (i.e. you don't get listed until or unless you are at 99 cents). We all share and promote to our social media, mailing lists, and other channels, and I'll share with you for inclusion in the Book Thread. Trying to make the sale bigger than ever by starting early and getting more authors on board.
Of course I will make promote sale this on the book thread at the appropriate time.
A Small Catalog of Good Children's Books
An e-mail from a lurkette:
I remember reading a while back that some of the morons were seeking recommendations for kids of different ages, and since my mini-minion was born I've been compiling a list of books that might not be as well-known, but that I really enjoyed as a kid. The idea was to get them written down early, so I don't forget them when she hits reading age.
I left off most of the "required reading/prize-winners", since most kids will read those for school, but I thought the list might benefit some in the horde. The sheet has title, author, age range (give or take, since I was sort of advanced in the reading department) and a short description.
So it's not a comprehensive catalog, but a personal list. But those of you with children might find it useful. It's an Excel spreadsheet file and I uploaded it to my dropbox account. It is available to view here. Or, click here if you want to download the file.
Moron author A.H. Lloyd is grateful for the sales of his Spanish Civil War history book I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, Long Live Death: The Keys to Victory in the Spanish Civil War. It was the #1 best-seller for Spain and Portugal History and also held #1 for European History for a time. That's pretty impressive.
Alec says:
The takeaway from this is that non-fiction does offer opportunities to shape the discourse that fiction lacks, and I think it worthwhile for conservatives to do this.
While far from the last word on the Spanish Civil War, I think Long Live Death at least provides some pushback to the traditional leftist narrative. The Horde has already contributed to challenging this and for that I am grateful.
Also, this can't be stressed enough:
I'm sure I speak for all the Moron authors when I ask purchases take the next step and leave a favorable review if they enjoyed the work. In this case, this will also push curious readers towards something besides leftist agitprop.
And if you didn't enjoy it, you should leave a review too. Leave constructive feedback, if possible. All reviews help a book rise in visibility.
Just finished reading David Hanna’s Knights of the Sea: The True Story of the Boxer and the Enterprise and the War of 1812. Really enjoyed it! Hanna takes the two ships (and their commanders) from their epic sea battle off the coast of Maine and traces their beginnings and lives until their paths crossed in the cold waters off Pemaquid. He presents a readable and pretty thorough view of 18th and early 19th Century naval life, warfare and politics. Incidentally, both commanders were killed in the battle and then were buried side by side in a small cemetery in Portland, Maine (can really only think of maybe Wolfe and Montcalm at Quebec for a similar twist of fate…others?)... Hanna’s book should appeal to your maritime aficianados…and a good addition to any lacunae in their maritime collection.
Knights of the Sea: The True Story of the Boxer and the Enterprise and the War of 1812 is available on Kindle, also hard cover, and paperback.
A collection of valiant vessels and storied sea captains from years past, Pirates and Pickled Heads is an eclectic look at some of Scotland’s most unusual maritime stories.
Within four sections spanning the personalities, ships, places, and pirates of Scotland, you’ll discover an intriguing nautical history nestled among sweeping sea views and lush coastal landscapes.
From tales of warrior lords and privateers to the mystery of the Maggie Smith, and the strange legend of the remote island of Rona, you’ll explore the unique seafaring history of Scotland.
It's available on Kindle for $2.99.
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There's been some discussion regarding books about secret societies:
I am reading Strange Cults and Secret Societies of Modern London, a book from 1936 by the journalist Elliott O'Donnell (Wolfus, shoot me an e-mail through my nic!). It has chapters on various, as O'Donnell says, cults and secret societies flourishing in London at the time, such as the Hell-Fire Club, the Mafia and so on...
Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing at August 16, 2020 09:23 AM (2JVJo)
90 If you're interested in London secret societies, check out "A History of Secret Societies" by (pseudonym alert!) "Arkon Daraul." It was written in the Sixties and includes some contemporary groups as well as historical ones.
Posted by: Trimegistus at August 16, 2020 09:28 AM (ekOv+)
Strange Cults and Secret Societies of Modern London is long OOP and copies run north of $100, but the book that Trimegistus mentions is still available, and at reasonable prices:
Through painstaking research Arkon Daraul reveals the dark world of secret societies.
From the deadly Assassins to the Skoptsy of Russia, the Rosicrucians to the Roshaniya, as well as many more, Daraul uncovers their foundations, what we know about them and whether they continue to exist.
Daraul’s work is fascinating account of secret societies from across the entire globe, bringing light to what has so frequently been hidden from view.
Arkon Daraul was the pen name of Idries Shah who was an author and teacher. He was born in India, descended from Afghan nobles but grew up and lived in England. Over the course of his life he wrote over three dozen books on topics ranging from psychology and spirituality to travelogues and culture studies. He won the BBC’s Outstanding Book of the Year twice and was awarded six first prizes at the UNESCO World Book Year in 1973. This work was first published in 1961 and he passed away in 1996.
I don't know if this is a limited-time sale price, but the Kindle edition is selling for 99 cents. The paperback edition is $5.99.
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Books By Morons
Author Declan Finn has a new book, out, the 7th of his Saint Tommy, NYPD urban fantasy ("Catholic action horror") series, this one called Coven:
Detective Thomas Nolan has finally returned home. In typical police fashion, he is welcomed home with a murder case and gunfire.
After one arrest goes spectacularly wrong, Tommy is assigned another case and another dead body.
But everything goes wrong from the start of the case. The deceased is a member of a nearby military base, and no one wants to answer his questions. A local bodega gives him mind-splitting headaches. To make matters worse — Tommy no longer has his charisms.
Worst of all, someone is after his children.
Only $4.99 on Kindle.
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So that's all for this week. As always, book thread tips, suggestions, bribes, insults, threats, ugly pants pics and moron library submissions may be sent to OregonMuse, Proprietor, AoSHQ Book Thread, at the book thread e-mail address: aoshqbookthread, followed by the 'at' sign, and then 'G' mail, and then dot cee oh emm.
What have you all been reading this week? Hopefully something good, because, as you all know, life is too short to be reading lousy books.
Saturday Overnight Open Thread – 8/22/2020 [Buck Throckmorton]
—Open Blogger
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EPIDEMIOLOGICAL FRAUD
I don’t fully know the risks or benefits of wearing / not-wearing a mask in certain situations. Neither do public health experts. But I do know that they’ll enthusiastically lie through their teeth in service to a left-wing political agenda. So, if public health experts don’t want to be thought of as lying frauds, then they should stop being fraudulent liars.
Raccoon Mountain Lake is not your typical Tennessee Valley Authority lake. Carved out of the top of a mountain just west of Chattanooga, its purpose is to store excess energy produced by the TVA when it is generating more hydro and nuclear electricity than is being consumed. The excess energy is used to pump water uphill from the Tennessee River. During periods of peak demand, the water is sent back down, running 1,080 feet through a tunnel in the mountain and generating electricity as it returns to the river. In effect, the lake is a battery. It can generate 1.6 million kw hours of electricity per day. Here’s a time-lapse video of it filling back up after being emptied to generate electricity.
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LOVE SONGS
Since Vince Gill keeps getting discussed in the ONT comments, here is Vince along with Rodney Crowell doing a sweet love song.
“It’s Hard To Kiss The Lips At Night That Chew Your Ass Out All Day Long.”
It’s only fair to give the ‘ettes an equal shake, so here is Loretta Lynn not feeling it for her man.
“Don’t Come Home A Drinking With Loving On Your Mind”
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WHAT WAS YOUR “GO TO” DISH?
In your young & single days (which may be now for some of you) did you have a “go to” dish when you had to do some real cooking to semi-impress a date or a guest? All my guy friends seemed to have their one dish they could cook. Spaghetti, of course, was common. One roommate of mine could make beef stroganoff and absolutely nothing else. My “go to” was pan-fried caramelized chicken. (Chicken breast and onion, seared in italian dressing, and served with colored pasta that had been buttered and sprinkled with parmesan.)
What was your go-to dish when you had to cook for others?
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DON’T FEED THE SEAGULLS
Airplane landings at St Maarten’s airport are insane, with the landing gear of the planes just a few dozen feet above beachgoers below. And until 2016, you could actually see a 747 land.
Trying to withstand the jet blast of a plane taking off from St. Maarten is apparently a Dutch West Indies version of running the bulls.
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NOTHING STAYS BIG FOREVER
It wasn’t that long ago that it seemed the whole nation sat down to watch certain shared events – Miss America, The World Series, The Academy Awards, The Indy 500, etc. Those still exist but they are now watched by just a fraction of their old audiences, and they’ve long since lost their mystique.
What are some events or cultural phenomena of our current era that will be looked back on nostalgically in a few decades? Or what will we have said good riddance too that commands a lot of attention now?
The glaciers were supposed to be gone by now, based on the most super-scientific models according to infallible scientists. It was such a scientific fact - based on their climate “models” - that they put up these signs at Glacier National Park stating that the glaciers would be gone by the year 2020. Of course they were wrong, because climate science is a fraud, a hoax, and a scam. But anyone who didn’t believe the glaciers would be gone by 2020 was a “science denier.”
Rather than manually remove their apocalyptic signs, maybe they should have manually removed the glaciers instead, so that their prophecy would come true.
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THEY PLAYED THE “GINGER OR MARY ANN” GAME FOR THREE DAYS UNTIL THEIR RESCUE
“Waste not, want not” is a value of thrifty, responsible people. Although this behavior overlaps with certain sacraments of The Sustainable Organic Church Of The Carbon Apocalypse, it doesn’t mean thrifty people embrace environmentalism as a religion.
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HOW TO DOUBLE YOUR AUDIENCE
If you’re Herb Alpert, making some great music, but seen as a mariachi-flavored Tom Jones, how do you go about expanding your audience to the husbands of your female fans?
This album somehow persuaded my dad to give The Tijuana Brass a listen.
Here’s Herb and the Tijuana Brass with Lonely Bull.
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EXTREME HUMAN SURVIVAL
In 1915, Ernest Shackleton and 28 crew members of his ship the Endurance were stranded in frozen Antarctic waters with their ship crushed by ice floes and separated by 800 miles of icy sea water from the nearest human settlement. Shackleton’s expedition intended to land in Antarctica then hike across the entire continent. He never made it to Antarctica, but what he actually did is even more amazing.
Here is an extremely abbreviated version of their story: The Endurance left the whaling station at South Georgia Island on Dec 5, 1914 and almost immediately got stuck in packed ice. In October 2015 the ship was crushed and disintegrated by the ice. The crew lived on ice floes until making their way on 3 lifeboats to Elephant Island in April 2016 - the first land they had been on in 497 days. Shackleton and a crew of 5 men then took off in a 22-foot lifeboat and navigated 800 miles through icy ocean waters to South Georgia island, the nearest human habitation. They landed at South Georgia Island and then had to trek 32 miles over snow covered mountains to reach the whaling village in May 1916. In August 1916 Shackleton returned by ship to Elephant Island to rescue the 23 crew members left behind. All 29 crew members survived the ordeal and made it back to civilization.
THROCKMORTON’S FIRST LAW OF LIVE MUSIC: IF THERE’S AN UPRIGHT BASS IN THE BAND, IT’S PROBABLY GOING TO BE GOOD
Mrs. Throckmorton insisted that we see Harry Connick Jr when he came to town. She is such a good sport about indulging my music, shows, and hobbies that I was glad to oblige. I had no idea, however, that it was going to be the best concert I’ve ever attended. Mr. Connick is a great entertainer, and his piano playing is unlike anything I’ve ever seen.
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Tonight’s overnight thread has been brought to you by Hee Haw, with a reminder that your grandfather loved it because of the music.
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Thanks again to the horde for letting me play host. Please feel free to offer any helpful feedback, insults, or tips at buck.throckmorton@gmail.com
Saturday Evening Movie Thread 08-22-2020 [Hosted By: Moviegique]
—Open Blogger
Movie Review: Host
We were supposed to be opening up—well, hell, we were supposed to be opening up in April. (Remember that? in time for Easter!) But the latest "we were supposed to be opening up" was August 20th, at least for the movie theaters. The AMC has been taunting me with visions of a Train To Busan sequel, a Rocky marathon, hell, The Empire Strikes Back—the only good Star Wars movie (out of the 14) I will sometimes say if I want to start Internet fights.
Patches O'Houlihan probably felt the same about Internet debating and pandemic leadership as he did watching a bunch of Average Joes play dodgeball.
But as you may know, I live in Los Angeles, and we are to be punished at least until the election, and possibly after if the "elite" don't get their way. So I drove around to the AMC, then to the Regal in Simi Valley, which is in Ventura County (or "God's Country") thinking that, at least might be relatively free of the stupid but no luck.
I've been falling back on the horror streaming service, Shudder, more often, whether to watch Joe Bob's Last Drive-In Show——the "Summer Sleepover" episode featured the classic Slumber Party Massacre 2 and the relatively recent (and delightfully old school) slasher Victor Crowley—or just to see what new stuff they have and what old stuff they've brought back. (I re-watched Dan Curtis' Dracula, with Jack Palance as the Count, which I remember watching with my parents back when it came out nearly 29 years ago.) One of their new movies, however, was a clever little flick, recently made, called Host.
Like every work teleconference, it starts out cheerful and ends with bloody murder.
The setup is just as ordinary as can be: A bunch of friends get together to have a seance and things go spooky.
Sure we've seen it before—a lot. But have we seen it done as a Zoom meeting?
That's the gimmick: Everyone is locked down, so they decide to have the seance over Zoom. And the challenge level (production-wise) is that the cast and crew are genuinely locked down in the UK and therefore the actors had to do a lot of things on their own: lighting, make-up, special effects (except for the ones done in post), etc. And it's actually surprisingly effective. Shudder recommends you watch it on your laptop with the lights out and I think a blanket draped over you and the screen. I didn't go that far (because I'm not that big a goofball and also I don't think inhaling your own CO2 is a great idea) but I did enjoy it.
It's in the Paranormal Activity mode, though it benefits greatly from being only about an hour long, getting in, getting out, not explaining much, and just trading on the essential realism of the situation. At this point, we've all done these video meetings, and we're familiar with the little tricks and idiosyncrasies, so it's kind of nice to see them put to more creative uses, like scaring the crap out of people.
The five girls have a male friend who's supposed to take part, but none of them like his new wife/girlfriend.
Relative newcomers, the lot of them. Rob Savage is supposed to have a genuine feature coming out next year, called Seaholme, and I'll be checking that out (if it pans out). The actresses are good-looking but not glammed up. You could genuinely get the idea that the actual actors (whose character names are their real names) just call each other up a lot and chat. There's some good character development, though not overdone.
And about the time you'd start getting claustrophobic (in a bad way), it's over.
It's a fun little film, and a good example of making lemonade out of lemons.
Moviegique will be along later with the movie thread. As always, the chess/dress pr0n thread is an open thread, so there is no such thing as an off-topic comment.
Beginner Problem - White To Play (1184)
Goal: White can force mate in 3 moves
Hint: Crossfire from the two bishops is deadly
2kr1b1r/pp6/2n1P1p1/3N3p/2BP1BP1/3K1Q2/PPP5/6q1 w - - 0 1
Goal: White can force mate in 4
Hint: The Black king may look well-protected, but it's not
1r5r/3Rbkpn/Bp2p1p1/2P2p2/4pP2/1Q2P3/PP3qPP/1K1R4 w - - 0 1
Advanced Problem - Black To Play (1183)
What's the best way for Black to obtain a solidly winning position?
8/1p1k4/p1pPn1p1/P1P5/1BP2P2/6Rr/4pK2/8 b - - 0 1
Dress Pr0n For The 'Ettes:
Why be the belle of the ball when you can be the Queen 🐝?
Adorned with lavish gold and white beadwork, this ivory evening dress was by Queen Elizabeth II on a state visit to France. Can you spot the bees motifs on the dress designed by Norman Hartnall? pic.twitter.com/vZEFdCMdN5
Today’s #ootd is this 1926 Jeanne Lanvin robe de style. I adore Lanvin and her reimagining of the typical flapper style. It shows that culture and clothing has never been a monolith in any period. #fashionhistorypic.twitter.com/ysIyD5jmDU
Letting the knight go is the way *I* would proceed. I'll soon eat his last pawn and then he's finished. But my app likes to hold on to the knight, which I tend to think wastes time, but hey, that's just me. So on move 11, instead of abandoning the knight, Black skedaddles:
Note: that cryptic line of letters and numbers you see underneath each board diagram is a representation of the position in what is known as "Forsyth-Edwards Notation", or F.E.N. It's actually readable by humans. Most computer applications nowadays can read FEN, so those of you who may want to study the position, you can copy the line of FEN and paste into your chess app and it should automatically recreate the position on its display board. Or, Windows users can just "triple click" on it and the entire line will be highlighted so you can copy and paste it into your chess app.
___________
So that about wraps it up for this week. Chess thread tips, suggestions, bribes, rumors, threats, and insults may be sent to my yahoo address: OregonMuse little-a-in-a-circle yahoo dott com.
Good afternoon, welcome to the almost world famous Ace of Spades Pet Thread. Why not slack off for a couple of hours this afternoon and enjoy the world of animals.
My daughter's white shepherd, Sunflower, and my Irish tuxedo poodle, Charlie. They've been best friends since puppyhood. -Anonosurus Wrecks
Not only are they cute, they also appear to be quiet the trouble makers. Great photo. Thanks for sharing.
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This is Riggs. He is our first Golden but probably not our last. He’s been a dream to train and is oh-so-friendly. We wanted a companion for our older Cavalier mix Cooper, who’s been featured here before, so the quarantine seemed like a good time for a puppy. I love the Pet Thread and have lurked daily at AOS since 2010. Thanks and keep up the great work of sharing fellow morons’ great pets!
Beck P
I can hear Riggs now, "C'mon out and throw the ball for me Mom!" Puppies are just too cute. Thank you for your lurking and your submission today.
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This is our pup Abby, taken in front of our fireplace in our rv. I have shared pictures of Smokey but never Abby. She has had a tough year. First Smokey went to the rainbow bridge, then she fell down the steps of the rv injuring her back and legs, then got bitten on the foot by what the vet said was probably a brown recluse spider. She had surgery 2 weeks ago and I took the stitches out and she's feeling much better. She's 12 so I hope her year gets better for her. She is my constant shadow and I love it. Thanks for letting me show her off. - Peggy
Awww, that poor pup Abby has had it rough lately. Many happy trails for you folks as you travel in the RV. Thank you for contributing today.
***
Hello Mis...you may recall some weeks ago I sent in a pic of my daughter's two Huskies (Hank and Nadine) that are temporarily living with me...you were kind enough to post it...I showed it to my daughter and her hub, along with your comment along the lines of "who says you have to give up the dogs when they move out?" Well that thought musta struck a chord with them, because a few weeks later they brought this little guy home for me...the 3 kids and their spouses had a naming contest and my son's "Pugsy Siegel" won out (it's funny if you know your Mafia history)...it took a few days before Hank and Nadine realized he wasn't a squeak toy, but between my own Big Dog Bark and my Patented Stink Eye, they have have now adopted him. He is a total, lovable goof-hoot! Cannot thank you enough for "stimulating" my kids into this! Keep up your fine work here, Mis!
Lurker PatrickS...
Oh my PatrickS, somebody listened to me? Well, now I'm disappointed you didn't name that cute little guy Misanthropic Pugalicious. Oh well, maybe next time. Glad you have a new buddy.
***
Mis Hum,
Long time lurker and really enjoy the Pet Thread. These two lovely ladies are Jolene and Peach.
My wife and I rescued Jolene from a shelter in the Midwest in early June. She is a 10-month old Pit/Boxer mix with a few other varieties thrown in for good measure. We’ve been without any dogs for a couple of years since we had to put our last two down due to illness. My wife retired last year and really wanted a companion to share her day with since I continue to work. Jolene is the most laid back dog we have ever owned. She loves tossing her rawhide chewy up and then attacking it.
Peach is our daughter’s dog. They live in Georgia. Peach was rescued in March from a Georgia shelter. She is an 8-month old Lab/Rottweiler mix. Jolene and Peach just spent a week with us and Peach thinks Jolene lives at a dog park because of our fenced-in yard. They never stopped playing the entire week. You can see how happy Peach is by the big smile.
Great job on the Pet Thread, it’s a nice break from the insanity we are currently living in. - PirateDogz
What a wonderful story for both of those pups. They certainly seem very happy hanging out on the couch together. Thank you for being a lurker and contributor. I also appreciate your kind words, "Thanks".
***
Hi MisHum
This is why I call her Paisley the Destroyer. Indestructible toys are barely an inconvenience to her
I know you've run lots of pics of Paisley.
Love the pet thread. - Northernlurker
I just run photos in the order I receive them. Besides, it's always fun to hear about Paisley. Thanks.
***
MisHum,
Here are our two girls Poppy, the Golden Doodle on the left and Mouse the Labish rescue something or other on the right. Poppy is 2 and very much still a puppy. Pure energy until it is nap time. She delights in harassing Mousse for entertainment. Mousse is 11 and is tolerant of her younger sister…to a point.
Thanks for the thread. Long time lurker. Mike.
Two good looking dogs you have there Mike. For the pose did you hold a T-R-E-A-T in front of them. Thanks for lurking and coming in out of the shadows.
***
Fantastic critters today. Thanks PetMoron owners for contributing today. If you have something you wish to share with us here, reach out to petmorons at gmail dot com.
Saturday Gardening and Puttering Thread, August 22, 2020 [KT]
—Open Blogger
How are all our gardeners, putterers and dreamers now that it's August? We have smoke in the air from wild fires here in Central California. But we persist.
Don in Kansas wrote a post this month on the flower colors in his garden. The Tithonia above is especially bright, but there are other lovely flowers at the link. Tithonia (Mexican Sunflower) is especially attractive to butterflies. The wild version grows pretty tall.
We enjoyed the photos from Jerry in Alaska last week. In particular, Not From Around Here said:
Between the fireweed and the Moose's Tooth t-shirt, I'm homesick for Alaska now. Awesome garden!
This year in Texas, I have managed to keep half my herbs alive, and the tomato plant produced one tomato that made it past the ants, caterpillars, and birds to actually be eaten. This is an improvement over last year, but I still haven't gotten the concept of gardening in 7b instead of 4a.
This provides us an opportunity to present some companion plants for Jerry's Maltese Cross that can survive in Zone 3 as well as in Zone 7.
Well, actually, I'm not sure how the Poppy would do in Zone 7, but I would go for the Gaillardia. Seed is cheap, though, if you want to try the poppy.
We also have some additional Alaskan photos from Jerry:
The Ornamental crab apple is an amazing early season bloomer. The bees LOVE it and the entire tree is buzzing for weeks before we see what looks like a late snow fall when the petals drop off.
on the pond ...last week someone noted that fish would probably control the mosquitoes. Seems to work for me.
There is probably some formula for size of pond and how many acres your land should drain. My little ditch became a pond, drains about 25 acres. It must depend on how much rainfall you get as well. Probably need to drain at least 12 acres for a one acre pond, around here.
Assuming they are hiring someone to do the work, that bulldozer person would have a decent idea on site requirements. One neighbor of mine put one in and she only had seven acres of drainage ... never held enough water. Hitting rock can also mean the pond would leak ... there are some solutions for that too .. it all depends on the site.
You remember that Illiniwek has a pond, don't you?
The Edible Garden
I liked NaughtyPine's comments from last week:
While I was away in a cabin, the zucchini and delicata decided to make a run for it. Vines everywhere, but not much squash started.
I introduced myself to the new over-the-fence neighbors and invited them to take the ones that are on their side of the chainlink fence.
As of today, the big producer - that stayed in a nice mound formation - is the Black Beauty zucchini. Three last week, one today. I also picked a small delicata because I have a taste for it today.
Can't put in all of the comments from The Famous Pat*, but:
From Idaho's Treasure Valley, Boise area: We've realized that we can plant the little onion starts they sell for green onions, leave them most of the season, and they'll turn into something, well, *almost* like real onions. They don't have the papery skin of yellow onions, and I doubt they'll overwinter, but the bulbs are large enough to cover at least part of our onion usage.
I'm continuing to feed the last leaves of bolted lettuce to my neighbors' chickens, but this is probably the last week of doing that. (The escape artist chicken had her wings trimmed, so now she stays at home instead of visiting our backyard!)
We're still harvesting bush green beans, and the second variety of corn (we think we'll increase the percentage of this one next year compared to the first variety, because the plants look stronger and are more productive). The red raspberries are starting their main summer season.
40 miles north grew some San Marzano tomatoes from seed. A challenge. Ready for pizza?
I think I grew 16 of them from seed, and replanted 15 when they looked healthy enough. These were two of the more successful plants:
Gardens of The Horde
Here in the Central Valley of California, we're mostly staying indoors, although I did extirpate some late goatheads early in the week, before the wildfires made ti too smoky to do much of anything. They were not on our property, but rather on city property, where they popped up after the fire hydrant was flushed. Used a shovel and a bucket. Interesting that you usually get a cluster of taproots when you dig up what looks like one plant.
What weeds have you been battling?
I took a photo. True to life. There are nicer ones here. Including close-ups. With descriptions of the problems they can cause for people, pets and bicycle tires. Tribulus terrestris, AKA "puncturevine". Hate them.
"Don't let them go to seed!" Easier said than done. Once you see flowers (in the morning) you probably have seeds, too. They seem to sprout after most weeds around here, but mature fast!
Here's a nicer photo from our friends. For salsa. Got a recipe?
Found a photo from the "garden" part of Illiniwek's farm, from July:
Sunflowers are mostly blooming, and a variety of deer resistant flowers.
Some cantaloupe look good center left.
Hope you got to harvest some, Illiniwek!
If you would like to send information and/or photos for the Saturday Gardening Thread, the address is:
ktinthegarden
at that g mail dot com place
Include your nic unless you want to remain a lurker.
I found an interesting little piece, an editorial, in the "Powerline Picks" yesterday. There have been several notable examples of displacement in our politics and culture lately:
The title of a book by Pierre Manent, Democracy Without Nations, cuts to the heart of the European Union's folly. The day may soon be coming when someone has to write a companion volume about the United States called Democracy Without Community. Place has always been the organizing principle in American self-government. This is true in a formal sense, with the country divided into states and localities with governments of their own. But it has also been true in an informal, cultural sense: different places have had different personalities and have held different conservations with themselves, most often through the medium of local newspapers. In 1840, Alexis de Tocqueville famously observed in the second volume of Democracy in America:
The number of newspapers must diminish or increase among a democratic people in proportion as its administration is more or less centralized. For among democratic nations the exercise of local powers cannot be entrusted to the principal members of the community as in aristocracies. Those powers must be either abolished or placed in the hands of very large numbers of men, who then in fact constitute an association permanently established by law for the purpose of administering the affairs of a certain extent of territory; and they require a journal to bring to them every day, in the midst of their own minor concerns, some intelligence of the state of their public weal. The more numerous local powers are, the greater is the number of men in whom they are vested by law; and as this want is hourly felt, the more profusely do newspapers abound.
The consequences of America's recent trend toward displacement are thus far-reaching indeed. Social media is not place-based the way newspapers were. Walmart and other vast national chains were once the nemesis of localists, yet now the retail economy has become even more placeless with the rise of Amazon. COVID-19 has shown that information-economy employment also has little necessary tie to geography. And the virtual economy has been the less vulnerable economy amid the pandemic crisis. . .
The identities of identity politics are not localized and cannot fit the pattern of traditional American self-government. Perhaps unsurprisingly, progressives now call into question not only the Electoral College but also the principle of equal representation in the U.S. Senate. And when they refer to the "popular vote" in House elections, what they mean is not the vote in each congressional district, but the overall national vote for one political party or the other.
Democracy as Americans have known it is impossible without localized politics because without such politics there are no channels through which to convey the great multiplicity of thoughts, interests, and values that matter to the public. To put everything in one venue, with more than 300 million people in the country, amounts to trivializing most voices, and empowering only the most organized, powerful, and media savvy. The result of that, as Tocqueville would have expected, is both centralization and atomization, frustration and hopelessness, and administrative tyranny. It encourages talk of secession, though secession itself is meaningless without the organization and personality of place.
All is not lost--even in Europe, nations have proved willing to reclaim democracy. America needs a Brexit: secession not from the Union but from the displaced bureaucracy and progressive church.
Secession. Hmmmm.
The editorial above is short. You should probably read the whole thing. What do you think? I think we don't pay enough attention to local politics. One thought: maybe we should all check to see if there is a candidate for district attorney in our local district who is backed by money from George Soros.
Mike Nayna is the Australian filmmaker who did documentaries, available on YouTube, on the Grievance Studies hoaxes and on the Evergreen State debacle.
This week, he wrote the Twitter thread linked at the section heading above comparing postmodern identity politics "philosopher activists" to cuckoos and their chicks:
Liberal institutions across WEIRD society are going through an ideological coup set in motion by philosopher activists. Observing these organisations succumb to teleological capture I'm reminded of the Cuckoo. Thread.
A Cuckoo lays its egg in the nest of another species. In this analogy, a postmodern activist is employed by a liberal organisation. Like a Cuckoo egg, the postmodern worldview looks enough like the liberal one for it to go unnoticed. 2/6
The postmodern activist's worldview, much like the Cuckoo, is designed to extirpate competition. Other perspectives are by default immoral & colleagues are shamed into conversion, silencing themselves, or leaving the organisation. 3/6
There's a remarkable little video here, at the Twitter link, comparing the behavior of a cuckoo chick to behavior of activists at Evergreen. There's another showing the "begging behavior" of cuckoo chicks (students).
Eventually what you're left with is a shell organisation that has diverted its attention from its primary functions to the cultural engineering enterprise of philosopher activists. 6/6
I got a tip from a friend that this was a lot like "Entryism". Here's a little BBC piece on Trotskyists. It includes some information on "Entryism" in the UK, with a guest appearance by Vanessa Redgrave:
The "entryism," or "entrism" as it is sometimes called, that Mr Watson and others have warned about is the practice of entering another group, taking it over, and using it as a way to gain power.
Trotsky himself advocated entryism, advising his British followers, in a 1936 letter, to form a "secret faction" in the Labour Party to push his revolutionary agenda.
The practices of the new "philosopher activists" seem to me to be more advanced than Trotsky's model.
Other forms of displacement
I can think of some other disturbing examples of displacement which are evident in our politics and culture today. How about you?
This is the Thread before the Gardening Thread.
Serving your mid-day open thread needs
Hope you have a good weekend. Maybe you could visit with a neighbor for a while.
Good morning Gang. Open thread, yak, bloviate and/or opine away. Just a couple of rules as always. No running with sharp objects, no pulling on the 'ettes hair and be nice to one another.
To Denounce The Evil Of Truth And Love! To Extend The ONTs Reach To The Stars Above!
—WeirdDave
Greetings Morons. Today is August 21st On this day in 1878 Surrey wicket-keeper Ted Pooley completes a then-1st class cricket record 8 stumpings in a County match against Kent at The Oval. Why you would care or what that even means is beyond me, but I just thought you should know.
See also all the gear with the numbers of those professional athletes taking a knee.
Are We Living In A Post Constitutional World?
I got in a discussion with a friend over this the other day. He's a Republican, and he is a conservative, but because of that he's a Never Trumper.We can usually have good discussions, although this one ended when he accused Trump of “hedonism, hate and idiocracy”. This is meaningless knee jerk boilerplate, no different than someone on the Left reflexively screaming “Racism! Sexism! Bigotry!” so I just dropped the conversation, but before it ended I argued that we are.
The GOP hasn't been about conservatism for at least a generation. It's been about preserving the wealth and power of GOP politicians. Conservatism (meaning Constitutionalism) is, if not dead, utterly without influence or power in this country.
It's about generations of people who utterly discredited "conservatism" by failing to practice it while loudly proclaiming themselves its champions. Now that their failure has resulted in the death of their movement, they're doing their best Marley impersonation while shaking the chains of their failure. If my name was Adorno, I'd say that Trump is the antithesis portion of the dialectic. The thesis ain't coming back, the question is what form will the synthesis take?
We're in a post constitutional world. The donks subverted it, the GOP let them, and now the only question is what next? Either the full on Marxism of the left, or someone who, even if he's not a constitutionalist, at least embraces the traditional society and culture that it created.
I'm a classical liberal, I'd much prefer a nation guided by the principles enshrined in the Constitution because I know that produces the freeist, happiest, most productive society. But I'm not going to handcuff myself to that if the same rules don't apply to my opponents who are enemies of the Constitution. I, and many like me, begged and pleaded not to play will to power, and we lost. So be it. If that's the game, however, I'm playing to win.
Girl's Got Talent
Morgan Bullock is an African-American Irish dancer from Richmond, Virginia
After a TikTok video of her lightning-footed jigs went viral, she was accused of "cultural appropriation"
The thing that bothers me about this is all of the emphasis on her being black. So what? Her being black isn't an accomplishment, her skill at dancing is. Her skin color is immaterial.
You see it here too:
That's fantastic. She's a tactical jet*. Hardly anyone achieves that. I'm not a tactical jet. Chances are you're not a tactical jet. There just aren't many tactical jets around, becoming one is the achievement, not her color or gender.
*Obviously I'm being tongue in cheek here over the typo omitting the word pilot from the headline, but my point stands. Her name is Lt. j.g. Madeline Swegle, and she is to be congratulated for earning her gold wings. Good job!
Rollin' Rollin' Rollin', Keep those Vee Dubs Rollin', Rawhide!
That looks like a project for AOP. Maybe we could give you Big's old car and you could do that to it?
New Call of Duty Videogame Trailer Features Yuri Bezmenov
—Ace
Yuri Bezmenov is the high-ranking KGB defector whose warning about Soviet subversion -- noting it takes only 15-20 years to demoralize a country, once you capture its media and schools -- is often cited.
The new Call of Duty entry is called "Cold War." It features long clips from Bezmenov, and shows images of 1960s radical protesters as he shifts from talking about the first step of subversion (demoralization) to the second (destabilization).
I'm so suspicious of anyone in the entertainment or tech industries that I take this as an attempt to claim that the last step in Soviet subversion is... Trump.
But leftwingers are freaking out about the use of a KGB defector exposing all their plans, so I guess I'll take it that way too, provisionally.
Just because a former KGB agent warned us that Marxist propaganda and agitation was intended to destabilize us from the inside doesn't mean the avowedly-Marxist grievance terrorists of Black Lives Matter who have besieged our cities and destroyed our economy for 80+ days are just executing the Marxist active measures plan.
h/t Rodrigio Borgia and also a friend who asked me about this. I don't know much about Call of Duty. Sometimes I hear griping that the game has been tired and has lacked innovation for its last several iterations.
With the November presidential election less than 100 days away, what does this mean for Hispanic Americans' views of President Trump?
Even though Hispanic Americans tend to have less favorable views of Trump than Americans in general, surprisingly, their views of Trump have become somewhat more favorable in 2020. Data from the American Values Atlas (AVA) shows that throughout 2019, on average, 28% of Hispanic Americans viewed Trump favorably, compared to 41% of all Americans. In 2020 so far, more than one-third (36%) of Hispanic Americans view Trump favorably, a significant increase from 2019.
Trump's approval rating with Hispanics is, as Trump might say, "Not the best. Really not great."
But his approval rating with Hispanics was worse in 2016, and he won that election, even if the unhinged left and former Republicans-turned-hyperpartisan-liberals won't accept the results of that election.
Democrats need minorities to vote hugely for them. They can't do with split decisions from Hispanics.
Most of Trump's improved ratings come from Protestant Hispanics, which are only 23% of Hispanics. But even among Catholic Hispanics (49% of all Hispanics), his ratings have gone up slightly.
Speaking of polling and voting: a friend floated a very counter-intuitive idea to me.
Many people are abandoning California in droves. The geek vlogger Nerdorotic says there is a 2-3 month wait on renting moving trucks in the San Francisco area; he had to drive 90 minutes outside of town to get a free one.
People are worried -- rightly -- that these people fleeing from blue areas will immediately vote blue and turn their new homes into shitholes indistinguishable from the last shithole they made.
Now, this does seem to have happened in Nevada, where liberal Californians infested the place and turned it first purple and then blue.
And it happened in Virginia.
But my friend thinks in other places, immigration from one state to another may be increasing the conservative vote share in the states immigrated to.
Here's his thoughts:
I think a huge aspect of this election is being completely ignored and no one is attempting to report on it.
I *think* it's a big Trump advantage, but I could be wrong.
We are witnessing one of the largest internal migration events in American history, in an incredibly narrow window of time. To complicate matters, people who move still have their old cellphone numbers associated with their previous area codes, so polling catches very little of this.
There's no way this doesn't have some effect on the election.
If we look at previous migration patterns in recent history, particularly because of political self-sorting, this generally a net benefit to Republicans on the electoral map.
The common belief here is that California -> Texas migration, for example, is "turning Texas blue". It isn't. It's keeping it red. The people that make that move are right-leaning by about a 2-to-1 ratio.
Beto *won* native Texans in his race.
It was the [state-to-state] migration that boosted Republicans. Same thing is happening in Florida, and I think the outmigration from Chicago is going to be a boost to Wisconsin, Minnesota, Michigan.
I used to really worry about how blue state to red state migration would ruin the political makeup of red states. But it really doesn't. Because the people more motivated to move generally share our politics.
What happens is it leaves reliably blue states even more blue.
Just look at California. You can't even get a Republican on a ballot out there anymore.
...
A really good example of this phenomenon is New Hampshire. The thinking was that all the Massholes were hopping the border and starting to vote blue. That wasn't the case. Mass and CT voters, skewing heavily red, hopped the border and allowed the state to continue to be reasonably competitive. It was the NH natives in the northern counties who started voting more and more Democrat, matching the rest of the region.
Anyway, if this pattern holds for the crazy migration we've seen in the past 6 months, that's probably a big plus for us...
I would bet that an overwhelming majority of those people are ideological allies.
The most common comment I see from [people immigrating to red states] is something along the lines of "I finally have an excuse to escape this stupid state"
I would bet that an overwhelming majority of those people are ideological allies.
With its economic troubles, California has been losing people in droves. The plurality of those migrants have moved to Texas, as many as 70,000 in 2011 and 60,000 in 2012. Given this influx of new residents, we are fortunate to have at times asked our respondents whether they have moved to Texas from California, and though the actual number of these people is but a small subsample of our surveys, we have enough respondents to make two broad conclusions. First, these newcomers, on average, tend to be conservative. Pooling data from the May 2012 and February 2013 UT/Tribune surveys, we found that 57 percent of these California transplants consider themselves to be conservative, while only 27 percent consider themselves to be liberal (a fair guess as to the margin of error is somewhere around +/- 7 percentage points). Second, these new Texans aren’t rushing to find homes in the state's urban centers: 55 percent are heading to the suburbs, the rest evenly dividing themselves between rural and urban locations.
So while some may want to perceive the wave of Californians coming to Texas as part of the broader demographic trends that might eventually turn Texas purple, and then blue, the data collected to date suggest that Perry's pitch appears to be hitting a chord with Californians who wear cowboy boots instead of Birkenstocks.
A CNN exit poll showed that O'Rourke beat Cruz among native Texans, 51 percent to 48 percent. In contrast, 57 percent of people who had moved to Texas said they voted for Cruz, compared to 42 percent who voted for O'Rourke.
Cruz prevailed Tuesday night, beating his opponent by just 2.6 percentage points. It's the closest Senate race in Texas since 1978.
I don't mind the idea of all conservative/productive people fleeing these shitholes and leaving dying blue husks behind.
It'll make the inevitable division of the country that much easier, and that much more inevitable.
Judge Orders New Election In Paterson, NJ, Due to Widespread Mail-In Vote Fraud Of Such an Extent That It Completely Eradicates Any Credibility of the "Vote"
BTW, apparently Paterson has only one T. So I'm spelling it right.
I'm not the asshole here.
You are.
A state superior court judge ruled Wednesday that a new election will be held for a disputed Paterson, New Jersey city council seat after allegations of voter fraud via mail-in-ballots. The ruling comes only weeks after voter fraud charges were brought against the May 12 election winner Alex Mendez, per the Associated Press.
Mendez was charged with voter fraud along with Paterson Council Vice President Michael Jackson, Shelim Khalique and Abu Rayzen -- all of whom have denied the charges, according to The Hill.
A diverse rainbow of Democrats. Wonderful.
An investigation performed by the U.S. Postal Service's law enforcement arm found hundreds of mail-in ballots in a Paterson mailbox, as reported by the AP.
Ultimately, 800 ballots were discounted by the Passaic County Board of Elections and another 2,300 ballots were rendered ineligible after analyzing signatures on file and comparing them to those on the ballots, according to the Hill. A Passaic County report shows that these 3,100 disqualified ballots is equal to more than 22% of the total votes cast in the election.
...
The local race has garnered national attention amid the political battle regarding nationwide mail-in voting for the upcoming presidential election. President Donald Trump made reference to the Paterson election in a tweet attacking mail-in voting.
Video report from Fox News -- definitely not from CNN, which I imagine has completely embargoed the story -- here.
The 2020 Election will be totally rigged if Mail-In Voting is allowed to take place, & everyone knows it. So much time is taken talking about foreign influence, but the same people won’t even discuss Mail-In election corruption. Look at Patterson, N.J. 20% of vote was corrupted!
A year and a half ago, while the sports media gushed over the NBA, I pointed out that the league’s ratings were troubling. They've continued to worsen, highlighted by last season’s double-digit Finals decline.
This week, the most troubling stat yet was publicized. The Athletic's Ethan Strauss pointed out, since 2011-12, the NBA on ABC is down 45%. Nearly half.
ABC is the NBA’s premium partner. Nearly every broadcast, it showcases top matchups and players. Yet, viewers are tuning out an alarming rate.
"In that hastily promoted lockout season, [2011-12], ABC games drew 5.42 million viewers on average," Strauss writes. "The final tally on this latest 2019-20 season was 2.95 million average viewers on ABC games. Every ABC game from 2011-2012 received higher viewership than 2.95 million, save for a meaningless late season 1 p.m. Thunder-Bulls game that Derrick Rose sat out."
A decline of this magnitude is astounding. There is no explanation other than the interest in watching the NBA on television is rapidly diminishing.
This article is a classic of the genre, "It's actually true but it's false because Trump says it." This AWFL woman, who probably doesn't watch sports, admits that sports ratings, particularly for the NBA, are way down...
But then she says, without evidence, that a decline in interest in sports does not prove a decline in interest in sports.
Oh? Do tell, low-paid bottom-feeding garbage-tier-media drudge.
The return of live sports was supposed to usher in an explosion of interest. Americans were going to hunker down in front of their TVs and watch in record numbers because, well, there’s not much else to do during a pandemic and everyone has missed their favorite distraction.
But that didn't quite happen. In fact, a cursory glance at TV ratings and headlines about viewership suggests the overall interest in sports may even be down.
The NBA’s ratings were already down a bit from last year, and they dipped again when sports started back up after the COVID-19 suspension. NASCAR started red-hot as one of first major American sports back on network television during the pandemic, but then dropped to below-average ratings. And MLS, which didn't have high expectations to begin with, still managed to underperform.
Are people put off by the awkward lack of crowds? Are they too focused on the pandemic and the upcoming presidential election? Do they not consider bubble tournaments "real" competitions?
All those things may be true. But TV ratings don't actually show that people have suddenly become less interested in sports.
Of course not, Dear. Spinal Tap's appeal has merely grown more selctive.
A closer look shows that viewing habits are changing during the pandemic, but sports are as popular as ever. And as much as conservative pundits and even President Donald Trump have tried to turn the NBA into their latest political wedge, the NBA has little reason to worry.
See that part at the end? Where she tells you "Ignore the facts, I'm about to give you perspective that contradicts them"?
It's entirely an empty promise. She quotes someone saying something vague about viewing habits changing during the lockdown -- indeed, people's viewing habits have changed, in the sense that they've stopped watching the NBA -- but never delivers on why the NBA shouldn't worry about losing 45%!! of its viewers.
It's almost as if she's just a know-nothing blogger armed with some Intersectional Feminist Theory and some Orange Man Bad dogma and she knows that her job is just to provide the laziest, shallowest gainsaying of anything Trump says, and that Yahoo will not demand she actually supply evidence for her claims.
In other words: It's a standard media "fact-check." There are no facts supplied to back up the claim that Orange Man False, but that's okay, the naked assertion of it will do. Everyone knows that's the Right Answer you're supposed to get to, no matter how you get to it.
You really should read this. It's an amazing exercise in wheel-spinning, as if she's an undergraduate freshman struggling to hit that Minimum Word Count.
Here's as close as she gets to proving ratings don't actually measure ratings:
To use ratings to determine if people are watching sports, it’s important to understand what TV ratings actually measure.
Contrary to what people assume, they are not just the number of people who watched something on TV. Instead, TV ratings are a calculated average derived from the number who watched and how long they watched for.
In other words, if an NBA game reached the same number of people, but everyone watched a few minutes less because there is also baseball, hockey and soccer on TV, the NBA's ratings will go down.
In other words... people are not watching the NBA to watch something else.
This, she claims, proves that Trump is wrong when he says that people aren't watching the NBA.
I thought that "felony assault in the second degree" sounded weak. I mean, the guy could be charged with attempted murder.
But in Oregon's code, felony assault in the second degree is a serious charge which specifies an element of extreme indifference to human life as well as an intent to inflict grave physical harm.
First degree felony assault is limited to attacks with a deadly weapon and attacks against children under six and some other categories (like causing physical harm due to driving under the influence).
It's a class B felony. Class B felonies are punishable by fines up to $250,000 and up to 10 years in prison. That's a touch light, maybe, but... whatever.
Maybe slap on a Hate Crime Intensifier and now we're talking.
Just kidding, white people can't be victims of hate crimes.
"Fat Acceptance" Professor Promoted by CBS News: Fat Phobia Is Rooted in Racism Against Blacks
—Ace
The whole point of the political movement and religious cult of "intersectionality" is simply to construct a Coalition of the Aggrieved, and create a religious architecture that binds them completely so that they will not defect from the coalition.
This requires claiming that wealthy white women's travails are similar to those of impoverished black street kids. Muslims' oppression in AmeriKKKa is just the same as a transgender's.
Note that some of the biggest fights in the Coalition of the Aggrieved come when this proposition -- that this group's alleged struggles are just as bad (or worse) than this other group's struggles, or likening one group to another group they don't like -- is tested and pushed.
But again, intersectionality is not meant to be taken as literally true. At least, not by the people running the grift.
It's simply a political claim which absolutely no one believes which is repeated like a mantra to keep the Coalition of the Aggrieved voting and rioting together.
That's a decent context, I think, for evaluating a Fat Acceptance pyrsyn's claim that if you're anti-obesity, that must be because you're also anti-black.
A professor who regularly writes about race and health issues recently argued that the stigma surrounding obesity is linked to racism.
Sabrina Strings, a professor of sociology at the University of California, Irvine told CBS News that the medical community’s approach to weight issues stems from anti-blackness and oppression.
She told CBS News on August 20:
We cannot deny the fact that fat-phobia is rooted in anti-Blackness. That's simply an historical reality. Today, when people talk about it, they often claim that they don't intend to be anti-Black ... they don’t intend all of these negative associations, and yet they exist already, so whenever people start trafficking in fat-phobia, they are inherently picking up on these historical forms of oppression.
Any claim which ties one part of the Coalition of the Aggrieved to another part is a useful claim, and all useful claims must be insisted to be true even though they're plainly false or even plainly bonkers.
As Democrat Joe Biden formally accepts his party’s presidential nomination, a Morning Call/Muhlenberg College poll shows him with a narrow lead over Republican President Donald Trump in the key battleground state of Pennsylvania.
Biden drew support from 49% of likely state voters and 45% backed Trump, when those leaning toward a particular candidate were included. That four-point gap is within the poll's margin of error.
I don't know why this report says Biden is "ahead" when this lead is within the margin of error -- that means they're statistically tied.
Oh that's right, I know why: Because the left is insane and can't admit Trump might win, so they're making themselves another Hugbox Bubble of Fake News where the Bad Orange Man can never win.
Well, I guess the 2020 Democratic National Convention is going pretty well so far:
--The DNC tells America how relevant they are by dragging that old fossilized hippie Steven Stills out of cold storage to play a song that is 54 years old. Groovy, man.
--They had Bill Clinton lecturing Donald Trump on proper decorum for the Oval Office.
--Andrew Cuomo to to brag about his successes in fighting the covid pandemic in the state of New York. The really astounding aspect of this is that his constituents back home believed him.
--John Kerry presented himself as an expert in foreign policy. While pretty much unwatched here in America, word is that his ratings in Tehran were pretty good.
--Previously, Elizabeth Warren spoke on behalf of her fellow Native Americans. She should've shared her crab omelet recipe.
--the Hamas louse Linda Sarsour spoke on the topics of tolerance and acceptance of others.
I think the 2020 Democrat Party convention is just an extended "opposites" day.
Oh, and the unyielding tower of progressive principles Bernie Sanders was caught on open mic asking "how far do you want me to bend over?"
And Now, A Woman With Green Hair And Mental Health Issues Tells Young People Who To Vote For:
Good morning kids. The weekend is here and mercifully, the toxic waste train wreck that was the Democrat National Convention was put out of our misery, only to perhaps reappear in our nightmares as DNC Chairwraith Tom Perez wishes upon Trump and all of us. Understanding full well such Leftist institutions as Birkenau and Kolyma, the prospect of losing this election is what keeps me up at nights, so mission accomplished Tommy old boy. But I digress.
The big news last night is that Joe Biden - the drooling, gibbering bipedal kohlrabi who's nevertheless still sentient enough to grab little girls by the crotch and lucre from corrupt businessmen and politicians worldwide - actually seemed to string enough sentences together to make a coherent speech. That said, what came out of his maw did him no favors and did not move the needle; except in a positive direction for President Trump.
"I will draw on the best of us, not the worst of us," Joe Biden claimed, accepting his nomination after a convention filled with conspiracy theories about mailboxes, smears, and cheap shots.
That promise is coming from a politician who spent his career insulting voters, calling them fat and stupid, whose family is notorious for profiting from his political office, who palled around with segregationists and sexual predators, but whom three nights of celebrities and fellow hacks from across the political swamp spectrum now insist is really a kind, decent, and loveable man.
Biden's transformation after 47 years of nastiness is just as convincing as that of his party...
A weary sounding Joe Biden, who periodically managed to flog himself into a weak and shrill rage, delivered a singularly awful acceptance speech. When it wasn't hackneyed, he plagiarized ideas and policies from President Trump and made boasts that were inconsistent with his 48 years in politics, whether as a Senator or a Vice President. The worst thing about it, though, was that he repeated a vicious, and unforgivable, slander about Trump.
Here's a short list of Biden's platitudes: Trump is darkness. I am light. FDR was a great president. Help young people by ending Trump's darkness. America is racist. More darkness, more light...
Former Vice President Joe Biden formally accepted the Democratic Party's nomination for president Thursday night in a deeply dishonest speech that repeated the Charlottesville lie.
Biden never misses an opportunity to fulminate against the torch-carrying neo-nazis and their bulging veins, but besides lying about President Trump's "very fine people" comment, he also grossly mischaracterized the events of that day to suggest that the violent antifa and BLM counter-protesters were -- well -- very fine people...
Apparently convinced that stoking racial divisions will help Biden's electoral chances, his team has made the Charlottesville lie the centerpiece of his campaign. Indeed, he launched his campaign with the very same recitation of the lie, complete with the vivid description of their bulging neo-nazi veins (and fangs!).
Following Biden's speech, Scott Adams, the creator of the Dilbert comic strip, suggested on Twitter that Biden had disqualified himself by telling "the most divisive lie in American history."
He did it. Joe Biden got through the biggest speech of his life cleanly and coherently, without stumbling or mumbling or getting that far-away dazed look in his eyes.
That sounds like an incredibly low bar because it is, but it reflects the honest and serious debate about Biden's fitness. His age, 77, past health problems and the obvious signs that his faculties have been diminished raised the unprecedented possibility that he would not be able to carry out one of the routine performances of a major party nominee -- give an acceptance speech.
Coming into his party's virtual coronation, the test was not whether he would give a good speech or a bad speech. It was whether he could give a speech at all.
So congratulations to Biden for clearing a fundamental hurdle. Now the bar is raised and he should be treated as any other candidate. He can start by releasing his health and medical reports, which he has so far refused to do.
Most importantly, there is no excuse for him to hide any longer in his basement. Hidin' Biden must be a thing of history...
Bingo. If, as the Democrat-Media Complex will undoubtedly trumpet as proof positive that the rumor of Biden's brain turning into his breakfast are wildly exaggerated, then there will be no excuse in the eyes of the electorate for him not to face off against Trump in a series of debates. The Dems were screwed anyway; Biden could not have avoided giving a speech but now, Rasmussen has some rather interesting polling data that show Trump's approval actually going up as a result of this four-night Democrat carnival but more tellingly, that Democrat voter enthusiasm is pinging only slightly more activity than Biden's EEG. Seems they are voting more against Trump than for Biden. All of this does not bode well for them in terms of winning, let alone winning decisively.
Meanwhile, coming on the heels of Team Biden condemning the rioting, yesterday they disavowed the support from Democrat Jew-hater and sharia pimp supreme Linda Sarsour, the Hamas Louse. As I alluded to in a previous column, the up and coming Young Turks want to let their freak flags fly while the old guard are trying to keep the revolution on the down low, and the former ain't digging that at all.
... The mixing of the message here is likely the result of careful consideration on the part of Democrat strategists. The most popular figure in the party today is not Joe Biden, and certainly not Kamala Harris. To the dismay of Democrat leaders who prefer their Marxism a bit more subtly presented, it's still Bernie Sanders.
Bernie is the only presidential candidate on the Left who inspires enthusiasm and passion that remotely approaches Donald Trump levels. Even though he is nearly 80 and suffered a heart attack in the past year, he is the standard-bearer of the youthful and vigorous wing of the party, the young, hate-filled, anti-American, far-left wing, the candidate of Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the candidate of antifa and Black Lives Matter.
Sanders and his followers love Linda Sarsour; she was even a surrogate for his campaign. Thus she had to appear at the DNC as part of ongoing efforts to keep Bernie's base loyal and in line behind Biden.
In a sane political party, which leaves out the Democrats, Sarsour wouldn't be anywhere near any of the presidential contenders...
And if you think that Joe Biden's condemnation of Linda Sarsour signals a retreat from the anti-Semitism, radical leftism, and anti-Americanism she represents, you're in for a rude surprise in the unlikely event that the pollsters are telling us the truth this time, and on January 20, 2021, Biden becomes America's first figurehead president.
Amazing how Sarsour and Rancida Taliban, who absolutely understand the principle of "taqqiya" still can't see that the Democrat Party establishment and their media cohorts have been doing the socialist/atheist version of it for decades are doing it right now with Biden and Sanders. More importantly, the hard left base doesn't seem to grasp this either. Thank goodness.
Somewhat related to this was the exclusion of Tulsi Gabbard from all of the festivities. Well, this is not really surprising since she utterly destroyed Kamala Harris in a debate as well as the mortal sin of ripping Hillary Clinton. Too bad for the Democrats; Gabbard is relatively young, attractive, a good debater and also a military veteran. In essence, despite her being a liberal, it's a safe bet she's not a raging leftist, although when push comes to shove she will vote in lockstep with whatever Democrat madness is put in front of her. She would've been a formidable contender and in essence, a taqqiya candidate to win over the vaunted independents and moderates. But, as we have seen, the Democrats are going all in on going full Marxist and so Gabbard really now has no future in that party, at least not any higher than where she is. That is, until Toothy McBigTits tries to primary her with a true believer, which is likely her fate.
Lots of other lowlights including Obama's fly choosing a fresher pile of low-slung dung to land on.
Finally, I want to touch upon the arrest and charging of Steve Bannon. As CBD stated yesterday, of which I am in full agreement, if the charges against Bannon and the others are backed with evidence to prove his guilt, then he deserves to face the music. BUT - - given that these charges are coming out of the Southern District of New York, and hours before the final night of a disastrous Democrat convention, I question the timing. More importantly, given what has happened to Mike Flynn, Paul Manafort, Roger Stone and George Papadopoulos, I am smelling a giant rat here.
And also given the fact that the Clintons as well as the Bidens who have a record of shady dealings, influence peddling and outright treasonous actions that put our national security at serious risk (Loral Space, Uranium One, for starters), and of course the ongoing coup to sabotage and then overthrow the 2016 election, that they remain unpunished and untouched makes me almost not give a damn about Bannon. We have a two-faced justice system. If you are in favor with the globalists, you are unmolested. If not, you're fucked. And that goes for the animals who are laying waste to our cities and stomping people in the head.
Change that and then maybe change my mind. Have a great weekend.
Julie Kelly: "The only cure for what ails the Democrats is for voters to turn them out of office so they get the nice long rehab they need." The Democrat Party is Unwell
Conrad Black: "The virtual gathering was an unintended profession of the total moral bankruptcy of the Democratic campaign. There were no positive suggestions, nothing but hatred of President Trump." The Stench of Mendacity at the Democrat Convention
CIVIL WAR 2.0: LEFTIST REIGN OF TERROR, WAR ON POLICE
"As long as the demonstrations remained in the downtown area, both Mayor Bill Peduto and many of the police seemed content to let the situation play out. But Peduto's attitude took a decided turn toward the less tolerant side when the protests moved to a new location." Protesters Disturb Pittsburgh Dem Mayor's Street; He Condemns Them
CHINESE CORONAVIRUS FICTIONS, FACTS AND AMERICA IMPRISONED
"I'm a sexual assault survivor. So, to me, what the speaker lineup showed is kind of a thumb in all our faces... Rape culture in the United States is thriving under the Democratic Party. I feel like they are not only enabling, but they're allowing that behavior to continue, just by virtue of who they lined up as speakers, who have credible sexual assault and harassment allegations against them." Tara Reade: DNC "Complicit" in "Gaslighting of Survivors," They're "Enabling" Perpetrators
Robert Spencer: "...having secured her allegiance, Biden then had to go through the motions of condemning her so as to reassure the Jews and supporters of Israel who, apparently blind to what has been happening over the last ten years, still vote Democrat." The Democrats Are Sending Out Mixed Messages About Hamas Louse Sarsour. Here's Why
"Quadrennial political carnivals have been outdated for at least 60 years." Conventional Wisdom
"Barack Obama's speech at the DNC's misbegotten cyber-convention worked only for those American who paid no serious attention to the eight years of his presidency." Dissecting Obama's Delusional DNC Speech
FIRST AMENDMENT, CENSORSHIP, FAKE NEWS, MEDIA, BIG BROTHER
On Monday night, the NBA playoffs (without fans in the stands) trounced convention coverage on all three over-the-air networks combined. On Tuesday, America's Got Talent swamped the network's coverage of the Democrats. But far more significantly, viewership compared to 2016 was way off." Not Much Enthusiasm for Biden and Democrats as Convention TV Ratings Tank
"Loomer, now a candidate for a major party in a congressional election, remains banned from Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, PayPal, GoFundMe, Venmo, Uber, and Lyft. All of these platforms remain open to her Democrat opponent, Rep. Lois Frankel (D-FL)." Twitter Refuses to Reinstate Laura Loomer's Account After Primary Win
"The reality of it is, this is still a fundamental issue of justice for women in America. Women have been given the responsibility to perpetuate the human species. Our bodies were created to do that. And it does not give any other person the right to tell a woman what to do with that body. It is her body. It is her right. It is her decision." Kamala Harris: "Women Have Been Given the Responsibility to Perpetuate the Human Species"
"Navalny suddenly lost consciousness after groaning in agony on a flight to Moscow, needing to be rushed to a hospital after the plane made an emergency landing. Navalny was put on a ventilator and is reported to have stabilized, but is still in a coma." Russian Opposition Leader Hospitalized After Suspected Poisoning
"Donald Trump wants to re-impose UN sanctions on Iran. It's not going to happen and it only reveals the hollowness, the dishonesty, the cynicism of Barack Obama, who knowingly and deliberately looked the American people in the eye and lied about the nuclear deal with Iran." Trump Wants UN Sanctions "Snapback" on Iran
Victor Davis Hanson: "Does Merkel really believe that if her nation cuts huge deals with NATO's historically greatest threat, polls as the most anti-American country in Europe. and still refuses to honor its promises to increase defense spending, Germany still deserves a large American commitment of 36,000 troops to anchor its defense?" A Sort Of Goodbye To Germany?
"As the world looks in despair at the crisis in Belarus, its re-occurrence may only be around the corner. On the fringes of Europe lies another electoral tinderbox, where voter manipulation is rife and toleration of dissent mild." As Key Elections Loom, Will Montenegro be the Next Belarus?
"...the court's decision allows the two companies to maintain their current business model, which relies on classifying drivers as independent contractors, instead of forcibly adapting to a new requirement that mandates drivers be classified as employees." Uber, Lyft Avoid State-Wide Shutdown Amidst Legal Battle With California
Bob Zimmerman: At the heart of this disaster however sit the people in charge. In
Chicago Democrats have pretty much ruled unopposed for more than a half century." Dying Democrat Cities
"While President Donald Trump admits his announced executive order on pre-existing conditions amounts to 'signaling,' behind the scenes, some conservatives are urging the administration to explore the possibility of going one step further by eliminating a crony Obama-era giveaway to AARP." Could Trump Executive Order Eliminate AARP's Sweetheart Deal?
"It's obvious that our culture is unhealthy, and our gatekeepers perverse, but there's more going on when Netflix promotes a movie turning girls into sex objects." There's a Reason Netflix is Sexualizing Young Girls
"We recognize that we live in an institutionally racist society, and that white people have a particular responsibility to work to change this. We acknowledge that we, both as white individuals and as the Executive Team of a predominantly white collaboration, have fallen short in these endeavors to date." National Security Research Lab Leaked Documents Called US "Institutionally Racist"
NOTE: The opinions expressed in some links may or may not reflect my own. I include them because of their relevance to the discussion of a particular issue.
ALSO: The Morning Report is cross-posted at CutJibNewsletter.com if you want to continue the conversation all day.
That Night On The Marge Of Lake Lebarge, I Posted An ONT
—WeirdDave
Look at this picture from an abandoned mine. A lifetime of video games tells me that there has to be loot down at the bottom there. Gold, maybe, or epic gear. What do y'all think?
Not going to lie, I like New York. Or rather, I liked the New York that Rudy created. It was safe, vibrant and alive. I wouldn't have wanted to live there, God no, but it was a great weekend destination. Broadway shows, delicious restaurants on every block, museums, street performers, culture, history....all only a couple-three hour drive away. I'll miss it, and even though I will shortly be 2000 miles away, it just seems a shame that what I remembered so fondly isn't going to be there anymore. I would have gone back, occasionally, and counted it a treat. Now I guess I won't.
On last Saturday's ONT Buck Throckmorton mentioned Robert W. Service's The Cremation of Sam McGee, which has long been one of my favorite poems. Here's a pretty good rendition of it:
Note: Redtube is a porn site. This type of misdirection is called, in internet lingo, a “lemon party”. It means...ah, hell, I don't have time to explain. Just Google it.*
*FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT'S HOLY, DO NOT GOOGLE IT!
Final DNC Night: Joe Biden Gives a Pre-Recorded Speech That They'll Pretend is Live
—Ace
You don't really expect Sundown Joe to take a chance that his brain medicine will fail him at a crucial moment, do you?
The media should have guaranteed this was live and therefore news (prerecorded advertisements are not "news") by requiring him to start off with some codeword they give to him minutes before his speech.
But they wouldn't want to do that -- they're in on the con of pretending this obviously senile man isn't demented.
So, enjoy the speech that Joe Biden has actually already recorded, which will be broadcast shortly before the nightly news.
When people say “these people love war,” it’s not exactly accurate—these are broken people who have lost any sense of reality. They’re completely delusional hysterics, and it’s good to be completely rid of every last one of them.
Only conservative messages are "political." Leftwing agitation is just The Truth that All Good People on the Right Side of History believe.
"Some people may wish to express their views on social justice or inequity or equity issues such as black lives matter or LGBTQ pride on their face coverings, shirts or wristbands. That will be deemed approved because it applies with a zero-tolerance stance," the speaker on the recording said during the meeting. "However if any associate wears all, blue, white lives matter shirts or face coverings, that will be not appropriate."
It "applies" with the zero-policy stance, this illiterate says.
He/she/they meant "complies."
English, motherfucker, do you speak it?
Had enough?
Have you had enough of Jim Crow rules, pushed and promoted by leftist-converged corporations, with the aim of making you and your children second-class citizens, or do you want more?
Cash these motherfuckers out.
Boycott them until the entire management team is fired, and the incoming team fires the social justice termites in Human Resources.
It is perhaps because of the leak of this audio -- and because the company already lost 6% of their stock value yesterday -- that Goodyear has now partially retracted its clearly biased (and racially biased, to boot) policy.
And that's it. They're still claiming that support of the avowedly Marxist, grievance terrorism group Black Lives Matter is not "political," nor is pushing "Love is Love" and other messaging of the Sexual Fringe Left, but that supporting Republicanism or Trump is political (and on The Wrong Side of History).
But they can't claim you can agitate against cops but not for cops, so they have made that single allowance.
And I doubt they'll really allow it -- anyone wearing a Blue Lives Matter mask can expect to be harassed for a welter of petty complaints until they get the message and stop wearing that mask that they're now supposedly permitted to wear.
The boycott is on, as far as I'm concerned.
They must be Made to Care -- for our goodwill, and our willingness to do business with then.
The corporate left aren't the only people who can engage in dehumanization and boycotts intended to separate targets from society and any hope of making a living wage.
We can do that too. In fact, we must do that.
Unless we're all now ready to let our children be forever dehumanized.
And you know, the Acela C*ckservative class who's telling us that we should allow our children to be dehumanized, rather than ruffle the feathers of one of their corporate class donors -- you can just fuck yourselves right to hell.
It's time to cash out the Acela Corridor class, too. For every Rick Wilson you see who is openly working with Democrats, there are 100 "conservative activists" and politicians secretly working with Democrats.
In a way, Rick Wilson is the least objectionable sort of "Republican." At least his betrayal of you is out in the open and subject to debate.
Lori Lightfoot Defends Policy of Outlawing "Protests" On Her Block and Her Block Only, Stating That She (Alone) Has the Right to Be Secure In Her Home
—Ace
They're not even hiding it.
It's the duty of all Chicagoans to block the streets to Lori Lightfoot's home. She must not be allowed to use police force to keep protesters away from her palace while inflicting the "protesters" on the rest of the city, for political/ideological reasons.
People cannot allow this sort of open abuse of office and contempt for law and the citizenry to stand. Although, thusfar, they have allowed it, from high-ranking bureaucrats to tech moguls to tyrannical mayors and governors.
This cannot be allowed to stand, or this is the end of America.
Mayor Lori Lightfoot defended the Chicago Police Department's ban on protesters being able to demonstrate on the block where she lives, telling reporters Thursday that she and her family at times require heightened security because of threats she receives daily.
Lightfoot refused to elaborate on the specific threats, but said she receives them daily against herself, her wife and her home. Comparisons to how the Police Department has protected previous mayors' homes, such as Rahm Emanuel's Ravenswood residence, are unfair because "this is a different time like no other," Lightfoot told reporters.
"I think that residents of this city, understanding the nature of the threats that we are receiving on a daily basis, on a daily basis, understand I have a right to make sure that my home is secure," Lightfoot said.
Critics are calling this single block in Chicago where police have been ordered to disallow "protesters" "Fort Lori."
The order -- casually leaked by police, I imagine -- does not say that violent "protesters" will be arrested but "peaceful" protesters will be allowed.
It says that all "protesters," whether "peaceful" or violent, are to be shut down.
The Chicago Police Department has effectively banned protesters from demonstrating on Mayor Lori Lightfoot's block in the Logan Square neighborhood, ordering officers to arrest anyone who refuses to leave, the Tribune has learned.
The directive surfaced in a July email from then-Shakespeare District Commander Melvin Roman to officers under his command. It did not distinguish between the peaceful protesters Lightfoot regularly says she supports and those who might intend to be destructive, but ordered that after a warning is given to demonstrators, "It should be locked down."
Fox News' Left-Liberal Cranky Old Fossil and Conspiracy Theorist Chris Wallace Defends Joe Biden on Guns, Insisting That He Doesn't Want to Erode the Second Amendment, Just Take Away "Weapons of Mass Destruction" Like the AR-15
I ask again: Why are 90% of the positions in "conservative" media filled by left-liberals?
It's almost as if the corporate stooges running these companies intend them to be safe, managed Controlled Opposition operations that will never be too conservative.
That basically describes 90% of "conservative" politicians as well.
...Wallace's analysis of the Democrats' convention went off the rails when he turned to the topic of Joe Biden and gun control.
Earlier in the hour, Wallace praised an address by former congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords -- whose husband, astronaut Mark Kelly, is seeking to unseat Sen. Martha McSally, R-Ariz., in November -- as "enormously powerful" and called her "a living embodiment of the concern" most Americans have about gun violence.
...
"I understand that Republicans will say that Joe Biden wants to take away your Second Amendment rights," Wallace added. "The only problem with that is, Biden has made it clear over and over [that] he's not interested in taking away Second Amendment rights, he's interested in taking away weapons of mass destruction like assault weapons."
Wow, Chris Wallace decloaks as a left-liberal hack and partisan shill for the Democrats.
What a surprise. Yet again, my expectations have been so subverted that my whole reality is spinning and my limbs feel like alien meat controlled by invisible puppeteers.
Next thing you'll be telling me is that AllahPundit, who claimed to oppose Obama for eight years, is backing the third Obama term now as represented by Centrist Moderate Joe Biden, just as he backed the third Obama term in 2016 when he backed Hillary Clinton in a very cowardly, womanly, passive-aggressive/plausible-deniability way.
And then I just won't know which way is up!
Fact-Check: Last year, when CNN nepot Anderson Cooper asked about gun owners' fears that Joe Biden's administration would come to "take their guns away," Joe Biden answers: "Bingo!"
But don't listen to Joe Biden's own words; listen to left-liberal media activists' spin.
Apparently, the DNC couldn't even find 30 people who were excited about Kamala Harris, so they had to duplicate someone's livesteram pic.twitter.com/1cLhQRRkzg
The BLM "Security" Punk Who Kicked the Good Samaritan In the Face Begs for Money on Snapchat as Police Hunt for Him
—Ace
He fled -- which was easy for him, because Portland police didn't bother looking for him until 4chan ID'd him and his name was all over social media -- and police are now searching for him.
Allegedly. Who knows if they'll bother to arrest someone caught on videotape committing attempted murder.
So he's on snapchat, whining that all he did was "fight" a "racist," and begging for money.
Portland protester with long rap sheet who is on the run from cops after kicking unconscious a truck driver BEGS people on social media to give him money in case he gets jailed
Police are searching for 25-year-old Marquise Love, known by friends as 'Keese Love', for his apparent involvement in a vicious attack in Portland on Sunday
Love has allegedly been looking for money on Snapchat as he remains on the run
'[all] I did was fight him look it up on twitter,' he claims, calling his victim a 'racist'
...
The incident took place shortly before 10:30pm Sunday blocks from a Black Lives Matter demonstration
Since fleeing the scene, Love has been posting messages on Snapchat, according to The Sun.
...
'Might go to jail for murder tonight for a racist when all I did was fight him look it up on twitter put money on my books and come see me,' he allegedly sent from his account, alongside a selfie.
'On the books' is a reference to money held for inmates for the prison commissary.
Oh, he already knows the lingo. What a surprise that has totally surprised me.
The Portland Police Bureau say they have left Love, a recently fired security guard, a number of messages, urging him to hand himself in, but have so far received no response. They say they have a probable cause for his arrest.
He has a lengthy criminal record which includes charges for domestic assault, interfering with public transport, driving without a license, domestic harassment and guns charges.
So many surprises. My expectations have been totally subverted. I feel like I just discovered that I'm a robot imposter of myself whose code was written by Rian Johnson.
Netflix recently released the trailer for an upcoming film called Cuties--a French film that hyper-sexualizes 11-year-old girls as they form a twerking dance crew. A petition was kicked off shortly after the trailer was released that has, at the time of this writing, reeled in just shy of 28,000 signatures.
The film seems to concern a black immigrant girl who becomes "fascinated" by a Parisian "twerking crew," who also seem to be 11.
This could possibly be the Elusive Unicorn of a movie that features a Muslim family getting the hypersexualizing degredation that filmmakers like to inflict on Christian families.
But no, I don't think the movie would have gotten funded if this were a Muslim family. I would bet big money that it's a Christian immigrant family.
Either way, of course, it's awful to promote twerking -- a highly sexualized dance which is meant to simulate a woman having sex -- in 11 year olds, or feature any 11 year olds "exploring their femininity."
Netflix is now editing their descriptions of this movie. Here is the current version of the description:
Doesn't sound that objectionable. It reads:
Amy, 11 years old, tries to escape family dysfunction by joining a free-spirited dance clique called "Cuties," as they build self confidence through dance.
But compare the new language with the original language:
The original pitch read:
Amy, 11, becomes fascinated by a twerking dance crew. Hoping to join them, she starts exploring her femininity, defying her family's traditions.
It's hard to read "exploring her femininity" as intending anything but "exploring her sexuality," which is pretty much a synonym.
Obviously, that's where I've gotten the "fascinated by a twerking crew" and "exploring her femininity" language from.
Key quote from the twerking trailer, said by an adult woman to an 11 year old child:
"We're deeply sorry for the inappropriate artwork that we used for 'Cuties.' It was not OK, nor was it representative of this French film, which premiered at Sundance. We've now updated the pictures and description," the service told Deadline in response to the backlash.
The film, directed by first-timer Maïmouna Doucoure', has a TV-MA rating.
The art they're apologizing for features the little girls in tight clothing striking a lot of... um, exaggerated poses that just happen to show off the sorts of things pedos would be looking for.
If that art isn't representative of the film, where did it come from? Is it all just a pure photoshop?
4chan has banned pictures from this movie. I'm avoiding link that "art" myself.
Zombie writes:
But no, I don't think the movie would have gotten funded if this were a Muslim family. I would bet big money that it's a Christian immigrant family.
No, Ace, you're wrong -- it IS about a Muslim family.
Here's my willowed comment form last thread:
A black French woman filmmaker made a movie, in that classic French pedophiliac "Peppermint Soda"-style but even worse, that has elements to piss off everyone:
a. It's about how white culture in France can and should rescue black Muslim immigrants in France from their awful oppressive immigrant culture -- so now immigrants hate the film because it exhibits "white savior complex," and moonbats hate the film because it implies that white culture is superior to black/Muslim culture.
b. The plot involves an 11-year old fundamentalist Senegalese Muslim girl who is tempted away from her culture by a clique of whorish white 11-year-old slutty girtls who form a super-sexy "twerking" dance troupe, and half the screentime is devoted to obvious softcore child porn of nearly naked actual 11-year-old actresses doing grotesque sex-imitating twerks and pole dances -- obviously intended to just titillate the pedo male French audience -- so now old-fashioned cultural conservatives hate the film for being an unapologetic X-rated child-porn mainstream film.
It would have languished in film-festival obscurity, but after winning several awards (of course), it was "picked up" by Netfilx, who are now showing it. Apparently Netfilx originally featured a very porn-y promo poster for the film, which drew many complaints, so Netflix changed the poster and apologized, but now the whole thing is in the news as a result.
The film now has the LOWEST IMDB rating I have ever seen by far: 1.6
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9196192/?ref_=tt_urv
And furthermore, literally 100% of user reviews are 1-star reviews -- something I've also never seen before:
Joe Rogan: 'Toxic' Twitter Will Be 'Like Blockbuster' “Why are you spending so much time complaining about other people all day?” Rogan said to guests, Whitney Cummings and Annie Lederman. “I’ll tell you why, because you’re not healthy. If I look at your Twitter timeline and I’m seeing tweets 12 hours a day, you’re a crazy person!” Eh...maybe. [CBD]
National Review's Dan McLaughlin (aka @baseballcrank) offered up a weak Twitter lament that Carter Page is not going to prison after being framed by McLaughlin's deep state heroes. Sean Davis was not having it. This is a brutal and concise smack-down. [Buck Throckmorton]
Confused Joe Biden promises that, if elected, he will give every American "two tickets to the Gun Show" Not really, I'm just being silly. Although I do think that in his demented brain he really is traveling through time, like Scott Bakula, only with a thing for touching children and raping women.
Why is "WAP" by that admitted whore and thief getting such Yas Slay Kween Slut praise, while the similarly-themed "I Want Pie" by Pretty Raheem and Slick Mahoney gets ignored? I mean, "WAP" is nothing but brutish, low-IQ bluntness, while "I Want Pie" deals in sophisticated artistry and subtle metaphor. Also, "I Want Pie" is actually a song with a melody and a hook (and, kidding aside, it's a sick hook) and isn't just a former whore advertising her services to a beat. BTW, when I call Cardi B a "whore" I don't mean she slept around. I mean, I'm sure she did that, but I mean she admits -- or brags -- that when she was a stripper, she would take guys up to a room -- surely with the promise of sex -- and then drug them and rob them. And if she's saying she robbed guys, I'm sure she took money for actual services rendered, too.
Bring this one home to mom, boys!
But whatever, she's a role model to the child-girls who buy her crap because she's "empowering herself" by talking about her soupy swamp-ass and bilgey front-butt. And you're welcome, in advance, for those pungent images.
Forgotten 80s Mystery Click The return of the 60s British Invasion group The Kinks to the top of the charts. No, not Come Dancing. I don't like that one. Their other mid-eighties hit.
Like every work teleconference, it starts out cheerful and ends with bloody murder.
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