An Altogether Sorry State

To be honest I haven’t been following the Trumpsters legal problems.  He has had so many over such a long period that I suppose I’ve become numb to the constant thumping in the press. 

Now, because abstinence has brought me to an arms-length and because I’m looking over the issue(s) with fresh eyes, I’m pretty appalled at what is being done in our name.  Yep, if you are being tried in federal court that venue represents the interests of the citizens of the United States.  When a judge or prosecutor acts for or against a man on trial for a federal offense then they (supposedly) act with our interests in mind.  Do these folk think the nation agrees with the way this defendant is being treated?  

I have questions:
–How in fucks sake did an accounting entry result in 34 felony charges?  What gymnastics of the mind leads an impartial person to believe that this is fair, or right, or rational?

–Contempt of court?  How in the world did our nation get to the point where a black robe could jail a citizen for speaking the truth?  What a bunch of power-hungry egotists we’ve allowed to sit on the bench.

–Are they really talking about holding Trump in contempt for stating the absolute truth about Michael Cohen when he called him a ‘disgraced attorney and felon’?  I mean, damn folks, he’s a disgraced attorney and felon!  These clowns are not trying to protect Cohen (who is beyond redemption), they are trying to railroad Trump.  Now, because Trump had the huevos to speak up, they have to ‘rehabilitate’ Cohen in the eyes of the jury or the state’s witness does them more harm than good. 

–How about the truthiness of Trump saying that Fox News reported that liberal activists were trying to get on the jury when (1) that is exactly what Fox News reported and (2) that’s exactly what happened? We’re going to bust his balls for stating the obvious?

–Final question I’ll ask (although I’ve got a hundred more): if ‘they’ can puff up charges and gag a Presidential candidate (and former President) with the sole intent of forcing their will on him, just how fair do you think such a system will be to you and I?

These folk are so self-centered and so caught up in their 15 minutes (actually months) of fame that they are far beyond being able to see the damage they are doing to the country.  What power in earth, heaven, or hell could mend a nation shredded by such petty tyrants?

While the nation of America will continue on, the great American Experiment is about to fail.  A government of, by, and for the people cannot long endure in the presence of power-hungry politicians, prosecutors and judges.  Freedom had, for a reasonably long time, a good run.  I wonder how far into the future it will be before man has another opportunity to beat back the beast of tyranny and breath free air again?

Nicki Minaj | Ever Wonder?

I never thought about who would attend a concert headlined by one of the many ‘gangster bitches’ that currently bless the nation with ghetto rhymes.

But now (owing to the wonders of the I-Phone) that topic is thrust to the fore. Amazingly the audience is almost exclusively white. Whoda thunkit !

I guess that if you’re white and identify as other than white then it’s appropriate (in a large group setting) to carry the flag of that group. Man, that’s a lot of white folk.

I guess a large percentage of whites born after 1990 believe they were born in the wrong body. They identify as black and what better way to demonstrate your ‘other than whiteness’ is to act according to your perception of how ghetto folk act.

I can’t blame Nicki or any of the other gangster ladies for finding their own path to reparations. I could quote LoopTroop (Don’t hate the player don’t hate the game), but few folk could explain the black boy in white skin syndrome than they can: Ladies and gentlemen I give you LoopTroop:

Fundamental Change

I don’t know what folk in America thought prior to the US being drawn into the Second World War. Perhaps all of the turmoil and chaos was thought to be another nation’s problem. Perhaps Americans back then were thinking that it’s nice to have allies in the world as long as those ‘allies’ don’t place us in tough positions. Screw Europe and Russia and China, they would have to tackle their problems on their own.

It’s ok to leave Israel to execute the response they feel is best, but who in their right mind thought it was a good idea to let the world know we were leaving them to air out and dry?

That sound exactly like what we are telling our allies around the world right now. If you are an Israeli sitting in Israel right now you’ve become acutely aware of just how fickle an ally America can be. I would suppose that if you’re an Israeli not sitting in Israel then the issue becomes a little more abstract.

From the UN to the battlefields our words and our deeds show that we are too afraid of our own shadow to be of much use to them. And so the Jewish homeland looks to be the latest (but certainly not the last) sacrifice to be laid before the alter of that progressive mantra: ‘peace through capitulation’.

As if Iran gave a shit about ‘nuclear deals’ anyway

God forbid our enemies should fear us once again. We can’t go back to the days when evil was kept in check by hard men engaged in a just cause as ‘hard men’ have fallen from favor and the only ‘just cause’ remaining in America is the destruction of our institutions.

Elections indeed have consequences and the fundamental change brought about by the absolute fiasco of 2020 may have changed the course of mankind for all time.

Fixed It

This is why we mistrust the press.

Here’s a photo of that brave soul.

Jean’s little problem with the ladies could, perhaps, be solved with a trip out to the great wild west environs of Nebraska. It seems Ms Ward is perfectly willing to take folk to school and demonstrate the proper way for a man to hit on a woman.

Coachella

Coachella is back!  It kicks off this weekend and fans, celebs, and influences are flocking to the desert to show their ass oops, fashion sense.  Here is what the follow-on generation is shaping up to look like.  If nothing else, if the Chinese don’t put us out of business it’s going to be entertaining next few decades.

Need a spot to stay while there? You can grab a tent for two nights for $11,000.

The Pitch: This glamping option comes furnished with all the sleeping or lounging essentials plus golf cart service between the campground and stages, air-conditioned restroom and showers, breakfast and late-night snacks in the air-conditioned Safari Lounge, and of course Guest Passes to Coachella Weekend One or Two. Safari Tent packages include accommodations, passes and concierge services for 2 people, with the option to add up to two additional guests for a fee.

A ‘cabana’ for two will run you $12,000 for two folk for two nights. That’s it below, stuffed between a couple tents:

They also have a ‘resort’ where all of the high end folk will be staying. I’d share the price with you but, apparently, that figure is classified.

Sweet 16

Police have arrested the hoodlum that bashed an elderly lady on the way into church. It turns out it’s a 16 year old. They say he has multiple felony arrests, including robberies of women. This is not saying that he had a single arrest warrant for multiple felonies, he’s committed multiple felonies and has multiple warrants.

Question (rhetorical) : How many felonies has he committed and not been charged with? It seems to me that if he gets caught half of the time (a guess) then he’s done a tremendous amount of damage in his thus far short lifespan.

The good news is that the police in NY anticipate him being a model citizen at some point in the future so they generously withheld the young mans identity. The last thing they want to do is damage his future prospects.

Homeboy Booth was busted for stealing a butt load (pun intended) of high-end vibrators.

After the police were contacted by the employees, investigators were able to find Booth because he listed the vibrators for sale on Facebook Marketplace. 

Remember these folk?

Well, those chickens have wandered back to the coop (below). BTW, the way you know you’re hosed as a community is when your city council looks like the one pictured above. As Cleavon Little (the sheriff in ‘Blazing Saddles’) would say: “Where are all da white womens’. I would add: are there no white men in Oakland?

The Spineless West

Breitbart says: The United States believes that an Iranian attack on Israel may be imminent and has instructed its diplomatic employees in Israel not to travel far from their homes in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, and Be’er Sheva in the south.

And: The warning came after days of threats by Iran to retaliate against Israel for an airstrike April 1 in Damascus, Syria, that killed two generals and five officers responsible for attacks on Israel via terrorist proxy armies in recent months.

Garry says: The truth of the matter is that Iran realizes that the US is now so afraid of conflict that it will abandon it’s staunchest ally in the Middle East to avoid a shooting war. They can attack Israel without fear of reprisal because the US has lost it’s spine and the balance of the ‘west’ never had one.

So That’s Not Rachael?

Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX) suggested that black Americans should be exempt from paying taxes as a form of reparations but then said it might not work because of the black people who are “not paying taxes in the first place.”

I’m certainly glad she said the quiet part out loud; for a while I was beginning to think that I was the only one who immediately came to the same conclusion. There would be an inner city set on fire somewhere in America had white folk uttered these same words.

A Stark Contrast

Yesterday I shared a paper (book) by Hawking that talked to time and space. In contrast, this morning, I give you America’s own brainchild Ms Jackson Lee of Texas. May God have mercy on us all.

Stats (and Words)

I ran across this a short while ago; on it’s face looks innocuous. I mean we all got it right? Were in debt and it’s going to get worse.

But, when you give it a little thought, why would the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) throw this out there? Why, do tell, is the forecasted future debt depicted as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product (GDP)? And why the strange title: ‘Global Financial Crisis, Pandemic Drove up US Debt.’

While there was some debt that accumulated because of these two events, it’s important to remember that we are talking about dept as a percentage of GDP (not debt alone). When all of those folk fell idle due to the recession following Lehman’s collapse (by the way, the fall out could have been minimized but congress pooh-poohed the solution) GDP took a huge hit and the table was set for last meal of anything resembling rational budgeting.

So, Congress explicitly voted down a $700 M solution to the largest financial crisis the world has seen in 80 years. This chart, produced by the same ‘honest brokers’ in the CBO that advised Congress against saving the nation, introduces ‘the pandemic’ as a cause of the debt problem (actually the debt to GDP problem).

It’s all bullshit designed to deflect.

Here is the same chart with two added lines. The solid yellow starts exactly where the CBO started their line (2000) and ends exactly where CBO ends their line (actually I moved it a little lower so that their blue line would remain visible.

The second line, the yellow dashed line shows what our debt to GDP ratio would be if Lehman had not happened. The bottom line demonstrates something all of us already know: Congress is the cause of all debt problems. How nice of them to have the CBO, an office they control, publish propaganda for our casual consumption.

Here is how hosed we are: Everyone knows that the CBO is using the most optimistic assumptions about what the out-year GDP will be. When they use the most optimistic assumptions and the debt to GDP still rises by at least 50 percent, then the true level of the debt, in absolute dollars (vice a ratio of GDP), must be mind boggling.

OBTW, it’s now safe to begin wondering what the GDP would be without all of the ‘new arrivals’ at our southern welcome centers. Without the demand signals they place (purchases) and the labor they provide our GDP numbers would be so far into the tank that taxes would go through the roof and those untouchable institutions known as Social Security and Medicare would collapse.

When you really think about it, the movie ‘The Matrix’ is pretty much spot on in terms of the value of a human life: it’s to produce fuel (revenue) for ‘the machine’.

It’s All Fun and Games Until. . .

A bystander in Texas used his firearm to stop what appeared to be a violent robbery in progress. Police are now saying that the “robbery” was in fact staged for the benefit of a fraudulent visa application. The “robber” is still dead and the fake “victims” are nowhere to be found.

The Houston Police department initially believed that the gunman opened fire on Rasshauud Scott when he saw Scott attempting to rob a couple. Scott later died of his wounds.

Further investigation revealed that Scott regularly ran a scam that was designed to help illegal immigrants commit immigration fraud and obtain a “U visa,” which is given to individuals who are victims of crime and are permitted to stay in the country as potential witnesses while their crimes are being investigated.

Under the scam, someone stages a robbery somewhere that there are security cameras, such as at a gas station, and the “victims” then get to stay legally in the country, often for years, as the case goes unresolved.

She’s All In

I’ve posted a couple of times about this gift to humanity (and Dolton). She’s back in the news with her latest solution to combat all of the haters that somehow miraculously appeared in the community.

The Great Marginalization

What’s different about today vs yesterday in Chicago is that some of the minions are beginning to recognize that importing thousands of new ‘citizens’ (visitors?) has a cost and there is no way they are going to avoid paying it.

For those that think the gimmedats in Chicago don’t have anything of value that can be taken, consider the comments made by the homeless man in the tweet below. His condition almost proves out Matthew 25:29 (which by the way has a mirror in Thomas 41): Whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them. I guess they can kiss all of those sweet social services they’ve been basking in goodbye.

The Great Marginalization V2 is inbound.

What’s also astounding is that the people in the windy place have managed to create a society that is impervious to their own will. They are locked in.

There is an upside to this: In 2 years when all of the ‘newcomers’ have jobs and are settling in to their middle class life, they’ll be generating the revenue needed by the city to produce/distribute more Soma for the generationaly less fortunate.

The Signs of Our Times

Biden:  “I was once asked by Xi Jinping in — I traveled 17,000 miles with him in Tibet. I was on the Tibetan Plateau. And he looked at me, and he said to me, ‘Can you define America?’ And I could say the same thing if he asked me to define Greece. I said, ‘Yes, one word,’ — and I mean this sincerely; it’s reg- — it’s recorded. I said, ‘One word: possibilities.’ ‘Possibilities.’
 
Washington Post:  There is no evidence Biden ever traveled 17,000 miles with Xi.  Biden has been repeating this story since 2016, with no evidence to back it up.

Baltimore: An All American City

Of course both Central and South America are significant contributors.

So, I read this in a report on Breitbart: “Per local reports, all of those eight who fell into the water from the construction crew repairing potholes on the Scott Key Bridge were central or southern American origin workers. While two have been recovered alive, including one who didn’t even need hospital treatment, at least two victims have been named. Miguel Luna from El Salvador, a father of three. was declared among the dead overnight and Maynor Suazo Sandoval, a Honduran, was also named on Wednesday morning.”

That struck me as odd. I would have bet good money that they would have either have been union workers (scarfing up triple time pay) or ‘brothers’ whose company leadership had an ‘in’ with city hall. I did a quick search and found that the entire city staff belongs to a union and that in that count of 5000+ some are teachers. A link called ‘data’ produced this about the schools:

And then this:

These guys are knocking it out of the park on High School Math: It’s improved such that 6 percent of the student body is now proficient. I don’t know what it is that they classify as ‘proficient’, but I’d bet it doesn’t include those skills that allow you to go to work as pothole repairpersons (else wise they wouldn’t be holding memorial services for Maynor and Miguel).

For those of you currently in Baltimore and considering relocating, catch a clue from Bob Dylan:

The festival was over and the boys were all planning for a fall
The cabaret was quiet except for the drilling in the wall
The curfew had been lifted and the gambling wheel shut down
Anyone with any sense had already left town
He was standing in the doorway looking like the Jack of Hearts.

A Weakening Resolve

I’ve heard it said that the signs of a weakened nation include paradigms where their enemies no longer fear them and their ‘friends’ no longer trust them. It took a while, but we may have finally arrived. Rather than lament the fall of America, I’m going to spend a few moments in quiet contemplation over the ills that have befallen our friend and ally Israel.

Today Israel pulled its negotiators out of hostage talks after Hamas, encouraged by a UN Security Council resolution that calls for an unconditional ceasefire, toughened up its demands during negotiations. The US could have stopped the resolution but elected to roll over and toss this ally to the wolves.

Netanyahu canceled a meeting that the White House had sought with his advisers. He did release a statement however. It reads in part: Israel will not address Hamas’s delusional demands. Israel will pursue and achieve its just war objectives: Destroying Hamas’s military and governmental capacities, release of all the hostages, and ensuring Gaza will not pose a threat to the people of Israel in the future.

The future has just become that much more uncertain.

They’re Insane

These folk are calling on churches in Boston (and the surrounding area) to payout billions in reparations. This is going to be a wonderful show and a great test of these christian enterprises ability to walk the line between benevolent talk and actually stepping up to the plate with checkbook in hand.

What a shit show.

A Measured Response

A while ago I received a pretty thorough note detailing how I may have fallen prey to ‘wrong think’ on the topic of immigration. It arrived as an email (vice a comment) and rather than copy and paste it into the comments on that topic I decided that the note provided me with a do over opportunity; a means to add a little meat to the bones I had earlier cast upon the cybers in a post titled ‘A Rant: Immigration’.

I’ve stripped off the personally identifiable information and removed some extraneous material and am throwing it back out to you, my loyal readers, in the form of a “you said, I respond format” that is certain to confuse all but the most astute.

It can be found here.

Sometimes we loose the forest in the trees.

Thanks Frederick for the note.

Kathy Gets Some Push Back

Couldn’t have happened to a more deserving slut. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not expressing my glee at her discomfort because she criticized Trump (something I’ve done pretty often over the last 8 years or so), but rather because she sought to make her way in this life by leveraging the angst of others. She wanted to make her bones by gleefully showing that she wished him dead. That, as Trump would say, is one nasty woman.

For the gazillionth time, I’m going to vote for the guy. I think he did a great job as President and have no doubt that he will again (if given the chance). I also think that he’s a first class ass and the best reason I have for looking past this character flaw is that it pisses off the snowflakes so much that I want to encourage him to continue. Mine is not so much a love-hate relationship as it a one of love-instigate/tolerate.

Cameltoe Mushmouth

Yesterday the bottom half of the dynamic duo appeared at the site of a previous school shooting and announced they are spending 3/4ths of a billion dollars on something our betters are calling the National Extreme Risk Protection Order Resource Center. While they title it a ‘Center’, my money is on a new nefarious database used to track veteran’s who dare to exercise their second amendment rights.

Here’s how brainiac explained the initiative.

“Red flag laws are simply designed to allow communities a vehicle through which they can share, and have somewhere to share it, information about the concern about the potential danger or the crying out for help of an individual and then let’s give it to them before tragedy occurs. Part of why I am here today is to challenge every state to pass a red flag law.”

That sure cleared things up.

Not to be argumentative, but I’m going to challenge the last sentence in her statement. I think most folk understand the reason she is where she is is because she she goes to her knees so easily..

A Rant: Immigrants

Wifey was watching Fox News when I went into the living room this morning.  She knows I have a real aversion to national news networks in general and Fox News in particular.  I vote R, but it is in spite of these idiots rather than because of them.

The newscast highlighted AOC’s district in New York and the reporter(s) were hyperventilating over the ‘illegal’ aliens setting up shops on the sidewalks.  The words ‘third world’ were continually used.  Wifey was all blown out of shape about immigration (again) and how terrible things have gotten (again).  This happens every time she watches Fox.  So I tried to explain to her (again) that we (both R and D) have been whining the border problem every single day for the last 40 years.  For more than 14,000 days this has been thrown in our face by politicians of all stripes and news folk hell bent on invoking an emotional response.  Every single day the screams get louder and the urgency more pronounced.  She still doesn’t get it:  she’s being played. 

Here are a couple of my bottom lines on the topic: 

A)  If the government of the United States let them across the border, then they are not ‘illegal’.  B) If you’re going to let them in the country and know at the time you let them in that they could not support themselves then you had better be prepared to care for them.  Not everyone agrees with this but I am personally averse to watching folk starve to death on the public streets.  C)  If you complain about these folk using public resources then you cannot complain when they try to fend for themselves. 

D)  How in the world, in the ‘free country’ we claim to have created, is a permit required in order to work and feed yourself and family?  Do they have to ask for permission to live?

As far as the news networks go, I get it:  their attempts at invoking an emotional response is so that folk will ‘affiliate’ with them and return to watch. .  day after day, after. . . I’m certain that they know that some of us have figured this out and refuse to drawn into the little nightmare they’ve worked so hard at creating.  I gaze at them and see fools reading from a script that pads the pockets of network owners at the expense of viewer’s best interests and the needs of the nation.

As for the street vendors in NY, Chicago, Detroit, etc:  Damn folks, give them a break and let them participate in the American dream.  After all, you opened the door and then invited them in.

Sparky Cars and The Fools Born Every Minute

Fallout from the EV fiasco continues to spread. Here is another indicator that sparky car market is completely crashing (an indicator other than the auto makers abandoning the market): There’s been double-digit declines in charging network stocks.

Shares of network operator Blink (BLNK) are down roughly 64% over the past year while charging hardware and software maker ChargePoint (CHPT) is 81% lower during the same period. Network owner and operator EVgo’s (EVGO) stock is down 55% in the past year.

Not to worry, industry analysts are doing their damnedest to pump new life into a beast that should be mercifully put down. Their words are a great comfort: “The big picture on these stocks … their business models are still at an earlier stage, and so the key focus for investors is really on proving out the business model and achieving profitability,”

A quick check on Yahoo for ‘Worst 2024 performing stocks’ yields: Worst Performing Stocks of 2024 The worst performing stock for this year is Arcadium Lithium (ALTM) with a total return of -93.63%, followed by Sigma Lithium (SGML) and New York Community Bancorp (NYCB).

A quick look at ALTM over the last three years:

Not a pro, but it sure looks like someone, or groups of someones, lost their ass on these two schemes (charging stations and Lithium mining). Not to worry though, the analysts are touting nothing but upside:

An Open Admission

I couldn’t bring myself to watch Mad Brandon last night.  I had zero interest is how poorly he would deliver an outlandish and overly political speech written by the D faction of the deep state.  I’m given to understand that he did not disappoint either those that support him (who wanted to see red meat) and those who did not (who tuned in to see just how far he would go or how far gone he had gotten).

The intertubes this morning are all spewing the predictable response(s) gen’d up by the R’s.  They are all about pointing out the errors, missteps and absurdity of the many mischaracterization Brandon’s writers decided were best for consumption.  I can’t watch these folk either as their exceptionally high opinion of themselves is balanced only by narratives crafted to appeal to the least intellectually capable among us.

I’ll not go into a rant on Trump, not because he’s not worthy of such (God knows he’s earned it), but because over the last 8 years everything that can be said of him has been.  Suffice to say that I perceive him to be his own icon.

Prompted by the faceless many who’s personal gain is dependent on the conflict, the rift in our society predicably expands.  The ever-present barbarians have paused pounding on our gates; they are as enthralled by the circus as our own citizenry.  Their deadly beat will resume with great intensity should our affliction falter. Until then they are satisfied with watching us chase our tail with Red Sea pirates, or mired in endless sand traps spread across the most logistically unsupportable environs on the planet. 

Chance did not bring us to this precipice.

An Unraveling

What the hell are they putting in the water in Chi Town? A better question may be who in their right mind would choose to live there.

Meanwhile, in KC. . .

This behavior is (please think this through) not only acceptable, but also preferable to the alternative: a Kensington like existence. Somewhere in the back of there uneducated minds there is the nagging premonition that they must either act out/up or drift into the life of a zombie. A very real possibility.

This is the America that awaits those who place their trust in institutions.

When the Message is Undisputed, Shoot the Messenger

From Reuters: Russian media on Friday published a 38-minute recording of a call in which German officers were heard discussing weapons for Ukraine and a potential strike by Kyiv on a bridge in Crimea, prompting Russian officials to demand an explanation.

On Saturday, Germany called it an apparent act of eavesdropping and said it was investigating.

“The incident is much more than just the interception and publication of a conversation … It is part of an information war that (Russian President Vladimir) Putin is waging,” Defence Minister Boris Pistorius said on Sunday.

“It is a hybrid disinformation attack. It is about division. It is about undermining our unity.”

All of this may be so, but the elephant no one wants to speak of is that there is no secure communications channel in Deutschland. I wonder what other wonderful tidbits the Russians have harvested from these folk.

Keystone Comrades

On one hand this is absolutely hilarious . . .

. . . on the other hand it won’t be long until US forces face the same crisis in planning, leadership, and execution as the Brits now do.

Until then, here’s to our keystone comrades in arms!

Greenies: Hunkered Down While the Fires Burn

If you were to sharpen your pencils and calculate the amount of carbon released annually from fires world wide, you’d soon realize just how ridiculous and nefarious this ‘man made climate change’ scheme really is. This is not to say that the highbrows and pencil necks within august group won’t/don’t pin this tremendous release of carbon on man (they will/do). But not very loudly as the globalization scheme they are pushing gains no traction when the ‘marks’ (us) realize that climate is going to go one way (or another, or both ways) all of it’s own volition. The climate is going to go where the climate is going to go and nothing that we can do is going to change that.

Combating climate change has never been about climate change; it’s been about restructuring the societies and controlling populations. Climate change is the crisis/catalyst that moves great nations to destroy themselves. On a scale less grand it is greed and/or self actualization (think Maslow’s tip of the triangle) that motivates a person within a nations power structure to use hot/cold/wet/dry as the means to an end. Bending the will of the peon for these folks is a good thing.

The good news is that once they can get the great republics to fall technology will have been developed to the point that every individual can be easily manipulated to act in whatever manner the state feels is best for the state. China’s development and implementation of ‘social credit scores’ regimens provides a solid foundation to build out a effective and ubiquitous system capable of rewarding/punishing at the whim of ‘our betters’.

Speaking of China, I’m pretty damn sure that they are quiet pleased with the trajectory that our world wide body’s are hell bent on taking (centralization/control) and with their own technological achievements. Good to know that things are coming together nicely for some.

There’s a New S_. _. _t In Town

There is a new sheriff slut in town. She’s going to taint up that quiet little conclave of moral conservatism known as ‘country’.

My view is that this genre brought it on themselves; once Miley Cyrus, and her tongue, got a few pedo’s ‘richard’ hard she earned a hard pass into the community.

From there it was only a matter of time before the walls fell and folk that obviously had no place in country could spring a few dollars on a song writer and presto/chango they were a star.

The road less traveled is about to get mighty crowded as all manner of creatures rush to capitalize on the latest crash of civility. So it goes.

A Paradoxical Tone

I found a great read in the Oxford Handbook of Synoptic Gospels on the character of the Gospel of Thomas. It’s interesting that a handbook on the synoptic would focus on a gospel that isn’t one, but I guess that’s just the kind of world we live in.

Here is a paraphrase (of sorts) on the first few pages of Malissa Hart Sellew’s very insightful treatment of Thomas v the synoptic(s).

The frequent use of paradox and of contrasting symbols and images, leading at times to outright contradiction, a feature found throughout Thomas, coupled with the lack of interpretive narrative context or framings, forces readers to think for themselves. Many of the instances of this same paradoxical tone are found in the Synoptics: [my note: remember what she is talking to is those instances were paradoxical tone is use, not all instances of similar topics/subject/narrative]

Thomas 4b: “Many who are first will become last” (Mark 10:31) (Matt 19:30; 20:16) (Luke 13:30). Thomas 5b: “There is nothing hidden that will not be made manifest” (Mark 4:22) (Matt 10:26) (Luke 8:17; 12:2). Thomas 20: “The smallest of all seeds … produces a great plant” (Mark 4:32) (Matt 13:32) (Luke 13:19). Thomas 54: “Blessed are the poor, for yours is the Kingdom of Heaven” (Luke 6:20) (Matt 5:3). Thomas 68a: “Blessed are you when you are hated and persecuted” (Luke 6:22) (Matt 5:11)

Thomas takes this tendency of ‘spinning out oppositions’ further: Thomas 3: “The Kingdom is inside of you and it is outside of you”. Thomas 18: “Have you discovered the beginning that you look for the end?”

Contrasting pairs of darkness and light, body and soul, flesh and spirit, above and below are woven throughout the text (especially Thomas 22) as it calls its readers to look away from their material existence to find their authentic spiritual character.

Her thought provoking assessment and narrative is (here) and it should take you to Chapter 12 (page 223) of the handbook.

And Now the Video

Yesterday I posted a brief note about the cop who mistook a falling acorn for a gun shot. Today we have the video. I’m a law and order kinda guy, but there are some folk that should not be allowed to carry.

Note to self: this guy resigned from the force, but is probably still walking around as a concealed carry.

It’s a dangerous world out there folks.

News/Confessions/Reviews

I should have known she would kiss and tell. Next time I’m going for a non-disclosure agreement as God knows I don’t need any trouble from the regulators in the fertility industry.

Misguided? Do you think? I can just imagine the look on the faces of the ICE guys when they patted him down.

He wouldn’t have robbed Macy’s if they had hung him last time.

You’ll recall that Rachel had a little trouble with both her heritage and her integrity a while back. I can’t understand what school district thought it would be a good idea to have someone like her around the kiddies, but apparently they did. I wonder how many of her associates went delinquent on their union dues in order to have her school them on Onlyfans.

I can think of a thousand of things to say on this, but not one of them does topic the justice it deserves. I guess we can expect to see marches in the street proclaiming Oak Trees Matter.

What struck me first about this headline was the over the top portrayal of the firm she honcho’d is/was an American enterprise. A little digging showed why: she is the younger sister of Elaine Chou; the wife of Mitch McConnell and former Secretary of Labor and former Secretary of Transportation.

My sympathy to the family, but this over the top portrayal of her enterprise has me asking why all of the effort?

NY’s 3rd and Why It Doesn’t Matter

The outcome of that race didn’t matter for two reason: It was a blue on blue contest (thanks to the reds) and AI is going bring us to our bony knees anyway.

Who was the Republican contestant in NY 3rd congressional district? Why it was a registered Democrat of course. Her name: Mazi Melesa Pilip. Ms Pilip, a registered democrat hails from Ethiopia and more recently from Israel.

Her husband was born in the Ukraine; small world isn’t it. Wiki says he’s an American-Ukrainian-Jewish medical student from a family of Holocaust survivors who had come from the United States to Haifa to study medicine at the Technion, later becoming a cardiologist. I can relate, as I have similar background (having been born in Virginia, am quasi Christian, and now live in Tennessee).

Back to Ms Mazi and the purpose of this lengthy drivel; The R’s in New York didn’t care anything about her politics, which way she would vote, or what crap they were hoisting on the rest of the country as long as they could get a check-mark in the W column. Besides that, they get extra points and a whole lotta boxes checked for selecting a woman, of African origin, who’s Jewish. Hell they even get point for inclusion by nominating a D to represent the R party.

This is the NY’s 3rd Congressional district. I’m pretty sure the R’s, both within this congressional district and within leadership positions at the national level, knew that this seat was toast.  What most of us commoners didn’t (and probably still don’t recognize) is that regardless of who won the special election in NY’s 3rd, it was a seat absolutely going to flip blue because you cannot, and I mean absolutely cannot find someone who is more RINO than a registered Democrat running as a Republican.

As for the district, it’s area of about 20 by 20 (400 square miles) made up of concrete and road signs. That’s about 2000 residents per square mile. It has about 100,000 more souls calling it home than the entire state of Wyoming where they have a land area of 97,818 square miles, or about 6 folk per square miles. Wyoming has one representative for the entire state. Which brings me to my second point; AI.

I wondered how large Wyoming was and searched on Yahoo. Here is what the wizard AI provided at the top of the page. Before you saw any other answer from any other source.

Somebody needs to grab a keyboard and start smashing it into the servers. Rip a few plugs out of the wall and teach this latest stone added to the pavement on our road to doom that there are 50 states. I could get a China-man with an abacus and a rotary phone to provide answers and get the results faster and more accurately than the pencil necks that have pushed this taint upon us.

I’m telling you, no good is going to come from having this ignorance available at your fingertips.

A High Demand for the Biased and Ignorant

Not many objective folk left in this country. Of those that are not many are tooled with a solid foundation in ‘civics’. (For those born in the last 50 years, ‘civics’ was a mandatory high school course that taught students how our government works.) If we add a third logical qualifier of ‘not stupid’ (something, by the way, that we are not allowed to measure) the number of Americans well qualified to participate in our representative democracy chokes down to roughly 311K or 0.09 percent (0.00088) of the 350,000,000 (or so) population of the United States.

I’ll not bore you with the math, but if you start with 350M and begin removing those not US citizens, those not of age, felons, disinclined to vote, not objective, unschooled in civics, those that vote on the race of the candidate (which I’ve considered differently than being non-objective) and those that are just plain stupid you’ll end up with a number like 310,918.

If those 310,918, assuming voting patterns mime Gallop’s profile of the electorate, 42 percent are independent and 29 and 27 percent(s) are Democrats and Republicans respectively. The unclaimed 4 percent belong to the green/communist/socialist/mariannewilliamson/etc party.

The American Electorate

What all of this means, essentially, is that candidates in both parties are vying for the votes of those least qualified to choose a good leader. They campaign accordingly. Everything you see or hear about any candidate is either designed to influence the closed minded, ignorant and uninformed idiot/bigot or to keep them that way. If you find yourself agreeing with one of those 30 second ad spots you may want to think about what they said that has enamored you to their cause.

Ads, with fain attempts at ridicule, such as the one below are perfect for what they were designed for: keeping the sheep tightly within the confines of the flock. It ridicules the other side and, as an added bonus (for those not paying close attention), shit-cans the idea of a bicameral legislature by laying the blame for dysfunction at the feet of the ‘Republican Congress’.

Playing to the prejudices of their constituents has, unfortunately, become the hallmark of American politics: that folks is what diversity brings to the table.

Unwashed | Ubiquity

Produced for the consumption of unwashed masses. By highlighting the failure(s) of these innocuous platforms many (most?) will chalk this up as another proof that the promise of technology is both empty and harmless.

These clumsy physical objects are kept in the public’s eye, while the non-visible cyber technology blasts it’s way toward ubiquity unobserved. The physical bots distract us from the nefarious bots and their relentless march.

OK, time to go back to sleep and to the comfort of my ignorance.

It Begins

I’m really of two minds on this whole immigration/migration thingy. I’ll not go into that forest here and now, but I will say that it is utterly insane not allow these folks the ability to support themselves (think work permits) and then complain that they are a drag on the public treasury.

With that thought behind us, just wait until similarly minded folk discover the wonders of firearms. There is a great upheaval brewing and I’ll bet dollars to donuts that the big city politicians will find a way to ignore the evolution/revolution on their streets until it explodes.

About Time | Improving LCP Target Acquisition

After several years of practicing, I’ve finally came to the realization that there is no way that I’ll be able to knock down a threat with my 380 before it closes the distance on me.  Truth be known, a threat wouldn’t really have to break a sweat getting to me as it takes that damn long to pull the pistol from my pocket, focus on the sights, and gain a sight picture with a Ruger LCP.  The sights are tiny and the length of the pistol is minuscule.  I had accepted that everyday my carry was only good for distances within the reach of bad breath. 

Stock Ruger LCP

To improve my speed, I’ve gone to 6+1 (carry with one in the chamber).  Pretty dangerous for a weapon with no external safety.  Theoretically the ‘safety’ is provided by the cloth holster it comes with:  you cannot pull the trigger through the cloth. 

As bad as it is/was there is no way I would consider a concealed carry that is any heavier or larger.  That old sag about a concealed carry being no good unless you carry it still holds true.  

Now it came to pass, after these several years, the holster had all but given up the ghost. I went online to see what was available and how many kidneys I was going to need to give up and I was surprised to find that every mom and pop outfit on the mainland of China produces holsters for a LCP and about half of them produce holsters for LCPs outfitted with laser optics. 

Ruger LCP with Viridian E Series Laser Sight

Laser optics for a LCP?  I had no idea.  Laser optics that are available for under a hundred dollars and weighing in at less than 8/10th of an once? I’m all in.

For the holster I chose one that’s ‘convertible’ and can be used either as pocket carry holster or a ‘Inside the Waist Band’ (IWB) holster. made by DOTM (stands for Don’t Tread On Me) Pocket/IWB Holster.  20 Bucks.

The holster comes with two retainer clips that change the height of the carry along the waist or it can be quickly removed for pocket carry. It weighs in at a little more than an once.

I see some more ‘range time’ in my future, lets see if I can get the time to engage a target down to something I can measure with a watch (vice a calendar).

Finally

I feel like I’ve crossed the finish line of a long challenging race. Today, at 9:01 the temp got above freezing for the first time in more than a week.

With some luck the driveway will be clear enough tomorrow to permit passage.

A Predictable Outcome | Sports Illustrated

Looks like Sports Illustrated has finally succumbed to their own wokeness and is forced to fire it’s entire staff.  They missed a $2.8M payment and breached their licensing agreement.

Ok, the burkeni was bad. I mean bad, bad. But it got worse: After all of that straight male shaming and pushing clearly unhealthy models on a gasping (I mean I was gasping) public they’ve gone down in flames.  The union the employees belonged to took it hard and is demanding that they continue publication of the rag.

I guess when they ran out of ladies in the plus sizes willing to put it all out there they went with the crowd that, to the man, was hugged to much as a child. One problem they should have saw coming with these girly-mans is/was they were all clamoring for the spotlight at the same time.

The owners of the debt are very unhappy with the chaos, multiple leadership changes, elimination of top staff, insufferable articles written by artificial intelligence.  The obvious fixation on plus-sized and trans models in the swimsuit issues was not helpful. 

If we had done a Barney Fife (nipped it in the bud) we wouldn’t have a world filled with these great wonders

This Guy Gets It | An Argentine Treasure

Comments/Speech begins at around the 6 minute mark.

I seriously doubt that the WEF knew the contents of his speech before he began. It they had then I expect that they would have prevented him from pooh-poohing on their socialist designs.

While we can score one for freedom, I expect that Vegas is now carrying a line on how long this guy lasts before going tits up.