I’m writing this post because I’m tired. As in “I’m sick and tired” and you know what that means in the mouth of a woman my age.
Now we live in dispiriting times – all times are dispiriting which is why religious people hold out for a transformational miracle that will make humanity get over its most trying faults – and sometimes it seems like the enemies of freedom are on the ascendant everywhere, and you should just lie down and give up the fight.
Which is exactly what they want you to do, and why they first took care to take over all the means of communication and even of entertainment, from the symbolic and visual to that involving story and ideas. Which is why they’re so terrified of parade floats out in the middle of nowhere.
They want you to feel isolated, hopeless, and like they’re geniuses bringing all their plans to fruition with perfect brilliance.
And people buy this. Most of you, judging by the comments on this Andrew Klavan piece.
I don’t often agree with Klavan. Or, no, that’s not precisely true. I don’t often agree with his approach or tone to things we at least in general agree on. However, that article was absolutely spot on, and perfectly right and it was a relief to hear it aloud outside my head.
If you need me to explain it, geniuses of planning and legislation aren’t in dire need of controlling every bit of their public image. This is why the US in the past was not very good at it, and why people in Europe thought life in the USSR must be better, because both countries were putting their best foot forward, right?
We didn’t care that much, because when people dealt with us up close, the truth became quite obvious. BUT the USSR had to control every bit of their propaganda so people wouldn’t guess at the rotting carcass of horrible that their system really was, and how bad they really were at planning.
In fact, taking over every form of mass media of any image-making stuff is always the first priority of leftist governments because they’re really fanatical putzes selling themselves as geniuses and because reality – that meany – inevitably fails to conform to their expectations.
Yes, I know, the vultures of doom will swoop into my comments like they swooped onto Klavan’s. There will be Alinsky this and rules for radicals that. And how it’s all working perfectly. PERFECTLY.
I’m not going to deny that this wrecking crew is running a job on our country. What I’m going to deny is that they’re geniuses or even that as much of a wrecking job as they’re doing is necessarily because they want it so.
(Sighs) Look guys, we’re dealing with red diaper babies, mostly. Red diaper babies are people who were brought up in communism as though it were a religion.
The problem with taking communism and putting it in the box marked religion is that it has all the characteristics of religion save for the redemptive factors. It stole the narrative of religion (and before the usual idiots yell at me that the people in the administration are socialists, not communists, bah. In Europe everyone who wasn’t a member of the two parties knew perfectly well the difference between them. “ Socialist is what communists say they are before they have absolute power.” They’re a Marxism of the same color) but without the transformational event (the return/arrival of the Messiah, the transformation of the world by divine power) what we get is a desperate attempt to try to fit their theological frame work to reality-as-it-is.
This is important to remember. Religious people fit their religious narrative to the world-plus-divine-grace or to an after life in which we’re all redeemed and beyond our worst dinosaurian tendencies.
The communists don’t. They just tell themselves that once evil – capitalism and profit – is removed from the world, humans will be different. (If you don’t think this is true, then you never read their tiresome nattering about Homo Sovieticus back when they still tried to justify their nonsense.) But capitalism (as in barter, trade and self interest) are intrinsic parts of being human and can’t be removed without killing society (and the humans that compose it.) And even then, capitalism and the humans that remain only go underground.
In this way Communism is akin to a religion that decided the human brain was the offending organ, without which we’d all live in unending bliss. The truth is that once you remove the brain the human no longer offends, because it no longer does anything but decompose.
So all of communism’s narrative: once there was a society of perfect sharing, without trade or self interest.>Capitalism somehow entered the world>Capitalism gets removed from the world >paradise ensues is a-priori and a-posteriori too, for that matter (they do a lot of pulling stuff out of their posteriori) a system of beliefs that denies reality. And the more the system fails in the real world, the more it denies reality. It has to, because the alternative is to stop believing in the system. And while people who “converted” as adults might be able to do this, or at least to come to a cynical position vis-à-vis communism, where they acknowledge its failures but still think it’s the best, or at least the best for them, people who have been raised in it CAN’T. They either walked away in adolescence or, if they stayed, if they’re the good kids who bought the whole thing hook line and sinker, walking away in mid-life would destroy them. It would break apart their entire ability to see an interpret things.
And that’s what we’re dealing with in the current administration. Sure, of course they’re destroying things on purpose. They’re convinced America is the embodiment of capitalism, and once it’s removed from the world equality and flowers will ensue. Everything they were taught (yeah, the progressives took over education LONG ago) tells them so. So, yeah, they’re taking Alinsky’s methods and destroying everything with remarkable success.
In fact, they’re succeeding beyond their wildest dreams.
You see, they didn’t want to destroy EVERYTHING. They want to make sure they and the other “good people” remain in control, which means they want to discredit capitalism, while making people believe in the benevolent hand of (their) government and the caring of people like them for “the little people.”
And at that they’re failing spectacularly. Because they’re not geniuses. They’re poor, foolish deluded fanatics, who have been sold a line of bull.
Look, guys, their first attempt at the proletarian revolution was Occupy Wall Street. They are so out of touch with reality that they thought once the economy started pinching we’d all join goons who poop on police cars and camp in parks, to put the hurt on the 1%. Because the economy is a closed system, and if they have that much, they stole it from us, and we know it, and for years, we’ve been seething and wanting to take it back. So once someone pointed the inequity to us, we’d just jump on it, right?
Their attempt at gun control involved flooding Mexico with American guns, so that Americans would give up their guns, so that Mexicans wouldn’t kill each other with the guns. (Like the guns are some form of totemistic animal that kills on its own.)
They really, really, really expected their foreign policy to work, too. Because of course, other countries are less capitalist and therefore “peace loving.” They expected that raising Muslim self-esteem would stop Muslim aggression, too. Because they think of the world as sort of a really large kindergarten and they believe bullies bully because they lack self esteem.
There is no contact between their beliefs and reality. If what they believed were true, then they’d get the results they want, but they don’t get those results and can’t figure out what’s wrong, because they can’t question their foundational beliefs.
The current attempt to flood the country with the very young and very poor of Southern parts of the Americas is an exceedingly gifted clusterf*ck that tells you they’ve completely lost their grip on reality. They gained it long enough to figure out that the poor of Latin America were no longer coming in like they used to and are in fact leaving, thanks to their craptastic handling of the economy. This could not be allowed, because, well, you know, the proletarians of the third world are supposed to come in and take over America and make it VIBRANT because that’s what’s supposed to happen. The brown people are supposed to inherit the Earth because exploited. (There isn’t much sense in any of it. They’re religious beliefs, meant to be taken on faith.)
So they’ve engineered it to bring in waves of “children” because they know Americans like children and have trouble turning them away.
I’m not sure what they expect to happen, but if I had to guess, as far as vote fraud goes they might have a point. They’re bringing in that many warm bodies with no right to vote, but the ability to vote anyway, unless we get serious about voter fraud.
But I don’t think that’s their plan. I think their plan is fuzzy and strange and hinges on “they’re brown, so socialism will work with them.”
As someone who tans and who when tanned can give our president a run for the money on the “brown” stakes: You are mistaken. This is as crazy as all your other beliefs.
What I see coming of this ranges from the truly epic blow up at the polls and a serious determination to police voter IDs, to a financial crash and actual civil conflagration. (Why conflagration, nor war? Because I think it will be very, very short. It’s entirely possible Obama thinks bringing in Latin teenagers means he has shock troops, but the fact is that untrained, undisciplined teenagers will melt if people get serious about defending themselves. And people will if it comes to blows.)
In any case, most of these children, I suspect, will end up leaving again, voluntarily, particularly as the economy gets worse (and if you think it’s getting better, there’s this bridge in Brooklyn I’d like to sell you. It’s cheap. We’re only getting rid of it because we don’t like the paint job. We only used it to go to church on Sundays.)
Which is how progressives are not, nor have ever been geniuses. I don’t doubt some of them have high IQs (though not certain people who carefully hide all such information) but they are unable to see reality because of their ideology. And when you can’t see reality, what you’re employing your reasoning skills on is a dream that makes a mockery of your logic.
To buy into the narrative that they’re destroying everything because they’re geniuses and everything is going according to plan is to be as delusional as they are.
Things aren’t going according to their plan, and they’re destroying everything because given their beliefs they can’t HELP destroying everything. When their beliefs meet reality, poverty and misery ensue. It’s what they do.
But that doesn’t mean that after that they can build their thousand year progressive reich. The ultimate far-off longevity of these systems seems to be seventy years, give or take, after which they devolve into either crony capitalism or hereditary monarchies. And even those probably wouldn’t subsist without the existence of the United States as an engine of prosperity keeping some stability and enough material goods that even broke ass countries stay afloat.
Making the leap from “They’re destroying everything” to “they’ll win” is sort of like saying “the wrecking crew has demolished the hovel. They’ll now build a skyscraper.” It’s two very different sets of skills and mind sets needed for each phase.
Our daft rulers don’t care about it, because they “know” the result of their actions. You destroy capitalism, perfect communism ensues, world without end.
But that has never worked anywhere except in their religious tracts. In fact, it is the remnants of capitalism (as in black market etc) that keep communism afloat to the extent it floats. Oh, and help from capitalist countries.
So, yeah, the current wrecking crew are going to leave us standing in the middle of the rubble. And it’s going to hurt like h*ll. That’s what happens when you give leftist-theocrats the run of the real world.
But they’re destroying EVERYTHING, even the things they care for. And their importing of young people won’t save them because most of these young people aren’t the destitute peasants of their imagination. Frankly, most young people come here for the goodness of Capitalist America and the benes of the unrestrained welfare state (they don’t know the two are antithetical.)
Once the later crashes the first, they leave.
And then? And then we rebuild. We have to.
Because that’s what we do. They wreck. We rebuild.
We’re the building crew. Can we build from this? Oh, sure. We’ll find a way. Once they’re done, their solutions will be discredited for at least a generation. (It’s too much to hope they’ll be discredited forever, though it could happen.) And then we can clear away the mess and work. Some of us are working already and build under.
They’re not geniuses. And to be fair, neither are most of us. But we have experience living in reality, not in some Marxist fairytale. And so we can see cause and consequence.
Which is not a bad foundation for a society.
Be not afraid!
In the end, we win, they lose.
According To Hoyt 
And then? And then we rebuild. We have to.
Because that’s what we do. They wreck. We rebuild.
This is the teddy bear I cling to at night.
It’s frustrating and irritating and infuriating to watch perfectly good things torn down. But we’ll rebuild. I could do without the assaults and restrictions and criminal government, but it’s coming down and we’ll rebuild.
So, stock up on skills and get ready.
Well, the good news (if you can bring yourself to see it that way) is that the things that are being torn down are not, by and large, the things that have been “perfectly good” in living memory.
I’m thinking of getting MOR LOCK as a knuckle tattoo. But I’d have to lose a finger for it to work.
How about “MORL OCKS”?
….now envisioning a steampunk/gaslamp biker gang.
*jaw drops* This is a thing that must happen! Dave, what do you think?
Fits in with the short I wrote for the Baen thing. Well. Honestly, I’d probably set it in a diesel-punk time period. Or – hmmmm. Nah, leave it steampunk, but I’d have to come up with a way for roads to be good. Really good. That’s about the only thing that makes a group like a genuine biker gang possible. Y’know, rather than clubs of folks who happen to ride bikes. Hmmm. In a gaslamp setting, you can use magic to shore up infrastructure. Perhaps …
I shall have to think more on this when I have time. Current WiP needs all the attentions.
Okay, story is cool too, but I’m talking cosplay!
Oh. Right. Well, that’s gonna get expensive quick. Even with access to all the thrift stores in a good-sized city.
Some sort of techno-organic road builders? You’d want it crowned, so…. they roads are kind of their tunnel system, and towns/cities/houses “feed” them so they’ll show up….
Probably just do it somewhat like current tech, but with magic or magical “technology” substituting for modern precision machining, internal combustion, etc.
Hm…. Replace chrome with polished brass, brown leather instead of black, more sharp or blocky stylizing rather than flowing, put wood or bone pattern fittings instead of rubber….
What the heck does an ox’s morals have to do with anything?
Damn straight, Sarah! Obama’s an inept zealot. There’s a reason this is the most scandal-embroiled administration in US history. Yes, they are corrupt. Yes, they’re good at manipulating the system to cause havoc. What they never understand, though, is that the US isn’t Chicago. Eventually the producers get fed up with meaningless rhetoric without results, and get tired of paying more and more in taxes to support those who WON’T work to support themselves. It’s their understanding of human nature that’s flawed.
Yes, they’ll create chaos aplenty. But eventually another election cycle will happen, and they’ll be kicked to the curb in favor of someone who will promise to stop the welfare payments to the able-bodied. It will get ugly, but it will get better.
For that election cycle to work there must be a viable alternative. We really have not seen any such choice in a long time. As long as we are inflicted with the scourge of career politicians who rise almost exclusively from that tainted twisted subculture we know as lawyers, they will continue to pander to greedy low information voters to preserve at all cost their ridiculously cushy positions in government “service.”
My biggest concern: not that we will rebuild, but _how long_ until a there is someone with enough clear thinking and leadership to inspire a preference cascade to get enough of us building out of the shattered mess?
I don’t think it’ll be this year. 2016, however, may be enough of a mess that people go “Democrats? No way – no how.”
And we’ll get Jeb!
We’ve done worse. And we’re doing it now.
What, you’d prefer President Fauxahontas?
I’d prefer no Jeb, no Christie, no Warren, no Clinton, no Biden. I’d prefer someone with half a brain. I know, I know. And the moon too.
Ted Cruz or keep him in the Senate?
I’d be okay with Cruz. I’d be okay with Paul. I’d take Perry, though with close scrutiny — yes, I have Texan friends.
Yeah, Perry calls for scrutiny. But I’d take him in a heartbeat over Fauxcahontas or Hildebeast.
There are plenty I would find acceptable, although I kinda like the thought of Dems having to deal with Jindal, he of the caramel skin and good ol’ boy accent.
Pretty good track record on executive experience, too.
Jindal, or Martinez from New Mexico. She’s doing a decent job as best I can tell. Or both and watch the VileProg heads explode.
The Moon? Wait – you want a we-? Um. Ok, I’ll agree that a werewolf probably WOULD be better than that list. Never mind.
If Earl Harbinger can manage to keep MHI running all these years, it should be simple for him to manage Washington.
Frankly, I’m wondering if Reid and Pelosi are vampires, myself. They certainly seem to be doing their best to suck the life out of the country.
yep. Earl Harbinger 😉
Somebody should tell Larry to start selling T-shirts emblazoned with “Earl Harbinger for President.”
I was just going through the IMDB listing of male actors of an appropriate age (mid-40’s) to play Harbinger, but your comment clinched the nominee for me: Mike Rowe.
Oooo…that’s — unexpected. But I like it!
Perfect and Adam Baldwin as Owen.
I was thinking Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson.
Adam Baldwin can act.
Adam looks nothing like a young Larry; which is how I picture Owen.
😦
Emily, I can totally see that.
Nah, Adam Baldwin and the Rock are both too attractive. Features are waaaay too regular. Owen’s supposed to be fairly ugly before he gets mauled by his were-boss. Also, huge, which either of those guys could do. He’s also at least part polynesian, and so should be *ahem* well-tanned. And huge. I imagine the scars would be a matter of makeup…
I always imagine him as almost Sumo-like in his breadth. Perhaps an exaggeration, but Baldwin’s to slender, and the Rock too ripped. Unfortunately I don’t have a good suggestion to replace either of those.
Larry C. could play Owen.
It would be fairly easy to make The Rock less attractive– without even hurting that expressive face beyond what the “scars” would do.
It doesn’t take much of a bulge on one side or the other to make someone ugly.
Truth: it’s often more about asymmetry than actual ugliness. I guess I just get tired of shows where even the “ugly” people are pretty.
Or just wear glasses, or no makeup, or look better BEFORE their “transformation” into Barbie.
I’m in full agreement with that.
I forgot all about the ugly part, but I thought The Rock was big enough…
Is he a good enough actor?
YMMV, but I don’t actually think it would take a great actor to play Owen.
I’m creating a “reply button” here and hoping it inserts in about the proper place.
As it happens, some of the casting came up in discussion with Larry in the halls of Congregate (“A Great Place To Con”) and he said that there had been serous interest in the books by The Rock’s production company, but the rights are already held by a company Larry wouldn’t disclose. When he chided them about all the money he wouldn’t make from the sales boost they apparently disclosed to Larry their plans and all he could say was “If/When it gets made your socls are going to be blown off!”
At any rate, Larry is apparently cool with The Rock as Owen. I suggested Baldwin for Harbinger (right virtual age and is very good at playing barely repressed rage) to which Larry replied that Adam’s a friend and he’d be great to work with.
He also discussed his “visualization” of characters while writing as being based on actors living and dead, giving as an example the lead character in his follow-up novella & trilogy for the Grimnoir Chronicles, which will be set in the Fifties and feature Joe Sullivan, the son of Jake and Lady Origami. When you read Joe, he advised, think of that decade’s Frank Sinatra.
I will confess to using actors and actresses, past and present in order to visualize some of my characters. I didn’t know that was quite so common a device.
I suspect it is — and not just for writers. I would swear the reader for Citizen of the Galaxy based his realization of old Baslim the Cripple on Sean Connery — there is just the faintest hint of that Scots’ burr in some of his vowels when he reads the character.
I also suspect that the number of authors who have never played the “They’ve not only given me oodles of moolah to base a movie on my story, they’re giving me casting control; who do I want for …” is a very short list.
ME! I can count the actors I could recognize on the fingers of one hand.
You never cast an actor as ugly as the actual character.
You do, after all, have to LOOK AT the guy throughout the moive.
“ME! I can count the actors I could recognize on the fingers of one hand.”
Me too.
Someone who took Statistics 101.
I picked Cruz because he’s already in DC and hasn’t RINOed. He’s done well in DC.
Definitely no Clinton or Biden. No Warren. Christie’s iffy – I’m not sure where he’s really standing on some things, but at least he’s relatively firm and forthright on some issues.
Jeb… yeah. Much as I dislike intensely the idea of political dynasties, it’s kind of hard to argue with his record. He at least has governing experience, which Biden, Clinton, and Warren are all lacking.
Cruz, Jindal, Perry, West – Those, I think, would work. Ben Carson – much as I like the man, he doesn’t have governing experience. If he was the candidate, I’d support him – but I don’t think he’ll get the nod.
The next couple of elections are going to be interesting indeed.
Not sure that Christy would be much of an improvement over Biden or Clinton. Maybe not quite as bad ideologically, but not a heck of a lot better, and he is more competent, so he would be more likely to get stuff accomplished.
Competent is only good when it is on your side.
I would like to see a West/Palin ticket (or Palin/West, I don’t care) but I don’t think it will ever happen.
My concern is what will get built.
I don’t think it will look anything like a representative republic. There’s to many who *want* a theocracy or a communist state.
Naw. Just vocal ones.
S’truth. Most Americans still just want to be left alone to do their thing. See the entire history of our society. I can’t tell the number of people I know who out and out lie to the census folks, who won’t give a straight answer to a pollster, who won’t sign any kind of petition. Anything that smacks of authority gets a very veiled finger (not always veiled, really) and disinformation. Why else is tax fraud so rampant? Why do people throw money at investments, and tax havens? There are likely a lot of people who wouldn’t fight a theocracy, as long as it was their theocracy. And most importantly, if it didn’t bother them. Yeah, there are a bunch of whiners, but the CDC just released the results of a survey (here’s yer “grain” of salt, one each. Look, if you didn’t bring yer own wheelbarrow, that ain’t my fault, bub.) making the claim that 1.6% (give or take a tenth of a percent) of Americans claim to be homosexual. Of which a very small vocal portion makes all the noise. /shrug
IF things fell apart enough – and I don’t see it happening (not that I won’t prepare for such an occurrence, mind you) – you’d get pockets, at best.
. I can’t tell the number of people I know who out and out lie to the census folks, who won’t give a straight answer to a pollster, who won’t sign any kind of petition.
The folks who call (sometimes with a blocked number) and identify as Gallup polling have finally stopped calling, after only three requests to remove my number and three reports to the gov’t about them violating the no-call list.
Why the BLEEP would I give information to someone on the phone just because they say “Hi, I’m from Gallup”?
“Hi! I’m from Gallup, and I just have a few questions for you. The results of this survey could CHANGE THE COURSE OF HUMAN EVENTS FOR-EVAAARRRR, and bythewayIalsoneedyourbankccountnumbersandcreditcardinformationkthxbai.”
Ranks right up there with, “I’m from the government, and I’m here to help you.”
IMO the ones who want a theocracy are too few to worry about. On the other hand, some people have weird definitions of theocracy.
Funny isn’t it, how thew leftists carry on about the threat of a Christian Theocracy, and ignore the promised Islamic theocracy.
Christians won’t riot or cut off their heads when we’re “disrespected”. Muslims will.
We’re seeing them, just mostly at the local or state level. It’s hard to filter through the big-party political maze much higher than that, although some in the federal arena show some promise. We’ll see how they turn out.
Don’t forget my man Ted Cruz! He’s no RINO, he even has the Chris Muir seal of approval.
You’re word in G*d’s ear – that’s the hope that I cling to myself.
But I’m in Texas, the last best hope – and likely the place where it will get really bad, due to being on the border. Trent Telenko at Chicagoboyz had a post up last week about how TB is endemic among the Central American impoverished classes that are currently streaming over the border, and how it can easily spread.
http://chicagoboyz.net/archives/44047.html
Scary stuff – and the fact that these kids and teenagers are being spread all over the place makes one wonder if setting off epidemics isn’t one more means of crashing the system, or at least damaging it significantly.
It comes back to the old question about this administration – incompetence or deliberate malice.
They’re not mutually exclusive, as I tried to prove.
and inextricably intermingled. The incompetence at thinking clearly results in (for many of them) not seeing their intentions as malicious.
Affected ignorance does not mitigate guilt. If anything it aggravates it, because of the hardness of heart entailed.
It’s probably both Celia.
“Yes.” Would that they were incompetent as they are malicious. However, despite the media black-out, more and more people are realizing that they are not alone: the wave of protests blocking the arrival of the busses of illegals, the two new documentaries coming out about popular protests and about disillusioned former O supporters, the quiet hissing over Costco pulling DeSouza’s book because the boss doesn’t like DeSouza’s politics, and so on. These are great signs, much like the rise of indie authors and the infrastructure to support us. We’re kinda like the thistles of Scotland – small, but numerous and thus eventually mighty.
I commend to you ‘A pict’s Song’ by Kipling.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gADbyXJy1M Tune by Leslie Fish.
Or O has just found a nice way to line his pockets and live off other people. The ideology may be mostly just a tool and he doesn’t really care all that much for it one way or the other, apart from what it does to him, personally. But since it got him where he is, which is the highest spot he can get (let us presume he will not try a coup but will retire to playing golf full time after the next election), he no longer can afford to distance himself from it. If he bailed now it would not gain him any new support groups, and it would probably drive away the ones he has left, and most likely turn some of them to bitter enemies. If he wants a worry free, comfortably luxurious retirement with some well paid talking tours and partying with the celebrities he has to stick to the plan now. The left seems to draw that type a lot.
Then there are the true believers.
And then there are the ones who have never really paid all that much attention, but go with the flow because it seems to be the flow, and makes them accepted by the herd they’d like to belong in, which is the majority – or what seems like the majority – most times. They don’t like tho stand out in a controversial way. Pretend controversial, sometimes maybe, but really controversial, no. Too much hassle when one does that.
And besides the ‘we care’ rhetoric sounds nicer than what the others are saying.
I guess I’m a bit obsessed with that last group, I have seen so many of them. They irritating part is that they might be converted, at least some of the smarter ones, if you could just make them think, really think, things through. Lots of smart enough people there whose beliefs mostly are just on the surface, and are kept because they are too busy with other things, like living their lives, to really take a look.
Well, easier said than done. But they are also the ones who will start to move away first if things start to change, and they notice that the flow is maybe now on the other direction. They are focused on their own lives, and whatever seems to make it easier to live those there they’ll go.
Also, they can turn fast if they start to think the current system has become a problem for those lives they want to live.
They don’t care much about politics, and many of them don’t really care that much about any ideology, but they do care about the bottom line, and what they can get for their families.
Ummmm … yeah. There are accumulating reports (the latest was in the NY Times this morning, IIRC) about Obama being:
Were he not President, does anyone believe these “rich and celebrated” would party with him?
And we know who’s picking up the tab for those little soirees, do we not?
The bear is loose, apparently.
Anyone else notice “bear” is a Russian animal? Anyone? Buller?
Not the Incurious Media, that’s for sure.
So, Mr. Obama, if you were a construct, and we’re not saying you are, whose construct would you be?
Frank Marshall Davis?
Do I get more than one try?
oh, sure. I meant a country. But that works too.
Hmm. . . Agatha’s?. . . Gil’s?. . . . Klaus’s would not be too bad. . . .
You know — I could be one of Bill’s or Barry’s.
(Golf clap) Well played.
Or slang for a variety of homosexual?
Not that I think Obama qualifies. “Bears” are supposed to be hairy.
And large. That PATHETIC beach picture? Of course, the man is SO delusional, he might think he is.
I thought it might be ironic, y’know? Like calling the tall guy “shorty,” the fat guy “skinny,” and the unbearable guy …
Heh…
Also the CA state animal, and there was a golfer nicknamed “The Golden Bear.”
“they’re brown, so socialism will work with them.”
The irony, of course, is that if that were true, they wouldn’t be _here_. Because the places they’re all so desperate to escape already _have_ socialism.
Yes. Exactly.
Why, you almost sound as if the problem is the socialism, not the people! Sounds revisionist to me, comrade!
And you are a VERY BAD woman, Madame.
wiping the coffee off my keyboard
I have long noticed and mentioned on more than one occasion that it is difficult bordering on impossible to keep any information secret once its existence is known. Given such, it must be that the record of our President’s college achievements (grades, honors, and the like) are so awesome that extra effort has been taken to seal them away so as to prevent the rest of us from feeling inferior in comparison.
He is after all a Nobel laureate, the award bestowed simply for him existing apparently, and do not forget that he’s responsible for all of us getting free medical care and bringing peace and tranquility to the Middle East.
You are a BAD man. 🙂
High praise indeed, young Portagee.
Was bit at an early age by the sarcasm bug, and it still kicks in at the strangest times.
He got the peace prize for getting up in front of the UN and saying “We’re going to get rid of our evil nukes that we keep so that large armies can’t swarm the world!” I’m sure he’ll get another for the lasting peace he has brought to the middle east. Maybe the free health care will get him the prize for medicine?
I think he’s right up there with Stephen Hawking, myself.
Stephen J. Hawking… the guy who’s always having money problems, hitting you up at lunchtime, and telling you how when the boss promotes him to management and he gets a big bonus he’ll pay you back.
And he’s been telling you that for the last five years…
I think I understand Barrack Insane Obama. I had this revelation the other night that, BO’s problem is that everything has been given to him since he was a very young man, and he thinks the world owes him whatever he wants. He thinks that if he demands something, the world will eventually give it to him, because it always has in the past. He has on consideration for compromise, because he’s never had to. His anger at Boehner isn’t that Boehner said something BO didn’t like, but because Boehner won’t roll over and be a lapdog for him. “Narcissistic” doesn’t even BEGIN to explain BO’s problems. Unfortunately, he’s in a place where he can destroy way too much before he’s flushed into the past. Most of what passes for “thought” in BO’s head is what’s put there by Valerie Jarrett. Now THAT woman needs to hang! Tomorrow would be soon enough, but I’d rather have it today.
The problem is that Boehner is a lap dog; he just isn’t a particularly well trained one, and Obama has to raise his voice and repeat the order two or three times, before he rolls over. Obama is used to lap dogs that somebody has had sent to the best obedience schools, before presenting them to him, and doesn’t appreciate ones who don’t do what he wishes at the snap of a finger.
BO stinks, BO stinks, BO stinks!
(Sorry, couldn’t resist.)
bad man.
One of the many things I hope to teach my daughter is it is a heck of a lot harder to build something than to destroy something. I really wish the people on the wrecking crew understood that. Yes, they want the current order destroyed but do they understand just how hard creating a new one is? As Terry Pratchett pointed out “And so the children of the revolution were faced with the age-old problem: it wasn’t that you had the wrong kind of government, which was obvious, but that you had the wrong kind of people.”
“Out of the crooked timber of humanity no straight thing was ever made”
What the revolutionaries fail to understand is that after the Revolution, the Revolutionaries are the first ones up against the wall.
If only. They generally do a number on a lot of innocents first. The Communists purged their ranks in the Moscow show trials and the Cultural Revolution years after they took power — and of course, a tiny handful were the ones in power after.
My impression (and I’m no expert, the subject depresses me) is that in most Communist Revolutions what happens is that thugs and psychopaths gradually take over as the chance of success swells, and then almost immediately institute purges.
My impression is that Thugs and Psychopaths are the only ones who want to START a Communist Revolution.
Revolutionary movements are naturally attractive to anyone who doesn’t fit in, because they let you blame society and fantasize about how you will fit it after the Revolution. Which is why the artists collided hard with reality, because of course after the Revolution they wanted docile propagandists who would write, sculpt, and paint things people could actually stand.
Yep.
“but that you had the wrong kind of people”
Remember that a UK Labour Party document was released that described their immigration policy as being focused on making Britain less British.
“I’m not going to deny that this wrecking crew is running a job on our country. What I’m going to deny is that they’re geniuses or even that as much of a wrecking job as they’re doing is necessarily because they want it so.”
I agree with this, for a reason that I don’t see in your post. Put simply, Barry Lackwit and his Progressive allies f*cked up their plan from the day he took office. They had complete control — House, filibuster-proof Senate majority, and the Oval Office — and what did they do with it? I’ll tell you what they didn’t do with it: they didn’t pass an amnesty-to-citizenship bill right away. Imagine the mess we’d be in if, back in 2010, Congress had passed and Barry had signed a bill that gave immediate amnesty to all illegals, and promised them citizenship and THE VOTE if they kept out of trouble for two years.
But instead, they used that control to pass a health-care bill that could only lead to disaster for them.
Geniuses? Ha.
It’s only a slight exaggeration to say that BHO’s only demonstrable talent is for political campaigning. At every other skill necessary to govern, he has been at best mediocre. Thank God!
Some question as to how much of that is “talent” on Obama’s part and how much of that is the American media being such political tools that they might as well all have “Craftsman” or “Kobalt” stamped on their foreheads. Besides, as far as I can tell Obama’s less a campaigner and more of a finger-pointing demagogue, anyway.
How good a campaigner can O be if he needs a teleprompter?
Good enough to get elected to President twice; of course he had help from the Republicans. They attempted to choose a candidate as far left as they could get, and then wondered why their base didn’t turn out.
He’s a narcissist, so selling himself comes naturally.
Believe it or not, I don’t think they could have passed it.
Maybe some sort of half-way thing, but…yeah, they had to do a LOT of shady-to-flat-illegal stuff to get O-care through.
First they wanted to win us over by showing us the wonderful wonderfulness that was Obamacare.
yep. Once we got all the free goodies, we’d realize we needed them.
Funny how the cost of ‘free’ usually ends up in the “OMG, you’ve GOT to be kidding!” range…
They’re cunning, but they’ve got no clue at all about the long-term consequences of getting what they want. Just look at how messed up the ACA has gotten.
Amnesty was too controversial. And even then they had to complain that the Republicans were blocking everything despite the clear control they had of the House and Senate to get the ACA passed.
They couldn’t work on amnesty from the start – that would have been way too much for the public to accept. They had to go with something that they could at least persuade themselves had public support – who could possibly be against health care?
The self-appointed ‘intelligentsia’ is in the unfortunate position of the dog that caught the car it was chasing. What does it do next, that won’t hurt it severely?
I’m writing this post because I’m tired. As in “I’m sick and tired” and you know what that means in the mouth of a woman my age.
You have a carp and know how to use it?
(Slams door and runs…) 🙂
You can’t run fast enough.
Hey, stop zigzagging.
Bog help us if Robert ever finishes cobbling together the ballistic-carp remote-controller.
Marshall. Robert is the biologist. he’s working on super-carp.
Super-carp? Hmm… I think I’m going to have to start armoring my Jeep. Hopefully, the frame will take the weight.
I know it’s only a giant catfish, and not a carp – but is this
what you have in mind?
All I know is that I’ve heard of carp hitting 90lbs without enhancement. Anything that is considered “Super” compared to that, I want protection from.
YES.
You’ll have to spend big money on a catapult for that sucker.
Trebucarp?
Use a missile launcher for the oversized carp. Carp-et Bombing anyone?
For that you want to use flying carp-ets, imported from the MBE.
RES? Don’t you have enough Bad Man Trophies?
Enough? ENOUGH? I will not have enough until I retire as undisputed professional cham-peen!
Or, at least, ranking amateur.
Besides, somebody’s got to flog those books, fiery soul of my heart. (Or is that hearty soul of my fire? Soul of my heart burn? It is sooooo difficult to keep them straight.)
Carp-buchet.
Big money? A simple onager can be built with rope and raw timber, good sir. Surprising range and accuracy, too.
Oh, but she doesn’t have time to build it herself, so would have to hire it done, and today, that qualifies as a specialized skill.
Heck, just build a giant slingshot. Find a Y-forked tree and use elastic garters for the propulsion.
Lessee … whose guts can we get for garters?
I generally refer to it as a Carpuchet, but sure, whichever way floats your Zeppelin.
The Blogfather had a link — yesterday? — to an article about a guy catching a 450+ pound halibut. We know we’re in trouble when Sarah starts deep-sea fishing… 8^)
now that’s a fish of a massive scale.
**duck and dodge**
Apropos the current discussion, are y’all aware that Sharknado 2 is scheduled to appear on SYFY at the end of this month?
Or worse. He could develop the ballistic-narwhal remote-controller. [Evil Grin]
Ow.
That WOULD be a very pointed attack…
Not to nitpick (he lied), but if it’s remote controlled it isn’t ballistic.
You ever try to actually alter the ballistic course of a narwhal?
We studied shoals of carp attentively. Zigzag is an essential part.
It always amazes me that in all the talk of Cloward-Piven, the people who think they are going to control the chaos are the ones most unlikely to survive such an upheaval. Those of us that are living near the edge of catastrophe are much better suited to say, “Well, that happened. Let’s see what there is to salvage.”
Dang it, I read that before I bothered to read the Andrew Klavan article. Can we just overlook this little gaffe? I can change my last name to Clinton, if that would help.
On the one hand, I am in full agreement that the lib/prog wrecking crew is furiously working to bring about their own downfall. On the other hand, they do seem to be well on a path to causing enough damage that many innocents, including some on this board, will become collateral damage.
On the gripping hand, I can think of worse ways to pass than by irrigating the tree of liberty.
Surely a few of you must be innocent, at least as far as the law knows. For the rest of you reprobates, feh, there’s a reason I feel so much at home here. Like finds like, after all.
I can fake innocence, and that’s basically the same thing, right?
Long as yous got an alibi!
I’ve got three; need one?
I heard it on TV one time: “My family lives by the motto, ‘an indictment is NOT a conviction.'”
Innocent? What are the charges? Otherwise I ain’t talkin’ about nuthin’.
I swear that carp just jumped into my hand, officer.
I just picked it up because I didn’t want anybody to wander by and get hurt. It’s for the children, officer, I swear.
There I was, sitting on my porch reading my Bible minding my own business, when Some Dude comes along and asks me if I would hang on to his carp for him while he runs to the pharmacy to fill his Grandmonther’s prescription. Now I’m an agreeable soul, and so of course I said yes. He wandered off in a direction I don’t recall and then you Carp Police boys rolled up, and, well, the rest you know…
I ❤ you!
Mind you, I was sitting in my… well… my… you know minding my own business, when suddenly there was this bad dude in my head…
And that's how I wrote AFGM
They were carped long before I got here. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
I’m not bad, I’m just drawn that way.
Um…
So, how’s the weather up your way? We had a storm blow through and it’s really cooled off around here. And we sure needed the water…
Got an inch last night . . . in 20 minutes. Sideways for the first 10 minutes. As usual, the usual spots flooded. But we’re 20 degrees cooler than yesterday, and supposedly a high of [drumroll] 70 on Thursday. But the twits have jinxed us as far as more rain – they’re calling for 80% chance tomorrow. :p
Yeah, we had some of the sideways rain at the start. And it kept changing sides. Fickle rain. Cumulative totals in the rain gauge are hard to assess because — sideways rain doesn’t fall neatly into vertical containers. But WAG says close to, but less than, an inch.
I’m not enjoying a 20 degree drop, but being outside in 90 with a nice breeze today was refreshing. High Thursday around 80, which’ll be pleasantly brisk in July. And if we hit low of 68 on Friday I’m opening windows overnight!
Our 80% is targeted at Thursday, so it’s far enough out a random sigh in Wichita Falls could divert it. But maybe we’ll all get lucky, since we frequently get y’all’s leftovers… Maybe you get soaked on Wednesday and we’ll catch some drive by storms on Thursday.
By the way, speaking cumulatively, have you ever pictured Jessica Rabbit with Merida’s hair? Disconcerting.
Erk. Disconcerting is an understatement.
See! This is what happens when you cross your animation references over time!
Now stick a hat on her…
The windows in my house don’t open. I’m in ranch house in an older (40-50 years) part of Plano.
Bummer, you miss those wonderful Spring and Fall breezes! And the random rainy day coolness worth flushing the house out with.
We didn’t get an inch — at least, not where I live — but the ground was wet this morning. My joints tell me we’ll get more today. We’ve had wetter summers, but not many of them. I’m sitting here conflicted. My joints are screaming for drier weather, but my head says we need the water to break the drought. I’ll live — I think.
yesterday sucked for me joint-wise. today doesn’t feel much better.
I don’t care about the weather forecasting.
I hates the arthritis
hates it!
Yeah, I still have the novella to contend with because what locked was my ring finger joints. Since I’m a touch typist it just screwed writing. I could do blog comments and fb by pecking, but I can’t WRITE that way.
By now I am a combo of both, so I can imagine that it would just kill the flow to have a finger that doesn’t wanna go where it’s s’posed to
Um…bends over to pick mind up out of the gutter… yeah.
we don’t have a gutter here …. much of our occupants call that area “Home”
So you’ve been hogging it. . .
At the current rate, if it keeps on raining as much as it does, we will be two inches ahead at the end of July. Which means it made up for June. Too late for some plants.
Interesting. Here, we’re pretty much in drought conditions, even though we had a few days with rain in the past few weeks. This is unusual, though not unknown for this area.
THUNDER, d*mn it. I want to go walk…
Speaking of thunder (we were, right?) did’ja hear that Marvel has announced the latest incarnation of Thor will be a woman?
That worm on the root of the world-tree had better start gnawing faster. (Yes, I know, Thor dressed as a woman in order to steal back Mjölnir. That’s different.)
And if they try it with the next Avengers movie? Someone’s gonna get hurt.
I’m pretty sure Joss Whedon’s smart enough to keep Chris Hemsworth standing around looking impressive. To do otherwise is to court disaster (and women around the world cried out in frustration).
No Chris Hemsworth will mean a drop in ticket sales. Beefcake anyone?
Great part about the movies– they’re mostly sticking to the good parts of the Marvel stories for the movies, and the comics are wandering off talking to themselves.
Printed comics will still have a niche, but I think that niche is getting smaller and smaller. Kids don’t seem to be taking to them like they used to, and the cost of the things is getting on towards paperback levels.
A is related to B, there– plus, the preaching.
Not funny. This isn’t April 1st. They have Sif for a kickass female fighter. I can see them doing it, but it’s the stupidest idea since they made Hal Jordan evil.
Not funny, but apparently true.
PC has gone too far. What’s next? Odin as a woman? Frigga as a man?
Ow. Stop. Thor was bad enough, don’t compound it. Someone might be listening!
It’s frigging unbelievable.
Yep.
What’s worse, if I was of the persuasion that felt we needed more women superheroes to balance out the ratio (when they’re not being accused of being objectified fan boi porn) I’d be insulted that nobody could come up with something original, and felt they had to graft onto the success of another character in order to carry the story…
I guess there just aren’t any suitable female characters in the mythological pantheons from which to create a really awesome superheroine.
Wait…
Of course not. Making Frigga a man would be hateful toward womankind. [Evil Grin]
I did see today that in the latest issue of Archie comics Archie himself will be killed while saving the life of his gay gun control activist friend.
Talk about jumping a shark, phew.
I… find I am unable to determine if there’s farce in here.
Gone to research.
NO. He’s serious.
Yeah. I found out. It hurts my brain.
You know that .gif SPQR likes to use now and again? The one with Nathan Fillion as Richard Castle speechless? Yeah, that one.
Picture that here.
I know. Head>desk.
How can/Why would they kill off their main character?
Free publicity.
It’s an imaginary story (aren’t they all?). But it’s so PC, they just need a War on Terror angle and maybe immigration to make it complete.
And make the assassin a Tea Partier … that would absolutely do a triple gainer over the shark, and kill any remaining interest in the series in a substantial part of the potential audience.
What was Sarah saying a couple of weeks ago about lefties running perfectly solid franchises into the ground by going harder and harder left?
I think that will probably cause a small spike in their sales… followed by a steep drop.
Seems self-destructive to me.
Likely they are going on the Beta Ray Bill paradigm, relying on Mjolnir’s inscription: “Whosoever holds this hammer, if he be worthy, shall possess the power of Thor.”
But of course, the pronoun is a problem. Either they fudge by claiming “he” is equivalent to “she”, which would probably be fine with the grammar nazis but likely drive the feminist comic readers (both of them) up to paroxysms of hissing.
Perhaps, as my scant research suggests, the Powers That Be have revised the inscription to say: “Whosoever holds this hammer, if they be worthy, shall possess the power of Thor.” This still creates grammatical issues, unless you want to talk about Team Thor or envision a Thor suffering multiple fragmented personalities. [Delete quips about female cycles and multiple personalities.]
Wiki notes that on various occasions women have possessed (or been possessed by) the power of Thor: Storm, Rogue (after absorbing the entirety of Thor’s life force and thus essentially becoming Thor) and Wonder Woman.
I think the only real question about this move is why the homophobic editors at Marvel are giving Thor’s power to a woman rather than a gay man? [Delete joke based on stereotypes of gay men and Thor’s flaming red cape and other articles of clothing.]
From London’s Telegraph:
Hulk’s so incredibly right on these days
Is making the world of comic-book heroes more diverse a winning idea?
By Michael Deacon
8:31PM BST 18 Jul 2014
The Incredible Hulk unrolled his yoga mat on the pavement, assumed the lotus position, and began to meditate. “OMMMMMMM,” he said, trying with some difficulty to relax the monstrous green muscles bulging from every square inch of his body. “OMMMMMMM.”
The two muggers looked at each other, puzzled. When the weedy physicist who’d confronted them abruptly metamorphosed into 1,000lbs of green beef, they’d feared for their lives. Yet the brute hadn’t laid a finger on them. Instead he just seemed to be… humming.
“OMMMMMMM,” continued the Hulk.”
Exchanging shrugs, the muggers pocketed the old lady’s purse and jewellery, and strolled off down the street. Hulk sighed. “Hulk sorry,” he mumbled to the old lady. Somehow, he didn’t seem to be so good at fighting crime, now that his writers had converted him to Buddhism.
He supposed he shouldn’t grumble. The change was, he knew, well-intentioned. It had been decided – he wasn’t sure by whom – that the world of comic books needed to be more diverse, more inclusive, a fairer reflection of the modern world. That was why, in mid-July 2014, it had been announced to readers that Thor (a fellow member of the Avengers) was henceforth to be a woman, and that Captain America was to be black.
It was all right for those two, thought Hulk, as he trudged off. At least their superpowers hadn’t been weakened. Just his luck, to be made a member of a minority that preached non-violence.
To cheer himself up, he decided to visit his friend Iron Man. He found him in his front room, working his way through a pile of clean laundry.
“Morning, Hulk,” said Iron Man wearily, pressing the shoulders of a white M&S shirt. “You know, until my writers turned me into a stay-at-home dad, I had no idea how hard women have it. It’s 11am and I’m exhausted. God, I miss fighting terrorism. Life was so much easier then.”
“Hulk know,” agreed Hulk, with a rueful nod.
“I mean, I’ve nothing against political correctness,” continued Iron Man, moving on to the collar. “I guess Marvel was a bit ‘male and pale’ – or, in your case, green. But did they really have to make it so it’s Mary Jane who heroically saves Spider-Man every week, rather than the other way round? Call me old-fashioned, but I don’t think it has the same romantic frisson. Particularly now Spider-Man’s gay.”
Hulk stared at his sandals.
“I know the writers want to send a message to the kids,” went on Iron Man. “They want to show we’re all equal: men, women, black, white, and the rest. I get that. I just wish they’d create new female and minority characters, rather than changing old favourites. I don’t know. Maybe I’m just a stick-in-the-mud. But…”
While his friend rambled on, Hulk wandered over to the bookcase and gazed idly at the spines. Some of the books evidently belonged to Iron Man’s children. He picked up a few in turn, and leafed through them. The very hungry caterpillar, he noted with interest, was fasting for Ramadan. The Gruffalo was still beautifully drawn, but the story didn’t seem to have quite the same dramatic tension, now that the beast of the title was vegetarian.
“Hulk leave now,” said Hulk. “Evil mastermind want destroy planet. Hulk go teach him futility of violence via use of prayer wheel. He better watch out. He wouldn’t like Hulk when Hulk not angry.”
Iron Man nodded and glanced at the clock. He must get a move on with these shirts. He had to be at the anti-fracking protest by noon, or the Green Lantern would be furious.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/10976486/Hulks-so-incredibly-right-on-these-days.html
A miss atribution of Budism and Pacifism.
http://www.snopes.com/politics/guns/dalailama.asp
Budism and libertarianism have a lot of philosophical similarities depending on the sect.
That was Zen, this is Tao.
Ewwwwww.
BREAKING NEWS: Comic company announces new gimmick to temporarily boost sagging sales!
I’m looking forward to the next logical progreasion: John Henry, Steel-Driving Man, with the title character played by Lucy Liu.
Thor is a proper name, not a codename. It’s a bit like making Supergirl the new Kal-El. What will Thor do now that someone else has taken his name from him?
Well, if Thor Odinson is dead, he can’t argue about somebody else using his name. [Wink]
Of course, hardly anybody *stays* dead in the world of comics.
You DO realize that John Henry wore ONLY bib overalls, so Lucy Liu would have to…
Nevermind. I endorse this plan. Wholeheartedly. 😀
Aside from anything else, I’m getting kind of tired of the vileprogs “watering” the tree of liberty by pissing on it.
Odd characteristic of liberty wood*, though. Pissing on it adds resilience to the fibers.
*Leave it…
Yes sir.
email addy posted.
And will send novella as soon as it’s finished. Today has been… interesting. I need to write.
I suspect you need some boring days. Several in a row, really. Flat out, mind-numbing, nothing ever happens ’round here boring days.
Who can we talk to about that?
Well, if I can scrape the $500 or so together (maybe more used books will sell? It’s been flat) I can kidnap my husband and take him to Denver for 4 days three nights over our anniversary last weekend of the month. that would help.
If you manage to kidnap your husband for an anniversary getaway it’s not boring days I’ll be wishing you.
Nothing to do with days, at all! *rimshot*
0:-)
NO, but they’ll be restfully interesting?
I’m for it!
Hun call! Help Sarah Kidnap Dan for a Long Weekend of Restful Interesting.
Meh. There’s things that need done, and that’s not one of them. Now I’ll go cook dinner, and then I’ll finish writing Luce going psycho…
That sounds ominous.
Story opens with Nat missing, presumed dead. Luce goes off the reservation.
Money sent.
Sure, sure. But when he asks who we can “talk” to about that, what he’s really asking is “whose knees do we turn into castanets to ensure this happens?”
It’s good to be among people who understand you.
I try, but I usually underestimate such things. I was visualizing merely hiring big bodyguard types to arrange for such things in the event that someone tried to cause trouble.
We enjoyed Steamboat Springs this weekend. Fish fear me.
With a visage like that, it ain’t just the fish.
You should see him in his chariot.
But is it a Sweet chariot, and will it Swing Low? (Runs, leaving behind mannequin to draw fire)
You are a SERIOUSLY bad man.
*Leave* it? How cruel! You show me how resilient your liberty wood is then tell me I can’t touch?
It’s a sad world, it is.
Did somebody turn the A/C off? It’s getting warm in here…
Kate, you’re a TERRIBLE woman.
Guilty as hell, and proud of it!
Alternatively:
Exceptions are available for talented wood-workers.
You have to pay extra to touch his wood.
Did I just get a new job?
If you want it.
Just remember, too many bills CHAFE so get it in twenties.
Here I was wondering where to stick the coin purse…
EMILY! And you’re the nice one here and our pillar of sanity too.
And you, you are a BADDDDDDDDDD woman.
Did you really say pillar? On this sub-thread?
Oh. My. I forgot myself. (Self carps furiously.)
I’m an inveterate punster and slasher. I don’t know how anyone could consider me good. Some of my fellow slashers are lib progs. “in a bugs bunny accent: She don’t know me too well does she?”{
er… I have friends who make a living writing m/m romance. Who am I to cast stones? (None of my friends are libprogs, though some are a bit to the left of me.)
Ma’am, you’re the very vision of sweetness and light. Most of the time.
Please note, I’m never gonna get in line to piss you off, because I like my various parts attached in their various ways just as they are.
I thought it was only sailors that got liberty, I’m pretty sure most military get the other.
And on this cheerful note, have you seen this article?
http://www.redflagnews.com/headlines/americas-death-zones-where-not-to-be-when-it-hits-the-fan
I guess the place to be is outside the killing zones when the zombie apocalypse strikes. And I’m sure a few socialists/progressives have already figured they’ll just head for the hill.
There’s an error in thier calculations. Look at any political spectrum showing the country at large, and you see the large metro areas – the kill zones as glowing Blue. The outside areas are deep Red. So these libprogs head for the hill, and run smack into the angry Red Zone citizens who are pissed at what they did to their country. And Conservatives, more than any other demographic, have the guns. Usually lots of them. And ammunition by the caseload.
Thus, while DHS with their billions of rounds of ammo are trying futilely to regain control of the kill zones, the Red Staters are just holding the line, letting no one to pass.
It’s a good time to actually work the contingency plans, not simply to make them.
Since a lot of metro shootings are gang-on-gang violence, probably the majority of those will burn themselves out quickly.
True, and they’ll never leave their turf by choice. But I anticipate a lot of sheeple leaving when the infrastructure craters, and gangs start taking control of their areas, like Horn of Africa warlords. Then they’ll start looking down the road. “They’re good people in those small towns. We can move there. They’ll take care of us.” Not realizing that the small town people have already slammed the door shut on the Interstate exits, put armed guards on the approaches, and declared a Citizen’s state of emergency.
And a .22 LR is just as effective at stopping intruders as a .303, costs a damn sight less, and most people overlook them for the ‘heavy stuff’.
Anything that can strike a mile off is effective anti personnel
stuff, and AP rounds are only for armor, not personnel . Not many people typically own, much less wear, battle gear.
Related to that last part about the armor – a friend told me that a lot of biker protective gear rates as high as some body armor that sells for considerably higher prices. Anyone know if that’s true, or if he’s full of it?
I can believe it. I have biker friends, and they must gain 50 pounds when they dress out. But your average refuge/scavenger likely won’t be wearing the gear. And granted that a .22 will drop off fairly quickly, it can still kill at a mile+. And the rounds are cheap enough to flood the area with them.
Shoot, I was wondering about buying some…
There’s not a straightforward answer here. Motorcycle gear varies in type, material and weight considerably, and ballistic armor is rated very specifically.
Would I be surprised to learn a heavy set of leathers, particularly layered vest/jacket, reduced the velocity on a pistol round enough to save somebody’s life? No. Would I grab my (very heavy, double breasted) leather motorcycle coat to go to a gunfight? No.
Would I trust any ballistic armor absent rigid plates against a rifle round? Never. Do I have any inclination whatsoever to test ballistic armor with plates against even anemic rifle rounds? Nope.
The power disparity between pistol and rifle rounds is widely missed. If you really feel like you need to get shot, get shot by a pistol.
Aren’t some of the “racer” style leathers actually layered with kevlar?
Far as I know off the top of my (non-racer) head, all the Kevlar in racing leathers is formed pieces compressed with binders. Great for friction protection, not as functional in ballistic protection.
There are some kevlar lined jeans, but they’re only a couple layers thick. And only over the backside. Knees, if you’re lucky, and want to spend a lot more.
Oh, yeah, I’ve seen those.
You guys should just go online and buy your own kevlar cloth. It’s commercially available. Some people use it to make canoes out of.
I can’t believe nobody here made a comment about those people that need Kevlar lined knees.
I don’t have to jump on every opportunity that strolls by. I’m not that desperate for punishing action.
But yeah, I’ve been wondering who would pick up that one…
The press corps in DC. (Nods sagely.)
There’s also ballistic nylon- not useful protection from even pistol impacts, but decent against frag. Armor is plastic or foam, suitable for lower velocity impacts spread over a wider area.
Better than nothing at all, but not by much in a gunfight.
Point also, you can get kevlar chaps and such, and they will stop a chainsaw from chewing you up, but you also have to worry about the crushing blow as well. It is not enough to stop penetration but also the fact that you are getting hit with the equivalent of a splitting maul. To restate what Dan said.
The chainsaw stopping action is a function of binding the mechanism with tough fibers before you get through to skin.
Please don’t interpose those between you and a bang-stick.
There is some with kevlar either in places, or as part of the lining, and the really flexible areas are often layered with kevlar to bring the protection level up to that of the rest of the hide. The lower dollar leathers use a ballistic nylon for the strength. My gear is mostly ballistic nylon of some sort (I have two mesh jackets (the orange I am wearing in my gravitaris the older of the two), and single set of mesh pants plus one cordura “Adventure Touring” two piece suit (also waterproof), and my leathers have a little bit of kevlar in the flexy leather areas.
I’d not want to be shot by anything if I had them on. or both sets on at once for that matter. Sure … it’d be better than nothing, but it ain’t gonna stop much firearms wise. More like a Flack jacket (which is what the nylon variation materials were designed as) they’d be best for fragmented projectiles, but they are more designed for abrasion resistance than anything, and the puncture resistance is mainly seen as a side benefit. Except for the ceramic plates, body armor to stop bullets needs to move and be somewhat layered to quickly dissipate the energy. Bike crashes tend to be more blunt force, so the armor is designed to that end.
Apparently, there’s a lot of modern gear out there that is heavily reinforced with Kevlar for its abrasion resistance, and that was the kind of gear I’m referring to.
Specifically, my friend was asking why Police (at least, the ones he had talked with) are not being trained that such gear is making bikers outfitted with such far more protected against their pistols than they might think.
When we’re talking pistol, winter in Minnesota presents problems.
Bulky and/or dense clothing of all sorts presents problems with pistol ammunition. It’s just not consistent problems of the sort that’d make a particular sartorial choice advisable.
Training the police to deal with obstacles to effective pistol engagement is a pretty complex undertaking. One frequently set aside in favor of more pressing budgetary requirements. I’m not sure biker gear warrants any special consideration beyond the normal recognition of the questionable efficacy of the standard duty pistol caliber.
“Bulky and/or dense clothing of all sorts presents problems with pistol ammunition. It’s just not consistent problems of the sort that’d make a particular sartorial choice advisable.”
Well they COULD choose to use a 454 Casull, that would mitigate some of those problems.
Or more pertinent, a 22 mag will penetrate most non-plate body armor, including much that will stop larger rounds.
no, .22lr isn’t really known for its ability to stop intruders, unless they are squirrels.
It is an excellent assassination round, it kills very effectively, what it doesn’t do is stop people immediately unless perfect shot placement is used. That being said it is much more effective than a whistle.
Anything is more effective than a whistle – unless it’s crapping oneself to disgust a would-be rapist.
So speaks Col. Jeff Cooper. Riot, violent flash mob, post-championship hooligans (“Hey, we won! Let’s trash downtown!”), knockout game players, an instance of the so-called Golden Horde in a disaster… lots of potential applications.
Sure, but with most of those situations, I want noise and flash and maybe even concussion to break up the mob. A couple of flashbangs’d do it. Not terribly humane, but whatever. In a Golden Horde scenario (assuming I’m reading that right) I want something that scares the unholy hell out of the hordelings. Like a short regiment of my best friends, all armed and angry.
With the right targeting, quiet and unplaceable shots can be quite devastating to a group.
If the mob knows who attacked, then they have a target themselves. And they frequently believe numbers are more effective than they are.
Snipers are — scary, when you’re in the target area. With no target, the numbers are useless and suddenly the mob is just a bunch of yay-hoos thinking about taking a round.
So, just to be clear on this, that character in the apocalyptic setting should be armed with a .22LR with a can, and have an elevated position with a lot of exits? We are talking about writing, after all.
*cough*
Well, if your story gives the character an opportunity for a little more space from the mob, a sufficiently suppressed 5.56 is a nice upgrade (300BLK in a subsonic load is even better). He can keep the 22LR and can in reserve for when they get closer.
But, you’re the writer, you can prepare your positions in advance and keep your characters funneled where you need ’em.
*Ahem*
I like the 300 Whisper, myself. The 460 Whisper is awesome, but not only do you have to make your own brass, but the parent case is a 460 Weatherby, and the brass for that is outrageous. Then usually the 460 Whisper is chambered with a rate of twist to stabilize extremely long, extremely heavy, bullets designed specifically for it. By the time you’re done building ammo for it, the rounds cost more per round than a 470 Nitro.
not too elevated, this is .22lr after all.
Looking further into the Golden Horde and finding the mass exodus scenario:
Timing and level of desperation are going to be key. Early enough, probably possible to discourage. Later on…
For this I want to be unobtrusive, hidden, missing and unseen. Short regiment or no, coming to the attention of something like a Golden Horde means all that’s left is dying the good death.
My trouble with the Golden Horde scenario is that I’m statistically screwed regardless. We’re a little more rural than the last station was, but I still don’t know how to sail a boat, and there are a limited number of other ways off this peninsula. I suspect at that point, we’d head pack up, head for base and dig in. Assuming they let me in with our, ahem, supplies.
Yeah, I’m not fond of the Golden Horde scenario.
Aside: A military organization is likely to confiscate and centralize supplies in such extreme situations…
When I was in Afghanistan, we had an angry mob show up at the gates of our FOB. Our 155mm Howitzers were quietly loaded with flechette rounds and leveled towards the gate. Had the mob attacked the gate, they would have been hit with those flechettes direct-fire, from about 30 meters’ range.
The mob, upon noticing the artillery pointed at them, suddenly decided it had someplace else to be. 😀
The dark mouths of 155s often have that effect, I’m given to understand. Intimidating doesn’t even begin to cover it…
Though I thought flechettes were contra-Geneva Conventions for some reason.
Are there howitzers larger than 155mm?
I think bigger than 155 are generally measured in inches… because only wusses use the metric system. 🙂
Well, naval guns are measure in inches. Mighty Mo’s still packing her gorgeous 16″ beasts.
What size are the biggest naval guns?
That would be the 18.1″ guns on the Yamato.
Current or WWII era Japanese ship?
The WW2-era Japanese battleship class.
Today naval guns are for closer in battles or for shelling islands and coasts? It’s interesting but I don’t know much about naval warfare.
Today ships tend to have one or maybe two 5″ or 8″ guns, antiaircraft/antimissile batteries, and missile launchers. The day of naval vessels using huge guns to shell land targets is long gone. the US Navy is putting a bit of research into replacing their 5″ guns with railguns or coil guns.
Are missiles the most common offensive weaponry aboard ship? Are there still torpedoes for hunting subs or is there something newer? I’m afraid that my knowledge of naval warfare ends with WWII.
Torpedoes are somewhat carried for ASW, but often those are carried on helicopters that are just for that purpose. Missiles are the main offensive weapon, and for long-range defense as well. Gune are used for shore bombardment… a little, and against other ships in close range. Antiaircraft duties are missiles, and gun for very close work (usually to shoot down missiles fired by aircraft…)
*chuckle* Big guns, eh?
For howitzers, the U.S. had a 240mm towed job that was in use up til the Korean War, and ammunition for it ran out in around 1950.
There was a 42cm (420mm) howitzer used in the Great War, and World War II by Austria-Hungary, and later, the Nazis. The Soviets tried to make a self-propelled 420 (2B1 Oka), but the recoil kept blowing out springs, the gear box, etc… That one got scrapped in favor of ballistic missiles.
Then there’s railway guns. Cool idea, but very vulnerable, slow firing, difficulties in traversing, and so on. Probably one of the largest, and firing the heaviest shell, was the “Dora,” another Soviet piece firing an 800mm rifled round, and probably the heaviest artillery round actually used in combat to date. Shwerer Gustav, a twin to Dora, was used in the Siege of Svestapol during Operation Barbarossa. It penetrated an undersea ammunition bunker sited under at least 30m of water and 10m of concrete in the bedrock. Nine rounds, and done. Also incidentally trashed some little boat in the bay, as well. The allies also had railway guns. Many of them used naval caliber rounds.
Speaking of naval rounds, the Iowa-class BBs had 16 inch 50s as their main-gun armament. Massive rounds, and they carried nine of them in three-gun (not triple) arrangement. I’d be a little happier paying my taxes if some of that went for battleship guns. Just sayin’. *grin*
The biggest I know of offhand, though, was the 910mm (36″) Little David developed right here in the U.S. for testing out areal bombs. It really wasn’t intended for war, though there were plans to use it as a siege gun against the Japanese (though they surrendered before these plans could come to fruition). If you’re up Maryland-way, take a camera. It’s still out there in the Aberdeen Proving grounds.
No where near MD. I’m outside of Dallas.
Are you keeping up with the developments in rail guns? How do those compare with the gunpowder ones?
a tungsten slug moving at 14,000 mph is a pretty good offensive weapon within line of sight.
@ Dan Lane
‘MERICA!
Oh, yeah. If you’ve got fire superiority, use fire superiority!*
Amazing how that works, innit?
Sorry, but I disagree with you on the knockout game. For that, I’ll stick with my .45 ACP.
Depends. Reacting to being attacked? Right there with ya. Interdicting assaulting forces? (which is how I read the scenario) A little distance and a little sneak works for me.
The knock-out game relies on ambush and surprise, no reason they shouldn’t be surprised by a bloody coughing fit.
That’s how I’d write the story, anyway.
yes, when applied at close range to the skull it works fine. when applied from across the room to the torso, not so much.
‹looks out the office window› You actually went and sold the bridge?!? Oh, wait; that’s just the rain and fog hiding it from sight.
I got one here, built by the same guy. We can make you a good deal on that one. Just one flaw – it was built on dry land, but when the dam was put in downstream, the bottoms of the supports were submerged.
I’m willing to sell it! And I know in my heart there’s a libprog out there willing to buy!
Only if you tell them they can bar conservatives and libertarians from crossing–in the name of tolerance and diversity.
Oh, countless customers of the libprog stripe. Trouble is they want to pay you with my money.
“Trouble is they want to pay you with my money.”
Oh, my, never that. No, not taxpayer money. Why, we’ll just *print* more money to pay for it. Then it’s free!
Apropos of nothing other than a more cheerful line of thought, I figured that this bit of fluff might be well received by the Huns: http://vevo.ly/yRwiKB
Dang, didn’t embed. Try YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Gv0H-vPoDc
*sigh* WordPress delenda est
Some of us greatly prefer the link anyway. 🙂
Another good one from the Weird One.
🙂
“Making the leap from “They’re destroying everything” to “they’ll win” is sort of like saying “the wrecking crew has demolished the hovel. They’ll now build a skyscraper.” It’s two very different sets of skills and mind sets needed for each phase.”
It’s reminders like this that drew me to this blog. On my own, I tend to drift over to the “We’re so screwed” camp.
I’ll admit that in my darker thoughts I wonder if McCarthy had the right idea all along, and the real reason the US government is so busy spying on its own citizens is that they’re terrified of their own Anders Brevic going after the power brokers on the left of the political divide.
(If you don’t think this is true, then you never read their tiresome nattering about Homo Sovieticus back when they still tried to justify their nonsense.
Wait, THEY came up with that?!?
Second: huh, I wonder if Magneto was supposed to be alluding to that with Homo Superioris….. (X-Mutants)
Nah, Magneto was Hitler (in the start of the X-Men). IE Mutants are the Master Race (with him as the Ruler of Mutantkind).
Oh, it was kind of ironic when Marvel made Magneto a victim of the Holocaust.
On the other hand, it was fun when the somewhat reformed Magneto met the Red Skull (who was a Nazi). The Red Skull did not enjoy what Magneto did to him. [Very Big Evil Grin]
Digression:
I was on one of the fan-wikis because I couldn’t remember Sabertooth’s real name and if Toad was actually named Mortimer, and found that every…single… villain I ran across has been ret-conned as being above average intelligence.
(lots of other Bad Story Telling stuff, but that in particular jumped out at me– Victor Creed couldn’t just be cunning and vicious and be massively instinctive, no, they had to make him soooo much smarter than Everyone and a good manipulator too…. come on, for crying out loud, a character doesn’t HAVE to be “highly intelligent” to be taken seriously!)
This site appears to be the official Marvel wiki http://marvel.com/universe/Sabertooth and it has Sabertooth with a low intelligence.
Oh, the official Marvel wiki does say that Toad started out with normal human intelligence, his learning disabilities and mental problems made him appear to be less intelligent than he actually was.
It has the fans rating him as normal– the official rating is “gifted.”
http://marvel.wikia.com/Power_Grid
They’re not very clear about that, and the design is pretty dang bad….
Sorry, the official “rating” is the blue rating (which has him normal). The fan “rating” is the red rating (which has him gifted). Now, I haven’t followed Sabertooth very much but “gifted” isn’t how I’d rate him. [Smile]
Ah, true, I had it reversed. (Probably looked at order instead of colors)
Still: the guy who could be TRICKED INTO WALKING OVER A CLIFF?!
What does it take to be called less than normal intelligence, besides being a driver for Ironman or turning into a ravening monster?
Foxfier, you’re forgetting the Number One Rule of Superhero Comics.
The Hero (or Heroes) always has the Edge to win even if it means the Villain has to make a stupid mistake for the Hero (or Heroes) to Win.
Or as S. M. Stirling has said “the Hero has the Scriptwriters on his/her side”. [Very Very Big Grin]
First rule of Fans:
We’ll make it make sense!
True. [Smile]
By the way, Ryk Spoor has commented (elsewhere) about a universe of his where the Super-Villains are aware that the Laws Of The Universe always allow a Loop-hole that allows the Super-Heroes to win. (I don’t think he meant that the Super-Heroes had *easy* wins. [Wink])
Sounds like it would result in a lot of Xanatos type villains. (“K, if this works, I win, and if they stop me, I win bigger….”)
Foxfiet,
Kind of off topic, but this talk of heros and vilians got me thinking of “Jake Speed” a movie about a book Author who rights about his Adventures.
Paraphrased from memory.
“Isn’t that doing it the hard way?”
Jake, “Sometime you do it the hard way because it’s more interesting.”
Sorry had to get that out of my head.
+1
*”…who writes…”
*sigh*
2d law of Fans: If we don’t like what you wrote, we’ll fixit! That’s what fanfic is for!
I’ve heard rumors of … interesting slash fan fic for my musketeer mysteries (un?)fortunately? never came across it. I wonder if it will revive when I continue the series. (I was going to say “come up again” then I minded my company.)
Don’t ask Sarah, there’s all kinds of slash fic out there. I dared someone to write Clinton/Gore and they did!!
EMILY! EW. Mental floss, stat.
I believe Sarah already called you a bad woman? You’ve just multiplied that. Now I need to go open that barrel of brain bleach again…
You dared me to show bad I am!
ME??!? What did I possibly say that made you think that?
There was a smudge on my screen, and I thought that said, “We’ll make it make sensei“, and I wondered how the conversation got to the new Ninja Turtles movie.
“2d law of Fans: If we don’t like what you wrote, we’ll fixit! That’s what fanfic is for!”
Silly fans. That’s what scraping off the serial numbers is for.
*headdesk* The official rating is the same as for Peter Parker.
You know, the guy who INVENTED HIS OWN WEB-SHOOTERS.
(You can click on the ratings for intelligence to see characters that fall there.)
Nope, the blue rating (official Marvel) for Peter is higher than Victor. Mind you, the fan rating for Peter is Omniscient which is a little high for Peter. [Smile]
I have difficulty accepting as valid the estimates of characters’ “intelligence” by fan geeks so pathetic they spend their free time going on the internet to rate the intelligence of comic book characters.
Especially, when the “intelligence, strength, etc” of a given comic book character depends on the writer. After all, if the writer wants the character to win or lose, they can “change the rules”. [Wink]
IT WAS A DOOM BOT!!!!
*grin*
The organic web shooters was one thing i actually liked about the first set of spider-man movies.
The webbing was more impressive. Pressurized, wrist-mounted fluid-shooters? Nothing terribly ground-breaking about that (though how he managed to miniaturize them to the point where they’re usually invisible is a good question…unless he just has *really* skinny wrists…).
nerd bunnies. No really. I like you guys.
Random trivia for the day: Norfolk, NE was originally intended to be named Norfork – based on NORth FORK of the river. When the residents sent the name to DC, the Legends-in-Their-Own-Minds in DC changed the name since the ignorant locals obviously didn’t know how to spell Norfolk correctly. As least that’s how I heard it while living in Nebraska. How many living reminders of government delusions exist out there that we do not hear about, but the locals know?
And yes, it is supposed to be where Johnny Carson started his career…
James River in the Dakotas is officially the Dakota River, but only in DC.
Having heard Norfork so many time, my mind automatically goes that way when I see it in print.
Still, I wonder how many examples of this are out there – leaving locals with a wary watchfulness of the DC Geniuses.
Squaw Tit Mountain was renamed to something like “Nut Hill” in the 80s or 90s, they threw a fit about correcting some signs in the early 90s. (There are unusual rocks all over the place that look like wallnuts– if you look at the sand, it does, too.)
Funny thing? It still looks like a floppy boob if you imagine someone laying on her back, and the long dead Basque sheepherds that built a rock tower on it sure didn’t help…..
TINS: There’s a large arroyo in NM called . . . Beechatuda* Draw. The USGS surveyors (who had probably been out in the field a wee bit too long) gave it the first name, then proposed a list of descriptors: draw, wash, arroyo, gulch, canyoncito. Draw happened to be directly across from Beechatuda, and so the cartography boss used it. Several months passed before the joke got caught, and the bosses decided to leave it alone. Unlike FUBAR intersection, an aviation waypoint on (IIRC) an approach into Phoenix that was named by America West pilots. The controllers went along, and it was two or three chart updates before someone upstairs caught it and made the airways and routes people change it. 😛
*Sound it out slowly – Beech-a-tu-da Draw 😀
The Niggerhead Rapids was changed to the Negro Head Rapids in the 80s or 90s, then that was deemed to insensitive, so the ‘official’ name (found only on current USGS or USFS maps, the state, county and the GPS maps by Garmin, all still say Negro Head Rapids on them) is now the Deer Creek Rapids… even though it is in the Snake River, and the closest Deer Creek to it drains into the Salmon River. Only five or six miles away as a crow flies, but with a five thousand foot dividing ridge between Deer Creek and the rapids named for it.
I have maps with the two older names on it, and have seen maps with the current name.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-07-15/robbing-peter
Add my usual Zerohedge caveat that I used to read ZH for the giggles but now I don’t giggle …
Well. That’s a more than mildly unpleasant prospect.
Nothing really “news” there. The Dims have hearings on “reforming retirement savings” every session of Congress, but AFAIK there’s been no real movement on any bills.
Of course, who knows if this administration won’t decide to “get ahead of Congress” on the issue.
We have no security from the government.
You know, I realize that the SJWs and GHHs are really, really bored because they have no convenient bloody conflict like oh, say being the Middle East, so they preoccupy themselves with trivialities like staring at their genitals, contemplating their sexuality, whimpering about the freedom of expression and having fainting spells over their evil of the day.
I sometimes wonder what it’d be like if they could be
trickedconvinced to go fight on the side of the group we’d like to see lose (example: send them to Palestine.) Alas, that kind of thing actually involves effort, and they’re not really all that keen on imitating Saint Sit In Front of the Bulldozer Corrie. Honestly, it’s a bit of a shame there aren’t more like her… empty-headed, empty-life know nothings who at least have the determination to get themselves killed while accomplishing nothing at all…Saint Pancake!
I endorse this plan.
I somewhat recall a bunch of them going over to Iraq to interpose their bodies between “baby milk factories” and American missiles. Anyone think there’s a way to …
Trick them? Pack them into a convenient ’emergency aid ship’ and strand them there?
I’ve actually issued the challenge a few times, including to a Certain Troll (who is probably trying to comment even now) when he railed about us mocking Rachel Corrie’s rather inane, empty existence and similarly idiotic death. Challenged directly of course, you only get incoherent spluttering, not that that particular troll (or any of like ilk) had a strong grasp of coherency. Or grammar. Or trains of thought. Or even a boxcar of thought. Not even “I’m not suicidal.”
You’d think they’d have more conviction, but that would require spines and those, I reckon, are rare amongst their kind as it is.
Seriously, they need to emulate their Saint Pancake more if we were supposed to at least take them a smidge more seriously, because at least she had the force of her convictions to hare off in front of that bulldozer… but… again, that’s effort. For most. The few who do become converts and terrorists themselves.
On the other hand, maybe it’s a good thing they’re so ineffective, hey?
*ahem* if I may correct myself, it’s meant to be “Contemplate their genitals and stare at their sexuality” coz that makes sense to them but not to us.
Oh yes, now is a good time, isn’t it? A wander over to Jihadwatch has me unsurprised at Palestine/Hamas’s truly extinction-level of raw stupid. (Summary: Egypt brokers a cease fire => Israel agrees => Hamas/Palestine fires more rockets in response => the Palestinians cheer => Netenyahu rolls up his sleeves and pushes right along with the bombardment of Gaza, and Lebanon is …starting to join in. And I’m BARELY paying attention this time because I’m rather hoping Bibi DOES take back Gaza. A friend couldn’t resist linking this to me because nothing beats HAMAS when it comes to own goals and self targeting in warfare.)
I know. Cheering for Bibi all along. Wondering at levels of stupid in France and Germany. Congratulating myself on not being in Portugal right now, because when I went over during the second Intifada, mom had to grab my hand as I forgot myself and was about to exert fist of death on Palestinian-lie-parroting shopkeeper.
When my Dad became Ambassador, he was allowed to choose his assignment for whatever reason. He had the option of opening a new consulate in Ireland or Scotland (I can’t remember which one), being assigned to a consulate in a small Southeast Asian nation somewhere where he could, from the local grapevine, just slack off for the next 6 years and read on the beach every day if he wanted to… or Israel. He asked me for my advice on which to pick.
I said, “Dad, c’mon. It’s a no brainer. Sure, it’d be great to establish a new consulate… and let’s be honest, you’d be bored out of your mind going to the beach every day because you thrive on stress. And it’s the Holy Land. The History! The monuments! The museums! The constant conflict! And it’s the one place in the Middle East you’d probably accept an assignment to without wanting to slit your wrists in despair. Also, thriving on stress, and I know this because I’m your daughter and I inherited that from you..” He laughed, said I was right, and that’s where he went.
Now, for some reason or another, on the subject of Israel, he and my mother and I were on opposite sides. He was pro-Palestine; Mom and I were pro-Israel. I don’t think he was there for more than five months before he changed his lifelong stance of support to wishing Israel wasn’t so nice with the Palestinians. When he visited home, I asked him about it.
His response? Went something like this: “Three times a week, the Israeli government sends in trucks of food and medicine into the Gaza Strip and Palestine. They’re not small caravans either; they’re huge, just loaded with food, clothes, medicines. What do they get in return? Rockets and sniper fire. The Israelis run a power plant whose output goes only into Gaza, because they don’t want the civilians to suffer because of the foolishness of their government. The Palestinians goddamn kill the engineers who repair and maintain the plant. I bought what the media said because I was a newsman myself and felt the media still had some integrity. They lied, and for some reason everyone believes the lies. The Palestinians aren’t all innocent; they cheer for every suicide bombing that kills or hurts an Israeli, but cry when their children fail to do any damage. Israel must survive because it’s the only place in the whole of the Middle East that has any soul left in it’s people.”
He was in the thick of it during the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah conflict, helping Filipinos escape when their Lebanese employers would imprison them in their homes, refusing to let them flee the violence.
Pity he died in 2007. It would have been all kinds of interesting to know what he thought of the world of today.
I forget who said this, but it was brilliantly telling.
“Israel protects its people with missiles.
Palestine protects its missiles with people.”
(In reference to rocket attacks launched from school yards.)
Not sure who said it either, but I heard it played (not quoted, but an actual audio clip) on the radio, today.
I don’t know that it originated with him, but first I heard it was Bibi Netantahyu on Chris Wallace’s FNC Sunday morning show, Sunday afore last. If he was quoting somebody other than his speechwriters, he did not say.
I recall now it was the Prime Minister.
It’s somewhat worse than that. My mother tells me about a news clip she watched where they interviewed the mayor of the town closest to Gaza. He says that the rockets are timed to start at the same time children go to school / start school.
This is one of the many reasons why I have no sympathy for the Palestinians and their entirely manufactured ‘plight.’
Oh, I lost all sympathy for the Palestinians years ago – after the murder of a pregnant Israeli woman and her four children – some of them toddlers in car seats. The final, ultimate cause of lacka-sympathy? Not only did they execute the children and their mother, they shot into her stomach first, to make certain of the unborn child.
Yeah, the Palestinians aren’t the first people to wind up as refugees, on the loosing side of a war, and to have to rebuild in the rubble of ‘things as they used to be’ – but jumping jeebus on a pogo stick, just about every other people in the same situation in the late 1940s have pulled up their socks and done better! (South Korea, and Singapore, for an example.) And without dressing teeny children in bomb vests, and sending real suicide bombers into hotel dining rooms and pizzerias.
It’s just not the brutality of the Paleos that disgusts me – it’s the sheer, stubborn refusal to take what they were left with, and make the most of it. And the stupidity too; They could have done wonderful things with Gaza – they could have been a holiday seafront destination, cultivated in greenhouses. The West Bank could have been a destination for religious pilgrimages … but no, they had to simmer in bitter resentment for sixty years and more, and go on killing, and killing, and killing … and alienating everyone but the usual idiotic tools in the West. They chose to be the eternal victim, waved about as the eternal pathetic woobie of the Arab world, and drown all the sympathy they might have had in blood.
Not only did they execute the children and their mother, they shot into her stomach first, to make certain of the unborn child.
They did that to make sure the mother was wild with grief and pain, knowing the life she was growing in her was dead, and the lives she and her already born children have would be lost.
Whenever a Palestinian wails about their dead children, I find no sympathy. They don’t cherish their children; as Golda Meir said – they don’t love their children more than they hate Israel’s. So their weeping and screaming about ‘Israelis murdering their kids’ ring hollow and empty to me.
Also, Palestine has? Had? a tourist website, where they extoll their mall, their shopping district, their ‘luxury hotel’ … I remember a blogger somewhere putting up pictures and going “They’re starving?”
But really, why would anyone sane want to go amongst a people whose main philosophy involves destroying another, one that considers human lives propaganda matierial? What makes them think that this quality advertises “Come visit Palestine! You won’t be held hostage and milked for money, or used as a human shield for maximum drama!”
I don’t know when it was, but I lost all sympathy when I actually saw some pictures of what had been a pizza parlor. During a kid’s party.
They’d obviously taken care to clean up… and it was still horrible. Contrast with the strange looking ones where Paliwood was obviously trying to display the dead people.
Had exactly the opposite effect that (probably Newsweek) wanted.
I am minded of an observation by John Derbyshire (before he fell afoul NRO’s decorum guidelines) comparing the people of Hong Kong — living on a small barren rock surrounded by water — becoming one of the richest cities on Earth, and the Palestinians, situated in a comparative Eden, deliberately impoverishing themselves.
To be fair, the Palestinians have had help: Arafat and Company never let a dollar go through to their charges without first clipping off $0.97 of it (and taxing back one of the pennies they let through) and being governed by a UN charter (UNRWA) organization may be one of the few “governing” bodies more corrupt than the PLO.
It isn’t as if the Palestinians can form TEA Parties in Gaza, either. Still, when the Israelis withdrew from Gaza they left an abundance of developed property, plants and equipment in place for the new owners, not expecting their beneficiaries to immediately destroy that wealth.
I remember reading how, when the owners of orchards and greenhouses were about to destroy the work they’d done, their rabbis pleaded with them not to punish the plants and trees.
The Palestinians destroyed them anyway; and then wail about not having any places to plant or grow and ‘starvation.’
If only they really were, they wouldn’t have the ‘strength’ to keep sending suicide bombers. For a supposedly starving people, they sure look well fed.
Pale-who? You mean the Trans-Jordanians? I mean, if you wanna get technical….
The Jawa Report had some of the Paliwood “innocent victims” photos up. Their (the Palis’) standards are slipping – the last time I saw fake gore that bad was at a jr. high theater production. It’s almost enough to make you miss Green Helmet Dude and the alReuters Photoshop team. (Before the Great Blog War, for the youngsters.)
heh, I remember that. That was EPICALLY bad.
Oh and a friend linked this to me. I am AMAZED I tell you, that the writer actually was allowed to publish it!
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/07/what-exactly-is-hamas-trying-to-prove/374342/
Hamas’re like the Ironborn of the Game of Thrones. They do not sow; and worse they don’t even bother with the iron price; they just want to destroy. Of course they have no plans for building. The Palestinians don’t seem very interested either in self-sustainability, since they support a group that blows up important infrastructure – oh, like the power plant that supplied Gaza with power. e_e
Interesting article, I’m like you: surprised to see it in print.
But there’s one little line in there poking me in a tender spot:
Like the Palestinians, the Kurds deserve a state. Unlike most of the Palestinian leadership, the Kurds have played a long and clever game to bring them to freedom.
The Kurds have done a great deal of work to build a state, I’ve been to Kurdish territory in Iraq, and the dramatic difference between their society and Iraqi society is telling.
Why do the Palestinians deserve a state? The rest of the article belies this line, so I wonder about editorial input.
Now if we changed deserve to desire I think it’d scan well and fit the rest of the narrative.
I really (really) have to suppress my knee-jerk reactions on things like the Palestinian situation, because it’s dark and inhuman(e). My patience is very thin with pathetic terrorist scum inviting destruction on their own heads while trying to win a fucking PR war. I’ve comforted the children caught up in these ignorant, savage ideologue’s games. I’d be fine digging them out of their little holes and putting bullets in the back of their heads. I’d be fine with handing them a PR victory, or rather, laying it on their bloody corpses, just to see them gone.
Hm. What’s with the red curtains. Pardon me for a moment, I need a drink.
The Kurds are slowly, deliberately building a state. They’ve got the kernel of it in Iraq, where they’ve cut deals with the Turks who are important transhippers of goods the Kurds need to buy and sell. Not only has Kurdistan agreed to tamp down their terrorist brethren, relieving that burden on Turkey, they have gotten the Turks to turn a blind eye to a Kurdish unit going into a Kurd dense portion of Syria and turning back the Caliphatic tide.
See: Turkish Kurds Enter Syria to Fight ISIS at Walter Russell Meade’s Via Media blog.
http://www.the-american-interest.com/blog/2014/07/15/turkish-kurds-enter-syria-to-fight-isis/
See also: Kurds Ask for Western Weapons, [SAME SITE]/blog/2014/07/16/kurds-ask-for-western-weapons/
“Kurdistan is at the frontline against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS),” Rahman told the Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee. “If we are to keep that frontline stable, we need much more assistance.” […]
It’s particularly telling that nobody in the Middle East would WANT them to be assimilated into their own populations (the resistance of such especially back in the day was noticeable.) I sometimes get the impression that the other Arabs look at the Palestinians as they would rabid attack dogs – kennelled in Palestine, useful to attack the Jews and Christians, but not something you want to take home and introduce to your children…
What do we do with rabid dogs…?
Pretty much, yeah, everything you said, Eamon. The bad thing is, even their children are often already attainted, raised to die in the attempt to harm. *shudder* Maybe not infants.
From memory, they were supposed to go to Jordan.
Then there was a “little” problem with an attempted overthrow of the gov’t…..
That’s my memory as well. Of course, the so-called refugee camps started after the 1948 war and were all outside of Israel. So it was the Arabs would kept them there. Afterwards Israel (while fighting back) took the territory holding the “refugee camps”. In hindsight, Israel should have shut down those camps and made them leave the territory Israel just captured.
Mine too.
Yeah they were. And there’s the fear that their fellow Arabs/Muslims raised about the Jews supposedly coming to kill everyone instead of deal fairly… so FLEE FOR YOUR LIVES~!
*snort* I mean, that’s the sort of thing they themselves do, and did/have done, so naturally it was ‘believable.’
Most of the sympathizers skip past the part about Israel’s enemies in 1948 called for all “good” Arabs to flee ahead of the invading armies, promising they could return after the invaders’ victory.
They also skip over the fact that the Jewish populations of the invading countries were driven out, although those refugees were accepted into Israel.
The whole “push the Jews into the sea” bit seems to be glossed over as well. So, the “Palestinians” are the Arabs who left so their would-be allies could genocide the Jews, lost, and now they’re whingeing about “right of return”?
The Jews are far more merciful than I.
Got it in one, and yup.
Yep. That’s an inconvenient truth that hurts their ridiculous narrative of ‘oh, poor victimized Arabs…!’
You know with the Iran threat, I think Israel should make an example out of the Palestinians. Instead of treating them like a little baby and giving them a smack on their diaper, they should treat them like the hoodlums they are. It is obvious the only thing they respect is strength, and if there are no Palestinians there will be no reason to create a Palestine State.
Well, yes. Unleashing the Israeli military might without any of the usual bleeding heart and tears getting in the way would do wonders in ending that particular conflict, but the various powers that be in the Middle East like having a bad guy they can wail about being oh so evil so nobody will probably look closely at their own houses. That, and they really don’t want the Palestinians in their own borders. They’re not the most behaved of guests, as it were.
No. They do tend to break things and then whine as they pester the repairmen.
Or cheer when they kill the repairmen, and curse if they miss when they’re shooting at them, putting MORE holes into what shouldn’t have holes…
I’m actually surprised that the Israelis haven’t just said “we’re not going to repair that any more, sod off.” They really should have by now.
Heck with not repairing it, they should destroy it all. The Palestinians want to whine about starving? Maybe somebody should cut off their food supply. If everybody was stopped from giving them food, maybe they would be too busy actually having to produce some, to spend as much time making and deploying unaimed rockets. Or they could actually experience starving.
Yeah, I have small patience for whiners, and my sympathy for Palestinians was all used up long ago. With the way they train their kids from infancy to be (I was going to say good, but actually they are p$ss-poor) little terrorists, I don’t even have any sympathy for the children.
They’re also really not succeeding in terrorizing the public when one thinks about it.
I completely agree with letting it sit destroyed. The Pallies did it to themselves. And besides, they can’t even really make the argument that it’s for people on life support – my father said that the really needy of such could apply to Israel for treatment in Israeli hospitals, and they could get it. Often free.
The ones who are actually starving are the ones who aren’t supportive of Hamas / whichever is the dominant ruling group there. I actually wonder if the food caravans have stopped now. Starving out a population to end a siege is an effective way to end war, but remember the morons on the ship Saint Pancake? They had weapons and things that could be used as weapons. Hidden with their supplies of ‘humanitarian aid’. The Israelis did the right thing on that one – just examine the forbidden stuff, show off what they found, and let the harmless food and supplies through, while declaring that there were already agencies in place that handle donations of the same to Palestine. Also there’s the aiding and abetting of the media and the UN which continues to foster stupidity and lies. Really there’s nothing Israel can do that wins the approval of the anti-Semites anyway, short of marching themselves back into the gas chambers.
Let’s face it — if the Jews marched back into the gas chambers their enemies would complain about having to dispose of the corpses.
😦
Hah! True, that.
Hang on, there are serious Christians who think their job is to wait for Jesus to do all the work of turning them into good people?
Man, they must _hate_ the Epistle of James.
Not wanting to get started on theology this late (just after midnight for me) but there’s a difference between working toward being good people and becoming perfect people.
IMO James talked about working toward being good people not becoming perfect people.
Humans can’t become perfect by our own efforts.
Humans becoming perfect is something that happens with God’s Grace in Heaven and on Earth after Christ’s second coming.
Thank you, Paul. this is also my understanding.
“IMO James talked about working toward being good people not becoming perfect people.
Humans can’t become perfect by our own efforts.”
False dichotomy. Humans can’t become good by our own efforts.
That does not mean you can cease “work[ing] out your salvation with fear and trembling. For God is the one who, for his good purpose, works in you both to desire and to work.”
I have know Protestants passionately fervent about faith alone and no good works at all to get to Heaven who nevertheless get their noses bent out of shape at the suggestion that their good works aren’t all their own.
Works vs Faith/Grace is one of those subjects involving plenty of “ink spilled” over the years even within Protestantism. [Smile]
No one said that. Just that they’re waiting for Jesus to make them PERFECT. After a certain level, it’s not humanly possible.
Fair enough. Although if we were to return to the cultural ideal of “do justly and love mercy”, as opposed to the Marxist ideal that is disturbingly close to the exact opposite, I suspect things would improve to the point of unrecognizability within a generation.
“They expected that raising Muslim self-esteem would stop Muslim aggression, too. Because they think of the world as sort of a really large kindergarten and they believe bullies bully because they lack self esteem.”
In my experience bullies don’t lack self-esteem; they bully because they have an excess of it and believe themselves better than everyone else.
Yes. But liberal theories say they’re victims of society and lack self esteem. Don’t ask ME. Are you surprised they don’t see reality?
*turns it around, tilting her head side to side*
You know, it can kind of make sense… if a bully goes after someone, it’s usually because there’s something about them that makes them feel bad, right? (Seems to usually be their own demons, not the victim actually doing anything other than not being worse than the bully in every way, to a sufficient degree. Includes not being obviously miserable at all times….)
So, it’s that the bully feels an impact to their self-esteem; if that was not done (never mind that’s not possible) then the bully wouldn’t bully.
Been shown in the lab. But do you really think they’ll give up their theories just because they are false? They have too much self-esteem for that.
Of course, if the bullies can’t control themselves, the correct laws are already on the books — since they pose a risk to themselves or others.
I would like to remark on your take of the media. We in Israel are in the same quicksand. As you probably know, we are currently under attack from the Gaza strip. So, the TV is full of talks about it. Last night I went to bed and my wife was watching one of the talk shows. I was on my way to deep sleep when I found myself saying “lie”. I do not recall what he said but even half asleep it provoke me.
This morning, at work, someone asked me how are things and I said “good”. So he asked “In two words?” and I said very good. He looked as he was struck by lightning, So I explained to him that as killing done by Muslims many countries in Europe bypass us. When it comes to the economic situation we are doing better then most of the Europe countries. Our growth is about 3-4%, unemployment is at a record low of about 5-6%. GNP is about 40,000$ per capita and generally we are doing better then 90% of the other countries.
I could see the wheels turning in his head and then he said, Youknow, you are right.
Yet all we hear from the media is visions of doom.
well, the rocket thing worries me a little…
So are tornadoes and hurricanes. At least the Israelis have Iron Dome.
*Grin*
/cheer
*claps in delight*
I don’t understand what you mean by this though: So I explained to him that as killing done by Muslims many countries in Europe bypass us.
What do you mean by ‘many countries in Europe bypass us’? My head wants to translate that as ‘overlooks Israel’ somehow.
Perhaps he means the assaults and murders in France, Belgium, England, and (IIRC) Sweden. And that charming little rally in Frankfurt earlier this week.
Ah well, the Europeans will reap what they’ve sown, if they think their oh so charming unadaptive Islamist populations will stay focused on the Jews. When the Jews are all gone again, on whom do you THINK they’ll focus? Actually isn’t England starting to push back on that violent cultural poisoning? In the wake of the discovery of the school system being corrupted toward radical Muslim teaching? (or turning them essentially into mini Saudi Arabias?)
The Jews in Europe would really do well to flee to other places.
Exactly.
I think he meant to say pass, rather than bypass; as in the killing done by muslims in many European countries exceeds that done here.
Hit the wall…
Paul (Drak Bibliophile) Howard | July 15, 2014 at 9:03 pm | Reply
Foxfier, you’re forgetting the Number One Rule of Superhero Comics.
The Hero (or Heroes) always has the Edge to win even if it means the Villain has to make a stupid mistake for the Hero (or Heroes) to Win.
Or as S. M. Stirling has said “the Hero has the Scriptwriters on his/her side”. [Very Very Big Grin]
Foxfier | July 16, 2014 at 1:29 am | Reply
First rule of Fans:
We’ll make it make sense!
emily61 | July 16, 2014 at 7:44 am |
2d law of Fans: If we don’t like what you wrote, we’ll fixit! That’s what fanfic is for!
Third rule of Fans:
we will decide if that Never Really Happened, thank you.
Yeah!
Speaking of fans– today is the tenth anniversary of the first episode of Star Gate Atlantis.
I have only one quibble: No, they’re not geniuses, but they have mastered the fundamentals of the revolutionary art.
The three pillars of freedom are education, communications, and weaponry. A free people must retain a grip on all three to remain free. The Left has largely seized control of the first two and is striving with all its might to eliminate the remaining pockets of resistance (e.g., homeschooling, the free and open Internet). As for weaponry, no other subject is more fiercely contested at this time…and every time it looks as if the freedom movement has gained ground, “the Shadow takes another shape and grows again.”
No, they aren’t geniuses. But you don’t have to be a genius to steal a country from a people who are largely asleep at the wheel.
To steal you need competence. To wreck, you don’t. They’re just wreckers.
Oh, and the three pillars? That’s stolen from soviet agit prop who WERE good. I mean evil, but good at revolution. These people aren’t. Again, note they thought OWS would ignite the country. They’re just putzes. But destruction is EASY.
The word “good” has many meanings. For example, if a man were to shoot his grandmother at a range of five hundred yards, I should call him a good shot, but not necessarily a good man. – G.K. Chesterton
Moved down because of the wall….
response to Wayne Blackburn:
I forgot all about the ugly part, but I thought The Rock was big enough…
emily61
Is he a good enough actor?
Yes.
A bit of a ham… which is just a way to say that he actually does convey emotion. He also plays to his audience, which can be a problem in evaluating his acting. (You buy “big guy getting laughs by doing the deer in the headlights look”, you GET it….)
I suspect a lot of the Wrestlers would be good casting choices for ugly, big dudes, as long as they’re not Hulk Hogan level famous. They’re experienced with stage acting at stone’s-throw distance and pro-level sports body stress.
Stone Cold did some acting years ago, not sure if he still is doing any or not, but I think he would make a better Owen than The Rock.
Eeeh, he hits my “too famous” button. The Rock almost does, but he’s got such a generic face that I think the eyebrow thing was largely to differentiate him.
Let’s also rember Owen is suposed to be in his early tweenties too.
With Hollywood, I’m so use to 16 year old boys being played by douches in their 30s that I always forget that.
I wasn’t really worried about it, for the same reason. A LOT of people are played by actors who are WAY older (or sometimes younger) than the character they are portraying.
You have a point, and on that note maybe Tom Cruz will play him. He done it before.
😉
Oh, Pfui, we get Robert to play Owen. Make him look bigger. MY ROBERT, yep.
If we’re going outside of the ranks of actors, I know someone for Franks. He wouldn’t even have to stand on a box.
According to imdb.com he still is. I remember that he was in The Expendables.
He might be too long in the tooth to play Owen though. Owen’s in his early 20’s, no? Austin was born in 1964.