The Great Re-Weaving

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

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It was a time of catastrophic technological change. Long afterward, in the less regimented, more prosperous world that followed, people asked: how could they have been so blind?

It was a time of transparency. Real transparency, quite unlike the foolish promises of previous politicians blinded by their narcissism, and nothing like the rotten assurances of the decrepit Gray Lady who had, in her time, turned a blind eye to the Holocaust and hidden the horrors of Holodomor, the depravity of the Gulags to praise collectivist systems that devoured people and dreams and spit out nothing but misery and dehumanization and a boot stepping on a human face forever.

Now, suddenly, they couldn’t make their picked man, their chosen one into the harbinger of that great collectivist future.  They couldn’t snigger behind their hands at the unwashed people who’d never know of his faux pas. Oh, they did what they could, that guard of journalistic castrati protecting the corpse of a corrupt and bloated bureaucracy. But enough slipped through the cracks that most people knew something was wrong: the Summer of Recovery that resided in some unspecified future conditional; the idea that his face would appease Islam’s irate warriors was undone by the beheadings the Jihadists insisted on posting on Youtube; the way the Light Bringer seemed to be in the dark when bereft of a teleprompter.

It was a time of danger. The news in common people’s hands. This strange power of broadcasting to the world, of entertaining the world, of breaking — after so long — the monopoly of communication that the industrial revolution had brought with it, made it seem like the world was coming apart.

The president himself: that man of the last century, formed by two generations of devout communists, instead of facing the problems with an aggressive Russia; his loss of control in the Middle East; his inability to implement his cherished  –socialized medicine dream with any degree of credibility — not to mention efficiency, ability or financial sanity — his sudden realization that no, the American people weren’t hankering to be invaded from the South; then tilted that patrician nasal appendage of his to the sky and proclaimed it was all the fault of social media.

In this moment he admitted the truth. It was not unlike the moment in Scooby Doo cartoons when the villain howls “I could have got away with it if it weren’t for you meddling kids.” And why shouldn’t he feel that way? His idol FDR turned a recession into a depression but thanks to the lack of the meddling kids of blogs, Youtube, internet, no one knew. The eunuch press covered for him and held laurels above his inflated image for decades.

That the common man even knew the country was in danger now, and that the world was in the hands of an intellectual poseur who held no affection for America or the American people, was the fault of this rank, disorganized, non-hierarchical ability to report the news.  Those meddling kids!

Which meant everyone knew there was danger, but the danger the elites saw was, most of all, from those they wished to make their subjects.

It was a time of breakup. The industrial revolution required great territory, great influxes of raw material. Breaking out from the cottage industry of Europe and into something that could produce enough material goods to make the world more prosperous than it had ever been required an agglomeration of territories, a centralization of capital and of production. It was this centralization that allowed that madman, Marx — scribbling away, grifting off Engels, unable to produce anything or even support his own family — to dream that he could create a perfect system, that concentrating the decision- making power in bureaucrats, in intellectuals, in people like Marx would bring about utopia.

He could dream this because the technology of the time of necessity required big investment and large hierarchical ventures.

Then in the twenty first century, like a great wave receding, the tide was finally going out on all this centralization and top-down fabrication. Oh, not completely. It would linger for a while, just like fragmented, family agriculture lingered and was the occupation of most people for centuries into the industrial revolution. But slowly, inexorably, the great dinosaur of twentieth century tech was being replaced by the small, fast mammal of twenty first century customized, personalized, individualized, fabricated at home, 3-d printed tech.

An economy too long in thrall to the all-encompassing state could no longer function, and the replacements were of a different type.  The great edifice of socialist bureaucracy across the world was collapsing under the strain of those who could vote themselves bread and circus and the fools who would encourage it.  And the people who could still produce had to do it around the system.

It was a time of Kipling:

In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “If you don’t work you die.”

And those that were working, even those who worked for others, were forced by  the bloated bureaucracy (and in the US the antediluvian structure of Obamacare and its long dreamed-of socialist work week of 30 hours), to become contractors, individual strivers cast into the merciless world to work or die. And such individuals were less likely to wish to vote for a distant, faceless authority or to submit to a government so distant from the individual and its surroundings as to know nothing about it. They weren’t looked after: not by their employer, not by anyone.

When you can’t trust the government to look after you, you realize the power does rest in “us the people.”

The threatened separation of a land annexed in the fire and blood of the English Civil war could be viewed as foolish or as a tantrum, yes. Or it could be viewed as the precursor tremor to the earthquake of demand for greater local power, for a reverting to more responsive national or even smaller authority in Europe and for a greater empowering of local authority in the States, an authority more conforming to the US Constitution which had been tramped underfoot for too long.

It was a time of elite triumph. A time when they tried to bind down the giant that was the USA. A time when they ran abroad blazoning their theories and doctrines, and their certainty that once the US was brought down to the level of every other country, the world would be a better place.

It was a time of elite humiliation. They followed their Marxist religion. They discussed it and argued it in their classrooms, in their select parties, in their editorial offices. For decades, it had been the underpinning of every news article, every book and every movie that was allowed out and in front of the public.

In this pretty bubble they’d constructed, the improbable seemed not only possible but inevitable. They’d humiliate the US and bring her down. They’d concentrate all the power in Europe in one great unelected body. They’d enhance the self-esteem of countries that hadn’t contributed anything to civilization for centuries.

And then peace would flourish and the land would run with milk and honey.

Instead, they got beheadings and crucifixions, they got tyrants triumphant, they got Putin rampaging and they got bloggers and youtube dogging their steps.

And they got scared. Really scared. So scared that they were willing to quote Kipling whom they’d long tried to banish from curricula for being imperialist, racist, sexist and, above all, for the triad of crimes of being white, male and dead.

They quoted him, but they didn’t understand him.

Which was why:

And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!

And it was unpleasant for everyone. And terrifying for the elites. Fortunately the elites weren’t the world. Out there, on the ground, the people they despised, had learned to strive and thrive for themselves.

In the world that emerged after the inevitable turmoil: a world more oriented to the individual; a world when the old lie of collectivism simply wasn’t feasible; they looked back and wondered how the elites could have been so blind and how they could have thought the sky was falling, when it was only their Marxist papier-mache sky and their gaslight false sun.

UPDATE: Welcome Instapundit Readers, and thank you to Glenn Reynolds for the link.

 

602 thoughts on “The Great Re-Weaving”

      1. Sometimes. I’m too busy to be that focused on hate. I’ve better things, honestly, to do, than rage endlessly like SJWs do. Unlike them, my life is not an empty pit longing to be filled.

        I hate what they do though, because of how it affects us all.

      2. At present, most of the immediate, personal harm they would do me lies in the future, so I am able to avoid the despair & corruption of hating. Ironic laughing and pointing, certainly. And, aware the elites are somewhat King Kong-like in their blind ability to do harm, looking around to know where the escape paths may be.

        For a thing beautifully written – huzzah!

  4. There’s still a lot of denial out there. I’m having an online argument with a leftist from Britain who just can’t bring himself to admit that empowering Muslims, many of whom are deeply sexist, could have anything to do with the abuses recently revealed at Rotherham.

    1. One of the things I’ve noticed when dealing with the left is that you are automatically wrong in ANY disagreement. No matter how many facts you have, no matter how much you’ve buttressed your argument with solid evidence – you’re wrong.

      That’s because in an argument with a leftist you’re not arguing facts – you’re arguing about aspects of religion. YOU may be arguing facts – THEY see it as an attack on their religious belief system. You are challenging things they know to be true and unquestionable, and no doubt on those things is permitted. They get a great deal of comfort from their beliefs, and don’t want them challenged.

      Your British leftist will contort their thinking into a Mobius strip if it’s needed, to avoid even the chance of thinking they might be wrong on something.

      1. I do believe your observation to be spot on.
        I would only add this: to the devout left those who oppose them are not simply wrong, we are evil. As you say, we challenge the most basic tenets of their religion, so we must by definition be evil incarnate. Which is why they can cheat, lie, steal, do any manner of terrible things to us and sleep well knowing that their cause is just. That it is just a fiction born of false assumptions and completely disconnected with reality never ever enters their pointy little heads.

        2. “The left thinks the right is evil, the right thinks the left is dangerously wrong”
          “The left wants those they disagree with shut up, the right wants those they disagree with to keep talking”

          I’m not of the first mind as much any more. Too many of those on the left have gone well past wrong and are totally evil.

          2. Their belief system is wrong, the actions they perform following their belief system are evil. So by extension one can argue that their belief system is evil.

            1. oh, it is. Whether they are or not depends on if you can get them to actually think. I am related to a few we are getting to think just maybe their life long closely held beliefs were so very very wrong.

        3. “Which is why they can cheat, lie, steal, do any manner of terrible things to us and sleep well knowing that their cause is just.”

          Which is why the Left, like the Muslims, cannot be reasoned with, only killed until they learn to leave us alone.

          1. The Left is capable of social intimidation pressure through such techniques as ridicule and withholding approval. It is not necessary to kill them, just more efficient.

      2. *blink*

        Came over here in a black mood because of a thing elsewhere, and… well, I now feel better.

        You put a finger on what had me so pissed– “no matter the disagreement, you’re automatically wrong”– to heck with facts or even expectations of behavior.

        1. Back when “women’s lib” was coming on-line, I noticed that, even though I (a guy) might be right, they were always “right-er”. That, plus no sense of humor. Seems the left is pretty much the same.

      3. I think these quotes apply.

        “The problem isn’t that Johnny can’t read. The problem isn’t even that Johnny can’t think. The problem is that Johnny doesn’t know what thinking is; he confuses it with feeling.”
        —Thomas Sowell

        “It is bad enough that so many people believe things without any evidence. What is worse is that some people have no conception of evidence and regard facts as just someone else’s opinion.”
        – Thomas Sowell

        I’ve personally seen the second in operation. You can make a factual claim (say, something about crime rates), you can SHOW them the evidence (say, FBI crime stats), and they’ll still insist that the claim is incorrect. Another evasion is they’ll change the definition of a word or term so that it suits their desires, rather than normally accepted usage. I had a discussion with someone I considered a “looney lefty” about WMDs in Iraq. I was able to show him news stories that chemical weapons were found (there are such news stories, despite the continued claim that no WMDs were found in Iraq), and we both knew a coworker whose son was hospitalized for over a month due to sarin gas exposure IN Iraq (he was on a chemical weapons disposal team). So suddenly, as far as he was concerned, chemical weapons weren’t WMDs, despite the universal definition (even the UN agrees with it) that WMDs include biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons.

        1. The young are bombarded with opinions dressed up as facts (AGW), so it’s no wonder they can’t separate the two.
          Thinking serfs might call on the services of Madame Guillotine if they realized how badly they’ve been robbed of their birthright. So they ate very carefully steered away from thinking.

          1. Who needs a guillotine when you have trees and ropes or hot tar and feathers. rope and wood for a gallows. I may not have any children but I do have nieces and nephews.

            1. Sounds like a choice between the Mussolini Treatment (hung by heels from a lamppost) and the Carpetbagger Remedy (tar and feathers then hanged by the neck from a tree)

              My take:
              Mussolini Treatment: Are there enough Lampposts in D.C.?

              Carpetbagger Remedy: now there’s a National Forest to be proud of!

                    3. Won’t work. We need the corpses prominently displayed (to be replaced with dummies after they rot) as a reminder.

                    5. A new constitutional amendment:

                      It is hereby enacted that every year on the Anniversary of the Revolution, one legislator from each house, chosen by lot, shall be defenestrated as a reminder of the fate of those government workers who infringe on the liberties of the People and to encourage the surviving legislators to conduct themselves circumspectly and to guard the rights of the People jealously. Lest this fate be visited upon them.

                    7. Ah, but the rub is how to choose the most useless? Maybe one could be exempted from the lottery by a 75% vote of one’s constituency. That’d be a 75% vote of the people for Representatives and a 75% vote of the state legislature for Senators. Kill the amendment that decoupled the Senate from the states. A little more jeopardy for the Representatives, it must be a 75% vote of ALL registered voters not just the ones that can be bothered to show up. Think of it as a vote of confidence.

    4. One of the sites quoted by Sarah says:

      It was a time of hatred. Anti-Semitic slogans were heard in the land that invented industrialized mass murder for Europe’s Jews. Frightened European Jews removed mezuzahs from their homes. Europe’s Muslims felt the ugly backlash from the depravity of the decapitators, who were adept at Facebooking their message.

      Note the lack of connection between the “Anti-Semitic slogans” and “Europe’s Muslims,” as if the anti-Semitic slogans were just kind of speaking themselves. And the real problem is the “ugly backlash” against “Europe’s Muslims,” not anything that “Europe’s Muslims” might be saying or doing.

      2. Paraphrasing Lois McMaster Bujold: “Well, our credit was declined, and voices were raised. Bottles were thrown, the police were called…she was punched out…” Miles wondered at the lack of actors in all this action.

    5. Yes, there is definitely a lot of denial. I haven’t discussed it with him in over 2 years, but I’ll guarantee that if I went on Facebook and talked bad about ACA, he would come defend it because insurance companies are so evil, and follow up at some point by saying that it’s a bad law, because we need a Single Payer system.

    6. The Left has a real problem facing up to the intense sexism of Muslim cultures because it contradicts their assumption that the more Third World the culture, the more enlightened it is. This is contradicted by a lot of other Muslim attitudes, but the attitude toward women tends to produce violent trouble quickly, because it leads to beatings, rapes and murders.

  5. Off Topic:

    Ladies and Gentlemen I need some help. I’m looking for a new book, maybe even a series. I’m looking for military science fiction. A space opera with a goodly amount of ship to ship combat by an author that has put some thought into the likely realities of space warfare. I would prefer if the author was a him/hoyden or MGC.
    Any suggestions?

    1. I’m guess by new you mean something just published as opposed to a classic oldie you might not have read.

      As the most recent Sci-Fi, that I managed to get myself interested in was Harry Turtledove — as has been noted by many, PC has turned me off to the genre — I’ll throw out The Forever War in the extremely unlikely chance you’ve never read it.

      1. Yeah I was aiming for recently published. As you surmised I’m familiar with Haldeman’s work (I think I spelled that wrong). Thanks anyway though.

          1. Are you familiar with Sam Schall’s Vengeance From the Ashes? Really good with a female main character. I mean really female not a man with boobs.I enjoyed it thoroughly even though o occasionally had trouble relating to the main character (being male and all). Give it a whirl.
            Anything by Peter Grant is well worth the price of admission as well. He writes military SciFi in a very Heinleinesque way.

              1. Aw Miss Sarah I wasn’t trying to chivvy anyone along. Je ist looking for a new book. Same goes for Mr. Grant.

        2. As you surmised I’m familiar with Haldeman’s work (I think I spelled that wrong).

          Work.
          W O R K
          work.

          No, you’re good.

          2. And what’s the first rule of reading this blog? No eating or drinking!

            (Glad I was following that rule when I read this. Something would have come out my nose.)

      2. The Lost Fleet series and much of the early Harrington series. Later Weber’s Harrington is more politics as the rank and responsibilities increased.

    2. Have your read Live Free or Die by John Ringo. Space battles, and from a perspective of American individualism fighting against universal entrenched power. And it is by Ringo.

      1. Who can read military SciFi and miss Drake’s stuff, Although I think his Lt. Leary series was better.

        1. I would suggest a look at ‘Ian Douglas’ I’ve read a few of his books, mostly about Marines in Space war, but ship to ship as well. He has numerous books available at ‘Better world Books’ for about $3.98 and free shipping. Most are trilogies. Another writer not of the MGC group but, still non-political, non-message but lots of action.

          2. Non-political? Good enough writer, but his books made dents in my wall from taking flying lessons whenever I choked on his political messages.

            For non-political I would be more inclined to recommend Elizabeth Moon, most here are probably aware of her political leanings, but her books (other than those co-written with McCaffery) tend to actually message the opposite of what she espouses in real life (there is a reason I never read her blog). I highly recommend both her Serrano Legacy series and her Vatta Wars series.

            1. OK so no Douglas. Have y’all heard of Chris Hechtl? His Wandering Engineer universe is quite entertaining.

    4. *purses lips* We’re only one book into our Mil-SciFi series, and haven’t yet gone off planet. That’s planned for later on though because we will take the story off planet and the bulk of the story revolves around a crew. Not very hard in the terms of SciFi aspect; if I had to compare, Star Wars or Starcraft level of ‘science’. It’s cheap on lulu ebook and iBookstore if you’d like to give it a shot anyway though.

      United Fleet: The Right Place

            1. If you’d like to, and I don’t mind critique and criticism as long as it’s honest, ever. I do know UF 1 was somewhat rushed and as it’s a first book I don’t think it’ll be awesome.

              I’d like to think we’d gotten better since, but we won’t without critique so we know where to improve.

              (Plus, I know for sure your critique will be honest, unlike Clamps.)

    5. Have you encountered Robert Frezza’s work (A SMALL COLONIAL WAR, FIRE IN A FARAWAY PLACE, CAIN’S LAND)? Not much ship-to-ship, but otherwise top notch.

        2. Dear, have you been holding out on me? I haven’t heard you mention this series. We’ll talk this weekend. 😉

      1. Anyone who wants to can add more recommendations to that list.

        Also, we are doing a military SF read for September.

    7. Baen’s webscription was release yesterday. Had a new Honorverse book – the start of a prequel series by Weber and Zahn…A Call to Duty. It’s early Manticore. Manticore isn’t even producing their own fusion reactors yet.

        1. As someone who uses Mr. Grant’s royalties to buy bacon and chocolate (and pay off debts so we can be closer and closer to debt free, but the bacon is a more immediate gratification), thank you! I really hope you enjoyed ’em all!

          And Doug is pretty rockin’, too!

          1. Mrs. Grant,
            Please exercise your wifely powers and crack the whip over him. I’m dying for my next Maxwell hit. I know my wife could produce motivational miracles with me by showing a mere frown.

            Sincerely,
            Jefferson Selvy (the addict)

            (I’m really just kidding. I know y’all just moved)

    9. Jack Cambell’s “The Lost Fleet” series isn’t bad.
      He thought out pretty well how space battles between fleets traveling at a good fraction of light speed and across several light minutes or hours apart could be carried out.

    10. Honor Harrington series by David Weber for long running many book (lost count) series. Kingdom of Man series for fewer books (4).

    11. Military science fiction (but naval, not space, on an alternate Earth)? The Destroymen series, up to 10 or so books now. A great read, cliffhangers galore, and an enemy that learns and fights better as the war goes on.

      3. I agree 100%. Excellent series.

        Also it does not hurt that he’s from Granbury TX. I lived there for 19 years when I worked at Comanche Peak building, testing and operating it.

    12. Also, I am not sure if Matthew Reilly’s Scarecrow series count as Mil-SF but they’re incredibly fun reads to me – Think of what would happen if Michael Bay and John Woo decided to write a book, and that’s Reilly’s signature style – Fast paced action pretty much from page one. He has a bunch of one-shot books revolving around ancient creatures (and a new one coming out.) Google his website – he has a bunch of short stories up for free for anyone who would like a taste. He’s branched out a little from his usual methods with The Tournament, which is historical-setting fiction and all about chess.

      On the same vein, I’d also recommend Greig Beck, another local author. Like Reilly he has a fondness for paleo-bio-horror creatures. I just wish his books were cheaper, because I’ve pretty much ranked him and Reilly as my fast paced action thriller go tos.

      A quick look on Amazon tells me their books are there too, and their Kindle prices are reasonable (in the less than $9 range).

      Enjoy!

  6. I started getting active in politics in the door-to-door feet-on-the-ground sense with Obama’s first inauguration. I was campaigning last night. The Republicans I talked where angry and enthusiastic about voting. The Democrats were saying they were “undecided”.

    This was not the case in 2012.

    1. I wonder at the effect of polling as a method of forming opinion instead of charting opinion. There is a lot of buzz about what appears to be fairly inaccurate polling on things like the economy and how well liked certain people are. I started suspecting it is a two-part push: one to say, “see, all the cool kids like [whatever], you should change,” and, a bit of underhanded, “See, you keep participating and you now have proof you are in the minority, surrender.” When I started getting the feeling that my answers were being used to further a lie I lost interest in responding. I wonder if this is a widespread thing or just me.

      1. I don’t know if it’s the polling per se but the reporting.

        There is a story (I think) on Breitbart that shows the MSM reporting of poll numbers was frequent when Bush hit a low but has been almost non-existent now that 0’s have tanked.

        So the poll numbers would be accurate reflections but are sill used to manipulate opinion

            1. I saw a headline from the post today saying something like “Dems now have 51% hope of retaining the senate” All I could think was “If they clap there hands and say ‘I do believe! I do believe!’ does it get them what they want?”

              On a different note, Nancy Pelosi says the GOP taking the senate will be the end of Civilization As We Know It.

              1. Civilization as they ‘know it’ – which should, I think, reads ‘want it to be’ looks an awful lot like a heavily stratified society with THEM at the top, and everyone else laboring to provide THEM with what they deserve.

                How you gonna keep the serfs in the fields after they’ve had a chance to determine their own fate? By making ‘freedom’ so expensive they’ll gladly go back to work for the manor lords…

              2. Nancy Pelosi says the GOP taking the senate will be the end of Civilization As We Know It.

                I assume Nancy is using ‘know’ here in the biblical sense…

            3. One thing that needs to be done is that independent people need to start pushing for investigation into fraud. There’s some incredibly stupid reason that the Republicans won’t do it, so non-Party people need to.

              1. I have never understood why the Republicans, who are the main victims of the voter fraud, are so reluctant to call for its investigation.

                1. They actually signed an agreement to that effect, decades ago, and it keeps getting renewed (by the same, original judge, according to the article I’m too lazy to look up right now).

                  1. Google “voter fraud consent decree”. I’ve read that the restrictions are not as bad as usually implied, but there definitely was such a document, and apparently it’s still getting renewed annually by the same judge.

                    1. Oh … crap.

                      The best bet for the Republicans would be to ignore the decree, challenge the elections, and ride the resultant prosecutions up to the Supreme Court. Because if they keep obeying this thing, our democracy is dead.

                    2. The best bet for the Republicans would be to ignore the decree, challenge the elections, and ride the resultant prosecutions up to the Supreme Court. Because if they keep obeying this thing, our democracy is dead.

                      They’re afraid we will– why do you think the “True The Vote” lady has been hit with every alphabet they can throw at her?!?

              2. Yeah, but what the journalists do is not a criminal offense. They are allowed. It’s just that they guys who pay their salaries lose all credibility and eventually go out of business.

                1. I think I replied to the wrong comment, but I can’t even figure out which one I was replying to now. I was talking about voter fraud, which, at the time of making the comment, I considered relevant, but have completely lost context since then.

                  1. That’s OK, I’ve done it myself.

                    You are right. Those who commit vote fraud should rot in jail. Those who accuse supporters of photo voter ID of disenfranchise people should be horsewhipped.

            1. Or “sources say…” or “experts say…” and so on and so on. No details, but it gets the lie out and people swallow it.

            2. Whisler’s Short Journalist to English Dictionary

              Studies/Polls/New Research show/s that = we are about to lie to you.

              (..and we may not even know we are doing it. But we would anyway if we knew.)

      4. One problem that is hampering polling is that the response/participation rate has been declining—meaning, among other things, that the results they do get are from a sample less & less like society.
        I do know that in my house, we’re getting less & less patient with phone polls; they insist on calling when we’re at dinner & don’t want to be disturbed, & lots of these “polls” have been so obviously of the “here’s the correct answer we want” kind that I’ve been further turned off to them.

        1. I ended that some years ago: You want my opinion, for a poll you’re being paid to take? What’s it worth to you? (they always want my expert advice for free, y’see.) The only poll that counts has a ballot attached.

      5. The last phone poll I answered I hung up halfway through.

        My husband was deployed. The counted that as a separation, because he was living elsewhere, and thus it counted as a “broken home.”

                    3. Complete tangent, the Swedish chef’s song is actually a Swedish children’s song. One of the Bards I know sang it to a Swede who had requested he do SOMETHING in Swedish and it was the only thing he knew. Took a little explaining as to why the man fell over laughing.

                    1. And Zulu – well, nobody in the waiting room needed to speak it to understand that whatever the doctor had done back there, he was about this close to having his still-beating heart ripped out of his chest.

                      Unfortunately, I have no direct translation to compare metaphors, as Calmer Half look particular stiff and formal, and would say no more than “It’s not language fit for a lady.”

                    1. There was an insult, I’m told, that translates to ‘you wear a green hat,’ in Chinese. The friend who told me about it worked in China for a couple of years, and I’m not sure we ever figured out the cultural reasons for it – perhaps male homosexual prostitutes wore green hats? The insult itself, (and I may be wrong since it’s been some time) casts aspirations on a man’s masculinity.

                    2. Do you think Robin Hood would care? I mean look at his pants. Some Chinese guy tells him he wears a green hat he’d just say, “Yes, and I look fabulous”.

                    3. I don’t think so, and… (hums We’re men, we’re men in tights…– I do love Mel Brooks’ works.)

                      If a guy fills out the pants, I’ve got no complaints about the outfit.. Hell, I draw guys who fill out pants. And induce Clamps to stare at their loins for too long then complain about it on Jordan179’s LJ.

                    8. I hope not either. I really do love his work. I know for fact though that his beloved wife Anne Bancroft awaits him on the other side

                    13. Strange as is – “giver of candy to children” strange?

                      Default Commander Shepard smiling strange?

                    14. “It’s the vomitous color scheme and the weird fixation on the loins, butt, and breasts I’m griping about.

                      Oh, and the breasts kind of stick out of the clavicle.”

                      Huh? First, the linked picture is male, and even though I find your males to look very feminine facially, they don’t HAVE breasts, much less have them coming out of their clavicles. And I don’t think it is YOUR fixation on the loins, butt and breasts that is the problem. When was the last time you heard somebody refer to male genitalia as loins, anyways?

                    15. See if this makes sense to you, please. (further down the thread)

                      Compressed:

                      Me: I think Clamps finds the loins of my male characters offensive because he may have a small dick.

                      Clamps: ARE YOU SAYING HOMOSEXUALS HAVE SMALL GENITALIA?!

                      Readers: …did he just say he’s gay?

                      Clamps: DROW IS AN UGLY SELF HATING CLOSET LESBIAN BECAUSE SHE DRAWS BUTTS AND BOOBS!!!!!11 *frantic deflection*

                    18. Remember that loser who killed his room mates and went hunting for co-eds because women weren’t sleeping with him?

                      Honest to goodness, first thing I thought when I heard about it was: “Oh, no; could Yama have actually done what we all feared? Should we have reported him or something?!?”

                    19. You’re NOT the only one who thought that.

                      The local comments of late has been “I wonder if we can put together enough money so we can put him in a jacuzzi with Mick Jagger and David Bowie, coz clearly he’s a frustrated, ragey horny thing with nothing better to do.”

                      I said “Why would you do that to Bowie and Jagger?!”

                    21. Yeah, the insane shit that gets revealed has been amusing for my coffee breaks today between my doing edits and reformat work (and when I’m not perusing the local news.)

                      He kinda fled shortly after that though, so we’ll see if he’ll be back in maybe six hours.

                    23. Yeah he’s not happy that he said he was gay.

                      He’s trying really really hard to deflect from that now by projecting that I am a self-hating closet lesbian.

                      It’s what he usually does after he lets something slip that he didn’t want to in his attempts to twist other peoples’ words to vilify them.

                    25. The funny thing is I actually wouldn’t care in the slightest whit if he WAS gay. That doesn’t matter to me at all, but he’s trying to push that I do care, or rather, that I “hate homosexuals.” I don’t, despite his desperate twisting of words.

                      What I care about regarding people is whether or not they’re good people. Race, religion, capability or disability, or sexual orientation matter not in the least to me.

                      In Yama’s case, he is not a good person in any form or way. He’s a coward as he prefers to attack a raging hypocrite, an arrogant, pathetic misogynistic little man whose opinion of himself and his beliefs about his rightful place in the world greatly outstrip his abilities to actually achieve. This is why he throws massive tantrums and stalks women who he believes does not merit the attention they deserve and he seems to think he should be getting and is entitled to.

                      He’s a psychopathic manchild who regularly supports genocide and Islamic terrorists, a putzy little script kiddy who has the delusion that he’s the greatest hacker in the world and is regularly laughed at by real coders, network security guys and programmers.

                      He goes around sneeringly denouncing everyone else’s work as worthless and ugly but when his own pride and joys are revealed show that he has less talent in either art or writing than a three year old who’s just learning how to scribble with crayon. When it is also revealed that he has no concept of humanity or beauty or virtues, he rails at the targets of his hate, and in the process reveals things about himself that he would not want revealed – such as his anti-Semitism, or more recently, his sexual orientation.

                      When he does this, he will immediately deflect, try frantically to project the failing onto the person who caught on to that revelation, or try other avenues of attack.

                      He also strongly believes that anyone he hates should not be considered by any other person as ‘good’ in any way. His railing about my ‘piglike appearance’ began after you and Frank paid me compliments – putting lie to his claims that he doesn’t stalk me, but in fact, follows with unrelenting obsession every single thing I do online or is said about me – and does this with every single person he deems unworthy, regardless of their actual achievements – which is why he also obsessively stalks Larry’s, Sarahs, Vox’s blogs, and Mad Genius Club.

                      And he’s been doing this since 2009, to me, and likely longer as a lifestyle, because there’s indications online that he’s been harassing people since at least 2005.

                      Despite having revealed himself as having no purpose other than this, he wants people to believe he isn’t a sad, envious, talentless little worm. THAT is why I laugh at him, not because of sexual orientation or race or whatever lie he likes to throw up as a smokescreen.

                      In return, he’ll just get ragingly mad every time any one of us puts out a book, has fun, enjoys each other’s company, or has the pleasant conversations and arguments and discussions we have here or on related blogs.

                    26. Ouch, that should’ve left a mark.
                      I always figure that you know the quality of a man by the quality of his enemies and the morality of his friends. I think I know enough of you that if you find him so, I will defer to your judgement. Though, I still think he is a Narnian

                    31. Sounds like Clamps is a prime candidate for the line – ‘As long as he stays away from me I neither care what he’s equipped with, nor what he does with it.’

                    32. Colonel Kratman used to have an excerpt of Clamps’ masterpiece work that he would post whenever Clamps started ridiculing someone’s writing skills. The piece is so bad it hurts (it makes Atlanta Nights look jaw-droppingly awesome), and about the time your sides stop hurting from laughing at it; Clamps would go into is frantic ‘vilify everyone else, get the spotlight off me routine.’ Problem being that when he gets wound up like that, he makes Obama without a teleprompter or bought and paid for journalists, look amazingly articulate. It is funny for a while, but he invariably just keeps on with the insane inanities and after a while it gets old, and since he won’t shut up he invariably ends up getting banned.

                    33. And note — Obama’s mild incoherence is spoken. Clamps/Yama’s is written. Which means Yama theoretically has time to look it over and edit it before he posts it. And he’s about as bad in his posted stories, with which he should presumably have taken care.

        2. Yup.

          I have heard people talk about the end of the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy solemnly declaiming how hard it would be for Elizabeth as a single mother.

          Piffle. Elizabeth was a perfectly respectable captain’s wife, living on shore while her husband was at sea. The gap of years might be somewhat long, but it would have been well within the expected time.

          1. That puzzled me too, actually. Wasn’t it common for seamen’s (or merchants’) wives during that era to essentially conduct themselves as heads of their households, and their husbands essentially trusted them to be competent enough to run everything including business in their absence?

            So the ‘run a household and a business’ thing isn’t a modern concept as feminists would like to pretend…

            1. There is, extant, a series of correspondence between a Nantucket wife and her husband an officer in the whaling fleet the letters cover a timespan of almost a decade. It goes something like this:

              Dear husband, where is the hammer?
              Dearest wife, why do you need the hammer?

              And on and on like this at a rate of two letters a year. If you look at it all at once, compressed as it were, it’s a normal discussion held between husband and wife who might be at opposite ends of the house. It is not of interest until it hits you that it’s taking place over a decade with the couple separated by half a globe or more. When the speed of communication was li.cited to wind and horse.
              My point is that these separations were not necessarily the hardships they are now. A proper wife was expected to run (really run) the household. That includes logistics, maintenance, medical and every other niggling thing.

              1. Yeah, I… have to commend them for their strength and devotion. It’s something I admire strongly in the wake of the sheer weakness of relationships they have nowadays.

                Having done the nearly a decade long – long distance relationship, one of the things Rhys and I never took for granted was the fact we could communicate in real time. We used to talk about the way it could take MONTHS for a letter to reach the recipient. It’s staggering to think about.

                1. My grandparents lived apart (he was in Venezuela, Brazil and South Africa) for 20 years. They wrote each other EVERY DAY. The mind boggles at the devotion and inventiveness, too. What did they find to talk about every day? Well, same things you’d discuss over the dinner table “Today the fish monger didn’t have anything good, so I was forced to make vegetable soup again. Your youngest son complained. Etc, etc, etc”

                  1. It really highlights that the important part of any marriage is the little day to day things that help cement the big things together. Making sure you told your other half what was going on in your day ensured that when you lived together again, the spouse who was away isn’t a stranger in the household. I did much the same while Rhys was on deployment – and told him all the little minutae of my day. I type pretty fast too so he’d get paragraphs. I didn’t expect the same because of op-sec, but he was able to talk about the little things. Like the hedgehog that had made it’s home under their workshop. It would grumble a LOT.

                    2. Yeah, Rhys would skype me once a night, unless lockdown. Sometimes he’d say “I just wanted to say goodnight, it’s been a long day, and wanted to hear your voice.” We’d say good night and he’d go to sleep.

                      After he got back he recounted that he was really happy I was a patient and understanding woman, because apparently there would be some guys whose next call home would be a big fight because they’d missed calling due to communications lockdowns. That honestly boggles me. Why the heck would you PICK A FIGHT about something like that?! o_O Every time they went on lockdown meant there was a risk of attack or an ongoing attack, and I’d be praying for their SAFETY.

                      There was a rocket attack at Rhys’ base and he still laughs about it. The terrorists missed the base and hit the firing range hundreds of meters away.

                    3. Some guys will “sleep next to” their ladies with skype– you set up the computer at home next to the bed with the camera pointed to you.
                      With the time difference between US and Japan, it usually means you just fall asleep “next” to them, and they wake up “next” to you, but… it helps, a little.

                    4. That happened once – Rhys drifted off and fell asleep with skype on, when we still lived in different countries. I got to look at him sleeping every now and again while I was doing work. I got to watch the dawn make the room lighter and lighter, letting me see more of his face as he slept, and I thought, “I’d like to see that first thing in the morning for the rest of my life.”

                      *big grin* Yeahhhh, I’m a such a sappy totally in love little thing.

                    7. Your guy is one of the things that makes us alike, my friend. The biggest difference is that I have no idea how Elfie decided that I was a good idea.

                  2. Sam Houston and his wife, Margaret Lea Houston also wrote to each other, every day that they were apart. He represented Texas after annexation, and had traveled here and there all during their marriage.
                    There were boxes and boxes of letters.
                    His last words were her name, and Texas.

                    1. Similarly, it has been determined that during the War of Southern Secession American general Ulysses Grant did not have a drinking problem, he had a being away from his wife problem (which, admittedly, he treated with drink.)

                    2. There is a reason that its not legally spousal abandonment until seven years have passed with no communication.

                    3. This is more directed at RES comment, but it is also posited that Grant was not so much a chronic alcoholic as a binger–i.e., he didn’t do it all the time, but when he started, he just couldn’t stop.

                  3. In one of the Hornblower novels, we see Hornblower getting a package of letters from his wife. After reading the last dated one (in case of bad news), he’d read through the rest of them in order of date.

                  4. Somewhere I’ve got the emails my husband and I exchanged from the point we started dating until he left the Navy…..

                    We are utter goofballs. *sappy smile*

              2. I feel required to note, on behalf of loyal milwives everywhere, that the situation was still a lot different– while these days are incredibly easier, there’s a lot of nonsense and social pressure that would’ve been unthinkable back then. (Part of the reason we HAVE the dentist we have is that they’ll let me make appointments for my husband, and we’ve almost had some major financial issues only because the military doesn’t like its members getting unlimited powers of attorney, and modern reality doesn’t work well with “the co-signer will be back in six months.”)

                  1. Wayne, my dear, we’re near Seattle; they separated my husband and myself during my first pregnancy consultation to make sure I knew I could kill the baby without him knowing about it.

                    (We changed doctors.)

                    You wouldn’t believe the hoops I had to leap through to pay the Federal Employee insurance when he was activated.

                    1. No, I know THAT is not part of HIPAA. Unless the husband for some reason had NOT put her on his “permission to share information with” form, and I’d be willing to bet a bunch of money that didn’t happen.

                      No, this was doctors being shitheads.

                    2. Oh, and no, I haven’t read it, but that particular idiocy would have come up with at least one of the doctors and hospitals that my wife and younger son have been to in the past 4 years.

            2. From my not-admittedly-comprehensive research into the mores of the time – a wife (of a working or entrepreneurial class) man was expected to be his second-in-command, or even the first-in-command in his absence when it came to running a business. She was the one that the employees would have looked to, in the husband’s absence. And in the case of a sea captain – that absence would have been considerable. Who other than the wife would have been in charge?
              (And yes, in my own books, I have made note of this kind of command structure,)

              1. The Lady commanding in his Lordship’s absence is normal for a long time. From the early medieval era to the 1950’s for sure maybe even longer. That’s why the first institution of higher education west of the Mississippi is Texarkana a women’s college at founding. She needed the education to efficiently run the ranch business while he bossed it. The submissive uneducated shackled wife is a feminist MYTH!

    2. Unfortunately they’re preparing the case for massive fraud. There’s already a poll saying that the dems will hold the senate. I wonder if they know what happens in this country when you block the ballot box or make it irrelevant.

        1. This is an important point. Given massive majority Republican support, it would be difficult for the Democrats to steal an election — and if they did it would be obviously stolen. To the people, and to our military and security forces.

      3. Things have a lot farther to fall yet, a lot farther. The GOP establishment really do seem to be supporting the existing system, they’re rather lose than embrace any change. I honestly do not think the senate will change hands, and not just because there will be massive fraud and millions of illegals voting (like in the last two presidential elections). But because a lot of people, like me, are going to sit this one out.
        I’m not voting for the GOP this year. I’m tired of them treating me like crap, so I’m just going to stay home and pray that the whole system collapses sooner rather than later.
        China and Russia are looking at us and rubbing their hands with glee, because they know Obama is inept and ineffectual, and not terribly bright as well. What will we do when Russia invades the Ukraine?
        Those two countries are itching for a war with us, and everyday it looks more and more like they will win one. They’re gearing up their military, while we’re gearing down. As long as the socialists rule, and no one challenges them, things will continue to get worse. As long as the propaganda of the left is instilled into the masses as truth, things will continue to get worse.
        And right now the GOP leaders are on the same side of the fence as Obama and the Democrats, they don’t want to win, so they won’t. They don’t want to save the Republic, so it will die – hell it’s already dead.

        1. John,

          I have more experience of this than you do. You sit this one out and you’re going to have the blood of millions on your hands.
          No, I don’t care if the republicans are bad. of course they are. but they are bad circa 1970s, not Pol Pot bad.
          This statist crap didn’t get in place over night. They’ve been working at it for 100 years. It won’t be overturned overnight either.
          Incremental change is a term you need to meditate on.

          1. Quite; “The worse, the better,” which seems to be what he’s getting at – “Kom de Revoluuuushun, Baby!” – is fine right up until you realize just how bad that worse can be.

            But I’m not sure waiting indefinitely works, either, Sarah. It’s not yet time for 1980s Beirut or 5th Century, BC Corcyra, but the time may be coming and it may not be avoidable.

            1. Oh, I’ve been getting a feeling that there will be a time of blood for some time. But there’s a difference between a short swift battle engaged while we’re still sort of strong and one that is forced on us by, oh, famine and global epidemic, which these clowns seem quite capable of bringing about.

                1. See, I think it will. I think MOST of their numbers are people who want to be “Smart” and “socially cool” and are not prepared to fight.
                  It’s of course possible I formed my opinion of them in Europe.

                  1. Nah. If it comes, you can’t finish the war quickly enough to prevent them from, falling back (for certain values of falling back), regrouping, reorganizing, and striking back. They’re simply in too much depth throughout society – we are talking here 34-60 million _adults_ – to finish off. And, having failed toi do the job completely, we will also seriously piss off a number of uncommitted and neutrals, while we convince any number of others that they may be next so better strike back while they can. This is also true for our side, should they be the ones to strike first.

                    Better not to strike at all until there’s no choice.

                    2. For the ‘starting things’ question, it’s all capabilities and intentions.

                      The vileprogs don’t have any incentive to start things while they think they are winning, or at least not losing, along the inevitable path to their arrow of history. It’s when their efforts look like they are all falling apart (see Nancy Pelosi’s quote) and coming to naught that they will think about using all those bureaucratic SWAT teams and the gazillion rounds of stockpiles 9mm to effectuate a little real time historical correction.

                      For the other side to start anything seriously I think they’d have to be pretty much backed into a corner, and I just can’t see the progs as being competent enough to make that happen.

                      As far as the result, Col. K’s assessment sounds right to me – they will think they are kicking off a short glorious lightning campaign, but their optimism won’t match reality, and as a result all of us will be in for a long hard bloody slog.

                    3. “We” simply can’t kill them all for several reasons:

                      1) We wouldn’t merely “decimate” (yes, I know. 10%) some professions–we’d decimate almost all of them and some would functionally cease to exist, to the point that we wouldn’t even have enough left to train the next generation (Journalists we could reconstruct from first principles, other things would be tougher).

                      2) We’re not nearly organized enough to do it fast. By some reports when Stalin realized that the mustached one had turned on him he gave the order to get rid of everyone they couldn’t trust, and within days over a million Soviet “citizens” died. We don’t have that level of organization, and that level of organization is basically antithetical to who we are.

                      But most importantly:

                      3) There is no “we”. There isn’t enough of a disagreement*across the board to bifurcate society to the extent that the vast middle would tolerate the levels of killing. There would be an immediate backlash.

                  2. That is true, but the dhimmicraps are bringing in hordes of willing foot soldiers in the form of the illegal immigrant “children” that will make life difficult for those who will oppose them. I have been suspecting that a lot of the “stimilus” money the 0bamanauts gave out in the first two years of their administration to groups like ACORN went to establish secret arms caches in inner city locations that will be opened up to arm enraged urban poor and gangsters when the freebies stop flowing.

                    We will win, but it will not be cheap or quick.

                    2. Arming the gangsters may be shooting themselves in the head. I doubt that the gangsters could be depended on shooting the “right people”. IE they won’t know the difference between Rich Liberals (Good folks) and Rich Conservatives (Bad folks).

                    5. The C(r)ook County dhimmicrap machine has been using the gangs as political enforcers for almost a century. Old Man Daley the First was part of one such gang back in the WW1 era.

                1. “Never let a good crisis go to waste.” They KNOW they won’t starve. They KNOW they won’t get sick.

                  What happens if we get some ebola popping up say, the middle of October? What would happen on, say, the first Tuesday in November?

                  Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to get my tin re-enforced.

            2. We’ve got two years where, at best, nothing will get accomplished inside the Beltway. We need to bring that (relatively) happy state of affairs about now. The day after Election Day, we need to start doing the real work.

              The biggest problem we have is that much of the GOP organization is either engaged in going along to get along, or they like the modern role of government as The Creepy Stalker State. (Proposed New National Anthem: The Police, “Every Breath You Take.”)

              One problem is that our political classes can’t even figure out how to do late-era Rome properly. We’re doing Imperial Overstretch at home and Bread & Circuses abroad…God help the world when Our Loudly Self-Proclaimed Betters go to the Viking model, they’re kill the women, rape the men, burn the village, and only then get around to the looting…

              What needs to happen during those two years is that We The Sane People need to take the helm of the Republican Party and turn it into an effective opposition party. That means taking over precinct and county committees, taking over the state-level party organizations, and separating out the differences between The Really Important Stuff and The Stuff That Does Not Matter, and focusing ruthlessly on the latter. I know, it’s work, and work is a four-letter word. But it needs to happen.

              1. There’s quite a lot of the GOP go-along-to-get-along crowd who will be easily scared; thus a relatively modest increase in the percentage of reasonable-sounding conservatarians & their ilk can have an outsize effect on how the legacy GOP behaves, so long as the incomers can give them cover. It’s called battleground preparation – get used to it.

              2. “God help the world when Our Loudly Self-Proclaimed Betters go to the Viking model, they’re kill the women, rape the men, burn the village, and only then get around to the looting”
                YES!

              4. I suspect that our Loudly Self-Proclaimed Betters will get those action events all mixed up, just as they most other things.

                1. El Guapo: Oh-ho, you…

                  Dusty: Jose!

                  El Guapo: Together, we…

                  Dusty: Burned the village!

                  El Guapo: Burned the village! And, uh…

                  Dusty: (trilling the “r”) Rrrrrrrraped de horses!

                  El Guapo: And we…

                  Dusty: Rode off on the women!

                  El Guapo: Rode off on the women! (now a little confused) And uh…

                  Dusty: Plundered!

                  El Guapo: Plundered! And uh…

                  Dusty: Pruned!

                  El Guapo: …pruned the, uh…

                  Dusty: Hedges!

                  El Guapo: …hedges of…

                  Dusty: Many small villages!

                  El Guapo: Many… small… WHO THE HELL ARE YOU?!?!?!

                    1. The Three Amigos. It wasn’t that great of a film, but it had it’s amusing parts like above.

                      (Dusty is played by Chevy Chase.)

          2. Incremental change at this point is useless. The current group has done extensive and radical change, incremental change won’t fix that. We need radical change just to get back to where we were six years ago. And we can’t even get incremental change when the opposition party has no desire to oppose anything by the majority party.
            As for where the blood lies, well that will be on the hands of those who voted for the current set of clowns and who have ignored everything those clowns have been doing. I myself probably won’t be here, because when I get the ‘family heart attack’ (all the males in my family develop some sort of heart issue around 55 – 60) I won’t be able to afford to get medical help because they’ve screwed the medical system in this country up beyond repair.
            So I fully expect to be dead by then. Hell I’m already having minor issues now that I can’t afford to go to the doctor for.

              1. You know, they said that when McCain ran, and they said that when Romney ran. Both ran incredibly crappy campaigns and lost, especially Romney, who was pushed to the front over far better candidates. They were all to afraid to attack or challenge Obama over fear of being called racist. You think they’ll behave any differently if Hillary runs? Of course not.
                Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me. Not planning on being fooled a third time.
                If they run a Tea Party candidate, I’ll consider voting, but if they run another Milquetoast repub? No, I’m staying home and saving myself the disappointment.

                1. John, here’s the thing, if you don’t vote you don’t get to bitch.
                  You can pick the least bad from a poor set of choices.
                  Or you can vote for the worst candidate in hopes of things crashing and burning sooner.
                  But if you refuse to haul your sorry butt down to the polling place and exercise your franchise, then you willingly surrender your right to complain.
                  Hell, write in daffy duck for all I care. That at least sends a message of sorts up the chain.
                  McCain, Romney, pitiful candidates, but the decision by hundreds of thousands of non voters to do exactly what you’re saying is what elected Obama, TWICE!!!
                  So, no votie no bitchie, fair enough?

                  1. “…if you don’t vote you don’t get to bitch.”
                    Assuming that one is only allowed to voice opinions regarding legislation for which he voted. The First Amendment begs to differ. (Though perhaps I’m disqualified because I didn’t vote to ratify the US Constitution. Come to think of it, no one here did.)

                    To “vote” means “to join one’s will” to a piece of legislation/candidate’s platform. By voting for a candidate, I accept a share of the responsibility for that candidate’s official acts. So if my only choice is between candidates whom I know will support intrinsically evil laws, I cannot cast a vote for either of them without formally cooperating in the evil those laws bring about.

                    The vast statistical improbability of one vote deciding a national, state, or even county-level election dictates that, in the absence of a candidate who supports no intrinsic evil, the only moral option is to abstain from voting in that race.

                    1. I’m not going to address the incomplete, therefore meaningless, mathematical side of your analysis, because I haven’t had enough awake time to explain, but I’m sure someone will.

                      However, two things are wrong with the first paragraph: First, the First Amendment only addresses what the federal government is allowed or not allowed to say regarding speech. It was never intended to have anything to do with interpersonal dealings. Second, “…if you don’t vote you don’t get to bitch,” is not intended to mean that you can’t blather to your heart’s content. It means that your words have no weight with anyone who knows that you took no active part in at least trying to keep the worst of the available choices from being elected, and they are likely to tell you to f*** right the hell off when you start complaining about how evil the bastard you helped allow to take the reins is.

                    2. Assuming that one is only allowed to voice opinions regarding legislation for which he voted. The First Amendment begs to differ.

                      Are you willfully misunderstanding the guy you’re responding to, or are you just that stupid?

                      The appeal to authority that rests on a misunderstanding of the First Amendment, followed by an attempt to lecture, really could go either way.

                      Oh, wait! I know– I don’t care!

                      Either way, you’re unlikely to bother to offer conversation, instead of the internet version of hot air.

                    3. “…in the absence of a candidate who supports no intrinsic evil, the only moral option is to abstain from voting in that race.”
                      No. See, the nice thing about voting in a democracy is that if you don’t feel you can vote FOR someone/thing, you can still vote AGAINST someone/thing. True, if you do that, your vote is a proxy, rather than a joining-of-the-will — but it is still an influence to move away from evil and toward good. And to do good/avoid evil is the moral choice.

                    4. “If you are part of a society that votes, then do so. There may be no candidates and no measures you want to vote for … but there are certain to be ones you want to vote against. In case of doubt, vote against. By this rule you will rarely go wrong.” -RAH

                    5. Wayne:
                      “I’m not going to address the incomplete, therefore meaningless, mathematical side of your analysis.”

                      My vote is one out of tens of millions. The odds of it affecting the outcome of a national election are therefore negligible.

                      “the First Amendment only addresses what the federal government is allowed or not allowed to say regarding speech.”

                      Granted. My argument wasn’t meant to justify political protest despite not voting with an appeal to authority. It’s an example of why arguing “if you don’t vote, you can’t complain” is based on a false premise. The only justification I need to raise my voice in protest against evil candidates/laws is a set of principles and enough discernment to see when the law violates those principles.

                      “…your words have no weight with anyone who knows that you took no active part in…trying to keep the worst [candidate] from being elected…”

                      Anyone who wants to discount someone’s political opinions for such an arbitrary reason is welcome to do so. I say only that the right to form and speak opinions is derived from human nature; not that anyone has an obligation to listen.

                      As for equating not voting against the worst candidate with helping him get elected, that would only be true if a single vote had a non-negligible chance of affecting the outcome.

                      Understand that I’m not passing judgment on anyone else’s voting preferences. I’m defending my right to act in accord with my conscience when A) my vote will have a far greater moral effect on me than any practical effect on national politics, and B) the only way not to cooperate with evil is to abstain from voting (on a case-by-case basis, of course).

                2. And you know, when McCain ran, Obama won. When Romney ran, Obama won. If you want a mathematical proof I can provide it, but sitting out an election like this is a vote for the people you like less. Don’t be a fool.

                    1. Sitting out the next election is a form of pacifism in the current political war, and you should therefore cintemplate Orwell’s analysis:

                      Pacifism is objectively pro-Fascist. This is elementary common sense. If you hamper the war effort of one side you automatically help that of the other. Nor is there any real way of remaining outside such a war as the present one. In practice, ‘he that is not with me is against me’. The idea that you can somehow remain aloof from and superior to the struggle, while living on food which British sailors have to risk their lives to bring you, is a bourgeois illusion bred of money and security.
                      http://www.orwell.ru/library/articles/pacifism/english/e_patw

                  1. Heck, with their system the Obamacrats will probably cast his ballot for him, likely well in advance of election day.

                5. John, you don’t have to make your vote a cause for either rejoicing or disappointment. You just need to make it the least bad influence you can from the choices you have. If you have the time and energy, campaign at lower levels so better choices will become available; but do what you can for now.

                  1. “If you are part of a society that votes, then do so. There may be no candidates and no measures you want to vote for … but there are certain to be ones you want to vote against. In case of doubt, vote against. By this rule you will rarely go wrong.” — RAH

                    1. “If you are part of a society that votes, then do so. There may be no candidates and no measures you want to vote for … but there are certain to be ones you want to vote against. In case of doubt, vote against. By this rule you will rarely go wrong.” — RAH

                      Worth repeating

                  2. an addendum: “. If this is too blind for your taste, consult some well-meaning fool (there is always one around) and ask his advice. Then vote the other way. This enables you to be a good citizen (if such is your wish) without spending the enormous amount of time on it that truly intelligent exercise of franchise requires.” RAH (I usually asked my kids’ teachers about any measure I wasn’t sure about. Then voted against.)

                    1. One major advantage of this approach is that well-meaning fools are easily found, typically writing editorials in the local newspaper. Sometimes they even publish those editorials on the editorial page.

              2. He’s basically said that’s the idea, so it will go down faster. On the other hand, instead of sitting it out, he should go ahead and vote for the other side.

                1. Yup, that’s an excellent point: if you really think the answer is to make things collapse faster, then you should be voting for the other side.

                  If you can’t do that and look at yourself in the mirror, then ask yourself why not voting — to the same effect — is better?

        3. What will we do when Russia invades the Ukraine?

          They don’t need to – Ukraine pretty much just surrendered control of their eastern territories and gave the Shirtless Tsar everything he wanted on Ukraine’s economic agreement with the EU.

          What would have happened had they gotten some military support from the West is now a counterfactual.

        4. I’m not voting for the GOP this year. I’m tired of them treating me like crap, so I’m just going to stay home and pray that the whole system collapses sooner rather than later.

          Did you vote in the primary?

          Did you run for office in *any* capacity?

        5. “I have lived nearly fifty years, and I have seen life as it is. Pain, misery, hunger … cruelty beyond belief. I have heard the singing from taverns and the moans from bundles of filth on the streets. I have been a soldier and seen my comrades fall in battle … or die more slowly under the lash in Africa. I have held them in my arms at the final moment. These were men who saw life as it is, yet they died despairing. No glory, no gallant last words … only their eyes filled with confusion, whimpering the question, “Why?”
          I do not think they asked why they were dying, but why they had lived. When life itself seems lunatic, who knows where madness lies? Perhaps to be too practical is madness. To surrender dreams — this may be madness. To seek treasure where there is only trash. Too much sanity may be madness — and maddest of all: to see life as it is, and not as it should be!” ~Man of La Mancha

          It could probably be twisted to the other side who wish to see life as they wish it to be… but life as it SHOULD be is not, necessarily, precisely as we wish it to be. You cannot select from life if you do not see reality. You cannot see life as it should be if you do not see it as it is. You cannot march into Hell for a Heavenly cause if you believe in neither. Sometimes it is the trying that inspires that takes us a step closer to the impossible. Some times it takes 100 years. Very often you don’t see the 100 years of work that led to the 20 or 30 years of radical change. Don’t let despair rob you of hope, nor of tipping the scales even if you never see the scales tip.

      4. Remember the three boxes.
        1. Ballot Box
        2. Jury Box
        3. Cartridge Box

        Two has been mostly destroyed. That you can buy a contempt charge just by mentioning Jury Nullification is ample proof of this. One is in severe danger. The lack of charges in the Black Panther voter intimidation case, some precincts returning more than 100% of the vote for Obama and provably rigged voting machines are symptoms of this danger. Three is the court of last resort. It is in danger as well. They are really trying to disarm us. We must remain ever vigilant. Please read the “War on Guns” blog by David Codrea.

        http://www.waronguns.blogspot.com

        2. Minor correction — the New Black Panthers WERE charged. The charges were then dismissed once Obama took office.

    3. I got active too – local; Tea Party, at the invitation of a blog-friend and fellow AF retiree. I’ve begun to wonder lately how many people are actually truthful with pollsters. I wouldn’t give one the time of day, myself, and I have read of other libertarian-conservative types who make a point of lying like a rug, just to mess with the minds of the poll-takers.

      It may be that most polls, at least those reported widely in the MFM are about as revealing as reading the entrails of small animals…

      1. I have a great time with pollsters. They seem really taken aback when I say things like, “I’d crawl over broken glass on my lips to vote against Al Franken.” and “While the Republicans are bad, the Democrats are vile and despicable. Where does that fit on your scale?”

        1. er… I made the same exact comment when Organizing For America kept calling me in 12, only “to vote against the son of a bitch.” They still kept calling me. Maybe they didn’t know who the son of a bitch was?

          1. On one hand, they had your statement. On the other, they had clear information that you are:

            1. Female
            2. Latino
            3. Have a literature degree

            Three sure fire “Obama supporter” flags. Obviously, if you thought you weren’t an Obama supporter you were wrong. They know better …

            1. Yeah, because wanting to see if someone is actually legally qualified for office is tinfoil hat territory.

              1. I think he was born in Hawaii, but I spent a lot of time pointing out misrepresentations of the questions being asked. At one point I had a decent selection of links. 😀

          3. You were a data point in their system and they were hoping to push you to get and support the one. This was all organized and data controlled, a nice neat package election all tied up.

            1. You guys give them way – waaaaaaay — too much credit. the chances of the people responsible for Obamacare website managing that data mining operation? less than zero.
              No, what made the difference was the vote early/by mail fraud on an unimaginable scale.

              1. I’d put it kind of in between. The Obamacare website was given to cronies, with tons of money funneled to repay them for their assistance, like with the alternative energy companies, but their internal I.T. work was probably hired out to competent people, in the same hypocritical mode as always, of, “What’s good for me, is too good for thee”.

                1. No way. Look, they can’t SEE the real world, they’re so wrapped up in their pseudo religion.
                  The whole “we is so awesome at data mining” is a cover for fraud. I want to write a post about it, but NOT today because I have a fever.

                  1. Not saying there is not a ton of fraud. I’m saying that, since most of the I.T. industry, especially the younger set, are significantly Left, they have plenty of resources to go to, and probably cheap, because a lot of that same group, who have good-paying jobs, parrot the whole line about capitalism being evil, and are likely to do work to promote the agenda for free.

                    Just like hiring bodyguards while pushing for gun control, they will get the best for themselves, and get the ones they owe favors to to do the work for the plebes. Besides, the data mining can ALSO be used to HELP with the fraud.

                    1. You just hit a pet peeve. It makes me crazy that chunks of the IT industry is anti-capitalism.

                      Somebody (Lets call him Al) comes up with a great idea and codes it. He shows it to his buddies who are also coders (Brad and Bryan) and they start extending it. It gets to the point where it is probably ready for the market, but our heroes don’t have a clue how to promoted or support it, let alone start a company. What do they do? They go to an Evil Venture Capitalist. “I will buy a chunk of your company and help you run it so we can all get really, really rich!” Now, do our heroes think “Hey! Getting rich is Evil!” or do they think “Heck yes, where do I sign up?” They sign up. And then they make a ton of money (at least in this scenario). And then they start spouting crap about how evil capitalism is while they check out how well they made out when they IPO’d and are thinking about taking that backpacking trip in Patagonia. Are you frakkin kidding me? Do you even know what CAPITALISM is you idiots? Do most people who denigrate it? How much BS is it to scream about how evil Big Oil is when you’ve just DRIVEN to the protest and are talking on your iPhone. (Big oils profit margins are in the single digits. Apple might as well be highway robbery for what they’re margins are.) How do you think all this got built you idiots?

                      Never mind. Water comes out of the faucet, electricity comes out of the wall and food comes from the delivery guy. And Capitalism is evil.

                      Wow. I haven’t babbled that much in a while.

              2. Heavy media bias, blatant voter fraud, it’s a wonder that we still win any elections. Or a comment on how seriously conservative the public truly does lean.

                1. Or a comment on how seriously conservative the public truly does lean.

                  Indeed — that’s what the academic and media elite mean when they complain that the American people are “stupid.” They mean that the American people don’t agree with them on politics.

    1. my hip still hurts (though not as bad as yesterday)
      my rent finally made it through the mail
      my house needs leveling
      my back hurts from too long in bed (slept 9 hours! inconceivable)
      I should put gas in my truck

      Oh, you wanted to be notified of replies here …sorry

        1. actually I said countries. I can see, since I referenced Europe earlier, people might have got confused, but Europe HAS contributed stuff to the world, and also O doesn’t suck up to them.

          1. Yes, Europe has contributed vast warfare, corruption, Marxism and its degenerate descendants idiot offspring, trade unionism, the Welfare State …

              1. Hardly compensation for the damage done by their other contributions. Many of the advances in surgical techniques, pharmaceuticals, chemistry and the like are concomitant to their contributions to large scale warfare. Traditionally battlefield surgery has been a major driver of surgical innovation. War-induced shortages have been a major driver of such chemistry advances as artificial petrol, rubber and multiple other products and we hardly need get into the matter of chemistry as driven by the desire for bigger & better ways to blow things up.

                Europe did peacefully develop LSD, which many of our political, cultural and journalistic leaders seem to be ingesting on a major scale.

                All of this merely makes them human — the evidence strongly suggest that the failure to make such contributions elsewhere in the world derives from factors other than altruism or aversion to such wholesale disorder. My guess would be that the tribalism and pettiness of goals elsewhere helps keep the scale of their atrocities down.

              2. Also, let’s stipulate that for the sake of Enid Blyton alone, I’ll concede they’ve contributed. It’s personal, but without her I probably wouldn’t be a writer (or much of a reader) and that’s not counting Diana Wynne Jones and Terry Pratchett!

              3. I believe lobotomies, methamphetamines, mustard gas, and New Math all originated in Europe. Unfortunately their use wasn’t confined there.

      2. But Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the Web, and by proxy the e-book is very much alive. I only meant this as an aside, but it is a touch ironic to hear my Country is dead via a medium invented by an Englishman.

  9. Every wonder why its seems that the uber-capitalists like Gates and Buffett support socialism?

    It’s because socialism is feudalism and guys like Gates and Buffett want to be dukes, earls and kings.

    In America, “Duke” is a dog’s name.

    1. Today’s Star Trek reference: even with the Borg (the ultimate fictional collective), there was a Queen at the top of the heap. The same with socialism and communism; I suspect your observation is entirely correct.

      1. Precisely. It doesn’t matter a damn what the name is; there is always a bunch of self-important twits who think they should be running things. Communist=Socialist=Aristocrat=Theocrat=Plutocrat. They change the name to be fashionable, and according to what current theory looks likely to put them on top. When the public’s experience of their arrogance and idiocy puts the stink on one name/theory they move on to the next, loudly denouncing the names and theories that have gone before (as if they were materially different).

        1. At some point I read an author whose name I now can’t recall that posited Marx chickened out on following his own reasoning – otherwise he would have predicted the bureaucratic state and the concentration of power under any system that does not decentralise the power structure with built-in structural tensions restraining the central authority types.

          If only someone could come up with a system like that, with multiple allocations of political power in tension with each other, incentivized to consistently divide that power and push it down to the lowest level possible…

          Nah, that’s crazy talk.

        2. Yeah, I was giving Gates and Buffett benefit of the doubt and should know better. I’m suprised no one mentioned George Soros, he’s the worst of all of them.

          1. I think it’s partly the “absolute power corrupts absolutely” thing – pretty soon you begin to believe your own press.

      3. You need to pay attention to the production dates – when GR was still involved, the Borg as introduced were pure collective consciousness imposed via technology – no choice, you will be assimilated, your unique diversity will be added to the collective, etc. Since they went just slightly too far in their collectivism, mostly in the mater of implementation, they were resisted by the utopianist progressive Federation.

        Later on, once GR was out of the picture, the studio types runnig the show remade the Borg into a traditional hierarchy (in the season ender cliffhanger when Patrick Stewart was possibly leaving the show) and added the Borg Queen to make the dramatic dialog work better.

        As the primary driver for the future-is-socialist stuff in Star Trek, GR would never have allowed any negative kleptocratic representation of those progressive ideals, even in the uber scary external enemy Borg.

        1. ?

          iirc, the Queen was added in First Contact. There’s dialogue that indicates she was on the Cube with Locutis, but she never actually appears in those episodes.

          Unless you’re referring to Locutis himself with the comments about hierarchy?

          1. Eh, you’re doing Sarah’s “Actors don’t exist” joke. What made the borg thing work was that in the movie and some of the shows they had, playing the Borg Queen, the most underrated actress in the business, Alice Krige.

          2. Fair enough, I was misremembering, likely from some of the Stewart dialog post capture, but the point remains that the Borg queen only showed up very post-Roddenberry, with nothing foreshadowing any hierarchy or ‘queen’ in their earlier appearances. Nor was there ever any prior need for any individual voice for interactions outside the collective – they just sent demands via choral enunciations by the Borg Men’s Choir.

            The whole Locutus arc was introduced solely to give the producers the option of shuffling the Picard character off the show should Stewart have proved intractable during the summer contract negotiations, with Riker getting the big chair and the new female character they brought onto the big-E becoming the new XO.

      4. Writers don’t understand eusocial creatures at all. In an insect hive, the queen isn’t a decisionmaking authority – it’s a reproductive specialist. In an insect hive, apparently collective decisions emerge from a complex network of communications between individual insects which react to their local circumstances and to the state of the communications web (with ants, it’s a chemical trail. Not sure about bees). Thus some strange sort of awareness, or at least reactivity, emerges from individually mechanical behavior.

        I swear, Star Trek flung so many interesting ideas out the window and took a completely unimaginative path with the Borg.

        I’ll try to at least get this right in my sci-fi setting.

        1. Perhaps the writer’s inability to understand anything other than a hierarchy is symptomatic of the same way any collectivist scheme with humans inevitably ends up as a dominance crazed hierarchical police state.

        2. Random story idea: The ambassador demanding to see the queen of a eusocial extended-family gets interpreted as a perverse come-on. 😛

        3. Precisely — a bee hive or ant nest is efectively a single organism. The queens don’t make any decisions; they’re the organs of growth and reproduction. In fact, if a queen isn’t productive, bees will instinctively raise a handful of new queens to replace her — and that replacement kills the old queen.

          1. Well… actually to the best of my knowledge you’re more likely to have a portion of the adult workers clear out with the old queen to look for a new location — this is part of how hives as a whole reproduce. That’s where you get swarms.

            The first new queen to finish pupating, however, is likely to kill her up-and-coming rivals before they emerge.

          2. “Queen” is probably a misnomer.

            Or, upon reflection, it’s only a misnomer in a post-feminist world. Because a long time ago, Queens didn’t have power, they existed to provide male heirs to the Kings. In modern times we have changed the definition to mean “A female King”.

      5. My personal theory is that the Borg began with a people who, having invented the so-called smartphone, couldn’t tear themselves away from it. All else followed as natural, inevitable consequences.

              1. That’s actually how the Feds eventually won, despite the propaganda – LCDR Data sent them forty seven million images of his cat Spot, and their doom was sealed.

    3. Bill;
      I would demur on your description of G&B.Buffet is by definition and virtue of being involved in capital markets a capitalist. (Hate that term, BTW, coined as it were as a Marxist wheeze.) But Gates, OTGH, is the classic crony. He only got his in with IBM via his parents’ involvement in the United Way and association with an IBM exec. MS’s sales and marketing behaviors have been long documented as being anti-free-market and coercive. I’m not amazed he’s a social-statist bastard. Not at all.

      M

      1. IIRC, another reason for Gate’s success was also because the small CPM company they were trying to reach was temporarily unavailable. Gates was at best, a second choice.

        1. Jerry Pournelle has told some stories about what happened to the Digital Research guy when he encountered the IBM types. To say there was culture shock was putting it mildly.

      2. Buffet isn’t so pure himself, though. For instance, it’s been noted that Buffet benefits quite a bit if the Keystone Pipeline isn’t completed. And he seems to be on fairly good terms with Obama.

      3. Bill; I would demur on your description of G&B.Buffet is by definition and virtue of being involved in capital markets a capitalist. (Hate that term, BTW, coined as it were as a Marxist wheeze.) But Gates, OTGH, is the classic crony. He only got his in with IBM via his parents’ involvement in the United Way and association with an IBM exec. MS’s sales and marketing behaviors have been long documented as being anti-free-market and coercive. I’m not amazed he’s a social-statist bastard. Not at all.

        Mark, dittos. As others have pointed out Gates didn’t invent the thing that made him rich, and there is a pretty good case he baldly stole it from computer pioneer Gary Kildall who invented CP/M.

        Capitalism, to me, has kind of a neutral connotation. It is a more effective and efficient economic system than, well, just about anything else but like a firearm can be used for good or evil.

        What has a good connotation and is something that can be an objective “good” is freedom. With capitalism — unlike just about any other economic system that I can think of — it is possible not to interfere with personal freedom.

        Of course, there is no guarantee that a capitalist won’t interfere with personal freedom hence my view of it being contextual in good v evil.

    5. They’re self-evidently the smartest guys around – so why shouldn’t they decide for the rest of us how to live our lives?

      And if OUR wants and needs aren’t what they determine for us? Piffle – that’s not important. We but live to serve our overlords.

          1. They can tell us what we should want, and we can tell them what they should want — not that they agree with our right of Cthullic Witness (nor any other kind of witness) in public.

            It isn’t that they can tell us what we should want, it is their Talibanic insistence on compelling us to want it.

    6. “Men by their constitutions are naturally divided into two parties: 1. Those who fear and distrust the people, and wish to draw all powers from them into the hands of the higher classes. 2. Those who identify themselves with the people, have confidence in them, cherish and consider them as the most honest and safe, although not the most wise depositary of the public interests. In every country these two parties exist, and in every one where they are free to think, speak, and write, they will declare themselves. Call them, therefore, Liberals and Serviles, Jacobins and Ultras, Whigs and Tories, Republicans and Federalists, Aristocrats and Democrats, or by whatever name you please, they are the same parties still and pursue the same object. The last one of Aristocrats and Democrats is the true one expressing the essence of all.”

      – Thomas Jefferson (Letter to Henry Lee, 1824)

    7. Having made it to their specially-high status, they want to pull up the ladders so that nobody else can duplicate their climbs.

    8. Gates is making his feudal aspirations known in Washington state. His monetary support for I-594 says quite a bit about his position on peasants having guns

      1. I’ve stopped listening to a lot of radio because I’m so tired of that “worried mother voice” commercial with all the horror stories about gun accidents on the news.

        Last time I looked at the stats, more people in the US die from childbirth than gun accidents, and that assumes that the only things reported as “accidents” were actually that. (I wasn’t deliberately trying to compare them, I just had the cause-of-death chart up and was looking for stuff that had about the number of deaths, and the whole “nobody does that” thing stuck with me.)

            1. Liberals reproduce by corrupting the minds of the children of those who actually reproduce. Thus they consider all children “Theirs” (It takes a Village, after all, and you don’t “Own” your children, according to them.)

                    1. Points for the Girl Genius reference, a potent gateway drug into the depths of steampunk.
                      I wish for more stories in that particular universe.

                    2. Are they done with the comic? I’ve been so busy over the last year or so that I let following my various webcomics lapse. (Megatokyo, Menage a Trois and the sister comic to that, Looking for Group,) off the top of my head…

                      That doesn’t even touch on the list of manga I follow (and want in print, like Black Butler, Samurai Executioner, and the lovely omnibus releases of Lone Wolf and Cub and it’s sequel, and Rurouni Kenshin…)

                    3. I’ve lapsed as well. I was hoping for side stories, well away from the main arc. The history of Europa and the rest of that world. The Heterodyne Boys stories would make glorious short reads. I have never met Phil or Kaja but hope to one day.
                      It seems to me that there is plenty of room for enterprising author if the Foglios would allow it.

                    5. Right and a “Tales From Mechanicsburg” short story collection about the pre- Bill and Barry Heterodynes. Maybe some by the Larry Kaiju. And stories of the jagermonsters maybe by Tayler of Schlock fame.

                    8. I stopped reading when they announced OSC was a thought criminal for being an observant Mormon, and that nobody should read the work of bigots. Decided to take them at their word and deleted the book marks, stopped recommending them, and didn’t order any more stuff.

                      I’ll probably go back when my memory fades enough for enjoyment. (I listen to Flight of the Valkyries, too, so I can look past artists being dumb.)

    9. “In America, “Duke” is a dog’s name.”

      Total aside; John Wayne was give the nickname “Duke”, that he went by all of his life, by his parents. They called him that because he had an Airedale named Duke, who was notoriously stubborn, and whenever John Wayne was being hardheaded as a kid, his parents would call him “Duke.”

  10. …were forced by the bloated bureaucracy (and in the US the antediluvian structure of Obamacare and its long dreamed-of socialist work week of 30 hours), to become contractors, individual strivers cast into the merciless world to work or die.

    Sarah, I know this is happening and it is happening for this reason, but the USDOL is doing its best to chink up all the cracks in the law that allow this to happen. The specific elements that define a independent contractor are getting tighter, and the penalties are getting heavier.
    One of the reasons for this is creeping bureaucracy, since no true bureaucrat wants anything to slip under the wire they set up, but the other is that it is useful as a means of control. (Most gov workers don’t see it as anything other than “we need the ability to shut down bad actors” but it is amazing how that term can get plastic)
    I can imagine a situation where the rules advance to a point where the only way any employer could make a product under wage and work-hour rules would be to employ contractors, and with sufficient regulation the government would then have a way to shut down any effective dissent by shutting down or penalizing any company because of, say, the political activity of one of its owners.
    And it can be shown that the reason for this was not to violate 1st amendment rights, but to redress a violation of law that is completely unrelated.

    2. And let us not forget the long-standing concern regarding technocrats. Per Eisenhower: “[W]e must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.”

    3. Correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t that the beginning of the “progressive” blight?

      Could we bring it back to end it?

  12. The media could make Obama president. They could make him a hipster, a celebrity, a superhero. A leader? Not so much.

    1. but, but, he’s brilliant. just ask him. look at his grades …. oh wait.
      well, read his writings through the years …. no … wait, um
      listen to his brilliant off hand (and prompter) speech … (okay, that makes GWB sound eloquent)
      sorry, got nothing

          1. I asked one of those calling me such to name a white person who held the same views I would agree with and they said they didn’t need to, just my opposition and my whiteness was proof I was a racist.

            2. Were you any other skin tone your opposition would have rendered you a race traitor. I am unsure which is preferable, racist or race traitor.

              1. That is a difficult decision, since for most (ie, white) people, being a race traitor would, by their definitions, make one a SJW. As I am of the default majority, despite being a comparatively melanin-enhanced individual, I would shy away from being a race traitor, preferring to remain on the side of the free.

                1. This opens an etymological point which has ever puzzled me. The term “geek” originated as Carny slang for a performer who engages in “wild or disgusting acts” — most commonly biting heads off of chickens. A “dork” is, specifically, the penis of the blue whale, the largest that ever existed. The average size for an adult male is 5m. The testicles weigh 10kg.

                  It is possible to suss how these words migrated to their current meanings but impossible to not snigger about them,

                  1. And because my kids are my kids, if you say “you’re such a dork” you get “Madam, I have no resemblance to a whale’s penis” since they were about 3 or 4…

                    1. When older son called younger son a douchebag, and I asked him why he would call his brother a container for feminine hygiene products, he shut up completely for at least 10 minutes.

                1. No. Think Doctor Who with the Hospital on the Moon. I ate one, so I could use his DNA to hide.

  13. And then there’s Obama’s latest brainstorm, sending in the US military to fight . . . Ebola. Is it really wise to commit 3000 members of the military into an area where there’s been a deadly outbreak? Especially when they might be needed at other flashpoints around the world, at short notice?

      1. They see a mass of men and women oath bound t follow ordes from above and their panties get moist. They never seem to be able to grasp that what the military does is,kill people and break things.

        1. I have serious concerns there. We are not sending in 3000 people trained in quarantine procedures, we are sending in a bunch of teens and early 20’s who like to drink and party to build “infrastructure”.

          1. Tom — I have the exact same concerns. I looked at that headline and thought “oh, so he wants to import Ebola.”
            I speak as someone who lives in a military town and also the home of a lot of ME contractors. When the push into Iraq was going on, the most bizarre illnesses swept the schools here. You see, they sent contractors and ill servicemen home, when they couldn’t fix them fast enough on site.

                1. I think what he’s saying is there’s very little this administration won’t do? I could be wrong. I initially misread it as ‘what we HAVE is political won’t’ so my original thought is not valid.

                  1. That was my initial read but — If I’m reading Mr. Lawson correctly he’s indicating the use of a military quarantine backed by deadly force.

                    Wherein I say we don’t have the will (the question of whether or not it’s necessary I leave for a different discussion).

                    From there, I clarify: this administration does not have the will, nor in general do the people.

                    And I’m back at the beginning, sure that I’m missing cspschofield’s point.

                    1. You are…. sadly… correct in your assumption.

                      But as far as will goes – that can change quickly.

                      If the sick are such a hazard for infection that (Great Ghu forbid) the virus gets to a point where it’s easily communicable in an airborne fashion, then a quarantine zone will have to be set up and maintained – and those within, no matter how healthy they may look at the time, will not be allowed out without a lengthy quarantine period in a secure (and possibly semi-sterile) environment.

                      That’s going to be a real (expletive-expletive) problem to maintain. But if the choice is between that, and, say, someone about a week into the infectious period taking a flight and transiting through a major airport – then… (gulps) I don’t even want to think about the epidemiological implications of a couple of hundred exposed people scattering worldwide. Makes me want to get out hand sanitizer just thinking about it… (very real shudder…)

                      And those attempting to breach that zone will have to be turned back.

                      I know they’re saying it’s very unlikely that such a thing (IE an airborne mutation) might happen – but with something like this you don’t get any ‘do-overs’.

                      If the advance troops are scoping out (even as a secondary or tertiary mission) the terrain with a mind to quarantine actions, then I applaud their foresight and hope like hell it never comes to be needed.

                    2. You have read the description of the plague in Ringo’s Last Centurion? Have you read Under a Graveyard Sky?

                    3. However, the use of our own military to enforce a quarantine in a foreign country is… problematic… at best.

                    4. I took it to mean “We don’t have the will to do NOTHING.” Sometimes nothing is the best response. But I could be wrong. Why send 3,000 soldiers who might get infected when we can send 0 who WON’T be exposed.

                    5. Re quarantine enforcement: And won’t the troops manning the roadblocks have such a wonderful time in full MOPP 4 gear in frigging equatorial Africa.

                    6. Emily – yep – which is what I’m riffing on a bit here. The trouble is that I’ve seen a fair number of scientists say that there can be real problems if Ebola goes airborne, or even as easily transmittable as the common flu.

                      IF that happens, the only thing that’ll work is a hard quarantine of affected areas, and it’ll have to be backed up by force.

                      (Of course, there will probably be the usual folks who go “We should have compassion and not quarantine them, because they’re sick, and it’s not their fault, and it’s racist to boot!” To which I’d suggest THEY go into the infected areas and help out.)

                    7. Junior…

                      Yeah. Problematic at best. But who is the world going to turn to?

                      The US. We’re the first responders, the firemen, the friggin’ police. WE come up with solutions that THEY complain about.

                      But the thing is – we come up with solutions. Nobody else seems to.

                    8. Byron –

                      We can’t be seen as ignoring the problem. That’s what it really boils down to.

                      A serious response will require a real quarantine of the affected areas. And you can’t do that with locals and aid workers.

                    9. The key here is to understand the nature of the problem, which is not ebola. President Barack “I’m not good at theater” Obama clearly doesn’t give a darn about ebola, what he is concerned about is the politics — the voters who are concerned about the disease — so the solution to Obama’s problem is to change the optics.

                      Deploying troops to address the disease spread is not about public health, it is about public appearances. Similarly, much of the Katrina Kriticism of the prior administration was not about the emergency response (which was, compared, say, to Sandy, not terribly ineffective — at worst) but was about the kluster foxtrot appearance of the response.

                      As you note, this is not a serious response to the epidemic, it is a serious response to the political circumstances.

                    10. Flying Mike:

                      Oh, those wonderful times in the mobile sauna when we did MOPP 4 training… I don’t even want to think what it was like in battle. (Though you could, I suppose, use it as a mobile swamp cooler. Sweat through it, and you’d get cooling from evaporation.)

                      For this, I don’t think you’d need MOPP 3 or 4, I’d think just a mask and a tyvek overall would mostly suffice. And distance. Lots of distance. As in ‘Cross This Line, and you won’t have to worry about Ebola killing you’ distance.

                      But to be honest – I really don’t know if it could be done. There may be no choice but to try, however.

                    11. Jerry,

                      Assuming that the US troops are used to enforce quarantine…

                      What happens when (and it’s when, not if) someone tries to break it? We end up with US troops shooting foreign civilians?

                      I just have to hope that’s not something that the troops end up doing.

                    12. Junior –

                      I know. No good options, really. Do you drop a possible plague carrier, or risk the lives of others to capture and detain them?

                      It’ll depend on how a lot of things turn out. I’m kind of watching the news… but Ebola news seems to be dropping off the radar. Which could be good, or could be bad…

                      http://www.wdsu.com/news/local-news/new-orleans/no-trace-of-ebola-on-new-orleansbound-ship-cdc-insists/28116942

                      Maybe it’s burned itself out. Oh, how I hope so… 😦

          2. It all hangs on how serious you are about enforcing the quarantine. The kind of half-assed effort that the Democrat party in general and this administration in particular is infamous for, I would send aid workers of muslim extraction. Has the benefits of looking like we give a damn and gets a potential fifth column out of the AO. Real enforcement, the kind where you shoot those trying to break quarantine regardless of age, gender or race. I would send the Marines.

          3. If we wanted to scare the hell out of ISIS, would we (when boots on the ground become inevitable) send them troops they’ll KNOW have been recently exposed to ebola…? is Obama that cold and far-thinking?

        3. And they forget this part of the oath:

          “… to defend the constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic…”

          1. They hope noone actually sits down and puts together an honest threat assessment on the real threats to the U.S. Constitution.

            1. I have actually read people online who are terrified by the thought of a movement among the troops to commit to the Constitution. Who seldom had a retort when told that you would think reminding the troops that there is no valid Nuremberg defense would be a good thing.

        4. See yesterdays, thread.

          Not even the military seems to get that their job is to break people and kill things.

      2. I swear, I am so suspicious of this (mis)administration that I wonder if it isn’t part of Obama’s plan to set an epidemic of Ebola in the US. He doesn’t give a good c**p for the military or veterans, or those parts of the country which provide the bulk of military recruits. An epidemic which would get going in flyover country would be just jake with him and his enablers.

          1. Yours and mine, my daughters’ and a whole lotta other veterans.
            I guess that the illegals coming in over the southern border just aren’t bringing in the epidemics fast enough…

            It’s kind of scary, this being our first assumption, but what else can you assume, knowing that our elected president absolutely hates most of the citizens of our country.

        2. I doubt the returning soldiers could be controlled well enough,or their contacts likewise, to contain an epidemic to flyover country. And the deep-blue enclaves have much higher population densities. The resultant rioting would just encourage the spread among the most Left-leaning populations, while those of us in the boondocks would be better situated to quarantine ourselves.

            1. Given that he doesn’t consider the consequences of failure, I doubt he would. If he envisions it, then it must be so!:-P

            2. Yeah, he would probably think that all the Aristos could quarantine themselves and be fine after it burned itself out.

            3. I don’t think he came up with “Fast and Furious”. I think the cowboys at ATF had it ready for the New Guy. Those bozos have been skating on thin ice ever since Nixon made the mistake of creating them in the first place. And in every new administration they juuuuuust manage to sell themselves as important to the New Guy’s goals.

        4. Quarantined military bases all over the world?

          Related, search [ prince philip world health organization come back as a deadly virus to depopulate ]

          No, i’m not a nut (imho) –run the search.

    2. My first thought was why? Do they (Gov’t) think they (military) can shoot the virus?

      I get sending aid, but not the freaking Army.

    3. Meanwhile, Obama has apparently stated that those ground troops that he’s sending to Iraq won’t actually *fight*.

      1. That is a classic example of Obama’s delusions of omnipotence. He seems to imagine that if he doesn’t command combat, no combat will occur.

        He doesn’t grasp that he’s only the Commander-in-Chief of one of the armies involved.

        1. Maybe this would be a good time to put the commander in chief on the front line?

          On second thoughts, maybe not. The mere thought of President Biden is the most effective life insurance ever.

            1. Terror, no. Desire to deal with everyone’s creepy dumbass uncle (the one you try to pretend you don’t know)? Not so much

              1. I was going to say “What does it say about the state of the country when we’re willing to put our crazy uncle Shotgun Joe in charge?”

          4. It may not be saying much, but President Biden might be a much better President than Obama. [Sad Smile]

            1. Seriously, he may be senile and delusional, but I don’t get the vibe that he hates 88% of the population of the US with the passion of a thousand burning suns.
              Drooling senility and crashing incompetence we can cope with. Active and destructive malevolence is another kettle of carp.

            2. I’m half tempted to say he couldn’t be worse but then the universe would go and prove me wrong. The universe is a bitch.

              1. Biden has had a long career as a politician. If he could be worse than Obama, we’d have some signs of it by now. He’s not smart but (as others have said) he’s not evil.

            1. The problem with “President Biden” is that you’d be setting him up in the office… just in time for the next election.

              I really don’t want him in office until at least 2020…

            2. The question is not whther he would be better, it is whether he could be any worse.

              In view of the bureaucratic apparatchiks with whom Obama has staffed this administration remaining in place after a change at the top, the answer might be yes.

    4. If it was anybody else, I’d hope they were being understated in their threats.

      With him, it’s a tie between “send someone who we don’t care if they die” and “hey, war on plague!”

      1. “Hold my choom and watch this” send 3000 soldiers to a plague pit, some will be discharged through normal loss, these vets develop said plague, and they go to the VA for treatment. That’ll teach those bitter clingers (whose families make up a majority of the armed forces)!

        1. If he were that smart (“Excellent [tapping fingertips together]. All is proceeding as I have forseen. What’s next – ah, now, how do I destroy TriCare and Ft. Hood simultaneously? Hmm, a plague mission, I think….”) we would all be in big trouble, but he only thinks he’s that smart. Valerie Jarret and her control in the FSB know better – he’s a bumbling nincompoop who reads teleprompters well.

          Don’t assign competence where simple simpletonism will suffice.

  14. Umm. I think we may be past “The God of the Copybook Headings” territory and may be slipping into “The City of Brass.”

    You know — the one that starts:

    In a land that the sand overlays – the ways to her gates are untrod –
    A multitude ended their days whose gates were made splendid by God,
    Till they grew drunk and were smitten with madness and went to their fall,
    And of these is a story written: but Allah Alone knoweth all!

    If you want to get really scared, read the rest of it. You can find it here:

    http://www.poetryloverspage.com/poets/kipling/city_of_brass.html

    2. This is true. I realized this years ago, listening to “establishment” sf editors (not Baen, natch) talk, and as they thought the control might be slipping from their hands, their idea was very much to pull down the rafters after them. Apres nous le deluge. I’m very glad they can’t do it, though I think Amazon hatred comes from that.

      1. I’ve thought this for years, the reconciliation between their love of luxury and their Green fanatacism is, they want to be the last to drive Mercedes, the last to fly Learjets.

        1. I hear a trace of this in the occasional attack I read on airline deregulation (seriously? that was back in Reagan’s administration; get freaking over it!). They remember (or were told of) a time when air travel was exciting and elite, and resent that they have to share the plane with the kind of peasants that used to travel Greyhound.

  16. Biden used an anti-Semtic slur this week. Politicians have lost their careers over less. For Biden, it was Tuesday.

  18. And lest you doubt that the media isn’t preparing the next presidency already, CBS has a new show called Madam Secretary, about a female Secretary of State.

    Wherever do they get their ideas from?

    2. Which episodes will have her loyalists shredding files connecting her to the lack of security that led to the murder of an ambassador and other US citizens?

    3. It’s basically an alternate version of Hilary Clinton who is competent. What’s more, the previews imply that there’s something new and exciting about a female Secretary of State — apparently, now that Hilary Clinton may be running for President, we’re supposed to forget about Madeline Albright and Condaleeza Rice.

          1. Should have included the sarcasm label as I was channeling the kooks of the Left.

        3. Then I don’t want a real woman. I want a mama bear that I can trust to guard the homestead whilst I’m away.

                2. On the one hand, I will add a +1 to the compliment.
                  On the other hand, I will not ask where you were when I was looking for a girlfriend.
                  You’d give a big-eyed, innocent look and say “in my crib” – my daddy warned me about gals like you.

                    1. Funny – that seems normal to me. But then, marrying older women appears on a regular basis in the family tree.

                    2. I’m normally attracted to older men because goddamnit most of the men my age range were brainless, self-centered, petty emo things and I didn’t want to be someone’s replacement mommy. Rhys was the exception – he’s younger, but he is also emotionally the type of maturity I look for. His reasons for eschewing the girls his age range were the same as my reasons for not considering the guys my age range. I *know* I’m ridiculously lucky getting him! I’m keeping him!

            1. No pony for me. I don’t want to break the poor thing’s back. I need a draft horse.

              Hmm… wonder if they call them, “draft horses” because they pull beer wagons? (Runs. It was sarcasm, dangit!)

          3. Want a Pron Star

            What’s that? A chick who has a shrimp boat?

            Seriously, why would any guy want an emotional basket case who has probably had several abortions and is filled with STD?

            1. “Pron” is a deliberate misspelling that is a bit of net-speak.

              I’ve known a few people in the adult industry, and based on that sample, I’d say your biases are way off. (In particular, the STD one, these days they get tested on a monthly basis, and if they aren’t clean, they don’t work. They’re actually better at avoiding STD’s than the general public.)

                    1. I’m not, I was just playing along. I mean, let’s face it, if you get the winning lottery numbers, you can buy and sell pr0n stars.

      2. It’s basically an alternate version of Hilary Clinton who is competent.

        Bizzaro World, then? (Pick the one from Superman or the ones from Sealab 2021 and it’s just as deranged.)

        1. Please. Bizarro World am make sense! It is great crime to make anything smart on Bizarro World!

    2. Obviously, you are new here. That’s the Hunnish anthem.

      As I pass through my incarnations in every age and race,
      I Make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market-Place.
      Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall,
      And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.

      We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn
      That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:
      But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind,
      So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind.

      We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace,
      Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market-Place.
      But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come
      That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome.

      With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch
      They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch
      They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings.
      So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.

      When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.
      They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
      But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
      And the Gods of the Copybook Heading said: “Stick to the Devil you know.”

      On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life
      (Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife)
      Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,
      And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “The Wages of Sin is Death.”

      In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
      By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
      But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
      And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “If you don’t work you die.”

      Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew,
      And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true
      That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four —
      And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.

      * * * * *

      As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man —
      There are only four things certain since Social Progress began —
      That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
      And the burnt Fool’s bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire —
      And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
      When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins
      As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn
      The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!

        1. ‘Ballad of East and West’ and ‘Fuzzy Wuzz’ were the two that really sold me on him. As much because they were written by the same man in different styles.

          2. When I found that my little brother was to be posted to Afghanistan, this is one of two of his works I couldn’t get out of my head. The other is “The Ford O’ Kabul River”

            The Young British Soldier

            When the ‘arf-made recruity goes out to the East
            ‘E acts like a babe an’ ‘e drinks like a beast,
            An’ ‘e wonders because ‘e is frequent deceased
            Ere ‘e’s fit for to serve as a soldier.
            Serve, serve, serve as a soldier,
            Serve, serve, serve as a soldier,
            Serve, serve, serve as a soldier,
            So-oldier OF the Queen!

            Now all you recruities what’s drafted to-day,
            You shut up your rag-box an’ ‘ark to my lay,
            An’ I’ll sing you a soldier as far as I may:
            A soldier what’s fit for a soldier.
            Fit, fit, fit for a soldier . . .

            First mind you steer clear o’ the grog-sellers’ huts,
            For they sell you Fixed Bay’nets that rots out your guts —
            Ay, drink that ‘ud eat the live steel from your butts —
            An’ it’s bad for the young British soldier.
            Bad, bad, bad for the soldier . . .

            When the cholera comes — as it will past a doubt —
            Keep out of the wet and don’t go on the shout,
            For the sickness gets in as the liquor dies out,
            An’ it crumples the young British soldier.
            Crum-, crum-, crumples the soldier . . .

            But the worst o’ your foes is the sun over’ead:
            You must wear your ‘elmet for all that is said:
            If ‘e finds you uncovered ‘e’ll knock you down dead,
            An’ you’ll die like a fool of a soldier.
            Fool, fool, fool of a soldier . . .

            If you’re cast for fatigue by a sergeant unkind,
            Don’t grouse like a woman nor crack on nor blind;
            Be handy and civil, and then you will find
            That it’s beer for the young British soldier.
            Beer, beer, beer for the soldier . . .

            Now, if you must marry, take care she is old —
            A troop-sergeant’s widow’s the nicest I’m told,
            For beauty won’t help if your rations is cold,
            Nor love ain’t enough for a soldier.
            ‘Nough, ‘nough, ‘nough for a soldier . . .

            If the wife should go wrong with a comrade, be loath
            To shoot when you catch ’em — you’ll swing, on my oath! —
            Make ‘im take ‘er and keep ‘er: that’s Hell for them both,
            An’ you’re shut o’ the curse of a soldier.
            Curse, curse, curse of a soldier . . .

            When first under fire an’ you’re wishful to duck,
            Don’t look nor take ‘eed at the man that is struck,
            Be thankful you’re livin’, and trust to your luck
            And march to your front like a soldier.
            Front, front, front like a soldier . . .

            When ‘arf of your bullets fly wide in the ditch,
            Don’t call your Martini a cross-eyed old bitch;
            She’s human as you are — you treat her as sich,
            An’ she’ll fight for the young British soldier.
            Fight, fight, fight for the soldier . . .

            When shakin’ their bustles like ladies so fine,
            The guns o’ the enemy wheel into line,
            Shoot low at the limbers an’ don’t mind the shine,
            For noise never startles the soldier.
            Start-, start-, startles the soldier . . .

            If your officer’s dead and the sergeants look white,
            Remember it’s ruin to run from a fight:
            So take open order, lie down, and sit tight,
            And wait for supports like a soldier.
            Wait, wait, wait like a soldier . . .

            When you’re wounded and left on Afghanistan’s plains,
            And the women come out to cut up what remains,
            Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains
            An’ go to your Gawd like a soldier.
            Go, go, go like a soldier,
            Go, go, go like a soldier,
            Go, go, go like a soldier,
            So-oldier of the Queen

            1. Not much of a poetry fan myself, but I do love this poem. Kipling has some other good ones, Tommy, Gods of the Copybook Headings, etc., but this is my favorite.

              1. I do find it disheartening that any of his Afghan War poems could be torn from last night’s dispatches.

  20. I very rarely comment on blogs, but this certainly inspires a break with the past. Wrapped it all up quite nicely there, didn’t you (as opposed to that fella over at the NYTimes who attempted to address the unraveling, but, bless his heart, just doesn’t seem able–or willing–to come to terms with what the Double Complete Rainbow of Progressive failure MEANS.) Well done, Ms. Hoyt. Will be hitting that tip jar now…

    1. Just like every previous elite. Their reaction will range from blood vengeance to peevish whining, based on how much power they are left and how competent they are. Personally, I would expect peevish whining, but it wouldn’t do to get complacent.

        1. They hire guns– means lower chance to get hurt themselves, plus they’re professionals and thus automatically better than any hobbyist.

          (Ssssssh, don’t point out the problems with this notion.)

          2. You mean the one hwere you just shoot the person doing the hiring, thus leaving the mercenaries w/out a paymaster?

  22. the only thing missing from this is the realization that the “Elites” will not go softly into the night. Rage and vengeance will be their reaction. Especially when they are proven wrong.

    also, while not the end times, the saying, “He is filled with fury, because he knows that his time is short..” will apply to the end game.

    2. Should the best possible outcome occur and we win back a majority in the Senate I expect to see a good bit of this in lame duck session with Dingy Harry and San Fran Nan leading the charge.
      And then two solid years of executive orders issued, blocked, taken to the Supremes for rulings, then rinse and repeat.
      Two whole years of a whiney petulant failed president while the rest of the world either drools or cowers in fear.
      Have to agree with several other’s comments, we ain’t seen nothing yet.

      1. The only questions now are when will it start? How bloody will it be? And How long will the war/beastly period last?

        Cheer up Texas fans The Metroplex probably has its own nuke designation. There is NAS Ft Worth. It’s a Joint Reserve Base. We are important enough to nuke!

        1. I remember when it was Carswell AFB, a B-52 base. BUFFS flying over all the time. I had several friends either stationed there, or worked at the General Dynamics factory making F-16’s.

  23. As a Canadian I sit on the outside watching American politics. There are plenty of Obama loving, statist, socialist, politically correct freedom haters up here.
    The tide can change. It isn’t perfect but we have been pulling back on the big government. Frankly, in many ways we are becoming more free while you are losing your freedoms.
    It is a constant battle, from the courts, the police, government regulations.
    We had our tea party, the reform party and they took over the equivalent of the Republicans and have become them. They are in power now.

    1. Yeah, let me tell you as a fellow Canuck, it’s been strange to see Canada moving steadily Rightward while the USA drifts Left. I didn’t see that one coming.

      1. We’re a long ways from the not ready for prime time era of the Conservatives, when they briefly called themselves the Conservative Reform Alliance Party (hint: initials).

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  25. This is really kind of a masterpiece, i think, Ms. Hoyt. Beyond the artful vacuum-packing of the porous fish wrap, to warrant it some shelf space.

    Especially taken with the closing, especially the sentence that threw away ‘gaslight’ as if an afterthought, you sly critter you!

  26. Gee you mean the Commiecrats didn’t think it through? Say it ain’t so! Sounds like a Great Leap Forward or back to Mao’s China.

      1. After going back and reading that drivel posted at the New York Times, I’m certain the irony went whooshing right on past him.

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  32. jselvy | September 19, 2014 at 10:46 pm |
    What’s a live journal?

    Because it hit the wall….

    Live Journal is Blogger precursor; CLD’s summary is good enough that I’ve been sharing it with all of my blogging groups, along with sources listing Yama’s last known pseudonyms and IP addresses, and warning them that he is not to be treated as just odd– that he is a known-to-be-criminally bad actor who will lie, stalk and say anything he can to harm people.

    Also been using it to explain to people why internet pseudonyms– with two or more layers of false identity below that– are a good idea. (It’s actually been kinda fun– I’ve contacted some folks that I interacted with back in the 90s and they changed the information they had for me, which in most cases was already a pseudonym because my mom was freaked out when I found a relative’s address and phone number after two minutes of looking. So, if someone spends all the time paging through the change logs for the last five to ten years, there’s a one in three chance they’ll get false information anyways.)

      1. He’d cheat.

        Like I tell my kids when we’re crossing the street: it doesn’t matter if you had the right of way if you’re dead. (Oddly, this has resulted in children that treat dead animals on the side of the road as landmarks, not objects of mental anguish.)

          1. *votes for the “shoot him when he comes in your window and explain it to the Jury” side*

            Plus, I trust Jordan to report on him, and he’s already run into the law– and he’s not in jail, without further reporting on it, so he’s stopped that action when the risk became evident.

            His tastes run to women who will slit his throat with their kitchen knives, should he act on it.

            Therefore, he will not act on it unless there are other means of rendering us harmless.

            We are already on the lookout for that as a matter of course.

            So he’ll die if he tries to act on his desires.

            No need to give him the advantage of a situation he can game required.

            1. Indeed, I would report on what I know of Yama’s actions if he moved to physical violence, even acting through agents. The moment that Yama does that, the game changes, and Yama’s on a one-way road to a small room with a really big room-mate who is his new boyfriend, for at least a few years. This would constitute an international terrorist conspiracy, with Yama as the (*snort*) mastermind.

              And it’s not just me — a lot of people know about Yama and his misdeeds. Unless Yama’s secretly the head of SPECTRE, I don’t think he has the resources to get away with it.

        2. Yes, a Code Duello implies you live in a society where all members can be trusted to follow the rules. Leftists simply CANNOT be. Treat them like rattlesnakes and shoot accordingly.

      2. Apologies for delay in reply. I went to do a bit of grocery shopping. Foxfier’s done a good job of summarizing the whole thing.

        I should probably update the sticky to include his latest freakout, but there are times I wish I could chat to y’all.

        1. I’m glad we’re not actually chatting y’all think too fast for me.I need too much thinking time.
          For example:
          The Code would allow me to challenge him. A proactive approach to an identified problem. It would be wrong for the police to become involved as no crime as yet has been committed, leaving it to the individual.
          Did that make sense?

          1. The Code Duello requires that both parties have a mutual, held-to code of honor.

            Yama has no honor. None.

            If he has a method of attack that is untraced by his victim he will use it.

            If he has a method of attack that he can use without him being easily trackable criminally, he will use it. It doesn’t matter who gets hurt along the way.

            He will never face you in a field, face to face. He won’t. He’s too much of a gutless, spineless, honorless coward – which is why I say he is insufficient in the size of gonads. That’s why he stalks and prefers cyberstalking as his main mode of harassment.

            If he thinks he can have you taken out he will try to have it done in a way that will be perceived that ‘you had coming’ or he will surreptitiously direct someone who will not like your political stances your way. Think “Oh, I will leave this map to this pro-Israel person’s house here… shame if some jihadists would see it’ type method of ‘it wasn’t me’ directing.

            If he could use SWATting, he would. He’s that kind of cowardly piece of filth.

                1. I just keep the bastard in me securely chained.
                  It’s a mental aberration that I was able to use as a benefit. I give all the darkness, the soul corrupting evil of the kind who would cheerfully nail the doors shut and burn the house (with them inside) of anyone who threatens mine, to him. I slack the chains when needed but in the words of Malcolm Reynolds “if I go to war, I guarantee you’ll see something new.
                  So, no, I’m not a good man. Just a man with a firm handle on the dark.

              2. Just think of him as ambitious and amoral, but utterly and completely craven. Someone like that wants everything… but is utterly and completely unwilling to expose themself to get it. So they’ll use every single method that they can come up with that doesn’t actually allow exposure to real danger.

                And I mean *every* method.

          2. As CLD says, he wouldn’t have to accept the challenge.

            Our current legal situation allows folks to go “hey, he’s doing X Y and Z, we can fix that.”

            While he’s still freaky, he’s not doing the legally fixable things anymore– and there are other limits that he can’t cross, and that dancing around takes a lot of time and effort.

            A lock only stops an honest thief; that’s why we shoot home invaders.
            (slightly mangled, but true to the spirit)

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