Restless

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

We’re now in days of semi-darkness, as light dims towards the solstice, and the country, still asleep, moves restlessly in its bed.

Before there have been moments of turning, of opening our eyes a moment, but the lullaby of the media, of our aristos, of the media-industrial complex dulled us back to sleep again.

For a full few minutes, we sat up, blinking, scared, int he wake of 9/11, but our lullaby-singers convinced us the scare had been a bad dream, conjured up by a bad man, and that all was well, and we could go back into our golden slumbers.

But now something is different.  The bed isn’t right, it’s too cold in the room.  Despite all the siren songs, we move restlessly… we have a sense of something very wrong.

Or at least that’s my impression.  I could be wrong, of course, but it seems to me that as our elites grow ever more detached from reality, more worried about microaggressions instead of people trying to kill them, we the people in general seem to be realizing something has gone very wrong indeed.

For me, right now, it’s a sense of unease, a prickling at the back of the neck, a sense of something headed for us.

For others…  The same comments and horse-laugh you heard in grocery stores at the mention of summer of recovery(s) have transmuted into uneasy glaces, whispers of “Isis” or “Daesh” or even just “terrorists.”  You see the uneasy look in strangers’ eyes and see your own unease echoed back at you.

There is this sense everything the media is or isn’t saying is bullsh*t.  There has been an accumulation of events and movements most of us were involved in, which we saw misreported and mis-characterized.

There is a sense of faith totally lost, and in response the media is doubling down.  I mean, really, they were ganging up against PRAYERS yesterday?  They’re acting more and more outrageously, and being more and more obvious in both coordination and lack of contact with reality.  And more and more people are waking up.

There is the sense of a rift, the sense of aristos desperately holding on to their bread and cake, while the populace is gathering around the palace, carrying pitchforks.

There is no way an effete and out of touch elite can hold on in the face of a real threat.

The question is when people awake and what comes next.

My friend, Dave Freer, says the long the waking up takes, the more likely it will go astray and what comes next will be worse than our nightmares.

Meanwhile the days go darker, and we stir uneasily.

Wake up.  The alarm is ringing.

344 thoughts on “Restless”

  1. The parable of the frog sitting placidly comes to mind, but even the frog is finally aware of danger. Perhaps it’s the water beginng to roil gently around him; or maybe the first wisp of steam rising from the surface gives alarm. But if the temperature rise is gradual enough, the frog becomes victim of it’s own complacency. It can no longer jump to safety.
    The fact is, we have been subjected to gas lighting for more than a single generation. The indications were available a century ago. But we listened to those we had been taught to respect; and theypooh-pooed the dangers.
    We need to awaken and act. The unease prevalent in society is an indication that an awareness of danger is present. A loud enough voice, backed by enough support, cab sloiw the rush to destruction and turn the wheel to safety.
    There is another parable of a frog – this one having fallen into a bucket of cream. But this frog realizednhis danger immediately, and his continual thrashing caused the cream to curdle, giving him a place to rest. Eventually the milkmaid arrived to pluck him out of the milk.
    Our future safety lies in us kicking up a fuss.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. I keep mentioning it, but frogs don’t act that way. Frogs, since they’re cold blooded, are very aware of temperature…and move when they notice it’s dangerous. A slowly warming pot would be less of an issue than one where the temp rises very quickly.

      I don’t feel up to building a metaphor around it right now…..

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    2. The indications were available a century ago.
      I’m finally reading The Road to Serfdom (published in 1944) and I’m shocked how far back this goes (and how much of the current crap came out of Germany).

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  3. Just finished reading (again) The Scarlet Pimpernel. Too many parallels for comfort. Sometimes wish I didn’t know how history repeats itself. You are an encouragement to be brave and continue the good fight. But I think it’s going to get much, much worse before it ends – and I am an old lady who is cursed/blessed with lots of memories of other times. We have to keep going and struggling and hope to make the bloody landing a bit less than it will be or descend into the worst that humans can be without trying. Sorry to be so pessimistic this morning.

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    1. No, I agree with you. And I think we’re optimistic. At the end of this I want a better place for my kids and grandkids. Or at least a no worse place. But yeah, it’s going to get choppy.

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      1. I wonder if this is where the relative increase in childlessness is a factor that is going to harm or even kill us.

        I know it is very tempting to just try to run out the clock until death. I have no kids and although I’m now married that only puts a relative short term extension on my horizon of concern.

        Sure I have my niece and nephews but still they aren’t my kids (and some family issues related to the designated guardian if a tragedy occurs probably haven’t helping in the “care about the future for them” department, either).

        If a large part of the adult population’s horizon of concern ends with their lives it will be very hard to get them to sacrifice during the time before that horizon for benefits that only accure after.

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        1. I feel it too. My husband and I tried to have kids when we were first married, but we never had the money for fertility treatments, so we gave up. And while I do have a nephew and niece, their medical problems are such that a world without a substantial surplus may well not be survivable for them. (My niece may be able to function in society at a minimal level, if people are willing to be patient with her stubbornness, but my nephew’s still non-verbal and barely capable of self-care, and probably couldn’t even be trained to do helping-out tasks under close supervision).

          Yet I’m leery of restricting access to contraceptives or otherwise compelling people to be parents. Remove economic and social barriers to child-rearing (like the absurd rule that children have to be 15 or 16 before they can be at home alone, so parents are having to arrange after-school and evening babysitting for kids of ages that used to be *doing* the babysitting), but don’t trap people unwilling in parenthood. When I was growing up, there were several families in our community in which the parents visibly resented that role, who regarded the children as “mistakes.” Families in which “I love you” was grated out over gritted teeth because it was expected to be heard coming out of the parental mouth, or worse, used as a weapon to guilt the children into doing something.

          It really worries me that a lot of people who are concerned about the birth dearth assume that people aren’t having kids because they’re selfish gits who want to spend everything they make on themselves rather than making the sacrifices of parenthood, so that their only proposed solution for the demographic decline is to grab the stick, not consider possible carrots.

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          1. Societally, the general impact on fertility of women marrying lots later than historically is I think a big part of this as well – it’s apparently pretty easy to get knocked up when in your teens through early twenties, not so much from 35 and later. Combine that with the really pretty much unknown impact of long term birth control hormone therapy when people decide to start trying and it’s really not surprising.

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            1. We’ve got more friends who are married and trying to have kids, and can’t, than who are married and can.

              We have ONE couple that is married and possibly don’t want kids.

              Metrics being “who has kids and who has mourned not having kids.” So that ONE might just be quiet about private stuff.

              But we have a lot who aren’t married.

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              1. I seem to have been one of the ones who lucked out: dawdled, started seriously trying to conceive at 35…. now close to the end and trying not to be overwhelmingly intimidated by the upcoming increases in interaction and responsibility. *squeak*

                My mother pointed out, when I was fretting over whether I’d waited too long and would have trouble, that while she had us in her 20s, she’d also tended to be on the young end among our classmates’ parents — by around ten years! So clearly somebody’s been pulling it off.

                Still — that doesn’t make it biologically ideal. I am after all officially “elderly” by obstetric standards.

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                1. Both of my parents were in their 30s during childbirth. In the 80s.

                  Remember that the stuff that the doctors freak out about is still incredibly rare– I was “high risk” last pregnancy for stats that would be a GOOD chance in a lotto.

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                  1. Thanks. :)

                    I am trying to be rational about the medical side of things, and my doctors are actually pretty calm as things go, which helps. The baby is by all signs healthy. I have preferences about how to get through labor but kind of expect the crucial bits to turn out okay even if some of them aren’t fulfilled.

                    Most of the temptation to freak out at the moment comes from 1. legitimate awareness that I could stand to be further along on various preparatory tasks, although freaking out instead of doing them certainly won’t help with that, and 2. nerves about Actually Being A Mom.

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                    2. My mother had me when she was 38, and that was 1960, so it can happen. No complications either, not with me, although she did get pregnant a second time and then there was, and she had an abortion because her doctor suspected she might not survive the pregnancy and of course after that my parents didn’t dare to try again. And by then she was over 40 anyway, and this was the early 1960s.

                      I am not the maternal type but I would have had kids if I had found a man who wanted them with me. I didn’t. In some ways a pity, I guess, I would not even consider children without a good father for them because, as said, I am not the maternal type and might not have made a good mother, pretty certainly at least not if I had tried to go at it alone, but all things considered (family histories etc) I might have been a pretty fertile one.

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                    3. Answering here because thread maxed out. Listen to Foxfier. Mine are 24 and 21 and I’m STILL freaking out. Completely allowed. Comes with job. It’s also the dirtiest, most tiring, soul sucking, wonderful, exhilarating, GLORIOUS job you’ll ever do.

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                    4. I am torn here between “I greatly appreciate the reassurance that it’s a normal and not unwarranted reaction” and “I’m not sure I really need encouragement to freak out!” :D

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                  2. While my grandparents did not start that late, my paternal grandmother was 43 when she died a week after giving birth to her 10th child (12th pregnancy).

                    My own mother was 37 and had previously had two children, then a miscarriage, and an ectopic pregnancy which resulted in removal of one fallopian tube, before I was conceived. She thought she couldn’t get pregnant any more. Universe said, “Surprise!”

                    And I’m totally normal. Just ask me (Don’t ask these reprobates around here, though). :-)

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            2. We have two kids, and to the outside we look like a normal “replacement level” family, but every day in my heart I mourn the kids I lost, and the ones who were never conceived. In my case, it seems to have been a case of botched cesarean with first son which made second son a miracle. (The uterus was so scarred all the “failed to implant” issues after are explained, but it wasn’t visible in ultra sounds.) So add to this secondary infertility caused by doctors reaching for the pitosin (my labor stopped due to an excess of it) and then the scalpel, in an effort to make things run according to plan. I bet you I’m not alone in that sequence of events, even if the cause for it was that husband’s family seems to “cook” a month extra. (Elves, I tell you, ELVES.)

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          2. I don’t want to force anyone to have kids. I see that as looking at the problem backwards. A society that decides not to have kids, for whatever reason, is simply one choosing not to move forward.

            I realize there are a lot of reasons people don’t have kids beyond selfishness. Mine are unrelated that. My reason is no women considered me father material (including my own sister hence me not being the designated guardian of my nephews and niece). However, this fact makes it harder for me to give a damn about the future for other people’s children. After all, if my talents, beliefs , attitudes, and abilities aren’t sufficient to justify passing on to the next generation how can their mere byproducts like money or actions that forward the culture be of value.

            You cannot tell huge portions of society they are of no value and expect them to contribute to society.

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              1. I have kids and get crap from feminists for having too many. As I recently told a well meaning and somewhat bubble-dwelling friend who genuinely wanted to know why some women are anti-feminist these days. Being a good LDS mom, she was rather horrified.

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              2. Dingdingdingding! We have a winner! Exactly. It’s fascinating to observe how spectacularly blind they are to this point. Of course, it’s not an inevitability; men can -and do- ignore the people telling them that they’re worthless, evil monsters, and get on with the task of being men…but the radfems sure don’t make that task any easier, do they?

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            2. The culture of 1960 had no reason to be structured so as to be able to propagate itself futurewards in the presence of The Pill. It’s entirely possible that the wombs of Islam will fill the future.

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              1. except that the numbers we’re getting are doctored. Their women got on in the internet and discovered… the rhythm method. Their birth rates have been falling ever since. And also, you know, islamic kids, one minute they’re babies and then they blow up so fast.

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                    1. Guild Rules? I thought the Great And Mighty Robert A. Heinlein set the relevant rule on this? IE file off the serial numbers. [Very Big Evil Grin]

                      Of course, since the Great And Dangerous Doctor Monkey might poke his head into here, it might be safer to acknowledge he’s who you “stole” it from. [Smile]

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          3. (My niece may be able to function in society at a minimal level, if people are willing to be patient with her stubbornness, but my nephew’s still non-verbal and barely capable of self-care, and probably couldn’t even be trained to do helping-out tasks under close supervision

            If things do go all wrong, and you are left to find a way to take care of them– look for monasteries.

            It won’t be perfect, but he won’t be left to die.

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          4. It really worries me that a lot of people who are concerned about the birth dearth assume that people aren’t having kids because they’re selfish gits who want to spend everything they make on themselves rather than making the sacrifices of parenthood, so that their only proposed solution for the demographic decline is to grab the stick, not consider possible carrots.

            Been listening to old Bishop Sheen broadcasts.

            He *observed* people, back in the 50s and 60s, making arguments that were selfish– but couched in terms of caring for the kids that didn’t exist.

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  4. Instead of going to the movies or a fancy dinner, my wife and I spend weekly date night at the gun range. We’ve invested in radios and community service instead of long vacations. My neighbor replaced their back yard with garden and started canning with a pressure cooker. The local cafes are getting more popular than the chain restaurants, since they have meeting rooms. Linux and crypto are becoming more widespread locally since more people are growing not to trust corporations with their data or money. Even the once crazy preppers don’t seem so crazy anymore.

    The “prickling at the back of the neck” is much worse than anything we felt during the late Cold War in the 70’s and 80’s.

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    1. My daughter and I started keeping chickens in the back yard, and the vegetable garden, and also keeping the pantry with non-perishable foods. A gas camp-stove with lots of gas cannisters. And home-canning stuff as well. Prepping has gone main-stream, if what is available at Sam’s and Costco is any indication, not to mention Amazon. There are a lot of people like us, quietly making preparations for … something happening.
      I remember the Cold War very well – and yes, this is nothing like that.

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          1. I think it depends on where you are. Might contact the local fire station and ask. If not there, maybe a hospital, or the YMCA, even.

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          2. There are plenty of local courses and schools. I did website programming for a school in CA that did classes nationwide although the name escapes me and I don’t have the relevant records handy.

            In CT I know the local community colleges had classes.

            As an aside I originally was supposed to be a corpsman and got talked into going nuke. For the first time in 30 years you have me wondering…:)

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          3. Out here in CA they offer the EMT series courses (in sequence: First Aid for First Responders; EMT III; EMT II; EMT I) at local junior colleges. I took the First Aid for First Responders class a couple years ago when between jobs and it was a great first aid refresher, wherein I got a stack of Red Cross certification cards.

            EMT III certification will get you hired at minimum wage to drive an ambulance, and that level and up require volunteer time in hospital ERs. The progressively more responsible EMT levels (EMT I = Paramedic) count in hours of service at the lower levels as well as additional training.

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            1. Where I am, it’s the local state university’s continuing education program. For rural/wildland first responders, at least. None of us have done the course, but it looks like it’s get the person stabilized until life-flight can get there sort of training.

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              1. I looked into Wilderness First Aid courses and read some of the texts, and they are definitely more involved, since the life flight help might be quite some time getting there.

                There are usually really strong Wilderness First Aid programs in most ski areas as it’s a pre-req for ski patrol jobs, which pay lots better than The Dude Running The Lift jobs.

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          4. Family Love Story: My Niece and Nephew-in-Law met as EMT Volunteers in Roanoke VA. He wanted to be a policeman, but was qualified as a driver, and she was working towards being a respiratory therapist (and is at MCV in Richmond).

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          5. Local community and junior colleges often offer first responder training. Also some hospitals or health systems might.

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          6. In Washington, local CERT (Community Emergency Response Teams) provide a structure for practicing disaster planning & response, and paths to training (sometimes free, often not). I know people who are much involved, who regularly recruit volunteers to be live ‘victim’s for exercises. Maybe check with your local Red Cross office to see if such exist where you are.

            As for me, my company offers training/biannual refreshers & certification (they bring in people) in Basic First Aid, CPR, AED so that, in the event of an on-site problem there will be somebody nearby who can get things started properly while the EMTs are on their way. I took it partly because we play in the SCA, so I could be first-on-scene at a remote campground.

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          7. Most community colleges have classes. I’ve had some training a bit beyond the standard Red Cross first aid / CPR, mostly for trauma response in remote locations since I spend a lot of time on the roads up here. There are multiple levels of EMT and usually a few below that.

            A couple years ago we got our department to get a bunch of us trained by a local company in air craft crash survival since we travel by small plane fairly often. It was rather enlightening, especially how planes and helicopters tend to impact and what you need to do to increase your chances of surviving. Really only applies to small aircraft though, with the larger commercial aircraft its pretty much everything fine or everyone dead so nothing really to worry about.

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          9. Volunteer fire department. American Red Cross offers training, and charges for it. Your local community college. Boy Scouts, where I get my CPR/AED/First Aid training.

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          10. Community college? Your local ambulance service? And by “army” you mean any of the services, including the Coast Guard (not likely located in your area).

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            1. You’d be amazed at where the Coast Guard shows up. Peterson AFB – both active and reserve personnel.

              (Now, admittedly, I don’t think they do much training there. They’re tasked for NORTHCOM missions at need.)

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              2. The Coast Guard used to have a post at Boise City (pronounced “Boys City”) in the OK Panhandle, maintaining one of the LORAN beacons. Not sure if it was the single most land-locked groups of Coasties in North America, but it was close.

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          11. Try the fire department. First their website, then actually popping in and asking.

            The whole earnest, “I’m a mom and want to know I’ll know what to do when things go bad” shtick will do you good, here.

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          12. Oh, and hunter’s courses.

            90% of what I learned in the Navy “Battle Stations” training was about working with the system; the other 10% was elaboration on the first aid/hunter’s training, “how not to die/how to keep your buddy from dying” part of hunter’s ed.

            Things like “how to apply this specific brace” and “how NOT to apply a tourniquet.”

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            1. Tourniquets are coming back in, big. Iraq taught a lot about their use, apparently, and their use is credited with saving the lives of many of the Boston Marathon Bombing victims. (The only three dead there were killed instantly.)

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              1. Israel figured out a pack that actually WORKS without needing the “Hey, if the arm is dead anyways, THEN use one” metric.

                They also got an awesome brace that’s better than a ruler with random cloth. It’s….. kinda like two wires, with some cloth already applied.

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      1. Concur on the Cold War difference – the Soviets were threatening to nuke military targets, major cities, minor cities, and lonely gas stations in the desert, not send Spetsnaz troops to randomly shoot up your work Christmas party or packed local mall.

        And the Soviet general thermonuclear war threat was held in check by the threat of massive retaliation, where the latter is currently being held in check by climate conferences in Paris.

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        1. The Soviets weren’t above supporting communist terrorist groups who would randomly shoot up or bomb your nightclub, cafe, or department store. ISTR that KGB and GRU defectors also provided evidence of Soviet sabotage/terrorism plans for implementation as precursors to or in conjunction with conventional war, including the existence of weapons and explosives caches to assist in such activities.

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        2. A big difference is that the Soviets did not believe in an afterlife while the Jihadists are hoping for 72 virgins. I kind of find the 72 virgin thing strange they won’t last in that state very long, then what.

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          1. Especially since that may well be a mis-translation and actually refer to 72 clusters of grapes. But there are no translations in the Perfect Word of God that wasn’t written down until the fourth Caliph assembled it, and destroyed any accounts that didn’t agree with his version. Of course not.

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          2. Image of a Islamic Terrorist in hell. He gets a virgin but her maidenhead is impossible to penetrate or if he is able penetrate it, he discovers she has teeth behind her maidenhead and she uses them. [Very Big Evil Grin]

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            1. And who says that if there will be virgins those virgins are going to be pretty young things anyway? How about demonic old hags who are virgins because no male has ever been willing to get close to them? And who might be quite delighted for getting the chance to play a bit with a man. Raping might be a bit more complicated for a female than it is for a male, but… :)

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              1. Given arab proclivities, they may be virgin goats,camels or premature detonators who failed their missions. The 72 raisin hypothesis is fun – a misprint 700- years old.

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                1. :D I still think I’d like it best if they were angry Valkyries having a break from their other duties, now that it has been a while since there has been a bigger war among those people from whom they pick the warriors who get to go to Valhalla, and besides the descendants of their warriors seem to have gone a bit soft lately anyway… So they have gone back to being what they once were, not beautiful blond young women but sinister spirits of slaughter, and have joined the Wild Hunt. And now console themselves by hunting the most obvious enemies of their people themselves after said enemies cross over to their side. (And does that sound like a good fantasy story or not… hm…)

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            2. I always liked the story about the jihadi who met his end, arrived at Paradise and Lighthorse Harry Lee punched him. Then Thomas Jefferson kicked him in the rump, George Washington slugged him, and Robert E. Lee punched him in the gut. When the jihadi finally sees someone who looks like their in charge, he crawls over and gasps, “What happened? I thought this was Paradise!”

              The angelic being gives him a hard look. “You mis-read. You get 72 angry Virginians.”

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  5. You’re even seeing elements of this in people going into government jobs, albeit with a slightly different twist. There is much anticipation of foreign policy being a growth industry over the next few years as the world destabilizes.

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    1. Yeah but, as an example, the entry level Foreign Service Officer job writeups in the State Department basically guarantee that they will send you to parasite infested world armpits for your first two overseas tours.

      If reviewing visa applications in the ancillary consulate to the People’s Republic of Fumbuckistan is on your bucket list, look into the career opportunities at the US Department of State today!

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        1. No, it is good that there will be one sane person in the embassy.

          The sad part is that insanity is more contagious than sanity.

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          1. To indignantly deny the veracity of the statement! To imply overt Terran imperialistic japery! :-)

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          2. I was in my mid-teens when Mom and I first read the Retief stories. I couldn’t understand why we laughed in different places. Now I know why (and to think that I wanted to go to work for the State Department when I was in college . . .)

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      2. Having met with a number of USDS personnel in a professional capacity, I have been impressed- they’re a good bunch.
        Their bosses in DC, on the other hand…

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        1. one of my cousins works for State. Finding stolen Jewish treasures and trying to find who they belong to, and who they should be returned to was what she was working on at the time.

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        2. Much the same can be said of our US Military. When you set to climbing the greasy pole you can count on getting slimy. At least the leadership of our military are not appointed based upon the largess of their campaign fund-raising.

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    2. Heh. After 14 years in the Navy, including four overseas tours, I’m looking forward to retiring in a few more years and doing something else, something that will have meaning and where I can point to a positive outcome, rather than a “same shi&t, different day” sort of situation. Once, I considered getting out and doing the same sort of work as a civilian, but not anymore. I’m just tired

      At the same time, I know things are going to get more interesting in my line of work. Both in the Chinese sense and the literal sense. And I want to be there for my Sailors, teach them and get them ready to carry on. We’ll see how it goes.

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  8. People are pushing to get big ticket items and stock up on things because . . . no one quite knows, but everyone is restless, twitchy, looking to the east and south. The Potter County Sheriff is offering open classes on how to respond to an “active shooter”, free to anyone who wants to sign up and attend. I keep hearing the verses about “When the Dark comes rising . . .” whispering in the back of my mind, and the line from the book “Tonight will be bad. And tomorrow will be beyond imagining.”

    As the chorale says, “Watchet auf, ruft uns die Stimme,” Awake, sleepers! for a voice is calling us.

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    3. Our county sheriff got himself quoted in the newspaper reminding us that anyone who can handle a gun should have one in their home.

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  9. Remember, ‘If you see something, say something’ would be considered a micro aggression… unless it is a white male doing the ‘something’. Arabs have a cultural heritage of pipe bombs and suicide vests. Commenting on either would be an assault to their cultural sensitivities.

    The sad part, is if I said this to a SJW, or my cousin-in-law, they would believe it to be true.

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      2. No, that’s cultural imperialism.

        Remember, if we use something they developed, it’s bad and our fault.

        If they use something we developed, it’s bad and our fault.

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      3. If I recall correctly, gunpowder, the easiest to use pipe bomb explosive, was first developed in China. So us Westerners culturally appropriated it from the Chinese.

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  10. Want to talk about their detachment from reality?
    “Sensible gun laws work,” Boxer told reporters. “We’ve proven it in California.”

    (words fail me)

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    1. Madame Boxer is correct, California has proven sensible gun laws work. It’s just that California’s gun laws are not sensible.

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    3. I think it depends on what value of “work” you mean. For example, if you extend the sentence fully it seems self-evident:
      “Sensible gun laws work to prevent law-abiding citizens from defending themselves or opposing the authorities.”

      If, however, by “work” you mean prevent mass shootings …
      ATF Says Weapons Used in San Bernardino Shooting Were Illegal in California
      [SNIP]
      While they were originally sold legally, with magazine locking devices commonly known as bullet buttons, the rifles were subsequently altered in different ways to make them more powerful, according to Meredith Davis, a special agent with the ATF.

      The Smith & Wesson rifle was changed in an attempt to enable it fire in fully automatic mode, while the DPMS weapon was modified to use a large-capacity magazine, she said.

      Those alterations made the weapons unlawful under California’s ban on assault weapons, which bans guns with magazines that can detach for quick reloading.

      RTWT

      Note that blocking gun sales to persons on the TSA Terrorist Watch List would have done nothing to prevent this assault. Given the Democrats’ demonstrated lack of common sense, their oft-proclaimed demands for “common sense gun laws” rings hollow.

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      1. This story, and the DPMS item in particular, was clearly written by the typical J-school know-nothing moron, as there is no modification required to be able to insert a 30 round standard capacity magazine into an AR lower that is set up to accept a CA-neutered 10 rd. capacity magazine. In fact the usual 10 rd. mags out here are simply 30 rd magazines with some type of non-removable block under the follower so it is not possible to insert more than 10 rounds.

        Most likely what actually is the case is that the DPMS (and for that matter the S&W) were both altered in violation of CA law to remove the CA “bullet button” (which requires a “tool” – usually the point of a bullet – to actuate the mag-release and remove a magazine) and replaced with the standard mag release button (which you actuate using a device known as a “finger”).

        It is illegal in CA both to assemble a semi auto weapon that does not have the bullet button, and to insert a standard cap (>10 rd) magazine into any semi auto weapon.

        That’s Babs Boxer’s “proven to work” gun control laws in action right there.

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        1. California is insane. Amusingly, black powder guns are not considered firearms and may be bought online with ups delivery – also
          caps, powder and shot. A Colt 1860 Army is as good as a 38 for the first 6 shots. Since CC permits are nearly impossible to get, we’ve been wondering what legal ramifications carrying a concealed BP gun would be. My wife carries a kukri in her purse (to trim her nails), and I’ve just bought a nice bow and some arrows – hard to carry concealed, but could be stowed strung in the back seat, might be better than nothing.

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          1. a Rage or similar to the chest would not be a fun thing for a perp, and they bleed out really fast. Even the simple Woodsman or a Zwickey with bleaders will ruin your day (and are likely surer to deal death to the target even with a non torso hit)
            Those old colts in .45 or heck even 36 would be better stoppers than ball ammo in the same calibers

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          2. Have you checked the laws on carrying knives? I can’t speak to California law, but even here in KY, where you can carry open without any permit at all, you have to have a CCW in order to carry any blade over a certain length (and guns, of course) if it’s concealed.

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      1. California “sensible gun laws” and the like work, in one sense: They make easier the job of armed authorities, who can now assume anyone with a gun is a target, rather than observing behavior and using common sense.

        Many laws that follow in the ‘zero tolerance’ tradition have pretty much the same purpose – to make common sense and appropriate judgement unnecessary in the performance of official authority.

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        1. One caveat to the “disarming the plebes makes CA law enforcement’s job easier”: There’s another set of folks out here who are legally armed, and their existence significant complicates things for Joe Patrolman – The rich and well connected (but I repeat myself) are able, through their political influence, to be issued concealed carry permits in jurisdictions where the great unwashed cannot. They also have legally armed security folks.

          Any CA police patrol officer thus must apply the same evaluation (even, profiling) as occurs in free states to the dress, demeanor, and actions of any stoppee to assess whether they are a gangbanger or a well connected scion of the local aristos, and woe betide the patrol cop who makes that evaluation incorrectly.

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          1. There was an incident during Obama’s first term when he was visiting friends and supporters in Chicago (I think he was at Bill Ayers’, but who actually can know?) when the Secret Service got run up against the security detail for Nation of Islam president Calypso Louie Farrakhan, who was also in the area. As I recall, it took a bit of time for them to sort out jurisdiction (as well as who was better armed; I fear we already know who was more professional.)

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          2. Sounds like upside-down profiling: Using externally observable characteristics to determine who NOT to hassle, vs. who to suspect.

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    5. I’ve been responding to the expected call from all the usual suspect for “sensible” gun control after the San B shootings. Mostly I just cut and paste what I’ve written below as it seems to cover the main points. As a general rule they either ignore me or jump full bore into mandatory confiscation and citizen disarmament.

      Fine, we all understand that you’re upset, and rightly so.
      So lets have a conversation about gun control.
      After every shooting y’all shout to the rooftops that just a few “sensible” gun laws would have prevented this. Well, here’s a few inconvenient truths.

      The state of California requires:
      Universal background checks
      a ten day waiting period on all purchases
      a ban on large capacity magazines
      severe restrictions on a number of assault type weapons
      handguns must be on an approved list for purchase
      And a host of other laws, none of which did squat to prevent this latest shooting.
      But then neither did all the laws and regulations in Paris which are even stricter on civilian ownership.

      So you want to do something. Come up with a proposed solution that actually works and then perhaps we can talk. So far all I’ve heard is countless proposals to take the guns away from everyone who hasn’t done anything wrong. Doesn’t really affect the criminals, because, guess what, they’re criminals and the law just does not mean all that much to them.

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      1. Make it easy to get a gun so the terrorists will be well perforated as soon as they start something. What does Israel do? I consider them to be world leaders in successful anti-terrorist techniques.

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      2. Yep. Pretty much the only general-population coercive gun law that _could_ have affected the San B massacre would to be require that every gathering of more than X people have no less than Y% of the attendees carrying.

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      1. Actually, on average, the mass murderers in American history have gotten their best results from explosives, followed by arson, and only then guns.

        The hysteria about shootings may mislead the murderers about deadliness, or perhaps they choose the one they will know will get extra publicity.

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        1. Firearms are a much more controlled means of mayhem. The shooter can enjoy the illusion of importance much longer without risking being blown up or set aflame.

          Liked by 1 person

        3. Everytime someone brings up banning the guns for the children (I live in CT :( ) I point out the Bath School disaster of 1927 which killed 38 students, 3 adults, and injured almost twice as many. Except for the initial murder of his wife at home, he didn’t use a gun (except aparently to set up the last bomb in his truck). But he could have set that off quite easily without one of those evil weapons.

          People tend to tune it out, because it doesn’t fit with the approved SJW narrative.

          Today one of my sisters posted the NY Daily News cover which blames all of the terrorism in this country on the NRA. I was bitching about it at school and one of my classmates (a military vet) was agreeing and stating that no one needed a gun for home protection because a friend of hers had one and hadn’t been able to use it the one time his home was invaded. And anyway “90% of people who shoot a home invader end up doing jail time”. I would love to know where she got that ludicrous figure; even here in CT if it’s at night and they broke in, you are allowed to assume that they are up to no good and as long as you don’t shoot them in the back as they are leaving you’re good to go. I wonder what the real figure for home defense shootings landing the legal resident in jail are.

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            1. I brought it up with someone else once who was trying to convince me that no one would ever, ever need a weapon of any sort for home protection so there was no reason for anyone to have one. I told her flat out that I suspected that the Petits probably wished they’d had one. The idiot just looked blank and went on as if I hadn’t said anything. It didn’t fit her world view, so it didn’t exist.

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              1. The Petit case was on the news for years off and on. She didn’t know anything about it. Up until Sandy Hook, it was the biggest crime story we’ve had since Skakel.

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                1. I didn’t phrase myself well. She did know about it, but she couldn’t let it affect her world view. Though to be fair, she may have just found it too scary, and was doing an ostrich routine.

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              2. Has here home ever been broken into? My apartment was. Unfortunately for the perps, just before I was walking in the OTHER door. I scared two kids so hard they wanted the cops to take them. I didn’t have a weapon, but still.

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                1. And yes, she hadn’t had her house broken into. I have (twice). The second time I had nearly stayed home with the baby because I wasn’t feeling that great. Since we only had one car, it would have looked like we were all out for the evening, and the first thing I would have known was when the burglers climbed the stairs. I slept with my husband’s short sword by the bed for months afterwards, even after we figured out who did it and that it was someone we knew – and if I ever see her again, even after nearly two decades, I’ll probably be arrested for decking the bitch.

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                  1. Bellowing “Who the HELL do you think you are, coming in here, you SON OF A BITCH!!”
                    is a rather good response.

                    It both raises the adrenaline of the good guys, and makes the good guys aware that they are meeting hostiles who are…um… not nice.

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                    1. My sister’s apartment building in St. Louis was broken into by two young men and they made the mistake of hitting one of the upstairs units. The resident came charging out of her room towards the boys waving a heavy wooden staff, long wavy red hair flying, screaming for the other upstairs tenant to “Shoot them! Shoot them!”, not that he could, since a) he didn’t have a gun at home and b) he wasn’t home at the time, but hey the kids didn’t know that. Apparently they left so fast one lost a sneaker. Her neighbor had visions of going around doing a reverse Cinderella “Here young man, does this shoe fit you?”

                      What with that incident and her roommate practicing in the back yard with a bullwhip, the building was left alone after that.

                      Liked by 1 person

                    2. Anybody want the rights to develop and market an app that allows your phone to produce the sound of a shotgun being pumped?

                      Oh heck, sell a panoply of guns being prepared for action. Call it Arsenal App.

                      If you can make it all I want is one free version; the concept is the easy part.

                      Liked by 1 person

                    3. I can’t find the link any more, but I did love the one about the SCA fighter’s apartment; after weeks of harassment of herself and her dog by contractors workers outside, she appeared fresh (as in one precarious towel) out of the shower with a katana in one hand and a pissed-off Akita in the other, and gave them several pieces of her mind. Apparently they both promised to behave and marked off her parking space with Do Not Cross tape.

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                    4. Well, I’ve heard of SCA fighters in fighting gear (hidden by overcoats) encountering would-be muggers. [Very Big Evil Grin]

                      Of course, there’s also the story about a male house-sitter encountering would-be burglars stark naked and sword in hand. [Very Very Big Evil Grin]

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                    5. Rural Legend– my uncle did a variation on it. He kept his battle axe in the same closet as his home defense baseball bat… but he was wearing boxers.

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                    6. That goes in the category of “questions you don’t actually want an answer to” along with the one I heard in a local criminal case a few years ago (I was a juror): The homeowner walked in to his kitchen late one night and came upon Some Dude going through his wifes purse on the kitchen counter. Homeowner hit the lights and shouted “WHO THE F#$K ARE YOU?” before chasing Some Dude out the door, tackling him in the driveway, and holding him until the PD showed up (mostly – he obviously let up a bit as the patrol car pulled up and Some Dude bolted, thus getting tackled again by the responding officers for his troubles).

                      I remarked after we were done* that even though he asked, the homeowner likely didn’t actually want an answer to his question.

                      * Guilty. Plus it turned out it was Strike Three for Some Dudeunder CA’s three strikes law.

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                    7. Did you congratulate the homeowner on his restraint in not bouncing the guy’s melon off of the dirt until he stopped moving?
                      It would be satisfying, but might confuse the cases.

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          2. There haven’t been many mass murders in Finland in my lifetime, off hand I recall a couple of school shootings, one on a street – and one with a bomb in a mall. The last killed the kid who had made the bomb and taken it to the mall, it seems probably accidentally, it went off too early. From the time there were newspaper stories that he had been active on some obscure internet forums used by people who swap information how to build them.

            General impression: most of the people who go off rails that way like guns because guns are a bit easier, and require less knowledge and you probably won’t kill yourself by accident too early. But some prefer bombs even when guns are available. And if they can’t get guns there is no way you can stop bomb making because there is no way you can keep everything one could use for that from the general public, too much is stuff needed for all kinds of other purposes and it doesn’t take that much background in chemistry to figure out how to make something that blows up, even without help from hobbyist and other actual wannabe mass murderers online (and the hobbyists… yep, sometimes there have been news of unexplained explosions in the middle of nowhere, like hereabouts three in a forest a few years back… seems that some people just like explosions and to blow things up instead of blowing up other people. Unless you go paranoid and think those might have been test runs for something more sinister. Who knows.).

            And fact is that bombs scares me way worse. It might be possible to get away from a crazy guy with a gun, especially if you are not the first victim, it might even be possible to fight him (even if you aren’t armed yourself). If it’s a bomb you might be sitting – or covering – right next to it and will have no clue until it goes off. I much prefer a situation where the crazies are more likely to go for a gun instead of a bomb. Of course it would be also way, way better if I could have a gun too, but even in places like my country where you can’t legally carry, yes, if some nutcase wants to kill strangers it’s better if he goes for a gun instead of bomb or bombs, IMO.

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      2. You’ve apparently never dealt with having three Bryans and two Brians at the same set of meetings, which had maybe 20 people total. Trust me, it gets confusing quick.

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          1. My wife occasionally has had problems with being one Elizabeth of many in various work or social groups (my aunt Betty was an Elizabeth, too).

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              2. Um…. Did you have two dogs who were called cats by the child of a friend, which you had to get rid of before moving over seas, and have you recently had a major loss in the family?

                If so, the box of stuff with the Craft Project Material Item you had trouble with was shipped on Wednesday; contact me on facebook.

                (That, folks, is a means of identification; it’s utterly useless if they’re not all accurate. But not malicious or damaging.)

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                1. And it sounds odd enough that Fed the Fred will be up until too late for St. Nicholas to drop off presents as he wonders what the code means. ;)

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          2. I once had an on-air (2m ham radio) conversation with several people, and we all went by callsign.. until I made the mistake of addressing one with “Hey, Mike… $QUESTION?” And only after releasing the Push-To-Talk button realizing that I was the only person in the conversation not named Mike. This lead to my comment that, “Every Tom, Dick, and Harry is named Mike.”

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            1. knew of a young kid who got into the Ham thing, and was chatting with some guy for a while. his Dad decided he best find out who this random guy his kid was getting along famously with really was, and it turned out to be the King Of Jordan (the current one’s dad)
              iirc he later hosted the kid’s whole family during a vist here, either the UN or DC.
              See, you never know who you might be talking to.

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              2. I have a friend who tells about (completely without knowing who it was at the time, because he doesn’t follow sports) sitting beside Michael Jordan* in an airport and playing the just-released “You Don’t Know Jack” with him on his laptop while waiting. He says later, he saw Jordan on TV (in a commercial, I think he said), and made the connection.

                *Because of not knowing who it was, he says that all he saw when he walked into the waiting area was a black guy who was surrounded by a lot of empty seats. He sat down and opened the laptop to play the game to kill time, Jordan asked what it was, he explained, and offered to play him, then promptly got soundly beaten.

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          5. My husband has Young Looking Tim, Marine Tim, The One I’ve Known Forever Tim, The Guy in my Office Tim, The Guy in the other office Tim, Navy Tim.

            Meanwhile, my dad’s family has so many variations on “Mary” that we look like ancient Jerusalem. That’s BEFORE you count middle names…..

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            1. My wife, her mother, all her sisters, and most of her cousins all have a Mary or Marie in their name. Not uncommon in a good Catholic family. So for my daughter, though it wasn’t the pre-birth agreement. I wasn’t there when the nurse asked what her name was.

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            2. In college I had Regular Gina, Hair Gina, Amazon Gina, and Gina the Car (Morticia Angelina, technically, but you have to name cars juuuuuuust right…)

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              1. In the barracks in Japan where I lived during most of my first enlistment, there were four Marys and three Dianne’s, differentiated as Kinney, Swint and the Georgia Peach. And only one telephone on each floor. Any idea how many guys call a girl they met without being cognizant of her surname? Yeah, I learned that early on. About 98% of them.
                There were also two Celia’s … so often was this conversation repeated.
                “Hi, can I talk to Celia?”
                “Which Celia?”
                “The one who’s sort of short, and blue-eyed, with curly light brown hair.”
                They’re both short, blue-eyed and with curly light brown hair. Which Celia?”
                “Ummm … the one that works at FEN.”
                “They both work at FEN. Which Celia? – the jarhead (USMC) or the zoomie (USAF)?”
                “Oh … ah. The jarhead.”
                “Well, why didn’t you say so to start with?!” (slamming the phone receiver indignantly down on the shelf and going off on the hike to the end of the building to tell Lance Corporal Celia that she had a telephone call.)

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        2. When I was in the high school band, there were only three males in the flute and clarinet sections combined…but all three of them were named “Jeremy.”

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          1. That was far and away the best part of playing clarinet in HS band, being one of the few males among all those girls.

            Helped that I was the only straight one at one point (no, people weren’t that open in the early 80s but party enough and you knew).

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            1. I played bassoon. There was one male oboe player. 2 bassoon, 2 oboe and 7 flutes… All female. Fortunately (or not), there were guys on other instruments with the full band.

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              1. I remember a trumpet player giving me a hard time as I must be a faggot because I played clarinet.

                So I asked him if sitting with a lot of women made me gay what did being part of the sausage fest that was the brass section made him.

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                1. You could have pointed out that you were nimble in more than 3 fingers? Fortunately, our band did not seem to equate any instrument with a single sex… Save possibly flutes, simply because they were all girls, or drum majorettes (baton twirlers) who were oboe, bassoon, flute, clarinet and percussion. Now, I was sweet on a French Horn player for a year, and I endured a lot of comments about them having the best puckers, but it was all in reasonable good fun (especially for what goes on in High School).

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                  2. ‘Tish! he said French Horn!

                    ’tis an ill wind that no one blows good. Oops – that’s the oboe, Mr. Bill!

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                    1. RES… that is fantastic! Reality Observer: it isn’t you that has the pucker, it is the girl with the horn. And not the brass section, specifically the French horn players have the pucker. Bassoon players have the overbite. Occupational hazards I guess.

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        3. I’ve known one cousin to announce an engagement by saying, “Guess what? I’m giving you your name back!” Since she was taking her husband’s name and they would no longer have the same first AND last name.

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          1. I went to a conference with someone from a Welsh family who married a gent of Welsh ancestry. Her comment: “We should have thought about names before we did the legal paperwork.” Computers have fits when the first and last names are identical.

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            1. My maternal grandparents were first cousins. She didn’t change her name. you couldn’t tell. :-)
              Actually I was first female in my family, including females married INTO the family to change my name. BUT no one NOT ONE D*MN PERSON in an official position in this country can spell Almeida. My kids (who also have it, being de Almeida Hoyt) have got it spelled Alameda (most common), Almieda (second most common) and Alamerda (most profane.)
              Therefore, A.

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        4. When older son was in school, there was at least one class where he was one of five Christophers.

          I guess his name was a little evil, since his middle name is Allen (same as mine, and my dad’s), so his initials are CAB.

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          1. When we were expecting our first 20 years ago and choosing names, a friend named Christopher told us he would never talk to us again if we named the child anything that could be shortened to Chris/Kris. He grew up in a small town and his school class of 20 had SIX Chris/Kris/etc.s in it, of both sexes.

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            1. Those are unpredictable. My mother waited until her second daughter to decide that she wanted a Mary of her own — never mind how popular it was. And I was unique most of the time.

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              1. One of my best friends is a Kris. She agreed with Chris that we shouldn’t name a child that.

                We chose our eldest’s name almost before we decided to get married. At the time we didn’t know anyone who had named their daughter that. By the time I was pregnant it seemed everyone we ran into who was expecting a girl or had just had one had chosen that same exact name.

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        5. I’ve only met two other Arwens. It was fun. Especially since I met one in a science fiction literature class and the professor was delighted and called us “the Arwens”.

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      3. Quibble: That nom du cyber is properly, I suspect, read as [from] One Brian To Many, except he seems to have dropped one of the “n”s from Manny.

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        1. Perhaps the name is his hint to the rest of us that he is capable of splitting his person into many identical clone bodies?

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      4. No, we are not under alien operation or under the control of ex KGB illegals. They wouldn’t be THIS incompetent and just plain delusional. I think it’s a classic case of accretion and inbreeding from the elites along with a very unhealthy case of tribalism that’s created this parasitical government of true idiots. How many NEW ideas have we seen come from Washington lately? How many ideas period?

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      5. The first time I tried to post a comment I had seen a Brian, I used The other Brian, then saw that someone else had used that. So chose my screen name accordingly.

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  12. The Ulster County, NY (just west of Poughkeepsie) sheriff is encouraging all licensed permit holders to carry and to shoot back. Pretty amazing for a NY State official, even if he is reasonably distant from NYC and Albany.

    Politicans have to know by now that gun control is a loser. Pushing it results only in losses; those of us against it feel strongly, those for it generally do not, so pushing for it just mobilizes the opposition. Trying to bring it up in an obvious terrorism case stinks of desperation.

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    1. Excluding NYC and the I-90 corridor, New York state tends to run moderate-to-conservative. Its another example of a state where the urban areas are left and the hinterland is not; in this case, it is more pronounced than most.

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      1. Herkimer County NY reporting: They’ve come down since it’s been a few years, but for a good while there was a “Repeal the SAFE Act” (NY’s latest gun control) on what seemed like every third lawn…

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        1. Where I live and on my daily commute the signs are on every 5th yard or so. Most of the yards are fields- there aren’t really very many lawns…

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    2. One of the reasons I was so thrilled when Hillabeast chose to take it on as one of her core planks. It guarantees that every pro gun person in the country will make it a point to be sure to cast their vote in 2016 not matter who her opponent is.

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    3. Ulster County is not reasonably distant from NYC and Albany, being about hallway between them. But then, I live west of Syracuse in the middle of nowhere. Different perspective…

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      1. But it is on the west side of the Hudson. I swear that makes a difference. I’ve got a few relatives on either side, in between NYC and Albany. The liberals are all on the east side of the Hudson, the conservatives are all on the west side. The sample size is small enough to be called anecdotal, I know, but still….

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  13. Has the nation been asleep or are we shaking off a MSM-administered soma binge?

    The establishment is collapsing from an overdose, and we shall over the next year see the beginning of the shape of things to come. The political beast seems to be readying to run amok, and the main question is in which direction it will charge?

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  14. Anybody working in an organization inclined to hold a Christmas End of Year Party might want to send an email to the appropriate corporate officers to inquire about security for the event — surely the events in San Bernadino establish a premise for corporate liability for any event without security?

    Wherever ambulances go, lawyers follow.

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  16. This was bannered as “Breaking News” as I scanned today’s NY Post. Make of it what you will, with due allowance for the 48-Hour Rule.

    Killer wife in California massacre swore allegiance to ISIS
    The female terrorist who fatally shot 14 people and wounded 21 others in the San Bernardino attack swore allegiance to ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghadi in a Facebook post, a federal source told The Post on Friday.

    Tashfeen Malik pledged her allegiance to the militant group on an account with a different name as she and her husband, Syed Farook, carried out the attack, the source said.

    “Investigators believe this is ISIS-inspired. She pledged her allegiance to al-Baghdadi,” a source briefed on the matter told The Post.

    Investigators also believe there is a “very serious” possibility that Malik radicalized Farook, whom she married in August 2014, according to Fox News.

    Law enforcement sources also told Fox that there’s a “very strong” possibility that Malik was her husband’s terror trainer and may have helped him put together pipe bombs.

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    1. It does tend to explain why the RIF are so actively recruiting young girls into the movement. In classic spy terminology it’s known as a honey trap.
      Still, what sort of sick twisted mind must it take to hand over your young child to relatives, kit out in battle rattle with your husband, and go murder a group of people, knowing full well that the likely outcome would be your own death.
      While people like that exist in the world none of us are safe.

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      1. It’s best to realize that none of us are safe, in any absolute sense, anyway. (I suspect you know that – but there are so many people who keep talking and acting as if it’s a realizable goal… instead of being satisfied with “safer”.)

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  17. One thing that concerns me is that the West has not had a real religious war since the Thirty Years’ War. Even in the Troubles, Catholic vs Protestant was signalling us vs. them — the IRA was never fighting to force Protestants to renounce heresy and return to the Catholic fold the way the Catholic armies of the 1600’s were. We’ve become so accustomed to religion as a matter of private conscience that we really don’t grok the idea of somebody being willing to kill us to compel us to relate to the supernatural in the manner they dictate.

    I have a bad feeling that the San Bernardino attack was a dry run for something much larger, so big that their handlers decided to sacrifice one team to get a sense of how the police will response. And if it’s right that the workplace was not the target, but the Christmas party, I’m thinking it’s very probable that Christmas Day will be the real thing. And since at least some Muslims regard the day as beginning at sunset, not midnight, it is very probable that Christmas Eve services will be targets.

    Be watchful, everyone.

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    1. I think that is also part of the problem. Our secular, agnostic or athiest elites cannot believe that people take religions seriously. The most immediate illustration is the fights over bakers and florist visa via gay weddings.

      If they cannot understand why some Christians don’t want to make a cake for a gay wedding (and I’ve talked to enough that literally cannot believe that belief drives this…no one really believes in God that much), how can they even begin to comprehend the jihad who will commit suicide to kill infidels. I think for a large number of them their response is not that different from that of a citizen of Troy during the siege being transported to modern NYC. It is so far beyond anything they have experienced that they cannot process it.

      Add in a sense of inherent superiority over those who they don’t even understand that would make the Greek definition of barbarian look like multiculturalism and you get people like the average modern progressive.

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        1. Oh, I’ve heard people claim the Tebow thing was just to sell to the gullible and get a career (of course, if no one believes it that much how are there gullible people to sell to?).

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        2. If they can’t believe people take real religions that seriously, why do they take pseudo-religions (environmentalism, etc.) so seriously?

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              1. Wasn’t it CS Lewis that observed how if one wished to please himself, Christianity was a really, really bad choice?

                There’s been fads for some Eastern religions, and didn’t Madonna jump into some Jewish mysticism, but they’ve got the problem that the practitioners keep showing up and pointing out that they’re cutting out some important bits.

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                1. “didn’t Madonna jump into some Jewish mysticism … practitioners keep showing up and pointing out that they’re cutting out some important bits.”

                  Cutting out some important bits has been a practice among the Jews pretty much since the beginning.

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                    1. I have not the slightest idea what you and Paul are going on about but must say, there’s no call to get snippy.

                      Happy Hanukkah, Y’all — and remember, the latkes should not be fried in lard, no matter how tasty it makes them.

                      Liked by 1 person

                2. C. S. Lewis also talked about the desire for “easy” religion.

                  That is, one that doesn’t expect the person to do anything hard.

                  When you mentioned these people being told by practitioners that they’ve “cut out important things” that reminded me of Lewis’s comments about “easy” religion.

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              2. Because Science! [Evil Grin]

                Seriously, I suspect that some of these people have grown up thinking that Science has “proven” Religion to be nonsense.

                So their religious-impulses come into play when they are introduced to the “science-based” causes.

                On the other hand, it seems that some of these people do “get religion” by getting involved in “New Age” stuff or watered down versions of Asian faiths. The only religion they “think” have been disproven by “Science” are Christianity or perhaps Judaism.

                Note, I suspect many of these people know as much about real science as a two-year old. [Evil Grin]

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                1. Somewhat related, by Leo Straus via Steven Hayward at Power Line:

                  THE LAZIEST LIBERAL ARGUMENT: “THE SIDE OF HISTORY”
                  [SNIP]
                  What has taken place in the modern period has been the gradual corrosion and destruction of the heritage of Western civilization. The soul of modern development, one may say, is a peculiar realism, consisting of the notion that moral principles and the appeal to moral principles—preaching, sermonizing—are ineffectual, and therefore that one has to seek a substitute for moral principles which could be more efficacious that ineffectual preaching. Such substitutes were found, for example, in institutions are economics, and perhaps the most important substitute was called “the historical process,” meaning that the historical process is, in a way, a much more important guarantee for the actualization of the good life that what the individual could or would do through his own efforts. This change shows itself, as already noted, in the change of general language, namely, in the substitution of the distinction between progressive and reactionary for the distinction between good and bad—the implication being that we have to choose and to do what is conducive to progress, what is in agreement with historical trends, and that it is indecent or immoral to be squeamish in such adaptations. Once it became clear, however, that historical trends are absolutely ambiguous and therefore cannot serve as a standard, or, in other words, that to jump on the bandwagon or the wave of the future is not more reasonable than to resist those trends, no standard whatever was left. The facts, understood as historical processes, indeed do not teach us anything regarding values, and the consequence of the abandonment of moral principle proper was that value judgments came to have no objective support whatsoever. To spell this out with necessary clarity—although one knows this from the study of the social sciences—the values of barbarism and cannibalism are as defensible as those of civilization. [Emphasis added.]

                  Like

                2. I suspect the truth is, people pick the easy false religions because none of them actually require yielding yourself to an absolute higher authority over which you have no, zero, nada, zilch control, nor even the illusion of control.
                  Statists? – either thru democratic institutions or thru the power you believe should accrue to smart people like you, you can affect the state.
                  Scientism/environmentalism? – despite the rhetoric, you know the science is never settled nor unanimously agreed upon, you can pick the flavor you like.
                  etc…
                  But a Creator God? Sorry, if you believe in Him, then you have to believe He sets all the rules. Your choices are limited to your understanding in peripheral areas – the effect of free will vs predestination, etc. – otherwise, you can obey, participate in His grace, or not, but you can’t affect His rules for doing that.
                  As hard for a proud intellectual / control freak to do as for a camel to pass through the Eye of the Needle (to apply an observation made elsewhere…).

                  Like

                  2. One of the ironies about this notion you present–that people choose religions because they want something they can change, and no higher power–is that if there isn’t a God, then there’s just the Universe and its unyielding laws, that won’t care one whit what you believe. And if you try to screw with Natural Laws, you have no say in what the consequences will be.

                    Indeed, engineers can do what they do because they figure out what the limitations are, and then work within them, knowing that if they push the envelope, people can very well die.

                    Having said that, while I think your analysis is insightful, it’s also incomplete…there are people who simply gravitate to what they like to hear, and easy religion (in whatever form it takes) likes to say “You don’t really have to change your life. You’re fine just the way you are!” while hard religion expects you to repent, abstain, and even die, if it comes down to it…

                    Now, having said that, it occurs to me that the reasons for rejecting hard religion are different for every person…and that even some people who reject religion, do so not because they want things to be easy, but because they’ve weighed the evidence, and decided that as much as they’d like to believe in God, they cannot, because the evidence isn’t convincing enough…which, if you really want to accept a Supreme Being, can be a hard thing to do…

                    (And while atheists generally like to posit themselves as “free thinkers”, to the point where it gives me the impression that they won’t accept you as a free thinker unless your explicitly reject God, the reality is that a lot of atheists are the way they are, because they haven’t put thought into religion at all, and a lot of religious people are religious, because they’ve examined their belief, and sometimes the lack of it, every which way since Sunday, and decided there’s something to this idea that there’s a Supreme Being…)

                    Like

                    1. This isn’t the cartoon I went looking for (the flash drive I had saved it on went brick) but I hope it will do …


                      If i find the other I will append it.

                      Like

                    3. Nolo contendre.
                      For many, thought is indeed taken – the existence of God really satisfies Occam’s Razor better than attempting a complete, consistent “scientific” explanation of all observable & historically observed phenomena, and is reinforced by internal experiential evidence. Provable? No, reality isn’t set up that way.

                      Like

    2. Handlers. Yes. A neighbor saw a group of Arab males leaving the apartment the day before, and their kit suggested they had a lot of aid, converting straw bought rifles, making bombs, etc. And no one has dealt publicly with the reports of a third gunman.

      Like

    3. I freaked out– but in a constructive way– some folks at Walmart the other day.

      The fire alarm went off.

      Because there was no obvious reason why it should be going off, folks were slow leaving– but they fire department also had a wait to get there and clear it for us to enter.

      While waiting out front, I noticed that a lot of folks were observing basic military style avoidance procedures, like not standing near the trash can, and looking around for folks who were possible threats, or just going to their cars. Even people in conversation weren’t close enough to be good targets of opportunity….and about a third of those still in the area were military. (not odd, for our neighborhood, but hey)

      I mentioned to the lady who was complaining to me– in a make conversation way– about it that at least Walmart was a horrible target for terrorism, since it took a looooooong time for folks to come out. Pulling the fire alarm did NOT result in a large glob of targets.

      She didn’t freak out, but was clearly thinking about it. As were several folks nearby.

      Like

    4. Not big enough. Think mass gatherings with open access to the routes and no possibility of checking the people coming in – Street Parades like Macys in N.Y. or – right there in Cali, the Rose Parade. All with massive TV coverage.
      When I attended, it was on-street parking a few blocks away, and walk to the route with your chair + stuff in the middle of the night.
      JPDev

      Like

  18. America’s pathological denial of reality
    By Caroline B. Glick
    How much lower will America sink before it regains its senses? Wednesday, two Muslims walked into a Christmas party at a community service center in San Bernardino, California where one worked. They were wearing body armor and video cameras and carrying automatic rifles, pipe bombs and pistols. They opened fire, killed 14, and wounded 21.

    The murderers, Syed Farook and his wife, Tashfeen Malik were killed by police.

    [SNIP]

    Farook’s neighbor told the paper that over the past two years, Farook exchanged his Western dress for Islamic gowns and grew a beard.

    These data points lead naturally to the conclusion that Farook and his wife were jihadists who killed in order to kill in the name of Islam.

    But in America of December 2015, natural conclusions are considered irresponsible, at best.

    In an interview with CNN following the shooting, US President Barack Obama said the massacre demonstrates that the US needs stricter gun laws. As for the motives of the shooters, Obama shrugged. “We don’t yet know the motives of the shooters,” he insisted.

    In other words, while ignoring what in all likelihood drove Farooq and his wife to murder innocent people, Obama laid responsibility for the carnage at the feet of his political opponents who reject his demands for stricter limitations on gun ownership.

    Here is the place to note that California has some of the most stringent gun control laws in the US.

    [SNIP]

    Wednesday evening, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), held a press conference at the Islamic Center of Orange County. Farook’s brother in law, Farhan Khan was carted out before the cameras to tell the world that he for one had no idea why his brother in law opened fire.

    Two other speakers at the event were Hussam Auyloush, CAIR’s regional executive director and Muzammil Siddiqi, the director of the Islamic Society of Orange County.

    [SNIP]

    To a degree, the very fact that Siddiqi had no compunction about stepping in front of the cameras just hours after the attack is proof that the US has lost its way.

    If American elites were even semi-competent, Siddiqi would have faded into the shadows, never to emerge again 15 years ago.

    Siddiqi is a known jihadist sympathizer. His close ties to jihadists have been a matter of public record since 2000.

    In October 2000, Siddiqi spoke at an anti-Israel rally in Lafayette Park in Washington, DC. There he warned the American people that they must abandon their support for Israel lest “the wrath of G0D ” be unleashed against them.

    According to a profile of Siddiqi compiled by the Investigative Project on Terrorism, (IPT) in the late 1990s Siddiqi gave a speech extolling jihad and foreseeing Israel’s replacement with an Islamic state.

    mong other things, Siddiqi said, “In order to gain the honor, jihad is the path, jihad is the way to receive the honor.”

    Siddiqi converted Osama bin Laden’s senior aide, American jihadist Adam Gadahn. Gadahn converted to Islam at the Islamic Center of Orange County in 1995. According to a 2007 New Yorker profile, Siddiqi employed Gadahn at the Center in the years following his conversion. It was during this period that Gadahn was radicalized. He then went to Pakistan and joined al Qaida.

    In 1992 Siddiqi hosted a blind sheikh named Omar Abdel Rahman at the Islamic Center. He stood beside Rahman and simultaneously translated his lecture about jihad to the audience of worshipers.

    The next year, Rahman masterminded the first jihadist attack on the World Trade Center.

    During the 1990s, Siddiqi served as the president of the Islamic Society of North America, a known Muslim Brotherhood front group. In 2007, ISNA was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holyland terror financing trial.

    Despite all of his connections to jihadists, US authorities insist that Siddiqi is a legitimate voice. In 2007 Stephen Tidwell, then assistant director of the FBI division in Los Angeles upheld Siddiqi as a moderate.

    [SNIP]

    Hours before Obama responded to the San Bernadino massacre by lashing out at gun control opponents, Col. Steve Warren, spokesman for US Operation Inherent Resolve – the US campaign against Islamic State – rejected Russian claims that the Turkish government is collaborating with the terror state.

    Warren praised the Turks as “great partners to us.”

    “We flatly reject any notion that the Turks are somehow working with Islamic State. That is preposterous,” he insisted, adding, “Any thought” the Turkish government would deal or collaborate with Islamic State is “completely untrue.”

    Unfortunately, a wealth of evidence indicates that it is Warren’s statement that is preposterous and completely untrue.

    For nearly five years, it has been an open secret that Turkey serves as Islamic State’s logistical base. Almost all the foreigners traveling to Syria to join IS transit through Turkey.

    For nearly two years, we have known that Turkey is Islamic State’s major arms supplier. And for six months we have known that they are their partners in oil exports.

    In an article published this past summer in Middle East Quarterly, Burak Bekdil reported in January 2014, Turkish prosecutors acting independently from the government, dispatched forces to a border province with Syria to intercept a convoy of trucks laden with missiles, rockets and ammunition making its way to Syria. One of the truck drivers testified at the time that he and his colleagues had “carried similar loads several times before.”

    The forces charged with seizing the cargo were shocked to discover the trucks were being escorted by Turkish intelligence officers.

    According to Bekdil, “all hell broke loose,” after the prosecutors ordered the men arrested and the cargo seized.

    The provincial governor swooped in and insisted that the convoy was traveling on direct orders from Turkish leader Recep Tayip Erdogan. Months later, the military took over the case. And today, the men who executed the arrests and cargo seizure are on trial for “international espionage.”

    [SNIP]

    [I]f facts are to be taken seriously, then the fact is that in December 2015, the US is acting with pathological devotion to ideological narratives that bear no relationship to reality.

    Like

    1. Heck, no. I was just happy to live through the Cold War. I lived not to far from a couple of Soviet targets, and went to school near another, and figured if the Cold War ever turned hot, I was toast. “Yay! We defeated the Commies!” I thought to myself, before I realized that there was a Progressive infestation of America that needs to be properly treated, and an Islamic fundamentalist problem at home and abroad,

      Like

    3. Personally, I am very much hoping that the Russian do not save us all. Because while I would rather live under Putin than ISIS or SJWs, that is a bit like saying that I would rather live under Mussolini than Hitler or Stalin.

      Liked by 1 person

  21. Heckuva job, DHS!

    National Review Online’s Jim Geraghty reminds us that the same DHS which Obama assures us will screen any potential terrorists from among the throng of Syrian refugees he wants imported cleared San Bernardino Shooter Tashfeen Malik:

    Officials said Thursday that Malik underwent and passed a Department of Homeland Security counterterrorism screening as part of the process of getting the K-1 visa. The visa would have been effective for 90 days, after which Malik would have had to apply for green card status through the Department of Homeland Security as the wife of an American. It was not immediately clear whether she did so.

    No harm, no foul, right? No doubt heads will roll at DHS as this embarrassment gets chewed over in the MSM like a Bush FEMA manager.

    Obama Administration’s Much-Touted Counterterrorism Screening Fails

    Like

  22. I’ve been saying it for a while, and I’ll say it again: reality is coming.

    Be ready when it does.

    Like

    1. When in trouble
      When in doubt
      Run in circles
      Scream and shout.

      AAAGH! Reality is coming! Reality is coming!

      Note, this was not meant to mock the previous comment in any way. It just popped into my head when I read it, and I thought it was funny.

      Like

        1. I wish he was screaming and shouting. Instead President Spock (cold, inhuman, and alien) can’t seem to get himself worked up over terrorists murdering his countrymen.

          Like

              1. The biggest distinction, in my mind, is that Spock followed the damn rules, except for a couple of exceptions, for which he was ready to accept the punishment.

                Like

                1. I like the original Star Trek episode where the strange flowers took over the minds of the crew.

                  Kirk is infected and is the last person on the Enterprise but the sadness over leaving his ship breaks the control over him.

                  He decides that he needs Spock’s help to cure the crew but while knowing how dangerous it is, believes that getting Spock mad is the best way to free Spock.

                  After the fight is over, they figure out how to cure the crew.

                  However, Spock comments that insulting an Star Fleet officer severely violates Star Fleet regulations (Kirk having done so to get Spock mad).

                  Kirk responds “So is hitting your superior but if we’re both in the brig, who is going to cure the crew?”.

                  Spock’s response is “That’s logical” and they get down to work. [Very Big Grin]

                  Like

                  1. Accepting one’s punishment for breaking laws/rules/regulations is the critical distinction between being civil disobedient and being a jerk. It acknowledges that there are principles and circumstances higher than obedience to rules, and that honorable behaviour sometimes requires breaking those rules.

                    If punishing a person for such infractions acts to shock the conscience, that is an argument for the rule being unjust. It is why Gandhi’s protests against the English, Martin Luther King, Jr.’s against Jim Crow, and Cassius Clay’s against the Draft were effective at mobilizing widespread change in the public’s opinion.

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                    1. Isn’t it the sign of an adult? A child seeks to evade punishment while an adult accept the consequences of his actions.

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              1. speed up a video of his campaign speeches and play them side by side with Benito’s. Except for the pompous arm crossing from the italian, they look the same

                Like

        2. I searched for it, to make sure I had it right, and on the Straight Dope message boards, someone found a reference from 1929.

          Like

          1. OTOH, you’re probably right. Sam would say something like that, as part of his life philosophy.

            Like

      4. I learned it as:
        When in danger
        Or in doubt
        Run in circles
        Scream and shout

        I think it’s a better rhyme, but it’s the same message…

        Like

        1. And I learned it from my uncle, a WWII merchant mariner. In January 1942 his vision was too poor to allow him to join the Army, Navy, or Marines.

          Like

        2. My father used to say this, satirically – and he was an Army vet of Korea, so I think it must have been in currency in that era or sometime before.

          Like

          1. I’ve seen it used referring to WWII naval aviation, as short hand for what you do if your carrier is not where you left it, or you misplace an island. Fly expanding circles, trying to find reference points, and broadcast on a regular basis on the appropriate frequencies.

            Like

            1. Heard it from my mother-in-law, who likely got it from her hubby, who started career in Army Air Corps (late WWII?) and ended in USAF.

              Like

      1. For the benefit of newcomers:

        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 Headings 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!

        Like

        1. Nowadays it might also be advisable to explain what the Gods of copybook headings are. Or rather what ‘copybook headings’ means (just a link to the Wikipedia page, maybe). I didn’t know when I first stumbled on that poem (library book, late 80’s or early 90’s I think, old English poems something, in English, no explanations, just the poems), and only found out after I got online and finally remembered to search/ask (I think I asked somebody, but also looked with google) for an explanation, which was when I first started to read Sarah’s blog and you guys kept posting that. :) (“hey I know that one” followed by “except what does that part mean anyway?”)

          Historical now, and also seems to be something of an English language area thing, I don’t think our copybooks ever used headings of any kind, at least I have never seen anything like that and I like museums and all kinds old stuff in general.

          Like

  23. On a similar point to the one Sarah is making here, Sean Davis over at The Federalist has an article about how Obama’s statements have grown so far from reality that he’s become the “Baghdad Bob” of this decade: Bob was declaring that U.S. Tanks would never reach Baghdad while U.S. tanks rolled by in the background, and Obama declares that we’re safe from ISIS even as a woman who’s declared her allegiance to ISIS is busy killing people in California…

    http://thefederalist.com/2015/12/04/on-isis-barack-obama-is-baghdad-bob/

    Like

  24. Has Obama been a worse president than Carter? There seem to be a lot of parallels, but I wasn’t alive during the Carter years so I can’t really tell.

    Like

    1. Yes, he is. Both Obama and Carter are captives of their own inflexible world views (most problems are America’s fault, no two countries have differing interests – we just need to communicate better, Communism/Socialism is not worse than Capitalism – and is in many ways better, the Palestinians are always victims and never victimizers, etc, etc). Carter eventually adapted on foreign affairs after having the Russians & their proxies kick sand in his face repeatedly. Obama has never changed his mind in the face of new data on ANY policy, foreign or domestic.
      Every time one of his plans blows up in his face, we get another lecture on how Congress/the Republicans/the US has disappointed him. If the current pause in global temperature rise persists, I fully expect to hear him complain that the damn planet has disappointed him.

      Like

      1. One difference is that I think Carter never had the support of the News Media that Obama has.

        Also, I think Carter had lost the support of the Democratic Party by the time it came for Carter to attempt re-election by evidence of the fact that Ted Kennedy ran against Carter in the Democratic Primaries.

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        1. The News Media playing field was not as openly tilted then, but do not discount the degree of difference it makes being able to claim any opposition to Obama is racism, pure and simple. The first line of Obama’s obituary was written merely by his election in a way no president’s been since Washington.

          Like

    4. I’d say worse, and not just because he’s had more time in office to be bad. At least Carter took responsibility for his screw-ups, at least once. The current POTUS? The bucks are passing so fast that they’re hypersonic.

      Economics and such domestic? Worse. Foreign policy? Worse.

      Like

    5. I think Carter saw things ‘wrong’ with America and tried to fix them (ineptly, but perhaps a C+/B- for effort); Obama sees things ‘wrong’ with America and tries to destroy it (also ineptly, but a solid A-/A for effort).

      Like

    1. I somehow missed being a contemporary of Jefferson Finis Davis. That doesn’t change my confidence that Barack Hussein Obama has so far not done a worse job.

      Davis left office as his polity was extinguished.

      I’ll admit we are having some economic, diplomatic, and military problems, but I think we are still doing better than the Confederate States of America during the later stages of the war.

      Like

  26. “There is this sense everything the media is or isn’t saying is bullsh*t. There has been an accumulation of events and movements most of us were involved in, which we saw misreported and mis-characterized.” The media is effectually asking us, “Who are you going to believe: Us, or your lying eyes?”

    Like

    1. Exactly – who are we going to believe, you or the evidence of our own lying eyes?
      I see the major news-whores as the major losers in all this, over time. Think of Baghdad Bob, multiplied many times over the national media scene, becoming a joke, a laughing-stock.
      I’ve been a blogger and internet-news-hound since about 2002. The one thing that I have noticed in the last year or so, is that the comment threads are exploding. Blogs like Insty, and Breitbart and a couple of others which used to maybe get fifteen or twenty or thirty comments to a particular post now get hundreds – and Breitbart is running into thousands.
      This is indicative of something, I am certain.

      Like

      2. At times I’ve had people say they know about furries, and find they ‘know’ this from the laughable episode of CSI or the deplorable Vanity Fair piece. And then, if they are still capable of listening, I present them with this: “Think of something you know, and know very well. Now, the last time it was on the news or shown on TV, how accurate was the coverage or portrayal? Not very, was it? Guess what? The folks who did that, get everything else just as wrong.”

        My father related that a cropduster he knew was annoyed at news coverage of some pesticide that was found to have some issues… the problem with coverage from his point of view wasn’t that this pesticide was problematic, but that they showed a field being dusted in the piece – and the stuff they were talking about was a chemical not spread that way. “Too dangerous to apply that way.” So why drag his business (by association) into the mess? Ignorance – at best.

        Like

  27. Let us not forget that there are some people who have never been asleep. They don’t stand out from the crowd just yet, but they are there.

    Like

    1. I have never been asheep. I was almost cast as one in the 3rd grade nativity play but ended up being the goat.

      Like

      2. I wanted to be the angel. I was a sheep for four years in a row. I am going to assume it was an attempt to cast against type, and not a statement about my behavior in class.

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        1. Did someone wind up as a donkey, I now wonder.

          [I have one on-line character who is a donkey, and that originally happened just so I could make the quip, “I am a donkey; he is an ass.”]

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        2. Strangely, I remembered a book where Saint Peter’s Heavenly Intake Process was interrupted by a cat with a Halo. [Wink]

          Like

            1. Magnifi-Cat
              by Carolyn Sheehan, Edmund Sheehan

              Too bad it’s not available in Kindle Format.

              Like

  28. “prickling at the back of the neck …”

    Oh yeah, I’ve got a great example. The company I work for is located in northern NJ, and there’s a 50/50 split on whether people live in NJ or commute in from the five boroughs (NY).

    A few days after the Paris attacks, I was talking with two NY-based co-workers. The woman (white, mid 50s) mentioned that her son had said that they needed a gun “because you never know.” The guy (white, gay, 45-50) talked about how we need to be alert wherever we go, pay attention to your surroundings, AND he’s also in the market for a gun.

    Like

    1. Relative at Turkey Day.

      Raised by reflexively anti-gun parents.

      “Since we got our own house.. not a condo… we really need a weapon. We have machetes under every bed, but that’s really not enough.”

      Short version, a friend of theirs got scared pantsless by a situation they THOUGHT they had enough hardware for.

      Like

      1. something the fools never think of, if the law abiding are disarmed (and I’d have to guess that means them too, right?) then when someone breaks into their living space intent on harming them, they then have to let someone get in machete or baseball bat range to protect themselves, and the perp, not giving a rats butt about any stinking laws, just might have a firearm. There is a reason Rule One of gun fighting is to Have A Gun!

        We won’t get into the stupidity that is allowing perps to know they can do what they please, secure in the knowledge they are safe from bodily harm.
        Thankfully that is rare in the USA . . . so far.

        Like

  29. Yeah, I’m a bit more keyed up than usual. It is late Friday night, and I’ve been checking the news sites.

    There is totally going to be a new important development real soon now. Any moment now.

    Liked by 1 person

        1. Well, at least you can’t say that the journalism industry isn’t trying. It appears to be applying increasingly Bigger Hammers to itself in an attempt to effect repairs.

          Like

  30. Steve had a successful surgery yesterday on his spine. Hopefully it will fix some lingering issues. All prayers and good wishes gratefully accepted. (I know it’s wrong to ask for prayers.) We are older and chronically ill and medicine dependent. I fear that we will die quickly in any massive disruption. I’m trying not to despair (I’m just really depressed) and be of good cheer.

    Like

        1. If it’s a reference to that… stuff… it was apparently offering prayers instead of counterproductively enacting gun control legislation.

          Like

          1. Their objections with “thoughts and prayers” perhaps stem from resentment over their inability to offer either. They would have been much more comfortable with people offering Feelz, emojis or #FrownyFace (as Michelle Obama did in response to the Boko Harum kidnappings.

            Like

      2. the prayer shamers who ridiculed the prayers for the San Bernardino shooting. Including those requested by people hiding from the killers.

        Like

    2. Ditto what Paul said; I’d like to know who to avoid asking so as not to offend. (I’m Catholic; we nag Himself’s own mother for prayers.)

      Like

  31. Not likely to be seen down here at the bottom, but this made me think of a seemingly prescient song by A Perfect Circle:

    The progressive powers-that-be aren’t going to be happy when their pets start finally waking up.

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