Year of the Black Swan by Christopher M. Chupik

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

Year of the Black Swan by Christopher M. Chupik

How messed up was 2016? Let’s put it this way: Chuck Tingle getting a Hugo nomination
doesn’t even make the Top Ten of Crazy.

If 2016 were a TV show, you’d be thinking that the writers have lost their ever-loving minds in their determination to jump every shark in the ocean. Most years toddle into the world like the New Year’s Baby. 2016 exploded from the torso of its predecessor like a chestburster and soon grew into a full Xenomorph, bent on the destruction of all human life. Mostly, celebrities.

Not all deaths were tragic losses, though. Fidel Castro’s oft-delayed departure from this world finally happened, the dictator leaving behind a legacy of misery and economic ruin best exemplified when the vehicle transporting his earthly remains broke down during the funeral procession.

Along with the deaths, the progressive status quo has been dealt a number of crippling blows.

The same people who mocked Mitt Romney for stating the obvious about Russia four years
ago are now freaking out and seeing Russian conspiracies everywhere. The “permanent
Democratic majority” which left-wing pundits once openly hoped for perished in a mere eight years, destroyed by a perfect storm of angry voters, a bad economy, a backlash against the far Left, and Clinton’s general unlikability. The EU, which once appeared to be the future of Europe, is now in serious trouble with Brexit and nationalist rumblings across the Continent.

And of course, President Trump. It’s entirely possible that by the time this blog is posted,
something else will have happened. It’s been that kind of year. Even though I remain skeptical of Trump, at least I have the solace of knowing that the Clintons are finished. Probably. I do expect an attempt to push Chelsea Clinton as the Great Left Hope in a few year’s time, but I don’t think it’ll happen. Mind you, it worked here in Canada, where our current PM is a photogenic mediocrity who was elected solely on the strength of his family name, so who knows?

So, what can we learn from this amazing and terrible year?

The most important thing is that ordinary people are sick to death of the status quo. They’re also sick of being lectured by the elites. Nothing outside of politics shows this better than the controversy over Sony’s Ghostbusters reboot.

When you’re remaking a classic, there’s always a lot of hurdles to clear. When the trailer
debuted, it was met with an almighty “Meh”. The problem was a muddled concept and an
agonizingly unfunny trailer that did nothing to address the concerns people had about
rebooting a beloved classic. But how did the studio respond?
By accusing all their critics of being motivated by misogyny, of course. And the media,
always ready to create a “controversy” that props up their narratives, followed suit and pretty soon every media outlet was telling us what evil woman-haters we were for not finding the trailer funny. This was the dominant narrative week after week, until finally the movie debuted to oddly uniform good reviews which all managed to suspiciously strike the same note of “Suck it, trolls!”

But the movie itself? One of the year’s biggest flops. And all those who championed the film at it’s release? Oddly quiet. Nobody will be quoting from this Ghostbusters thirty years down the line. Hell, nobody’s quoting from it now.

Did Hollywood learn anything from this disaster? Well, as of the writing of this post, they’re going do a Barbie movie . . . starring Amy Schumer, so no.

I should have realized from this controversy and its aftermath that the election was going to go badly for Clinton, but I still thought that the media had just enough power and influence remaining to force her down the voter’s throats. I was wrong, and I wasn’t the only one. The old power structures are failing fast. They can write the narratives, spread them across all their media outlets, but fewer and fewer people are buying into them.

As we saw with GamerGate and Sad Puppies, insults directed against people voicing their
concerns don’t work. When you dismiss large numbers of people with blanket condemnations, when you treat their concerns with contempt and mockery, you turn those people into enemies.

For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. This is as much true in human
relations as it is in physics. The Left’s unhealthy obsession with race has spawned an equally perverse counter-reaction: the white nationalist wing of the alt-right. Now this is a topic and movement too complex to be dealt with here in full. Suffice it to say, some of the alt-right definitely are racists. I have had personal encounters online, as I did when I tweeted about Holodomor Remembrance Day and got re-tweeted by a bunch of white nationalist anti-Semites trying to use the event to promote their vile creed. Others don’t seem to be obsessed with race at all.

By cheapening the accusation of racism by hysterical overuse, the Left robbed their greatestweapon of all its power. When you accuse people of racism for objecting to Obama’s healthcare bill, somewhere a shark has been jumped. “Racist” has become a bad joke and it’s become hard to tell anymore if a person has been accused of it because they really do promote race-hatred or because they disagreed with a liberal. Words used to have meaning. Take that meaning away, and you have intellectual chaos.

Sarah talked a while back about how Marxism was entering its final phase. That may be thecase, but don’t expect it to be easy. Make no mistake: it will get uglier before it gets better.

No movement which has enjoyed decades of unchallenged power gives up that power without a struggle. We’re already seeing the beginnings of it now: the post-election riots, the various attempts to game the Electoral College to appoint Clinton in place of Trump which, as of the day I sent this to Sarah, failed hilariously. Expect insanity, threats and violence in 2017 and beyond. I fear it’s going to be the early ‘70s on crazy pills. Buckle up.
Things are an unholy mess at the moment, but in a way, it’s good that things have taken such an unpredictable turn. The future is wide open. With the failure of the Clinton Dynasty we’re in uncharted waters.

Will Trump be the disaster his detractors say? Maybe. Will he be worse than Clinton would have been? No idea. Will he suddenly turn into the greatest president ever?
Unlikely, but I could be wrong. Please, prove me wrong.

The Left had a plan for the future. That plan is now ashes. So now we have to find our way
through a future our media didn’t prepare us for. But maybe that’s good. Certainty is the path to stagnation and extinction. Have we made good choices or bad ones? Time will tell. But at least our choices still matter.

247 thoughts on “Year of the Black Swan by Christopher M. Chupik”

  1. I’ve always wondered what the people of countries where the swans are usually black think of this “black swan event” thing.

    Regarding celebrity deaths it wouldn’t surprise me if 2017 suggests that is exactly where were are living now

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  2. On Trump, so far his Cabinet has been way better than I would have hoped, with one or two exceptions.

    On the “alt-right”, so far I haven’t found any better take on that than Ace of Spades, particularly the last question:

    “If you really believe the party is this stuffed with Jim Crow revanchists, White Supremacists, and outright Nazis — what could possibly compel you to remain part of such a disgusting company?

    I know if I believed those premises, I wouldn’t stay.”

    And his observation:
    “I expect absolutely no answers to these questions, by the way.

    It has become the practice that the conservative media, like the liberal media it shares so many affinities and inclinations with, to ignore any impertinent questions from the cultural inferiors whose opinions must be managed, guided, and kept on the road via cultural guard-rails.”

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    1. Ace has lost the plot. The alt-right IS NOT the party. They’re not even really Republicans, and they’ll eventually find something else to break. I estimate their numbers at maybe (MAYBE) 2% of Trump voters. Like their leftist SJW counterparts, most are too cool for the booth.

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      1. Well, there’s always the problem with terms like “alt-right” that people might be talking about different groups when they use the same term.

        I’m sure that some people consider “alt-right” to be anybody who didn’t like Hillary. :evil:

        Note, we’ve had some “interesting” posters here who would fit Sarah’s definition. :sad:

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        1. I read VD’s blog. He speaks of the
          Alt-white
          Alt-west
          Alt-lite
          Varieties of Alt-Right. Some of what he says makes sense. Some not so much. The VFMs often fly right off the rails. His 16 points are a good starting point for discussion.

          Trump’s picks so far are encouraging. I read somewhere that ugly vituperative left looney MSM drove him to embrace conservatism. If true, all I can do is give the MSM a standing ovation.

          I’m hopeful politically but fear the worst for hard living baby boomer celebrities

          May you all have a happy, healthy and prosperous New Years!

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      2. They are only 2% is EXACTLY his point. What way too many “conservative” pundits are doing is using that 2% as cover for their TDS by implying that it’s 20-30 times that. “Alt-right” is just the latest version of imitating the Left and applying “raaaaacist” to anyone and everyone who isn’t buying the “conservative” punditry anymore because it’s been acting as a cheerleader for Codevilla’s Ruling Class.

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      3. Doc Rampage has a very nice little post about the difference between conservatives and the alt-right.

        http://docrampage.blogspot.com/2016/11/how-alt-right-wingers-are-different.html

        You know how I’ve mentioned that the difference between Libertarians and Conservatives is that the Libertarians are trying to ground-up build Conservatism with Liberal style assumptions? (all things capitalized because they’re so squishy otherwise)
        Alt-Right is the same thing, for the far Left. And they use the same tactics.

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        1. Interesting rant. By those standards I’m certainly not alt-right but just a pissed off independent. I suspect that there are a lot more pissed off independents and true (Constitutional) conservatives than there are the alt-right the Doc defines.

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            1. OK. I guess I’m just out of the loop in terms of what’s what. None of the sites I visit have ever called themselves alt-right – am I missing out?

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          2. *moves from touch screen to keyboard*
            — and I think the actual alt-right is about as big as the ctrl-left it’s reacting to.

            The biggest difference we have is that I think the “griefers” are actually hateful, and I don’t see a significant difference between someone who hates me inherently because I’m _______ and someone who hates me as a ____ because that’s the route to express anger he chose.

            It’s like trying to divide the racists who hate those who aren’t (whatever) because they just do, vs those who hate because it’s an acceptable expression for hate; the way they behave isn’t different, the way you stop them isn’t different, so you’re left trying to mind-read a chicken or egg.

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            1. Good Grief! All hale Eris! Milo for press secretary. I’d read the Raymond essay but it had slipped my aging mind. I need a Pepe flag to go with my Gadsden.

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            2. Do we actually have evidence that the Alt-Right, as such, exists as anything more that the numbers of Fred Phelps’ merry band and as sock puppets of the Ctrl-Left? It ain’t exacktly a big chore to craft a bunch of troll-bots to react to a term or phrase and swarm a site, giving the illusion of numbers.

              It sure does seem to support a lot of (otherwise) cracking down on dissent, nearly as much as Campus Rape Culture, Black Church Burnings or the wide variety of Liberally reported “n-word lover” assaults.

              If there were no Alt-Right, wouldn’t the Ctrl-Left have to invent them?

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              1. Depends of you are defining out the “griefer” types. They definitely show up in places where bot mobs aren’t possible, but “just being a dick” is.

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      4. But “Is good propaganda!” The Democrats have been spewing this crap for years in hopes no one will remember who was the party of slavery and Jim Crow. The latest rants are just another verse of the same tired song.

        Besides the boy who cried wolf thing, it actually pushes people toward racist groups. When those who aren’t racists are consistently vilified as such, then there’s naturally the question of how bad these groups can they really be. Pretty bad, of course, but when they’re the only ones who look like they have your back, that makes them very attractive. The SJW are playing with fire, and don’t realize it.

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          1. Your kids haven’t been taught that the racist actions on the part of accepted groups are OK, so they’re not vulnerable to deciding that the exact same actions are OK by any other group that can display the same sort of wrongs as the current accepted groups.

            Seriously, read some of the web sites for these guys– you’ll have the neo-nazis, and then you have the guys who don’t sound any different from the Office for Diversity page at a college site.
            That’s because they are both racist, but if you teach kids that a dog’s tail is a leg, they’ll bet on the five legged dog every time.

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        2. when they’re the only ones who look like they have your back, that makes them very attractive. The SJW are playing with fire, and don’t realize it.

          Two cases that I heard about in the past few days illustrate this quite well.
          —A teenage Swedish boy was gang raped at knife point by five Afghan teens. The Afghans won’t be deported because their native country is too dangerous. IIRC, the rapists got 1.5yrs.
          —-A Mexican man who had been deported from the US over a dozen times raped a 13yr old girl here in the States. I’m sure the authorities will do everything to make his stay comfortable here (IDK, procure more girls?)

          So with things like that happening all too frequently and SJWish responses from the authorities, goose-stepping groups look mighty nice in comparison. At least they won’t rape you/your younger siblings/etc., right?

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          1. Not a fan of ‘goose stepping’, but if I were in charge in Sweden, the five perps would be publicly crucified in their neighborhood, and their family and friends forced to sit in the snow for three days watching them die. But that’s just me.

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            2. No no no,much too brutal. They should be given a sex change via Swedish National Health and put back in their communities as sex workers.

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              1. Crucifixion wouldn’t work well, as it is too cold, so they’d not last long, so keep them warm by stacking of faggots at the base and fire it up. Add lard from time to time to keep things nice and warm.
                And. because I’m religiously sensitive, I’d force their families to add the lard without benefit of gloves . . . the body ashes used in a mix for a commode to be awarded to the victim.

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                    1. As opposed to tallow, which is beef fat. Both of them have been rendered, or cooked down. Suet is a particular type of unrendered fat from several animals.

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                    2. Really good Lard is still rarer these days, because folk just don’t raise lard pigs like they used to, meat buyers want leaner animals (well I’d wish they’d stop that. gimme the fat!), but it looks to be making a comeback with the old Lard Pig breeds becoming more popular again. maybe the meat will make a comeback too.
                      Years ago, “The Pie Lady” sold her wares door to door in the Freret neighborhood of N.O. She made a little single serving size open and closed top I had an apple once that was ambrosia, but usually she was down to a standard custard by the time she got to us) and she used mostly lard. The crusts were just great.
                      She looked like Methuselah’s Grandmother, and we were concerned when she stopped coming around. Later, one of the guys ran into her in the bank, and exclaimed we all missed her and her pies. She had stopped because it was getting too hot to cook for her (I think her AC died years before) but it was coming to fall, so she offered to make some if it’d cool off a bit more. He told her not to worry about us, and he was glad to see she was still kicking, and to take care of herself and we’d get by.

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                    3. but it looks to be making a comeback with the old Lard Pig breeds becoming more popular again. maybe the meat will make a comeback too.

                      Poke around the “buy half a pig” type areas– if there’s enough demand, stores will stop insisting on there not being any fat in the meat.

                      An unexpected, annoying aspect of the war on science’s “fat” front. Even if it is really impressive on a technical scale how quickly cows and pigs have been bred for low marbling.

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                    4. I’ve found often the cheaper version of steak are better then the “Certified Angus” or Select.
                      btw, to be certified as an Angus, the Bovine doesn’t need to be an Angus. It just needs to be black in color (ignoring the other colors of Angus breeds). Our “Federal Standards” at work.

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                    5. *raises a finger in nitpicking* Breed is determined by the bull– but there is an assumption that if your calves are not inconsistant with the bull, they came from him.

                      Most buyers demand black for angus even though the red sports are not rare.

                      My folks are beef ranchers. And a family friend raises American Wagu (sp), which is why I have hope for good marbling coming back.

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                    6. I know a rancher outside of Kyle who said all his inspector looks for is if the things are black, and as long as they are, he gets more money for it, even if his Reds are better quality. But his “Certified” bull isn’t totally an Angus fellow, but it gets him money, who is he to argue? Maybe his inspector knows what his bull is, but he left that out of his rant about the nuttiness of it. He does say that some of his other buyers (not specifically looking for “Black”) are looking for that marbling more now so, yeah, it looks to be coming back (all the newer research saying “Oh, we were a bit off on all the fat claims” can only help speed it along)

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                    7. I get a kick out of the advertising of “black angus” all over the place, so I think I support the spirit of the rant, even if some of the details worry me. :D

                      The funny thing is, a pure Angus calf is really not likely to be as good as a calf off of a genetically random cow and a pure bull.

                      Add in the issue of what are they going to do, genetically test the calf and compare it to the bulls that the cow was put on range with? Breed markers are physical, not genetic, so you’d have to do a paternity test….

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                    8. CBA is the only thing I can get from the store here, though once or twice I have seen “value beef” much like HEB sells that looked better than the higher priced, and the Walmart here has one of the poorest selections of beef I have seen.

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                    9. CAB is actually a private certification, rather than a gov’t one– it’s one of the examples of a non-gov’t solution to the “is this food any good” question. :D

                      Even if I don’t agree with their priorities, I’d rather the gov’t was only doing “is this reasonably safe” and would stay the heck out of everything else about food and drugs! (Fraud is a separate issue, believe it falls under contract enforcement, which is a totally different area of gov’t authority….)

                      http://www.cabpartners.com/about/index.php for anybody who’s curious.

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                    10. I remember the furor raised up when the Feds tried to set the official definition of Country Ham as “ham cured a certain distance outside of city limits.”

                      Denizens of Smithfield, Virginia, were not amused.

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                    12. As of a few weeks ago, you could still buy lard cans full of lard at the Mexi-marts and Amigos. Apparently it’s not a real tortilla without lard.

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                    13. Yeah, HEB had it too, but I haven’t found it here in the Mex sections, but they have Armor’s usually somewhere in the store, and some of the butcher shops have good stuff, but way pricey. Here in both towns, we only have one local chain grocery with 3 stores (they had one small one, but bought out Angeli’s 2 stores) basically a Super Value with some of their own stuff, an Aldi’s, and Walmart Some of the outlying towns have small grocers but it is either Amor, or nothing, for the most part.

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                    15. Adding some tallow to lard might make it easier to handle– I know that bacon fat is a pain to deal with.

                      oh, just found out– rendered sheep fat can be called tallow, too!

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                    20. Thanks to the fru-fru cooking fad, Amazon has a bunch of lard.

                      …some of it is priced in dollars per ounce, but they do have Armour at about four bucks a pound. Ouch, but if you can’t get it otherwise…..

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                    21. Back in the day a friend said McDonalds fries used to be awesome. Then the stopped cooking with lard. Never been the same since.

                      And yes, lard free tortillas are definitely inferior.

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                    23. Either way an omnivorous life beats vegetarianism.

                      By the way, when I first saw it I was puzzled by what a canola was. Hilarious when I learned it was a Canadian agriculture marking ploy.

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                    24. Beats “rapeseed and cousins oil that is low in erucic acid.”

                      Especially when folks would most likely know rapeseed oil from industrial uses, besides the whole “rape” thing. (has 10-20 times time erucic acid)

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                    25. when the stopped they were first using something with some transfats, and I know a few folks who really enjoyed them then, but they stopped that, and those same folks react poorly to the non-transfat fry oil. Some violently. Sorta like me and Splenda sweetener, it can be like food poisoning.

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                    26. Back before the internet, when rapeseed oil was almost impossible to get, I found that canola was a reasonably good substitute. Every now and then I’ll run into a nasty tapping, reaming, or broaching situation and reach for the canola oil… and I’m still hoarding that last 1/4 can of old-style Tap Magic, made with trichlorethane.

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                    27. I knew a auto repair shop that got trichloro in its waste oil so they could not get it picked up for recycling, it’d have to be hazardous waste and cost a massive amount and be registered with the EPA etc. The amount was so high in cost the lower cost solution was to use that oil for heating the shop and buy a heater, even though his place was in South Louisiana.

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          2. As to the Mexican, it will go to trial in the county or parish where the crime occurred, unless there’s a change of venue. Even crimes in prisons are tried in the county where the prison is located. While there are Federal prisons for illegals, as far as I know, illegals convicted of a serious crime in the US are apt to be sent to state prisons. This means that the authorities will make this person as comfortable as they would make a standard prisoner.

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      5. Ace’s blog is influenced by his community. And in the comments section, when the topic of alt-right comes up, you frequently end up with people arguing past each other. Depending on who is commenting, alt-right can mean anything from a fringe group of racists, to everyone in the Republican party who isn’t a moderate.

        I suspect that Ace’s perceptions are being influenced by that, particularly the latter group. That should be kept in mind when quoting Ace on the topic of the alt-right.

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  3. Trump. Doing better than I expected, about as well as I could hope, and possibly better enough he could prove me wrong, and that would make me very very happy.
    Something the trumpettes seem to ignore is that I’d be oh so happy to be wrong about everything about the man, but then they are so far up his colon at times they think I’m going to believe they are covered in chocolate. They need to spend more time making sure he does the right things so he is as great as they claim, instead of telling me any misstep is a brilliant move (and luckily his have been so very minor so far).
    Alt-right needs to be pointed at and duck noises made at.
    We’ll hear plenty from them (they tend to be annoying, loud assholes after all, and why they Trumpet right along with the trumpettes like a flock of geese chasing a house cat) and of course if they numbered in the tens, the media will tightly focus and use them as proof anyone right of Marx’s wet dreams is in their number.

    2016 was for me a year of change, as Sarah said. I moved from Texas to Michigan. Bought a house, old, in need of work (got lights with switches on the walls and outlets in the wall upstairs now!)
    Job suckage went up, and I now have to go run the snow blower and dig my truck out from the snow plow’s thick crust.

    Happy New Year Y’all eh!

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      1. at least they plowed the street early am after the snow let up this time. First time they waited until nearly everyone had shoveled, blown, or plowed and then buried the drives and walks in that nice thick crust.
        Oh! you mean . . .

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          2. Word? Oh bother. Well, I can attempt an approximation with LibreOffice, I suppose. That is, should I have something deemed worthy (it first must meet or exceed my [low] standards, then anyone else’s.)

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              1. I use Kingsoft too. It’s pretty good, except for moments when it randomly dumps a cut-and-paste into a sentence where it doesn’t belong.

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              2. I have to go with what I can readily get working on Linux (Mint). I finally blew Windows away off the laptop this year, and the last time I had it on a desktop[1] was a build for someone else (and I cussed more than the last several Linux installs on that sucker. Maybe I’m just used to the Linux way, but that was mighty irritating). And I have tried OS X. I “liked” it so much I tried Gentoo instead on that hardware.

                [1] Not counting the ‘antiques’ about that might still have Window for Workgroups 3.11 on them.

                Liked by 1 person

            3. FWIW, I’ve done direct paste from both Word and LibreOffice to WordPress with good results. It has to be opened it the program, though. While Word opens ODF files, I don’t know how well it preserves the formatting. I have saved as an RTF and opened in Word and visa versa. Can play around with it on my computer if anyone’s interested in the results.

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                  1. Surely racism against persons of portable document format.

                    Either that, or closed proprietary format with excessive compatibility and conversion issues.

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          3. There is an excellent but very obscure Word workalike called Atlantis. It uses the older Word 2000 UI. It reads docx and doc both, provides a strongly encrypted document format (proprietary) and exports pretty good epubs. Doesn’t deal with PDF. Programmers will be interested to learn that the entire binary is **5** megabytes in size. I think it’s about $40. Win32 only.

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  5. You (Chris Chupik): “The Left had a plan for the future. That plan is now ashes. So now we have to find our way through a future our media didn’t prepare us for. But maybe that’s good.”

    Sarah Connor, Terminator 2, closing moments: “The unknown future rolls toward us. I face it for the first time with a sense of hope, because if a machine, a Terminator, can learn the value of human life, maybe we can too.”

    Amen to both, my brother.

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      1. Clearly Mr. Chupik your statement is sarcasm. Either that or you are from some alternate reality where the press never went all in for the Marxist/Liberal Agenda (Point of divergence somewhere in Woodrow Wilson’s presidency? perhaps earlier). If the latter please provide access to the hardware so the rest of us can get out of this nuthouse of a world :-) .

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    2. * Ox reads that. Looks at glass of cherry brandy. Ponders just opened bottle thereof. BUT… ox remember he has to work tonight. Ox ponders just a bit of Fernet Branca – to settle stomach after that nauseating idea.

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        1. If you are not at work, and have both cherry brandy and rye (and like both) then perhaps a Hunter cocktail would help some.

          Hunter: 2 parts rye, 1 part cherry brandy. Mix with ice, strain into chilled glass.

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    3. I’m going to predict that Chelsea hits the same wall that the Kennedy spawn mostly did. She may get enough name recognition and media buzz to put her in a safe House seat, but that’s about as far as she’s gonna go.

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  8. Mind you, it worked here in Canada, where our current PM is a photogenic mediocrity who was elected solely on the strength of his family name, so who knows?

    Not being nasty but, unavoidably, being cruel: the girl isn’t photogenic. And even though she’s older than me, she just radiates “kid.” She’s like Ben Shapiro, but without the clever tongue.

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      1. I think seperation from her parents and some real joy would work. There is something around her nose area that… it’s like she’s got a headache all the time. A real smile could transform her.

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          1. Having Hillary Clinton as a “mother” could do that to a person.

            Back when Bill Clinton became president there was a story that she told her school to call her father if anything was wrong, because her mother would be too busy.

            From what I’ve heard since, Bill (for his faults) cared for her while Hillary was “too busy” to be a parent. :sad:

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            1. Bill is odd. Our first cuckold/lothario President. I think Chelsea has had plastic surgery. She used to look a lot more like Webb Hubbell.

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              1. “Our first cuckold/lothario President.”

                Um.

                You have read history, right? While there are several Presidents who were clearly devoted to their wives, there were several who, just as clearly, were not. Some memorable political slanders were built on that fact…

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                1. Yes, we’ve had plenty of lothario Presidents. JFK comes to mind first. How many have raised children as their own in the White House that are reputedly not theirs?

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                  1. The Adams & Jefferson races gave us some of the nastiest personal attacks, such as James T Callender’s rumour-mongering about Sally Hemings.

                    Or look at the claims made about Andrew Jackson in 1828, from the “coffin handbill” (accusing Jackson of murdering six deserting militiamen) or the attacks on his wife as a bigamist.

                    Of course, Jackson’s supporters were hardly positioned to criticize, having spread rumours of John Q. Adams pimping for Russia’s czar while ambassador to that court.

                    And the personal attacks on Lincoln are legendary.

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      2. I’ve never thought of her as ugly, just unappealing. Her parents, though, have a megaton of unappealing to me.

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        1. OK whites ALL the way around the eyes. That is like classic “crazy” person look. That is seriously kind of scary. And as Foxfier said not particularly photgenic. As for radiating kid that’s not the vibe I get. I went to a private high school and what she radiates is “Spoiled Poor Little Rich Girl” to me. Of course no one ever lost money underestimating the intellect of US voters, so they’ll buy her a seat somewhere. Good news is odds on she’ll screw the pooch 18-24 months into whatever they find for her as she inherited the (lack of) competence of her parents and none of their charm and its not like H.R. Clinton is all that charming.

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          1. As for radiating kid that’s not the vibe I get. I went to a private high school and what she radiates is “Spoiled Poor Little Rich Girl” to me.

            She’s closer to 40 than 30. She should at least be at the “huh, college kid that’s about to graduation after 8 years” stage, not the “high school or first year or two of college” stage.

            Shapiro looks like he might be out of college, at least, although he still looks kinda young in general. (born in ’84; she was born in ’80.)

            I do agree with the rich girl vibe, though.

            Like

          2. Happy New Year, folks! Bought some pretty legal explosives, going out tonight and kill 2016 with fire right at midnight.

            Like

          1. He and Geert Wilders need to have a “hair off” and see who has the best. IIRC Wilders took the European title from Valerie Guiscard de’Estang of France (who was/is male, for those who were wondering).

            Like

    3. Not just ugly or unappealing or whatever … I have always thought she actually looks dumb, maybe something about the eyes gives a sense of vacuity … like she’s naturally dumb and always had Mother & Daddy’s staff doing for her instead of doing for herself …

      Which is not to say that would hinder her election prospects in certain districts …

      Like

      1. CC getting through Stanford lowered my respect for the academic standards enforced at that University quite a bit.

        Though she had a Secret Service detail assigned the whole time, so maybe they helped out with her homework.

        Like

        1. What is her degree? Was it something she needed to really work for?
          It’dnot surprise me if she breezed through though. Mom and Pop are evil asses, but not dumb. Just so smart they ignore everyone telling them they are wrong (well, Bill knew not long before the election she was in for a shellacking, but she and her sycophants ignored the hillbilly with a penis)
          Daughter Dearest married a hedge fund guy, (do so love people who tell me hedge funds, foreign accounts, and well the rich, all rich are evil and they either support The Clintons et all, or ARE the Clintons) was her degree in money of some sort?

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          1. B.A. in History according to wikipedia, followed by a raft of grad degrees up through PhD. I take back my scoffing – she’s obviously inherited her Dad’s brains, and was well suited to university life. Given my working experience with people holding PhDs, however, I would not want to see her put in charge of anything in the real world ever.

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            1. Given my working experience with people holding PhDs, however, I would not want to see her put in charge of anything in the real world ever.
              I know a few “Fidds” I would allow, but yeah, that is a VERY short list, and she is not anywhere on it.

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              1. Coworker has PhD in Physics and is a programmer (and a damn good one). Take that as you will.

                No, he does not insist on the honorary Dr. that comes with a PhD

                Like

        1. She had a brief job in news media.

          Note the word ‘brief’.

          IIRC, some of the e-mails suggested that she’s not completely clueless when it comes to running a corrupt foundation for the personal profit of your own family. But there aren’t too many job openings for those these days.

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  9. We’re already seeing the beginnings of it now: the post-election riots, the various attempts to game the Electoral College to appoint Clinton in place of Trump which, as of the day I sent this to Sarah, failed hilariously.

    Does anybody know if some of the Democrat faithless electors did so in response to the threats being leveled against the Republican electors?
    I want to believe it had something to do with at least some of them, but I’m curious if it’s been stated openly or not. It would be noble, but it would also put them at very real risk…..

    Like

  10. “The Left had a plan for the future. That plan is now ashes. So now we have to find our way
    through a future our media didn’t prepare us for. But maybe that’s good. Certainty is the path to stagnation and extinction. Have we made good choices or bad ones? Time will tell. But at least our choices still matter.”

    Why did this make me think of Babylon 5, at the time they passed beyond the prophecies of Valen?

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    1. A friend of mine was in the Army overseas when B5 aired and had never seen an episode. I sent him a DVD set for Christmas. I think he’s keeping a notebook of quotes from G’Kar as he watches…

      Liked by 1 person

      1. G’Kar was a great character, with great arc development, complex, profound, humorous. Had a great actor to pull it off and give him life.

        The whole series has great quotes from a lot of characters.

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        1. I’m not sure what Straczynski originally planned for the series, but it turned out to be the story of G’Kar.

          “I have seen what power does, and I have seen what power costs. The one is never equal to the other.”

          Liked by 1 person

          2. It’s also the story of Londo. What’s interesting is that Vir had much the same reaction here as the quote you reference.

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  13. Saw on Twitter today, “you can’t say ‘We survived Obama, you’ll survive Trump’ because Obama gave us healthcare, not nuclear war!”

    Rote, practiced hysteria and ignorance of history are all that pass for dialogue and discussion now,m for Liberals, so it continually astounds me when the same libs are surprised to see it adopted by the other side of the political aisle.

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      1. Yeah try trumpeting Obamacare as a great achievement to the midwest farming families who saw their health insurance and healthcare costs go up by literally thousands of dollars.

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        2. Or who had their plan cancelled every year for the past three. I’ve got a non-O’care plan at the moment that is true insurance, so I may get dunned the $700 fine. Or not. We’ll see what happens between now and April 15.

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          1. They don’t care. Their women get “free” birth control.

            And yes, I’m serious. About a month ago I saw a post on Facebook from a friend of a friend thanking Obama because ACA gave free birth control to women.

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          2. TxRed, don’t worry about it as long as you don’t get a refund, because that’s the ONLY place they can take the “penalty” from. I suspect that’s one of the factors that led Roberts to call it a tax rather than a penalty.

            Like

    2. And right now Obama seems to be “trying to start a war with Russia”.

      Fortunately, Putin is ignoring Obama’s attempts (or at least not seriously reacting).

      Like

      1. Exactly. He still has 20 days in which to start WW3 or unleash a huge pile of nasty. He really is a bad and damaged soul.
        Putin is showing him up for the petty ass he is.
        I wonder is any of Obamas’s sycophants would have the guts to take the nuclear codes away from him if he really flips out?

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        1. This should reassure you:
          http://kfiam640.iheart.com/media/play/27222136/

          Even if the guy with the football doesn’t clock a theoretical nuke-happy Obama with the football, rather than opening it, the chances of Ashton Carter going “oh, yeah, I’m totally down with being the guy who certifies that we’re absolutely sure those guys are guilty and should be nuked” is not gonna happen.

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          1. The one thing in this admininstration that America can always count on is Acting President Ashton Carter.

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            1. It’s not like they never considered “president going ape-@#$” when they designed the nuke launch protocols, and by making it so that the Secretary of Defense has to basically sign on and take responsibility for the targeting is a really good defense.

              Like

      2. Putin’s got quite a few problems, and the Ukraine and Syria. He may be evil, but he’s not stupid enough to get tied up in a third war when the casus belli is going away in 20 days.

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        2. Ah, but he will never forget the slights. And Putin is KGB through and through.

          I would not want to be in charge of ex-President Obama’s protection detail over the next few years.

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            1. He already has by calling Obama irrelevant and the way he did it. That’s the absolutely worst thing, from Obama’s perspective, that he could have done. An Obama that’s the political equivalent of an annoying little yapping dog is something Putin would enjoy very much through the years, particularly if Obama’s legacy is quickly erased.

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          2. Ayup. Especially if the assassination can be pinned on someone else and used to advance Putin’s agenda. Or cripple an enemy.

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            1. Which foreign governments hasn’t been seriously annoyed by Obama? :twisted: :twisted: :twisted: :twisted:

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            2. Oh, I’d think the Mossad would be tricker than that – something to really punish Barry while leaving him alove.

              Say, manuever both his daughters into marrying Tea Party conservatives, embracing that segment of the conservative agenda, and running and getting elected to Congress as Republicans. From California.

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              3. ….On principle I feel I should object to this sort of meddling, but if the Mossad got California electing Republicans again, I would mostly be impressed and confused.

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    3. We may very well find that Obama gave us nuclear war.

      I’ve been outspoken in my concern about Obama’s backing off from traditional counter proliferation policies since before he was elected. His campaign speeches raised some possibilities that ended up being substantiated.

      We will be fortunate if Iranian fissile material does not get used in the US by terrorists.

      The people that came up with the older counter proliferation and deterrence theories were not fools pulling stuff from their asses, even if the hippies were too young and too stoned to understand where they were coming from.

      Obama does not have a calculated adult perspective on these issues, in part because the portion of his adulthood that he spent on it was spent as a proxy for Russian PR.

      Like

      1. Robert McNamara, upon being briefed on the military’s MAD-based retaliation plans, is supposed to have said “That’s not a plan, it’s some kind of horrible spasm.” What the Cheese-Wiz kid failed to realize was that the very horribleness of that spasm is what kept it from being necessary. Frankly, I’d like to see a President tell North Korea “welcome to the Nuclear Club. There are three rules to Nuclear Club. The first rule is that you do not attack fellow members of the Nuclear Club. The second rule is that you do not attack the allies of members of the Nuclear Club. The third rule is that you do not threaten to attack members of the Nuclear Club or their allies. Violation of these rules get you nuked. Completely.” And then start pulling troops away from the DMZ. One SSBN would be more than sufficient to wipe North Korea off the map.

        As for Iran, they’re not nuclear yet and the advances in modern shipping mean that any country capable of reliably hitting targets around 10 meters in size can impose an old-style blockade without having to threaten or attack neutral shipping. Spend a week bombing transshipment facilities and cargo container handling equipment and the Iranians will be too worried about finding enough to eat to be building nuclear weapons. Or we could recognize that the US is an oil-exporting country now and rising oil prices don’t hurt the country as a whole. Pull completely out of the area and wish our friends the Saudis luck in dealing with the Persians.

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    4. It’s sad, but Obama is showing himself to be a petty little man by trying to make as much of a mess as he can before he leaves in a fit of foot stomping peevishness.
      I wonder how much of the Whitehouse furnishings and other items are going to disappear this time?

      Like

      1. Once the Bamster’s official portrait is hung, Churchill’s bust should be placed in front of it for comparison.
        After all… They both had American mothers.

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        1. …and they both held the interests of a foreign polity ahead of the interests of the USA.

          In Winston’s case he was able to set aside some of the more conflicting interests of the British Empire to smooth things with FDR and his Soviet plant infested internationalist anti-colonial administration.

          In Barry Soetoro’s case, the interest of the International Arrow Of History superceded all the petty provincial interests of the USA.

          So yeah, put Winston in front. Or better yet, hang Barry’s portrait in the basement room that Nixon converted from the indoor pool to his bowling alley, and put Winston in the Oval Office right across from President Trump’s desk.

          Liked by 1 person

          1. There needs to be a “Loser’s Hall” for the especially bad presidents.
            Obama can take his rightful place next to Carter, Buchanan, and Andrew Johnson.

            Like

          2. Churchill went to Canada to thrash out some supply details with Mackenzie-King, then came down to DC to give a speech to Congress and schmooze the DC glitterati.

            Roosevelt, for whatever reason, decided to go up to New York to his estate for a small vacation. He told Churchill to make free use of his office and staff until he could join him in New York.

            By Churchill’s own account, he spent some of the time sitting at Roosevelt’s desk scheming about how to get America back into the Empire, or the Commonwealth, or even some kind of permanent alliance…

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  14. “Racist” has become a bad joke and it’s become hard to tell anymore if a person has been accused of it because they really do promote race-hatred or because they disagreed with a liberal.

    You are a racist, because you neglected the possibility that someone might be called that purely to critique the excessive misuse of the word by others.

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  16. “I have had personal encounters online”

    One could say that there is no such thing as a ‘personal encounter’ online. You’ve no idea with whom you’re really having a conversation with, whether it’s people who really believe whatever they’re saying or trolls trolling people for fun and/or profit. Since the left loves false flag operations it wouldn’t surprise me if many of the alt-right’s racist deeds are actually lefties trolling and laughing their asses off.

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      1. I almost wonder if the Santa costumes was a ploy to get Christians blamed, somehow? I dunno. I really don’t want to think about this right now.

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          1. Maybe the Russian ambassador got killed by a lone gunman, because Erdogan purged the military of secularists, and now the security services are just that incompetent. Maybe someone tried to put together a false flag attack disguised as Russians, and screwed it up because non-Kemalist Turks are just that stupid. Maybe I’m full of crap.

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            2. Turkey right now is beyond my ken. Just can’t wrap my head around it. I have a friend who married a Turkish woman. She’s in no hurry to come to America because of her 80ish father. My friend, in international sales so he can deal with a bi-continental marriage, says Turkey really isn’t so bad. Is he crazy or am I.

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              1. It really isn’t that bad, yet.

                The country is pretty big. The fact that something like this gets reported suggests that it’s pretty rare. You’d probably be in more danger in Israel than in Turkey. I had a friend who was over there as a tourist about a week before something happened (can’t remember what). Nothing she saw struck her as particularly dangerous.

                Now with the way Erdogan is pushing things, that might change. But that change hasn’t happened yet.

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                1. Shitty ass coup attempt followed by massive purge. Russian ambassador assassination, Istanbul airport bombings just off the top of my head in the last year. Kemal Ataturk must be spinning in his grave.

                  Like

              2. My information is a few years old, from a lady named Claire Berlinski who lived there for years….

                She left it. For France. In the area when the Charley H attack happened.

                Believes France is in better shape, last I heard.

                Who does that square with?

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                1. I work with a rabidly atheist Turkish immigrant engineer who was raised moslem. Some of her rants have been epic. She absolutely hates Kurds. Denies there was ever an Armenian genocide. Calls it anti-Turk propaganda. Her sister was in the airport coming back to the US just hours before the bombing. Wants her parents to move here to Reno. But they prefer their familiar home. Three other Turks in the company. They are all happy to be in America.

                  Like

          2. I think it’s most likely because that’s one costume you can wear that will disguise your identity by hiding (most of) your face, yet at this time of year nobody would think twice about the fact that your face isn’t recognizable.

            Liked by 1 person

          3. One of the news sites (PJ media or Legal Insurrection) said that Santa Claus (via St. Nicholas) is popular in Turkey, and that plain-clothes police would dress as Santa to blend in crowds when working security this time of year.

            Like

      1. Looks like the Germans are learning to avoid at least one set of mistakes.
        I just hope they can find a middle path between “flower crowns in the alpine meadows” and “Drang nach Osten!”

        Like

        1. Germany went full SJW. Now the pendulum is swinging back. And the other end of the swing is spiffy uniforms and midnight rallies.

          The governments of the whole freaking West have all lost their collective minds…

          Liked by 1 person

        1. Apparently pretty large. For some of its authors, second biggest market after Amazon.

          Issue is apparently less than a week ago it called up everyone and ‘lol going out of business on New Years, you’ll take 10% and like it’. Words are my own and do not reflect original word choice. Four days between cutting off payments and closing the ebook store, which raises concern of royalties not paid for that period.

          Like

        2. The announcement was a week ago, and they shuttered everything 2016.

          Not that all settlements have been made.

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  19. “Fidel Castro’s oft-delayed departure from this world finally happened”

    Fidel Castro’s oft-delayed departure from this world finally was revealed.

    Fixed that for you.

    Liked by 1 person

  20. “how did the studio respond?”

    The studio responded the same way that the Democrats, the MSM, the (Pseudo-)Intelligentsia and “I’m With Her-crats” did to the deplorable Trump supporters.

    Demonstrated above by Andy Kaufman at about 55 seconds. Remarkably, such erudition did not persuade the public to adopt their views.

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    1. I had forgotten that he made a career out of being annoying. That clip just wrecked my annoyance meter. Now I can only estimate my annoyance.

      Like

  21. :… the white nationalist wing of the alt-right. Now this is a topic and movement too complex to be dealt with here in full. Suffice it to say, some of the alt-right definitely are racists. I have had personal encounters online, as I did when I tweeted about Holodomor Remembrance Day and got re-tweeted by a bunch of white nationalist anti-Semites trying to use the event to promote their vile creed. Others don’t seem to be obsessed with race at all.

    I’m going to expand upon the complexity of the issue. If you get a truly despicable tweet or meme about the Holocaust online, there are several possible reasons why

    1. The poster is a swastika-thumping honest-to-Hitler pagan neo-Nazi.
    2. He is testing you to see which way you’ll jump. Will you point and shriek and have a hissy fit, demanding that the online Authority come protect you, or will you react in a more rational, measured way?
    3. He’s a troll doing it for a shits–grins, because he’s seen people shriek and throw hysterical temper-tantrums and the kerfuffle makes him laugh.
    4. He’s sick and tired of being blamed for something that’s not true and you’ve caught him on a bad day and he responds with a “well I may as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb,” because something you posted hit him the wrong way.
    5. He’s using you in his campaign to deliberately invalidate the very concept of racism in order to undermine the SJW vile progs.

    The problem is that of this mixture, some are nationalists, some are racialists, some are conservative, some socialist, some older, younger, ideologically committed… And only #1 (and not because they have degenerate beliefs about racial “purity.”) are actually bad for the commonweal, and only #3 can be bad for online discourse in general, but at the moment… has its uses.

    My “American President” moment, this year was the realisation that, no. Racism isn’t a sin. Bigotry makes you stupid, yes, but stupidity isn’t a moral failing. We’ve made a little tin God out of anti-racism and the false devil that is “racism,” needs to be slain. Because having a ridiculous notion that nearly all Brahmins are genetically superior to white devils, or that Poles and Portuguese are primitive and stupid or Blacks (or chavs or redness) are violence-prone drunkards isn’t going to do anyone much harm (If there’s any truth to the stereotype, it might even do some good) If we don’t have an-all powerful state enforcing people’s whims.

    This Racism is Teh Ultimate Evil cos Holocaust (or Slavery. But never… Ukraine genocide) is a side effect of the requirement that, if we’re going to vote have an oligarchic regulatory state with the power to meet our every need, the pool of potential rulers can’t have any potentially nasty.

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      1. Racism is a sin, but it isn’t the only or even the worst sin. It is, as 60Guilders notes, a subcategory of a broader group, all of which are anathema in the Eyes of G-D.

        More importantly, while Liberals keep using that word I do not think it means what they think it means.

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