Operation Swamp Fox

445 thoughts on “Operation Swamp Fox”

1. We Boomers know all about this …

   (Chorus)
   Swamp Fox, Swamp Fox, tail on his hat
   Nobody knows where the Swamp Fox is at
   Swamp Fox, Swamp Fox, hiding in the glen
   He runs away to fight again

   (Verse 1)
   Got no blankets, got no beds
   Got no roof above our heads
   Got no shelter when it rains
   All we got is Yankee brains

   (Chorus)
   Swamp Fox, Swamp Fox, tail on his hat
   Nobody knows where the Swamp Fox is at
   Swamp Fox, Swamp Fox, hiding in the glen
   He runs away to fight again

   (Verse 2)
   Got no cornpone, got no honey
   All we got is Continental money
   Won’t buy bacon, hominy, or grits
   Rodent ears and possum is all we get!

   (Chorus)
   Swamp Fox, Swamp Fox, tail on his hat
   Nobody knows where the Swamp Fox is at
   Swamp Fox, Swamp Fox, hiding in the glen
   He runs away to fight again
   –

   1. That song was on a record of patriotic songs I had when I was a kid around 1970 and has been a recurring earworm ever since. I had no idea it came from a movie. 🙂

      1. Actually a TV show episode on Cavalcade of America that aired on October 1955.
         From IMDB:
         Cavalcade of America documented historical events using stories of individual courage, initiative and achievement, often with feel-good dramatizations of the human spirit’s triumph against all odds.
         A Disney production apparently, back when patriotism was still a thing.

   2. Oh, yeah!

      You know what, millions of us would ride behind Trump just like that. We already make songs in his honor.

      Time to take it to the next level, I imagine.

   3. And immediately after, YT suggests to me… “Hang ’em High.”

      Sounds like a plan!

   4. Sarah: “So, make with Operation Swamp Fox. Let’s win our country back.” But will we get our opportunity to do so soon? Or not?

      I believe we will. Why? Three contingencies are seen or foreseeable. And inserting ourselves strategically within the later is crucial if we ant to be effective.

      The Big Enchilada is this One: will Trump get the opportunity of a contingent election? The Presidency Decided by the House of Representatives? Something truely extraordinary and not witnessed in 194 years time?

      I believe the answer is YES — however, many stars must align, in particular, the newest Justice Amy Barrett Comey (?) show up? Will a House procedures and leaders hear the public outrage against fraud? Against the Tech Oligarch Censors lying narratives?

      To begin with, how many people believe this was an evil or fraudulent or stolen election? Not free nor fair? Between one-third and roughly two-thirds (attributed to 538, the stats site, founder: 6 out of 10 voters), think so.

      Thus, despite the mass media gaslighting for President Elect Bidet, it ain’t working. And the longer time and fact based subversion and gossip work, the more acceptable these unlikely course of events become.

      [CONTINUED—it is almost dawn where I am now and need a feed break before posting weekend specifics to support my claims ABOVE.]

      1. MORE than two thirds. You can tell because the dems are in a panic about it, while at the same time saying everyone “accepts” Biden’s win.

   5. Dang! That brings back some memories.

   6. Heh.
      Family history in one side was (very quietly) proud of having an ancestor who rode with Francis Marion.

      Of course, it would have been scandalous if it had gotten out that the family was not “old money inconveniently bankrupted by that beastly Sherman”.
      (The tidewater south is kinda weird.)

      1. A lot of English families claimed gentle descent and loss of their property during the English Civil War. It’s an aristocratic-poseur thing.

         1. My mother’s family claimed some antebellum social status and claimed to have declined after the War. Great-grandmother was a schoolteacher and may even have been to college. My grandfather, OTOH, was apparently an unlucky farmer and businessman, given the family’s history in the Depression. My mom was, “We are GOING to be middle-class, at least. At least!”

   7. I have some more suggestions.

      1) Did you ever hear the phrase “White Mutiny”, or “Work To Rule”? It means to obey *every last petty picky order* a boss gives you — especially where those orders are contradictory. This will gum up the works of any organization, public or private, and you can always CYA by pointing out that you were following orders. To pull this off means that you must carefully record any and all orders you’re given, so keep your cell-phones always ready to “video” at the push of a single button.

      2) Between the third and fourth boxes is “Massive Passive Resistance”. Study it, and practice it. It’s very, very effective.

      1. Of course we have. We read Heinlein. (Named oldest after him.)

      2. Also I experienced this in Portugal. Though it could be argued that Portugal is a living demonstrations of White Mutiny over CENTURIES.
         Also, ma’am, I love some of your songs very much.

         1. Awwww, thank you kind Hoyt.

            –Leslie < )O(

         2. Speaking of …

            I learned this evening that General Flynn’s wife, Lori, is Portuguese and his High School sweetheart.

            Those attacking him don’t appreciate the hornets’ nest they’ve kicked.
            –

            1. I knew she was Portuguese from her last name.
               BUT yes, mess with the husband of a woman of Portuguese ascent and you just asked to be stabbed in the liver…. if she can’t find a more painful retaliation.

         3. Seconded re the songs

            Sent from Workspace ONE Boxer

      3. Creative Incompetence, as your service, sir! How many inches down from the top riser did you want that? Would you like the brown bags, or the white bags, boss? How many? Which side of the cart would you like them placed?

         You can destroy people with this tactic. It’s awesome. Fabulous against the hive-minded as well.

         1. It can be useful of mastering a trick known to English servants, the knack of the raised eyebrow, the faint hint of disapproval, the implicit expression of disappointment over choices made — all quickly disavowed if questioned.

            “Paper or Plastic? Really? Hmmmm.”

            “I am sure Madam knows best.”
            ~

            1. Yes.

      4. How about ‘Passive-Aggressive Resistance’? 😀

         1. “‘Passive-Aggressive Resistance’? Sounds about PAR.
            ~

      5. Laughing at the avatar you’re assigned … soooo perfect. Welcome aboard the good ship Mutiny.

      6. I concur with this – “work to order” or “Malicious compliance”. Take every opportunity to gum up the works and to do exactly as you were told.

         It can be fun, too.

   8. Ye gods, I’d forgotten that he was played by Leslie Neilson! Wow, talk about a wide variety of roles.

      –Leslie < Fish

2. Francis Marion saved the Revolution in a number of ways. We would do well to emulate his patriotism and his determination.

   1. I’m working on a short piece titled “The Waiting.” That feels like the hardest part–doing what feels like nothing, waiting, waiting, waiting for…

      I found a quote from the Normandy Invasion in WW II that makes me happy to share:

      “”You get your ass on the beach. I’ll be there waiting for you and I’ll tell you what to do. There ain’t anything in this plan that is going to go right.””
      –Colonel Paul R. Goode, in a pre-attack briefing to the 175th Infantry Regiment, 29th Infantry Division

      We come from strong stuff. We come from this.

3. I can see a couple of ways that I can gush about Hunter and his laptop to a few senior-y citizens. Some of these I couldn’t pull off though. Maybe I can start using, “so very fascist, darling.” with a slow drawl

   1. Do what you can. You go to war with the underwear you have on.

      1. Does a towel count? I’m afraid I scared the hell out of a maintenance guy a few years ago who came into my apartment to change air filters, of course they forgot to notify us, so all 6’4″ 260 lbs of pissed off me came charging out of the bathroom in a towel ready to fight and die ’cause some idiot broke into my apartment while I was there. The look on his face still cracks me up when I remember it 🙂 “Uh. . .I’ll come back later”.

         Also the reason there is now an a ‘bathroom gun’.

         1. Would that be a revolver sealed in a ziplock bag with a desiccant pak?

            You’d need a new bag if you had to use it, but that’s the only downside I can see.

            1. Hmm, that might work better. I went with 12 gauge ’cause if you mess with me on The Throne, there will be consequences. I just hope I never have to try and child-proof this place. I’ll keep that in mind, if I can ever get ammo I want to pick up a .44 revolver, the cowboy action shooting stuff looks like a blast and hey, more excuses to practice shooting stuff 🙂

               1. Been thinking about a polymer framed Taurus Judge as a boating firearm, first shot .410 for water moccasins, .45 for gators, but it would be a kickarse shower gun as well I’d think. Wouldn’t want a spendy semiauto around that much humidity, but revolvers are pretty resilient.

                  1. If you are ever thinking about going ocean fishing, make sure you or the boat operator has a a good sized caliber rifle or solid shot shotgun on board-they are essential in preventing injury or death if one accidental hooks a shark. I know commercial fishermen who have had to shoot sharks in such a situation.

                     1. I can’t imagine a deep sea fishing operations that *doesn’t* carry an armory. That’s certainly been my experience.

                        You get a frickin’ tuna or a shark or even a big cobia writhing on the boat deck and it’s either shoot it quit or jump into the water or climb up to the Captain’s chair, ’cause you’re gonna get a serious cut, or your leg broken. Deep sea fishing, man, you got to be on your game. Miss the live well? Run!

                        1. Tuna once you get them on deck pretty much give up. Now thresher sharks, those are really nasty, because of the really long, blade like tail; its basically a living sword being whipped about.

                           1. Fisher’s Chant
                              Leslie Fish

                              Chorus:
                              Come up. Come up, oh sweet thresher shark
                              One of us today will die
                              One will go down the other ones throat
                              Beneath the pitiless sky

                              The Earth is thick with the numbers of men
                              The poisoned soil turns cold
                              So out we go to the ancient sea
                              To feed as we did of old

                              Chorus

                              The gods made Man like any other beast
                              For all that his pride denies
                              So we must take our turn at the kill
                              And all of the rest is lies

                              Chorus

                              And you who raise tame beasts on the land
                              That you march to the slaughterhouse door
                              May point no safe, fat finger at us
                              Who risk a little bit more

                              Chorus

                              And you who buy your meat at the stores
                              May raise no howl of shame
                              For as you pay for the food beasts death
                              You eat and you share the blame

                              Chorus

                              And you who feed on nothing but plants
                              Don’t hold your pride so high
                              For plants are living and just might feel
                              And they take so long to die

                              Chorus

                              So come to the battle of the jaws and gaff
                              At the border of sea and air
                              We’ll duel for food while the old gods laugh
                              By the gods, this fight is fair!

                           2. Yes.

                              I always had the tuna delivered. We were fishing for cobia, dolphin, shark.

                  2. The Judge is my walk around the yard piece (140 Alaska acres). Bought a larger after market replacement pistol grip, recommend doing so if your hand’s bigger than a small monkey’s fist.

                  3. Was trying out a Taurus the other day. That is one damn heavy revolver. Which is understandable since you’re chambering up to 6, 410 rounds in it.

         2. LOL

         3. Ferocity counts for a lot in a situation:

            ~

         4. I knew a guy who greeted an AC guy wearing only the .357 socketed into the repairman’s ear. Landlord “forgot” to tell tenants of the coming intrusion. Seems he often did that to find unclaimed pets or other reasons to berate the renters or charge them more. The guy had been out working on an emergency and was given the day off as he had worked over a day with little rest fixing the issue. He had just gotten in bed when he heard the door rattle. The landlord just gave the keys to the repairman and told him to just go on in.
            That was one townhouse he always made sure no one went into without an RSVP and someone being there.

            1. Hah… friend was house-sitting for his ex in the worst part of Los Angeles. Hot night, screen door is open, he’s sleeping commando. Next thing he knows he’s at the door carrying the double-barrel, and one of the neighbor kids is greatly regretting the impulse to “investigate” the house when no one is expected to be there — crazy wildhaired dude with gun OMG! (Fortunately with good trigger discipline, and no shots fired.) Needless to say that never happened again, and thereafter was much tippytoeing around by local kids eager to not be noticed.

      2. Oh! Now I understand the derivation of “Going commando.”
         ~

      3. “Do what you can. You go to war with the underwear you have on.”
         Keep in mind that the phrase “go commando” has several meanings.
         As for bathroom gun, firearms designed for boating use or harsh wet environments are fairly common (at least normally, though not so much right now).
         Many handguns come in stainless steel though you still have to protect the non stainless internal springs.
         Mossberg does a fine stainless 12 gauge pump marketed specifically to yacht folk for defense against pirates (still a thing, especially in and around the Carribean and American southern coastline).
         And Marlin made a fine stainless lever action in .45-70 called the Guide Gun intended as a backup for guides supervising bear hunters in the Pacific Northwest. Note, the rights to the Marlin line have now been taken over by Ruger as part of the breakup of Remington Arms. Much hope in the firearms community that Ruger continues the production of the Marlin line of lever action rifles.

         1. With much better quality control!

   2. How very fascist of you! Bless your heart!

      1. Yes, have to include the “Bless your heart!”

         For a while, it was my stock response to progtards on Twitter.

      2. And if they’re really pushy on body positivity or female empowerment or similar remember to add “At least you’re pretty.” to the “Bless your heart”.

   3. I was at CVS today. taking advantage of a 30% Off Entre Purchase coupon* when the clerk checking me out asked if I wanted to “Round UP” to help Alzheimer’s research (about sixty-five cents).

      I allowed as, my mother having had Alzheimer’s I thought I should – and besides, watching our new “president-elect” we probably needed to “do all we could for that research.”
      ~

      1. made me laugh

4. “let’s not even think of what Harris has in her closet” It’s a big closet

   1. Cardi B. went there and returned to tell us what was there: “WAP!”

   2. I know what is the closets of people who say things “Always invite at least two swinger couples to your play parties. They’ll just strip and start having sex. It gets things going”.

      Even I don’t want to know what is Joe’s Ho’s closet.

      1. Used goods. Or should that be used bads?

         1. Poor quality goods.

   3. Harris follows the Old Left line of “The proper position of women in the movement is horizontal.”

   4. If the inauguration goes as it currently looks like it will, the US will have a POTUS and a HOTUS.

      … or a FOTUS. Maybe some one with image skills can make up a presidential seal with the words “Fraudulent of the United States of America”. Maybe with the “Fraud” in red, to stand out. And maybe the eagle’s claws are holding something appropriate.

      1. Prostitute of the United States?

      2. Yeah, shouldn’t that be WOTUS? 😛

5. “I think it’s great that the sex worker community has finally got a member representative into national office!”

   1. Oh, burn!

   2. I recall a story, some considerable time ago, about prostitutes in France (prostitution being legal, but pimping being illegal) suing, claiming that taxing them on their income was pimping and thus illegal. As I recall, the courts did not agree.

      1. The courts were right. Pimps provide both marketing and protection services to prostitutes. The government provides nothing.

      2. It would only be fair to permit them to take depreciation on their equipment.
         ~

   3. That’s a bit nasty to a lot of sex workers. I mean, I know a few and I trust them a lot more than Joe’s Ho.

      1. You know, I actually thought about that, but I’m pretty sure the target audience for this effort in delegitimization via mockery would not, so it’s kind of unfortunate collateral damage.

         My apologies to any of the sex workers reading this who were offended by my joke’s implication that the particular conniving ruthless heartless uncaring opportunist political quid-pro-quo trader extraordinaire is in any way their representative.

         1. What’s the difference between a prostitute and a Democrat?

            A prostitute usually gives you fair value for your money.

            1. Dems more closely match pimps: they whore out other people for their own advantage.

6. If they say anything negative about San Francisco, remind them that the people who are second and third in line to the presidency are both career San Francisco politicians and are therefore responsible.

   1. I think I’d rather use “culpable”. Somebody might try to use a positive spin on “responsible”.

      1. Good point.

7. “Peace at any price” never works. Even if the price is just shutting up and letting them have their way.

   By synchronicity, I just finished re-reading Poul Anderson’s “The Star Fox” last night. The World Government would do anything to appease hostile aliens… even let them enslave entire planets full of humans. Until someone drew his line in the sand and said “Enough!”

   Hey, it’s an SF writer’s blog… our myths shape our reality.

   —

   “Not truth,” sang the other captain. “In the star meadows fare we here aboard, needless of New Europe’s tongue. To you the rover yield we Meroeth.”

   It was a relief finding one who had some English. So far there’d been two with Spanish, one each with French and Chinese. Otherwise sign language worked, when you had a gun in your hand. “You know what we are, then?” Heim said.

   “All know now of that which is named for the swift animal with sharp teeth. Ill may you prosper,” crooned the Aleriona.

   1. The more evil parts of me are fine with them getting everything they want, as hard as they can get it. In fact, if it wouldn’t impact the people I care about or myself, I would be more than happy for them to get to experience their entire list of insanity and the inevitable results. Sadly, I think many of them are so indoctrinated they’d still blame us and keep yelling that we caused it all.

      1. Look up ‘The Machine Stops’ by E.M. Forster. Written 111 years ago, but captures today’s left-wing elites to a T.

         And they’re the ones stopping the Machine.

         1. Thanks! Just read a blurb and it sounds really familiar, I think we might have read it in school at some point. I will check it out, thank you!

      2. Thermidor never arrives quickly enough to save many innocents.

      3. I had a discussion with the lady running the dump station today. I mentioned Despicable Kate’s gaslighting over the Shiny! New! Wonderful! tiered system that “loosens” the lockdown situation. Yeah, for 25 of 36 counties (maybe more; haven’t looked at the details for the lesser tiers), the 75% occupancy limit for retail businesses was loosened to 50% limit. Hmm. Dammitol, somebody’s using 1984 as a text book. Again.

         She mentioned she couldn’t wait for it to be over. I told her I expected the situation to last a couple more years, until HRH Kate Brown leaves office (I’m an optimist, thinking that a successor could be persuaded to be reasonable. Anybody have spare horse heads around?). She sort-of-corrected me and said “I meant COVID”. I sort-of-recorrected and said said virus was mainly an excuse. Not sure if it was a red pill, but she’s a regular, and I show up often enough, usually when it’s quiet.

         Yeah, Transfer Station Lady is a government employee, but *not* state level, and our county is quite red. Masks required outdoors and in businesses, along with the usual anti-social distancing. Everybody here was perfectly happy to comply with the Governor’s wishes, down to the letter. The local gasoline/propane/smoke, grocery and snack shop was the very model of a proper major outbreak store.*

         (*) In deepest rural Flyover county. Yeah right. Is my sarcasm dripping? I’m still ticked off at the Costco droid who told me to cover my nose when I was polite enough to put on one of the blue paper diapers rather than my ram-air face shield that curiously rides up on my forehead as the day goes on. OTOH, the next day (too much business to do and drive both ways) I went back to the shield. The door guard gave me a thumb’s up. (Shields are not suitable for regular use, say the health-nazis. Screw ’em. My breath is more important than their feels.)

         1. ticked off at the Costco droid who told me to cover my nose

            –
            I almost ran over the local Costco gatekeeper. Not on purpose. Cold air + mask + nose covered + glasses = foggy glasses I can’t see through, at least until they clear in the warmer air inside … I apologized which got a “What?” No one can hear me though the mask. No one. When I have to talk to someone in retail I have to lower the mask, or don’t bother.

            1. Yep. i have issues like that even with “just” the face shield.

               1. When I had the shield in the officially approved position, I had severe condensation. And that was inside the Costco warehouse, at something close to room temperature. I remove or shove it up to ram air scoop mode as soon as I get into the cold air.

                  It also screws up the acoustics. With my bargain-basement hearing, between the masks, plexiglass and my shield, hearing comprehension is somewhere between awful and horrible. I hear better with a mask, but even with an exposed nose, I run short of air. (And people then have a harder time understanding me. Sigh.

                  1. I have a soft voice. It does not carry. That is without the cloth mask on. I’m not going to shout (which is what it takes) to speak … doesn’t help with the mask on anyway, I’m still muffled.

                     1. This. But it muffles everyone, not just those of use with soft voices. Watching vidoes of some of the hearings … I just want to reach through the computer screen and rip the D*mn face-rag off!

                        1. Everything about masks is horrible.

                           That said, nobody really has a soft voice or a loud voice. Projection is a trick that anybody can learn, and most of it is just palate and mouth position, along with your vocal apparatus being taught to get into the right position. They teach soft-spoken people to be drill sergeants who can be heard across a football field-sized room. It’s not talent; it’s a skill that anybody can learn.

                           Think about babies. Every human baby has enough voice to be heard across a grocery store, right? And if you’re old enough to read this blog, you have a bigger vocal apparatus than that of any baby.

                           So be like a baby. Relax, and make your needs known. You will have plenty of air, because you don’t need much.

                           1. Yeah, I learned projection [mumble] decades ago, before my voice changed. I’m medium tall, quite fat, and with a resting bastard face. Add in the voice, and when I get exercised, half the town can hear it. OK, small town.

                              I didn’t want to return the hassle from the Costco droid (he admitted it was a pain), with the memory of the Clark county shooting in mind, so I nodded and moved the frippin’ top of the mask to my nose. It only occasionally dropped down to where I could get some decarbonated air.

                              I saw my doctor the day before the trip, and he assured me that I couldn’t possibly have had COVID in March, because I hadn’t been in Seattle or Frisco. (I’m pretty well stuck with this doc; the older, wiser ones are specialists. Family practitioners are now just barely out of residency. I hope they are, anyway. Sigh.) I got the “COVID is out of control in Oregon!!!eleventy!!!111!!!” lecture, which was duly noted and logged. FWIW, it came out that the favored Oregon lab is using 40 cycles for the PCR test. Last I looked, 34 was considered excessive, so I assume they are using a papaya as a control to be sure they get the positive results TPTB so desire. COVID fear porn is boring, and I’m beyond tired of the gaslighting.

                           2. That said, nobody really has a soft voice or a loud voice. Projection is a trick that anybody can learn, and most of it is just palate and mouth position, along with your vocal apparatus being taught to get into the right position.

                              –
                              After a few decades programming & talking mainly to the computer (didn’t expect it to answer or understand – What? If I thought it understand I wouldn’t have sworn at it, well the program change anyway …) a low voice was an asset. Now? Not going to work that hard.

                              Not like I talk a lot anyway. Talking over my sisters & their girls? That is something even grandma (mom) doesn’t try, you can hear her whisper over anything … she was the neighborhood “call the kids home” siren. We may not have been able to physically hear her for blocks, but the air waves reached us.

                              Besides the “they can’t hear me” excuse, lets me pull down the stupid does nothing mask. The one time someone started calling me on it I just shrugged and stated “What? My sign language sucks.” It does, I don’t know any.

                        2. It’s amazing how wearing a mask damages people’s hearing.

                           1. Well, by the time the sound gets past *my* mask or shield, across the 6′ mandatory anti-social distancing requirement, and threads through the plexiglass labyrinth, it’s freaking amazing that any communication gets done.

                              Mercifully, my wearing a mask doesn’t screw up my hearing (though discomfort from the screwed up recycled air (did I *really* need that garlic at lunch?) tends to distract), but the shield doesn’t help much. Acoustics in the full-face shield are more interesting than I like.

                           2. Thinking about it, I suspect that wearing a mask can screw up a person’s hearing of their own speech. Your own speech is transmitted by a combination of bone conduction and through the air, and the mask will tweak that portion. How serious, I can’t say. My hearing is iffy already (had multiple procedures to fix otosclerosis, whee) so I’d leave a guess at how much it changes things to somebody who has decent hearing.

                              There is the distraction effect along with the distortion caused by the face diaper. We’ve been watching the live Grand Ole Opry shows on Dish since they were picked up at the start of the lockdowns. It might be significant that *anybody* with a singing role (house backup singers specifically included) goes without a mask.

                           3. Things I’ve learned this year:
                              Translating sounds into words doesn’t come very naturally to me. Add in a visual fixation on movement, and I get at least as much of a conversation from lip reading as hearing.

                              Also, I tend to talk softly.
                              I’m fully capable of projecting, but it tends to intimidate people when I do. So I dial it back. Between the mask filtering transients, and my inability to read the other person’s face to read if I’m in the sweet spot, I have to guess, and then walk the rounds onto the target.

8. Lives, Fortunes, Sacred Honor, yes, but first

   Monkeywrench the bastards.

   1. Wooden shoes and mockery, these are our primary weapons…

   2. Eh. It might still see us all hanging in some far off Chinese Hill. But we go down fighting.

      1. At least we’ll go in good company.

         …And hopefully, with lots of other company before us.

9. “If you think Hunter’s laptop is an accident, I have some swamp land in FL I’d like to sell you. ”

   & if you don’t want that Florida plot, I’ll give you a great deal on some beautiful beach front property here, right smack in the middle of Alaska.

   1. You could try to sell them the lake at Eilson AFB. The one with the plane sticking out of the water.

10. Should the idiot actually get in– audibly wonder a) when Harris will officially, vs. secretly, take control, b) why didn’t they just elect her directly, then? c) answer b) with “oh right, she’s an idiot too…so I wonder who is REALLY in control?” d) fade off with “it’s not like anybody wanted Biden, even Obama can’t stand him”. Extra points for delicately insinuating that’s why they had to cheat with the vote 😀

    1. “Don’t underestimate Joe’s ability to fuck things up.” — Obama

       1. It doesn’t seem to occur to people that Joe is saying he can’t stand up to any sort of pressure and would use illness as an excuse to avoid conflict.

          1. I think the buried lede here is that Biden claims to be willing to sacrifice job & status for a moral principle.
             ~

             1. If that was it, he’d be saying he’d resign and make the reason known. “I’ll pretend to be sick and quit,” is a declaration of cowardice. Unless you’re a leftist, in which case it’s a joke, and you people are too stupid to get it and humorless to boot. (Paraphrase of an actual comment on Twitter).

    2. Joe just FLAT OUT STATED in an interview (with Jake Tapper of CNN, I think) that if he ever had a serious disagreement with Harris, then he’d get an illness and retreat from the public eye.

       I thought it was a parody at first. But no, he really did apparently say that. Tapper, of course, did not follow up.

       1. Video was in Dave Rubin’s stream today.

       2. It’s true. Rush talked about it and I watched the video clip.

          It’s insane how blatant they are.

          1. Or possibly how far his mental issues have progressed.

             1. Well, he *did* say that he had the greatest vote-fraud team around. I think his dementia is making him tell the truth on occasion. Not necessarily the occasions his masters want, but that’s their problem.

             2. Not sure what you mean. It feels insulting.

                1. Not sure why it would be insulting. This isn’t the first time that Joe has said something that’s highly troubling, and likely true. His “fraud machine” statement fell into the same category. The most likely explanation for both of these statements is that his mental condition is too far gone for the normal inhibitors to kick in and keep him from saying something like this.

                2. I’ve heard that a number of people believe that Biden is experiencing senile dementia.

                   This one of the situations I treat as alleged, because I’m not attuned to signs of mental decline. Nor have I been paying any attention to his videos.

                   But the publicly admitted injuries might be consistent with memory issues.

                   1. Understand, thanks.
                      Sorry for being so thin-skinned.

                      I’m not operating at my best and I have yet another situation where I have to stand up for myself, when I’d rather just… Well, no, not anymore. But I am a bit tired of pushing back at stupid, cowardly flu rhetoric.

                   2. I’ve had exposure to people developing Alzheimer’s, and the bits and pieces that make it through the LSM are consistent with early stage dementia. (Yeah, it’s anecdata. Deal.) What makes it a bit harder for some people to note is the media coverup of the seamier* parts of his personality**, preferring to show Joe as the “friendly old uncle”.

                      (*) Him insisting on swimming in the nude while the ladies on the Secret Service detail are forced to be present is a tell to me.

                      (**) His meltdowns when people have disagreed with him have made it out. Lying dogfaced pony soldier? O-kay.

       3. What can the Babylon Bee do when the Democrats keep stealing their material? 😀

          1. They already did it. See notthebee dot com.

    3. Harris isn’t going to be in any more control than Joe won’t be.

       1. I do wonder who is actually in control. I’d say Obama, but I think he’s lazy and not very bright and really wants to live the life of a millionaire. So, a cabal of dem politicos, tech titans, media, and wall street?

          1. And the communist Chinese agents that are paying them all off.

             1. Right. Those too. That Chinese money is doing a lot of damage. Probably why son]me of the Republicans have been so uninterested in the fraud

          2. It’s Obama. You can tell by the smirk. He’s not THAT lazy. He’s a narcissist. HE NEEDS the limelight. He and big Mike.

             1. I’d be willing to believe that he thinks he’s in control. But a part of me suspects that there’s someone pulling his strings, as well.

                1. Agreed. He’s sort of high level, but it was clear at times that Valerie Jarrett (may she rot) was calling the shots for the narcissist-in-chief.

                2. Xi

                   1. Si.

             2. That means he needs to get into the limelight, eventually. Working in the background… doesn’t fit him. Not directly.

                1. No, it doesn’t. Of course, as a former president, his options are more limited (barring the removal of presidential term limits) in the types of public jobs that he can take. The thing to keep an eye out for is whether he’s asked to join any special commissions to study something or other, no matter how unimportant it might seem at first.

                   1. General Secretary.

                      1. Chancellor.

                   2. Supreme Court, the new, improved version. Though he would probably prefer Secretary General of the U.N., if he could get it.

                      1. Yep – go watch Ted Cruz’s latest ‘The Verdict’ podcast – he details the sequence if the Senat ends up tied so The Ho can cast a tiebreaking vote reasonably well, matching up in concept with how it happened in CA: Once they get power, they change the rules so they can’t help but keep power absent box four kinetics.

                         This is why the thing about skipping voting in Georgia “To Show Them!” is pure enemy propaganda – while it may in fact be a forlorn hope fight against all the theiverish cheatitude, that runoff is definitely good terrain on which to make a last stand, and January Fifth is a Good Day to Die.

                         1. Yep – go watch Ted Cruz’s latest ‘The Verdict’ podcast – he details the sequence if the Senat ends up tied so The Ho can cast a tiebreaking vote reasonably well, matching up in concept with how it happened in CA: Once they get power, they change the rules so they can’t help but keep power absent box four kinetics.

                            –
                            Oregon Legislature … where the Republicans have to hideout to prevent passage of bad legislature. Democrats have enough votes to do whatever they want, a huge majority. But they can’t pass anything if they don’t have a quorum present both for the vote, or even to conduct any business. They don’t have a quorum without some of the republican representatives present. It has been a huge bone of contention …

          3. Xi

             1. snap.

             2. Is that Obama’s “personal pronoun”?

                Hrmm… I sense a bumper sticker for Special Cases.

    4. I think everyone with Republican senators should write them and ask that they oppose any 25th amendment proceedings for Biden, and preferably not even let it get out of committee. If they want Biden so bad, then Republican senators should do everything they can to make sure that they KEEP him.

       1. Yeah. Can’t really see any advantage to Kamala as President. Biden at least is better for jokes and memes and making fun.

       2. Oh, if the 25th is denied, I think that alternative solutions would be found for the Biden Problem. Probably final ones.

11. I happened to hear about the unplanned, disorganized, trucker strike next Friday the 11th. I mentioned it to a couple of long haul buddies.

    1. The moral here is: Be Like Water. Don’t have a leader whose family can be threatened.

       1. You have *no* secure communication other than face-to-face, and even that, while carrying no electronic devices and outside the range of cameras and microphones built into way too many things now.

          Communications aren’t going to be practical. But you don’t need them. You’ll know what needs to be done and when. There might be some duplication of effort, but that would only serve to muddy any investigation.

          There aren’t many upsides to organization, and some big downsides. Unless there’s some special circumstance where you *must* have some minimal level of cooperation, don’t fall into that trap.

          Remember “The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress?” Mike is working for the other side this time. It’s something you’ll have to work around.

          1. There is a reason there are things which are Not Said online. We like our privacy, why yes we do…

             1. Or they’re said so many times and in so many different contexts that the data disappears into the noise. TRX is attributing to technology an omniscience it doesn’t have.

                1. Weeellll… you go on believing that if it makes you feel better.

                   1. No. He’s right.
                      Even China has trouble tracking everything and usually only catch THE MOST BLATANT people. And even I am not at that level.

                   2. Since I work for one of the companies that BUILDS that kind of software, I will.

                      1. Your competition is already marketing their tracking systems. Maybe your company should consider licensing?

                         1. Maybe we have.

                   3. I’m a computer programmer. Unlike snelson, I don’t have direct knowledge… but my indirect knowledge says he’s absolutely right. Even the supercomputers owned by certain three-letter agencies can’t process all the phone calls, etc., going on, which is why they’re programmed to listen for keywords. And they can’t record everything for later processing either; they’d run out of disk space. So they have to be selective in what they record. This is why, back in the Usenet days, people used to deliberately put a bunch of keywords in their Usenet signature, so certain agencies’ processing power would get tied up working on a bunch of irrelevant material; it was a kind of distributed protest against the monitoring that people knew (well. suspected) was going on. Something like that would be quite useful again, I think. Drop a bunch of keywords into innocuous Skype and/or phone calls, and flood their systems with irrelevant data.

                      1. Oh, I like that!

                         Now the question is where I can get a list of “juicy” keywords?

                         1. Use your imagination… and reference current events and info that Twitter is currently trying to suppress. For example, the word “laptop” coming immediately after the name of a certain candidate’s son would probably draw a flag. Add a few other items of interest sprinkled around an innocuous email or comment and you’ll be pretty sure to trigger some flags. Get enough people to do that and one of two things will happen: either you’ll swamp their system, or they’ll put a manual filter in place that says “Don’t trigger on things posted by TG_sunshine” (and others) so as to not swamp their system. Either one is useful; for example, the latter would mean that you can then have later conversations in real privacy.

                            1. If you read and trust anonymousconservative dot com, he says that if you come to the attention of Deep State/Cabal, there’s a whole lot of resources that can be applied on you. He thinks that some of the mysterious toxic chemical plant explosions were where DS server farms were snuck in. There might be more computing power around than people would be aware of*.

                               He says physical surveillance is also a factor, and did several Google Streetview articles where some peculiar behavior (but consistent with a team doing surveillance) appears. It seems certain areas (coastal ports, towns with a reputation for illicit drugs) watch the Streetview car verrrrrrry closely.

                               On avoiding some surveillance problems, NeonRevolt did an article a couple of years ago on Opsec for whistleblowers. Worth a read.

                               https://www.neonrevolt.com/2018/07/27/so-you-want-to-be-a-whistleblower-a-crash-course-in-opsec/

                               Oh, FWIW, Governor Kemp’s daughter’s boyfriend just died in a horrific auto accident just after the governor agreed to the signature audit. Hmmm.

                               (*) If it’s the case, it’s still not clear if it’s Black Hats (Nice joint you have there) covering up evidence or White Hats at war.

                            2. I’m sure we could come up with a half dozen words which would trip a filter. Of course I’m trying to avoid attracting notice of government enforcers because they play havoc with my blood pressure.

                      2. There’s a pieces of the elephant model that fits both claims.

                         Tech may well be severely challenged at panopticon. But it doesn’t matter if you are high profile enough to be worth spending manhours on directly. Manhours don’t scale so well when trying surveil your own population.

                         But if you work with the right sort of interesting information, you have to assume manhours will be spent to compromise it, regardless of how true that is.

                         1. This is true.
                            But…

                            You’re right. They’re facing a massive signal:noise issue.
                            We can spam the filter to make that issue worse.
                            But it’s a clever/stupid response.
                            They aren’t interested in the keywords themselves.
                            They’re interested in the people/nodes that use them.
                            And they’re especially interested in the people/nexuses that propagate the meme from one network to another.
                            Doing this is an invitation to map your networks.
                            Don’t.
                            Remember how we could track media connections by the use of the word “gravitas”? That’s what tech is really good at.
                            Remember that your network is insecure. Information can be injected into it, appearing to be from a trusted source, as a probe to map your network, or to compromise the members of the network. (Encrypted illegal files embedded in a jpg, for example..)

                      3. Our own Beautiful But Evil Space Princess hosts a Vignettes column (almost) every Sunday. How many ‘red-flag’ words and phrases can we work into little short fiction bits and post here?

                         1. LOL

                      4. And the same thing applies to internet comments, blog posts, e-mails, pretty much any sort of digital data, And then, of course, they have to figure out what to do with us all, without triggering a critical mass of people who figure out they have nothing to lose..

                         1. I read somewhere that the main thing keeping blood from flowing in the streets is the expectation by a lot of us that Trump will prevail and Joe Biden will not.

                            OTOH, riots after the inauguration are almost inevitable, no matter who takes the oath.

                            1. The organized left will be paid to riot against the conservatives and their property if Trump is inaguated.
                               If it is Biden, the left will do the same, as “retribution”.
                               Individuals on the right _may_ seek times and places where they can have an impact disparate from their inputs.
                               As for the “movers and shakers” being protected, it may come to pass that their “protectors” give it up as a bad idea. See, for example, Kratmans’ State of Disobedience.
                               The reaction of the Progs to the possible truckers’ strike shows how aware they are of the fragility of the system they mean to exploit.
                               John

                            2. And the left will do what they’ve done. Mostly, you know, destroy the cities they control.

                      5. I’ve long thought that he primary effect of such surveillance is after the fact. Once their attention is drawn to a target they can do a pretty good job of tracing the dots but they purely suck at connecting them until an event has happened.

                         We’ve seen too many instances of them failing to put two and two together (flight students saying they’re not interested in landing planes? Nothing to see here) until working backwards.
                         ~

                         1. Exactly this. Each individual may only get one bite, so make it a good one.

                      6. WordPress ate my comment on avoiding electronic surveillance. (If you get attention, the Deep State/Cabal can get a lot of resources to look into you.) To avoid getting that attention, here’s an article from 2018 that discusses ways to do so.

                         From NeonRevolt: (Do the obvious changes; WP ate it when it was intact.)

                         www dot neonrevolt dot com/2018/07/27/so-you-want-to-be-a-whistleblower-a-crash-course-in-opsec/

                2. THIS.

          2. Thus the Army of Davids. Do your thing, no coordination required

          3. Cells. Cells even work for commies. Two by two we go!

          4. And given their paranoia, the thing with encoded messages is that it might send them haring off after all sorts of innocent things.

    2. Do so more. I hadn’t heard that one, so I guess my trucker fans (A LOT OF THEM) haven’t heard.

       1. I’ve heard the word in a couple of states now. It doesn’t appear to be ubiquitous. That said, coupled with the ones that have flat out refused to go to certain democrat occupied territories, well… Might be something to it.

          Wait and see is what I’d advise. Also, preparing supplies in advance is never a bad thing. So if that’s what pushes people to grab a #10 can or sack of beans and rice, all to the good. I tend to think of it as a small patriotic duty. *grin*

          1. TheDonald.win has a some truckers. The one I remember was honest and said “Dude, they’re making $10,000 a week because of the situation with the ‘Rona. They can’t afford to strike just for a day. Others would just take their loads and go.”

             Because of what I read, I’m not hopeful that the truckers will be able to just stop for a day. With more time/organization we might could work something out with a bunch of industry stoppages. Truckers could join us then, too.

             1. Having had relatives in the Teamsters, I think that if enough truckers were interested in a strike, a leaderless version could be made to work.

                Note: I don’t know if the Teamsters’ PTB endorsed China Joe, but think they probably did. OTOH, the rank and file are probably a lot more conservative, though in a union shop, support from the union stewards for an unofficial strike would be helpful. I recall that the Teamsters can be quite, er, persuasive if they have a definite goal in mind.

                1. Yep. I agree with you.

                   I think the Teamsters may have actually endorsed POTUS. Lots of surprises this summer, and I can’t recall them all.

                   We have to try a work stoppage/strike. We’ll see what kind of turnout we get, then we’ll get better.

                2. Most truckers I deal with are independents or small lines, and not union at all. Those that are union are not die-hard-gonna-vote-the-union-line sorts at all, either. I’d not be surprised if most of the OTR guys were not union, by now. With all the added regs and lost time for work, there is a mahoosive shortage of drivers, so not much need to stick in a place, but also not a lot the Union can do for the drivers other than pull dues, as the regs too will keep someone off the road. They can’t keep you on if you cannot drive.
                   Add to it that the Union backed Pols are the ones who are now limiting the ability of the truckers and , well . . .
                   I’d be interested to know what percentage of Teamsters are actual truck drivers now-a-days and how much are not even trucking related (iirc some airline workers were under the Teamsters)

    3. Need not even be a uniform strike. Just a strike against blue metros would do. Say, for about a week?

       Indeed, they may discover they don’t really need those routes.

12. Hum. I understand why writers go through Amazon, lot of bookkeeping, tax collection/tracking almost impossible for an inde to do.

    However indie’s have a lot of “old” disks, CD, DVDs etc. taking up space. Could do an on-line garage sale; sell those old disks to make space in your work area, not the whole Darkship series that happens to be on them in epub format, buyer’s responsibility to erase for reuse, seller was simply selling old disk, not the content.

    Shucky darn, I’d consider buying that old disk for $6.99, even if it does have Monster Hunter Guardian on it.

    1. REACH. Seriously, that’s why go there. REACH beyond my fans.

13. an addendum to the “old” disk sales; of course the old disk is sold for less than the original cost, say maybe 25 cents.. The shipping and handling would run around $6.74 however.

14. “Not one Red Cent…”

    If it’s difficult for you, you’ve not been belittled enough by them. I’m already there- and trying to undermine their shaky circumstances. The media players have overplayed their hand in almost every form of entertainment- it should be rather EASY for you to say no by now. What do we do? Bankroll people like Sarah. Larry Corriea. Chris Kennedy Publishing. You know the drill by now and they’ve got mutual self interest going there- they’re wanting to make money and make the stuff we WANT to read by making good stories and not moralizing for the sake of the Agenda.

    1. If you think I haven’t been belittled enough, you haven’t read any of my posts about the publishing industry and the shower of shit brought by 20 years in it.
       I’m there too. The others…. well. Some still say “but he’s good, even if he is….
       We will also be launching anthos and collabs via inkstain publishing. Remember the name.

       1. Web presence yet? I’ve found one 404 and one cover studio. But my brain is fizzing with short stories all of a sudden, which is odd because I’ve NEVER felt the urge to write short stories.

          1. Not yet. We’re working on it.

    2. Don’t Give Money to People Who Hate You

       Includes some strategic notes on things you “just have to read/see/etc”.

       I’ve pretty much checked out of big company popular culture beyond a couple of authors. Yeah, I’m sure Nuclear Blast and Napalm Records go through the majors are some point, but I doubt Gloryhammer, Release the Archers, and so on pay the bills (see below about Megapacks…same theory).

       1. Ace of Spades had a post on cord cutting.

          http://acecomments.mu.nu/?post=369635

          1. I’ve been off cable for years. Netflix is mostly used by C and we don’t pay anyway as it comes with the cell phones.

             I did pay for Curiosity Stream, but now it comes with Scribd (along with Mobi if you’re into art films).

             Spotify is the big tie we still have to major media companies. That’s not going away anytime soon.

             1. One big note in the Ace piece is to get Pluto. It’s free (just needs an internet connection), and has tons of channels (including Newsmax). The only thing that you need to do is download and install the app for it.

       2. Alas, much as we’d all prefer NOT to give money to people who hate us, NOT paying taxes would be troublesome.

    3. Cost the Media Bad Guys money when you can’t find a better source: Block all their advertising.

       1. And if you MUST read a book by a commie, there’s always torrents 😉

          1. I had the same thought.

       2. To block Internet ads on your entire home network, buy a $35 Raspberry Pi (you might be able to get an older model for even cheaper) and follow the setup instructions for the https://pi-hole.net/ project. It will block ads at the network level, so any device connected to your home Wifi will get ad-free browsing, even a mobile phone where you aren’t able to install an ad blocker browser extension.

          You could even extend its block list, if you have a modicum of technical ability, to block things like the “Apple apps phone home” thing that Phantom blogged about back on November 13th.

          1. I use a VPN that has built in ad blocking, and works with the phones and the computers, and I can direct my router to use it as well (I don’t as it doesn’t play nicely with the Playstation.) Makes browsing on the phones much more pleasant.

          2. That’s a good idea. Also a good use for an old laptop, or an aging PC. But the Pi uses less power (around 8W peak).

             For more immediate use:

             a good HOSTS file: based on https://winhelp2002.mvps.org/hosts.htm
             NoScript (all javascript defaulted OFF) from noscript dot net
             Youtube Ad Blocker (found on Chrome store!)

             That’s what I do, and I almost never see ads. But since the home network keeps proliferating, I might have to do that Pi thing!

15. In my mid to late fifties I’m not as flexible and do not heal as fast. And I was tired.

    I understand that. For the first time, I feel over 50, have for about five weeks now.

    I don’t like it.

    That is despite me apparently healing faster than either expected or the average for my surgery/condition (not quite sure which).

    But it came at the price of being stuck away from home six weeks longer than planned and with my two major connections to regular life, work and Saturday disc golf (itself a post-shutdown substitute for other parts of life) gone.

    I feel disconnected from the world. I sometimes wonder if that has damped my anger over the theft. Nothing else is really real, why should election theft be?

    I bet a lot of you, by nature or training sheep dogs are feeling the same. We know what we are. We’re not good people. Frankly, we’d rather eat the flock, and be muzzle-deep in blood.

    But we or something in us knows better. something in us chose to harness the predator to defend the flock. It’s our flock.

    I think this might be where I part company with a lot of Huns.

    I know it’s wrong, but I’m not sure the “protect the flock” part ever took hold much beyond immediate family (and even there it has a mixed bag translating generations…my sister is easier to see as mine to defend than her kids…although that may involve certain family dynamics) and my cats.

    I know it is wrong because it makes life harder for me and mine to cut a swath through those who piss me off. It’s not just fear of retaliation or punishment. Something that starts at “if I create too many bodies there will be no one to help move them” and advances to “if I create too many bodies there is no one to play D&D with”.

    Which is why shutdown, which removed D&D and trivia and Vintage Computer Festivals and the mixed bag that is DragonCon and munches and the in theory possibility of a play date at the dungeon but left every damn thing that annoys me about people is so hard.

    It has also taken Sunday Liturgy, which reminds me what I aspire to in not doing wrong things (or at least containing the amount and types of wrong things I do…my faith and my sexuality have a…complex…yeah, that’s the word, complex relationship).

    So my two limiters: the communal sharing of the best aspirations of my soul (yes, I pray…I can tell you how many alternating Nicene Creeds and The Lord’s Prayer you can say from ICU to surgery at the Penn State U. Hospital in Hersey after all…you don’t learn those on the way to surgery…you need to have learned them beforehand) and the realization of how having people around can add to your life, are gone.

    I’ve commented here long enough the regulars know I have a strong nihilistic, burn it all down streak. House arrest has ramped it up and Theivin’ Joe and the County Ho have only made it worse.

    1. I also am starving for Sunday Liturgy. I am not a good person. I need all the help I CAN get.

       1. A big reason for the move from the Presbyterian faith of my youth through Catholicism to Eastern Orthodox was one question:

          “What if I discover I am not predestined to be among the Elect? If it was decided before I was born that I would be denied the presence of God, why should I strive to be Christ-like?”

          The problem with ideas like predestination and Election is they assume that people who believe them will find they are among those elected to be saved.

          1. I have friends who are Jehovah’s Witnesses, and I sometimes go to their big annual meetings with them, just friendly-like. They hold the belief that a literal 144,000 (per Revelations) as the Elect will go to heaven, and the rest will be left as stewards of the Earth (which frankly sounds a lot less boring). And it’s interesting to watch ’em during the Choosing of the Elect, or whatever they call the ritual where they pass around the wafers and wine (if you feel moved to partake of the body or blood, you’re of the Elect). Some appear curious, many solemnly restrained, and once in a while one seems to wish it could be so… but a few are more like “Let this cup pass from me!!” and can’t wait to be rid of it.

             Asked my friends about this, and hubby said he’d much rather stay here and shepherd the Earth, which seems to him like a more useful and fulfilling occupation for eternity than sitting around heaven; after all there’s nothing to prevent the Earth from knowing G0d’s presence.

             Myself, I’m more inclined to think what Revelations meant was “an uncountable number”.

             It occurs to me that politics functions as a Choosing of the Elect. Perhaps we should try wafers and wine instead of votes.

             1. so the fact that there will be 144,000 is literal, but that fact that they are described as Jews is not?

                “And I heard the number of them which were sealed: and there were sealed an hundred and forty and four thousand of all the tribes of the children of Israel.” Then going on to specify it was 12,000 from each tribe.

                (But yes, 12 and 10 are numbers of perfection and completion — so 12 times 12 times 10 times 10 times 10 is symbolic, most likely.)

                1. Pretty much. Literalism makes for strange religious beliefs, especially with figurative language.

                   1. Especially with figurative language which has undergone translation between languages.

          2. They don’t always. Some of them just assert outright that the very fact that you are capable of considering the question establishes that you are among the Elect.

             Then the little question arises of what about people who seem to be among the Elect and fall away. . . .

             1. And later in Revelations John talks about a huge crowd from all nations and peoples who have all been martyred and are asking God when He’s going to cut loose. (Last week I was reading Job and Revelations at the same time. Talk about uncomfortable reading).

                1. Advent has always been time to prepare for the coming of the Lord — and not just to celebrate the first.

          3. That fear can be a major goad towards good works, though.
             A lot of the time, we know the right thing to do. But it’s hard, rationalizing is easy, and despair is pervasive.
             The mindset simplifies matters and becomes a simple Y/N “Do I have faith?”, with the sunk cost fallacy headology applying a boot to your backside (If freewill exists. If it doesn’t, you’re just skipping an unnecessary internal monologue.)

       2. There’s reason the faithful need prayer and fellowship. Not saying it *has* to happen in church, but it can definitely help. Group bible study is worth doing, with the right group that is.

          Himself knows we’re broken, fallible people. That’s okay. It’s the striving to do right that makes us better folk. Not striving to do *good,* mind, but *right.* There’s a strong difference between the two, based on what I’ve seen in charities and “charity” over the years.

          1. There is a reason “do gooder” is an insult.

             1. The Coming Home Network’s YouTube channel has a fairly long video series (okay, it’s been going 31 weeks now) discussing basically why Catholics (and Orthodox, and other older forms of Christianity) have a fairly different concept of justification, sanctification, et al, than what the various Protestant groups do. The hosts used to be two different flavors of Protestant and are now Catholic, so they have a fairly in-depth view of what’s going on. Basically, the pre-Protestant view was more about becoming Christ-like as a process, not as something that happens in three minutes flat or with a few words.

                The series is called “A Damning System of Works-Righteousness”, in honor of what one Protestant said about the Catholic way of thinking about things. 🙂

                There’s also a big long discussion series with some different guys, about St. Irenaeus’ book “Against Heresies,” if you want that one. They spend a lot of time focusing on the positive parts of the book that explain early Christian teaching and the Gospels, so it’s about more than just early heresies and weirdness. And there are tons of other things.

                1. “Basically, the pre-Protestant view was more about becoming Christ-like as a process, not as something that happens in three minutes flat or with a few words.”

                   Sounds similar to LDS doctrine. Though since I’m not familiar with the pre-Protestant doctrines being discussed, I’m simply leave it at that. There might be things I’m not aware of that take the two in completely different directions.

                   1. I’d love to become more Christ-like.
                      Cast out demons.
                      Heal the sick, crippled, blind, diseased.
                      Bi-location.
                      Walk on water.
                      Turn water into wine.
                      Multiply food.
                      Survive 40 days in the desert without food or water.
                      Raise and speak with the dead.
                      Solicit enough donations for giving public speeches to support myself and a dozen other guys and their gals following me around the countryside.

                      1. If you meant to be insulting, it worked.

                         1. As a general rule of thumb around here, if you have to ask any insult was unintended.
                            ~

                            1. “If something I say can be taken more than one way, and one of them pisses you off, assume that’s not the one I meant.”

                            2. Yes.

                               Any insult is unintended here. I know this to be true, though I’ve only been here a short time.

                               I’m not operating at my best. And this morning my heart is aching because if I go to church I have to wear a slave diaper. I can’t breathe and it makes me feel panicked. Looking at the congregants in diapers feels like the zombie apocalypse. But I’m supposed to go, to connect…. It’s hideous.

                               So, it’s the discussions on Presbyterianism that can get under my skin. It doesn’t last, and I know people just need to talk.

                            3. Also, “If I mean to be insulting, there won’t be any doubt about it.”

                            4. A subtle Hun is as subtle as a brick to the side of the head; a typical Hun is subtle as a cinderblock in the face.
                               ~

                            5. Yes, exactly. 🙂

                            6. Thank you. My assumption is that any insult is unintended.

                               It’s the discussions that mock Presbyterianism in a lefty, childish way that can get under my skin. I’m learning to look the other way. People need to talk, and gnash on the issues.

                         2. I’m sorry you don’t appreciate my sense of humor.
                            My only excuse is that I was raised Catholic.

                      2. Multiplication of loaves, wine, stew, etc. is pretty common among people who give out food to the hungry. St. Catherine of Siena had a bottomless wine vat that lasted for about a year, and that was definitely one of her more popular miracles in Siena. But yeah, it seems to happen with folks of every Christian denomination, in every time including today, and often when people are too busy to notice that something physically impossible is occurring. And occurring. And occurring.

                         Turning water into wine seems to happen somewhat often, and generally in connection with multiplication. Blessed Jordan of Saxony notoriously did it with a host who didn’t really want him and a bunch of Dominicans hanging around, which made him a lot more popular with that homeowner

                         And so on….

                         But yeah… suffer, accept any necessary poverty, and become really holy so that your will and God’s will no longer conflict, and you too can make the physical laws of the universe act like they are just suggestions.

                         1. But yeah, it seems to happen with folks of every Christian denomination, in every time including today, and often when people are too busy to notice that something physically impossible is occurring. And occurring. And occurring.

                            That’d be an easy one to explain away as “I must have counted wrong.”

                            I JUST realized that turning water in to wine loses a lot of its impact in a time when water is assumed safe to drink. First-world, anyways.

                            1. I have ongoing angina ( I used to live in New Jersey, where it’s pronounced, “AH-gina”) with the, “You must understand, the correct translation should be, “unfermented grape juice,” because of COURSE Jesus would never do anything I disapprove of!” crowd.
                               It doesn’t seem to occur to them that in that case, the comment to the groom, “Most people serve the good stuff first, and bring out the poorer stuff later. But you have saved the best for last,” makes no sense.

                            2. Hey, Jesus making grape juice that didn’t ferment really bleepin’ quick without pasteurization WOULD be a miracle! 😀

                         2. My favorite is the multiplication of ice cream.

                2. I’ll have to look at that.

                   The concept of salvation as a life long journey as opposed to an instantaneous event (which supposedly happened and left me…unchanged then disparing) is a big part of it.

                   I’m sure neither is 100% correct as they are mind’s understanding of God’s will, but the journey view seems more compasionate. Still, it must have broken down six centuries or so ago. I suspect that journey seemed to often to be that Hawthorn described in The Celestial Railroad.

       3. Anyone who says that they’re a good person, usually isn’t.

    2. There’s a good reason the left/communists attack religion. It provides solace and grounding and other good things to people. They don’t want us to have that.

       1. Then they came for Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot… and now Perry Mason.

          They intend to leave you with *nothing*.

          1. Everything for the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state

       2. Religion also provides an ultimate authority for people to turn to aside from the State.

          1. Their religion is the State and they will tolerate no doctrine which claims higher claim on people’s moralities. A church is not simply a building in which people convene, it is a community that provides a place and offers grace. It is a haven from the ephemeral secular and thus s a pace wherein the State may not enter.

             Look at the ways the CCP is revising Catholic writ, look at how the Left selects those biblical verses which (seem to) advance its agenda and ignores those they see as conflicting.
             ~

             1. One and the same leftist will accuse people of being theocrats for adhering to their religion and hypocrites for not adhering to his warped to the point of insanity interpretation of a verse.

                1. Recently demonstrated by Leftist criticism of Amy Coney Barrett for a) religious extremism in opposing government closure of churches and b)) for refusing to uphold Catholic principles (as defined by folks who’ve likely never taken Communion) in a death penalty case.

                   Because Leftist consistency is only observable in their desire to employ ALL power structures – secular or religious – to advance their values and impose them on the public.
                   ~

             2. Or look at the gay marriage thing.
                I was a vocal supporter of civil unions on freedom of association and freedom of contract grounds.
                Who instantly became a denounced bigot for saying that marriage is a sacrament beyond the State’s power to grant.
                (Followed remarkably quickly by my becoming a secular heretic for saying the Supreme Court has the right and ability to refuse to apply a law. But may not issue an edict and expect to have every level of government bow in supplication. It turned out, to my horror, that they evidently can. At least insofar as they’re attacking federalism and limitations on governmental power.)

16. Be the Uber Karen

    Driving to PT I keep going by a house with one of those pre-printed virtue signalling signs.

    They have a huge amount of Christmas lights. I have been tempted to leave a nasty note about them ruining the climate for pretty lights.

    1. DO IT.

    2. Send them a letter instead. Make it officious and shirty. Mention potential monetary “assessments” or unspecified retribution And, oh, you might be creative in implying who it came from.

       Don’t handle the paper or envelope with your bare hands, or lick the stamp. And drop it in a box outside your usual haunts. You know the drill.

       1. Are you sure you weren’t Code Enforcement in your evil twin’s life? 😀

          1. An old and now dated book on this subject is “Get Even” by George Hyaduke. Has some interesting ideas.
             John

             1. Wouldya look what I found!

                archive DOT org/details/Hayduke_George_Make_em_Pay_Ultimate_Revenge_Techniques_Paladin_Press

                archive DOT org/details/Hayduke_George_Getting_Even_Paladin_Press

             2. Oh geez, there’s a bunch. That’s one prolific curmudgeon!

                https://archive.org/search.php?query=george+hayduke

       2. https://twitchy.com/brettt-3136/2020/12/07/neighbor-sends-anonymous-letter-shaming-a-resident-for-the-harmful-impact-of-their-christmas-lights/

17. 5- NOT ONE red cent

    In terms of Amazon and reading material:

    1. Only read indies whose alignment you know. They have insisted the personal is political, so stick to the openly right of center authors. As of November 3, staying quiet, not to offend fans, went out the window. I don’t like that, but the lefties decided “live and let live and play by the rules” was just too damn hard.

    2. There are huge collections of dead writers for $0.99/$1.99/$2.99 under names like “The $FOO Megapack” and similar. For us slower readers, there is a lifetime of reading there. Sure, the literary agencies selling them are probably run by progtards, but they aren’t eating on $0.99 megapacks. Those are long tails that pay for the ten-piece shrimp cocktail instead of the six. If they are selling the $14.99 Tor ebooks, there aren’t enough royalties for shrimp cocktails, and the megapack is just buying them shrimp flavored ramen.

    3. Have an author you have to follow? Hardcopy only and used only. Even Jim will have to deal with this (although if he has PayPal, I’d send him a couple of bucks, but I don’t want the big publisher who owns the imprint he’s on to see a dime).

    1. Also, check authors site for links or even better diy sales. Toss em every copper

       1. And Guttenberg

    2. I’m trying to avoid trad publishing, though some people (Larry in particular) seem to be staying with Baen. I’m finding a lot of good material via indy. One mystery series has a lead character throwing a few pennies to the Woke Brigade, but in general the author’s politics are fairly well hidden. One could guess, but it’s subtle enough to live with. (Piper Blackwell mystery series, by Jean Rabe.) The money’s was spent a while ago.

       OldNFO just published a novelette that has some bearing on the current situation. Seee oldnfo dot org for the ‘zon link. The teaser snippet was quite good, and I’ll read it as soon as I finish the somewhat interrupted current read. Also picked up the anthology the Beautiful but Evil Space Princess had a hand in. That’ll be right after. Sure glad my to-be-read stack can be shuffled at a moment’s notice.

       The Mil-SF and related thriller genre has a bunch of good authors right now. Kurt Schlichter and Peter Nealen are a couple of good ones, both indy. PN has a few series going; I got hooked on the Maelstrom series, and have picked up American Praetorians.

    3. Have an author you have to follow? Hardcopy only and used only. Even Jim will have to deal with this (although if he has PayPal, I’d send him a couple of bucks, but I don’t want the big publisher who owns the imprint he’s on to see a dime).

       This. Pick up the hardcopy at a thrift store, or at a place like Half-Price Books if you can’t find it at a thrift store (which almost never alphabetize their books, but that’s the price you pay for $1 per hardback and $0.50 per paperback prices). Then mail the author a check for $20 with an explanation of why the check is arriving. (“I bought a bunch of your books used at a thrift store, and I know you didn’t receive royalties for them, so here’s a check for a little more than you would have made in royalties from those books. Don’t worry, I’ve also sent $PUBLISHER what they’re owed, too, so you don’t have to do anything there.”) And to make that last statement a true one, send a letter to $PUBLISHER saying “I bought a bunch of $AUTHOR’s books, which you publish, used at a thrift store, and I know you didn’t receive royalties for them. HA-HA!!!” (Last phrase to be read in Nelson Muntz’s voice).

18. At least some of what you’ve described is what we’ve heard about Alinsky’s rules. “Make the enemy play by his own rules.”

19. c4c

20. Being an Uber Karen is something that you need to be careful with. The leaked messages from the tech companies revealed that the conservatives were successfully doing this with things like pronouns. It’s not clear what the end result of that will be. But at the time it looked like the progs were about to go hypocrite, using the rationale that any use against them was mocking the importance of pronouns. And since those same progs were the ones deciding who was and was not cis-het scum…

    Or in other words, don’t automatically assume that acting woker than thou will automatically avoid problems. The Karens can and will go full hypocrite.

    Just like CNN.

21. I live in the belly of the beast and my neighbors simply assume I’m one of them.. The sad thing is that I’m in a position to prosper from their stupidity and I’ve found myself tending toward cynicism rather than hope. Let it burn and all that. For the rest, Irish democracy — they get nothing voluntarily from me.

22. I love how you think!

23. I”M IN. this is going out to my email list of 70+, all tea party people to start with, and on my blog. At last something we can do, some sort of plan. Many of my group are elderly but a lot of them are boomers. they are still able bodied and ready to roll.
    Thank you for adopting my country and becoming its daughter in law. We needed you.
    aka Ruth H

24. Pingback: Spreading a message | Dio's Workshop

25. I bet a lot of you, by nature or training sheep dogs are feeling the same. We know what we are. We’re not good people. Frankly, we’d rather eat the flock, and be muzzle-deep in blood.

    But we or something in us knows better. Something in us chose to harness the predator to defend the flock. It’s our flock. And though the predator still howls for blood, it’s wolf blood.

    And we’ve been tearing ourselves apart since the lockdown happened, because we sensed the wolves rounding in that move. We sensed the threat to the flock. But we had no idea how to fix it, how to protect “ours.”

    Here’s where, and why, we absolutely must police our own. Because the only thing WORSE for the flock is a feral sheepdog. (See Bob, Son of Battle for an exemplar story here.) One whom the sheep trust and follow, who turns and devours them.

    It’s been known for ages that dogs and wolves are cousins, even interbreedable. The first dogs were almost certainly bred from wolves and the like. But the one Fixed Point of distinction between a sheepdog and a wolf (and feral sheepdogs are a kind of wolf, here), is that wolves serve themselves and their own pack. A sheepdog, whether consciously or by proxies, serves the Shepherd.

26. SHUT UP AND BELIEVE YOU DRUMPHTARDS!!!

    https://www.buzzfeednews.com/amphtml/paulmcleod/republicans-will-not-say-biden-beat-trump-election

    1. Demoralizing, gaslighting, and multiple big lies all in one short article!

    2. Ehm ……

       No.

       Tiocfaidh ár lá!

27. Quick comment here – I’m working my way through this book, which is both very cool and very sobering.

    Note, this book mostly covers about 100 BC- 100AD. And yet anyone here will recognize Chinese strategies and deliberate economic ruin of other nations.

    Yes. China has made it their priority to undermine and enslave countries through economically owning their elites for thousands of years.

    1. And mostly what they’ve managed is to mire themselves and those they control in hell. FOREVER.

       1. *Shudders* Having read Hungry Ghosts… yeah. So much. Augh.

          1. Yeah. Me too.

          2. What is Hungry Ghosts?

             1. Probably Becker’s Hungry Ghosts, an account of the Great Leap Forward.

                My particular mythos tome experience was Chung and Halliday’s Mao: The Unknown Story. TXRed has read a bunch of books by specialist in the topic, but I forget the titles, or how to spell Frank’s last name. Ditkoffer?

                Summarizing, Mao was a very evil man, the knowledge has shaped my foreign policy thinking and feeling, and you probably don’t want to spend the SAN right now.

                1. Anybody able to offer evaluations of Frank Dikötter’s books on the Mao’s reign of terror:

                   0 The Tragedy of Liberation: A History of the Chinese Revolution 1945-1957
                   0 Mao’s Great Famine: The History of China’s Most Devastating Catastrophe, 1958-62
                   0 The Cultural Revolution: A People’s History, 1962―1976

                   The Daughtorial Unit has them on her Solstice wish list and I’d appreciate any informed comments on them.

                   She’s long since read The Black Book Of Communism, development of the Third Reich and similar tomes, loves Stan Lem and I’m not concerned about reading level, just whether these books will provide what she ought know. I’ve suggested she try the first book but have no problem getting them all if they come well-recommended.
                   ~

                   1. TXRed thinks they are quality books, and very difficult reading. Emotional sense, not so much technical difficultly I think. I’m sure your daughter would be up to the technical difficultly.

                      I was an adult when I read Chung and Halliday, and the emotional costs probably had a lasting impact on me. Took me from ‘secret police should not be murdering people’ to ‘it can be just, if they are trying to kill communists’. TXRed has said that Dikoffer is a similar experience to Chung and Halliday.

                      I’m definitely not well enough that I would read these books now, unless it was of overwhelming importance.

             2. Warning, mentions all kinds of unpleasantness people did to survive, including cannibalism. Which was common.

                1. NOT light reading

                   1. No. Not at all. I wouldn’t recommend it if you’re already feeling down and morbid – what people were willing to do in the name of going along makes you reel.

                2. Thank you. I might have wait until I’m feeling better for something like that.

                   1. I wouldn’t read it right now, no. I’m glum enough as-is.

    2. I follow Dr. McLaughlin on Youtube… keep meaning to buy those books that can be had at less than a small fortune (academic publishing, bah) … interesting point. A vid or two back we got to discussing how all this trade with the East was sucking the gold and silver out of Rome, and how that contributed to debasing the currency and other declines. But one’s first thought isn’t that it was China-deliberate, but Rome-foolish.

       Then again, it wouldn’t be the first time a canny enemy has cultivated expensive tastes in an opponent, for the purpose of financially ruining ’em.

       1. “Embrace the power of ‘And”.” Rome status games and Chinese plotting.

       2. Interesting that I ran across the twitter thread bragging that China is the third oldest civilization. (Weak argument, but shows the logic.)

28. “We’re not good people. Frankly, we’d rather eat the flock, and be muzzle-deep in blood.

    But we or something in us knows better. Something in us chose to harness the predator to defend the flock. It’s our flock. And though the predator still howls for blood, it’s wolf blood.

    My dreams have been turning more violent again lately. Typically this means that I’m not getting enough exercise. While I haven’t been getting much exercise lately I think this time around it’s something else. Because there is a common theme in them rather than just random stuff. It’s all about watching our republic die before our eyes and the ensuing civil war. I fear that once things kick off, I will not only join in, but revel in the release. That scares me almost as much as the death of the republic, because I’ve spent the last 40 years keeping myself under strict control ever since I got into a playground fight with a friend and was singlemindedly trying to bash his head in. It was a blood rage, with the only thing going through my mind was “I must kill him” and it was over something incredibly minor and stupid. But after our other friends pulled me off and I came to my senses I knew I didn’t want to be like that again. This is getting to the point where I feel like I might be pushed to losing control again, and I find it scary.

    1. I’ll be honest, I fall to other end of spectrum. I took day after the steal for sick time. I caught myself setting up electronic Deadman switch and writing will.

       Honestly yours is better path for the benefit everyone else but I couldn’t unless threatened.

       1. There were plenty of people who fought the Nazis and other enemies by being kind gentle people… who kept their eyes open… who rescued people… who snuck around and were never suspected. Because they were so kind and gentle.

          You know who did a lot of American spying in the American Revolution? Quakers. Often lady Quakers. Often by having really delicious food and being good hostesses.

          1. You miss one very important detail. You can’t rescue people unless you have someplace for them to go. America is the last place for a free, conservative republic to exist in this world. All others exist only at the whim of the other socialist/totalitarian world regimes.

             1. Without the US nuclear umbrella and effective navies and air forces, how long before the CCP decides they want to conquer Australia and New Zealand? They will have no qualms about strip mining the continent to take what they want in the way of raw materials.

                1. CCP decides they want to conquer Australia and New Zealand? They will have no qualms about strip mining the continent to take what they want in the way of raw materials.

                   –
                   Like Africa now? What is stopping them from slavery genocide, as they strip mine, now? The worst North American Racist doesn’t even come close to the Chinese Asians view of African native which they hold in esteem slightly lower than Europeans, IF they can tell any of us apart.

                   1. As I recall, the CCP handling of Africans at the onset of the Wuhuflu was a marvel of sensitivity, consideration and kindness. Why, they didn’t even perform DNA analysis on them, checking suitability for organ transplants
                      ~

                   2. Anyone who’s not had the fun of working around Chinese people doesn’t know they consider every other ethnicity to be subhuman. Really, SUBhuman. And they don’t pretend, either.

                      They have Chinese school on the weekends, they live in Chinese communities, they use Chinese doctors, real estate agents, bankers, clinicians. They refuse to associate with those they consider subhuman. Except when they have to at work. They are not unkind, necessarily, they just think everyone but them is a slug-turd.

                      It makes it easier when you talk about cutting off from China, and destroying anything remaining that’s a threat. They are in it to win it, and that means killing or subjugating every other nation’s citizens.

                      I’ve worked with them. I’ve asked them. I asked once “If we got into a war with China, on which side would you fight?” Guess which lie they told?

                      1. Now you’ve got me hankering to read some Remo Williams and wallow in the chauvinistic charms of Master Chiun.
                         –

                         1. And I love the TV series “Kung Fu” to this day.

                            You’ll have to educate me on your choices, I haven’t heard of either one.

                            1. Chiun, master of Shinanju, world’s greatest assassin and mentor of (the “pathetically incompetent”) Remo Williams, is the last living master of Sinanju

                               Sinanju is a fictional Korean martial art of the cult paperback book series The Destroyer, by Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir. The Destroyer series lampoons politicians, politics, and other adventure novels, and features gory violence on evildoers, martial art adventures and more.
                               Wikipedia

                               is full of contempt for all things non-Korean.

                               ~

                            2. Thank you! I’ll have a bowl of bibimbap in your honor. Which sounds good right now, anyhow.

                         2. I’ve still got some of those old The Destroyer books around somewhere. Those and The Executioner with Mack Bolan. That was a loooong time ago.

                            1. Both series are available on Kindle.

          2. Yes. Love really does “win”.

             For encouragement, read about the village of Le Chambon in WW II: https://www.facinghistory.org/holocaust-and-human-behavior/chapter-9/le-chambon-village-takes-stand

    2. You’re not alone!

    3. I, too, have a lot of violent ideations lately. It’s been getting heavier since November 3rd.

       Because of working through a ton of trauma and PTSD, I understand that I can be really, really violent with virtually no warning. I’ll kill someone before I’ll think about it, given the right provocation. The theft of my nation has provoked me.

       My capacity for violence is something I honor, and thank God for it. It used to scare me because I didn’t understand it.

       We will need the violence before the ship is completely righted and sailing well. I’m glad, not for your dreams, but for your capacity.

    4. Berserker. Know it well. It’s akin to a flow state, where the entire mind and body are subsumed in a total fight mode. Control is uncertain, even with decades of marital arts training. Most of us just choose to avoid it by walking away from fights that while for many, we probably should have confronted them, we weren’t willing to put up with the aftermath. There’s a reason why Ender Wiggin resonates with us.
       “Why did you keep beating him when he was down and you’d already won?”
       “Because winning one wasn’t the goal. I needed to win all the future battles too.”

29. I will work and pray.

30. The Eyes don’t Lie.

    

31. Several questions.

    Is anyone else getting the impression that the Chinese vaccine may be intended as part of genocide directed against third world populations?

    If communist master stroke, why wasn’t Bernie an acceptable alternative? Is this a failed ‘boil the frog slowly’?

    Does anyone believe this thing pitched domestically in the PRC that Jinping Xi thought results in excellent technical management?

    What is the deal with Iran? What is being forecast there by Russia and by China?

    This situation seems a bit worse, a bit more immediate, than what I have been expecting. I’m not sure that the answers I found for my forecasts are invalid. a) Totalitarian government will fuck up tech worse than free peoples b) guerilla education.

    1. “If communist master stroke, why wasn’t Bernie an acceptable alternative? Is this a failed ‘boil the frog slowly’?”

       More like Bernie actually believes in socialism, and he would take it all the way. Mainline Democrats like the control parts of the socialism, while keeping the “makes money” part of capitalism so they can steal it.

       1. One possible explanation is that the actual PRC proxies couldn’t stand him profiting at their expense. Another is that Bernie is too much a Russian tool. A third is that they don’t think he has the necessary infighting chops.

          1. Bernie believes in National Socialism, so he would make the United States more independent, bringing manufacturing back to the contiguous forty-eight. He would also take steps to limit capital flight, thus making the US financial markets less convenient as kleptocrat piggy bank.
             ~

       2. Or, in other words, they are fascists.

          Unfortunately, people tend to forget the economic side of it.

    2. I don’t know, but there is some really, really, so over the top stuff out I wonder if they’re there simply to discredit the other theories, and they tend to be vaccine theories. Like the one that claims Bill Gates mot only wants to use vaccines to sterilze the world but the vaccines will include nanobots to subvert human will and link people to AIs which will then control them.

    3. It wouldn’t be directed at 3W populations, but 1W populations. Bolsheviks killed people who could read, Pol Pot killed everyone he could old enough to have learned the habits of humanity. People aren’t a problem for Leftists/globalists, they conceive of people as computers that can be loaded with programs. Ideas and culture are the real concern, and wiping out the carriers of those ideas and culture more important.

       I think the thing holding back the globalists is developing a cheap vaccine that can stave off ebola-level infections. If they get ahold of that, we’ll see a real plague. For now, Covid works because globalists (effectively) control all public discourse and can use it as an excuse to do everything from rearranging the economy to dictating the results of elections. It can’t last though, people will eventually realize that Covid is not what the elite say it is — more of that pesky culture that gives people the right to examine information, make decisions for themselves, and question their betters.

       1. They are actually wrong, you know. Their software doesn’t run in our hardware. BUT they’re convinced next time they’ll get it right.

          1. Amen. Their software doesn’t run on * anyone’s * hardware, at least for a long enough time. Human nature was the boomerang that killed the Commie Kangaroo, or something like that. I wonder if that’s why they;re so interested in “transhumanism.” Less room for the boomerang to turn inside Florence ADX, and maybe they think they can short-circuit humanity itself …

             1. If a boy fires off a gun, whether at a fox, a landlord or a reigning sovereign, he will be rebuked according to the relative value of these objects. But if he fires off a gun for the first time it is very likely that he will not expect the recoil, or know what a heavy knock it can give him. He may go blazing away through life at these and similar objects in the landscape; but he will be less and less surprised by the recoil; that is, by the reaction. He may even dissuade his little sister of six from firing off one of the heavy rifles designed for the destruction of elephants; and will thus have the appearance of being himself a reactionary. Very much the same principle applies to firing off the big guns of revolution. It is not a man’s ideals that change; it is not his Utopia that is altered; the cynic who says, “You will forget all that moonshine of idealism when you are older,” says the exact opposite of the truth. The doubts that come with age are not about the ideal, but about the real. And one of the things that are undoubtedly real is reaction: that is, the practical probability of some reversal of direction, and of our partially succeeding in doing the opposite of what we mean to do. What experience does teach us is this: that there is something in the make-up and mechanism of mankind, whereby the result of action upon it is often unexpected, and almost always more complicated than we expect.

                — G.K. Chesterton

                1. Mary,

                   I’m flummoxed by how disturbing or reassuring the GKC quote is.

    4. I can provide an explanation for Iran. It’s anyone’s guess, of course, whether it’s the right one. But it’s one that makes sense.

       One vision for a post-US world order involves removing the US’s status as sole world hyper-power, and replacing it with a number of regional powers. Each part of the world will have its own regional power who will be responsible for maintaining order within that region. According to what I’ve heard about this vision, Iran is the designated regional power for the Middle East. And since Iran is pretty much a poor failed state right now, the country needs to be lifted up before it can take its place as a regional power. That means lifting the sanctions, and giving them a way to guarantee power over their neighbors (nuclear weapons).

       Before anyone starts pointing out that the Persians and the Arabs hate each other, there are a couple of things to keep in mind.

       1.) It’s questionable how much attention the globalists pay to that sort of thing. They may view it as less serious than they probably ought to.
       2.) Arab states fail. Period. There’s something about Arab culture that makes it difficult to get a functional working state up and running over the long-term. It’s quite likely that the only reason that *any* of them work right now is due to oil money, and that won’t last forever. Persia, on the other hand, has in the past been a successful civilization that’s successfully challenged the world powers of the times. The Achaemenid(sp?) Dynasty conquered the Babylonians. The Sassanid Dynasty successfully held off the Romans (to the point that there are even rumors that they captured a Roman legion, and recruited the survivors to watch their eastern border where they’d be both useful, and unable to support subsequent Roman attacks), and then frequently went back and forth with the Eastern Romans after the empire was split. In other words, the Persians have the culture to run a successful state. The Arabs do not. Presumably the Turks are far enough away that they either don’t count, or are ignored.

       1. Or a proxy to control the mideast.

          I think what I’m most curious about is what role Iran is meant to play in Chinese and Russian game plans for future nuclear wars.

       2. > There’s something about Arab culture that makes it difficult to get a functional working state up and running over the long-term.

          It’s called “Islam.”

          I remember when Iran was quite a nice place by Middle Eastern standards, rapidly modernizing and aligning itself with European commerce. And then the Revenge of the Imams turned the clock back a century or so…

          1. Iran and Turkey have had Islam for a long time, as well. And yet, they’ve both managed to create long-lasting states while under the influence of that religion (though Iran’s post-Islamic invasion states were never as powerful as the pre-Islam states). In fact, the Ottoman Empire was considered one of the great powers of Europe right up until the end of World War I. There’s something about Arab culture *in particular* that is counter to the ability to build up a long-lasting state.

             1. Evergreen: Why Arabs Lose Wars

                https://www.meforum.org/441/why-arabs-lose-wars

                1. I had an entire book on that topic (Arabs at War – it’s post-WW2 to Gulf War I). Unfortunately, the person I loaned it to died unexpectedly. I was supposed to get it back anyway from his family, but then the shut downs wrecked that possibility (there are additional factors at play that I’m not mentioning).

             2. They didn’t take it very seriously until recently.

             3. Well….. Yes and no. After WWI, Kemal Ataturk basically instituted a non-Islamic government by making the military a non-Islamic institution that overthrew and shot any Islam focussed government. That state of affairs lasted until Erdogan. The Pahalavis performed a similar function in Iran.

          2. THIS.
             The Middle East was a center of culture under Rome. Then Islam hit it. Like a freight train.

       3. The persians haven’t been the same since they got Islam, though.

          1. No, they haven’t. There were follow-up Persian kingdoms. But they never again dominated the region like the pre-Islamic Persians did. They still managed to do better than the Arabs. But I don’t know how much of what followed was the result of lingering Zoroastrianism (my understanding is that some of the follow-up kingdoms brought it back as a state religion), non-religious cultural differences with the Arabs, and the arrival of the Seljuks and Mongols. In particular, I don’t know whether the arrival of the latter two groups kept the Persians from once again becoming powerful enough to dominate the region.

             1. A lot are crypto zoroastrians.

                1. And there are not so crypto Zoroastrians out of India, I understand.

                   1. The Parsees, whose name means “Persian”.

       4. Arab states fail. Period. There’s something about Arab culture that makes it difficult to get a functional working state up and running over the long-term.

          It’s tribalism.

          They fail harder the less you can trust people who don’t share a living ancestor with you.

          Islam codified a lot of the tribal BS– and added a socially acceptable reason, Inshallah, to not bother to do the hard work involved in building a society. The whole thing about countries being great when old men plant trees in whose shade they shall never rest? Yeah, the opposite of that…..

          1. Caecilius Statius: Serit arbores, quae saeclo prosint alteri. (Synephebi, quoted in Cicero’s De Senectute)

             https://www.roger-pearse.com/weblog/2017/08/26/a-society-grows-great-when-old-men-plant-trees-in-whose-shade-they-know-they-shall-never-sit-an-ancient-greek-proverb/

32. “But the fourth box is not the only box. And if used, it catapults us into a completely different world.”

    They’re almost surely ready for this, looking to follow the playbook used after the Murrah Building bombing. They’ve got their “reliable” troops set to stomp, hard, on white supremacist terrorists. So let’s not go off halfcocked, let’s not go to war, in the words of James Longstreet, with one boot on.

    Ours is a battle of subversion, of engineering the public mood to prepare it for uprising. That takes time and patience. Re-read Sixth Column, re-read Wasp.

    Then get provocative.
    –

    1. If you don’t have a copy of Bracken’s “What I saw at the Coup”, you should. The resources to guard one building are easily mustered. Guarding every bureaucrat / reporter / etc. 24/7/365 is lots harder.

       1. THIS that story is excellent I’d say it’s our best case scenario.

       2. Bracken’s “What I saw at the coup” is almost a how-to book.

33. Side note for those who haven’t heard, we lost Dr. Walter E. Williams this week… the economist who was even better than Dr. Sowell.

    http://jewishworldreview.com/cols/sowell120320.php3

    1. That’s a damned shame. I learned lot from reading his articles.

34. The hearings are so "pointless"… so "not resonating"… that the day after each one wraps up… there's always a fresh crop of astroturfed pro-Biden Twitter hashtags to cover up the aftermath. pic.twitter.com/ps1vggluBq

    — RazörFist (@RAZ0RFIST) December 4, 2020

35. Nasty thought (thanks, Bob!): how much mischief would a serious attack on the US “by an unknown force,” do given the current political situation?

    1. That theory probably falls into the mistake category of assuming omnipotence.

       It seems pretty clear that there was a central human intent behind the events of the alleged fraud.

       What kind of planning might have that human intent carried out? They obviously had a plan for their preferred outcome, outcome A. And they may have had a plan for the foreseeable outcome that they would not prefer, outcome B.

       B is basically an outright Trump win that is not credibly in contest. A, clearly they only had ready a plan for a level of known irregularity that they could simply gaslight everyone through the resulting process. Attacks would have invited scrutiny that they didn’t want. B plan was probably a simple continuation of what had gone before.

       So while it is something that could advantage them in these circumstances, perhaps only if they have things planned well enough that it doesn’t backfire. One month, or less, might not have been enough time to set that up.

       1. I was thinking more of Iran or other non-American actor.

          1. I was thinking PRC, cause the Dems are not up to it working from American resources.

             One would need something that could credibly be pinned on Trump, otherwise it could backfire and empower Trump.

             I think if Iran had a method of attack, they don’t have the ability to refrain from using it.

             1. My own take on Iran is they are at least as likely to nuke France or Germany as they are to go for Israel or the U.S. Given those states want to trade with them, it would be easier to smuggle in a nuke. Very much the, “You knew I was a snake when you picked me up.”

36. I was at the town Republican Committee meeting Wednesday, somehow forgot that rule I learned in the military about never volunteering for anything, and found myself throwing my hat in the ring to be a county committee member. And I’m like saying to myself, WTF am I doing? I’m a worker bee at heart; while I can do it, and proved I could do it for decades in the military, I hate being responsible for other people.

    1. But we need it now.

    2. You can do it! And heck, a lot of people would be worse, like any RINO.

37. A to do list! Thank you!

38. Unrelated:

    https://rushbabe49.com/2020/12/04/antifa-terrorists-sabotage-washington-state-train-tracks/

    (Will actually read later, but kicking alligators that are getting a little deep…via slaughtering things on my Roegadin Marauder with my dear husband.)

    1. Li’l Marxist girls up north of here in Bellingham decided they wanted to commit a felony. Let’s put a shunt on the train, causing it to crash because it circumvents a safety feature in the tracks.

       Li’l Marxist girls got caught. Li’l Marxists gonna go to jail and get pounded by that big, black bull dagger. Who is on a life sentence.

       1. From https://www.justice.gov/usao-wdwa/pr/pair-charged-interfering-safety-railroad-tracks :

          “Since January there have been 41 incidents of shunts placed on the BNSF tracks in Whatcom and Skagit counties—causing crossing guards to malfunction, interfering with automatic braking systems, and, in one case, causing the near-derailment of tanks of hazardous chemicals,” said U.S. Attorney Moran.

          1. These girls, and in this area, brag about such when they come to work. This sort of thing is discussed openly in break rooms throughout the Pacific NW.

             Similar attitude, brought closer to home: walking yesterday. Three times saw neighbor in far distance. As soon as neighbor saw me in distance, neighbor RIPPED a slave diaper out of its pocket, slapped its muzzle onto its face, then continued its power walk. The last time was a boy in his 40s. This boy tried to push me into the road to walk, because it had a slave diaper on and I did not. I looked it in the eye and said “I am not walking in the ditch.”

             These people will eat your grandchildren for breakfast.

39. Gradualism is not going to work. Look at China or Cuba for instance. Decades later they are still in total control. What is needed is an armed, violent revolution from all those Americans who have bought so many arms and ammunition. It is time to use them or die as serfs or get on the box cars to comply with the dictators.

    1. On the other hand, the communists are *not* in charge in Poland. And that change didn’t happen at the barrel of a gun.

       If the guns come out, then there’s a good chance that the US as the Founders envisioned it is dead. Even if the current corrupt crop is overthrown, there’s still a good chance that you’ll merely replace it with an American Franco. Or worse, an American Napoleon. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t points at which the guns should come out. But you’d better be VERY sure that there aren’t other options that are still viable – for instance, the current legal challenges by the Trump campaign.

       1. We will know in days. If the system goes against patriotic Americans, then it is time. The Left has won so much with intimidation and violence, it will be time to take the blinders off and fight fire with fire.

          1. Dear Lord.
             Do you know which way the army falls? The police? are you prepared for an insurrection lasting CENTURIES? And what will happen to us and the world in the interim?
             CWII might mean as much the death of civilization as a commie win. It probably WILL.
             Unless you’re facing “we’re lost either way” it’s not time. You’re thinking marching to the sounds of fifes, flags flying.
             THAT’s not how any of this works.
             Sure, there are worse things than war, and there might be a time for that word.
             HOWEVER you should DEFINITELY tell your FBI boss that trying to provoke my people is a no-sale. Okay?

             1. Do you figure he’s a Fibbie or a Chicom?

                1. Is there a difference these days?
                   And honestly, they’re everywhere, in every conservative blog: “If you had any balls, you’d be shooting.” “You’re a slave.” etc.
                   Look, it MIGHT come to that, but we really need battlespace prep before that — and it might work without that. Because we’re still the majority — because ALL our institutions are corrupted.
                   It’s that sudden flocking that makes me sure this is a planned thing.

                   1. “It’s that sudden flocking that makes me sure this is a planned thing.”

                      Yes.

                3. Seems like a distinction without a difference.

             2. LARPing. Is there anything its players won’t say.

       2. That is only because the Soviets were over-extended (by fighting Jihadists in Afghanistan of all things) and simply didn’t have the resources and wherewithal to send enough military into Poland to put down the revolt against communist rule. Additionally they had to make sure their reaction didn’t cause it to spread even more through the eastern bloc. Their hope was that the Polish Communists Party could put it down.

          Also note that the revolts against communist rule in Eastern Europe were very actively supported by President Reagan. Prime Minister Thatcher and Pope John Paul II (who himself was Polish and thus was especially inspirational to those seeking to break the shackles of communist serfdom).

          1. Well then, let us take that lesson, and make our domestic communists fight on more fronts than they can handle.

          2. The Soviets had enough troops that they could have pulled some in from elsewhere in their sphere and used them to crush the Poles if they’d wanted, even with the on-going conflict in Afghanistan. The Soviets never had more than 115,000 men in Afghanistan at any one time. If they’d wanted to pull the Polish version of the Prague Spring, I’m sure that they could have scrounged up the needed troops, particularly given that Solidarity lasted for around ten years before the Polish Communist government finally fell.

             1. Indeed. Third Shock Army and 1st Guards Army were sitting there the whole time right next door in East Germany. Not to mention the 2nd-echelon forces stationed in Poland proper.

                The Sovs didn’t intervene in Poland because they had lost the will to do so, not the ability.

    2. They are not in fact in total control. China was on the verge of revolution when they pulled the covidiocy.
       And I said nothing about gradualism. I said we do what we can NOW. And none of what I suggested is GRADUAL if employed en masse.
       That fourth box, is a double edged sword.
       And there’s a HUGE range between die as serfs or get on box cars.
       Are you actually aware of this? And aware of the fact that until the music plays, any small outbreak will be used to destroy resistance? And that you can’t control when the music starts? (They can’t either.) That it’s a confluence of events?
       And that it STARTS with acts of defiance and resistance which tilt the playing field in our favor.
       This post advises things known as “battle space preparation.”
       Perhaps they didn’t teach you that in agent provocateur school?

       1. Forget if it was Trevor Loudin (whom I’ve since learned is a friend of a trusted friend, so a good reference) or who … mentioned that China is run by ~800 wealthy families, and that is a great vulnerability.

          Occurs to me that a great deal of chaos could be generated (and perhaps already has been) by encouraging the CCP to regard its wealthy as enemies of the state.

          1. Yeah. part of how they “bought” our entertainment and info industries, including mine, is “the stars in their eyes.” All the lefty indies go “And the China market, just think how huge that is.”
             Only it never happens. EVER. Because a) most of China are desperately poor, illiterate peasants. b) they don’t respect our copyright. AT ALL.

          2. Pretty much. And regarding the wealthy as enemies already appears to be going on. Xi’s attempts to consolidate power have focused – at least in part – in going after particularly rich individuals under the guise of anti-corruption. If it was purely anti-corruption, then I’d be all for it (even though it is Xi and China). But pretty much everyone over there with a lot of money has dirty hands. So it’s more likely that he’s just using the anti-corruption as an excuse to go after specific individuals that he’s not happy with.

             1. THERE is a lot of corruption, both cultural and, well…. communism.

                1. It’s pretty much encouraged. A book I was listening to about the CCP mentioned that low ranking officials have low salaries. They *can* get by on the government salary, but it’s difficult. And if a low-ranking official doesn’t accept bribes, then he’s not going to be able to give gifts to his staff, who will all instead by looking jealously at the staff of the other officials, and wondering why they can’t work for those other officials instead.

                   Or in other words, if an official tries to stay honest, then not only is he going to have a difficult life, but his staff is going to be upset with him as well.

                   1. Whereas our bureaucrats and politicians are overpaid, and still corrupt.

                      1. The Chiness used to castrate some of their officials. Didn’t do much for the corruption problem. But castrating some of ours might cut down on the amount of porn being watched in DC during work hours.

                         1. I’m always of two minds on this, figuring that it’s better to have these bureaucrats watching smut than enacting regulations – better they engage iin self-abuse instead of abusing the public, right?

                            But I am offended that our tax dollars underwrite that industry, so here’s a modest proposal: we pass a law, one over-riding all union contracts, all Civil Service employees regulations, permitting these “public servants” to watch as much as they want, but the top 33.3% of viewers in any fiscal quarter will be terminated and their pensions reduced by a third.

                            It’s past time the taxpayers got a chance to abuse these bureaucrats.
                            ~

          3. Are the wealthy not in the CCP? If not, they certainly have connections, on account of the judges will rule against them if they don’t.

             Infighting, and the lines would not be “wealthy” vs. “CCP.”

             1. Some businesses are owned by the state, while others are private. The latter can even be in competition with the state companies so long as they’re careful not to impinge too much on the state-owned businesses. Accidentally blocking or under-cutting the state-run company in the same industry is typically how an entrepreneur gets in trouble.

                The former are run by the party, but the latter are run by entrepreneurs who are usually not party members. Instead, they’ll be required to “hire” party members (usually family members of officials) who usually end up in sinecure positions that will earn them a nice salary for not doing much.

                The super-successful entrepreneurs might be required to join the party, but I don’t recall for certain whether that’s the case.

                1. Hence — infighting. The sinecure people will not give up their places without a struggle.

       2. Yes.

          Americans are mischievous people. Watch the fellow at the rally last night: he politely made his way to the front of the area behind POTUS, unfurled his huge “FNN FAKE NEWS NETWORK” banner, smiled, thanked his neighbors, furled the banner, and walked off, exit stage left.

          Preparing the battlefield is something we can get behind, has a positive impact, and is consistent with American human nature. This is psyops. We push them mentally over the edge. The tyrants who think they’re in charge will bleat at their low IQ minions, who will stare at them while they munch their cud.

          This is warfare. This is violence. This is winning.

       3. As I told someone on thedonald the other day: “because the ammo box comes after the jury box”.

    3. Also, truly, i preferred Fed the Fred. he was saner.

       1. Anyone heard from him lately? Haven’t seen him around.

40. Today’s best quote, from random person at today’s Trump rally:

    Those who don’t vote elect Democrats.

    You can go down fighting and plant the flag with your last breath, or you can lie down unresisting and be buried in an unmarked grave. CHOOSE.

    1. To quote Teal’c: “I die free”:

       1. I can hear his voice…

41. Lots of arguing back and forth whether they are the same person or not… but it would explain a few things if she were:

    

    1. Oh my…. during the hearing, I’d pegged her as knowingly involved, but hadn’t expected it might be hands-on.

       1. She was just a little too panicky to not be in deep.

          And by “little”, I mean “Tone it down! The people in the theater will never believe something with such lack of subtlety!”

          1. It’s getting to where when one hears “Nothing to see here!” the automatic response is “Guilty as charged!”

             There were 3 or 4 others among the various hearings who also just *radiated* Unclean Hands.

             1. SERIOUSLY guys, if there was nothing to see, they’d let people dig down.

                1. 5- NOT ONE red cent…

                   Close…
                   No cigar.

                   Amazon… OK, outer ring.
                   Hate the media? Pay for cable? You own it.
                   You are responsible for it.
                   stop

                   No media. That is the red pill.

                   Yep, gonna require you to find real life…

                   It’s worth it.

                   1. Blink. Blink. Blink.
                      WHAT MEDIA? WHAT CABLE? We haven’t had cable in…. 20 years? (When we had it for a year.) Before that …. ten years?
                      As for Amazon, no. I can’t be without Amazon. Because that’s where I make my money, due to my profession. And then, I read a lot from it, supporting a lot of indie writers in the process. Amazon is just the distributor, but it’s what we have right now. (Yes, I’m trying to find alternatives, or build them, but it’s more complicated than you think. And right nnow Amazon is where the clientele is, and where you build up your following)
                      Your idea is AMAZING…. except for the fact that YOU CAN’T HAVE A CULTURE WAR, IF YOU AIN’T GOT NO CULTURE>
                      However, your comment does reveal you spent absolutely zero time familiarizing yourself with the blog, and where I’m coming from.
                      Well done, you.

                      1. Been reading for years. I didn’t communicate my idea, my bad.

                         I said “cable”. I should have said, what… “media”?
                         How does this “stuff” get into “one’s” house?
                         Media, ideas, noise, CNN… whatever.
                         We complain about it.

                         My point is if you are paying for it…
                         It’s yours.
                         You feed it.
                         You are responsible.
                         You paid for it.
                         You own it.

                         If it feeds you, pay for it.
                         If it doesn’t, starve it.
                         It’s like a stray cat – you feed it, you own it.

                         If no one pays for, let’s say, CNN, eventually China will get tired of paying them.
                         (And don’t watch the “enemedia”. Don’t give them clicks. Don’t let them live in your head rent-free.)

                         I’m thinking wider than Amazon.

                         Developing alternatives.
                         How to be better – than all the platforms we used to love, and now have to not love.

                         Looking for answers too.

                         1. The problem isn’t developing alternatives. Anyone with web programming experience (or enough savvy to put together existing software) can copy Amazon.

                            The problem is building up enough clientele to make a living without having to beg for it.

                2. Actually, there really is an innocent explanation that they simply haven’t shared with us. This is a strategic trap that we must avoid by conceding the election.

                   Yeah, I’ve been inexplicably not able to get things together this past day and a half, but not that crazy.

                3. If there was nothing to see, then – as the Federalist noted – we’d be deluged with news media articles talking about the amazing job that Biden’s election campaign did in getting out the vote.

                   1. THAT too.

                      1. Roger Kimball sums it up well in this American Greatness piece:

                         https://amgreatness.com/2020/12/05/the-burden-of-proof/

                         1. I have literally seen leftists try to claim that the standard is “beyond a reasonable doubt” in the civil cases.

                            1. Take them at their word. Make them prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Biden did not receive any stolen votes.

                            2. I am approaching seventy years of age and cannot recall the last time I heard a Lefty express a reasonable doubt.
                               ~

                            3. Yeah idiots going to idiot. Whats embarrassing is some of the folks making that claim have law degrees and ought to know better.

                4. I wonder how many other enlightening surveillance cameras are out there that we don’t yet know about.

42. For all the characterization of Trump as someone who knows only bluster, he is a master of quietly putting imbeciles in their place:

    https://thedonald.win/p/11QlKQQqcS/the-moment-of-the-night-geor/c/

    1. Yeah, that characterization is and has always butter utter crap.

       That moment last night wasn’t Trump, that was us. (Not me, wasn’t there, but you understand.) POTUS always knows when to let the crowd go.

43. 

44. The situation is certainly ripe for a Reichstag Fire. Biden shot by a ‘white supremacist’ would inflame the Leftoids beyond reason. Not that reason is a notable influence on them at the best of times.

    Exactly why a ‘white supremacist’ would shoot a racist old white guy that used to hobnob with the KKK is a question they will never ask.
    ———————————
    Ma Lemming: “If all your friends jumped off a cliff into the sea would you…oh…um…nevermind.”

    1. My nightmare scenario is for Trump to be shot by a “white supremacist,” for not being racist enough. Because that gives you the, “See, these people are your enemies, too. Help us root out the secret heretics – I mean, white supremacists! They’re everywhere!” argument.

45. There’s this, for what it is worth:

    Australian pundits not buying American media’s mantra, call claims of no evidence or fraud ‘a lie’
    President Donald Trump is getting some support for his claims of voter fraud from as far away as Australia.

    Some members of the media in the land down under are openly challenging the premature crowning of Democrat Joe Biden as the winner of the 2020 presidential election, accusing the press in the U.S. of “willfully” misleading the public with the “lie” that Trump has lost his reelection bid.

    Sky News host Gary Hardgrave spoke with panelists about the staggering number of ballots being questioned in the presidential election as he noted that he has “not lost faith” in the outcome.

    “The United States elections are not over. Despite what you may have seen on the six o’clock news, I have not lost faith, and there is a process and an outcome,” the former politician, who served in the Australian Parliament for 12 years, said.

    [SNIP]

    He joked that the “second biggest miracle” after Jesus fed a multitude with a few pieces of bread and fish is the turning of a “couple hundred thousand votes” in to a couple million.

    “It does have Biblical proportions, this cheating that’s been alleged,” he added.

    Social media commentator Daisy Cousens interjected that the allegations of voting irregularities and, in some cases, fraud, are “fairly extraordinary.”

    “Contrary to what’s being reported in the vast, vast majority of the American media and the world and the Australian media, might I add, the claims that the Trump campaign is making…about election irregularities,” she continued.

    “For the media to relentlessly insist that these are baseless claims, that there’s no evidence of fraud or irregularities is a lie,” Cousens asserted.

    [SNIP]

    “That’s not the case, votes can be decertified by a court order,” she added, saying the “buck stops with the legislature”.

    “There are legs on this yet, and I am fascinated to see what happens,” she said.

    In previous comments on Twitter, Cousens had noted that similar election issues in Australia would have caused a “do-over vote” and arrests by now.
    [END EXCERPT]
    ~

    1. This has been repeatedly deboonked.

46. The side with kids who need participation trophies and “add” meds cause you let them drink energy drinks and Starbucks, wanna start a civil war with the side who live on farms doing this. pic.twitter.com/WleE1yQExi

    — Nicole Arbour (@NicoleArbour) December 6, 2020

    1. From Patriotic Fire: Andrew Jackson and Jean Lafitte at the Battle of New Orleans,

       While most of the British soldiers had been trained in the use of firearms by the army, the Tennessee and Kentucky frontiersman had learned from their fathers, grandfathers, or on their own, ever since they were old enough to hold the piece and shoot it, and they were almost invariably deadly shots.

       by Winston Groom.
       ~

47. 

    1. Not really true. There’s been a lot of push-back on the church shut-down orders in California. A number of churches have been going to court over shut down orders aimed at churches that have been issued at every level of the government – city, county, and state.

       1. In certain places, in certain denominations, etc, yes, there is the separation of Church from State control.. Elsewhere … nope. Licking the hands that beat us as good little lambs.

          1. Also there is a big difference between lawsuits and simple refusal to obey.

             * note that I am not claiming any virtue here

    2. And there was quite a bit of apostasy in the early Church. Enough to make it a matter of serious discussion whether the apostate could ever be readmitted.

       1. Which St. Augustine solved by basically inventing the doctrine of “we salute the uniform, not the man”. 🙂

          1. Do you mean his question 12, article 2?
             https://www.newadvent.org/summa/3012.htm#article2

             That’s not a bad partial rephrasing, although I’d look at it more in terms of being an early angle in on ruling by laws, rather than men– if you have to focus on if a leader has a right to lead, rather than if he’s right with the god(s) involved, and then at the inherent justice of what he’s having you do and the cost of fighting, it makes it so that political structures are less emotionally based and more justice based.

             …

             Which is a depressingly timely thing.

             1. I have to admit, I’ve thought that Augustine’s solution to the Donatist problem was not the best. I would have allowed the apostate clergy back into the church if they repented — I agree with Augustine there — but I would not have allowed them to remain clergy. By denying being a Christian instead of allowing themselves to be martyred, they broke with the requirements of the office as laid down in 1 Timothy — denying Christ is not “blameless” nor does it show being “apt to teach.”

                Forgiveness is for all, but being forgiven does not necessarily entail being returned to a position of responsibility.

                1. The “you’re an apostate if you tricked the guys who wanted to martyr you” thing makes it more complicated, especially since we’re supposed to be cunning as serpents.

                2. *facepalm*

                   K, thought of a major issue on the denying Christ thing– if we say those who actively avoided martyrdom are unworthy of being in teaching authority, we have to argue with Jesus.

                   Peter is kind of famous for doing it three times, and even then he’s the only one that was willing to follow after when they took Jesus.

                   And Jesus still thought he was acceptable.

                   1. Granted. And it’s not like my opinion counts whatsoever anyway. I just come at it from the perspective of the shepherd’s job is to lay down his life for the sheep. The shepherd who chooses to abandon his flock instead of laying down his life should not be given another flock to abandon. Jesus may be able to look into a man’s soul and judge that he’s still qualified as a shepherd even after his denials, but the rest of us mere mortals are stuck examining fruits to make our judgments.

                      After all, Jesus also said that “whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea.” To my mind, apostate shepherds are more like that than Peter.

                      1. Problem being if they were actually apostates or not– like Mary pointed out, some folks were sticking that label on folks who handed over whatever non-holy papers were on hand.

                         I tried to find the podcast for Catholic: Under the Hood where they were talking about some of the tricks folks used– one handed over heretical texts, which I found brilliant enough to remember.

          2. The question of whether the state of a priest’s soul was relevant to his administration of the sacraments is a separate question, even if they were historically at the same time and even interwoven.

             1. Those under the anti-pope’s rule (is it weird I checked to make sure my village wasn’t?) were considered to have had true sacraments, nonetheless, during l’affair Avignon. so.

                1. Yes, but it was settled at the time of the Donatists. Who maintained both that apostates were certainly damned, and that the state of the priest’s soul affected the validity of his sacraments. (Also that if the authorities came to you and demanded your sacred scriptures, and you handed over some dialogues of Plato, you were an apostate.)

       2. I would be surprised if there has been any time (or more than a few years) when the Churches were less than 90% apostate.

    3. Yeah. THAT has been pissing me off. And it’s not just Newsom. At this point every US bishop needs excommunicating. or flogging. or somethinng.

48. For Them What Blog: More pouncing, lashing out, and seizing on when you describe Democrat reactions. Why should Republicans have all the fun? 🙂

    1. Working on it…

49. Pingback: Avoiding the subject – Professor Ornery Dragon

50. If the commie-crats do manage to jam the pedo and the commieslut into the house on Penn Ave, wouldn’t it be fun if, say, maybe 10% of us (74,000,000) voters went out and bought a cheap mask and a business-size envelope, wrote F*** **U on the mask, stuffed the mask into said envelope, and addressed it to The pedo and The slut, c/o the white house? Imagine a few million of those turning up there right after the anointing?
    Better yet, maybe an on-going continuous stream of them in various size envelopes with different creative names?

    1. Beautiful.

    2. Problem is, regular mail to the WH doesn’t really show up there any more due to previous attempts at ricin attacks. The WH post office clerks would get them and throw them in the incinerator. More public ways, so that others see it, are likely more effective.

51. 

    1. *steals*

       Where would you get two pallets of ammo these days?!?!

       1. Enough zeros on the check and anything is possible…. 😎

       2. By placing the order six months ago.

          1. *two years ago

             1. I waited 4-5 months on a case earlier this year.

       3. Right? Maybe if I won the lottery and put some people on it.

52. So do we have the “organization for conservative science fiction/fantasy writers/readers” yet? And I just haven’t found it?

    1. Not that I know. But I do what I can here.
       Hey, tag, you’re it. Start it and I’ll give you publicity.

       1. I’ve been thinking about what I want to do, and I feel like… I want to re-platform people who’ve been driven into the shadows. Even a webpage with a list of known conservative authors would be something. But I’m still trying to figure out the best way to do it.

          Having been in and out of at least three writers’ organizations now, though, I find my faith in them is… minuscule, shall we say. -_-

          1. One suggestion: do not make this a “conservative” group. Open-minded. free speech/markets/discussion writing ought suffice to claim members. You know, writers who believe the Bill of Rights covers all of us, not just those who join the braying mob.
             –

             1. Honestly the longer I think about it, the more I feel like an organization would be like herding cats. What I want more is just a list of conservative (and Christian or deist) content creators so that I can avoid the experience of going to check an author’s website after excitedly reading their book, only to find their social media is a long stream of denunciations of “stupid racist bigot conservative Nazis.”

                My problem here is that I can count on two hands the “outed” conservative fiction writers I know of. I need to crowdsource that if I’m going to be able to read living authors again. Help appreciated? :,

                1. Butcher is Libertarian.

                   1. It’s gratifying to discover that, given that his writing gave me those vibes.

             2. Note to Sarah: It might be time to revisit the Human Wave essay, whether as Blast from the Past or adding to the masthead.
                ~

          2. The minute it becomes the least bit successful, it will get infested with Leftoids.

             1. ONLY if it’s an award. They use award wins to get university jobs, see?

             2. They have SFWA, they don’t need a new org. 🙂

                1. They need every organization that exists and then some. It’s not enough to have an organization, they must ensure WE don’t have one, and then they are restless and hungry for more power.

                2. When have you ever seen evidence the Left is satisfied by what they need? Especially as what they truly require is a monopoly.
                   ~

53. Poe’s clarification: anti-antifa.

    

    1. SturmAntifa…. SA.

54. 

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