Dare to Be Petty- by Anonymous

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

Dare to Be Petty- by Anonymous

We all already know that the left is populated largely by useless people with no practical skills. They can’t make anything. They don’t even know where things come from. They don’t know how to keep the lights on or the water flowing through pipes.

They think these things happen by magic, or that those are the responsibility of the peasants to take care of. They’re right to a degree. It’s the little people who take care of those things, and that give the little people a tremendous amount of power they don’t even begin to see. Fight Club had a great scene that illustrated this in a very visceral way.

The point is that the left has taught us something very important this last decade: the power of being petty. Because they are. And they’re not afraid of using it.
And when one side insists on being fair and above board while the other side is petty, the petty side wins.

So, you’re going to say “but we can’t get down to their level!”
Why not? Because you want to lose? And you want to lose to the most detached, cultist bunch of cosplayers since the Aztecs thought they needed to kill all the people to keep the sun going?
Like hell. You’ll be petty and like it. And after that, we can rebuild and make sure the left learns to play fair. But until that day fairplay is death.

They’re going to run it off every site their control. Their HR is going to run off anyone to the right of Lenin. Their marketing managers are going to disadvantage our products. They’re going to do their best to obliterate us. And they dream of executions and prison camps.

So put fair n the box for a while. Be petty. Learn to be petty. Dare to be petty.

Because the truth is, though they’ve managed to control most institutions of power. But where the ability meets the real world? They’ve got nothing. Our side is the one that keeps things working.

Imagine Queen Nancy’s power suddenly goes out and there’s just no one available to fix it for nine or ten hours, or people show up to fix it and everything just goes wrong. Her precious store of ice cream gets melted and her kitchen full of food is now full of trash. How sad. Or her plumbing starts to have a problem, and the parts to fix the problem just aren’t available. Supply shortages, you know. Or every plumber in the area feels unsafe because they’ve seen videos of her violating the covid restrictions, so they’re going to have to take extra safety precautions that will add extra time and cost more. Yes, yes, we know who you are; but with all due respect that doesn’t make a difference to the virus. We have families that we’re worried about, you know?

It doesn’t just have to be Queen Nancy. You surely all have tiny tyrants in your areas. Judges who rule against the constitution, cops who defend them even after the left has called for defunding cops for months, politicians trying to raise your taxes and infringe on your rights.

New York City restaurants issued a blanket declaration that Governor Cuomo will not be served. That’s a good start. Now extend it to every politician that’s expressed support for lockdowns, higher taxes, more regulation, or has been seen violating the restrictions that they’ve demanded you live under. Do it.

Shun them. Deny them services, or charge them three times the normal price- in cash and up front. If you’re tasked with infrastructure work in their strongholds, their precious gated communities, delay the work and do it badly. Make the work cost as much as possible. Be rude to them, and make their lives unpleasant in every possible way. Be petty, and be vicious toward them. Become a nameless, faceless army of inconvenience and never-ending expense.    

They do that to us. And they’d do worse if they could.

Agitate against them and start agreeing with Antifa and BLM that those rich people in their gated communities are the problem, and they deserve to be held accountable. We’ve already seen how their revolutionary talk turns into shrill shrieking when the mob comes for them. Don’t defend them, not even verbally. Turn those gated communities into prisons that they don’t feel safe leaving and can’t get services into without great expense and inconvenience. Bleed them dry, demoralize them, and isolate them.

They will surely use the power of the courts they own to try to suppress you. They will surely try to make examples out of people. Demand a jury, every time. If you get called for a jury, show up and lie like hell about your political beliefs during jury selection. Make sure you get onto the jury. If it’s a civil case against someone of any political stripe making life unpleasant for political activists or politicians, agitate the jury to nullify and award court fees to the defendant. Juries do have that power, and we’ve allowed them to pack the juries for too long. When the judge overturns the jury’s ruling, turn your wrath onto the judge. Start petitions for recall them, shun them, deny them service, and make their lives a living hell.

If you find out a business is selectively screwing over the gilded elite, patronize them. Spread the idea of screwing the left over like a rumor. Invisible, everywhere, and a force of nature. Remind people of how much power they really have. Remind people of the plans the clueless left have for them.

The ones trying to break us can only do it if we let them, and they can’t really do a damned thing to force us to make their lives easy. Everyone can fight them this way, even if only by being rude to those who would be their betters.

Who is John Galt? We all are. We run the world that keeps them in comfort while they try to ruin us and destroy civilization. We can collectively stop the machine of their worlds. The people they’re after are the ones they rely on. Start making them see how little power they really have, and take back your power.

Make it Galt’s Gulch everywhere!

452 thoughts on “Dare to Be Petty- by Anonymous”

    2. Sounds Jennifer DeChiara (owner of the agency in question) got the blowback she deserved for that. I wonder if a wrongful termination lawsuit would take hold. FWIW, the Jennifer DeChiara twitter presence was made private. No idea of the status of her page on the book of faeces.

      No telephone number on the website jdlit.com. OTOH, there’s some kind of submission link.

  3. oh, and WP decided this is an Introspective and Musical post, so recommends a Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers post, and one about returning to your inner child but has a Jimmy Hendrix photo.

    2. My new young boy Rep, the once hopefully great Madison Cauthorn who said Fraud made him not certify Liden’s election only took a little more than 2 mos to kneel to the MSM CNN declaring no Fraud. Cauthorn is a Loser whose career ended before it even started.

      1. That was quick even for a nimble child grifter. And that little sonofabeeeeeeach really makes me angry. The boy is all drama, all mister proud American, given space at the table by POTUS many times. Turns into a paper tiger.

        I’m not surprised. Disappointed, but not surprised. Every one of these losers bleats a good game, then folds like a piece of garbage at the landfill when they actually have to be courageous. Boy is a POS. Take your weapon and shove it up your behind, son.

        Along those same lines, though I’m not angry, Rush today showed that he thinks the pedophile actually won the election with legitimate votes. That there are millions and millions of people who voted for the pedo…. I turned Rush off for the first time ever because he wouldn’t quit going on about how the country is left, really left. It was sad to watch.

  4. Here’s the thing, though: Part of the reason the Democrats are being even more stupid than usual is that Pelosi and company have had a taste of this already. Pelosi has had people show up at her home twice in the last few months, which basically never happens. Then she got chased out of the House by those pesky rioters, and one of those filthy peasants _put his feet up on her desk_.

    She’s mortified that someone had the gall to show up and inconvenience her. Usually, when someone shows up to bother politicians, they’re on the Dem payroll, or are being organized by someone they approve of.

    Pelosi and Schumer and the others have realized that they no longer have even the illusion of control. Which is why there’s seven thousand troops patrolling Washington right now.

    The Democrats are panicking, and they’re going to make bigger and bigger mistakes, because they’re terrified that they’re going to lose everything – even though it would settle down do near-normal if they’d just stop doing stupid things.

      1. And the spray painter was courteous enough to mask off the bricks on both sides of her garage so that only the garage door would be painted.
        John Sage

        1. Particularly compared to McConnell’s, where several words were primarily on the brickwork. :-p (I’d been curious if it was also a scam, but I was left with the conclusion of someone inspired by the work on Pelosi’s.)

      2. Pacific Heights in SF isn’t gated, though it might as well be given the way the SFPD keeps it policed. There are certainly no homeless folks pooping daily outside their tents on the sidewalk out front. I understand the neighbors are getting upset that her city manse is drawing attention, though like others I’m betting the red paint and pigs head were per an order her staff placed on LeftyDemonstrations’R’Us.com

        https://www.velvetropes.com/backstage/nancy-pelosi-house

    3. “Pelosi and Schumer and the others have realized that they no longer have even the illusion of control. Which is why there’s seven thousand troops patrolling Washington right now.”

      WITH NO AMMUNITION. That’s right, they were afraid that would go terribly wrong, so those scary troops are actually unarmed.

      1. they armed them when thinking they were gonna have the clingers show up with theirs like they asked in that poor attempt at a poster/call to action meme (whether the designer was that stupid, or figured his bosses were and so went with Soviet agitprop, is still up for debate). Now that they need a further emergency to look impressive, well, they can’t quite filter out the icky conservative, ain’t gonna go for unconstitutional orders types from those remaining. Every repub gov should ensure none of their troops are there any longer.

        1. I wonder how many have a few rounds to deal with unconstitutional orders in their pocket?

            1. Rounds hell Pictures I saw showed m16’s with no magazine. I suppose you could stash one of those too cant see that hand feeding single rounds to an m16 would be fun (or even possible?).

              1. iirc many had no mags in for the inaugural, but had them issued. Comes across a bit like the old days where they use magazine shut-offs for fire control and in cases of training or of no confidence they used empty mags and single loaded. Israel also has off duty carry their with no mags in, but they tend to keep them on the gun.

        2. The purpose of bringing them there was as much a pretext to screen them for “loyalty” to the Democrats as much as it was any actual protective purpose. This is just the next step in what Obama started in converting the US military from being the nation’s non-political defense force into the Democratic Party’s loyal Red Army/Red Guard that serves the Party above all, with its primary focus as being suppressing domestic dissent rather than defending the country from foreign enemies.

          1. They Called in state guard including Florida and Texas. They were not going to get a loyal response from most of the commie run state guards, let alone the republican ones. Sure, some of the officers. But they all remember the term Frag.

        1. And zero leadership, which is what annoys me. Any decent platoon leader or squad leader would have found a grill, gotten a crap ton of steaks and taters, and set up a BBQ grill picnic in that parking garage. And kept on doing it until they go home. Take it over! Make it your home! It’s the Army way! Or used to be.

          We’ve done it before this.

          2. First, this was in DC — I doubt very much there are an grills available in the city. Grilling is something the Middleclass does and DC is a city of the Overclass and the Underclass.

            Second, this is DC — there are environmental regulations about air pollution and CO2 dispersal. I am sure grilling in a parking garage would run afoul of numerous city restrictions.
            ~

            1. Yes. Exactly those things would have driven any self respecting corporal to get the cinder blocks, grills, charcoal on the concrete…. The idea they were making the locals angry would have been all the more reason to do it.

              Until some jerk off Major says “children, children, what did I tell you? Our hostess will be mad.”

          1. It makes me begin to wonder if the idea is to mistreat the Guard until they themselves somehow generate an Incident – and then use that to some evil end. Call for disbanding the Guard, then claim since there’s no “organized” “regular” militia… …while doing whatever can be done to arm up antifa thugs, etc.?

            1. Maybe…although the stupidity of driving the army to revolt in order to create a new army….

              Yep, I can see a Leftist going “brilliant plan” instead of going “what to stop the army from just taking what it wants and daring us to oppose them”.

              Also, thinking regulars won’t look at how the NG was treated and thinking “we’re next”. The JCS response to Pelosi on Trump tells me Obama’s cleansing of the officer corps only went so far and probably not far enough (or deep enough into NCOs) for the regulars not to come to that conclusion.

              1. I think their “solution” to that is to simply gut the military, something that they plan to do anyway because they view the US as being the source of all evil and the military as the instrument thereof. Expect a big push to unilaterally dismantle our entire nuclear weapon’s capability to “set an example for disarmament”. The nutcases who in the 1970s and 1980s thought we should unilaterally disarm are the ones now in charge.

            2. “Let’s replace the National Guard with some People’s Volunteer Forces that we can trust!”

              1. Wouldn’t put it past them, but the more they pull that crap the more dumb thugs they’re stuck with and the more competent soldiers who harbor a grudge and know the military’s weaknesses will be free to fight for the other side. Probably not a winning long-term strategy.

          3. The “oh, they were unpacking meal packs and handing them out” solution totally doesn’t make sense.

            How does that make giving someone a juice-bag, a granola bar, an apple and a poptart OK?

        3. Pop Tarts and a juice bag? That’s probably what they’re feeding the FICUS…

          Apparently the regular Army doesn’t want to share its field kitchens or MREs, and the Guard doesn’t qualify for Civil Defense or FEMA meals.

          The level of logistical fuster-cluck that brought them in without proper support was jaw-dropping, but some of them have been there for going on a month now, and the Feds and states are still acting like they have no idea what to do.

          “I went into a theatre as sober as could be,
          They gave a drunk civilian room, but ‘adn’t none for me;
          They sent me to the gallery or round the music-‘alls,
          But when it comes to fightin’, Lord! they’ll shove me in the stalls!
          For it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ “Tommy, wait outside”;
          But it’s “Special train for Atkins” when the trooper’s on the tide,
          The troopship’s on the tide, my boys, the troopship’s on the tide,
          O it’s “Special train for Atkins” when the trooper’s on the tide.”
          –RK

          1. As long as the boxes are all opened for him and the straw pre-inserted he can handle it.

            But he’ll likely complain loudly that it’s not his oatmeal and try to throw things, so they’ll have to call a lid.

            1. Nah he’s likely to squeeze the box and drown himself. They probably have to feed him from a sippy cup.

          2. I gather that the Trump hotel is basically feeding a lot of these guys, as well as letting them have rooms and rest break areas. On orders from Trump, of course.

        4. My representative (Wenstrup, OH-2) at least ordered pizzas on behalf of our district and helped hand them out to the Ohio NG contingent, but he’s a colonel in the reserves so at least knows he needs to keep the troops fed.

      1. It Looks Like Michelle Obama’s lunch plan has returned with force. A MINI sub for an adult human? WTF? Are the politicians trying to get the Ceaucescu special, because it feels like what their aiming for, Why don’t they just tell them to eat cake and be done with it?

        1. An adult human in full dress working on their feet.

          It won’t help that apparently this was not the case while Trump was still president.

          1. Yeah, there’s a reason MRES have as many calories as they do – these are not sedentary cube dwellers.

            1. Why can’t they just issue MREs if they can’t set up a normal mess system.

              Serious question. As a former sailor how the Army feeds itself is outside my experience.

              1. Jurisdictional dispute. The relationship between the 54 Guard units and the regular Army is… complicated. Generally, for riot-control or disaster-relief functions, their Governor calls them up. For military service, the Fed calls them up. But in this case, the Fed called them up for riot control, and they’re apparenty expecting the states are going to take care of all the logistics. The states don’t want to take care of them because it will set a precedent for next time, and there will surely be a next time. The Fed doesn’t want to do it because they want to assert their authority to make the state Guard units jump when they say frog. Congress and the White House don’t see any problem either way.

                I’m surprised only four states have pulled their guys out. The ones that haven’t… I expect they’ll have a lot of people calling in sick next time. [cough, cough] “I was within 20 feet of someone who might have had COVID-24, looks like it’s another six-week quarantine. I’m sad to miss the deployment; we’ll have a beer when you get back.”

            2. They’re not screaming around so maybe they don’t need ALL the calories in an MRE, but from the pictures of them in the parking garage it looked like they were in fairly full battle dress with packs and at least some body armor. Who the hell planned this charlie foxtrot? When you whistle up National Guard don’t they come with their own logistics train?

              1. Normally, if you send Guard you send the Guard support troops, supplies, etc. But the governors were told just to send some guys from their Guard units, and that everything would be taken care of by the government in DC.

                Apparently this did not occur. I don’t know if it’s because Biden’s incoming team fired everybody or what.

                1. OK that explains what happened so they didn’t have normal logistics. These folks are more incompetent than I thought (which is truly impressive as I figured them hard pressed to set up a drinking party in a brewery). Almighty Author these raving idiots beat us? Really? Precisely what have we done recently to annoy you to that degree…

                2. The idea that you could deploy without having your rations sorted out is… impossible. Honestly, it’s impossible. It’s so basic.

                  This is deliberate. Whatever chain of command transfer occurred, the people who signed for the unit are doing this deliberately. This shit doesn’t happen by accident. It’s too basic.

                    1. Welcome to your new military–this is propaganda. Senior NCO, website nationalguard.mil. Every one of the .mil sites is owned by the communists. If you haven’t visited military.com lately be prepared for a shock.

                      It’s also dated the 16th–they were cared for until the responsibility shifted, apparently. Though without talking to someone honest who is/was there, I don’t trust the report.

                  4. Apparently at one point, after pictures came out of the We the Pizza delivery, the restaurant actually got criticized for feeding troops when they should be feeding “the hungry,” wherever those would be, and the local left social media seemed to be under the impression that the NG was eating like pigs.

                    So it wouldn’t surprise me if this led to the NG being pressured to not provide troops with extra food, and for the food provided to be decreased, or whatever. And since a lot of DC businesses shut down entirely during the Inauguration week, there wouldn’t be as many places to buy food for the individual NG units.

                    1. The lack of a plan to feed and house them is intentional. It might be intentionally incompetent with a dose of malice on the part of those in charge, or maybe just flat incompetence.

                      The military isn’t the military we remember anymore.

                  5. Apparently the Salvation Army and this “World Central Kitchen” restaurant also made meals for troops, but they seem to have pulled out after the inaugural. The stories talking with the World Central Kitchen guy are kinda amusing, because he’s on the left but he was in the Navy, and wasn’t taking any shaming for cooking the NG some soup and sandwiches.

                    It looks more and more like the official NG meals were supposed to be composed of multiple packages of food and snacks per meal, but they must have run low and started dividing meals into a third or a half of the packages of food they were supposed to get. Thus the “kid’s meal” thing.

            3. The only saving grace of MREs (“three lies for the price of one” – Tom Clancy) is they have enough calories to keep you from dying from starvation.

                2. That heartily rivals the phrase I’ve been using. Magnificent! Even starving people don’t like them.

                  1. C rations were better. My dad was a salvage agent and used to buy me cases of c-rats while I was in college.

                    1. Agreed. I had c-rats in basic and they were real food. You could use the cans for an early warning system around your tent, or use them to boil water in, or other purposes.

      1. Ahhh, excellent write-up, thank you for sharing. I know nothing about how the stock market works, but that was a good explanation. Makes me rather with I *did* know how the stock market works, sigh.

  5. You don’t even have to be rude sometimes politely oblivious is even more effective, especially when there are spectators.

    Courteous insults, “Lord love you, what a simple thing to say!”

        2. There is also a time for:

          “Mister Churchill, you’re drunk!”
          “Madam, you are ugly. Tomorrow, I will be sober.”

          1. Nancy Astor: “Winston, if I were your wife I’d put poison in your coffee”
            Churchill: “Nancy, if you were my wife I’d drink it.”

            1. George Bernard Shaw: “Here are opening night seats for you and a friend — if you have one.”
              Churchill: “Cannot possibly attend first night; will attend second, if there is one.”
              ~

  6. In reading the main post it suddenly occurs to me that the only difference between a gated community and a ghetto is one of perspective.
    And of course who it is exactly that controls the flow of services into and out of said community. Food, water, power, every common need for every day living, not to mention how quickly things turn when for some unknown reason trash and sewage can no longer leave.

    1. No the difference is that the people in the Gated community wanted to live there. The People of a Ghetto can live nowhere else.
      That is the ONLY difference that counts.

  7. “Sorry, ma’am. I don’t know why the internet is down. I’m trying to fix it, but I got to track the problem down. A rat might have chewed through the cable for all I know. Might be a few hours still.”

    1. And not recommending sabotage, but if there comes a time when it must be done, do not just snip a wire or cable once. Make it too short to easily splice. While it’d be tempting to take a chunk, that means carrying evidence. But lots and lots of little pieces are Humpty Dumpty time. Especially if there a few HumptyDumpties along the line, etc.

  8. Why do you think our elites are so in love with illegal immigration? It gives them an entire class of proles to do the hard work, and the tradeswork, that they can’t do with their Estonian Gender Studies degrees (minoring in Sudanese Transgender Slam Poetry). Need something built? Call that low-cost contractor that employs a constantly-shifting group of people with poor English skills. Electrical issue? Juan the landscaper knows a guy who knows a guy who knows a guy. Don’t assume that the hordes that Joe will be letting in are all bereft of skills. A lot of them are probably semi-decent tradesmen and we know they’re willing to work long and hard hours for low pay. It’s win-win for the elites. They get a permanent servant class and it makes it easier for them to go after the kulaks…you and me.

    1. Except the proles …. Um.
      Look, I know the culture. I come from the culture. This is why newly built roads crumble in a couple of years.
      Also FYI, don’t assume all new immigrants are Joe-heads.

      1. there was a lot of illegals doing self deportation (just leaving for the most part though some found ICE to get a free flight) done during 0bama because he and the dems made the economy so bad it was more profitable to go home and work the farms there than come here and work, pay living costs while sending money home.

        1. Yep. Same will happen again. There’s a ton of them still leaving due to the covidiocy and broken economy.
          The people coming in are mostly brain dead commies who can do nothing.

          1. The staged and funded “migrant caravans” in eth news all mysteriously fell apart at first minor inconvenience.

            Why, it almost makes you think sneaking into a large and heavily armed banana republic with troops garrisoning the capital after what sure appears from distance just like their last local coup is not high up on the bucket list of citizens of smaller banana republics.

        2. South Park had a whole episode in it; the tag line “Obama has made the USA so s—ty that Mexicans are going back to Mexico”.

      2. I lived in a poor area of SoCal for 28 years. I saw the culture coming across the border, and how it contaged to everything. Basically it was like a cargo cult for construction. Go through the motions and make it look like the picture, never mind that behind the façade it’s propped up any which way. There were good workers, but they weren’t the norm.

        By the time I left everything was contract labor looking for corners to cut, and nothing lasted anymore. And we started getting crap like the phone company’s contractor refused to replace my broken phone line, because according to them, I had climbed a 30 foot pole and CUT MY OWN LINE. (No, you idiots, this is a high wind area, did you not see how it just took out all the power poles?? the wonder is that it lasted 40 years, not that it broke.)

        1. Yep. This house was built during a big rush of importing south of the border labor. Between the previous owners and us it’s going to be almost fully rebuilt by the time we sell.

      3. And, spread the word that those illegals who cooperate with this program of non-cooperation with Leftists will be put on the Good List of those to get legal status when we take over.

        1. Or to be allowed to keep legal status.
          TBF illegals already fuck over their employers on a regular basis. It’s cultural. I get SLIGHTLY better deals because I’m from “related culture.”

      4. No arguments with your point there. I’ve seen what modern construction looks like. When we renovated the bathroom in our 75-year-old house a couple years ago, we realized that compared to a modern McMansion, this place is built like the USS Missouri.

        Funny story about the post topic…back in ’04 my wife (who’s on here as shesellsseashells, I think it is) and I were at a craft show in the South selling her jewelry. A couple of women walked up absolutely covered in Kerry/Edwards swag. They were reasonably nice, didn’t get political, we had a perfectly normal interaction and they bought a $30 piece of jewelry. That night we made a $30 contribution to the Bush re-election campaign in their names. We didn’t play petty with them, we just put their money to a better use (we thought at the time).

        1. I helped (some, what with being the unskilled labor component) son-in-law fix up their previous home before selling it. The house was originally started (we guess) in the early ’40s. Some portions were made of solid oak beams, fastened with (I’m serious) railroad spikes. Other parts were masonite held together with 1 1/2″ brads; what you’d expect of an old doll house. The oldest wiring was scary, but it all had to be done. Except for the sand point, nothing for it but to put in a new well.

        2. My husband worked years and years in construction, primarily as an electrician (IBEW) and he builds everything like we live just moments away from a tornado/earthquake/hurricane/flood. Our chicken coop has a full foundation that you could park an 18-wheeler on and for the comfort of the girls it’s fully insulated. There are houses built less well.

          Here in Vermont we have an issue with rich city people moving in and foisting their lifestyles and ‘values’ on the rural folk, who are generally more conservative. In September when the heating oil guy filled our tank, he told me that he really dislikes working in a certain section of the state where, he says, all the license plates are NY, NJ, and CT and the houses are large and very pricey. He said his boss understands; if he tells his boss that one or other customer is being rude and pushy – something he told me happens all the time in this cluster of towns – his boss will say, “Well I guess we’ll just have to order a part. Tell them it’ll take a few weeks to come in.” Passive/aggressive: it’s great.

    2. knew a house in Texas that had electrical done by someone who knew someone who knew someone (and was an illegal) and the line they ran for the electric drier worked fine . . . until it caught fire one night
      It seems 14/3 romex isn’t quite up to the load

        1. indeed.
          Renter’s insurance also didn’t pay out as the room was listed on the lease as not having power run into it so the homeowner got his damages, but the residents got bupkis, but as they were the ones who got it run, they were lucky not to get sued, as well.

      2. Could of been worse, they could’ve tried wiring it up with two runs of 18/2 lamp cord…

        2. …spliced with Scotch tape alternating with masking tape. Like the mess I took out of the Project House. I removed every foot of wire, every electrical box, the breaker box, everything on my side of the meter and had a licensed, certified electrical contractor come in and run all new stuff. Then I went behind them with my copy of the NEC… the local city allows electrical contractors to self-certify, which may be a bad idea.

          About half the houses in the neighborhood have either burned down or had major fires. Oh, and the original electrical service for each house was 60 amps – two 30 amp fuses. I’m guessing the city didn’t even *have* an electrical standard in 1943; in an adjacent county, the building for the counter seat has a plague bragging that they’d gotten electrical service in 1935.

          1. Our first house had a 50 amp main breaker for ~1000sqft. When we had an outlet burn (OK, it didn’t burn like a fire, but burned enough to blow the circuit and scorch the wall,) because it had:
            1. One bedroom outlet
            2. A second entire bedroom, INCLUDING the washing machine
            3. A couple outlets in the kitchen (WTF? Kitchen was on the opposite end of the house!)
            We called in an electrician to:
            1. Quote fixing the service so that wouldn’t happen again
            2. Potentially re-wire so the fuse panel made sense
            Well, #2 was WAY out of our price range, so we had them PROPERLY fix things.
            New breaker panel w/100 amp main
            New meter on the side of the house
            Circuit that blew was upgraded to 20 amp from 15 amp

            Never had a problem after that, and when we moved into the new house (new build even, we’re “keel plate owners” of it) had the same company come out to run a couple circuits in the basement for my workbench area and server rack (I prefer not to mess around in breaker panels…)

        3. I visited a college friend years back. He got his home from a former Bell Tell employee. The *entire* basement wiring was done with the multiconductor cable used in residences. Lots of cable used in parallel. I have no idea why my friend bought the place in that condition, though by the time I visited, it was nicely redone with proper wiring.

          OTOH, the place we bought had the barn powered by an “extension cord” from the power pole. A 30A 220V outlet on the pole, and about 500′ of 8/3 underground cable. Laid on top of the ground, with a couple lengths of PVC conduit so driving over the thing didn’t immediately kill the cable. It didn’t help that the “electrician” reversed neutral and ground, so the return was on 10 gauge wire. You could judge the load by the dimness of the lights. That and one phase was completely ignored.

          I unplugged it permanently after taking a good look and ran the barn off a generator until I could get proper service in there.

          The real estate agent didn’t realize that the cord was one of the reasons why the place didn’t sell right away. Our offering price might have reflected that a wee bit.

          1. Our offering price might have reflected that a wee bit.

            –
            A wee bit?

            Double or Triple your expected do it correctly WAG?

            1. Maybe double, if we had kept the extension and done a trench. Part of the revised deal was we had the owner leave the garden tractor and related implements behind. We also went from offer to close of escrow in 3.5 weeks after the place in Cali sold *very* quickly.

              The final power solution was a fresh 200A service*, complete with underground feed and a shiny new transformer. Pac Power got $5K out of that, and we spent something over $1500 for the trench and for an electrician to do a panel and a few basic circuits. I did a substantial amount later, but not having to start from scratch helped.

              The power cord wasn’t a complete writeoff. The insulation layers came off with a lot of knife work, and the bare copper fetched a nice price at the metal recycling outfit.

              (*) I was entertaining thoughts of a custom tile business, but creating such in OR is an adventure in itself, and the bottom fell out of the kitchen tile market. We didn’t want to try the craft fair route for the tile nor $SPOUSE’s handiwork.

          2. I’m married to an electrician. Last year we finally had a 4′ deep trench dug (200′ long) for water and electric conduits from the house to our main barn so that we can replace the two heavy-duty extension cords that supply power to the barn at the moment. The cords run from the garage down the hill to the barn, right on the ground and this time of year, sit under several feet of snow. Yeah, sometimes real electricians do those sorts of things too – they know what they can get away with.

      3. There is NEVER any excuse for using anything less than #12 copper in house wiring. Aluminum wire was invented by and for pyromaniacs, AVOID it like the plague! Run #12-2 copper Romex on a 20 amp breaker and you’ll never have any problems.

        I rewired my house with 200 amp service. I used #000 copper for the service drop and mains to distribution panel run. The dryer, water heater and welder circuits are all #6-3 Romex on 50 amp two-pole breakers. The air conditioning compressor is #8-3 on a 30 amp breaker. All that probably cost me about $50.00 extra. Ain’t no kill like overkill!
        ———————————
        Long ago, when men cursed and beat the ground with sticks they called it witchcraft. Now they call it golf.

  9. So, you’re going to say “but we can’t get down to their level!”

    As I am wont to say, the Marquis of Queensbury rules are fine when you’re in a ring with a referee and judges to ensure both sides play by the rules. When you’re in a knife fight in an alley, they’re a good way to get killed. When you’re in a knife fight in an alley rules you fight by knife fight in an alley rules. Of you die.

    “But we have to be better than them.” We already are. We weren’t the ones choosing “knife fight in an alley.” They were. We would have been happy to continue in the ring according to the Marquis of Queensbury. They chose otherwise. We’re better because we had to be forced into it. They chose it, of their own free will.

    1. Words to the wise, eventually we either surrender everything or we choose “The Chicago Way.”

    2. They chose otherwise. We’re better because we had to be forced into it. They chose it, of their own free will.

      This needs to be tatooed in mirror form on pretty much every Republican officeholder and conservative pundit.

      Along with the Constitution and Christianity are not suicide pacts.

    3. “When you’re in a knife fight in an alley rules you fight by knife fight in an alley rules. Of you die.”

      Everybody knows there are no rules in a knife fight.
      ~

    4. THIS.

      Though it is not just about feeling better about one’s relative virtue, but about both honor and obedience.

      It is a sticky wicket if you were born both contrary and rebellious.

    5. Wisdom from the subculture of fighter pilots: “If you ain’t cheatin’, you ain’t tryin’.”

      1. “If you’re not breaking things you’re not trying hard enough” Contest and big wave surfing.

      2. If you’re in a fair fight, your tactics suck.
        In combat, there are no rules, always cheat; always win. The only unfair fight is the one you lose.

  10. “It was far easier for you as civilized men to act as barbarians than for them as barbarians to act like civilized men.” -Spock, Mirror Mirror, ST:TOS

    1. “We’re human beings with the blood of a million savage years on our hands, but we can stop it. We can admit that we’re killers, but we’re not going to kill today.” – Kirk

      1. There’s also this one…

        Quark – “Let me tell you something about Hew-mons, Nephew. They’re a wonderful, friendly people, as long as their bellies are full and their holosuites are working. But take away their creature comforts, deprive them of food, sleep, sonic showers, put their lives in jeopardy over an extended period of time and those same friendly, intelligent, wonderful people… will become as nasty and as violent as the most bloodthirsty Klingon. You don’t believe me? Look at those faces. Look in their eyes.”

      2. The look of horror on the other guy’s face when Kirk says “we’re not going to kill … today” is priceless.

        1. It’s been a long time since I saw the original series and I don’t remember that scene. Got a link?

  11. Oh, I’m good at doing petty. And, I have no qualms about doing it to people who piss me off.

    Right now, fighting fair is for losers. As thewriterinblack says, if you know for certain that the referee is impartial, you have a chance of winning because your opponent will get called for the unfair tactics. But if there is no ref, or the ref is your opponents’ cousin, no cheating will be observed…unless you do it. So, get them on the ground and bleeding as fast as possible.

      3. This. Flood them with ballots. It’s the only thing that might make them get onboard with reasonable election reform.

        1. Nope, they’ll arrest us and declare the other ballots fine.

          Still, make them own what they are.

          If everything is vote by mail with no checks in 2024 and there aren’t 1 Billion votes in the Presidential election, I’ll be disappointed in my fellow USAians.

    2. One of my characters gets her first lesson in both swordplay and fair play:
      ==========
      She was starting to be sorry she’d asked. Rikon was _quick_, even with that game leg and his awkward knee brace. Kazhara had welts from one end of her body to the other, wherever the practice blank had found its target — an unmistakable motivation to stay out of the way of the real thing. She spun after Rikon as he went past, inexplicably out of reach. He danced around her and nailed her squarely on the rear end.

      That did it. She lost her temper and went after him full tilt, swinging her lance like a madwoman, and somehow managed to whack him on the side of the head. Rikon yelped, jumped sideways, and landed on his butt in the dirt.

      “Bright gods!” She dropped her lance and knelt beside him. “Are you all right?”

      Rikon shook his head. “Aaaagh. Very good.” He lifted a hand, but when she reached down to help him up he grabbed her by the ankle, dumped her onto the ground, and rolled to his feet in the same motion. Kazhara abruptly found herself flat on her back, staring at his practice blank a fingerlength from her nose. “You just caught me on my blind side,” he said, circling the blade’s tip above her face. “But that’s good. Take advantage of your opponent’s weaknesses. There’s no fighting fair when someone is out to kill you. And by the way, you’re dead.”

      “But–”

      “I didn’t say the lesson was _over_. And I’m fine. At least I’ll be sitting down at dinner tonight.” He gingerly rubbed the side of his head, and winced. “But I think tomorrow we’ll wear helmets.”
      ============

    3. Just thought of something. Maybe I am rationalizing, but do not those in an occupied country, and the soldiers of same, have a positive duty to sabotage or undermine, or at least not aid and abet the conquering invaders?

      We have, as the saying goes, “no king but Jesus” as the highest law is our constitution and we-the-people are, effectively, the rulers. Albeit getting the work of the court done by various temp employees and court eunuchs. If you think the Old Testament is history, read the admonitions for the Kings and rulers therein, and pray for a merciful God.

      So … Don’t be petty? Be faithful. Do your duty as best you can. Build up, build over, and around, remembering that some jobs involve scraping off paint, digging out and burning old posts and getting rid of dry rot.

      Different folks, different temptations.

      1. Just thought of something. Maybe I am rationalizing, but do not those in an occupied country, and the soldiers of same, have a positive duty to sabotage or undermine, or at least not aid and abet the conquering invaders?

        Depends on if their actions are just or unjust.

        For example, the Aztecs had no such duty, when prevented from eviscerating humans for the sun god– their duty was to not do an unjust thing, as much as possible.

        It’s the thing that is done, not the one who does it.

  12. I think we play to win. Pettiness is part of winning.

    I didn’t steal the election. I didn’t make my side’s life a living hell for five years and more with insults, threats, and cancellation.

    You set the rules, you die by the rules. And I’m in the mood this morning for no bs. I’ll kill every one I have to, if that’s what it comes to.

    Meantime, they don’t get to rest. Not one stinking day.

      2. I won’t call them Nazi’s; but they sure do fit the fascist description, although their Antifa-nut useful idiots are more anarchists.

    1. For now petty on our part is a holding action, minor nuisance to spin the left up, because they always without fail over react to any challenge of their authority. And those over reactions will offend the clueless, rub their nosed in who they really allowed into power.
      In short order they will burn every iota of sympathy and support they once might have had from normal people, and their ever faithful followers are, while very loud and obvious, still in truth thin on the ground.
      Regular folk just want to go about the business of living their lives as peacefully and profitably as possible. And based on this first week of incredibly clueless actions that one would swear were designed to harm their loyal base as well as our side, the idjits are burning bridges by the score and chopping their own feet off up to the knees.
      Time will come when every low information voter will be complaining to some conservative friend about how unfair life has become. And when that becomes a mantra carried by word of mouth across the nation then is when we do everything in our power to legally remove the bastiches from office.

    3. ***Nods.**”

      What you cultivate in your heart, and with what you furnish your mind are important. Not just for the eternal-you-that-is-you (the which you will be with eternally. Now there’s a thought.) But practically: how can you raise kids if you’ve poisoned yourself.

      But I do not perceive how that requires one to roll over and betray your country and your people to those who are beavering away to destroy them.

      Unless a very particular course of action is off limits to you personally (because of your own weakness or native vices). But that’s just you. Not a rule for everyone. The rules for everyone are things like “do not murder” and “don’t fornicate with married people” (or at all). Not “Do not put sand in the tank of the guard commander of your POW camp’s car”

      Again. Possibility rationalizing. Please pick apart. I am playing to my worst self here.

      1. I’m old enough and, admittedly, pompous enough, I probably do petty every day. None the less, not sure how effective petty can be ‘ceptin’ makings one’s self feel a bit better.

        & hey, that’s my opinion, not faulting others that feel it can be a useful tool.

        1. But sufficient pettiness can work its way into legend. My favorite is the story of the woman whose husband 1) divorced her and 2) got the house. So she popped the finials off the curtain rods, stuffed the rods with shrimp, and left them there. She’d been gone for a week before the smell became truly unbearable…

      1. Eh, I’ll fly the post-war Memorial reconfiguration of the Southern Cross on occasion. (Don’t frelling call it the Stars & Bars! That’s a completely different design of two red horizontal stripes, one white horizontal stripe, and a blue canton featuring white stars–normally seven, but some versions had up to nine, in the hope that Maryland and Kentucky would join–in a circle.)
        But I agree that flying a Reconstruction-era flag commissioned to honor the defeated fallen is remarkably tone-deaf in this circumstance.
        At best, it’s ignorant and poor manners.
        .
        Really, they should have at least known to fly the Bonnie Blue. (Blue flag, large single white star at center. Stands for secession.)

      2. I come from a people with a tradition of flying the Jolly Roger at certain time. My British cousins have done it as recently as 1982 to much wailing and gnashing of teeth by the Labor Party.

      3. IF there’d been a bunch, I’da thought, okay, just southerners doing their version of retro-patriotic, nothing special. But I only saw the one, and that seemed … anomalous. Someone didn’t get the memo that the old southern flag has been effectively supplanted by Trump flags.

        1. I’ve not attended nor even watched telecasts of many MAGA rallies, and even then the focus tends to be on speakers, crowd members wearing MAGA hats. The TEA Party rallies I witnessed, the cosplayers seemed mostly inclined to Colonial dress, not animistic totemizing.

          Not that the average journalist* or general public would notice.

          *I think “scare quotes” are only needed for people conducting actual journalism, such as Andy Ngo or the Project Veritas crew; the “Dem operatives with bylines” seem far the more common type.
          ~

          1. I’ve got it.

            Blue field, a circle of 13 white stars centered over crossed rattle snakes, white ascending to the right, red ascending to the left.

              2. Uh…Betsy Ross can’t sew at all. She died about 200 years ago. 😮

                I know I’m going to be spending a looooong time in the Carp-proof bunker for this one.

        1. That’s because it’s a cult using eth trappings of religion. A secular political movement would have room to be pragmatic and practical, but in a cult enforcing ideological purity is always job one at all costs.

          1. Yes. Just like Marxism is a religious cult.

            Was just talking to some acquaintances who belong to the leftist cult, and they were so proud of themselves for doing asinine things like telling their parents they wouldn’t be allowed to see the baby when it’s born unless they commit to not seeing anybody else at all for at least two weeks before. And somebody else told a story about how a 15 month old child couldn’t be left with a babysitter because she had never seen anybody else besides her parents in the last 10 months. Sounds pretty close to child abuse to me. But they were just nodding along, no criticism of the behavior, which they found right and virtuous.

            1. Not to mention “caring,” and “compassionate.”
              I wonder if telling them the baby needs lots of contact to develop immunity would make a difference. I missed 30 days of first grade because I had very little contact with other kids.

              1. But they all “know” that it’s possible to quarantine in your house and avoid contact with all viruses. All disease ever! I got this really creepy vibe that people like this are going to turn into a subculture where none of them ever interacts with anybody else in person. One of them bitterly complained that she hadn’t gone *anywhere* except the grocery store. And the gas station. And still ended up catching covid. I suspect her reaction will be to get all groceries delivered. And hire somebody to fill the car.

                1. That has been getting going well before the CCP Virus hit. You could just walk into any restaurant and see a bunch of people at the same table, all bent over looking at their phones, rather than talking with each other.

              2. Aren’t they concerned about the baby’s socialization, or are they like those home-schooling nuts who think the parents can provide for the child’s social needs?

                If you want to mover idiots’ opinions you have to connect their dots effectively.
                ~

                1. These people are so proud of their compliance to the rules of the covid panic. They feel that it makes them morally superior, because they’re so “careful”. They judge other people by how “careful” they are. It’s safetyism run amok. So I’m pretty sure that keeping their child “safe” ranks much higher with them than socializing her.

                  I fear for the poor children being raised like that too.

                  1. Homeschooling would have to be done very badly to provide worse socialization than public schools. It’s possible, but it would take that special, “careful” effort to make it worse.

                    1. I’m a big proponent of homeschooling; we homeschooled our three sons. But I was talking about quarantine level isolation, not homeschooling. Obviously homeschooled children are generally better “socialized”.

            1. When companies start acting as de-facto governments, they expose themselves to those fourth box remedies traditionally reserved for governments.

              Jus’ sayin’.

      2. Feinstein also upset alot of people when she reversed her earlier decision and ran for reelection to her current term. Quite a few Dems had started prepping their campaigns for her seat, only to have her announce she’d decided to keep it.

  15. Nassim Nicholas Talib describes a process whereby a vocal minority controls vastly more powerful majorities b/c it’s just easier to give in than to fight. Do I care if these muffins are gluten-free or not? No. Does that anxious person over there care? YES and everyone will hear about it. Gentiles like me will gladly consume kosher foodstuffs without thinking. But the nice fellow wearing the black hat who gets invited to the same party will freak out.

    Noisy minorities can sway disinterested majorities.

    This is why it’s important to cry bloody murder when any entity suppresses speech it doesn’t like. They know how sensitive they are to mau mauing by their extremists (BLM & Antifa) and we have to make sure that road goes both ways.

    1. We don’t burn down things. Muslims, Antifa, and Burn Loot Murder do.

      We also can be discouraged from adopting that tactic via arrest because we have something to lose. They are, however, working on fixing that for us.

    2. Yes. I was rather pleased at the people who decided not to do a Super Bowl ad because of offending people. Gillette deserved to go down hard for that stupid stupid offensive ad. But I’ll bet anything the idiots that are responsible for them losing … $8 billion? … didn’t suffer at all for it.

      1. I am a bit sad that there’ll be no Budweiser Clydesdales this year. They’re such beautiful animals, and the ads are always good.

        2. Clydesdales, unlike Antifa, are graceful creatures that would strive to avoid things set up in the middle of the street, or breaking windows. Admittedly, I wouldn’t want to meet a nervous Clydesdale. But generally, parade horses are parade-trained, so as not to be nervous. Also, if you somehow let them loose from their traces, they would probably examine the closest humans for treats before going anywhere.

          Also, you would never see a bunch of valuable horses and a valuable beer wagon being left unsupervised to stand alone in the street. They usually have a couple of handlers around, at least.

          Personally, I thought those guys were going to fill a bucket with Sam Adams and give it to the Clydesdales, and then have the Clydesdales following them home. I don’t know why they had to throw a riot on a commercial, when we’ve already had enough riots.

          Shrug. I mean, I get it. But it’s not terribly horsey.

          1. This. Used to be a fellow who had a trolley pulled by couple Belgian drafts for some parades around here. All sorts of stuff going on during setup… and once the fellow had to be away for a bit for something and asked some kid to watch things. Returned to find no kid… and the team just standing there, waiting. Granted, the one mare was Very Experienced and knew it only made sense to work when work was required. Had something like what was shown at the start of that commercial happened, I suspect the horses would have either just stood there, slowly walked about exploring – and grazed if that was an option, or returned to the lot with the trailer as that was sort of ‘home’ and getting back there meant the work was over.

        3. Poor commercial.
          1. Portrays horses as dangerous uncontrollable animals. Well, they are, but they’re not stupid enough to go crashing through newsstands. They would perceive that as a solid object and avoid it unless massed together in a stampede and unable to avoid it.
          2. Pulling the pin wouldn’t cause the traces to fall off of all of them. They’d still be harnessed to the draw bar.
          3. Portraying Sam Adams drinkers to be dumb, and dumber, and dumbest isn’t a way to attract people to your brand.
          Personally, they need to fire the ad agency.

          2. Agreed. There are smart ways to parody another brand (see Motorola ad below), but this wasn’t it.

          3. So I’m wondering. To what extent did the commercial use live stunt-horses, and to what extent was it CGI or other special-effects trickery?

      2. SinoVirus from China where Xi the Pooh is God Emperor who pays Hunter Biden millions which then gets smoked as Meth.

        How’s that, China Joe? I’d say you can kiss my ear, but you probably would like that kind of thing, you creepy senile pervert.

        1. Kung Flu is my go-to term, though I had been using “Chinese virus” or “Chinavirus” when I was being polite. Kim du Toit prefers the Ch**kvirus version, but I haven’t worked up to using that in public. Yet.

          I suppose “China’s gift” is a bit too subtle for the lefties.

      3. Kung Pao Sicken. And then quickly give the “official name” and blame “someone on the internet” for the idea. 😉

    4. If “China Virus” is racist, so ought be “British Variant” and “South African Variant” — so denounce any users of such terminology. (Especially as we know “know” the Brits are Black.)

      In fact, object to EVERYthing they say – it is all racist, sexist, something phobic and an attempt to inflict an oppressive power relationship upon those they are othering. Call them out on it – make everything they say into an insult and take umbrage, move to High Dudgeon and raise the drawbridge.

      “If you don’t understand why what you said is a problem, THAT is a problem and you need to apologize and make restitution before we continue this conversation. NO, I cannot and will not explain it to you; you have to understand it already and if you’re too dumb and insensitive to have done so I cannot stand you in the same rom as decent people!”
      ~

      3. In fact, object to EVERYthing they say – it is all racist, sexist, something phobic and an attempt to inflict an oppressive power relationship upon those they are othering. Call them out on it – make everything they say into an insult and take umbrage, move to High Dudgeon and raise the drawbridge.

        The thing with that, wise Wallaby, is that if the discussion’s already turned political, this is probably completely true.

        “If you don’t understand why what you said is a problem, THAT is a problem and you need to apologize and make restitution before we continue this conversation. NO, I cannot and will not explain it to you; you have to understand it already and if you’re too dumb and insensitive to have done so I cannot stand you in the same rom as decent people!”

        All of this. It’s about time they had to swallow their own swill.

    5. NTD/Epoch Times noted that as a news item, anchor made a “Seriously?” face, then went right back to calling it the CCP virus.

  17. You have to know who they are to deny service. Most are truly faceless officials to us. Do you know your mayor or congressman by sight? I don’t. Time to make your list of customer non-gratis now before they give themselves special special privacy rights.

      1. Be advised that the books on their shelves and coffee tables may well NOT be the books they read. More often than not such items are provided by a decorator.
        ~

        1. They want to virtue signal while being empty headed…well, then they can pay the price of leading a life bereft of thinking or choosing.

        2. And, as one woman recently demonstrated, sometimes it’s a good idea to have a decorator pick and choose exactly what goes in your bookcase BEFORE you use said bookcase in the background of your video chat.

          1. Seriously … the only conceivable explanation to me is that a roommate thought it would be funny. Those things go on/in the nightstand, not on the shelf as a display piece. And even if she was intentionally putting it on the shelf for display, then she ought to remember that it was on display.

                  1. In leftist circles when displayed it is a religious symbol that is used to show compliance with orthodoxy.

            2. Miley Cyrus reportedly views them as interesting objet d’art and has decorated her living quarters with a great many of them in a variety of colors, sizes and materials.

              Proof that money cannot buy taste and some people just like to shock the bourgeoise.

              As we say down heah, “Her parents must be so proud.”
              ~

              1. Actually, I was reading an interview with Billy Rae, oh, nine or ten years ago, where he finally realized that his attempts to be her friend instead of her dad meant that her handlers did whatever they wanted and he was brought in after the fact to provide cover. At the time of the interview, she’d completely cut him out of her life and he was very worried about her dying through an overdose or similar party-related accident.

                I honestly feel for the guy. Sure, he screwed up royally as a parent — no question! — but lots of parents make mistakes. They just have the cover of anonymity for themselves and the messed up kids, while he gets to be an international laughing-stock while watching his beloved daughter implode on television and the tabloids. And knowing that if he hadn’t made it big doing his dream, his daughter most likely would have been safe from the hell that is being a child actor.

                1. Yeah – I had observed Miley’s trajectory with sorrow and horror as an example of the toxic culture of American pop entertainment. The one hope for salvation I saw for her was the report that Dolly Parton was her godmother. I hoped Miley would have sense enough to listen to Dolly, but her current acting up suggests limited attention.
                  ~

                  1. Most of them look sort of like a twisted miniature Saguaro cactus. 😮

                    Hope they left out the spines!

                    1. I suspect the concept is stimulation of the three primary erogenous zones in that area: anal, vaginal, clitoral.

                      I personally find them nearly as grotesque as the ‘inflatable companions” one sometimes sees marketed. Flaunting such preferences seems akin to boasting of a family member being a crack addict who frequents hookers. Liking your sex cold (or even heated) and impersonal is a kink I never thought something to boast about.
                      ~

        3. If the books on your shelves are provided by a decorator rather than ones you put on the shelves yourself, you pretty much fall into the raving leftist category.

  18. Tangent, maybe…this would fit a week ago Monday and I’ve been meaning to post it, but given this post is about Irish Democracy maybe not.

    The FCC is working on a back door political test for HAM licenses…at least that’s my take away from the letter discussed in this video:

    1. I thought the discussion of licensed HAM radio the other day was a trifle… optimistic? I guess that’s the word I was looking for.

      Lefties hate nerds. Anything nerdy out there, they’re going to befoul it and then destroy it. HAM radio is not sacred, and Lefties hate them just the same. Maybe even more, because of that history of public service.

      Suggest research into UN-licenced encrypted packet radio would not be wasted at this point. Also research into encrypted mesh networks and cheap repeater systems that can be set-up and forget.

    2. Yet more evidence of institutional panic that their coup will be found out: “All Bureaucrats, To Arms! Issue Threatening Letters! Make Stupid Rules! Defend Nancy Pelosi’s Podium To The Death!”

  19. Bill Whittle on this yesterday:

    When I watched I thought, “So, they’ll claim such terms of service are illegal” and they’d probably win in court.

    But MAKE. THEM. DO. IT. ANYWAY.

    Also, like the awkward phase quote, that Fight Club scene has been on my mind a lot since the beginning of the Trump era. You could say he was Tyler in that scene and they didn’t listen.

    What is interesting, and I’m not the only one to notice (Critical Drinker did a “The Drinker Recommends” on the topic), but instead of watching it and thinking “wow, this aged badly”, every time I watch Fight Club I think, “wow, this was prescient…it is much more relevant today than 20 years ago”.

    1. Yep. Problem is that even if the reason for denial is political actions the court will be told it was because of race, sex, or sexing preferences. Hence why its better to just make it not worth their time either via runaround or price.

    2. I’ve never seen Fight Club. Maybe I’ll have a look now.

      20 years ago was 2001, and we’d all just lived through the Big Millennium Bug Scare where all the computers were going to stop working. Algore had just lost the election the year before, and Chimpy McBushitler was king.

      We had already seen all this shit being performed live on television all through the 1990s. That was when it became very plain to a lot of people that things at the top were going very rotten indeed. And not just the Clintons, the whole establishment was stealing, lying and breaking stuff at a record pace. I’ve been screaming about this shit since 1991.

      I was slow on the uptake too, the handwriting was on the wall in 1968. They sacrificed the whole city of Detroit to the mob and to the Left. That’s why nobody makes cars in Detroit anymore. Because they -can’t-. The governments destroyed everything about Detroit that worked.

      Fast forward to now, Canada is a test case for Leftist government destroying a whole friggin’ country on purpose. They just want to see if they can do it.

  21. This is your Canada, ladies and germs:

    “Jagmeet Singh’s (the New Democratic Party aka red-underwear commies, or as I like to call them the NDPee) party informs us that “there are 300 active far-right extremist groups operating across the country.”

    This is in slavish support of the Liberal Party, who are ramping up the RCMP to become MiniTrue in short order.

    Here’s what the RCMP are doing lately:

    http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/2021/01/26/he-admires-their-basic-dictatorship-32/

    They are visiting the homes of registered reporters from professional news organizations to warn them about releasing leaked government documents. Not secret or restricted documents, by the way. Just plain old documents where somebody in the vast sea of bureaucrats was complaining to somebody else that the Wuhan Flu came to Canada from the Military World Games that were held in WUHAN, CHINA in September 2019.

    Canada sent a team of soldiers to compete in -Communist China- first of all. Second, they all caught pneumonia while they were there, to the point where the whole plane-load of them were quarantined. Third, none of the soldiers who got sick have been tested for Covid-19. At all. Deliberately.

    Now, I knew that ages ago. Back in March/April there was speculation that this was the case, and it sounded pretty believable then. But now there’s a government document with one bureaucrat in one branch of government raising allmighty hell with another bureaucrat in another branch over why aren’t his soldiers getting fucking medical care, and by God what is wrong with you people?!

    Who do the cops come to see? The reporter who had the document leaked to him. From the one, lonely media outlet that has not become a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Liberal Party of Canada. With no proper cop ID and no uniform, by the way. (Important safety tip, some guy in no uniform shows up at your door with no ID and no warrant, claiming to be a cop, you DO NOT talk to that guy. You very politely tell him to come back with some ID and a bench warrant.)

    So yeah. Now might be a really good time to become very, very slow about doing what you’re told. Glacial, in fact.

    And by the way. All you lurking morons out there who think your Lefty credentials and “punch a Nazi” virtue signalling will keep you safe from guys showing up at your door with no ID and no warrant: it won’t. If there are shadowy men running around threatening people it won’t stop there and it won’t stop with “fascist sympathizers.”

    1. For all the Lurking Leftists thinking this is great, consider this from Wiki:

      The next day, 28 July 1794, Robespierre was guillotined without trial in the Place de la Révolution. His brother Augustin, Couthon, Saint-Just, Hanriot, and twelve other followers, among them the cobbler Antoine Simon, the jailor of Louis-Charles, Dauphin of France, were also executed. When clearing Robespierre’s neck, the executioner tore off the bandage that was holding his shattered jaw in place, causing Robespierre to produce an agonized scream until the fall of the blade silenced him.

  22. Very complicated society, loads more attack surface than can be protected purely by force, and the idiots decided that they could discard trust.

  23. Anonymous? Wow – colour me impressed! I’m a big fan of yours; I’ve read a ton of your poetry, and not just that left written on bathroom stalls!

    Sarah, you know the coolest people!
    ~

  24. While many of us may lack the knowledge or money to play this game, this might serve as inspiration for some: https://web.archive.org/web/20210127070201/https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/amberjamieson/gamestop-reddit-stock-shares

    Basically, a Reddit sub-forum (r/WallStreetBets) that describes itself as “Like 4chan found a Bloomberg Terminal” just cost some hedge funds a lot of money with some coordinated buying of Gamestop stock.

    Hat tip to Vox Day, whom TPTB at WordPress soil themselves at the mere mention of.

      2. But wait! It is getting even better!

        You see NASDAQ has announced that they intent to freeze trading for any stock with “unusual chatter” on social media.

        The autist response to this is “oooooh; so you will shut down any stock we want on command? *gleeful hand rubbing*”.

        1. Yeah, but at least a couple of hours ago AMC’s stock prices began shooting up–I went and looked at the reddit board out of curiousity, and that’s one of the ones they tagged as “Next up!”

          Man, if I had even the faintest clue about how to do stocks, I’d join in briefly just to make a bit of money, heh.

          1. >>”Man, if I had even the faintest clue about how to do stocks, I’d join in briefly just to make a bit of money, heh.”

            I’m thinking the same way. Anyone in the know willing to give us a quickstart guide to stock trading?

          2. Thing is, once something like this is public, joining in to make money is a good way to lose it.

            Plus, the information I have is that this is a one off.

        2. Someone over on VD’s blog suggested a name for the autists messing around with this stuff: stocktists.

          I like it.

        3. Yeah… they’re going to thrash like a gaffed fish for a while, but there’s no way they can stop this sort of thing.

          Whoever came up with it created a weapon that can be used to cripple or kill certain kinds of corporations. And it’s legal, cheap, deniable, and unstoppable.

          When keeping your aging gunships operational in your peacekeeping zone already requires cannibalizing other aircraft to keep them operational, the company that’s tooling up to make new replacement parts would be a beautiful target. Or… just about anything you wanted to slow down a bit.

          “Interesting times…”

          1. >> “Yeah… they’re going to thrash like a gaffed fish for a while, but there’s no way they can stop this sort of thing.”

            The hedge companies left themselves vulnerable by shorting GameStop’s stock by too much. I know practically nothing about the stock market, but couldn’t companies protect themselves by making a list of things that expose them and saying “We’re just not going to do those anymore, no matter how tempting?”

            1. Hedge FUND companies. I’m pretty sure the stocktists didn’t just bring down a multi-billion dollar landscaping company.

              1. The whole thing is pretty much the Trading Places scenario, just substituting GameStop shares for orange juice futures. People betting on the stock to do one thing, people catching on to it and pushing it the other way.

            2. What you are dealing with here is a high-risk but rare event. It is very, very, very hard for people to continue to make the sacrifices necessary to protect from those, because the odds are very good that you will never ever need the protection. You are just sacrificing.

                  1. THEIR memory is short. That doesn’t mean ours is. If they need to relearn the same expensive lesson again in a year or two then I’m sure us retards will be happy to give them a refresher course.

                    1. And that’s why they can’t “protect themselves by making a list of things that expose them and saying “We’re just not going to do those anymore, no matter how tempting.””

                    2. You’re missing the point. They CAN protect themselves that way without becoming uncompetitive, because it’s the ones that DON’T knock this crap off that will get wrecked. The ones that make the lists of dos and don’ts and stick to it might not make the obscene fortunes they do now, but they’ll be safe from attack. The competitors who play dirty won’t.

    3. I just heard about this. My understanding is that the institutional investors are spinning this as Reddit’s fault, and that this isn’t correct.

      Institutional investors set up the problem by shorting the stock for so much more than 100%.

      Reddit just noticed the issue.

      Short sellers had gotten the price extremely low, and were continuing. So, it could be worked out that eventually the short sellers would have to pay up, and that the value would recover.

      Anyway, yes inspirational, but do not take media descriptions of what went down too seriously.

      1. The power of weaponized autism to… shall we say “rebalance the picture”… is awesome.

        In both the modern and ancient senses of the word.

        2. One of them tweeted “We can remain retarded longer than they can remain solvent.”

          (Knuckles away a tear.)

      2. We have waaay more information now, available closer to real-time.
        We have people who are networked in real-time.

        So, griefers move from MMPORGs to Wall Street. ’cause griefers gotta grief.

    4. The background on this is interesting. If I were a trader, I wouldn’t touch GameStop stock with a ten foot pole (it’s a company in an industry that’s changing and leaving it behind – much like Blockbuster not all that long ago). But apparently someone in 2019 decided that the stock was worth more than the market was charging, and sank over $50,000 in it. And so, for obvious reasons, he was watching what was going on with the stock. And then one day he noticed that there seemed to be more shares being short-sold than were actually available for purchase. So he pointed this out on Wall Street Bets. And the members there agreed with him…

      Estimates are that (as of when I read about it this morning) his original investment is currently worth over $40 million.

      The other neat thing about this is that it spawned an unintentionally hilarious response by Jen Psaki. A reporter asked what the administration planned to do about the GameStop mess.

      Jen Psaki: “Well, I’m happy to repeat that we have the first female treasury secretary…”

      I’m hoping that the short-sellers take a (well-deserved, imo; there’s a place for short-selling, but not at this volume) bath as a result of this. My fear is that the administration will agree to a tax-payer funded bail-out.

      1. Just think of the short sellers of GameStop as the Dukes from Trading Places with those pushing the stock up as Louis and Billy Ray.

        1. This is worse, imo. The Dukes were relying on insider knowledge to fuel their gains, and got in trouble when the protagonists gave them bad info (and the protagonists used the accurate insider knowledge that the Dukes thought they were getting). Whether the market went up or down was irrelevant so long as they knew in advance which way it would go. Their methods were unethical, but they were still basically reacting to market forces.

          The GameStop short-sellers have put themselves into a position in which they can *only* recoup if GameStop goes bankrupt. Or in other words, they’re actively hoping for – and probably trying to covertly encourage – the demise of a very large retail chain.

          1. Or alternatively they realized that its business model was on life support before the lockdown (it had been announcing a lot of store closings and a “restructuring”) and was getting destroyed by online retail. Once it was forced to close stores it had kept open because of lockdowns, it was seen by many as a sinking ship.

            The real manipulation seems to be the people buying the stock, which comes across as a classic pump and dump scheme given the underlying business was seen by many for the last couple of years on its way towards bankruptcy and a demise.

            1. Honestly, this is what’s going on. I believe that the $50K dude legitimately thought the stock was undervalued: I’ve read his post, and his point was that A) a new generation of consoles means more business for used game stores, and B) while physical sales of games are a decreasing percentage of game sales, it’s because online sales are increasing the size of the pie, not because physical sales are dramatically shrinking. The stock probably is worth more than the $5-$10 it was trading at when he bought in.

              But when he took the public-but-obscure shorts information to the wallstreetbets group, they jumped on it as a way to grief the big hedge funds. (Who, I agree, deserved it. Shorting 140% of the floating stock is the kind of stupid move the free market is supposed to punish.) They’ve deliberately created a bubble, though they don’t actually say that, and the only good news is that most of them will also be punished for it when the bubble pops.

              Frankly, I’d like to short Gamestop myself right now if I could time it right. The classic metaphor is that it’s like catching a falling knife: grab too soon, and you get bloody; grab too late, and you get nothing.

              1. A very reasonable explanation and likely the one closest to the truth. Also, that is the perfect metaphor for short selling.

              2. The thing you are NOT saying is that the people buying aren’t buying the stock with the exaptation that will get their money back or make money. They are buying the stock to stick it to the Hedge Fund. They don’t care that they will lose the money as long a the Hedge Fund is hurt or dies. It is the buyers money and the Hedge Fund put themselves in the position.
                It is not like Hedge Funds and other big players haven’t done this before, it is just the first time a bunch of small investors have done it to a Hedge Fund.

                1. Oh, agreed — a good-sized chunk are just doing it to screw over Melvin et al and don’t care if they lose money by doing so. By mid Tuesday to yesterday, though, I’m sure there were some folks trying to make a quick buck., Given the illegal ban on buying stock the brokerages did, and the resulting drop in prices today, those folks are going to lose money they probably didn’t expect. But that’s the problem with buying into a bubble.

                  1. Have you seen the “solution”? “We’ll freeze trading on any stock with an unusual volume of chatter on social media.” Yeah. That’ll work.

                    1. Ian already mentioned it, and pointed out that they’ve just given the merry pranksters the power to lock down any stock they want just by TALKING about it. I don’t see how they fix this sort of thing with a quick patch. It sounds like it’s going to take a fundamental restructuring of how the stock market works, and if they do it in haste they’ll just open up new vulnerabilities.

                      Of course, the government might decide to just crack down on the peasants for forgetting their place instead, whether they’re doing anything illegal or not…

                    3. >> “Yeah. The new rule: Only *approved* people can buy stocks freely.”

                      Okay, so the favored ones will just be left playing games with each other’s money instead of the little guy’s since the little guy is locked out. Not ideal, but I can think of worse outcomes.

                    4. Frankly, I don’t think they can put this genie back in the bottle. The only way to stop these guys from trading on the retail level is to require a certain license and financial asset balance … which will work for the couple weeks necessary for one of them to get a license/find someone with a license and pool their resources enough to become their own hedge fund. Then what are they going to do? Any kind of rule that says “only X, Y, and Z hedge funds are allowed to trade” will screw over any one of them who decides to hang his own shingle.

                      We’re dealing with griefers here. They are master rules-lawyers, and you can bet they’ll find every exploit the Yalies can’t even imagine exist. Hell, at this point, they probably own enough $GME to actually take over the board of directors.

                    6. “Re: Spero says:
                      January 28, 2021 at 4:11 pm
                      Yeah. The new rule: Only *approved* people can buy stocks freely.”

                      Um, actually the Dodd-Frank monstrosity included provisions that provide for exactly that, including minimum net worth requirements (which I believe was $1 million) for someone to trade individual stocks on their own rather than having a financial advisor do it on their behalf. Not sure where it is regarding enforcement and implementation, but it is out there.

                    7. minimum net worth requirements (which I believe was $1 million) for someone to trade individual stocks on their own rather than having a financial advisor do it on their behalf.

                      –
                      Since we are well under net $1 million, guessing we are allowed because we go through Schwab or Fidelity, even tho we are the ones deciding and triggering stock activity (purchase, secured calls, and sell)?

                      Not sure what would stop us from pulling what the group did for GameStop stock, were we pissed irritated angry enough; essentially nothing left to lose, and XYZ is going down.

                    8. >> “Not sure what would stop us from pulling what the group did for GameStop stock”

                      The same thing that just stopped them: blatant criminal interference. The trading apps they used have been turned against them. Not sure if they’re all doing exactly the same thing but one called Robinhood is selling off their shares without consent: https://wsbets.win/p/11SKBwagxW/excuse-me-what/c/

            2. Yes, it’s been doing poorly. I wouldn’t invest in it. But there were so many short sales that literally the only way that the short-sellers could make money is if the company went bankrupt. If management managed to keep it limping along for a few more years, then the short-sellers would still lose massive amounts of money. And if Gamestop were to consolidate down to a single store, and shares were to drop in value to a single penny, then the short-sellers would *still* be in trouble… until one of them had that last location firebombed. And that’s what would have happened because there’s so much money on the line.

              The problem isn’t that there were short sales. The problem is the massive volume of short sales, causing a situation that can only be resolved in the short-sellers’ favor by the bankruptcy of the company.

  25. “Imagine Queen Nancy’s power suddenly goes out and there’s just no one available to fix it for nine or ten hours, or people show up to fix it and everything just goes wrong.”

    That takes no imagination; that is the plot of damn near every Three Stooges short ever committed to film.
    ~

  26. “Be rude to them”

    Please!!! There’s no need to be rude.

    We here in the South have long ago mastered the art of polite rudeness, bless you, and find it far more effective against such petty would-be lordlings. Politeness costs us nothing and, done properly, annoys them far more because when they attempt to complain they’ve got nothing with which to work, the poor things.
    ~

    1. I have a friend from high school who gets more and more polite the angrier she gets. I’ve known her since we were in 3rd grade and I used to warn people when I saw her get polite…they never believed me until she refused to do what they wanted or did something to stymie them. Or in a few cases quit speaking to them. She still does it. It’s something I’ve tried to adopt.

      1. Can confirm. (Not with your friend, obviously). But a relative said something over the phone once that sent me from neutral-mopey to KILL IMMEDIATELY, and my husband noticed *because* my voice went suddenly very sweet and accommodating.

        I was very polite in my 20s when my roommates did something to screw me over. I politely packed my stuff, then when they were out I politely dumped cockroach-attracting fertilizer behind the fridge, the stove, and the dryer, and then I politely wiped down all the baseboards with sugar water and laid a trail to the anthill out back. And politely drove away.

        1. Man. Now I’m really curious to know what it was they did to earn that epic a level of ire…

          (Not that you are obligated to share. But if you want to, I’m definitely interested 😀 )

  27. OMG. Talk about petty. Somebody complained and got Fr. Zuhlsdorf (who was made a priest in an Italian diocese, with the understanding that he would go home to the US after his Vatican Curia stint and affiliate with dioceses here) in trouble with the bishop of the diocese where he was resident, in Wisconsin. I don’t know the whole behind the scenes story, but the rights and wrongs are something that canon lawyers could certainly debate for long hours.

    But that’s not the petty part.

    The petty part was that a large number of somebodies collaborated to print it up as a national news story.

    Now I love Fr. Z, and I think he’s an important Catholic blogger of long standing. However, there are millions of Americans who’ve never heard of him. Yet somehow, there wasn’t nearly as much reporting about Fr. Pfleger’s credible accusation of being a pedo, and he is a national figure working for more than forty years in a big city.

    Petty, petty, petty. And I suppose it’s convenient for those who wish to protect Fr. Pfleger, since everybody knows there can only be one Catholic news story at a time.

    1. It has occurred to me to wonder how many of the pedo-priest accusations were a form of “rid me of this meddlesome priest”.

      1. Actually, Fr. Z allegedly got in trouble for stretching his permission to do livestreamed exorcism prayers into covering other topics as well…. But stretching permission is traditional, which is why I say the whole thing is arguable, even if the news sources are not lying. (As they usually are.)

        Re: pedo stuff — Most of the accusations were real and often had been reported previously. But yes, some priests seem to have been accused falsely by people who just disliked them, or who thought they could get money from the Church, and randomly picked the name of a priest who’d been around back when they were kids. Others, nobody seems to know one way or another, especially if most of those involved are dead. Cardinal McCarrick was preying on non-minors, which is how he got away with it so long.

        The accusations about Cardinal Pell turned out to be both entirely false, and also bankrolled by an Italian rival in the Curia, in order to cover up his own financial misdoings that were being investigated by Pell. Needless to say, the money was itself stolen from Vatican funds, which is why that particular Curia guy got fired by Pope Francis, in the evening on a weekend (IIRC), thus preventing the guy from stealing more on his way out.

        1. There was a case in Connecticut where the claimed molestation happened on an overnight trip to NYC that occurred before the priest was at the parish and was a day trip.

    2. If they really want to know if a priest was diddling little boys, then ask someone who was an altar boy at the time of the alleged offense. I was an altar boy for a short time and I can tell we all knew who the “queer priests” were.

      1. Most of the reason why the archdioceses in the US didn’t do anything systematic was that McCarrick was running the USCCB back during the big energetic days of the scandal; and McCarrick was also running the press and politicians by all the favors he’d done people, and by being such a good helpful source.

        But you’re right; it could still be done.

  28. Ok, I guess I’ll be slightly contrarian here:

    “We all already know that the left is populated largely by useless people with no practical skills. They can’t make anything. They don’t even know where things come from. They don’t know how to keep the lights on or the water flowing through pipes.”

    I see this bandied about by many on the Right. It’s a comfortable fiction we tell ourselves, but it is definitely fiction. There are plenty, if not a majority of people on the Left that have marketable, practical skills. They make plenty and they know where it comes from. You think all those guys in trades unions vote Republican?

    Beyond the legions of them that do, in fact, work and produce things of value, they have us utterly outclassed in terms of political organization at all levels. We effectively abandoned education and as a result you can go to all kinds of forums and discussion sections and see an overwhelming number of Left-oriented commenters and contributors running circles around those on the Right. The competent Righties get overwhelmed because we just don’t churn out those that are capable of articulating or arguing like the Left does.

    The Left didn’t get to where they are (controlling most everything) because they’re stupid, unskilled, or incompetent. Sure, they’ve got plenty of idiots and layabouts. So do we – an embarrassing about. Sure, a lot of the Left’s advantage in having “more education” is an assload of education and humanities majors, but that’s something.

    My point is – stop underestimating the Left.

    1. Where do you find articulate members of the left?

      I find members of the left who are making misstatements in every phrase, thus making it hard to figure out where to begin dismantling their arguments. I find members of the left who speak in jargon that is meaningless, or which has meaning only to people who have attended racism schools. And I find lefties who spew insults. But articulate lefties? Nope.

      1. You find them in person.

        Like the local guy who runs a landscaping company, who, during the Bush years, ‘splained to me how he simply would not do business with Republicans. Or the Cali import chamber of commerce gal who’s good at selling houses and helping to organize the founders day parade. Or… Or… I know them. They’re friends and neighbors. And it’s dead eerie knowing if the Bidenreich comes to put me in a cattle car like FDR did to the innocent issei and nissei; that like their … Spiritual? Political? Ancestors back in the day, they will Feel Bad and do nothing. But very capable people, no doubt.

        But here’s the thing about now. The establishment Left is off its rockers. Loads of these people either #walkedaway, or voted *for* Biden only to get rid of Literally Hitler Trump. Because… Reasons. They loathe the capital gang, distrust their inept governor, and are dubious about the validity of *his* re-election. They hate Facebook and stay off it.

        Shifting sands everywhere. Can they be reached? Don’t know.

        1. they will Feel Bad and do nothing

          Yeah, they may feel bad, but they will buy your house and car and personal property at large discount at the Sheriff’s sale, and if you ever come back they will assiduously avoid you while they politically campaign to not give you any of those ill gotten funds, because of healing and let bygones be bygones and we already spent it anyway.

          Why, yes, I do have good friends whose parents grew up in those camps, thank you very much. They came back to not one damned thing, having to rebuild from zero.

          3. It is fun to connect those denouncing the internment camps with the role of California governor Earl Warren … and his later leadership in protecting Americans’ liberties as a Supreme Court justice.

            Splattershields are advised to protect from exploding heads. Fortunately, you run little risk of being splashed with brains.
            ~

            1. Reading about Biden’s reversal of the Mexico City Rule I cannot help but consider that the modern Democrat party advocates as its dearest policy the elimination of inconvenient persons … okay, they first declare them non-persons but that’s like the old Lincoln riddle: if you call the tail a leg, how many legs does a dog have?

              Come to think on it, the original Democrat Party thought it just fine to decide who were and who were not persons.
              ~

        2. “…if the Bidenreich comes…”

          Thanks for this. I have incorporated it into my title for our current version of constitutional republic cosplay: The Grand Oligarchy of Bidenreich.

      2. If you can’t find them, then you might be in your own bubble. And no, I’m not talking about the mouth breathers that consistently plague and troll Right wing sites.

        1. There are some There really aren’t a ton. If you work in a heavily leftist field, after a while you see the strings making them appear “so smart” and everyone else pushing their “wonderfulness.”
          Look at who they put up for national office. Seriously.

          1. Outside of the tech types, all I see is the strings.

            And frankly, with the tech types, all I see is my old gaming club. Same list of strengths and limitations, same types of ignorance, and the same huge holes in any kind of philosophical viewpoint. It’s great when you’re young, energetic, and stupid, but you are supposed to grow a bit after college. Instead, we get people who just seem to get more jaded and do worse things.

            Shrug. It may be a function of the various social media/social movements, rather than a feature of just being on the left.

        2. How common? What degree of competence? What kind of competence? What degree of left? What kind of left?

          I think I’ve personally seen evidence for complicated mixtures of behaviors.

          Even if I were all the way extroverted, there is no way that I could trust that I’d seen a representative sample.

          That seems to leave us working from a bunch of weak inferences.

          Does the hard left have enough people with the correct sorts of competence to pull off what they are trying to pull? If they do have highly competent people, why does it seem like said competents are all concealing themselves in obscurity, with little sign of the sociopathic competent ambitious ones taking the opportunity to displace a few of the idiots who have obtained positions of prestige?

          There probably are left aligned behavioral clusters that work against competence.

          If this ends with soft left counting as moderate or even right, then saying ‘no competent left’ may be essentially correct.

          1. Rice was in the meeting where Biden suggested going after Flynn and then wrote a self-serving memo the day Obama left office that was clearly intended to try to protect Obama from his own role in the illegal spying on Trump and his campaign and the conspiracy to mount what was effectively a REAL coup.

    2. I know a FEW competent lefties but some caveats:
      They’re usually competent in one field and in narrow parameters.
      or they appear competent because EVERYONE around them is lending a hand.
      But in the fields I know well, the hard left are shit shows, being propped by everyone around them.
      How did they get where they are? They have been crawling through the institutions for four generations and hiring and promoting on ideology ONLY.
      Their “ancestors” were sometimes brilliant. Evil but brilliant.
      Most of the current crop (no not all. Note humans) are like Obama. Mediocrities who drink their own ink.

      1. I’ve been watching the executive orders that Obama is stuffing through Biden’s pile, and it’s yet more evidence that he really is that stupid. So many of those are a really really bad idea. The country is going to be in bad shape in another year, once the “unexpected” consequences take effect. I’m trying to decide what to do with my 401(k) because I’m sure the economy will be in poor shape then. But the stock market is so unmoored from real life that it’s possible it won’t actually tank.

        Also, I think that Obama is preferring to use female sockpuppets — i.e. Commie-La and Susan Rice. I’m guessing it has to do with his ability to dominate them. He seems to have a strong preference for half-black females too.

        1. I’m not sure Kamela is half-black, or even any black. The features and hair just don’t fit.

            1. I’ve seen pictures of the man who’s supposed to be her father, and he’s pretty black looking. I guess you never know how those genes combine…

      2. Converged vs. unconverged institutions.

        I see the same thing in my workplace.

        I’ll add that at each inflood of the wokeness tide, I saw a handful of those people who were the capable left leaving the job and semi-retiring to do other work. This year it was like critters before a forest fire.

        I was responding to the “there are not any lefties who do practical jobs with practical skills”. There are. But… Those lefties appear uneasy. The positional good is losing it’s ability to keep their position safe, and the information bubble wrap is popping.

        Interesting times.

    3. The primary obsession of those on the left seems to be obtaining money and power without doing a damn thing to earn them. They learn to lie, cheat and project guilt, in place of useful and productive skills. So, yes, in practical terms they are incompetent. They seek to rule a world they do not understand and could not keep functioning on their own.
      ———————————
      It takes a LOT of education to make them that stupid.

      1. The India model. Someone works to acquire credentials and connections, gets the job, and then hires one or more people to actually *do* most of the job, since work below their social standing would damage their social standing.

        The classic example is was a British railroad crew that had an Indian surveyor. The Indian paid someone to carry and set up his equipment and someone else to be his valet, since as an engineer for the railroad it wasn’t acceptable that he do those things.

        2. But, did the Indian guy actually know how to survey? Was he directing the work, or just standing around looking important while actual, competent people did work he couldn’t understand?

          In India under British rule, I would presume the first — the low-caste flunkies did the grunt work, but the engineer made all the decisions. Which makes him lazy and arrogant, but still produces acceptable results.

          Our Leftroids are of the second persuasion — ignoramuses nominally in charge of processes they don’t begin to understand. They don’t even know enough to see when things are going horribly wrong until it all blows up in their faces. Then they blame it on the people whose warnings they wouldn’t listen to.
          ———————————
          “They’re the wrong trousers, Gromit! The wrong trousers! And they’ve gone wrong!”

    4. In general, where you find commenters on leftist sites “running circles around those on the Right,” if you watch closely enough, you find that all the comments from those on the Right that make a decent point and actually could work against the arguments of the leftists are being deleted from the comment section, so that it looks like the only comments there are the ones coming from easily-discounted sources.

    5. “You think all those guys in trades unions vote Republican?”

      The husband is IBEW (International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers) as was his father before him. His observation: the suits running (most of) the unions are unequivocally democrats. The working men and women, the people who get their hands dirty doing real work, they’re a lot less dependably democratic these days. For a very long time the husband voted Team D every election, because that’s what he thought he was supposed to do. He has hinted that the D streak ended in 2020 though, and after the pipeline and the Biden welcome mat to illegals I think they’ve lost him for good. He was never an ideologue and didn’t pay much attention to the D platform outside of believing that they were ‘for the working man’ so the recent news has been a bit of a rude awakening.

      1. Hubby has been a member of the independent union CRLSU (1979), that merged with International Brotherhood of Carpenter & Joiner’s (???? – after the single employee pension “problems” – changed definition percentage of “funded”). He has been a board member of the small local union (at first pension and 401(k) board member, after the merge, 401(k)), up until the day he retired (OTOH CRLSU board members get compensated for days lost work for union business, but not paid for being on the board). He. Has. Never. Voted. Democrat Demo-rat. Not once.

  29. Pingback: “A view” revisit | Dio's Workshop

    1. >> “Long live https://wsbets.win/”

      I signed up there and tried to ask for advice on what trading services are safe to use (given what happened with Robinhood and others) but even hours later my posts aren’t showing up and I see nothing about them awaiting moderation. I tried sending a message to the moderators but the captcha is glitching out so I can’t talk to them.

      Are you having any trouble participating there?

      1. Have barely done anything there.

        The original subreddit is still active. The lock was because the mods were getting overwhelmed by new users.

        we like the stonk

      2. Wibberley is an under-appreciated author and his Tales of Grand Fenwick marvelously wise reads. I recently re-read The Mouse That Roared, having first read it in Middle School (although back then we called it “Junior High”) and found it tremendously enjoyable. The Mouse On Wall Street is in my “2BRead” stack and awaits my need for a palate cleanser after some dark history or comparable tome.

        “… the world is not a place for timid men, nor is liberty a birthright of those who fear to fight and speak for it come what may.”
        Beware of the Mouse, Leonard Wibberly
        ~

  33. Pingback: An alternate POV | Dio's Workshop

  34. Oh, hey… it turns out that when we USAians were still under the Articles of Confederation, and the soldiers of the Army weren’t being paid, the 3rd Pennsylvania sent 80 men to Philadelphia to surround the Pennsylvania Statehouse/Independence Hall while the Confederation Congress was in session. They warned Congress to fulfill their obligations, or they would come in; and Congress adjourned and went to Princeton NJ for their next session.

    And they didn’t get a quorum until July and couldn’t keep one, so they moved to Annapolis. But they still couldn’t get a quorum, even to sign the UK peace treaty which had finally arrived; and it was November by then, and the UK had set a time limit of March 3rd. The UK ended up having to extend the deadline to May.

    This came up in the Great Courses class “America’s Founding Fathers” in the episode about Mifflin.

    1. Btw, my mom unexpectedly won an American history thing against my dad, who got his masters in history. See, the third episode of America’s Founding Fathers talks about how a mob went after Robert Morris and his buddies, so that they holed up in the house of his friend James Wilson. There was shooting up the stairwell and the mob actually brought up a small cannon to the front door before being dispersed by cavalry, and the whole thing is called “The Battle of Fort Wilson” in a masterpiece of ha-ha, only serious.

      So I’m talking about this, and my dad was saying how he’d never heard about this, and my mom goes, “Oh, yeah, we learned about that in History of Banking.” It turned out that this wasn’t one of her college classes. Nope, when she worked in the loan office of one of our local banks, they actually made everybody take a class with a textbook on the history of American banking. And the Battle of Fort Wilson was one of the more spectacular bits.

      Mind. Blown. That is so old school.

  35. Your Network Neighbor, the International Lord Of Hate, has a new post: College Doesn’t Have To Be Stupid, But They Like It That Way

    I noted that most ‘xxx Studies’ degrees qualify the graduate to be a ‘Professor Of xxx Studies’ and nothing else. Each Professor churns out dozens of otherwise useless graduates every year, so they outnumber the ‘Professor Of xxx Studies’ positions by hundreds to one.

    Then I had another thought — bumping off ‘Professors Of xxx Studies’ to open up the field could become something of a cottage industry…

    Talk about eating their own. 😛
    ———————————
    People can make stupid mistakes, but only the government can force everybody to make the SAME stupid mistakes.

  36. Say Wut??

    ===
    Social Media Influencer Charged with Election Interference Stemming from Voter Disinformation Campaign — Defendant Unlawfully Used Social Media to Deprive Individuals of Their Right to Vote

    https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/social-media-influencer-charged-election-interference-stemming-voter-disinformation-campaign

    A Florida man was arrested this morning on charges of conspiring with others in advance of the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election to use various social media platforms to disseminate misinformation designed to deprive individuals of their constitutional right to vote.
    ===

    And if this was such a criminal act, howcum it took ’em four and a half years and a whole ‘nuther election to decide what trumped-up charge to apply??

    Oh, wait, we know why. Cuz back then, they didn’t have total control over the courts, and couldn’t yet start the purge.

    2. Disseminating of misinformation and depriving people of their Constitutional rights is a prerogative reserved to the Democrat Party. He was violating their patent.
      ~

    1. Yeah, they demonetized all the Epoch TImes and NTD channels (including all the loosely-associated channels). Tho I suspect they’re probably sufficiently anti-fragile that this is less of a blow than is intended.

      You can watch all the ET stuff on youmaker.com (and if you make an account, subscribe to any of about 20 channels that may suit your fancy), and NTD on their own site — but I continue to use Youtube, because with ads blocked it wastes their bandwidth.

        1. We’ve been subscribed for a year and have enjoyed it a lot. They seem to be one of the only rational news sources yet. And I have no objection at all to their anti-CCP aspect 🙂 Maybe I’ll turn physical delivery back on again. We want to stop the lefty local rag I was trying.

          1. I’ve subscribed for not quite that long and was glad I did. It was my first attempt at paying for what I use and supporting people on my side only.

  41. Democratic Party media arm declaring that every single Republican in the US should be treated like a terrorist:

    https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2021/01/27/msnbcs-jason-johnson-democrats-need-to-say-republicans-are-terrorists/

    Quote: “Democrats should declare all Republicans are “terrorists,” adding “you can’t negotiate, you can’t legislate and you can’t work with terrorists.”

    This is of course the same MSNBC that promotes working with Hamas, Hezbollah and the Mullahs of Iran, who are actual real world terrorists who openly espouse “Death to America”. Instead their vitriol is reserved for domestic political opponents they have declared to be “enemies of the state”.

    They mean to kill us all. Period.

  42. I don’t think it’s a fiasco, I think it’s wonderful. The Reddit kids will get killed in the end and the government will bail out the hedgies, but it’s still wonderful. Alas, though, in our corrupt present the old Wall Street saying no longer applies: “He who sells what isn’t his’n, must buy it back or go to prison.” No big financier will ever go to jail in Biden Land. My European cousins used to admire the notion of the “perp walk”. Those days are gone. Laws for me and laws for thee.

    On the other hand, there’s nothing really wrong with short selling, popular press to the contrary. back in 2008 my daughter came home asking “what do short sellers look like?” I handed her a picture of me, though I do it with options, which seem to be more respectable for some reason. By far, the most profitable years of my life have been years that the market was crashing.

      1. And can you include an “online stock trading 101” section for those who might want to join in the fun?

          1. Honestly, that’s the part I want FIRST, and QUICKLY. Who knows how long the opportunity will last?

            1. Unless you can learn how to identify a company that has been shorted in a manner that opens this weakness, the opportunity is gone. Now, it’s a bubble.

        2. This I will not do. I never give investment advice, ever. I can only tell you what I’m doing and what I think the markets might be doing but your bets have to be yours.

          I will say, if you don’t understand what you’re doing in the markets, then don’t do it.

          1. Sorry, I wasn’t clear. I’m not asking for advice on what investments to make. I’m asking for advice on HOW to make them. As in, what tools/services do you use to make trades, what laws should I be aware of, etc.

                2. That’s the wrong direction. You write on crayon on wax paper, but when you submit it, it’s in proper format, so they don’t see it.

                  Nowadays it’s all electronic anyway.

          2. Oh. 101 is more like “these are links to places that have penny stock trading” etc.
            This is what short sale means
            This is what options are.
            That sort of thing.
            Imagine we’re total idiots with a kindergartner’s knowledge. I am.

            1. OK. I’ve started,

              One thing I’m going to point out is that RobinHood ain’t. They make their money selling your trade orders to big firms so the big firms can front run you. yes, I’ll explain that too.

              A Wall Streeter’s Triolet by BGE August 2009

              I’d ask to be like Goldman Sachs
              and get to front run, legally
              Collect the pennies, charge a tax
              I’d ask to be like Goldman Sachs
              We’re God to give me what I ask,
              To make a fortune,:easily
              I’d ask to be like Goldman Sachs
              And get to front run, legally

            2. This is what short sale means

              I learned the basic concept of sell short/buy on margin as a child from playing Railroad Tycoon 2, as well as the first layer dangers. Who knew that would be useful down the road?

              #GamersRiseUp

      3. Yes, it’s really not that complicated. I can have something to you over the weekend since I still have to earn the living till then.

  43. When AWS kicked off Parler, nobody was able to leave a scathing review on Yelp to get their attention. When Joe’s Plumbing refuses to serve Ms. Leftist, she ruins him on Yelp, and Google, and Nextdoor, and Twitter, and Facebook. When Debbie dislikes the wokeness of Kroger, where will she shop? Not everything that the left does can be done by the right.

  45. Video of the early incursion. I’m thinkin’ the Proud Boys are thoroughly infiltrated. Noted a lot of what Michael Yon points out as markers undercover Antifa use to ID themselves to one another.

    2. The FBI is all *about* infiltration. That’s all that keeps most “extremist” groups alive.

      “How can you tell a true member of the Communist Party of the United States of America from an FBI stoolie?”

      “The FBI stoolie always pays his dues on time.”

    4. This does tend to reinforce the claim that Proud Boys leader was an FBI informant. How much other is ‘infiltration’, or just ‘cross-pollenization’ with Antifa is hard to judge. Like all organizations, people often belong to many different ones, especially with similar goals and interests. We clearly see the person(s) breaking the windows (that was wrong.) We know who pushed through the barriers (barriers of questionable lawfulness.) We see the “police line” was nothing of the sort, being totally inadequate for the task (deliberately so?) We know this was done far in advance of the Trump speech crowd.

      1. Being an FBI informant isn’t necessarily being against your group. A lot of groups have been known to get rid of dangerous crazy people or infiltrators from other groups by reporting them. Or drug users/sellers, given this guy’s background as an ex-user. And there’s always reporting people in the opposing groups, for things they’ve actually done or that you’ve been told, because your group is known to oppose the other group.

        Of course, you also see things like group leaders reporting their potential rivals for made-up or true stuff.

        Shrug. Who knows. Hard to tell.

        1. I confess I didn’t read the entire article, but the impression I got was that he had been an informant back before he joined the Proud Boys. As in, an informant against the gangs he used to be a part of, not necessarily against the PB.

      2. It does demonstrate what you have been saying though: The sheer number of people who are willing to burn more money than they have ever seen before just to hurt the would be rulers is astounding.

        The Enemy is a far paperier tiger than we ever expected.

    2. Heh. Over/under on how long it takes Fox to make a new meme collection post on her blog, anybody? 😛

        2. Actually, I was referring to the ‘Birth’ scene in Monty Python’s ‘The Meaning Of Life’.

          “Oh, I see you have the machine that goes Pinnng!”

  48. Galt’s Gulch is fine, but it’s a bit too passive for my tastes.

    I think I prefer Frank Herbert’s, Bureau of Sabotage, from “Whipping Star” and “The Dosadi Experiment:.

    1. Bureau of Sabotage? That sounds interesting. Is that anything like the Department of Opposition from Dresden Codak?

        2. This is resonating with me. Thanks for the link.

          Most of my science fiction reading was so long ago I’m going to have to reread a bunch to catch up.

  50. To those suddenly interested in online stock trading: Houston, we have a problem. Apparently a trading app called RobinHood has started selling off GameStop shares bought through it against the will of the owners of those shares: https://wsbets.win/p/11SKBwagxW/excuse-me-what/c/

    From the sound of it other trading apps may be up to shenanigans too, though I haven’t looked closely at that yet. I don’t see how this can possibly be legal, but we all know what that’s worth these days…

      1. Of course, but if they do it will only add more fuel to the fire. I’m almost tempted to start a betting pool on how much longer it takes for government officials to start getting assassinated.

        1. Have you seen any sign that they are willing to consider the danger of fueling the fire? (Some will no doubt consider it putting the riffraff in their place.)

          1. Of course not. That’s my point. These fools are going to keep pushing harder and harder until someone decides they’ve had enough. I’m just wondering when the first shot will be fired.

            1. Yeah. I would never do anything like that because I have no skills and I still don’t think it’s the best way to go. But when even old women like me have fantasies about taking some of these evil people out, you know some tippy guy with nothing to lose is eventually going to act.

  51. Pingback: What’s Up With Crazy Nancy – The Laughing Wolf
  52. Pingback: Deny Till You Die! (part 2) | Hannibal Lecter's Evil Twin

  53. “So, you’re going to say “but we can’t get down to their level!” Why not? Because you want to lose?”

    I’ve encountered several right-wingers on the web who would firmly answer “yes.” Or more specifically, they would argue that the steadfast refusal to “get down to their level,” unto defeat and even torture and death, is the *only* meaningful difference between Right and Left. That to be on the Right is to understand that we are promised in *this* life not victory, but suffering, torture, and death. That we, to quote Tolkien do not “expect ‘history’ to be anything but a ‘long defeat’ – though it contains (and in a legend may contain more clearly and movingly) some samples or glimpses of final victory.” That contra Patton’s dictum on war, our victory indeed lies in being more willing to die than our enemy is — to let them kill us, even, rather than “get down to their level”; because (to quote one particular unpleasant specimen of this type I keep encountering) “your grace cannot be taken from you, you can only surrender it.” The Right is *defined* by embracing defeat in this life to win the more meaningful victory found only in the *next* — and thus, while Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists (particularly the self-immolating ones), even some Pagans (the guy I mentioned before likes to go on about Scaevola silently burning off his own right hand to demonstrate to his Clusian captors Roman resolve as an example to emulate), but atheists are Leftist by definition, as is *anyone* who puts tactical concerns over moral purity.

    Of course, I very much dispute this view (which gets me denounced in those circles as a Leftist infidel, and a “perdiferous traitor” to Western Civilization itself).

    1. Of course, I very much dispute this view (which gets me denounced in those circles as a Leftist infidel, and a “perdiferous traitor” to Western Civilization itself).

      –
      ST:original. Where Spock, Kirk, two of their most admired historical people ??? from Vulcun, and Lincoln, are pitted against 4 of the worst historical criminals from the galaxy. Good VS Evil. In the end the beings doing the experiment states that Good and Evil use the same tactics to win. There is no difference between Good and Evil! Kirk responds back “What were each side fighting for? Not just survival. What was Evil offered? What was Good offered?”

      I contend the same logic applies here. What does the CCP/Biden/Harris/Pelosi/AOC, etc want? What does President Trump want, for himself, for his family, for us. What do we want? If it takes the same tactics … so be it … I keep want to type “within reason”, but who am I to say what is reasonable? What are the circumstances? Is it because they can flip it back on us and make us the bad guy? IDK.

    2. Killing a thug that broke into your house to rob and murder you and your family does not make you a thug. You did not choose the terms of that encounter; the thug did. The thug placed more value on his crimes than your life. You simply placed more value on your life than his crimes.
      ———————————
      If you call 9-1-1 and tell them that somebody with a gun is breaking into your house, they will send two cops in 10 or 15 minutes. If you tell them that somebody is breaking into your house and YOU have a gun, they will send 10 or 15 cops in two minutes.

  54. Another one for Fox’s inevitable meme post:

    This was on Donald Trump Jr’s Twitter, who points out that the WSB guy looks an awful lot like a young Donald Trump (and suggests that might not be a coincidence).

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