Regressing

Posted on by accordingtohoyt

A Catholic priest, a rabbi and two Lutheran ministers walk into a bar…

If they’re friends, and at ease with each other, you’re almost certainly in America. Or in a country so far gone into atheist socialism, that it doesn’t matter what religion you have, you’re an enemy of the state.

Years ago, when the kids were little, our priest was a gentleman who was a weekend “biker” (and computer programmer) before he got his calling. Half of his sermons were about how our soul was like this problem he’d had with his motorcycle where he had to fix it with spit and bailing wire, or something.

So– At some kind of city inter-faith charity he met a rabbi and two ministers (one was Lutheran, the other, I THINK Presbyterian) who were similarly obsessed.

They started meeting for riding their bikes and for fun and became fast friends. I never figured out how that worked with weekends being different and with their duties, but I do know some friend gave them leather jackets with white wings and the words Heaven’s Riders picked out in sparkles.

And I remember going up to Denver (we lived in the Springs) at the highly unusual time (for us) of Sunday afternoon (we normally — meaning 4 times a year — went up for the weekend, and left Friday nigh) the kiddies got very excited in the back seat, yelling “Look, it’s them.” And thee, riding down the road were four middle aged men with “Heaven’s Riders” on their jacket.

Yes, incidentally, the four of them would make a great urban fantasy series. And when I told the story to some friends years ago they tried to organize an antho. The problem, as I found a couple of years ago, while doing Deep Pink, is that it’s hellishly difficult to write “won’t offend the heck out of people” let alone “they will like it” fantasy that TOUCHES religion. So that was a mine field.

Anyway, this is literally an “only in America.” Maybe — very maybe — England. But at this point I don’t know enough to say that confidently.

However, in the history of the world: how many gallons of shed blood, how much hatred and enmity tied humanity for centuries over religious differences. But in America, it doesn’t matter, unless you make it a point of hating x or y. And those people are rare. Our adopted-late-in-life son, (with duct tape, if you must ask) is Presbyterian and when we’re talking religion, he affectionately calls us “frigging Papists” and rolls his eyes. My friends so close they’re family are Jewish, Catholic, all flavors of Protestantism, slightly more exotic Mormons, and of course pagan and Asatru (more exotic flavor of pagan). I might think their religion is a belly laugh (I often think that of my own) but I’m certainly not going to try to kill them or even separate myself from them.

And as religion goes, so goes ethnicity, the two being linked throughout history. (Duct-tape-adopted son is Scotts and Welsh and Scandinavian. Um…. husband has a lot of Welsh for sure just from his family coming from that border.) In the US if a nice Italian boy brings home a half Swedish, half English, with more alien sprinkles bride, the likely response is “She’s blonde and so pretty.” And honestly, these days the same is true for race. (Which is why people fake racist incidents. The demand outstrips supply.) With very few exceptions, your family might hate your different colored bride/groom and give the race excuse, but almost for sure the problem is something else. (Like politics.)

This ability to co-exist is almost bizarrely rare elsewhere and elsewhen.

But hey, “progressives” want to throw it all away, in the name of imagined race wars that will give them power, and in favor of “safe spaces.”

Various colleges have segregated graduations, so students “of color” are safe from the “white gaze” (even though, let’s face it, guys, it’s America. we’re all mixes. Even some new arrivals. (Grins.)) which is so powerful it can stop their success with a look. And they have benes and goodies for only certain races. And they’re doing their best to bring back Hitler’s dreams of “such the race, such your personality.”

They haven’t started in on religion (yet) only because they don’t believe in religion. I don’t mean they’re atheist. They actually don’t believe religion exists, as such. Because they don’t have any, and everyone is like them.

The amazing thing is that they call themselves “progressives.” As though dragging us kicking and screaming to mankind’s stupid past hatreds were progress. As though us, people who tan needed their help, and needed “white” people removed so we can succeed.

Their program isn’t as successful as they’d like. None of this is, on account they don’t understand people-not-themselves. But it’s been too successful for my taste. As Heinlein said “it’s easier to teach people to hate.”

And that worries me, because it will backfire on the left who seems to think that because they declared it so, white people are already a minority. (Heck, guys, blond Amerindians might put whatever they want in their tax forms, but…)

And that rows back decades of just learning to live together and ignoring what’s not relevant to building and living and having a functional society.

We’ll come back, of course. We’re Americans and America in an era of fast travel falls apart if we try to magnify all differences and atomize.

But it’s going to cause trouble. By which I mean famine, misery and a huge butcher’s bill. Or in other words, those not-so-heavenly riders of the at least temporary apocalypse.

It would be much easier if we told the regressives to put a sock in it. And did it loudly enough to stick.

Can we do it? I don’t know. But despair is a sin, and might not be needed.

Shoulders up. Be not afraid. Don’t give the regressives an inch. Refuse the hate they call ‘love.’

299 thoughts on “Regressing”

    1. They 1. don’t believe that believers really believe, and so we get follies like the US State Department claiming that the Iranian regime talks in theological terms “just for the people at home,” or 2. their religion is so all-encompassing that they don’t understand why people still follow traditional religion(s). Thus the sneering and “god botherers” epithet, when they are busy bothering Marx, ethnicity, Gaia, or yes.

      2. It is commonplace in academic history to dismiss all religious motives as pretexts for something else. (A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry frequently harps on their believing their beliefs because the countervailing view is so predominant.)

      3. This frustrates the Muslim Terrorists to no end. They are told all the time “It was about Islam, it was Politics or Oppression”.

        They have to think what MORE can we do to make them believe we do it because we are Muslims?

        Also ANYONE who believes that the Muslim Terrorists do it because they are following the teachings of the Quran, is branded a racist bigot.

        Progressives dumber than a box of rocks.

        1. You left off that anyone with two or more brain cells that can be used to think (not those who use rocks for brains) do know that muslim terrorists (no muslim does NOT deserve to be capitalized when paired with terrorist) take their direction from the quran and their leaders. But also know it frustrates the muslim terrorists that it is touted by the rocks as political not religious. Who can be against frustrating terrorists? Muslim’s who are NOT terrorists, who have two or more brain cells that work, know this.

        2. Remember the Pulse nightclub shooting, where you had ISIS/AQ actually putting out press releases telling their fighters to stop targeting “minority related targets” because the “alt-Right” / Xtians / etc. was getting the “credit” in media coverage instead of them?

        3. I think some parody site had an article where Muslim terrorists were getting pissed off at prog propagandists doing what you describe. Can’t remember where or when, though.

    2. They think it’s all for show. THrey never answer the question “who are they showing it to?”

    3. There’s a strong case that’s been made that the current CRT thing is a new religion that’s currently trying to replace the vacuum Christianity has left as it’s retreated from the public life.

      I don’t think CRT itself can succeed, as it requires a majority of the population to feel guilt about their birth, but it could easily inspire several, more durable religions in its wake. Not particularly nice ones, but tribal affiliations are much more durable.

      2. It isn’t filling a vacuum left by Christianity, it fought its way in as a bid to replace Christianity. Partly by pretending to be Christian.

        Woke flavors of communism are heretical offshoots of Christianity.

        Christianity mutated from Judaism, and Islam is one of the mutations off of Christianity.

        In theory, leftism has good ‘genes’ for mutating into a viable religion with.

        In practice, there is a very good chance that it broke too many of the fundamental functional behaviors, and it will not be able to make the leap back to something that can peacefully coexist.

        Communisms, implemented as state cults, are too much at war internally to survive except off of the charity and productivity of functional, non-communist, probably Christian, nations.

        Communisms playing hide and backstab in Christian countries may possibly only be successful in that as long as they don’t think they’ve won, and take the masks off. They are so unrelentingly vicious when they think others have no recourse, and perhaps premature to conclude that others have no recourse. There exist people who don’t have to have that happen too them very many times before they start paying attention.

        1. We’ll have to do some recall digging to see which came first, but as near as I can tell Christianity began retreating from the public sphere even before World War 2, and certainly had mostly disappeared into the noise by the 1950’s. I recall how hard Schultz had to push to get Linus’ speech on the birth of Christ into the Peanuts Christmas special.

          But it is possible that a Puritan derived progresivism is what pushed it out of public life.

          I will argue that Leftism cannot replace the role Christianity played in liberal society, because it has rejected branding envy as a sin, and instead embraced it. I think it’s a natural mutation (envy has been core to human nature for a long time) but letting it in, and letting it become essential means they cannot allow anyone to grow or innovate without hating them for it. That alone makes decline unstoppable, and without growth “progress” becomes a lie.

          1. If you look at the Lord Peter Whimsy books, which were written at the time and one of the comments was that they pulled in people that were types everyone could recognize, there were “College Communist” types in there and they’re almost creepily recognizable.

            Chesterton pointed out at the time of WWI that there was a general feeling of vague embarrassment about being Christian, and they kept trying to come up with “Scientific” replacements for it.

            Hampered by a lot of the philosophers having a gut-level rejection of anything that tasted too much of Catholicism, and Natural Law philosophy being largely…well, you get the idea.

            1. Part of it, after the industrial revolution, some of the magic and wonder in ordinary daily life was ‘science’, and it often took someone with a careful eye to see the magic of Christianity. So, of course, there were ‘Christians’ that wanted to use shiny flashy things to benefit ‘Christianity’.

          2. a) Progressivism is not solely derived from Puritanism. There is a ‘established Church’ influence to it, that does not track with later Puritan/Calvinist influence on North American Protestantism. Leftism and Progressivism have used and stolen from local Christianity where ever leftism and progressivism have been practiced. Moldbug says it is Protestant, but that is only the piece of the elephant that he looked for.
            b) There are legitimately differences in opinion about levels of public practice between actual flavors of nominal Christianity. It is appropriate to talk about Puritan/Calvinist influence, but on some of the Protestant flavors of understanding public religion versus some of the Catholic flavors of understanding public religion. And Calvinist influence on the state of the peace consensus between the denominations.
            c) Yes, Calvinist implosion in New England is important. And did create an opportunity for religions that identify as hostile to religion.
            d) Before WWII would be rise of mass communication, and mass transport. Automobiles, telephones, radio, television, etc. When you have a lot more local isolation, it is easier to maintain the peace consensus while saying publicly things that will only be known locally. Catholics being salty about ‘Anti-Catholicism’, that is Protestants being hostile to True Christianity, TM, and Protestants being salty about Catholics being hostile to True Christianity, TM. When you have a bunch of little local pockets heavy in one denomination, and they can make public statements that will not be known widely, you can boost your own denomination in public without compromising too much peace with other denominations. So, that is not easy to sort out as a confounding factor.
            e) Wilson and FDR. Could have been pushing stuff out on the mass media front. I would note that the FCC was created under FDR, even if the Federal Radio Commission predated FDR.
            f) Early Progressives were abolition, suffrage, and temperance, and late Progressives were also about alcohol. This means that the historical narratives of both periods of progressive, seperately or together, are influenced by the stories that Catholics have been telling themselves about their place in America. So, there is a ’caused by those wicked Calvinists’ thread that one needs to be aware of if one wants to see that history even handedly from both sides.

            Example, BGE has shared with us the oral history that the New York Catholics had about the degree to which Protestant Americans were suspicious of Catholics during the American Revolution. And, there is definite truth to that narrative, to the argument that there may have been unjust treatment of Catholics, and that the Protestant complaint about the Crown tolerating French Catholicism in now Canada would have been concerning for Catholics in New York. But, there is another side, overlooked in the narrative BGE related. It is said that French colonists and English colonists generally had different modes of economic activity in North America. English were farmers, and the French were fur traders. Which means the French were able to be much friendlier with the indians, and the English at times saw the indians as an existential threat. And modern narratives are too biased in being charitable to the indians, so this example is one where a modern historian ought to be especially careful.

            1. My apologies. I was not using terms very precisely. I was seeing the prohibition and late progressive movements as having a very puritanical spirit to them, rather than intending to say they directly descended from the Puritans.

              Foxifier’s comment about Chesterton reminds me that he had also described it as Prushianism as well. It seems to be a philosophy that specializes in changing it’s name quite frequently…

              1. Ah. No worries.

                There’s a lot of opinions, and I get quite tedious about some of them. Perhaps unfairly so.

                The swing away from Christianity that showed up in the blood descendants of New England Calvinism could be implicated in late Progressivism, because FDR and I think Wilson were yankees.

                And the New England Calvinists were pretty confident that they had perfected human society on Earth, that first generation.

                And, frankly, the abolitionists had to be pretty confident that their religious preference translated to a right or responsibility to coerce changes in how others lived.

              2. Wait, it *is* kinda– Gnostic.
                The sort that was around before Jesus, even, where they kinda latch on to whatever is cool….

    4. IMHO it’s a theory of mind failure. They can’t believe anything would be worth their lives to die for, so they can’t believe other people are, indeed, willing to die or kill for their own beliefs.

      This is what is known as a potentially fatal miscalculation.

      1. “He can’t really mean—” Boom. Or bang, bang, bang.

        See also: why a certain Arabic phrase, when yelled, sends people running for cover or trying to stop the person yelling.

        1. Yep. You hear that phrase, you either hit the deck or lunge for the yeller, whichever you judge is the best option in that split second.

          Because some things are worth dying for, and stopping evil in its tracks is one of them.

          (Preferable to stop it and not die, but you gotta go with the options you’ve got on hand.)

          1. And, honestly, dying in the attempt is less bad than not dying when they aren’t stopped.

            I don’t even want to look up the name of that mall where some poor idiots thought that not resisting would mean they wouldn’t be harmed, but even local police there couldn’t not be physically ill at the remains.

          2. Do keep in mind that our opponents, both radical Islam and committed left wing progressives, believe in their hearts that we are the evil ones.
            In the aftermath of 9/11 there were videos from the middle east showing street celebrations over the righteous blow struck against the “Great Satan.”
            Similarly, our left will celebrate every riot, every burned store, every event that causes damage and harm to the white patriarchy.
            Only saving grace is that while the extreme radical Islamists are willing to die for their beliefs, our home grown nutters, being cowards, are not, and scurry back into the shadows when confronted with force.

            1. Unfortunately true. Which explains a lot of why our politics has gone so hideously downhill. The old saying “conservatives think liberals are stupid; liberals think conservatives are Evil.” Too many people think you can negotiate with someone who thinks you’re Evil.

              You can’t. You can remove yourself from the situation, if you’re lucky, or you can give them Consequences for messing with you. That’s it.

                2. THIS.

                  “Here is nothing new nor aught unproven,” say the Trumpets,
                  “Many feet have worn it and the road is old indeed.”

                3. In theory, there is a case for pretending to negotiate as a ruse of war, and going ahead with your alternative to negotiation. In practice, you may waste more of your own energy or time than your opponent’s.

                  Also, it interferes with being forthright and honest.

    5. As Michael Crichton pointed out, every society needs a religion…The left’s religion is a jumble of “global warming” and the Earth is dying, sexual confusion, idolatry towards whatever victim group is trendy, hatred of ordinary people, especially whites, and hatred of anyone who’s smarter than them, which half the country…

      1. It’s pretty clear that the left’s belief system functions as a religion. It makes for a horrible religion though. One big important thing that it’s missing is any sort of struggle to be a better person. Instead they’ve enshrined the virtue signaling of the Pharisees, which gives them a free pass from even trying to be better.

        1. Their religion is the essentially their belief that they themselves are divine, and thus should be treated as such. It is the ultimate total narcissism where EVERYTHING is about themself. Their worship of The State exists in so much as they view The State as being the instrument by which they are given their divinely entitled tribute.

        2. One good test of the truthiness of any religion is to determine who they want to repent. True religions want you to repent, false one want you to make other people repent.

          1. But with the wokies even ‘repentance’ doesn’t give redemption, it just serves to admit that you’re a ‘sinner’. Don’t give them the ammunition they’ll use to take you down.

            1. They’ve learned that it is effective for them to attack through the things that make a Christian a Christian, if they can present the attack as based in sincerity.

          2. Not necessarily on the second point.

            I don’t know enough about other strains of communism to discuss them. But an important part of Maoism is built around the idea of the self-criticism. The claimed purpose is – similar to Christian repentance – to help the one doing the self-criticism to identify his or her mistakes and gain forgiveness for them. But the actual purpose is to get the person in question to publicly humiliate themselves. Whether the person is actually “forgiven” is up to the party leader, who is often the one identifying the “mistakes” that the individual needs to self-criticize, and whose whims decide whether or not the self-criticism is accepted.

            1. And China is a face based culture. Such humiliation is much more difficult to recover from than in a non-face based society. Which is , of course, the point. It’s getting people to do the work of subjugating themselves.

  2. There are two things I am cautious talking about in mixed company, even when I think I know those I’m chatting with – politics, and religion.

    Ironically, I twigged to this when I was serving my mission (which was in the US).

    1. I *almost* want to hear that story, but even ox know better than to actually ask.

      And no, this is not a surreptitious way of asking-not-asking.

      [I have had SO MUCH crazy accusations of late, I seem to need to have a disclaimer on every last little thing! It GRATES, it does. Ox though ox slow, then ox meet humans…. oy.]

      1. No specific spectacular stories in this case. Just instances in which people didn’t respond in the manner that was expected. Fortunately, in each of the instances in question, the person responding in the unanticipated fashion completely misunderstood the intent of the original comment, and so no offense occurred.

        Politics is part and parcel with someone’s personal philosophies. And philosophies tend to influence our religious choices. Thus, when I realized I ought to be more than cautious chatting about politics, I had the simultaneous realization about religion. Of course, the entire purpose of my being on a mission was to chat about religion. But the fact that I was a full-time missionary meant that people expected that. So talking about religion wasn’t a problem at that time.

  3. Went to store this morning ($HOUSEMATE was almost out of preferred coffee flavorant..) and spoke with Product Manager (guy in charge of ordering…) who was frustrated he SIMPLY could not get so much stuff. Actually advised, “If you need one now, get at least two if you can.” Stuff that was bog-standard is now IMPOSSIBLE. But it shifts. The no-can-find coffee creamer (one customer has a Standing Order) might be in a glut in a month, but something ELSE will be “hen’s teeth.”

        2. Cream here has been spotty, so whenever found I always stock up for as much as I can safely store. I go through about a quart a week, because cream and coffee are like pease and carets here. I hate having to buy those small containers. Quarts of kroger heavy whipping… Ah, MAN! so thick you have to shake the bottle to get it to glug into the cup. If they take away my cream it’ll be time to go on Jihad as an Executioner for Zardoz!

          1. about a quart a week, because cream and coffee are like …

            –
            I approve this message.

            I have to find a way to take cream with us without having to rely on having a reliable frig in the hotel room; as in actually makes things cold w/o freezing them. The little cups that restaurants and hotel breakfast bars have will be fine. Rooms typically have coffee, they also have the powder creamer, and … No. Just no. Unlike some I can survive without coffee, having it at the occasional breakfast we stop for (just add an IV please), but I do not want to. I’m not picky, it just needs to be 1/2&1/2. Used to get an International Coffee mix I liked, but that flavor mix has disappeared. Would blame coof flu but it disappeared well before that mess.

            Locally we have a lot of choices between the Kroger brand (locally sourced), DairyMart, Tillamook, Umpqua, etc., there will be something available.

            1. I’ve a plug-in from Alpicool that will cool down to -4 or heat up to the sixties I believe. Runs 12 volt or 120. Spendy, but I gave up on ice coolers after a food poisoning bout.

              1. Good idea. I’ll look for one.

                We’re new to the hotel route. We were expecting working items. Silly us. Before we had an RV; sold it.

            2. Re: Dairy
              The Kroger brand of low-carb yogurt is now running in the shortage category. (Carbmaster, non-sugar sweetened, various flavors). $SPOUSE keeps trying to get me to switch to plain yogurt, but I’m not quite ready to give up sweet tastes for breakfast, but if the alternative is sugar, plain it is.

              Re: Refrigeration.

              I used to stay at a Hilton Garden Inn when I’d do my medical excursions over the Cascades. I frequently got the same room, but I had to be careful to check the setting on the small fridge, because in slow times, the staff would turn the damned thing to bare-tickover. I found it A Very Good Idea to check the mini-fridge, every damned time.

              Once Covidiocy reared its spiky head, the Hilton dropped all food service from the premises, so I switched to the Homewood Suites (yet another Hilton brand), so I could do my own cooking. The suite uses an apartment-sized fridge (14 cubic foot, roughly), and it’s kept cold.

              (*) Both hotels are in walking distance to my eye appointment, and the tests make it a bad idea to drive. Yet another hotel is available, right next to the freeway. No thanks.

              1. The best setup I ever saw was all the electronics in the room on a surge protector bar– which was mounted up where it was handy for someone’s computer when they sat it down on the desk, and YOU COULD CLEARLY SEE IT WAS TURNED OFF. And easily turn it back on.

              2. If they’ve got milk, you can get a thing of unflavored live culture yoghurt and make your own.

                It’s been a while, but as I recall, you heat the milk to just below scalding, or around 180F. Then cool it down to 110F, and mix in the live yoghurt, and keep it around 100-110F for over night or so to let it do its thing. I’ll usually just leave it in the oven overnight with the oven light on. It will be pretty thin at that temperature but will set up pretty well in the fridge. Just make sure it smells/tastes right.

                I personally prefer Fage brand for this, but it’s all up to personal preference. They all have somewhat different personalities.

                1. I did that a few (25) years ago. I’d buy some starter and do a batch in a small yogurt incubator.. Some of that batch would start the next batch, but there was a limit to the number of cycles before the batches faded out.

                  Plain yogurt is still fairly available, though the low-fat variety $SPOUSE likes was short last summer. The Carbmaster stuff (lactose-free, or so they say) has been dwindling in stock. I keep type II diabetes at bay by watching my sugars, so the choices for flavored yogurt are limited.

                  Hmm, I used flavoring extracts and oils because of a medical-fast* even longer ago. I doubt I could find them locally.

                  (*) Sort of worked. Lost a bunch of weight, gained it all back, then lost half of that. Good enough for the while.

                  1. Ah, yeah doesn’t work as well for lactose free stuff.

                    For flavors, I’ve been using sucralose drops with LorAnn flavor oils and eye dropper caps, myself.

                    There was a water based flavor stuff out of CA that was really good, but I think they went out of business in 2020 :/

                    Didn’t even realize they were in trouble because I’d ordered a big box of them when covid was just starting up.

                    1. The water based stuff might have been what I used in ’91. The shop where I got it was some specialty place in one of the spendier(!) towns on the SF peninsula. A friend used the stuff plus oils for hard candy on occasion.

              3. Where we’re staying it is “is it Clean” and “Who is pet friendly.” Comes under “it is just easier”. Pet fees waved.

                Okay. Yes. In the US we can stay no matter where. And twice on our last trip we did stay in non-pet friendly hotels. (Red Lodge, last room in town. West Yellowstone, normally the first chain checked does allow pets, but apparently not this one, too tired to go looking elsewhere.) But is a PIA. (No, there is no national legal recognized registry or certification of service dogs in the US under the ADA. I do not care how long you’ve worked at front desks of hotels. Look it up dang it. …. okay off soap box …) Not fair to other SD handlers but I do have an um “hard” patch that on the back has the following: “This card is being presented by the handler’s free will. It has no legal standing. Service Dog Id’s are not required in the US. Not all teams will have one.” Not that anyone looks at the back. Just looks at the front that says Service Dog, Medical Alert, and has her picture on it.

                In Canada, depending on “where”, it depends. Alberta and BC requires annual certification either by recognized SD organization or by testing by Alberta or BC which is not inexpensive, and by appointment only. Not something we are going to do for a 10 to 14 day trip, every few years. She comes. But we book pet friendly and hope they will wave the pet fee based on my training documentation and doctor’s note. So far, yes.

                Working frig is a bonus.

                1. The Homewood Suites get a lot of people with dogs, and I don’t recall seeing many that are obviously service dogs. Anything from Labs to cute fuzzy dogs of indeterminate breeds. FWIW, cost for a single person is about what the Hilton charges, perhaps 5% less,

                  Caveat: They bill it as an equipped kitchen, but there are gaps. I found it a good idea to bring a small cutting board, spatula flipper, and a decent knife, plus enough oil to get the skillet good enough for eggs. The knife provided by them was innocent of any sharp edges. Not sure it was ever sharp.

                  Then there’s Shilo Inn. Decent fridge and tiny microwave. The local one is near the hospital and collects a lot of day surgery patients. Place was deserted when I was there in Jan ’20 (horrible winter storms), but they advertise as pet friendly.

                  1. We book in advance at primary destination. So that is locked. Mid stop going is “what is available”, but that is likely to be a larger place with options (so is the last leg home, supposedly*). It was the back end loop. Had an idea of the route, just not the timing. As it was, we left Estes Park 2 nights early. If we’d stayed all original 5 nights we wouldn’t have ran into the problems we did. That last weekend was Yellowstone/Tetons last big weekend where it was more difficult to get lodging on the fly. We came into W Yellowstone via the Beartooth Pass, thus Red Lodge. Red Lodge has a lot of hotels, but it is not very big.

                    As far as meals. That is what good lunch meat and Tillamook Cheddar Cheese is for. Hubby likes his sandwiches dry. I can live with that too but generally take the single pack avocado (Costco) to put on mine.

                    * Not the trip we just got home from. Dang horse headed to the barn attitude (I love him to pieces but dang it, that is suppose to be stopping). OTOH that is probably the last time he lets me drive a section between I-84 (Ontario OR) and Bend … I won’t pass, unless there is a passing lane … There are not many passing lanes through that section of Hwy 20/22/26 (frustrated the people in line behind us too. I have a rule, I want to get wherever.) … But hey, I did drive. A whole 5 hours of a 10 day trip 🙂 About par if we don’t have the truck and trailer, and 5 hours more than I drive when we do.

                    1. I used to hate passing on two-lane roads, but the two-lanes between home and Flyover usually have some opportunity to pass, and even the Forester can do a credible job of passing. Except on market days; too much traffic coming and going. Observing the state of sobriety of the person in front is a valuable survival skill. Especially with legal pot.

                      Highway 140 over the Cascades has plenty of passing lanes on the uphillss, and a few in the downhill in the west side of the pass.

                  2. In the past, Residence Inn has been extremely pet friendly. We took Mr Nemo up to Portland for about 6 months.

            3. Powdered creamer products can be useful for making explosives and rocket fuel. 😛

              Mythbusters found that creamer powder made the biggest dust explosion of all the substances they tested.

              1. No wonder my gut hates the powdered creamers 🙂 (Okay. Seriously, it is the taste and texture, but …)

          2. Was in a local grocery today. Major shortages were popular flavors of Gaterade and juice packs (been scarce for several weeks). No problem with cream or creamers. Watching others leave the store it was clear that they were taking to heart the predicted shortage of Coke (https://www.cnbc.com/2021/10/27/coca-cola-ceo-expects-to-see-sporadic-product-shortages-through-2022.html). It appeared that they were determined to make it happen based on the quantities in carts.

    2. I’m done with my free trial of socialism, but I can’t seem to send it back!

      The shortages come across to me as the (so far) American version of communist-style markets. The customers would never know from day to day what was going to be available, so they’d buy what was there even if they didn’t need it right then. But this is the US, and our economy hasn’t been completely wrecked yet. So when stuff is available, there’s more than enough of it.

      It’s still best to stock up on it, though. Because you don’t know whether it will be there the next time you visit the market.

      1. I’ve gotten to the point with some items, in particular the dog’s canned food (which is ALL she gets, for meals), and the cats “good food” (once a day each x 4), which are the only flavors the picky brats will eat (bribery to insure they are inside each night), I am not only buying more than I need for the month, but clearing out the store’s shelves.

          1. I’ve read a couple of notable items recently about the logistical mess. The first was the Twitter thread that went viral about the tour of Long Beach Harbor focusing on container storage, and the lack of room for more. Long Beach responded to that by removing the penalties for 90 days (I think) for stacking more than two containers in a column. It’s a start, imo, but I’ve a sneaking suspicion it isn’t long enough.

            The second item was a lengthy piece on Zero Hedge. The guy who wrote it claimed to be a truck driver for a unionized company that hauls freight out of the ports (or had worked as such in the past; I don’t remember). And as I read it, I noted something. The writer went through and talked about ridiculously long delays at the ports, at the container yards, and at the warehouses. And he clearly spelled out that the problem with the warehouses (where the containers get unpacked, with the contents then divvied up for shipment to their next destinations) was due to a shortage of workers. It’s a lousy job, with lousy pay. And the fact that the warehouses are weeks behind causes trucks to experience long delays when they try to offload their containers. But when it came time to talk about solutions, all he seemed to do was to complain about how the ports and the container yards had no incentive to try to improve the system. The fact that – by his own admission – the warehouses are acting as a giant logjam went completely unaddressed. And so did the fact that the warehouse – again, by his own admission – problem is largely due to a shortage of hands, which generally can be dealt with by finding ways to get more people to work for you (at least until you’re caught up).

            Actually getting those warm bodies is a whole ‘nother problem. But the writer didn’t even touch on the fact that getting those bodies might help unpack the current logistical mess.

            Given the mention of owner-operators in various comments, and the problems that they have operating in California due to AB5, I also found it suspect that the only time the writer mentioned owner-operators was basically to say that it’s impossible to make money as such while hauling freight from the ports (due to the amount of time wasted just waiting around), and it’s stupid to want to be one (or at least that’s the impression that I got from his writing).

            1. I’ve read in a few places now that the problems aren’t concentrated in one or two problematic areas, but are spread throughout the supply chain.

              One take blames it on Just-In-Time methods. These work well when there’s a steady state of business, but when the supply chain was partly shut down during the Chinavirus lockdowns, the disruptions propagated throughout the chain. From not enough empty containers in China, to too many empty containers that can’t make it back to the ports, to not enough truckers available, the list goes on. JIT, wasn’t designed to have a lot of transient increased capacity, because that wasn’t “efficient”. (And building any extra capacity is a problem because the resources needed to expand the capacity are stuck in the supply chain, too. Sigh.)

              So far, the FICUS maladministration has done a bang-up job of making a bad situation worse, but even with a competent group of people doing things, it’s going to take a (long) while to get the pipes flowing properly.

              I think of it as a multiple-country version of a gridlocked city.

              1. I don’t blame Just in Time. Yes, it made the problems become clear sooner than they would have otherwise. But the issue is the logistical throughput. If you’ve got a kink in the hose, you’re going to run out of water. Putting a small storage tank between you and the kink will make it take longer to run out of water. But you’re still going to run out. The kink needs to be cleared to solve the problem. The transport issues are like that kink in that they restrict the amount of goods moving through the system.

                JIT would have been a factor if the transport issues were short-term. But they’ve gone on too long at this point, and we’d be in the same spot right now with or without JIT.

                1. JIT is evil. It treats buffering as inefficiency, and routes around it.

                  The February freeze in Texas offered several textbook examples. NG power plants rely on pipelines, which were typically powered by motors siphoning fuel from the pipeline itself. In the name of ‘green’ efficiency, NG pipelines were converted to be powered by electricity from the grid — ensuring that the NG power plant couldn’t power the grid unless the grid was already working. (Legacy coal-burning power plants typically had months’ worth of supply on hand, rail cars full of coal delivered in advance. But that is inefficient and wrong according to JIT principles.)

            2. The Twitter thread about Long Beach Harbor correctly identified one thing: there will always be some bottleneck, it’s just a question of which one. If overall process performance is terrible, figure out which steps of the process are intrinsic bottlenecks, and optimize the others so they don’t add on top of it.

              The Zero Hedge article was heavily Teamsters-centric: owner-operators are untenable, only more pay and benefits will fix the problem, etc. Now, he’s not wrong that pay and benefits for truckers is lousy. But fixing that problem doesn’t fix the supply chain, unless the bottleneck is a mere lack of truckers. Talk of ridiculously long delays at ports, yards, and warehouses invalidates that theory. If ports were charged pickup delay surcharges, the ports would figure out how to get trucks in and out like a NASCAR pit stop.

        2. Yeah Cat food has been weird. Our boys like 2-3 flavors of a particular canned brand. Furry little brats won’t eat anything else even alleged high end stuff (e.g. Blue Buffalo). as a case of 24 cans lasts a week (small cans) we buy it by the case. Walmart, Chewie, Amazon someone will have it for a while and then its gone. Local pet stores rarely have it in large quantities. Their favored crunchies at lest are in full availability, but they seem to do better healthwise on the wet stuff. On the Human fron Deli meats (particularly Boars Head) was almost unfindable for several weeks. It’s back but with a huge price jump.

          1. That is what I’m finding too. Human food “disappears”, comes back with slightly different smaller packaging with a huge price jump. Even Costco Hamburger is up $1.10/pound. Costco meat has a tiny percentage markup. Which is why it varies so much regularly. Right now I need a second mortgage to get the steaks we like. (Joking, more or less.) Be interesting to see what our 1/2 pork, local hobby farmer, comes in at price/pound, with butchering. Fresh fall apples are up $0.50 – $1 per pound. Interestingly baking potatoes have been limited and tiny in size.

            Our problem is we despise canned. My system can’t tolerate dehydrated meals without intervention (backpacked enough to know this). We’ll adapt if it goes to heck. But dang it.

            Problem is the only ones three of the 4 will eat are the chicken, salmon (sometimes), or beef with chicken. No tuna. No shrimp. The 3rd is still < year old and on the "Food? … Give me" diet. Her food or not.

            1. Costco had no Coke products today, other than two flats– not two pallets, two FLATS, like “will fit in my basket with room” flats– of whichever is their lemon lime drink.

              On the other hand, Walmart finally had Gimbal’s jelly beans in one store in the area, first time in months. (They’re Jelly Belly, but at half the price, basically.)

              There was actually chocolate candy left over after Halloween– and not just one day if you’re fast enough, TWO DAYS.

              Still no chicklets anywhere.

              1. We’ve been having problems with both Pepsi products, specifically Diet Pepsi, and regular Coke, at our local Costco. I buy two cases of coke and 4 to 5 cases of Diet Pepsi, normally. Just got some. So hopefully there will be some next time I get to Costco. Gets where there is none of these here, other than gas, why bother with Costco? Might be time to think about dropping membership. Although I do like getting appliances, computers, and eye glasses, there … Sigh.

                * Please not for awhile!!! Stove/Microwave, Washer/Dryer, and Freezer, over the last 3 years!!! We are over due on the dishwasher, hot water heater, and frig. Technically our furnace is “past expected life” (i.e. past warranty).

                1. I’ve been Acting Less White with Coke products… hardly missing them at all, at all. Nothing from Twix either.
                  Costco wants 18$/lb for steak, fkem I’m a Balt, I can live on pickled herring!
                  Death to Greenie cultists!

                2. I’ve been having trouble finding original flavour Gatorade. Most of the other flavours I find MORE acidic than the lemon-lime, and hate the taste of the sugar free ones. Considering the fact that the other ones don’t move as fast, you’d think the bottler would figure out what lines to run more.

                  1. The original Orange is the only one that has been readily available locally, most the time. Hubby doesn’t care, but the kid does. I won’t drink it regardless.

                    (Both the “sugarless” and sugared trigger the RH crash. Sugared legit, sugar high crash. Sugarless fake high (doesn’t go up but triggers the insulin response anyway) crash, which is worse. Probably why I can’t stand the taste.)

                    Haven’t looked for it lately. Have enough from last purchase that should last until it gets summer hot again, or hubby takes it south on the winter road trip.

                    1. Living in Florida, doing a lot of physical work, even during the winter I generally sweat enough to require more than water to rehydrate

                    3. Glycemix Index
                      –
                      Did not know that. Not something posted on labels. Have learned to recognize the effect. Now I know what to call the cause.

                      Yogurt is the one that brought it to the forefront. As in “What the heck? I just ate!” Sure enough, pup was right. 90 before I ate, 75 AFTER. WTH!!! Grumble. Grouse. Whine. Note to self … avoid all non-fat yogurts. High calorie Greek types are better, high fat, sugar, but minimal, but not by much; as in 90 – 107 – 85. I used to like yogurt (still do, but no thanks).

                  2. We noticed very little Gatorade at the commissary. They were also rationing chicken wings.

                    1. Gatorade was short this summer. I was getting a bottle after rehab sessions in May & June, and saw that my useful varieties (zero sugar, and without gluten(!)) were a challenge to find.

                      The independent grocer occasionally runs out of two-pound bricks of mozzarella cheese. Eggs almost disappeared in 2020, and are so-so for stocking quantities. I’ve been able to find something, but not always my preference.

                    2. Same.

                      What I stated above about the Orange Gatoraide wasn’t an implication our shelves were full of Gatoraide, they weren’t. Just what was/is stocked tended to be the Orange flavors.

                      Eggs, in Kroger, tends to get non-existent between shelf stocking. That didn’t use to happen. Haven’t seen eggs run out at Costco, but Costco also doesn’t seem to have multiple pallets of backups. Ditto with milk.

                      Eggs, we have alternative, and free, source, if hubby gets to them first (one of the golf club members has chickens and often leaves a dozen or two sitting on the table in the club house. Hubby gives him our empty commercial egg carriers to use.) Hubby hasn’t been bring home many eggs lately, IDKW. Hubby and I don’t eat eggs at home more than 2 or 3 times a month. I do use eggs in the rolls I make. But our son eats eggs 3 times a week.

            2. The big independent grocery store (Sherm’s, with locations here, Medford, and Roseburg) dropped the price on apples a few weeks ago. What used to be $1.49 a pound is more like $1.29, and the varieties I don’t like (cough Red Delicious cough) are $0.99.

              I think Sherm has connections with some of the apple orchards in Washington.

              OTOH, potatoes stink. We’re supposed to be a potato growing area, but the drought killed that idea, and the alternatives are sketchy.

          2. Local store has butter on “Price Decline” …. but it declined from $2.99 to $3.49. Hrmm.

            And the fancy (ish) pita chips that were 2 for $8 are now ‘on sale’ for $4.99 a bag. Hrmm.

            That’s just what I happened to notice.

            1. I recall an essay read years ago claiming the fall of civilization is predicted by the price of bacon. I didn’t give it much credence but was reminded of it when I checked the price of bacon at the local Stater Brothers: $10.99/lb..

              When bacon hits $11 per pound you know there is a problem.

              1. Wow. Even the Pepper Bacon we get at the local butcher shop down the road, which is always expensive compared to local Kroger “good bacon”, isn’t that bad.

                Hubby did forward that our 1/2 pork this year is going to be “more expensive” per pound because feed costs were up. Last year it was just barely over Costco Ground Round per pound cost, for per pound meat + butcher costs. If it stays comparable it’ll run still < $5.00/pound, regardless of the cut.

              2. Haven’t seen it THAT bad, but then if where I am is not the biggest pork producer, we’re mighty close. And it shows, er, smells. (If you have had the misfortune of being downwind of much horse or cattle manure, sure, it ain’t perfume, but hog manure is RICH in hydrogen sulfide.) There might be worse, but I would like to keep NOT encountering it!

            2. That’s Wal-Mart’s favorite trick. Bump the price 20% and then slap big “SALE!” signs up.

    3. I am studying up on homemade products and buying extra health/cleaning items every. damn. time I shop. Either I have dish soap/toothpaste/cough drops till 2027, or…I don’t.

  4. Yep, I just “loved” the list of elements of “White Supremacy” the Smithsonian once had on their webpage.

    Lots of them were things people needed to succeed in Life.

    So they were saying that Non-Whites Couldn’t Be Expected To Do Those Things.

    IE Non-Whites are inferior to Whites. [Very Very Big Sarcastic Grin]

    1. Well of course … (enable dark sarcasm mode) … those poor li’l brown chillun can’t be expected to work hard, dress and speak decently, study in school, marry well, and show up to work on time at an honest job. They need those sainted white saviors to run interference for them! (disable dark sarcasm mode)

      2. They’ve moved now, I think he finished his program of study and rejoined his family. On our street we have two houses across from each other. One was flying the UofO Duck Green flag, the other, across the street, was flying the OSU Beaver Orange Flag. Occasionally, we fly the latter one. Know the Duck flag flier, retired from the same job hubby held for 36 years, that he and I started out doing, not that we’re close neighbors. The Beaver flag flyer was outside doing some yard work when the dog and I was out for a walk. Said “Hi. Nice Flag!” (It’s a thing when someone flies a Beaver Flag in Duckville.) We got talking. Program he was in was very demanding requiring him to take classes at Oregon State, UofO, and LCC. My first reaction was “WOW”, but not uttered. But also the wrong reaction. Because he was black. Doesn’t matter that my reaction was meant to be because the program was demanding for ANYONE. It isn’t right. What I settle on was “Wow. That back and forth commute is brutal. I’ve done that.”

      3. Dark sarcasm mode?? So you’re saying that white sarcasm is superior? I hear that dog whistle you’re blowing, comrade.

      4. It was worse.

        You weren’t allowed to use the scientific method, be in a nuclear family, or be CHRISTIAN.

        Per The Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture.

        :shudder:

          1. And they get to decide what is “authentic.”

            Since *biological reality* of one girl, one boy, offspring is “white.”

            And part of why kids make so many really dumb choices– more of them when they’re intelligent– is because they are applying a very basic form of the scientific method: “what happens when I change this?”
            (discovered, scientifically, when someone was trying to prove that adults think before they act, and instead found out that adults are not thinking, because they already know the answer, based off of brain waves)

            1. Speaking of “biological reality,” the link at AoS yesterday about forensic anthropologists telling scientists to stop using biological race on skeletal remains identification is kind of funny. Mostly because the serious scientists among the anthropologists tend to couch “race” as SWAG- the actual data from the skeletal remains alone might *suggest* it, but it isn’t all that scientific.

              Things like local population history and crime scene data inform this SWAG of “race,” but each factor alone is just a suggestion. Even taking the best of the data you get- interorbital breadth, nasal width- only at the extremes are they somewhat useful. The law enforcement side always wants race as part of the data, and race is part of the big three: age, sex, race that are at the top on NCIC/NamU etc forms. But, as they say, one of these things is not like the others.

              Every human being on the planet is descended from black and brown people. We evolved and spread out of Africa somewhere around a quarter billion years ago. The concept of “race” is part of a long history of mutation and adaptation to local environments. Paler skin, narrower noses work better for areas with cold, snowy winters, while the opposite works better for hot and dry. Isolated populations tend to grow more homogeneous, phenotypically. Thus “race.”

              So the wokesters want to drop “race” from the forensic data. Okay. For all the wrong reasons, but okay. *chuckle* Notice in the source article, the letter to the editor, how she talks about how when they report race via ancestry data, they are “90.9%” correct. Yup. Taking into account all of that non-skeletal data, it sure is. Doesn’t make it anything more than a SWAG, because plenty of times you just don’t suggest a race at all rather than tag “mixed race.”

              Skeletal morphology is formed by the soft tissue, not the other way around. But skin color, presence/absence of epicanthic folds, hair color and curliness- that stuff does not impact the skeleton at all. That narrows the things you can use to “do they have wide noses, and are their eyes far apart?” Which isn’t as useful as, say, gracile skull with wide pelvic opening to determine female sex. Or overall development and joint wear for age.

              So nice try, wokesters. It’s good to talk about the limits of the actual data. It just does not follow that since there is no biological backing to your race and sex fantasies that we do away with using what we can for forensic anthropolgical and medicolegal purposes in identifying remains.

                1. Mom’s a very Irish looking gal, dad is a very dark like oooh wow pretty ebony African looking guy whose country I can’t remember, it’s been a few years since I read the news story.

                  They DID stage the photo, and there IS a lot of makeup/style type work involved here- note the black shirt on the “white” sister, and the white shirt on the “black” sister, and the lipstick choices, angle of head to accentuate their noses, etc.

                  That said, they are more notable because they’re very pretty girls than because it’s unknown, there are several identical twins who look like they’re “different races” every year.

                  1. Indeed. *grin* And the continual mixing of races is driving a trend towards a more homogeneous whole.

                    I worry for the sciences in the coming future generations. When I was growing up and going to school, I remember what my old discipline of anthropology was going through. The legacy of Meade, phrenology, and the like was heavy. It was hard to get funding for anything. The more scientific branch (physical, the one I studied) was losing out to the fluffy social/cultural branch. Maybe because of the echo of racism- “real racism, as in black people aren’t as smart as whites and we can prove it through skull measurements!” It took a long time for it to recover.

                    They’re already invested in the medical field. They are trying to muddy the waters on sex already, and that is a terrible idea. Men and women are biologically different. More the same than we are different, but those differences *matter.* And can be a matter of life and death when it comes to their health.

                    Hopefully we can save science from politics. When science and politics meet, science always loses.

                    1. It just hit me, because X and Y chromosomes are different, and humans have 46 total chromosomes, doesn’t that imply that men and women are more different from each other (2.2%) than any of us are from the average baseline human? (0.1%)

                    2. *chuckle* In respect to the theoretical, average baseline human of your sex, yes. In a broader sense, also yes, genetically speaking. Men and women are built on the same frame, biologically speaking. Aside from sex organs, of course. Different hormone bath creates slight differences in brains, too.

                      Given all the bits and bobs that define male from female, it makes sense. But also, given the range of human variability, you might be more like some theoretical female than the theoretical baseline male in certain ways, too.

                      Men and women are naturally compatible and cooperative, generally speaking. I believe, psychologically, that we’re much better off together than apart. One could argue that our brains have evolved to work that way, too, though the study to *prove* that would be far more complex than I’d be comfortable with.

                    3. And the continual mixing of races is driving a trend towards a more homogeneous whole.

                      Oh, that’s the COOL thing- sort of yes, there are fewer of the extremes that are instantly identifiable as “clearly this group,” but sort of no, because inside of a single family it’s not even blink-worthy (to my generation, a bit younger) to have kids that make my grandparent’s generation ask “oh, you adopted?”

                      Our household has from blinding blond little block of muscle and bone (he’ll probably grow out of it, but my brother wasn’t quite so blonde and is still only sandy colored) through “Ah, so which of you has Irish family?” to a tall, elegant Creole-throwback, and a tiny little pixie of an Italian complete with darker hair than has shown up on kids for either side since we have pictures. (Sadly, she got the olive skin and my ability to burn in moonlight.) If you know the family tree, you can pick out “oh, this is from them, this is from them, gosh you continued the whole make people freak out looking at old pictures with THAT son, didn’t you, he looks just like your brother, uncle, great-grandfather and great great uncle, huh? Oh, you can definitely see the Neanderthal traits in that daughter, how are her dental bills” but if you are use to only looking at the direct parents…..

                      I did start tinting my hair just to make people stop asking if the auburn red head was adopted, though, it was starting to mess with her head. Didn’t matter that his maternal grandmother was nearly identical or that I had sunlight-auburn as a kid, they don’t know that. Side effect of having to go back three generations to find any grandparents born in the same state…

                      Biggest thing seems to be if folks actually SEE families with more than two kids where parents didn’t come from less than a few hundred miles apart; having been in the military, I did get to see that, a lot.

                      And yes, for that nasty twerp reading this who just felt the need to reeee about how obviously military associated females are sluts: gossiping assholes like you resulted in a few deaths, and a lot of tears, and lots of needless genetic tests that showed the kids were definitely his. Yes, even the “black” kid born to two WASP parents, who was very obviously daddy’s as soon as he hit toddler and baby fat receded enough to see his bone structure. Go away, you’re lame and destructive.
                      Human genetics is AWESOME, and truly diverse.

                    4. “Oh, that’s the COOL thing- sort of yes, there are fewer of the extremes that are instantly identifiable as “clearly this group,” but sort of no, because inside of a single family it’s not even blink-worthy (to my generation, a bit younger) to have kids that make my grandparent’s generation ask “oh, you adopted?””

                      Yup! It will take a long, long time to get to that recognizably more homogeneous population, but we will get there absent significant mutation/environmental pressures. And precluding the science gets to the point where we can do gene editing in vitro, or on the fly. There will still be variance, and some more observable variances are going to stick (they are discrete enough and prevalent enough to survive absent severe culling). I tend to look a lot more like my great grands than my parents. And those great grands could drop without a ripple into Turkey or most of the Middle East if you slapped a sloppy turban on and told them not to shave for a few weeks. Olive brown and black, curly hair.

                      But every once in a while there’s a blue eyed, blond haired, pasty white child that pops out and some folks just have to wonder. *chuckle* I have two cousins, brothers, like that. But that’s how things are going in a whole population, general trend direction. There are a lot of American blacks with more phenotypical Caucasian features, and folks with slightly more African features. Population groups always mix when they are close and given modern transportation infrastructure and lax cultural borders that means discrete populations aren’t really a thing anymore. Even Asians, some of whom are the most xenophobic culturally that I’ve met, they’re intermarrying with other populations and having kids, too.

                      And then you have my grandmother and great aunt, who look Asian. Straight black hair, pale skin, epicanthic fold, the whole deal. My family pictures tend to draw some raised eyebrows when they see what looks like blacks, latinos, asians, white folks and all within a couple of generations of each other. They’re all family, all my ridiculously redneck relations. We’ve also gotten a few of those small minded dolts coming around making snide remarks about our womenfolk, too. And they can all stuff it where the sun don’t shine, because my family is awesome. We are a living embodiment of the wonder of human variability and a history of German, Turkish, and Scots-Irish outcasts that made good here in America. And anyone who slurs military women (or any women, really) on their sexual proclivities without solid evidence like that only shows their ignorance and poor moral education. You don’t argue with people like that seriously, because only one of you is. As my grandma used to say, you never wrestle with a pig because you only end up in the mud, and sooner or later you realize the pig likes it.

                    6. Oh, is someone mouthing that ancient dig about military women being totally sl*ts? Oh, gee … can we have him as a chew-toy? Pretty please?

                    7. Foxfier mentioned it upthread a bit. I don’t hear it much these days. Not in person at any rate. Terminal stupidity like that is not something I tolerate well, either.

                    8. Nobody dumb enough to do it here– was the go-to response when I’d get into conversations with the “eventually everyone will be muddy brown color” folks.

                      The last time we had someone almost dumb enough to do it was the “race influences IQ” guys, after we started bringing in the sources they mentioned but wouldn’t name or link, and they stunk on ice.

                  2. Fascinating. Did they do sequencing to see if they are are identical or actually a pair of female fraternal twins? I.E. one fertilized egg that splits into two blastocysts or two fertilzed eggs. The interesting part is the red hair. Red hair is a recessive (M1CR), that gene has a knockout that prevents the generation of the dark pigment eumelanin and can only produce the lighter pheomelanin. If identical twin females they should be exact duplicates in their DNA with two potential variances, Females have two X chromsomes however only one is actually used. Selection of the X chromosome to be used happens early in division and is essentially random. So identical female twins can actually vary in features expressed through the the 23 (sex) chromosome (50/50 shot). But M1CR is on chromosome 16, so that’s not it. It is possible to get some genes turned off by in utero effects, don’t know if that’s common or if M1CR is one of those although as its a knockout (failure to produce a protein) I’d say not. As Foxfier noted they’ve gone to extremes to MAKE the differences clear in makeup and dress (and contrasting them to each other. Also not known is did the ginger straighten her hair? They are quite similar in face and build but that is not unheard of in sisters, my two girls who are 2 3/4 years apart often get mistaken at first glance as twins due to similar build, features etc. It’s really quite interesting and I can’t say it isn’t so though the preponderance of evidence leans to fraternal twins.

                    1. Yep, they checked to make sure it was identical, not fraternal.

                      Although merely fraternal twins of different races is a category, too.

                      If I remember correctly, their hair follicles are very slightly differently shaped, so they are styled to accentuate the differences but there is a real difference.

                      I’d never heard about the X thing!

                    2. Thanks Foxfier, it’s really something that they truly are identicals. The skin variance is within the realms of what I might expect with pheomelanin. My wife is auburn haired with gently olive undertoned skin of Italian/Swede mixture. I’ve known folks of Northern Italian ancestry that had red hair with skin color similar to the woman on the right. The woman on the right just seems to be a more extreme example of that enhanced by the posing techniques. However her hair is VERY dark and M1CR really fights that. Dark Auburn can range from a deep copper to what looks like a deep brown, but the red highlights are still there and usually quite distinctive. The curliness tends to hide some of the highlights in photographs, so with the right lighting to accentuate it you can clearly do it. It would be interesting to see them in the same profile under natural light with identical neutral color clothes and limited/no makeup.

                2. IIRC, that’s likely based off of a very rare type of identical twin pairing where the egg splits extremely late (possibly after fertilization, but before implantation; it’s been a long time since I read about this). The result is two genetic clones that look radically different from each other.

                    1. I was thinking most were the result of the egg splitting before fertilization. Though that theory does have problems.

                      It’s been quite a while since I read up on this stuff, and memory can be flakey.

                    2. Cousin’s twins were tested. Determined to be “half-identical”. Egg split in half, both halves were fertilized. Not unusual for the egg to split before fertilized. Unusual for both halves to be fertilized.

                    3. She’s right- identical twins happen when the zygote splits somewhere between the second and sixth day after fertilization. Fraternal twins are dizygotic- different sperm, different eggs fertilized at the same time.

                      Even identical twins can end up looking radically different. Early on while the cells are still dividing, you get some mutation. This is natural and normal. So you can get twins with different freckles, birth marks, hair color, eye color- even skin color. You can also get instances where the twins got a different X chromosome each from their parents, resulting in even more differences. You can even get mirror twins (very rare) that are total opposites- even organs can swap sides, strangely enough, not just left/right handedness and so on.

                    1. Some days its like the Author is just playing with our minds. It’s just too much for my little brain somedays.

    2. I really think Americans are more tribal by symbol, and even the Left knows it. Look at the fake ‘white suprematists’ in Virginia, The Democrats included a black guy. 😂

      1. A few years ago we had an Irish Priest, he would periodically go on anti-American rants. And the next week the military folk in the parish (mostly Hispanic) would come to church in American flag scarves, t-shirts, and hats….

        I love America.

        P.S. To my priest’s credit I think he didn’t realize that American in Irish translates to Hollywood in American.

      2. “Why Red! Didn’t I tell ya to wash up after a weekly cross-burnin’? See? It’s comin’ off!” -I think Mirror Universe Bart joined the Democrat Party. 😉

      3. And last night at Youngkin’s last rally a guy showed up in a new denial, vest with a nice, new, stars-and-bars on the back. Wearing a nice, big hat and only photographed from the back. Stood right in front of the “journalists.” Noone talked to him but they got nice photos…

        1. Odds are about 98% that was a literal False Flag. Probably paid for by Soros if you could untangle the money trail.

          The next thing you know, they’ll have a black guy waving a Confederate flag! They really are that stupid. One of last week’s 5 ‘White Supremacist Nazis’ was black, after all.

          If there really were White Supremacists hiding behind every bush, the Democrats wouldn’t have to keep trotting out fake ones. Of course, if they’re Democrats, can we be so sure they’re fakes?
          ———————————
          Bring out yer dead!

          1. When I was in college, I watched fraternity rush. One fraternity sent half a dozen guys on horseback riding across campus in Confederate uniform (this was in Florida). The one on point, carrying the battle flag, was black.
            Can’t do that anymore….

        2. Minor nitpick. It wasn’t the stars and bars. It was the Confederate battle flag. Very different flags, and that is important. The compromise made after the Late Unpleasantness was that the Southerners not fly the Stars and Bars (or Stainless. Banner, etc.) to memorialize their dead and honor their veterans as those were flags of the Confederacy as a political entity. BUT that we would instead fly the battle flag (or naval jack) instead as it represented the troops themselves and not an ‘enemy’ nation.

          I agree that it is almost certainly a false flag. But I wouldn’t care if it was not. The idea of someone in VA honoring their nation’s (and at the time Virginia and the other states were more like nations than political provinces) dead but not the Confederacy as a political entity is entirely appropriate. The historically ignorant who wonder why the South can’t show regional pride without also promoting hate while we are doing exactly the former are the ignorant and/or extremists I have problems with.

          But we all know that Hollywood has convinced many otherwise and the education system is too busy ‘teaching’ Commie propaganda to correct the matter… so the chances of a Youngkin supporter not realizing how that jacket would be used against him and wearing it to a rally are approximately zero. Add in the man bun, and new, poorly installed patch… that is clearly a last minute Commie attempt to keep black. Virginians from Voting for Youngkin.

          1. What is really funny is that Progressives have asked “Can’t you use the other Flags of the Confederacy, because they are not as toxic?”

            1. Most people wouldn’t even recognize the Stars and Bars, and would be confused by the Stainless Banner. They just know the handful of battle flags misidentified as “Confederate flags.”

              Everyone knows the picture of the Marines putting the American flag up at Iwo Jima. What few of them know was they stood the battle flag – I don’t remember which one – up nearby. And it flew over the Imperial Palace in Tokyo until some armchair general from the Pentagon got butthurt about it.

  6. “My friends so close they’re family are Jewish, Catholic, all flavors of Protestantism, slightly more exotic Mormons, and of course pagan and Asatru (more exotic flavor of pagan).”

    Hey, you missed us! A black Colombian woman, a white American (of German extraction) man, both of us Russian Orthodox by faith. Ain’t America grand? And I don’t count the left as American, by their actions.

    2. I suppose I am a “Lapsed Lutheran” though of late many seem to be a doing a fine job of pushing me FARTHER away from any ‘organized’ religion.

          2. I grew up in the LCA, and remember when the LCA and ALC merged.

            We wound up in LCMS many years ago after the ELCA went totally off the rails.

    3. When I decided, as a young man, that I could not buy into Christianity (for what to me seem good and sufficient reasons, and I respect practicing Christians) I checked out just about all the religions I could find anything on – Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Wicca, Asatru, etcetera, etcetera. Eventually decided I was a Jew, and began the fairly lengthy process of Orthodox conversion. The final step is to face a rabbinic court pf three rabbis, who one must convince to allow you to convert. One question that is always asked is “Why be a Jew? Being a Jew is hard. Being a Righteous Gentile is much easier, and a Righteous Gentile is equal in holiness to the High Priest.” My answer was “You Jews have a contract with the Almighty to assist in the repair of the world. As an engineer, I want in!” The senior rabbi looked right and left at his two colleagues and said “OK, you’re in.”
      When I told my father, a very devout Episcopalian, that I was converting to Judaism we had the following conversation:
      “Is that what you believe?”
      “Yes, Dad, that is what I believe.”
      “Then that is what you must do. You are better off as a sincere Jew than a hypocritical Christian.”
      He then shook his finger at my face and continued:
      “But, just for the record, you’re wrong!”
      Years later he and I agreed that some sweet day, we would be in Heaven, drinking beer and laughing over the ways we were both wrong. What? Of course there will be beer in Heaven, and very fine beer it will be.

      2. Beer is proof that Himself loves us, and wants us to be happy. I can say that and still not drink alcohol. As a depressive by nature (optimist by grim determination), I find it amusing.

        And of course there will be beer in Heaven. There will be family and friends, dogs and cats, because that is the place for joy and happiness. Even the nuns I terrorized as a child will finally have to crack a smile, because the Boss says so!

  7. The Regressives are rather nothing more than Neo-Marxists. In the end, all they keep doing is re-branding the tripe Marx and Engels spouted that were the words of madmen…over and over again. Apparently there’s this vain hope that if they re-word things and rename things, it’ll eventually work- after all, nobody has really attempted “real” Marxism to date.

    2. Let’s not forget how many of them are deeply unwell. The proportion of them with severe mental illness is actually quite sad. Not that it changes my view on what they want to do to me and mine but it’s still sad how unhappy they all are.

      1. Lot of them being ill may be a symptom.

        You can find ill in every combination of political flavor and religious affiliation. But what do the dogma and teachings do to or for the ill?

        I have a very ill relative who spent a lot of time in the San Francisco Bay Area, and we discussed this some. Their view was, with the folks they hung out with, that the suicide rate was to be expected everywhere, and that the Bay Area, being ‘welcoming’ to the ill, was thus relatively good for the ill.

        My view is that what is good for the mentally ill is sometimes very uncomfortable, and is something that an ill person might see the absence of as welcoming. I thought that the ill people who went to the Bay Area, seeking a more comfortable community than a small town may have been putting themselves into a more dangerous position.

        I’ve been pretty uncomfortable with things that were ultimately good for me. (Which isn’t the invitation that a sadist would take it to be.) I’ve made choices that were better for me, partly because of hanging out here, and knowing how folks here might see the choice of the alternatives. (Okay, most folks have been more generous than I think they should be, but…)

        So, when I think about being a weird kid, who doesn’t fit in many places being of strange behavior, and ask whether the modern Marxist approach to mental health differences is a good idea… I figure that dividing folks into small categories, and telling folks in an illness category that their happiness should depend on making well people bend their knee to the illness is very bad advice to give. a) People who will make intelligent accommodation will do so anyway without bureaucratic force, and without drawing out a complete diagram for them. Some of the other people, it is better to hide one’s weirdness from, they have enough sorting out their own plates, and they are not equipped to productively and intelligently do charitable things on one’s behalf. Especially, bureaucratic force can result in these others enabling one’s own self destructive behavior, and quieting the voices that may help one by encouraging improvement. b) A person attending to their own business and interests is not going to have the bandwidth to cope with humanity’s complete range of variation. They cannot make special allowances for more than a few individuals. Demanding individual allowances by force will eventually cause others to lose patience with being generous. True attention to the obligations owed others includes not pushing people beyond what they can cope with. True attention to the obligations owed self includes not pushing others beyond what they can cope with. c) There’s a time and a place for being out and proud as “a contrarian jerk, who doesn’t understand why people are stupid enough not to have thought through social positioning and policy effects enough to being doing something else entirely”. That time and place will not be all the time in any organization, especially not for every policy of that organization. d) If one is ill, and if one is living around other people who are ill, putting happiness in what other people are doing or feeling is profoundly unwise. If one is well, and living among well people, it is still unwise, you just are possibly not going to have as high a rate of sadists who want to see you uncomfortable. e) Long details of theoretical proofs left as an exercise to the reader, but Marxist goals are too much of the material world, ie empirically testable, can be shown not to possibly exist, and will only ever appear to exist for a few people for short periods of time. As such, seeking happiness through them is setting oneself up for failure.

        So, it very much does matter that your faith is better for the health of the seriously mentally ill, and that it does more to encourage the seriously ill to find real happiness.

        1. That is the Leftroid way — all of society must be warped around some tiny disturbed minority. We must all make allowances for them, but they never have to compromise with normality, or even reality. Not even after a ‘trans’ weirdo has raped not one, but TWO girls in two different schools. Cover it up, didn’t happen, call the distraught parents ‘domestic terrorists’ and move on.
          ———————————
          Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!!

          1. Thing is, you can leave a place for someone seriously disturbed, without making things worse for everyone, both the ‘normal’ ‘healthy’ types, and the seriously disturbed individuals themselves. The left tells us that to love the seriously disturbed, we must adopt the proposed remedies of the left, and this is a falsehood.

            Following a policy set by others is not itself an act of love.

            You can love someone, see that they should be free because not generally a danger to themself and others, and specifically see that putting them into certain positions of trust would have harmful consequences.

            And left behavioral practices are hugely bad for mental health, it is simply drastically more obvious with the people who start out ill, than it is with ‘normal’ ‘well’ people.

            People have a lot more in common than different when it comes to basic needs and best practices.

            Might be TMI for some people here, again, but my beliefs on extent to which you should be bending to accommodate folks at the left’s behest were heavily shaped by considering the hypothesis that I am seriously ill, and considering that the provided reasons should not be sufficient to compel you to accommodate me. Or similar thought exercises. Internet flame wars went a ways in socializing me, which is evidence of the deficits that I have been working on. Even if it were very competently done, the normal course of schooling would very much be not enough for every person’s needs.

            1. It’s not exactly the same thing, but I was helping my 22 year old son apply for a job recently, and they asked if he had any “disabilities” that need “accommodation”. In theory I could have put down any number of disabilities (he’s probably on the autism spectrum), but I believe that in his case any accommodations would hurt him rather than help him. The point (to me) of him getting a job is to learn how to function in normal life.

              1. I thought they weren’t allowed to ask questions like that any more. Might be a state thing, though.

                1. Regarding the “Accommodations” on job applications. Do not know if they are allowed to ask or not. But a lot of SD groups individuals as if they should disclose immediately either on job applications or rentals that they have a SD for accommodation requirement. The answer: Yes and No. Or No and Yes. Or really, really, not helpful.

                  No, because while the applicant could probably reasonably complain discrimination, how does one prove the discrimination was because of the accommodation request when they cite something else? Even “we went in a different direction” can seem discriminatory. Then if you get the job or approved for the rental, then you disclose and request the appropriate accommodations required, and, for SD, ask what is required (some of which they can not demand or ask for). Jobs there are valid reasons for not accommodating a SD. Rentals a whole lot fewer, but there are a couple.

                  Yes, because who wants to be somewhere the whole package isn’t wanted?

            2. I think this is true. It’s no good to pretend that men are women and women are men because someone thinks they are one. For myself, I don’t care what people call themselves or what they do. It’s none of my business. What I object to is being made to lie.

            3. “Even if it were very competently done, the normal course of schooling would very much be not enough for every person’s needs.”

              And can often worsen or even create issues that weren’t there before the school got involved. A proper education trains a young mind how to think, plan, research, and only a few general how to dos. Or should, really. I also believe that general moral structure should be a part of proper education, but I know there are those that vehemently disagree with that. By general moral structure I mean speak truth, work hard, and accept the consequences of your actions. I do realize how this can be corrupted. Anything touched by humans can. Doesn’t mean it is wrong to try.

          2. It’s the Leftroid way right up until the Left has securely consolidated power.

            And then the tiny minority is liquidated as “deviants”.

            Every. Single. Time.

        2. Personally, I prefer to be taught the tools to live a mostly normal life, to having a hyper-constrained circle of human contacts.

          First, to little human contact makes me crazy.

          Second, single point failures are very much a thing.

      2. There’s a word in German which doesn’t have an easy English synonym, “labile.” It is an adjective, describing a person, which means, “easily influenced by others, to an unhealthy extent.” So, something like a person who is very vulnerable to peer pressure, to the extent they would abandon their core self.

        I know everyone has an easy answer for today’s problems and solutions, but I do think that many people are trying on different personas in an attempt to find their people. Social media has made it all very visual, thus all the people using tatoos, piercings, hair colors, makeup, clothing, etc. to create an online visual identity. Everyone does that to some extent every day, once we figure out the sort of clothes and hairstyle we prefer, but many of the people who make me uneasy (think of the “Libs of TikTok” Twitter feed) are striving for an unflattering appearance.

        [As an aside, it did strike me during her elections that Hilary Clinton was constantly changing her hairstyles and clothing, to an extremely confusing extent. I think it was counterproductive, and a sign of someone who was never comfortable in her own skin. Think of Margaret Thatcher–she was easily cariacatured, because she was sartorially predictable.]

        But anyways, labile. It is a quality many people display these days. I have to wonder if all the anti-bullying campaigns of the 21st century have deprived young people of the chance to form an identity. For myself, I can only say that the way forward to adulthood was accepting that I am different from most people. It’s ok not to fit in.

        Of course, there have been campaigns trying to decree that certain identities are not ok. And now they’re seeking substitute identities, all over the place.

        1. Not just “anti”-bullying, but from what I can see it looks like most people’s reaction to the idea of peer pressure is to do whatever will sound good in the short term while ultimately crippling the ability to form that sense of self and values which is necessary to appropriately resist the pressure.

        2. > There’s a word in German which doesn’t have an easy English synonym, “labile.”

          It’s a perfectly good English word; I’ve come across it many times.

          “The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don’t just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.”
          — James D. Nicoll

          1. Nicoll’s description is hands-down the best, but I’m also partial to “English is three kids in a trenchcoat standing on each other’s shoulders, trying to get into an R-rated movie.”

    3. It is a scary time, I’ve never fit in anywhere, but it’s getting much worse, although being a firm NO on the vax has helped some stealth conservatives, for once, correctly identify me as primarily on the conservative spectrum (Usually people think I’m a lefty visually)

      There was a older gentleman at my work, that was very outspoken on his conservative views, I would go and listen to him, and he would often comment that maybe Millennials could be saved and it was great that I was being persuaded by him.

      I could never articulate, because I’m terrible at writing, that I was Gen X and that I’d been a conservative by 4 th grade, and a small ‘L’ libertarian by the time I graduated from High School, and basically never shifted my positions since then. 😅

      Never have found my tribe. I find places where I think I should fit in but I never do.

      1. Welcome to the Club of the Unclubable. We’d show you the secret handshake but no one will admit to knowing what it is. 😉

      3. Sounds like you’re a good fit for here to me, too! I tend to get mistaken for one myself, especially by some of those types who catch my scent I mentioned during our last conversation. It gets old fast.

      4. It took me reading an L. Neil Smith book way back when to figure out I’d been a libertarian (small L) as far back as I could remember.

  8. I enjoy peace and harmony in life, but I’m finding that more difficult to experience these days. The “regressives” scream lies at you, and the “asleep” want to remain that way.
    Peace and harmony actually require you to be accommodating in many instances, but my patience really gets tested more and more lately.

    Wonder if this VA gubernatorial election will be a steal?

    1. The setup and rationalization are there: early voters/mail in ballots skew D. But still may not be enough.

    2. Like I said on the last post, I foresee two possibilities:

      1. The Democrats steal the election, then scream hysterically that Election Fraud is a Racist Conspiracy Theory and everybody trying to investigate the election are a bunch of Eeevul White Supremacists!! REEEE!!

      2. The Democrats fail to steal the election, then scream hysterically that it was stolen by Outrageous Election Fraud!! The Election must be Investigated!! The results must be overturned!! REEEE!! The whole state will be submerged in a mire of dirty money and crooked lawyers. Even more than it is already.

      Because of course election fraud only exists when a Democrat loses. No, no, Bloomborg buying the entire state government 3 years ago wasn’t fraud…
      ———————————
      My grandpa voted Republican until the day he died — but he’s been voting Democrat ever since.

      1. There is a third option: no fraud, then they crow about how there is no fraud.

        This is not a realistic scenario because it requires more self control and control of their minions than they possess.

        1. That’s only a possible option IF (somehow) “Blackface” (or was he the “Klan” guy) Northam wins without #1 in the previous list.

          1. OK, wait, sorry, wrong state, wrong Gov and no edit button…
            But the point still stands.

            1. Nah, you got the state and current governor right. 🙂 VA has it to where governors can’t serve consecutive terms so Governor Coonman isn’t running this time, it’s McAuliffe again. And I suspect he’ll be frauded in with no issues, sadly.

              1. And what a surprise: Fairfax County is indefinitely holding their count. To see how many they’ve got to fraud in, no doubt. And seeing as exit polls put Youngkin at around +3, I don’t doubt they are going to at least try.

                Loudoun County, of the crazy school and school board mess, is going 53/47 McAullife at 84/101, compared to 61/35 in the last election. Almost an 8 point drop. But that’s Loudon. The cities are of course going McAullife, but less than the last election. Enough to beat the fraud? Dunno. Little counties, pretty much the whole West/SouthWest of the State is deep, deep red. High 80s percentage Youngkin. Slight change there, I expected them to go R, but not quite this much. Precincts are still reporting, so that might go down- but it can’t go down by much.

                Note that the urban areas nearly always run late. Yes, there’s reasons for that: they’ve got higher totals to worry about and may well be short staffed. This always puts an advantage on the theoretical fraudster- they see the numbers coming in.

                Also, had some reports of unmasked voters being turned away from the voting booth because they didn’t wear the face diaper. Judge ruled they can’t do that- masks can be recommended but aren’t required. Funny how the same standard hasn’t been applied to labor laws- you *can* require people to wear masks there. But voting is special, somehow. Like restaurants. Common sense is officially dead there.

                Look to see McAullife: “I didn’t lose! It was all rigged!”/”I won! There was no fraud and you can’t prove anything anyway!” in a few hours.

                1. All in all, I think, best case is Youngkin wins and the Democrats throw a screaming hairy shit-fit. Then, Youngkin forces a COMPLETE, HONEST election audit even after the Democrats panic and flip to ‘There is no election fraud, no, really, none at all!’

                  Bonus points if the Democrats resort to open, blatant fraud like they did in 2020 and STILL lose! That would make me laugh.
                  ———————————
                  “But I wasn’t going to compare Congress to the Yakuza. Not to his face.”

                  1. This is Virginia politics, my friend- of *course* there is going to be a stupid amount of fraud. Why do you think I call the Arlington, Fairfax, and Prince Williams counties “Outer DC”? That’s what lives there. Swamp dwellers.

                    What’s interesting to me is the Manassas/Manassas Park City results. Those cities have a higher percentage of black and latinos- and went only 55/45 McAullife, rather than the 78/9 that I predict those three counties will go (or something very like). Outer DC politics are about as swampy as they get.

                    And honestly, any significant metro are is going to push back- hard- if anyone starts a “clean up the voter rolls/serious audit of the elections.” They’ll try and pull an “internal audit” or some such. Count the “votes.” Find a few more for McAullife, maybe, and call it good. If the Republicans had the balls to do it, they’d start the investigation and start hoovering up every scrap of text, be it email, official docs, Twatter, or whatever. Get enough probable to get to discovery. Then hope the judges aren’t your typical activist judge- not a certain thing, considering this will probably be in the Outer DC area. Alexandria, probably.

                    Democrats will throw everything they have at it to stop it. Outer DC is their *home.* Their kids and families live there. Getting stomped, legally, in their own backyard would be… not good for them. Does it need to happen? Great gobs and little fishes yes! Cleaning house in Northern Virginia would do wonders for the state. Heck, carving off most of the state to give to West Virginia would turn West Virginia red, quick, but that’s not going to happen. I’d personally love to see a serious take on cleaning up the election process- not just in Virginia. Georgia, Tennessee, the Carolinas- we’ve all got issues that need fixing in regards to that.

                  2. And honestly, if he wins- and it’s looking seriously like he might about now- I hope he does some major house cleaning. Immediately. Because Coonman and his pals *looted* the state when voters decided not to show up after their Republican elected representatives failed them in Congress.

                    Can’t blame the voters- Republicans effed that up big time. I blame the dumb, perhaps naive freshman congresscritters, the establishment swamp dwellers, and the bureaucrats. You think we could get the British to burn DC once more, maybe just for old times’ sake?

        2. “No” fraud, especially in Va, is technically possible, but functionally impossible. Too many humans in it, when you get right down to it.

          Not enough fraud to swing the actual, legal votes is also possible, and more likely than the former- but still not very likely. The D fraud machine in Va is… more sophisticated and distributed than I’d thought. And what I thought was not simple.

          Current running prediction is that the fraud will be large, but less massive than 2020. Focused on the usual urban areas. They don’t need to bother with it in the Outer DC area- everyone already knows that who is interested. Southwest Va and the areas bordering West Virginia are solidly R. Key point is that certain cities and urban areas are the key here. The suburban and rural areas of Va cannot equal the mass of the cities. Cannot. They need to swing enough independents and disgruntled democrats in those places to not only beat McAullife, but beat enough of the existing fraud machine to put the issue in doubt.

          Points in favor… *points at Biden* There’s enough people fed up with Biden to suppress things a bit. And McAullife, while not quite as bad as Biden, is a tough one for the D media machine to cover all his faults. And gaffes. The ones who aren’t, or who are willing to swallow that bitter pill to keep the R out of Virginia, they will hold their noses and do the thing for the D party.

          McAullife will probably cheat his way back in. Va politics are tainted heavily by Beltway people living in Outer DC simply because of proximity. But I expect there to be some seat changing beneath the level of governorship. Time will tell.

      2. I already really disapprove of Democrats because of their idiotic policies and divisive identity politics shtick. NOW I’m getting really tired of their incredibly tired plots. They reuse the same tropes over and OVER again and I’ve seen how these stories end. It’s not fun and I’d really like to move on to something more interesting. Sigh.

  9. It used to be that if you disagreed with someone politically, then you could agree to disagree and move on to talking about something less fraught with emotional baggage, like sports, without anyone disowning anyone, without friendships breaking up or any of that nonsense.

    The psychotic left have pushed it so far that anyone who disagrees with them aren’t really even people to them. It’s sad and it’s not going to work out well for them.

    1. We had some heated discussions in our extended family during the Nixon years, during the holidays. But do not remember tears. No one stormed off and left. Dinner table was always polite afterwards. In the end, Family was family. Family is family, is true still today, and our extended family we have those who swallow the BS hook, line, and sinker. We Do Not Talk Politics. Not anymore.

      1. Heck, I used to *be* more or less a leftist (Canadian standard). Hey, we all get to be young and dumb…

  10. When I was in high school (Archbishop Curley, Miami, Florida), in the middle of the last century, one of the varsity football players said to Father Navarrete, a Basque priest. “If you didn’t have that collar on I’d…”

    Father Navarrete took off the collar, a few seconds later the guy was on the ground out cold, he hadn’t even come close to touching the priest.

    Father Navarrete said, “Hey what else could I do, he telegraphed his punch, didn’t even have to block it, just leaned to the right and he hung his chin right out there?”

    I think we need a bit more of that in our faiths and our lives. Instead of hit back twice as hard, avoid the punches and deck them!

    1. I had a Christian Brother in HS who had won the Chicago Golden Gloves before his vows. We had one piece desks and, I having fallen asleep in class, found myself lifted and dropped. I was about 215 lbs of strong safety. I didn’t do that again.

  11. My brother told me, sincerely and with sorrow, that I should make sure all conversations with our one progressive family member should remain at a very surface level now. Don’t tell this person anything about your thoughts or plans.

    Communism requires a convert to turn in their family members and friends for crimes against the State. They’re going to try that here. The days of measured, reasonable debate and intelligent disagreement are gone, for now. The progressives that you know will turn you in and cheer as you’re hauled away. Be very wary. I am. But I’m very sad about it.

  12. I was the first non-Italian, non-Catholic to marry into my husband’s family. Honestly, the city where my husband grew up was mostly Italian, Polish or black, probably still is to a great extent. I was an exotic mostly Germanic Protestant. 🙂

  13. I remember back in my playground days when you could have a disagreement with someone else on the playground and (unless it was about sports rules) someone would say “it’s a free country, I can say what I want”. End of discussion. You can think they are wrong all you want and disagree but they were entitled to hold whatever stupid opinion they wanted to hold.
    Not now. There is no “sticks and stones can break my bones but words will never hurt me” sentiment these days.

    1. It’s been that way for awhile now. At least ten years ago, I was on a lefty website (Pharyngula) commenting in a thread about cyberbullying. I ventured a “sticks and stones” opinion, and they jumped on me like I’d advocated strangling kittens.

      1. Which is exactly the point– the “anti-bullying” drives I saw in action were uniformly “create safe targets for vicious attack.”

        That is, they were organized bullying.

        Generally on the basis of religious views to which they could not make a rational counter-argument.

  14. I’ve mentioned it before, but back in 2010 spouse and I went to Romania. I was taking the trip for my elective requirement to finish my degree and he went along for the ride. Given part of the purpose was to expose the Romanian students to American attitudes and spouse is a small businessman, he was probably more use than I was.
    At any rate, over the weekend they took us into Transylvania. Saturday night we pulled up to our hotel after dark, in a thunderstorm, and went in to dinner. In our group we had Methodists (us), Church of Christ southern variation, Baptist, Catholic, and a Mormon. (Spouse immediately sat next to the Mormon and asked if he could have the Mormon’s wine and whisky.The Mormon agreed). Over dinner, everyone asked the Mormon questions, and the replies to his answers were all variations on, “That’s really interesting.”
    The Romanian students were stunned. All the Americans were different religions and they weren’t fighting each other…

  15. The ones that actually, truly believe in, say, Glowbull Wormening, or Cathode Ray Tubes- or is that Critical Hit Theory?- something like that, anyway, those people are the minority. And are probably laughed at by those who avidly push said theories, but do not believe.

    Wokism, identity politics, cultural marxism, flavour relativism, these things aren’t true ideals to the latter. They are means to an end. Even to those who don’t think too deeply on them, they’re often means to an end. Like looting follows and takes advantage of the chaos of riots, so do the ambitious follow leftism for power, money, and control. The lower ranks will always favour tangible goods over power and control- they’re not the ones crying out for independence and liberty. More like government benefits and libertine excess.

    Point being, few people really take the Woke, Marxist crap seriously. But it gets likes on Twatter, it gets votes, and the ones that got you there don’t look too closely at what you’re doing once elected so long as you can hum the tune. Oh, they will defend it quite vigorously, and shout you down at every opportunity. But they don’t believe it. They don’t even understand belief all that well- but they do make use of blind fanaticism.

    The culture war is still being fought. They wouldn’t be crying our doom and their supremacy so loudly if they’d already won. They just want to make sure we don’t struggle while they hold the pillow down.

    1. The twats on twitter are a pretty tiny percentage of the population. Yet — probably because the Democrat media complex overlap with the twas is probably higher than 90% — people (and corporation) pay attention to them way more than they should.

      I’m not sure what the solution is. Blowing up CNNBC and the rest seems like a reasonable alternative.

      1. Culture. Education. Moral foundation. My opinion only, but those three things *can* be changed. It takes… effort, let’s say. You have to live the example. You have to create the tools to make the tools, metaphorically, too. Also take risks, and accept the responsibility when you fail. Speak up when other stay silent. Always, always keep your word. To friends, might be friends, and so on- don’t fall into the stupid “Are there any Jews- *ahem* I mean guns- in your attic?” trap. Mock and ridicule the ridiculous. Tyrants cannot stomach it.

        Cultivate joy, contentment, and humor. Yes, cultivate. They grow when cared for properly. Learn how to tell a joke, if you don’t quite know how. Again, humor is a powerful thing. It is *also* a critical weakness of the woke and the left in general. They are the unfunny scolds the democrats of the seventies portrayed stodgy republicans as. Be known as who you are. There are a lot of secret normal people, just keeping their heads down and trying not to make waves.

        Train your courage. Start small, with things that are small risks. Courage *can* be trained. Only the foolish are fearless. Courage isn’t merely accepting the consequences. Its also having a reason more powerful than the fear. It can startle the weaker members of the left, because they don’t often meet true courage in their daily lives. Courage and strength are *always* worth training.

        Be responsible. Be responsible for something, whether it’s a plant, a pet, a spouse, or a child. Take it seriously. Don’t fall into the trap of what is just best for you- what is best for you *and* the one or ones you are responsible for? Responsibility taken seriously makes you tough, adaptable, and resilient. It is good your your mental health, too. When you’re truly responsible for something or someone you have to pay attention to more than yourself.

        Be humble. This doesn’t mean hide your burdens. Humility takes perspective. It is just as much folly to misrepresent yourself as the greatest of sinners as it is to shout to the rooftops of your virtue. The left doesn’t get humility because humility absolutely shreds any hope of identity politics taking hold. The humble accept that they have flaws but don’t wear them as a badge of honor. More like a problem to fix. And we all need fixing. Because we’re all broken in ways small and large. True humility is hard for the left to attack, so they have to make things up. And they’re not that good at it, most of the time.

        Make good friends- and keep them. Social cues can be hard for us Odds. But they are not, repeat, NOT impossible to decipher. Starting from the bottom is very much like learning a new language. That shares no phonetic clues, alien grammar, and riddled with idioms. But it is possible. A lot of baseline social interaction works on a series of rote repetitions that at root communicate very simple things: I am one of the group, normal, present, and willing to respond. All the “Hey, howareya, Wassaup, Howdy,” and the common responses are rote response. Few people are actually interested in hearing a dissertation on your day up to that point. Once you are past the salutation and response, sometimes you can talk to other people.

        Once you have a friend, or friendly acquaintance, talking for normals becomes natural. Current events, office politics, local/regional/national news can run into personal details and so on. Shared interests, gossip, and the like. Do not underestimate the gossip. That is a skill and high art in the hands of a master, and disseminate information at a speed that makes me wonder if we somehow broke the light barrier. That said, remember: tell the truth. As much as you can. This does not mean be unkind. Sometimes it is necessary to not be nice- but courtesy can be a weapon, too. When making friends, always be aware of the company you keep. You will be judged for it.

        All of that and more. It is not “the” solution. Too general for that. But it may be “a” part of the solution. We aren’t the party of “let us force all the people to do right,” so we can’t go down that route. We are the party of freedom, so long as the freedom of your fist doesn’t impact the freedom of your neighbor’s nose. True freedom can be a hard sell, in some ways. Freedom requires responsibility, and responsibility always means work. But. Freedom is *supposed* to mean that you keep what you earn with that work. And *that* is where the draw is.

        Soapbox? What soapbox? You saw nothing!

  16. Thanks– this was upbeat or getting there. I do find it funny that the progressives are so like the KKK in their obsession with race. When you look at DNA, most of us are hard mixes. There is no such thing as a pure race. Every time someone tries that pure race schtick, lots of people die and pure race is a BIG lie. Hugs to everyone.

    1. Why shouldn’t they be like the KKK? They’ve taken over the Democrat party, home of the KKK. Creators of the Jim Crow laws. The ones that tried to call out the National Guard to keep black kids out of ‘white’ schools. The party that was originally founded to maintain slavery and the power of the slave states. The party that started the Civil War when they didn’t get their way. They haven’t changed anything except their camouflage.
      ———————————
      Only idiots believe they know how other people should live their lives. The stupider they are, the more strongly they believe it.

    2. Race itself is a big lie, unless you mean “humans.” XX and XY can have kids together. The rest is just flavoring. Humans are a *lot* less genetically diverse than, say, dogs. There are no “breeds” of humans. There are no “races” of humans. There are cultures, and, well. We know how cultures can muddy the waters.

    3. Some guy on Twitter posted a computer modeled “image,” of Jesus, showing Him as, of course, being brown of skin, hair and eyes and with generically “Semitic,” features. He sincerely thought “evangelicals,” could be hurt by “proving,” Christ wasn’t blond and blue-eyed.
      Judging from the responses he was disappointed. I suggested he needed to get out more.

      2. Saw a copy of that!

        As I said elsewhere:
        “Oh, so Jews are white this week? Or only when someone thinks it will upset the guy with a MY BOSS IS A JEWISH CARPENTER bumper sticker?”

      4. Is that still a thing? I remember ages ago when idiots thought it was edgy and new.

        It was probably old hat by the time of the First Crusade

          1. Part of the silliness of “Christ wasn’t White” is this claim that there are ALL those painting of Christ as Blond & Blue-Eyed.

            While there may be some paintings like that, the majority that I remember seeing are Him as having Brown Hair and Brown Eyes.

            Of course, I’ve heard of paintings of Christ by African artists that show the Christ as African not European or Middle-Eastern.

            I’m willing to bet that Asian artists (in Asia) show the Christ as Asian.

            IE Paintings of the Christ (and other Religious Figures) match the region where the Artist lived and worked.

            1. The blond and blue eyed ones I’ve seen are…well, icons.

              It would be like expecting a physical halo around Jesus based on the paintings. Also, everyone is in maybe 16-bit, if not 8-bit. 😀

              That said, I do object to “Jesus as race,” rather than “trying to paint what I think Jesus looked like.” It’s a matter of the motivation.

              That’s from someone whose favorite Marian apparition is Our Lady of La Vang.
              https://www.catholicsun.org/2018/08/22/feast-of-our-lady-of-la-vang/
              (especially when properly displayed with either a boat, or something near her feet to indicate the prow of a boat.)

              1. I have a bedside picture of the sacred heart of Jesus and Mary. My grandmother gave it to me when I was in my teens, and it’s been with me ever since. it was her moms.
                Jesus and Mary look INCREDIBLY Irish. I don’t know why.

      5. We got into that sort of discussion on Baen’s Bar (Truth vs Pravda conference) awhile back.

        What I found sad was the poster who insisting that Jesus couldn’t have been White. The Poster was stuck in the “Whites Are The Oppressors” Mindset and the Son Of God (or at least this great Teacher) Couldn’t Be One Of The Oppressors. 😦

        Of course, Romans, Greeks, Jews, etc of that time didn’t think of people being White or Non-White.

        Another person was of your tribe (Roman, Greek, Jew, etc) or he wasn’t of your tribe. So called “Whiteness” wasn’t involved. 😈

        1. But Drak, you’re looking at things through the lens of history. Treating historical figures as actual humans without the knowledge of some far future, but as a product of their time and place. Don’t you know we’re supposed to judge them by standards that they could not possibly have knowledge of? And that we’ll never be held to the same standard in some future of our own, because we’re always right? /sarc

  17. In the US if a nice Italian boy brings home a half Swedish, half English, with more alien sprinkles bride, the likely response is “She’s blonde and so pretty.” And honestly, these days the same is true for race.

    My grandmother-in-law is extreme enough on the Acceptable Marriage Material that she makes a lot of jokes at herself for it.

    Her philosophy of “acceptable marriage material” is such that she 1) had this book on her coffee table, and 2) actually applied some of the conversational hooks from it….

    Funny thing, yes, this IS the gal who married the man she loves, and her mother never spoke to her again until she was on her death bed, officially, nor did her siblings before Momma died. (The “maid” did, impression I got was lots of everyone pretending that of course it wasn’t Momma or the Girls asking, but no way in heck am I putting myself into that situation.)

    When the Half-Elf took me to meet them for a few days, his grandfather dragged him to the side before we left and demanded when we were getting married already, even if my response to “can you make a roux” was to gently ask what that was, and then brighten up and go “oh, sauce base!” then chatter about my wonderful home ec teacher. 😀

  18. Japanese people seem quite happy to contain multiple religions within them which irritates the monotheists who think you have to strictly hew to their form of god-bothering.

    In fact there’s an old joke is that Japanese are born Shinto, marry as a Christian and die a Buddhist. It’s fairly accurate.

    There would be very little oddness in seeing a Shinto priest, Buddhist monk and Christian priest getting together for activities.

    1. That used to be the case in China, as well. Up through the Tang Dynasty, a number of foreign religions had large presences within the country – including Christians (largely Coptic, I think) and Zoroastrians. But after the Tang collapsed, it appears that a nativist wave swept the successor countries that the Tang broke up into, and the only foreign-born religion that had deep enough roots in the country to survive was Buddhism (which still took some big hits). Islam showed up not long after, but largely kept itself to the some of the nomadic populations that existed along the edges of China’s boundaries.

      Of course, nowadays Buddhism has existed in the country for long enough that the Chinese probably consider it “native”. For whatever that counts for under the CCP.

    3. Many polytheistic religions are deeply syncretic.

      They also do not go in strongly for the philosophical side of it.

  19. All well-said on all points. It really is amazing what America accomplished and it’s disgusting to watch these lunatics piss all over it for sure. As always, I hope all of us can make it through in good enough shape to set things back in order, or at least get on the road to doing so.

  20. You’re an American if you sign on to the Constitution. That’s it. Sarah is certainly as American as I am, or my Irish grandmother ever was. This is the only country in the world where that is so. And ever since Woodrow Wilson, certain people who are nominally citizens have made it clear that they do not sign on to the Constitution. Awkward as it sounds, up with the USAins!

  21. As to religions, a good half my friends are Jewish, some only by ethnicity, some by religiosity. One of the former stated he was surprised to find I am religious (I came out publicly about the whole Covidiocy). He thought my wife’s funeral wasn’t particularly religious despite the fact that it was presided over by me and an Episcopal priest, and that I gave out St. Therese cards and my wife’s book, “Prayers and Meditations of a Lost Soul: Forty Days of Lent,” and that I noted her God-given title of “Apostle to the Lost Souls.” I gently hinted that he’d be saved in my theology under the felicitously phrased doctrine of “invincible ignorance.”

    I was baptized, raised, and lived Roman Catholic until they threw me out. It took me years to understand the true source of the historical hatred for the Jews. That’s not what I got from Catholic school. The Jews were the chosen people. The rest of us just got in under a footnote, “Oh yeah, and them too.” I think it says that in one of the Epistles or maybe it’s Acts.

    As Andrew Klavan says, “Our moral decisions about ourselves can be spiritual. Our moral decisions about other people can only be practical.” You cannot legislate mercy. Doesn’t mean you shouldn’t practice it when called for.

    1. Actually, it’s not quite that simple. We Jews were chosen to receive the Law. Other peoples have been chosen for other purposes, which is one of the reasons we don’t seek converts. If God has given a person another mission, who are we to distract him from it?

            1. The kind that picks the introvert to lead the band. The kind that picks the coward to stand up and fight. The kind that gives you intellect and curiosity and puts you in a place where the depravity and moral failures of Man are put on full display. The kind that sees all your faults and fears, then gives you a little nudge to stand up anyway. The kind that probably likes Dad jokes, too.

              After all, don’t we say “Our Father, who art in Heaven…”? Yup. Definitely that sense of humor.

        5. Irrational stubbornness. That, and the ability to turn a vice into a virtuous end. Using procrastination to put off doing the things you know are bad for you is no virtue, but if you stretch it out long enough…

  22. They just called Virginia for Younkin. What’s the over/under on 10mm votes showing up from nowhere for McAuliffe?

        1. McAullife only needs around 250,000 more to tie. Fairfax County as it stands now could land him that- but I don’t think they can by the numbers as they stand at around a 60/40 split. Or even 65/35. Awaiting shenanigans…

          1. I expect that they will manufacture enough phony ballots to steal the election. Marc Elias is active in Fairfax County working the standard fraud tactics of the Democrats and we will see exactly what we saw in 2020; a 4am influx of hundreds of thousands of ballots, all of which somehow are for the Democrats.

            1. Now the margin is down to some 70,014 or so votes, since Fairfax and friends finally caught up somewhat. So the margin that was a quarter million votes is now down to a smidge more than a third of that.

              From what we saw in 2020, they can still steal. As expected. We shall see how Youngkin et. al respond to this, as well as the Virginians. And New Jersey, bit surprising there. Hope that one’s not another Christy.

          2. From Ballotpedia this instant:

            Glenn Youngkin (R) 50.9%
            1,626,024

            Terry McAuliffe (D) 48.4%
            1,543,933

            So, allowing that probably half of all Dem votes are manufactured… that’s a pretty impressive win over the cheat, tho the cheat may still triumph.

            1. Look at NJ. New flipping Jersey! The margin of fraud will carry Murphy through but just wow. Down ballot is even more interesting and the republicans swept the ballot in my little town.

              The swing seems to be largely middle class white women who put the wine down when they got between them and their kids.

              Fascinating, even the cheat will be hard to bear for the dems.

              1. https://www.nj.com/news/2021/11/judge-rejects-bid-to-keep-nj-polls-open-until-930-pm-despite-reports-of-statewide-problems.html

                Note: The judge denied a lawsuit (filed by the ACLU and League of Women Voters) to keep the polls open past 8 pm. The delays were allegedly caused by a new “electronic logbook” that makes it impossible to vote in multiple locations.

                Counties this year for the first time were using electronic poll books instead of paper ones — a change mandated by the additional of early voting in the state. The system, which updates the state voter database in real-time, prevents someone from voting in multiple locations or on different days, officials explained. But at a number of polling locations, election workers had issues connecting to the state database, causing long lines in some places and voters even being turned away from others.

                It’s interesting there’s suddenly a tight election when people can’t vote in multiple locations. Hmmm.

            2. The election isn’t over until the fat lawyer sings. I expect from here to Thanksgiving, and maybe beyond, a raft of legal challenges, recounts, suitcases of uncounted ballots that go 90% for McAuliffe and whatever else the Dems can manufacture. I also suspect the Justice Department is preparing a civil rights challenge as we speak. We just can’t have the evil racist Republicans win one, can we.

                1. Curiouser and curiouser. My vile brain has summoned up the suggestion that this means that 2024 is going to be the Fraud that Ate the Country. Superlatively massive. Cascades and tidal waves of cheatitude.

                  This election was anomalous in other ways, too. Virginia off-year elections usually turn out only around 40% of registered voters. Sometimes as low as 28%. That adds up to around 2 million plus at the 40% rate. Currently, the Virginia Department of Elections is reporting 3,284,287 counted ballots. At 2,726 of 2,855 reporting districts.

                  That means, potentially, that the election turnout this year is on the order of 70% if the numbers follow this pattern. Seventy percent is presidential election year numbers. For a major contest presidential election. That is more than 2018, when the Republicans swept in to fix the rot in Washington… And failed miserably at that, I might add. The last time you saw this proportion of registered voters turning out in an off year, non-midterm was in the Reagan years, to put it in perspective.

                  It’s not all skittles and beer, though. Loudoun went all D all the way, save for the 33rd district. But 55/45 instead of 61/38. Every county in Virginia had an uptick in Republican votes. Every single one. Even Alexandria and Prince William County. The midterms next year will be interesting, that’s for sure. But for the 2024 I predict trouble. And lots of it.

                2. They aren’t thinking about that. McAuliffe was told to take the L., because they have enough Fed judges they can count on to shortstop any undoing of their policies while screaming:

                  “See! Trump was just a uniquely bad candidate!!!!!REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!”

                  1. Eh, maybe. Maybe they miscalculated. Virginia turnout this year was, as stated before, suspiciously good. Particularly in certain urban areas. And, given that I haven’t heard any rumblings about investigations and recounts, perhaps they are going to let it slide. Save it for the bigger election in ’24.

                    Time will tell. Also, notice in Virginia the Lieutenant Governor, Winsome Sears. Black, marine vet, immigrant from Jamaica, also married to a retired marine. Talks a pretty good game, too. Reminds me of the older black ladies I grew up near- the church going, hard working, no nonsense kind. Democrats will be having a tough time trying to attack that one.

                    There’s a video running around of this latino guy, too, saying Joe Biden turned him into a Republican. Bet there’s a lot of that going around. But the election is only the job interview. New Republicans in office now actually have to do the job and keep their promises. Best they learn from the mistakes made by freshmen Congressmen in 2018, and do the job they were hired to do.

                    1. Reminds me of the older black ladies I grew up near- the church going, hard working, no nonsense kind. Democrats will be having a tough time trying to attack that one.

                      Only seen the one pic of her, the one with the long gun, but was trying to describe her to husband– “She’s a kinda middle-aged black lady, but not middle aged like trendy, middle aged like looks like she’s got a couple of sons that she raised and threatened at least one of them with a shoe.”
                      These are complements, by the way, she looks real, like she actually lives instead of poses. Had no idea she’s a Marine, but it’s not a startling bit of info.

                    2. Listen to her talk sometime. She’s got class, that one. She has at least two pretty grown daughters, no idea on the third child. Her husband is a large, stoic black man that stands at her back like a grim stone wall. Hardly cracks a smile until they start chanting her name. She leads the “USA! USA!” chant, too. Way she walks, the way she talks, that one’s going to be a nightmare for the first lefty reporter that tries to pigeonhole her.

              2. Fox News called it for Youngkin about 1 AM Virginia time, when he was 2.7% ahead with 98% of the vote counted. That made it mathematically impossible for McAuliffe to win with the remaining votes.

                We will see how many more votes are ‘discovered’ over the next couple of weeks.

                Every ballot should have a serial number. Every valid serial number should be registered BEFORE the election, and no other ballots accepted for counting. Each voter keeps a copy of the ballot’s serial number, and ONLY THE VOTER knows which ballot he/she filled out. Every vote is logged in a PUBLIC online database, so anybody can check the ballots at any time, but with no way to know who cast them.

                Those measures would preclude most of the monkey business we’ve been seeing.
                ———————————
                Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!!

            3. Insty is reporting that McAuliffe has conceded.

              I’m happy for two reasons. First, it’s a good, solid won, for good reasons. Youngkin ran a good campaign. McAuliffe ran an arrogant campaign that ignored what was going on.

              Second, hopefully this win will silence some of those who shriek that we shouldn’t bother voting anymore (or at the least, still provide useful ammunition against them).

              1. Agreed. We know the game is rigged. I mean, obviously. That’s not a reason not to play. It’s just that vote harder isn’t the only thing you should do. McAuliffe was a bad candidate but not as bad as Biden. Lots of work yet to be done, folks. But we’ll take the win on this one.

                Let’s hope Youngkin has his work boots on today. Virginia’s still a mess. But at least now there’s hope to fix the things we can now.

    2. I’m amazed half a million votes for McAuliffe didn’t mysteriously appear while counting was ‘stopped’ this afternoon. Like what happened in 8 cities at exactly the same time last year. Just a coincidence, of course.
      ———————————
      “What’s going on out there?”

      “Looks like your dead voters have risen from the grave, and they’re pissed!“

        1. Four? I thought there were only three. The first, the sequel, and the most recent one. There was no number three before this one. I’ve heard vile rumors of some unfunny Ghostbusters hating looney that thought they could write a third one that stunk on ice, but that never happened. This one is number three, therefore there have only ever been three. *grin*

          1. Four is the one after Afterlife. Duh!

            I’m pretty sure that Afterlife’s plot doesn’t involve dead voters. So the dead voter plot point will have to come in Afterlife’s sequel!

    2. Useful to have confirmation that I’m pretty sure is independent.

      Though, in fairness, there seems to be enough genuine idiocy with the left that one could make a case for them being stupid enough to use these tactics from a position of strength.

      I have recently unsettled myself with the question “what if the January 6th stunt was prepped from November 7th?” I think it probably doesn’t matter, but it is good that I was on an upward trajectory.

      I don’t know what is going on, but I don’t need to know. I can choose to focus on other things for now.

  26. Oh, yes indeed – looking and old family pictures can let one track family resemblances. My next younger brother looked like the twin of our maternal grandmother as a kid. Really, it was eerie, how much they looked alike at the same age.
    Wee Jamie – we so hope that he looks like his maternal great-uncle, which might be a bit of a comfort to my own mother, if the resemblance becomes obvious.

    1. When my aunts published grandma’s book (their mother), one of the profiles was of grandma as a young teen. My first impression? Why did they use C’s picture? C is a cousin, one of the granddaughters.

      When son was little he very much looked like his cousin on his dad’s side, pictures when cousin was younger (never at the same time, cousin in question is 19 years older). Now that son is an adult? He is his maternal grandfather and great-grandfather’s image at the same ages (my dad’s and paternal grandfather).

    2. Then 3 year old son, looking at a picture of his grandfather at Christmas at age 4 or 5:
      “That ME! …. who hes?” *points at great-uncles*

  27. I can definitely see that set up of clergy getting along here in America. I’ve know priests who rode. One of my favorite priests had such a nicotine habit his masses rarely went past 40 minutes simply because he needed to get outside and have a cigarette. Another of my former priests got to be friends with my grandfather (Lutheran bordering on agnostic) and would sit around playing cards and drinking with him. In America all that is simply, “meh.”

    But I’ve got online friends from the UK who are Catholic and show some fear of their neighbors finding out. I noticed in a lot of the popular UK shows that made it over here on PBS in the 90s and early 00s a thinly disguised animosity to religion of all sorts. In recent years the UK stuff I’ve been watching hasn’t been as bad, but that may be selection bias as well.

    1. I honestly only noticed the anti-Catholic thing in the UK news after reading the Father Brown novels. I’d been missing the cultural/class thingies.

      Thought that it was just the usual “bad people make the news” stuff, only later started actually noticing that religion was mentioned positively and up front for Protestants, and stuff like ‘from a Catholic household’ for practicing Catholics of good moral character as a final footnote.

      **********

      Realized something last night– a LOT of the difference is that in the US, it’s really hard to hurt someone without them being able to hurt you.

      The KKK did a pretty effective job of it, but upsizing it didn’t work– yeah, they got some stuff going in Oregon, largely because of the animus towards Catholics, but their inability to tell UK protestants from Irish Catholics hurt them a lot in that area. (in fairness, the second generation protestants couldn’t tell unless you mentioned going to Mass or something, either, and there were a lot more Catholic groups, she says with vast understatement)

      Even now, the attempts to publicly attack say Judge Amy for being a PRACTICING CATHOLIC was only able to ramp up because of nearly 20 years of practice on Mormons and similarly smaller groups while pretending religion had nothing to do with it (example: physical attacks on Mormons who were supporting California’s opposition of redefining marriage, while ignoring that majority-black churches were both more numerous and stronger supporters of the same).
      It still backfired on them, folks got a lot of cash off of “the dogma lives loudly in me” merchandise.

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