Walk the Line

461 thoughts on “Walk the Line”

1. Another indication of the stupidity of the “elite” is the Atlantic article about how nuclear war would be bad for the environment. Yes, and being decapitated would make it harder to drive to the store to get a latte.

   1. On the plus side about a dozen or so surface detonated nukes would put paid to concerns about global warming. See references to nuclear winter or for that matter the 1815 Tambora eruption followed in 1816 by the year without a summer.

      1. Ah, but by then it would be Climate Change, friend! We would have to fundamentally change our country and put in new methods of control to prevent Climate Change from causing mass starvation. Carbon in the atmosphere makes nuclear winter worse, donchaknow. Got to reduce carbon emissions so we can have clean air again, warm sunshine, and all that other stuff. So you need to give us more power, stop drilling for oil, buy all the oil we actually do need for plastics and stuff from evil powers, because then they’ll be the ones pollutin’ like Putin. And if our economy suffers, that just means we need competent leaders in charge, and in charge of everything. We’re all in this together, so we need leaders of all of us working together. It’s not one world government, it’s just leaders of the world working together. And your passport and travel will get easier. If you’re already rich. If you’re not, you don’t need to travel. you just need to keep supporting your leaders, that do travel, and have vacation homes in Brazil or something, because they’re doing important stuff to save the world from hatey haters that hate like you. Wreckers and kulaks and Rethuglicans and stuff. You don’t want to be bad like them, do you? Just listen to your community leaders and give us all your stuff and do what we tell you. Then you’ll be happy. And you won’t care about anything, and we’ll have all the power (to save the world of course) so we’ll be happy, too. Everybody wins!

         Until everybody loses. But we’ll all be dead by then, so it won’t matter to us. Our children and yours will curse our names, but we won’t care by then.

         …Yeah. They really do think like that.

      2. You said it too loud and they heard you.

         A number of left sites are now suggesting a few nukes detonated wouldn’t be all bad as it would stop global warming and reduce excess population.

   2. And don’t forget to wear a mask and social distance!

      1. in the bomb shelters (that we don’t have anymore) no less…

   3. Yeah, but patrolling the Mojave almost makes you wish for a nuclear winter. 😉

      1. LOL!
         What are you, from the NCR?

         1. Definitely not from the Legion. (I mean, they were not great at first impression, but when Caesar starts ranting about using Hegelian Dialectics to “justify” his actions I knew they needed to be destroyed. From watching other people’s playthroughs at least… Need to find time to play that at some point.)

            1. Coincidentally, I’m midway through that right now (fit of gaming nostalgia brought on by Blizzard molesting the canine in every way possible) and enjoying it immensely. There’s much more “role” than usual for an RPG, and all of the non-Legion factions have a fair amount going for them. Enough that by the time you make your choice, you’ll probably feel bad for the other two.

   4. Oh, it’s worse– the Atlantic headline is them being sane.

      Because folks have already floated the idea of how a nuclear winter would solve global warming.

      1. The law of unintended consequences is going hit them hard and we’re all going to suffer because their arrogance.

         1. Which is *exactly* what has me so angry with all the nonsense flying.

            Their ignorant “good intentions” always end up in my yard.

            The same freaking nonsense that they did with nuclear power, endangered animals, pest control, social experiments, heck even phosphorus in dishwasher detergent— they stake out a strong position on a subject they don’t know squat about, and the rest of us have to sit and suffer because heaven forbid that somebody bother to UNDERSTAND even a sliver of a subject before demanding it be destroyed because it’s dangerous.

2. “I don’t know when they realized that people weren’t dying like flies. They should have realized it earlier,”

   How? They offered a financial incentive to classify every death as WuFlu….. and all their minions did. What they forgot is that people have eyes and aren’t stupid. The homeless weren’t all corpses, the flu didn’t disappear, just the deaths attributed to it, etc. When the numbers don’t add up, people get suspicious.

   1. The Russians call it mazkirovka. Reflexive Control would be how it’s phrased in America. From everything I’ve seen from the election to WuFlu, the mazkirovka seems to have worked.

      You might also read about Soros’s concept of reflexivity, the rejection of which by the academic establishment seems to have turned him into, or revealed him as, Dr. Evil.

      There is a basis for a conspiracy theory in this concept since, once launched, they need little feeding to persist.

      1. not QUITE worked. The resistance is extraordinary most places. Which is why they’re going insane.

   2. I know of one overdose, locally that was Covid on the cause of death, and one case of “caught it, was intubated immediately and dead in days”, and folks related are being shushed for asking why so soon and fast for this as he wasn’t having trouble breathing when he went in.

      1. Even Ma, who was pushing for me to get the third stabbing (I’ve had two, alas) realized things were screwy when COVID19 was the ’cause of death’…. when it a seriously bad motor accident.

         My aunt the nurse is pushing for me to get stabbed (yet) again because “You have a HEART CONDITION!” and I refuse as I’d rather NOT get ANOTHER ONE. One is plenty! Too much, even!

         1. My second oldest cousin has a heart condition (open heart surgery at 4 years old) and is rather over weight, got wuflu first go-round and is fine. Lives down around Detroit. refused to go to the hospital. Hate to think that’s why he is now fine.

   3. Yes, you’re right. It’s the information problem when the government intentionally corrupts information all over again, isn’t it?

   4. I suspect that China did have heavy early deaths because they factory farmed everyone on respirators, which killed people in lot batches.

      I suspect that’s also why a lot of the early intervention tests were also so relatively successful: they were being compared to putting patients in ventilators early. And if your baseline is “experiments that kill people” doing nothing at all is always going to be better.

      1. I’m told respirators are tricky. They can work, or they can kill you.

         1. And China built factory style hospitals for stuffing people through one-size-fits-all treatment plans.

         2. From what I’ve read, I would say “very tricky,” they can kill you, or just cause serious lung damage, but keep you alive.

      2. Wait, what? Are you saying that being a ventilator unnecessarily can be fatal? I know that respiratory therapists / nurses / doctors worry about getting patients off of ventilators, so much so that they seem reluctant to put patients on one.

         1. “Ventilator-associated pneumonia.” Oh. Fifteen percent of patients get it; and it’s fifty percent fatal.
            (But some hospitals have zero VAP in months. See http://www.ihi.org/resources/Pages/ImprovementStories/VAPGettingtoZeroandStayingThere.aspx

         2. Yes. The settings are VERY difficult for doctors who aren’t experienced. And it’s counterindicated for those with fragile lungs due to age or other conditions.

         3. It turns out yes, and for covid especially so. If you’ve got them set wrong you can burst the lung sacs, and Covid’s kill mechanism really seems to be filling the lungs with aerogel rather than causing a failure of the mechanic part of breathing, which seems to make it more likely you will break lung parts with it.

         4. Short version, as I remember it, there was a lot of conflation of intubation type ventilators with all breathing aids, even supplementary oxygen.

            Intubation=> rather dangerous.

            Those little tubes that puff a bit of extra oxygen into your nose that have been a drag-around-yourself thing for the last 30 years, basic sensible treatment for something that hurts your ability to get oxygen into your system.

      3. That is how homeopathy got a hold. Dosing people with nothing or near-nothing beat dosing people with active poisons.

      4. whatever do you mean? china says they have covid under control with just under 5000 deaths… China surely wouldnt be lying would they?

   5. Doesn’t the offering of a financial incentive to classify every death as the Commie Flu suggest that they were aware that real Commie Flu deaths wouldn’t be enough to maintain the desired level of panic? Of course, it could also just mean they’re morons, and we know they’re morons. That’s the hard part in all this, disentangling the intended actions which have unexpected second and third order effects (and often enough first order effects that are different than expected) and simple idiocy.

      1. Oh, no, they’re not simple idiots, they’re very special idiots! 😛

3. Just a quick retort to your question “So — clears throat — anyone else thinks it’s funny that this Ukraine war thing came right after the Covid bullsh*t became untennable? And that incidentally it is sweeping under the rug just how much the current governments trespassed on liberties, destroyed the economy, and in general acted like communists on meth? It is sweeping under the rug the violations of civil liberties still going on. And by squeezing the oil price yet further is making people too worried about surviving now to go after the bastages who did this to them?”

   https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhbJlx65KbDEcYETgi6ipcGf55oUZnVweXMR96UnUtYAQz7j16G9PgrQUckxDKqLfBTEVY6qjVixkbEpHAayNFq3duRmSfNsoSThVp9J5QXL8tcrMzfNNlcyj4Dqvfdl2HU6e00FSBFhCaUh0JPxXiYIp3NeUHD0RFVu2_gfiVKDN_eIYn_s2e3EY56Hg=w400-h228

   1. the Chin are replaying everything that didn’t work before over their latest flare-ups. Closing cities, locking down, the works.

      1. Yep. And their stock, bonds, and property markets too. All is proceeding as foreseen. Wish I’d bet on it.

         The thing I’m really afraid of now is US public pensions, some of them had a big whack of Russian stuff because they were big dividend payers. They’re in trouble anyway and a nice, big derivative loss would kill them. Rumor, and it’s only rumor, is Kentucky managed to avoid the crash by one day, but everyone is waiting on Illinois and California.

         Schadenfreude, yes … still the over the top cancellation of Russia makes me uncomfortable to say the least. Yeah, I’m rooting for Ukraine, but if they can cancel a big country what might they do to little old me, My sons don’t draw salaries from Ukrainian oligarchs like the people who made these decisions do.

         1. Your sons, no. For one or more of Mitt Romney’s kids, yes.

            Not to mention Mitten’s foreign policy advisor, one Joseph Cofer Black, who sat on the Burisma board along with Hunter.

            And yes, the head of DHS now says that questioning the outcome of the 2020 presidential election and also not giving complete deference to Dr. Science makes one an extremist. When half the country fits each category, one thinks he’s inspecting for polyps with his eyes…

         2. I get frustrated that so many people associate Hunter Biden with the Ukrainian side in current events. Hunter Biden worked for an oligarch crony of Putin with connections to the Putin Puppet Yanukovich. After Yanukovich was ousted in a democratic election (what Putin calls a coup) the new Ukrainian government tried to investigate the corruption of oligarchs tied to Putin’s puppet. That’s when Vice President Biden stepped in to prevent the Ukrainian government from investigating his son’s employer. The Hunter Biden connection is a nearly direct tie from Putin to Biden. The sort of tie the left dreamed of finding to Trump. Of course Biden still wants to make nice with Putin.

            1. You’d think people would remember that, because the fact that Biden stepped in to prevent the investigation was the subject of Trump’s phone call to Zelenskiy that the Democrats impeached Trump for.

4. “War is the health of the State. It automatically sets in motion throughout society those irresistible forces for uniformity, for passionate cooperation with the Government in coercing into obedience the minority groups and individuals which lack the larger herd sense. The machinery of government sets and enforces the drastic penalties; the minorities are either intimidated into silence, or brought slowly around by a subtle process of persuasion which may seem to them really to be converting them. “

   — Randolph Bourne, 1918

   1. <Not this time bitches! – Sarah's middle fingers. Probably.

      1. Amen.

5. Sarah, while Klaus or Soros may not be Blofeld, and these maniacs may not be SPECTRE or SMERSH, they have indeed been planning all this for decades. Klaus is just a frontman, but Soros, Rothchilds, Rockerfellers, Gates, Bushes, and other shadowy figures are the big money/power behind all this. The Georgia Guidestones, the Denver airport, Freemasonry, Bilderbergs the Trilateral Commission, Davos mtgs, the Bohemian Grotto, Luciferarians etc etc. connections everywhere.
   It’s a very very deep dive, but the info is out there all the way back to 1913 and Jekyll Island, and way before that.

   1. “Planning” sure. BUT not implementing, because every time they try to implement something it goes stupid. So then they rush to try to get it back on track, and it goes wrong.
      If you read the history of Soviet five year plans, you’ll recognize the MO.

      1. Hum. More and more I’m getting the impression that as far as their planning goes, going stupid is not a bug, it’s a feature.

         1. Exactly. They never were the actual “best and brightest”…

            1. The Georgia Guidestones was basically One Dude. It’s known who he was. He was a physician-type doctor, who got on one of those worry jags, and he was basically a Catholic with odd ideas about over-population and nuclear war.

               So yeah, if you want to tie every gullible weirdo into being a Totally Controlled Minion, then you are artificially inflating the number of Totally Controlled Minions.

               1. For people who, like me, had never heard of them!

               2. Why is this a reply to my comment? I don’t follow your logic here…

      2. Just to clarify because I get confused: it’s not lack of malice, it’s lack of competence that causes their plans to fail?

         1. Personally I’d go with a lot of incompetence salted with (and exploited by) some malice.

            1. Mary made an interesting argument recently: any sufficiently advanced incompetence IS malice, because it’s evil to seek a job you’re clearly not qualified for.

               1. They’ve been told all their lives that they are qualified. They agreed with all The Right People, repeated all The Right Slogans, therefore they are Smarter Than Everybody Else.

                  They’re too stupid to know how stupid they are.

                  1. THIS

         2. yep

6. I walked on curbs, still do. Kids and wife too. ODDs of the world unite, you have nothing to lose but your balance.

   1. Er, that ship fell over a while ago. Part of my knee rehab entails doing a balance exercise on a single leg. The “good” leg ain’t much better than the bad one.

      And yep, curb/ledge walker, too.

   2. Me, too.

      1. It’s fun!

   3. We had railroad tracks running through the property. I eventually got to the point I could run on them.

      Putin isn’t just a USSR patriot. Kiev was the heart of the Rus, before Novgorod, and then Moscow, took rulership.
      Uniting Little Russia, White Russia and Russia was foundational myth type stuff.

      1. To some degree from Ukraine’s point of view it doesn’t matter if Putin is a Great Russia Patriot or a CCCP Patriot. In either case Ukraine is part of that. Who’s next is more dependent on that. Given Putin’s ex KGB I’d say he’s more likely a CCCP fan but odder things have happened.

      2. Putin is like a bad Tsar, He loves Russia because he sees himself as Russia. The Russian people, he cares less about . . . far less to not at all.

      3. *puts up hand* Also ledge-balancer. They used to pave the roads and run a little bit of asphalt up the side of the shallow grade because there was no concrete sidewalk – and that would be a narrow ledge of broken asphalt, especially where the dirt wore away. And we would balance-walk along that narrow ledge of asphalt on our way to school.

      4. We had a steel pickup rack that we were “not” suppose to walk on (it was on the ground in the play yard). Could sit on, hang from our knees on, spin on; but “not” walk on. We balanced and walked on it in every type of weather, except the ’69 snow storm (it was buried). At school there was a cement block structure with cement culverts, on the edge of the play ground. We used to walk the wall tops every recess. The structures are gone now, but came out well after the school was taken out. From my point of view “everyone” was doing this. I wasn’t the only odd.

         1. There was a rock-face in the neighborhood that we were forbidden to climb on several years after we had spent hours upon hours of every summer doing so.

   4. *raises paw* Parking blocks and tempting raised curbs around flowerbeds. And the occasional log while hiking. But I can quit any time.

      1. I still do it, yes, just not as long, with as much devotion.

      2. Me too. OTOH it was kind of reinforced during my forestry and log scaling years. Latter? It was part of the Job! 🙂 Granted wasn’t really fond of logs being walked bobbing up and down, log rafts. Or the height sometimes, top of log truck loads.

         1. I walk on walls – and I get paid to do it. 😉

   5. Curbs, but for better fun, railroad tracks. I used to be good enough to run on railroad tracks.

      I still regularly stand on one foot, and can be kept busy for hours balancing a balloon on my fingertip.

      1. I can’t, not anymore. Slight tear in the left ACL, which messed with that leg stability one leg balance. Interesting when they tested to see how much stability was “lost” due to the tear, discovered the right leg one leg balance isn’t a whole lot better. That was 25 years ago.

   6. I used to climb up the doorframes.

7. Only about 1/3 on topic:
   Walking ledges and such – yeah. Trying to improve our balance?

   I’ve complained (mostly to myself) about the vast majority’s inability to say “and then what” or “and what if it doesn’t work” and otherwise consider 2nd-order effects and the law of unintended consequences.

   Regarding Iran – well, State never misses an opportunity to get in bed with enemies, insult allies, and in general think they are the ones in charge of the country. Witness State overriding Trump on isolating whatever ship it was back in Feb/March 2020 that was known to have the crud, “we have protocols [and screw your Presidental orders!]”

   I find it suspicious/hilarious that – unexpectedly! – they’re claiming “low” transmission rate for the crud almost everywhere in the country. I’ve seen since at least mid-2020 how they manipulate the way they process even ‘legitimate’ numbers to make them scarier (‘suspected cases’ reported in with ‘actual infections’ and count for CDC #s, etc).

   I’ve got friends and coworkers who subscribe to the panic pr-n still. My parents, being of the age for smallpox vaccines, believe vaccines are always good, and are incapable of having suspicions about the jabs it seems. As for Xi-na, my only question is “was the initial ‘leak’ accidental or on purpose”? Certainly they went out of their way to weaponize it against the rest of the world.

   I’ll never take a booster of my own free will (although if they threaten my job over it, I admit I probably will – I like my job, I’m good at it, it’s necessary work, and it’s mostly non-political at my level – but at that point it’s coercion)

   Maybe in 20-30 years if they release a sci-fi-level gene therapy – and admit what it is – that has been proven out for several years at minimum and actually adds useful things to humanity. But probably not. I’ll be Old by then, not just middle-aged.

   Heck, I don’t even take the flu shots. I got lucky (maybe I got a placebo?), I didn’t have any noticeable symptoms from the jabs.

   I moved out of the city (although not all that far) last year. I think the move came together in such a way as to indicate it was what God intended.

   I’m concerned – not quite ‘worried’ yet – as to what they’ll do next. Already the price of eggs is over twice what it was even last year. The price of everything is going to continue to go up, making it harder for us to stock up for the bad times. I’m looking into growing some of my own vegetables these days.

   1. We have a few folks still masking though corporate dropped it the day after the SOTU Kabuki.
      You didn’t miss anything with the flu shot.
      again
      Seems this season’s shot missed the target all together and is looking useless.

      1. Sigh. I will be the last one wearing a mask at work (healthcare is still mandated masking). True about the flu shot. We are currently getting more positives on the flu than Covid. In March, which is WAAY later than usual.

         1. Sorry.

            …on the upside, suddenly my doctors actually believe me when I tell them I’ve had a history of “bad reactions” to the flu shot?

            It’s like all of a sudden, folks who never really though about the vaccination process beyond “pointy end goes in person you don’t want sick” are thinking about how it actually works.

         2. Not the last one.
            I was highly impressed with my eye doctor “Oh, just take that thing off. I can’t administer a test with your breath fogging your glasses.”
            Yes, ma’am.

            1. My last eye exam, the tech taped the mask to my nose so it didn’t fog. I can see why people don’t want to go to the doctor’s

   2. My, oh, please no, scenario is that Iran has a bomb and runs its first nuclear test in some big city. With hopes of getting a “Sum of All Fears,” scenario that actually works.

   3. Don’t be submissive and get jabbed when you obviously don’t want it. They are violating your body.

      It is morally permissible to forge a vaccine card or go to a sleazy pharmacy and pay $100 to not inject you. Two nurses in New York made about $1.5 million dollars selling fake injection records, meaning there are many people healthier than you and who maintained their bodily integrity, while the reluctant rule-followers were injected with a genetic therapy that has unknown long-term side effects.

8. The Ukraine openly boasted of biolabs. High tech!

   1. The CDC and NIH have biolabs. Everyone has them, and you need to have them. Now, what exactly were they working on? a 4% better version of Anthrax? A slightly more infectious version of Soviet Smallpox? with Vlad as a neighbor, they needed to, to make the meds to fight the same, because Russia has more and worse, because they never really stopped working on their stuff either.

      1. Nope. The things mentioned are e-coli and such, which EVERY bio lab has.

         1. It is as if someone started bombing the CDC labs. Ebola and Antrax, and whatever else. When working on cures for something, you need the something to test. Some of these labs had the Soviet works still in them when the US companies started funding their work, in part as welfare and part as “They’ve got it already, we don’t need to bring as much here to have it worked on.” They were not stirring up new and improved, but dealing with knowns, but very much in line with most other such labs almost everywhere (Russia and China are the ones to worry about, of course. They are trying to still stir up new and improved versions of all sorts) The anthrax and smallpox were supposedly being worked on to counter Russian works in the same. Russian labs may have gotten a slightly more infectious smallpox, and one lab in Ukraine was working on a vaccine for that. Supposedly the same for the Antrax. Putin is just shutting down protection from his labs’ works.

            1. Okay, for everyone who thinks that Putin has a point about the labs, notice the press isn’t reporting his FURTHER contention.
               https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2022/03/the_myth_about_nato_expansion.html
               From the article: “Harry Potter lovers will be surprised they are unaware that U.S. government is training birds infected with or carrying bacteriological weapons to fly from Ukraine to Russia.”
               Gee no wonder he’s inviting Arab fighters. Next, he’ll tell us how Ukranians turn into cockroaches to cross the Russian border.
               Seriously, people.

               1. assault dolphins, gonna be assault dolphins.

               2. he has been reading from the Hezbola/Hamas Handbook, hasn’t he?

            2. Also a good bit of ag disease research. Natural for wheat farmers.

         2. Bio lab? Every kitchen’s got their own stash.

      2. Mold that will make the local bugs sick?

         The locally occurring strain of TB, to try to find something this stuff isn’t resistant to?

         Animal respiratory diseases? (if they’re not doing that one, they’re utter idiots; bird flu showed up in Iowa, again; that and West Nile are why the local college was looking to buy a mobile class 3 biolab, because the less you have to move that stuff, the better)

         People with freaking SENSE don’t use bioweapons. It’s like using fire as a weapon of war, or chemical gas warfare. It only works if you are willing to risk destroying your own fighters.

         1. Ah, but they don’t have sense. And they don’t care how many of their own proles they kill. Plenty more where those came from.

            Now we’re starting to hear about a new COVID19 outbreak in China, just as the war in Ukraine is proving to be more of a fizzle than an earth-shattering KABOOM. Back to what worked before.

            1. Only it’s a “funny once” as they’ll finf out.

            2. China and Putin’s Russia? Believable.

               EVERYONE ELSE ON EARTH with a few exceptions of bloggers?

               Not believable.

               Heck, based on the evidence, not even believable of the Ukraine. They’re treating their soldiers like citizens, not trash.

               1. How do our own left-wing politicians and bureaucrats treat our soldiers? Remember Biden checking his watch while they unloaded the coffins?

                  1. There is an incredible gap between “useful tools” and going for the Santa Anna on crack tactics, especially when it can spread to kill them, too.

                     About the only politician I would expect to be willing to deploy chemical weapons would be Hillary, because she really does hate and fear our soldiers– and even she isn’t stupid enough to go for bio-weapons.

                     1. More a notion of she doesn’t think she can get away with it, I think. There is very little I would not put past that woman if she thought she could get away with it. Not even Biden is dumb, insane, or senile enough to do it, but if HRC thought she could hide it or blame it on somebody else, I’ve little doubt she’d pull the trigger.

                        1. Nah, she’s pretty good about not risking death herself.

   2. yes. But they’re NOT biolabs for weapons. Good Lord. did everyone lose their minds?
      They’re saying that to try to get us to protect them.
      Talk to people who have worked in labs. MOST of them are not bio warfare. (And if they were, the people would screw it up.)
      The main reason we don’t have a scary bio weapon is that you can’t do it in the advanced nations, and the others just aren’t organized enough.
      Don’t swallow the stuff they try to feed us.

      1. The only person who wants NATO intervention more than Zelensky is Putin.

         1. yep.

      2. Alex Berenson thinks these biolabs were US paid welfare to keep former soviet bioweapon engineers occupied relatively harmlessly.

         1. Just about every university that exists has at least one, probably several biolabs working on infectious pathogens of some sort. I’d bet money that those Ukrainian lab locations map pretty closely to the locations of academic research campuses.

            I’d also bet money that the guy James Claypool mentioned is correct: the US would be funding them either to keep people under its purview would otherwise be doing unknown shady things for unknown shady people, or as sinecures/money laundering enterprises for its favored people.

            1. I guess it’s possible that US would be funding them to keep people under its purview, but I don’t think our alphabet agencies are too noble to want their very own bio-weapons.

            2. It’s possible.
               But giving these idiots the benefit of the doubt, is stupid.

               If you act guilty, and have a track record of guilt, then your story needs to be verified.
               Denying that bio labs exist, when there is overwhelming evidence that they do, is consciousness of guilt.
               I’m not sure what they were/are up to, but I know it’s no good.

               1. Did you check that they denied BIOLABS, or that they denied BIOWEAPON LABS? Primary sources only, none of the rephrasing/interpreting nonsense.

                  Because the Embassy in Ukraine very clearly denied the latter, by pointing out that they had the former.

                  And a week or so later, all of a sudden folks are yelling that there had been a denial of BIOLABS.

                  1. Example:
                     https://ua.usembassy.gov/embassy/kyiv/sections-offices/defense-threat-reduction-office/biological-threat-reduction-program/

                     Interestingly enough, the top several pages of results *now* are screaming blogposts claiming that the embassy “scrubbed all mention” of the “bioweapon labs,” dating to the day after I posted this in a private forum.

                     Which I had to return to so I could get the link, but the link works fine.

                     Hhhhmmmmmmm.

                  2. There’s plenty of examples of shrieking that the existence of bio labs are Russian propaganda.
                     Look at Romney’s attack on Gabbard for one of the more prominent examples.

                     But really, the major pivot was Nuuland’s non-denial denial. (Shrug) Once you start obfuscating with undefined bureaucratese in the classic modified limited hangout template, reasonable people will take that as confirmation that something shady is going on..
                     Especially when you admit to modifying deadly pathogens for peaceful and defensive purposes.
                     (Especially after the events of the past two years.)

                     Want to stop the conspiracy theories? There’s one cure: transparency and sunlight.
                     And the government is fighting against those as hard as it can. (While screaming that the Russians are going to weaponize captured pathogens within days.)

                     1. Have you considered they want the right to side with Putin, so they can put us down?
                        OF COURSE they won’t deny it. DUH

                     2. Alluding to Mittens being a whiny female dog on twitter because a congress critter made a stupid suggestion that suggests she either has no concept of how important biolabs are or that she has, indeed, bought into the notion that biolabs are bioweapon labs, is not a primary source, and in fact his tweet doesn’t deny the labs exist at all– it appears to be responding to her histrionics on the realistic risks of a research lab being bombed.

                        Where are your official statements from the people who would be building, upkeeping and/or funding the labs in question stating that there are no biolabs?

                        But really, the major pivot was Nuuland’s non-denial denial.

                        Recognizing that research materials can be dangerous if they’re mishandled, such as by an invading army that is trying to cause problems, is a “non-denial denial”?

                        What’s that make Tulsi’s statement, since she suggested not just the possibility of being used for harm, but mere existence of the samples risking world-wide spread of deadly pathogens?

                        1. Gabbard may be setting up for a Presidential run as the, “moderate Democrat,” at least as compared to the current crop. Watching her rip Rommey (I voted for him, but he was off-base with the “treasonous,” quote) was rather enjoyable. But it’s probably part of a campaign to attract voters who would normally flee screaming in the other direction.

                           1. If so, it is for 2028 or beyond. The absolute crazies will still control the Democratic nomination process in 2024.

                           2. Very likely– she did a very worksman like job of setting herself up as an Moral Authority Veteran, she’s taken several other sounds-great stances that are “sensible” to people with pop-culture level knowledge of the subject involved, she’s pretty and she’s relatively young.

                              Bonus, she doesn’t instantly trigger the “kill it with fire” response of a lot of these gals.

                              Romney should have corrected her on the facts– there was *lots* of room for it. I know Utah isn’t really big on ag exports, but USU is brag-worthy in their antiviral labs.

                              https://caas.usu.edu/iar/vivo-testing

         2. Quite possible. I’ve been impressed with Berenson.

      3. Alex Berenson had a write up on them. Basically they’re welfare for old Soviet bioweapons researchers. We pay them to pretty much not work for anyone else, and we left them in the Ukraine because we’d rather they f-up over there than back here.

         And its all been public record for years.

         So yeah, it’s pretty much nothing, not even the usual government graft even. It’s just when we hear it from the MSN, after the way they’ve torches their credibility, it’s about the same as when your perpetually drunk or stoned roomie come home one night and announced they didn’t wreck your car.

         Even if your car is still sitting pristine in the driveway you’re still going to be wondering if the axle’s about to come off or something.

      4. Somewhere I saw a published list of some of those biolabs. About half were (at least by name) veterinary diagnostic labs, like every extension office can direct you to all over American farm country.

9. “Keep your clothes and your weapons where you can find them in the dark.” You want to know what the Left will do next? That’s it, Sarah. Take away our weapons so we can’t resist them.

   It’s not a new idea. Look up William Knox, Undersecretary of State in the British Colonial Office, who proposed the idea 250 years ago as a way to keep Americans subservient to the Crown. Our forefathers refused to allow the government do it to them. Will we allow it now?

   1. The lefties are working towards taking them away, though, by slow-boiling the frog (as much as they CAN slow-roll anything.)

      Magazine bans, weird bans on certain configurations of scary black rifles, nonsensical ATF rules on what is or isn’t a rifle / pistol / NFA item that seem to vary from month-to-month, and on and on and on.

      The NRA is at this point little more than a “pay for Wayne LaPierre’s suits” organization (granted, there’s other orgs out there fighting the good fight, GOA comes to mind,) so a lot of these state-level bans go through and take YEARS, if ever (coughCaliforniacough) to get overturned.

      Not intending to be defeatist here, I do think at some point the switch in some gun owners head (or a group of saids’ heads) will go from “be a good, law-abiding citizen even if the laws are dumb**s” to “cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war.” Hopefully it never comes to that point, or if it does, it happens before the gun-grabber wet dreams are mostly fulfilled, so there’s a strong chance of dealing with the problem.

      1. Bullshit. Again, they and whose army. They can’t and they know it. Which is the only thing holding them in check so far.

         1. “They can’t and they know it.”

            That statement is viewed with skepticism as a bluff in more and more of Lefty land, which is why they are comfortable pulling this kind of thing.

            https://bearingarms.com/john-petrolino/2022/03/12/dishonest-and-sneaky-gun-control-measures-in-omnibus-spending-bill-n56286

            1. Yes, but they drink their own ink.
               Friend Fen wanted us to tell them where the red line was. (And was shocked we called him a Fed. Shocked, shocked.)
               But we don’t need anyone to tell us. That is one of the red lines. Or should I say trip wires. And everyone knows it. If they don’t, they’re more insane than I thought. And this might be over sooner. But not cleaner.

               1. When it comes to the Left, always bet on both stupid and insane.

         2. Not disagreeing with you, I suppose I should’ve phrased it as “trying to take them away” rather than “working towards,” because yes, if they tried, they’d get smacked down so hard they’d pop out the other side of the planet…

            But one can’t deny that (especially in deep blue states) they keep nudging the stove knob up a few degrees on the pot of water gun owners are in, trying to get that one step closer to complete bans. And you can’t deny the ATF keeps playing games with the rules (come on, they’re trying to get an 80% ban through, guaranteed if they do, companies will tweak their jigs and start selling 70% lowers)

            And of course, the banners are driven bonkers by people taking the “point system” to determine the legality of a firearm and going for high scores with it…

            1. Owen (admiring Abomination): “How many gun laws does this break?”

               Milo: “I don’t know. All of them?”

            2. I suspect the deep blue states will become more and more homeless, illegals and the incredibly rich. Because it’s impossible for anyone else to live there.

      2. Couple decades back CA tried a gun buyback for any and all firearms. They got a large number of entrepreneurs bringing in looks-like-a-gun but made of wood or scrap iron, and had to pay up. Something under 10% were actual guns, and all but a tiny fraction of those were nonfunctional.

         Goes to show what the real public attitude is.

         1. Wasn’t it Vermont where the state had some mandatory registration program for existing gun owners, and compliance was at some absurdly low percentage? IIRC, it was so bad that the state was forced to backtrack so they could declare victory.

            1. Vermont has moose and bears.

   2. No. They’ve been trying that for decades. And the tide is going the other way.
      This literally is a case of “them and whose army?”

      1. There are now 22 states that are constitutional carry, with a few more working on the legislation. We’re far more likely to see a repeal of NFA than any new federal gun laws, and state level gun laws just put the blue states in a worse position if things do get boogy.

         1. “new federal gun laws”

            Do regulations count? How about “prosecutorial discretion” Anyone who says “but the law doesn’t says that” should be laughed at with duck noises. Ask the J6 political prisoners.

            1. No. And not every J6 protester is in jail.

               1. Especially not the ones that actually bashed in the windows and doors, brought backpacks full of weapons, incited violence, and generally caused all the trouble. The Fibbies have been very carefully NOT hunting them down for more than a year, while locking up Grandma for standing on the Capitol lawn.
                  ———————————
                  The U.S. Capitol is OUR house. Congresscritters are just the help.

                  1. Yes, indeed. I suspect they took the people they thought were influential for whatever reason. You have to remember they’re top down, and they think we are.
                     I’ll note there was a spike in people I’d never seen on this blog (some of whom I didn’t approve) trying to convince me to attend the rally and offering to pay for my trip.
                     I couldn’t — it was totally out of the question with the move looming — but I also couldn’t figure out what it was supposed to achieve, which made me itchy.
                     But I noted that upsurge, and that those people never came back. And now I’m aware of that possibility.

                     1. What it was supposed to achieve (in the minds of the Fibbies and the rest of the scumbags in charge) was to act as a shining example of Insurrections!!!111eleventy!!!, complete with a handful of True Patriotic Dead Policepersons. They didn’t get the real thing, but with the MSM in collaboration with Drunk Nancy, they think they’re winning. Pay no attention to Ashli Babbitt. Arggh.

                        OTOH, they’ve gotten us another step or two closer to a Romanian Christmas present. May the God they don’t believe in have mercy of their souls.

                     2. New headline today the Ginny Thomas (that’s Justice Thomas’s wife) was at the initial rally. They’re going for tarring by association now.

                        1. That seems… unlikely… because Ginny Thomas apparently hates all politics and anything close to the spotlight. IIRC.

                     3. Yeah, no. Attacking prepared positions is a recipe for massacre. Make them defend everything. Or everyone.

               2. THIS

               3. HAHAHAHAQUACKHAHAHAQUACK

                  How many political prisoners is acceptable?

                  1. That’s not the point.

                     1. It is exactly the point. How much evil is acceptable is always the point. Once you declare any amount acceptable, then “we’re just haggling over price.”

                        “And it’s time to enforce the good. The good of our unique past history, the good of stories, the good of humanity.”

                        https://madgeniusclub.com/2022/03/16/the-long-purposeless-tarnishing/

                        1. Still not the point. The point is that the fact that they didn’t throw everyone at the protest, or even everyone who entered the Capitol, in jail proves that they are still bound by the law. An ignorant an unjust interpretation of the law, but still a boundary they don’t yet feel they can cross.

                           And your moral absolutism is useless this side of death. Feel free to actually think rather than emote like a prog.

                           1. They are not bound by the law. They are using the law as a weapon against their enemies, while freely violating it themselves. How many of them have committed egregious acts of corruption and depravity with zero consequences, while people who simply walked into a public building have been imprisoned without trial for more than a year?

                              Justice which is not applied fairly and impartially is injustice. A society which tolerates injustice is rotten at the core and it will fall.
                              ———————————
                              The Capitol is OUR house. Congresscritters are just the help.

                           2. “The point is that the fact that they didn’t throw everyone at the protest, or even everyone who entered the Capitol, in jail proves that they are still bound by the law. ”

                              Horseshit of the purest ray serene. Just because they haven’t done something to them YET doesn’t mean that they are bound by anything except their own whim or capacity. Hitler couldn’t flash fry 6 million all at once, either. Does that mean the “law” was restraining him? Put that way, your assertion is risible.

                              HAHAHAQUACKHAHAHAQUACK.

                           3. If they weren’t bound by the law then every J6 protester – as well as Donald Trump – would be in jail. Or a mass grave.

                           4. ^^that^^

                           5. They are still a minority.

                           6. They always will be.

                        2. No. Seriously. We’re not declaring it acceptable, but no country is perfect.
                           We’ve had political prisoners before. We’ll have them again.
                           Real political prisoners — of the kind not guilty of anything else — are usually from our side, when the left is in control.
                           We know it happens, and we can’t accept it. We SHOULDN’T accept it. It should be fought with every fiber of our being.
                           BUT it doesn’t mean we’re over.

                           1. FDR.

                        3. Except that the price is also paid in evil.

                           One can easily ensure that no innocent is imprisoned — just imprison no one and ignore the crime rate. Or that no accused criminal escapes through chicanery — just imprison them all and ignore that some are innocent.

                           1. Yeah, I suppose you could….. if you were stupid.

                              There is a universe of difference between the absurdity you propose and “equal justice under law.”

                           2. And yet equal justice under the law is immensely complicated to administer. Even if you had moral paragons to do so — you don’t — people will make mistakes.

            2. Steve, there will be losses. This might not look like it, but we are at war.
               But they can’t do this country wide. Not unless they get hold of a big war.

         2. Yep.

      2. I respectfully disagree. They tried using the traditional methods – legislation and persuasion – which did not work. Here’s an idea for an alternate future history story.

         Lesko Brandon has a stoke but doesn’t die and Congress is deadlocked on removing him. Kamala assumes power and declares gun deaths are a public health crisis. She issues an emergency order to surrender all privately held firearms. State and federal agencies use background check, hunting license and concealed carry applications to send notices to gun owners demanding they surrender firearms. It’s all coordinated with a media campaign to ensure a constant barrage of Die Die Die news.

         Governors declare parents who haven’t surrendered firearms are terrorists who pose a danger to their children. Police chiefs announce children in the homes of firearms owners are in danger and must be removed to orphanages until the temporary national emergency is over. Schoolteachers interrogate pupils about guns in the home. Mothers will see the headlines, be terrified of losing their children, will turn over the guns themselves or squeal on their husbands.

         The IRS announces a $10,000 tax credit for each firearm recovered to encourage ex-spouses and neighbors to claim the reward. Gun owners who fail to comply lose their bank account, driver’s license and passport.

         The courts refuse to hear any challenges to the orders until long after the firearms are collected (see Hurricane Katrina), by which time it’s too late. America is functionally disarmed, except for criminals and curmudgeonly hold-outs who will be Randy Weavered to the cheers of mainstream media assuring us “they had it coming.”

         Liberals won’t need an army of boots on the ground to go door-to-door searching for guns. Most people will fall all over themselves to comply. Those who don’t will be isolated and eliminated in the mop-up.

         Okay, it’s fantasy. And depressing. But these are not my ideas, they’re straight out of Trudeau’s response to the Canadian Truckers’ protest. Could it work here?

         1. The Reader thinks not. His guess is you’d see some states refuse to comply and some geographically contiguous areas elsewhere also refuse to comply. It would probably be the trigger for the separation we really don’t want to have happen.

         2. I’m glad you disagree.
            Stop catastrophizing. People are armed. And that’s what stops this nonsense going any further.

         3. Not in Texas, I don’t think – and I don’t think even the fake Hispanic Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke believes it would, although I suspect he would say so if he thought there were an advantage to him, politically.

            1. Robert is busy backtracking just about everything right now in preparation for his next political run.

         4. Meanwhile, an awful lot of county sheriffs and not a few federal marshals cause trouble by standing up and saying no, we will not enforce that unconstitutional edict.

            1. The current sheriff keeps a low profile, but the ratio of legal* firearms owners to SO armed personnel is sufficiently high that he’d be likely to tell TPTB to sod off. (He’d be suicidal to try, assuming he could get more than one or two deputies to help.) Hell, the state government couldn’t get county cooperation in trying to shut down a restaurant blatantly violating the (unconstitutional) COVID shutdown orders. County Health told Oregon Health Authority to do it themselves. Somebody’s sense of survival kicked in. The only problem eating at that restaurant during the shutdown was the fact it was always packed.

               They *might* get cooperation in the Blue NW corrner of Oregon, but I still remember that the Bundy who went on trial for his part of the Malheur occupation got acquitted–by a jury in the same corner of the state.

               (*) Then there are the occasional armed felons. Those arrests can be hairy, but that’d be easy compared to a full blown seizure.

               1. Oregon has the “Safety” Reporting Law, on the books. I’ve heard of ONE instance, in Eugene, of all places, of that being actually done. Even then it was more along the lines of “Please don’t give him his guns back” by parents. After an incident that would have gotten the guns confiscated before the law went into effect. This is not counting the number of outstanding no contact orders by other family members. You’d think other people that it was happening to would be screaming to high heaven, somewhere.

         5. You need to put a rough timeline on that so I know where to put the “and then 15 seconds later a cascade of 100 million bolt carriers were heard”.

            1. And again I say, the lack of imagination, curiosity, and in general knowledge of firearms on the left baffles me. Do they not *know* that it is possible to bang out a working firearm in quite literally any halfway decent machine shop in the country? That making automatic firearms is *easier* than semi autos? Not to mention 3D printing? Not to mention all the other various things that can be created or destroyed with very little effort?

               Does *no one* on the other side not think for one second that making criminals out of millions of law abiding citizens who are *already* seriously irritated with their crap might just be a bad idea? That, if they think Europe with its two World Wars and attics and basements full of hidden firearms is “disarmed,” they have literally NO IDEA how bad it would be in the US.

               Massive noncompliance. Outright defiance on the part of many, many SO’s. Refusal to comply on the part of large sections of military and law enforcement. People who come in large part from the very populations that they are to be disarming. You cannot disarm the United States. As Bob might say, there are insufficient jackbooted thugs to complete the objective.

               And if they’re bloody stupid enough to try, chances are the backlash would see consequences quite painful to those involved in the trying. I could daydream of proper and fitting punishments, but banishment from government and a stain on the D party that won’t rub out for a generation would be likely. They’d lose states. Can you imagine California turning deep red? Unlikely, but in strange time such as that, things could happen.

               They won’t risk it. Not yet, I think. Oh, I’ll grant they’d love to *try.* But they’re not quite dumb enough yet.

               1. “Can you imagine California turning deep red?”

                  —-

                  Yes, actually.

                  The Dems are already doing their best to piss off the Asians as a group. Granted, Asians are not one of the big three ethnicities in the state, and aren’t likely to be so for a while yet. But California is probably the state with the single largest Asian population in the country (and likely the highest percentage of the state population, as well, aside from *maybe* Hawaii). They make up a pretty good-sized chunk of the state population, and tend to be tightly concentrated in certain urban areas.

                  Second, there are suggestions that some of the crap that the Dems are pulling is finally starting to make parts of the Hispanic community sit up and take notice in ways that the Dems would prefer that they did not. A teacher telling little Juan that his secret interest in knitting means that he’s really a girl in a boy’s body, and then actively attempting to hide it from Juan’s parents, is *not* the sort of thing that goes over well in a machismo culture.

                  Losing the Asian vote in California would hurt the Dems, and would probably cause some interesting disruptions in both LA and the Bay Area. Losing a good-sized chunk of the Hispanic vote would be catastrophic for the Democrats.

                  1. You’re not the only one I’ve seen who have made those observations about California Asians seeing how badly the Dems are screwing them. You have more firsthand experience than he does but another blogger I read made note of how mainly Korean and Chinese, and to a lesser extent Vietnamese and Indian, immigrant families in particular are getting fed up and, seeing as how nobody else has been willing to do the job, are starting to take over the CA GOP so they can have some means of opposing the Dems. He made similar observations about them losing Hispanics in TX in particular though from a different angle, noting that the Dems see them as mainly illegals who want welfare and are treating them as such when a lot of them actually see themselves as wanting the American Dream, resent being treated like that, and are turning GOP accordingly. Here’s hoping the Jackass Party really is screwing themselves along those lines.

                     1. Census data from California is borked. The government states that the data cannot be compared to even other data collected at the same time in the same State because they are “estimates” and “methodology differences may exist between different data sources. This is how you get totals that add up to more than 100% in the % of total white/black/asian/etc.

                        They also add Hispanics in basically wherever, because “Hispanics may be of any race, so also are included in applicable race categories.” Great. Very informative and clear, government bureaucrats. Almost like you want to make sure no actual data gets published.

                        When you look at the election, say the last presidential Cali when 63.5%/34.3% Biden over Trump. Now ask me if I think there were no election shenanigans in California.

                        Right.

                        So we have demographics I don’t trust along with election results that nobody should trust 100%. I think Cali was legitimately won by Biden- but I think the skew was less than what was reported, too. But if I’m spitballing, I’d say that together the Asian and Hispanic numbers of likely voters (not total demographic numbers, that one would be larger) would be a significant chunk. How significant? Can’t tell, numbers are borked, methodology is junk. But at a wild ass guess, 20-30%. Maybe more, but I’m trying to throw it on the low side.

                        Now take that 20-30%, how much of that is going to switch from Blue to Red? 50% is too high, at this point. Say again, 25-30% at best. 25% of 20% is 5%, which could shift some close races. California has those- some places, not necessarily Sarcramento. But 30% of 30% is 9%. That’s a big shift. That’s enough to throw previously safe Democrats out on their keisters.

                        Now some of you will be noticing that 5% and 9% are bigger numbers than a lot of elections are decided on. What I’m counting on here is bigger amounts of fraud and shenanigans on the part of panicking Democrats. Can they tank a 10-18% swing? Because if they’re *leaving* the Blue team and joining the Red team, that’s the split.

                        My made-up numbers are just that, though. Fictions. Time will tell what actually happens on the ground in 2022 and 2024. What is certain is that things are in flux. The cratering economy, the covidiocy, the idiot in the White House, the recent history of Democrat blunders, all of that is hitting at once. Establishment goons on the other side (nominally Red team) are going to try to capitalize, but the Red team base is rightly pissed off at them. And seeing what a non RINO can do even while hindered and hamstrung by the quislings in his own ranks, they want more Trump/DeSantis.

                        We’re in for interesting times, folks. Things are about to get messy. Make sure of your preparations with self and family. Make sure of those who would stand for you as representative in the coming days. And when you get the chance, maybe say a prayer or two for our country. I’d like things to get better with ideally no bloodshed.

                        1. I just took a look at the California census data. It looks like I was mistaken about the Asian numbers. They are in fact the third largest racial grouping in the state, almost three times larger than the state’s black population. Hispanic, and white non-hispanic, are of course the largest and second-largest respectively.

                           One thing to keep in mind is the almost reflexive belief that many seem to still entertain that the R in Republican should be a stand-in for Racist. Getting large chunks of the Asian and Hispanic communities to openly switch over to the Republican side might very well create a snowball effect.

                           In any case, as things stand now, I will be happy (for the moment) if we can just get rid of the Dem’s super-majority.

                     2. When I was polling place campaigning in 2020, the number of Asians giving me the thumbs up with my Republican signs was a wonderful sight. Of course, Plano has enough Chinese who fled in 1949 in the population to support multiple congregations of “Formosan Baptist Church”.

               2. Not to be catty, but you could say this part:
                  And again I say, the lack of imagination, curiosity, and in general knowledge
                  and be painfully accurate, without specifying the specific field.

                  I think it’s because those things leave you vulnerable– just like unapproved humor does. If you care enough to show an interest, you’re giving folks an angle of attack.

                  1. Perhaps I’m still half asleep, but I don’t see it as catty. And given my politics, religion, sex, and age they’ll find something to attack me over regardless, so I rather expect it.

                     You are correct in that the quote works better without specifying. I cannot guarantee that I’ll always remember to correct that tendency, but at least now that I’m aware of it it’ll happen at least some of the time.

                     1. It took me YEARS to figure out that in a day or two of showing interest in stuff, it tended to get attacked by the enforcer type mean girls. Usually in simi-deniable ways, but….

               3. Machiavelli wrote that you should not disarm conquered countries, because they needed the weapons to defend themselves, and they WILL be able to arm themselves against you. The brief delay you could introduce is nothing beside the value of their knowing you let them keep their arms.

            2. I recall that the compliance to a magazine capacity requirement in New York was about 3%. Part of the issue was that vanilla firearms like the Browning High Power had a single-stack magazine that was rendered illegal by the law.

               When a law enforcement response is 30-60 minutes away, “just call the police” doesn’t carry much weight. And that was only rural, when departments weren’t being overwhelmed and defunded. Genius move, guys.

               1. hi powers are staggered. 😛

                  1. Oops! I prefer 1911s and never used/fired/held a High Power. Still, declaring standard capacity mags to be illegal doesn’t seem to go over all that well. (Can’t wait to see them trying to make revolvers illegal because of “too high capacity”.)

                     1. the staggering is how they got their capacity…

                        1. Yep. Despite my love for single stacks, I have a [redacted] in [redacted] with a staggered magazine. Illegal in Calif’nornia, but still well-eagle here.

            3. Ian, that’s precisely the right question. Imagine a law-abiding American owns an ugly black rifle. As long as it sits in the closet, no problem. But the minute he shoots at law enforcement officers who are trying to disarm his community, Our Hero becomes an active enemy of the state, a combatant. If it’s just him shooting, his life will be short and his family ruined. He needs to judge the moment when his friends and neighbors will hit their bolt catch releases to join him in a general rebellion. I don’t know where to put that in the timeline. You tell me – at what point will you be willing to start shooting cops? No, I’m not being snarky. The hidden implication behind “keep your weapons where you can find them” is “so you can use them to kill people.” Not burglars, not rioters, cops sent to take away your firearm.

               Sure, there are 100 million firearms in America but it’s not a question of quantity, it’s a question of attitude. How many gun owners will use them to kill peace officers versus how many gun owners will surrender them hoping to buy peace? That’s not a future I want to live in, it’s a future I pray never comes; but looking at the excesses imposed on our British-descended cousins – Canada’s truckers and Australia’s Covid lock-down – it’s a future I fear.

               I have not lived Sarah’s experience. I’ve been blessed to live in the richest, freest nation on Earth. I don’t want to lose it. The black heart of tyranny never changes; the technology of tyranny does. Are we ready?

      3. From what I can tell, they’re really going to try and destroy the gun makers. Given they’ve successfully convinced banks to debank corporations, I suspect they think they can actually pull it off.

         Now, given that the AR15, 1911, and CZ-75 are public domain designs, and every caliber is officially standardized, what I suspect will actually happen is once they nuke Winchester, S&W et al, is we will see local gunsmithing filling the demand instead, with most of it being poorly or completely unregulated.

         Based on what I’m seeing in crypto, the BATF may try, but will likely collapse in functionality with the paperwork required to even attempt it.

         I’m also not sure if this will be a resurgence in gun design, or the beginning of an era of stagnation either. But it will become extremely decentralized, and people will likely get hurt in the process.

         1. Didn’t a court just decree that a huge class action against one of the major gunmakers was to be allowed to proceed? the point of course being to put ’em out of business.

            Okay, next we sue car makers for highway deaths… same principle…

            1. Yes, they did. I think that was the one that Smith and Wesson decided to settle on.

               And yes, that is what I’d expect next, though for “climate deaths” not highway deaths.

            2. Not quite. The holding company that owned the manufacturer elected to settle, so they can do something (likely unethical) to liquidate or sell the company.

               Or when a whacked out judge allowed subpoena of internal emails between members of the marketing department at Remington.

               Those have kind of run together for me, so I’m not entirely clear on the division between them

               1. Ya know, I’m startin’ to think that secondary ownership, like holding companies, should be prohibited.

               2. I gather it was the insurance carriers for Remington (suit over the Sandy Hook shootings), who did it without input from Remington itself.

                  Remington has been in serious financial trouble. I know their ammunition factory got sold to one of the other majors (Vista Outdoors–Federal/CCI/some others).

                  1. All of Remington got sold to someone else.

                     1. I couldn’t remember the full status, recalled that their reported quality was going to hell, but suddenly, it got better. I assume the new owners unscrewed problems.

                        1. the new owners are just barely in production, iirc, after a year or so out of production. i think the new owners are moving them, too.

                           1. Yeah, Remington had to get out of Connecticut(?) because of crazy discrimination/taxes/obstruction, and is moving to a friendlier state. The quality improvement would have come before the new owners took over much control, then. Curious, but good.

                              (Thinks dark thoughts about left-wing “workers” trying to screw up the manufacturing. Not sure if that’s the case, but I wouldn’t have been surprised. OTOH, the newbies would have been let go first as Remington was nearing insolvency.)

         2. Hopefully, what will happen is that the companies will move to “free states” who will then refuse to enforce judgements against gun companies by “slave states”. Of course, that will result in counter refusals by “slave state” courts, throwing it straight into the Commerce Clause. Should be fun.

   3. “Keep your clothes and your weapons where you can find them in the dark.” You want to know what the Left will do next? That’s it, Sarah. Take away our weapons so we can’t resist them.

      –
      Hell, they’ll take our clothes, too. 😛

      Or at least, make them so expensive we don’t have any to spare. I once worked out that a pre-Industrial Revolution shirt would cost the equivalent of $700 just for the labor.
      ———————————
      Pacifism will, at best, get you a nice peaceful trip to the slave pens. At worst — tell me, have you ever heard of the Aztecs?

      1. Last time I asked someone (who costumes professionally) about it, a tailored men’s suit – jacket, trousers, and waistcoat, I think – takes about 40 man-hours of labor to make, iirc.

         With a sewing machine.
         And I’m not sure if that includes patterning and draping time.

         … Of course, the labor she works with is unskilled college students (they’re learning!), so that probably slows things down a bit.

         Not sure if it slows things down enough to match the pace of sewing by hand, but…

         Pick your hourly wage, and price your materials.

         1. I included weaving the cloth with a hand loom, and spinning the thread with a spinning wheel. I’ve watched spinning wheels at Ren Faires, and estimate they produce about 2 yards per minute. Enough cloth to make a shirt would take about 8,000 to 9,000 yards of thread, or around 70 hours of spinning.

            Spinning and weaving are not unskilled labor, either.

            Add a few more hours of ginning, sorting and carding the cotton, you’re talking a LOT of labor.

      2. If they take my clothes then they deserve any and all vision problems they have thereafter.

         I really hate that innocents will end up suffering though.

         1. Me too.

         2. Me too.

            🙂

      3. When I was a kid, the idea that clothes were too expensive to own more than a couple sets was still prominent in farming country. We had one set of school clothes and maybe a couple of hand-me-down spares, old clothes too worn for public to wear for play, and one set of Sunday-go-to-meetin’ that were sometimes 30 years old. When my uncle bought a new suit it was a big deal.

         Now I own more clothes than I can possibly wear out (tho I still wear ’em down to rags, waste not) and most of ’em were someone else’s nearly-new discards.

         Had to make a point of getting an Ugly Coat at the thrift store, cuz I couldn’t bear to use a new one for barn work.

         1. When clothing was too worn to pass down or to cut down (to eliminate worn, faded, bare thread seams), the garment was pieced apart and the cloth saved. Good pieces were saved for quilts, and not just the fancy pattern quilts. Ugly but solid pieces saved for quilt fill inner layer(s). Rest put into piles and used for cleaning until worn out. Grandmother made patch quilts. No pattern, just pieced together from various material she collected. Some you might be able to find and state “remember when …”. I have well worn baby quilts from her. I grabbed one from mom and dad when they cleared out their motorhome. Will grab some more when mom passes. I had one when I was a child through most of college. But it disappeared into the ether somewhere.

10. I have to say that not thinking about second order effects is characteristic of a lot of the political ideas I encounter. It neatly fits, for example, Europeans thinking they can be green by shutting down their own polluting industries and exporting the work to overseas suppliers. The 19th century economist Frédéric Bastiat wrote that economics is all about “what is seen and what is not seen,” and his books are full of examples of “what is not seen.” (A mathematical economist would call it “partial equilibrium” vs. “general equilibrium,” but it’s not something you need mathematics to understand: just the ability to reason consecutively.)

    1. I think Terry Pratchett’s concept of “the money” is useful. The regime has been so insulated from reality for so long that they started to dream unobtainable dreams. There had never been consequences, not really, so there couldn’t be consequences.

       The wife likes to speak of Versailles and the fact that the English aristocracy spent a lot of their time living among their peasants, unlike the French.

       Damned fools.

       1. I don’t deny the “out of touch with reality,” but I find it interesting to look at the specific kinds of thinking that embody that condition. “Not thinking about second order effects” is one I’ve encountered a lot.

          Then there is the other one, where you talk with a mentally flexible leftist (there are some), and discuss with them why position X on issue A is unsound and position Y makes better sense, and they agree that you’ve made a sound point (I know this is rare, but I’ve had it happen)—but then the next time you discuss something with them they go on as if they still thought X were valid, because they haven’t changed their thinking on anything else. I’m not sure what they’re doing but it’s not what I call thinking.

          1. Well, to be fair they don’t seem to be good at first order effects either. They are credentialed but not educated. Not a lot of thinking about second, never mind higher, order effects there. Tell the prof what they want to hear and you’re golden.

          2. “We know they are lying. They know they are lying. They know that we know they are lying. We know that they know that we know they are lying. And still they continue to lie.” —Alexander Solzhenitsyn

             1. Last night we were talking about how so much the Russians were saying was obviously lies, and I said they lie reflexively, automatically. It’s like they can’t help themselves — they never tell the truth when a lie will do.

                There’s a line in a Vysotsky song that still sticks with me, about standing truth and lie side by side and not being able to tell the difference.

             2. Sometimes I wonder if they could stop lying even if they wanted to.

          3. I think it’s habits from school.

             When you’re in school, you have English, and you have Math, and you have History, and you have Science, and you have Literature. And a couple other subjects that I don’t remember, probably.

             And due to the way those are taught, the students are unconsciously trained to think of them as discrete things that never intersect with the others.

             Those habits, taught young, die very, very hard.

             1. When I saw formerly discrete things begin to intersect in college—or at least began seeing how they could—I got really excited. Learning and thinking about all of it was so much fun! That’s why I wanted to go to grad school, so I could immerse myself in learning even more and get a PhD then get a job that involved MORE learning and also teaching those things to other people. Laughably naïve. I’m pretty sure you all know what graduate programs in the humanities are like.

                1. Or “Why didn’t Sarah finish her Phd?” Yeah, we know.

                   1. Me too. Number one son is still trying, poor sod it’s hard on him.

                   2. My daughter, currently working on a sociology master’s, is working in a public library. She’s thinking about changing directions. She says “The big eyed wonder when I hand a young child their first library card, and tell them ‘You can check and read ANY of these books’ is maybe the best rush I’ve ever had.”

             2. It is not just habbit, there’s a specific type of thinking required to connect things that are not sorted into the same bucket, and most people cannot do it.

                This shows up in children a lot. When my siblings and I were kids, we would be jamming action figures into Construx fighters and be having dogfights between Y-Wings and stuffed animal dragons, and that seemed to us to be normal.

                However, most of our friends only played with one type of toy at a time. I.e. All the legos were out, then they put them away to play with the Star Wars toys, which they then put away to play with the elemental warrior toys, etc etc etc. They never had the T. Rex stomping through the lego Pirate Princes set while Slave 1 was trying to drive it away and save the hair trolls. That just was not a thing to them.

                1. I used to be fond of the saying that there are two kinds of people, those who look at things and say how they’re different and those who look at things and say how they’re the same. I tend toward the later.

                2. When I was a kid I used to use all our Star Wars and GI Joe figures together to play out my Fall of the Soviet Union story that ultimately grew into a key part of the Grissom timeline. Every figure was assigned as a character from either the Moscow or Tbilisi side of the fight.

                   And those early versions were a perfect example of knowing a little and not realizing how little you knew. Although I read voraciously from our school’s tiny library, we didn’t have primary sources, or anything with any real depth, so I made a hash of a bunch of important things. When I returned to the idea (but not the original texts) in the early 2000’s, I had more knowledge, and skills in research — but as I went on, I could see that there are some things you just can’t get from library research, no matter how careful or in-depth. And by then, I’d left academia behind, which pretty well foreclosed the possibility of the necessary research trips, so I ended up shifting to the space side of that ‘verse, where there’s a lot more room for the speculative imagination.

                   Now, thanks to current events, all of a sudden my mind is wanting to go back to that stuff — but I have the knowledge and wisdom to know that I’d soon be out of my depth if I dove straight in. I want so badly to tell these stories, so I’m working from the edges, telling it through the eyes of astronauts trying to save the cosmonauts of a failing Soviet moonbase because a decade earlier a cosmonaut risked his life to save the astronauts of the Manned Venus Flyby, as well as several other stories telling it through American eyes. Nerds, scholars, businesspeople, the sort of characters I know inside out. Maybe a journalist, since I did work in radio in the 90’s, but I already have a radio newswoman in the Sharp Wars. But not the actual core characters, except as cameos.

                   1. I read Pheonix in the Machine last night. That needs to become a novel.

                3. Heh.

                   Oh sure. Building prisons out of Lincoln Logs so that Barbie would have somewhere to hold the My Little Ponies captive, to be rescued by the Ninja Turtles.

                   I’m not sure how much of that was imagination, and how much was “My parents couldn’t afford the playsets and dream houses and infinite accessories to the toys.”

                4. However, most of our friends only played with one type of toy at a time.

                   I always thought that was a parent-imposed rule attempt to keep the children’s mess from taking over the family room when the kids got distracted by something else in the middle of playing, and abandoned the game.

                   I never realized that it actually worked on kids.

             3. Being taught by someone who doesn’t really understand and/or enjoy the subject, at least a little, tends to get the “it is connected to nothing” effect, even inside of a subject– it is HARD to teach about, say, WWII in a way that isn’t “memorize the dates of these isolated events” style without jumping all over the globe and at least a generation in each direction.

                One of the kids in my kids’ Sunday school class is drawing connections between the Ukrainian invasion and his ancestors, the guys who were hired by the English to come over and fight the uppity colonials; as best I can tell, he’s
                1) feeling bad for the Russian conscripts, even though he recognizes them as the Bad Guys and is glad some locals are trying to help them be OK, and
                2) is terrified because his much-admired older cousin just got out of national guard boot camp/initial training. (He’s seven, details are iffy.)

                There are COLLEGE KIDS I wouldn’t be able to get to venture connections like that– I don’t know if it’s because they don’t see them, or because they know you Don’t Bring That Up.

                1. Is this kid a descendant of a Hessian mercenary?

                   There’s supposed to be a Hessian in my dad’s family tree, but we’ve never been able to track him down and get a definite ID.

                   1. Yep!
                      He perked up a lot when my response to that was a resounding cool!— I had vaguely heard that some of them had stuck around, but I hadn’t really connected that folks would REMEMBER it.

                      1. Story for him: when the Continental forces captured a bunch of Hessians, Ben Franklin suggested sending them to the Amish. Same language, same culture, most of them were farm boys. The Amish put them to work doing things they understood, fed them familiar food, and told them to keep their hands off Gretchen.
                         And that, kids, is how the Amish took out a couple of Hessian units. When the British sent other units to look for them, the “prisoners,” told them how good they had it and the rescuing unit had a tendency to “disappear.”
                         The Amish got a significant population boost after the war. (And Gretchen got a husband).

                         1. You know, I needed an origin story for one of my families, and that is just flat wholesome….

                            :yoinks:

                            1. You could really go to town. One didn’t choose to become a Hessian soldier, it was essentially universal conscription and The primary source of income for the landgrave, to be fair he did lower taxes but also built Karlsruhe on the backs of his subjects.

                               In addition to the Amish, they’re also said to be ancestors of the Jackson Whites in NJ.

                               If you really wanted to go to town, make the character’s ancestor a Brunswicker or from Anhalt, they were said to be sent over in rags and the officers had to pay out of their own pocket to get them clothed and fed.

                            2. You do have to be careful though, The Hessians were much better disciplined and probably more effective than the average British Regular and no more prone to desertion, lots of British soldiers did. The legends and atrocity stories are way out of line with the history,

                            3. I get to make mine up, and I already have both ax-crazy leader guys, and a culture of the people being a resource to be used for The People. 😀

                               So conscripts going native only leaves the issue of how I get the ladies out of Evil Space Empire. (They do not fight.)

                            4. Have a look at Baroness Reidesel. Not all the camp followers were, umm camp followers. She’s said to have rescued the Brunswicker colors after Saratoga but they were six foot square heavy silk so I doubt it but I suppose it could be true.

                            5. Regarding how to get the ladies out of Evil Space Empire you could always steal from F.M. Busby and have their transport captured by “pirates.” (In Busby’s work, the “pirates,” were people who had taken the ESE ships they were stationed on and were operating as independents. This pirate had actually taken an armed ship and arranged to get the “cargo,” of women “sold” to a colony which was short of women and would treat them well. Or as another character put it, “Tregare, a good Samaritan at a profit.”)

                            6. One of the threads in my historical series (the one set in the Revolutionary War which I haven’t written yet) is exactly that – young Hessian POW, the original Becker ancestor, farmed out to a Pennsylvanian-German family of farmers, and he winds up ‘deserting’ and staying after the war, and marrying one of the daughters.

                         2. Interesting.

                            I wasn’t sure that there were many Amish in the US during the American Revolution but there does appear to have been some.

                            Of course, the so-called Pennsylvania Dutch do predate the American Revolution and would also have welcomed the Hessians. 😀

                            Comment to those who don’t know who the Pennsylvania Dutch were/are. They were/are immigrants from the Germanies to North America.

                            1. Mennonites and Dunkards (German Brethren) as well, although it would be the first wave. The second, larger, Mennonite wave came in the 1800s, especially when Russia began drafting everyone and persecuting Mennonites for being “German.”

                            2. who still live in the manner of the 18th century.

                         3. TBF Hessians were often kidnapped while traveling to Hess, and sent off as mercenaries (the king? Prince? got paid.)

                            1. Landgrave. They made a tidy sum selling soldiers. England would hire them in bunches (e.g.,) during the ‘45 and later they made up a good third of the army against the French in the 7 years war despite Hesse Cassell never being at war with the French.

                            2. They kidnapped a Catholic priest passing through

                            3. I found his bio somewhere, years ago.

                            4. So like the British navy?

                      2. That YTube video about Jews in the American Revolution said that this one guy, who spoke German and had been pressed into service as a translator after being captured by the Brits for being a Son of Liberty in New York City… kept letting the Hessians know that they could always run off to Pennsylvania and hang out with the German-speakers out there. So dissatisfied Hessians kept deserting after chatting with him.

          4. Somebody on IIRC Instapundit, or maybe ESR’s blog, called that the “liberal midnight reset”.

             1. I was just wondering if there’s a name for people like that. Although that’s a name for the phenomenon rather than the person.

       2. Yes.

       3. And Versailles was an example of failing to understand second-order consequences. The point was to bring the French nobility into one place where they would be jockeying for status at the dinner table rather than spending a good portion of the year back in their own palace wondering why they couldn’t be King of France, or at least Burgundy.

          1. The eventual problem with Versailles (and it took more than a century) wasn’t that the nobles became frivolous and got out of touch with the peasantry — as far as the king was concerned that was just fine and sort of the point — it was that the king got out of touch with the up-and-coming bourgeoisie. Nobody cared about the peasants, and they weren’t really an important factor, well, ever. The French Revolution was a stymied-middle-class phenomenon.

11. This explains why I got the ban hammer from faecesbork, after advocating shooting democratically elected Democrats. i still think shooting every third one is feasible to set things back in order. If not, then every other one.
    The Tree of Liberty needs refreshing. The leaves are beginning to wilt.

    And, by the way, I used to walk curbs too. While reading. Usually a Heinlein. And chewing gum.

    1. same on reading and chewing gum. 😀

    2. I hope we can get away with deportations rather than shootings, but I also wouldn’t limit myself to elected Democrats. The fact is they simply aren’t Americans and everyone would be better off if they found a country that was run the way they believe a country should be run. With a gamut running from Canada to North Korea, we can find a nation that fits pretty much any ideology out there.

       1. A. Lamp-post
          B. Rope
          C. Left-wing politician

          Some assembly required.

          1. Politician. No modifiers required.

       2. Honestly, I’d be satisfied with simply banning them from ever holding office or working in the public sector again.

          For the ones who are truly evil, it would be a date worse than death, and for the ones who simply were at the wrong place wrong time, it shouldn’t both them to much, beyond learning how to be useful.

          Also, most people are less likely to fight to the death if the worst is they have to find a new job.

          1. “a date worse than death” sounds like a good book title! Assuming it hasn’t already been taken in the romance section, that is.

             1. We talking romantic comedy, or romantic tragedy? Or both?

                1. The Reader foresees a series that alternates between the two. It might require two Authors.

                2. Horror comedy, I would think.

                3. Romantic tragicomedy. With ghosts.

                4. Horror political comedy. The dates are Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris. For extra freak out, make it a double date.

                   1. AIEEE!

          2. No. Deport them. It won’t work otherwise.

             1. I’d be ok with that too. I’m just a big fan of building one’s enemies a golden bridge to surrender, as long as it doesn’t screw us over in the process.

                Enemies who fight to the death take more of our folks with them.

                1. That’s classic strategy *and* tactics. Never leave a competent enemy force no way to retreat unless you *really* outnumber it, say by 8 or 10 to 1. And even then, expect your own butcher bill to be inordinately high. Of course, *competent* is rather significant. All in all, and even considering the (lack of) quality of the opposition, Sarah’s idea is probably best. “Cornered rats” and all…

             2. Can we vote on where they go? THAT would fun! Heck, charge for the right to vote, and we may retire a huge amount of debt!

                1. Put them in containers and send them to China.
                   (beatific look):
                   It’s just right they should get what they paid for.

                   1. And the punishment should fit the crime. Well done, that.

                   2. I liked the proposal I read somewhere to build nice beach resorts on some of those desert South Pacific islands the US owns and ship them there. They can have a pleasant life with all the comforts of home, but absolutely no communication off-island.

       3. THIS.
          I’m hoping they run when they realize the jig is WAY up.

          1. Like the ending gunfight in A Few Dollars More after Cint Eastwood interrupts Indio from killing Mortimer the easy way..

    3. One of the most annoying things about having MS is that I can no longer walk edges.

       I even had to give up chewing gum. Because I have to walk, and well….

       I could never read and do anything else at all, period. Once I start reading, every other part of my brain shuts down. Hubby says I sometimes forget to breathe. I guess I have never noticed that. But he swears he’s seen it happen.

       1. If the book is good enough, I forget to breathe, or I get adrenaline dumps and start panting. It surprised the heck out of DadRed, because he doesn’t get pulled into books that hard.

          1. I’ve done that before. Not even reading, just noticed that I hadn’t taken a breath lately. Definitely an odd feeling. Forget to eat, sleep while reading/studying/working? Up to a point, that too. Then I suddenly realize I’ve been getting grouchy and irritated and remember I forgot to eat for the last day or so. And feel pretty stupid, because normal human beings don’t forget to eat.

             1. When I was around ten, I noticed that occasionally I would forget to breathe. This might go on for several minutes, and meanwhile I’m observing that I don’t feel any lack of oxygen and wondered how the heck that worked. I certainly couldn’t hold my breath that long (I made up up a little past two minutes).

                Forget to eat usually just means I’m not hungry and don’t need it. My stomach is trained to shut up and stop whining, but body hunger is different, and gets my attention.

             2. I forgot to eat for at least a day before my flight physical. Fainted in the middle of it. Needles to say I failed.

12. In my admittedly small experience, not thinking about second order outcomes, and being oblivious to the failure of intentioned result to match what really resulted is increasingly common with advanced age. Looking around at World Leaders . . .

    I think, if we can manage to scramble through this without a nuclear exchange, we’ll see changes as the old leadership die off naturally. And their programmed base growing up wouldn’t hurt, although watching my kid’s cohort approaching forty, and still strongly progressive, maybe not.

    1. And also the likelihood of getting increasingly rigid as one gets older. Things have to be Just So, and they will try to move Heaven and Earth to keep them that way. (Something that keeps me uncomfortable when I note I’m not getting any younger).

       1. I follow a guy named Ben Hunt who was talking about just this regarding Pelosi’s’ notion that federal spending was cutting inflation. He points out that Nancy Pelosi is 81 years old, Steny Hoyer is 82 years old, James Clyburn is 81 years old. If I remember correctly McConnell is 80. Slow Joe is quite sprightly in comparison.

          1. Congress is a gerontocracy, kakistocracy, and kleptocracy all rolled up into one big, disgusting ball of age-wrinkled skin, fake smiles, fake hair, and sagging flesh.

             1. Don’t forget Kafkacracy as well.

       2. yeah. Most of my “just so” are physical at this point. Mostly because if I wake up and nothing hurts, I’ll know I’m dead. I was given this here body, and I’ve used it hard. Now the accumulated damage is calling.
          But a lot of people are getting red pilled, and maybe Pam’s kids will catch up.
          I didn’t give mine a chance to get that far gone. I ambushed them and did socratic questioning. I threw books at them to read and called them names. I made them read the black book of communism before 18
          Apparently what really worked (And M. C. A. Hogarth might have an opinion on this too) was them seeing the damage.
          Me, diving under a parked car because a car backfired nearby while I was keyed up.
          Me unable to sit with my back to the wall.
          The countless bottles of olive oil, because I know this is a different country, but that’s what disappeared during the revolutions.
          My obsession with politics, not because I enjoy it, but because I can’t turn my back on it.
          My younger son said “no one who can see the damage from what was really just “communism adjacent” dominance can believe the paeans to communism our teachers sing.”

          1. OK, I just have to ask… I can understand not sitting with your back to a door (or window), but a wall? I *always* prefer sitting with my back to a wall! (Why no, Officer, I’m not paranoid. Just ask the ones who are after me.) 🙂

             1. This. Also knowing all exits, evaluating all threats as they enter, contingency planning, wargaming scenarios, watching hands and skin ….. the list goes on, it does.

                1. Yep: “Be polite, be professional, but have a plan to kill everybody you meet,” – Gen James Mattis, USMC

             2. Sorry, I meant a door or window. I JUST can’t type late at night or early morning.
                I MUST sit with my back to a window.

                1. I sort of figured that must be what you meant. No worries; if I had a nickel for every time I’ve done something like that I’d be able to buy a gallon of June 2022 gas… 😉

             3. If I had to guess, I think it would be the feeling of being trapped, can’t retreat. One avenue of escape is blocked.

                Given a choice, I will choose a place close to a wall, within sight of at least two exits.

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

       ― G.K. Chesterton

13. I think the international Left actually prefer Fascism to pure Communism. The means of production are still held in private individual or corporate hands, but the government still exercises total control over the company. Which is nice for the elite, because if anything goes wrong, the government can blame the owners. Perfect pass-the-buckism.

    Bullseye on the lack of second step thinking by the Left. The Law of Unintended Consequences is 100% lost on them. (Even when they’re trying to act like mad schemers setting up dominos, they never account for the possibility of the cat batting them out of place.

    COVID has been a suspicious case since the beginning. It’s pretty evident it was produced in a lab in Wuhan, China. We know children and people on ACE2 inhibitors have high resistance to it. We know the governments all over the world used it as an excuse to destroy personal freedoms everywhere they could. Now we’re finding that the virus is even more insidious than we thought. Kills sense of smell and taste, sometimes permanently. And now this latest says that it decreases grey matter in those infected. https://www.theepochtimes.com/covid-shrinks-your-brain-new-study-shows-where_4324957.html? Doesn’t that sound like an experiment to produce non-higher thinking human drones?

    Scared, docile, and ready to obey? Hmm. That usually only works where there is no means of violence higher than a rock or stick, the people are physically weakened, and there’s no food. Americans, scared? Sure. But even your Prog-Socs, are not docile until nearly dead. And we don’t have enough generations of selection for obedience in genetics or culture for that to work well. (We need to reverse that trend though.)

    Oh, and homeschooling, charter schools, and vouchers? The Prog-Socs absolutely HATE them. I had the joy of sitting in on the school board candidate forum this year and the incumbents and other Lefties droned on and on about the benefits of single public school systems and economy of scale, while calling alternatives to be the death of low school costs and killing quality education (Oh yeah, I checked to see if they were doing drugs before the forum; if so, they must have done them at home or on the way.) Obviously, none of them understand the concept of “competition”.

    Putin is only controllable in the sense that someone could choose to kill him, but only if they didn’t mind dying in the process. Doesn’t that sound like the situation with our swamp critters?

    I don’t have a problem with going to Ukraine and kicking the Russians out, hard. But only on my terms. I don’t trust the CinC, his Administration, or anyone in the military brass of being competent to organize an orgy in a brothel, much less fight a war Sun Tsu style.

    I’d rule out the Freemason illuminati conspiracy theory. If it was real, I’d be one of them; since my father was one, my grandfather was the head of the NYS Masons, and all of his 5 brothers were Masons too. Neither I nor my brother are Masons. Ergo, that conspiracy is probably a massive hoax, and a deliberate red herring by the real schemers.

    1. All of the left, internationally and here at home, are functionally fascist.

       1. Yeah. The two systems always blurred, but yeah

       2. More like dysfunctionally fascist. 😛

       3. They are all enemies of freedom. The Reader believes that excessive focus on the ‘ism’ used to justify attacks on freedom keeps us from seeing the threatening forest for the species of trees and is probably intended to.

          1. I’m coming to prefer the more general term “statism.” I don’t care what flavor of big government you’re trying to impose on me, because ALL forms of it are bad.

             1. “Statism” is good. I have concluded “Collectivism” works too, and that contrasts with “Individualism” nicely as well.

                1. Collectivism is the attitude towards human relationships – the notion that we belong to the group rather than to ourselves as individuals – while statism is the political enforcement of that view.

                   Individualism and capitalism are the respective opposites (although some people around here don’t like the latter term).

    2. To be fair, there are European countries where Freemasonry does function as a political club for elites, or at least a political club with certain branches full of elites. But Europe isn’t here, and it’s not the same here.

       1. Exactly. I wouldn’t call dad an “elite”. (Well, okay, he was to us girls and mom. Well respected in the local Shriner scene. Anyone else? Not so much.) Nor, mom’s brother, and father. Masons all 3. Grew up in Eastern Star ritual. Small town. Unknown anywhere even locally except as as the signs of “entering” and “exiting”, if even noticed (the 25 MPH sign better be noticed, just saying) on OR 38 between I-5 and coastal hwy 101. Elite? I don’t think so.

          1. Agreed.

14. Speaking of unexpected second-order effects, we had a report by a guy in our church who helps out with our local food bank. He and the regular manager (volunteer who handles getting the actual food into the building) went down to the regional food bank a few days ago. Meat is getting scarce due to high costs, but they were able to get a pretty large number of small frozen chickens and some canned meats.
    However, the regional bank told them there’s a potential shortage of canned vegetables coming up because so many places had vaccine mandates and a lot of their employees quit.
    But….but…the authorities say 90% of all adult Americans are vaccinated. How can this be? (Sarcasm off).

    1. Yeah. I have a dehydrator, and I was working in the yard for two hours. I figure two hours a day, so we have veggies this spring and summer and (dehydrated)for the winter.
       I want to get a proper freeze dryer, but I’ll have to make money for it, because it’s not in the budget. Maybe I’ll hold a craft sale? Eh.

       1. Can’t help you on the freeze dryer, but FWIW spinach dries nicely. 4-6 hours at 125 seems to be the best approach. I crumble them up and store them in jars, then pull them out to mix into soups/rice/casserole. Stores well in not-much-space, and you can tell the veggie-averse that it’s oregano. :p

          1. I like freeze-dried veggies for the crumbly-crunch. No need to rehydrate, in fact I’d prefer not to. I don’t much like the $2000 and up price for a freeze-dryer, tho…

15. The way “they” act reminds me of a scene in Gladiator near the beginning. Maximus and his crew have, for the first time, acted as thinking humans and have destroyed the opposing “army”. While Maximus and his friends are doing their thing there are many scenes of Juaquin Phoenix (?) laughing and throwing his hands up in the air like a fifteen year old girl who’s in charge of more than she can handle.

    These people act like out of control fools. They know this junk can’t work to create the world they desire, so they just throw crap around that sort of seems right and point and laugh or get angry as they watch what happens.

    All they know how to do is nothing. Which means whatever they do destroys everything because he real world has to react to their idiocy.

    They think we won’t shoot back. Or even shoot first if needed.

    1. I don’t know. Having watched Nancy Pelosi at the SOTU I think she might BE a praying mantis.

       1. I’m with the folks calling that little fist-rub ‘the Hungry Fly’. It did remind me of a fly rubbing its front legs together just before digging into a big steaming pile of crap.

       2. I wouldn’t have been at all surprised to see her bend down and bite Biden’s head off and start slurping up the juices out of his neck.

          It was that creepy.

          1. YES. That was sort of what I expected.

          2. Can’t stop laughing at this remark. I wish it had actually happened.

       3. Is her husband missing his head?

          1. He’s married to her, isn’t he? Case closed

       4. That’s an insult to praying mantises.

          1. eh

             1. She’s definitely more like a fly.

       5. Don’t forget the ghoulish grin that went with it either, right after Puppet Joe’s mumblings about ‘the burn pits’.

          1. Ah. That explains it. She’s homesick for hell.

16. Second order results of Covid stupidity that I’m seeing:
    1. Kids are developmentally wrecked. More referrals for developmental evaluations than can be handled.
    2. Increased suicidal ideation and anxiety. I’m thrilled if I get a normal mental health screen in a teenager, it’s so rare.
    3. Immune systems in kids are way off. Normal viral disease are worse than usual because kids haven’t been exposed to anything in 2 years. Lasting longer, and worse symptoms.
    4. Residents haven’t seen enough patients in 2 years. Since most of our teaching in residency involves hands-on, they don’t know much. Check the dates on your doctor’s graduation, everyone!
    5. Bimodal emergency visits – people who come in when the child has had a fever for 15 minutes, when you don’t have any idea what is going on, and people coming in way late when the child is sicker than they need to be. Fewer people in the sweet spot.
    That’s just off the top of my head. I’m tired.

    1. 2 years of incessant masking destroyed trust in anyone for a lot of kids. And I imagine there’s a two year cohort that are going to be functionally face blind for the rest of their lives. As for overall health of the nation’s population? It’s worse. People are fatter than ever from being stuck at home. They’ve got chronic ailments that weren’t taken care of when they should have been. And a whole bunch of them are going to die 5 to 10 years before they would have, and be in worse condition before it.

       1. We’ve seen the earliest cases of Type 2 diabetes I’ve ever seen from the weight gain. That’s going to kill them decades earlier than needed.

          1. And I’m WAY too heavy, and still too depressed to fully implement weight loss, which for me takes a TON of will power. Hence being afraid of the pred.

             1. Wife is using our treadmill. So will I after healing a bit more from a slip-and-fall (never trust those little puzzle-piece foam mats) that sprained multiple formerly-useful appendages…

             2. I started walking every afternoon back in September, starting off with four blocks and working my way up to four miles. At first it was a slog and my ankles hurt like hell and I had to force myself, but “30 days makes a habit” and now I chafe if the weather is bad and I can’t go.

                Since I’m not commuting any more it’s when I listen to my podcasts.

                1. Weather and work limiting my weekend walks has been a pain for me, too, and having to wait and recover from a blistered heel hasn’t helped either. Maybe I can get a job more amenable to long walks once I get settled in elsewhere…

                2. It is possible to travel the distance while pacing inside during bad weather.

                   It makes the bog standard walk around the familiar block look like an exciting journey to new worlds, but it’s possible.

       2. Which is why we desperately need Socialized Medicine to take care of everybody!

          Just like they had in Italy, when they refused medical care to everybody over 70 because the system was overloaded.

          Because “Private healthcare isn’t providing enough hospitals!” — but it’s the government that determines who can build hospitals, where they can be built, and how big they can be. Because after 10 years of 0bamacare we have fewer doctors and nurses, and lots and lots more medical bureaucrats. To save money.
          ———————————
          Under socialized medicine, each patient incurs expenses which end when the patient dies. In private practice, each patient provides profits which end when the patient dies. Which patient would YOU rather be?

          1. Bingo. Not to mention the AMA rigidly controls the supply of physicians in this country. They are a (dys-) functional monopoly and really need to be busted into insolvency and irrelevancy.

             1. No, they don’t. AMA has nothing to do with that. It’s controlled by the licensing boards for the medical schools, controlled by the government. Residency numbers also controlled by the state. Doctors have jack sh*t to do with this.

                1. The AMA aren’t doctors. They’re bureaucrats. Oh, they might have MDs….
                   But okay, point taken.

                2. I heard the limit was something like 435 new doctors approved each year. For the entire U.S.

                   And I’m like… why don’t they just approve whoever is competent, and let the market sort itself out?

                   1. They need to institute limits like that on lawyers. And politicians! 😛

                   2. It’s not quite that bad. But it is restricted and getting “seats” for the residencies is quite complicated. Why? I dunno. Instead of approving whoever is competent, we are instead restricting seats and allocating based on things other than grades and test scores. Training has been interesting for the last two years. We were initially told that the residents were not ALLOWED to go into patient rooms, that just the attendings (experienced docs) were. So their training is missing at least a year of bedside work. They are still graduating on time though, so you do the math.

                   3. Cartels gonna cartel.

                      Otherwise what would even be the point of cartelling?

             2. They’re importing Chinese “doctors” by the massive boatload, even though their training isn’t even comparable to ours, etc

                1. When I went to my doctor five or six years ago, the PA who did most of the work was from India, and said that back home she was a surgeon but couldn’t get an American MD without going through med school all over again.

                   1. Nah. she’d just have to pass an exam. Of course, passing that exam has now been made easier….

                      1. No, actually you have to get and pass a residency. As well as pass an exam. Not unusual for foreign grass to end up taking paramedical jobs because they either can’t get a residency or can’t pass the exams

    2. On 1- expected it. There’s also disturbing reports of children of vaccinated mothers. Maybe it’s just a rumor, but knowing how fiddly the system is.
       2- I’m not a teen, and it did a number on me. I’m just starting to — slowly — recover, not helped by the fact that husband is working 60 to 80 hour weeks. (Because most of our “fun” stuff is with him.)
       3 Immune systems in aging (?) adults too. I’m not going to say our move wasn’t a contributing factor, because of exhaustion and stress, but the ENTIRE family, including twenty something year old was down with a bad cold (The vulgo term among people is “the hell cold” — we weren’t the only ones– tested negative for C-19 for whatever that’s worth. Twice) all of Jan and son got BAD walking pneumonia. Then it took us most of Feb to recover, and I’m JUST spinning down (up) to okay. Except the whole thing left a florid outbreak of eczema behind, bad enough I might have to go pred for the first time in five years.
       And yeah, thyroid might be out again. It’s on the schedule to check.
       But yeah, my health is a mess. I’m trying to get out and be active, and stop nervous eating, because this is ridiculous.
       4- Uh uh. What about third years? I was close enough, due to having acquaintances going through behind son: the third years didn’t get rotations. That worries me a lot.
       5. That’s also true for adults. I keep having to shout at friends to go to the doctor, when they’re obviously VERY ill, because emergency room or doc in box is practically the only thing available. Between Vax mandates and crazy, we’ve lost A LOT of doctors. Finding a new family doctor (glares in just moved) can take months for a get-acquainted appointment.
       Sister, hanging is too good for the fools who wished on us this bizarre regime that COULDN’T have worked. If this had been a real plague, it would have made it worse.
       We’re all tired. I was telling someone I feel I aged 10 years in two, and she said, “I don’t think so. Or at least you don’t look it. You just look exhausted.”
       Of course, you’re at the sharp end, and worse than the rest of us.
       HUGS. I wish I could put us on a less crazy timeline. I can’t. So virtual hugs will have to do.

       1. I would think that some specialties fared better than others. Pediatrics is uniquely hands-on in training how to do an exam on an uncooperative, or non-verbal patient, and getting history from someone who has no words to explain. Hopefully the other specialties weren’t as bad as ours. I think pediatric volume dropped off more than anyone else. But family practice and internal medicine, all the specialties that are direct hands-on fields have the same problem.
          I didn’t even get started on what this has done to the medical field. I saw the statistic somewhere that 1 in 5 people have left the medical field. Now, that includes a lot of nurses and techs, but still. I know several docs in my circle that just left and retired. And it’s enabled the worst among us. The docs that don’t want to see patients anyways, have a ready excuse why they can’t and won’t.
          Thank you for the hugs! Understand that when I get home from a shift, I read voraciously to decompress. Your stories matter a LOT.

          1. Yeah, I need to get going on those. The health wobbles didn’t help, but they are straightening out. Stress, OTOH.

17. Side note, I don’t think the covid vaccines were delayed.

    Based on what’s come out and other stuff, I don’t think they were ready when they were released. It looks like they were known to be failing pretty badly even in early testing, but it looks like after Trump was going to be out of office, everyone just decided to say “ship it anyways and think happy thoughts”.

    After all, it’s not like anyone was going to audit them now…

18. Only…. it didn’t go that way. It’s no longer possible to hide all the problems with vaccination, not to mention the reason some of us will refuse to take it.

    Part of that is related to the way that yeah, sometimes Russia’s plans DID work, but that wasn’t the way to bet– too many cooks in the kitchen, and they’re all making different things with the same ingredients.

    The vaccines-are-magic folks on their side, and the abortion-uber-allies, AND the wipe-out-religions folks, all favor fetal cell line vaccines being mandated. Even when most people would be willing to take an otherwise identical vaccine that was morally produced– nope! Just like Thou Shalt Have certified non-GMO whatever, Thou Shalt Take the cannibalism vaccines Or Else.

    Yeah, this specific vaccine seems to be especially questionable, but good grief!

    1. I am really NOT happy I was an uncompensated beta test subject for Pfizer.

       1. If I hadn’t been suffering so much from sleep apnea at the time I probably would NOT have taken it. As it was I was in a mental fuzz at the time, so wasn’t taking into account the search engines’ filtering of the research I did at the time, and went “Ok, doesn’t sound too dangerous.” Three months later, with my apnea diagnosed and under treatment, I was going “WTF was I thinking?”

          1. You sound like you had exactly the same circumstances as me. 6 months waiting for my cpap machine and finally called insurance and told them to find a different company. 2 weeks later I had my machine and bye bye brain fog. But too late for vaccine consideration by then. Ah well.

             1. Somewhat similar. It was about three months from the time my doctor referred me to the sleep center until I had the dental sleep appliance, with all sorts of doctor and dentist visits and insurance insanity. A week after I got the sleep appliance most of the brain fog was gone.

                1. Ditto. Sleep fog AND constant aches. Insurance getting the Sleep Appliance was interesting. I am only “moderate” so I am not on CPAP, but have a mouth appliance, provided by Orthodontists and Dentists. But mouth appliance are Medical. Insurance won’t accept Medical from those declared “Dental”. Won’t get through the Insurance Clearing middle process. Both times I’ve had to file the paperwork.

       2. Likewise.

19. “And if you live near DC, do consider going on a vacation to fly-over country.”

    Do they have any idea how big a favor they would be doing us if they nuked DC? (assuming they used a big enough nuke…..). We probably do need some sort of national capital city, but we could build another, very, very much smaller one in a desolate remote area of flyover country where politicians and lobbyists would have to ride horses to the fancy restaurants and have their wagyu steaks air dropped in.

    1. No. They have NO clue.
       In this crowd we’ve debated “retaliation or thank you note.” We THINK the proper etiquette calls for a thank you note on the tip of a missile.

       1. Embrace the power of “and.” Like the junior officer who exceeds his orders, saves the day, and then is given a medal before being shot.

    2. You could build it, but in twenty years it would grow into another sewer just like the one we’ve got. Power attracts corruptocrats like shit draws flies.

       Maybe it would be possible to set up a decoy government, and torch it every so often to clean them out?
       ———————————
       The one thing we need more of from the government is LESS!!

    3. They’d probably want to move the capital to Denver. However, I’d prefer they move it to the geographical center of the continental United States; Smith Center, Kansas. (Note: does not include Alaska or Hawaii as that moves the center to some place in southwest South Dakota. Now if Russia really wanted to hurt us (and the rest of the world), they’d nuke New York City due to the massive numbers of finances that flow through there. Easier to get a freighter with nuke on board there too.

       1. Hey! What has Smith Center ever done to you? It’s a decent little hamlet, or was the last time I was through there.

       2. I don’t know, the net impact of losing NYC might still be positive if it turns NY from being a blue state. Sure, it’ll lose over half its electoral college votes after the next census, but it would help in the senate, especially if some true conservative/libertarian folks from upstate got control.

          1. I would be very unhappy were my home town to be blown up. Also, if NYC were to be gone where would you provincials send your loony lefties? We’ve been dealing with the products of your poor parenting and education for generations now. 😇

             1. We’d send them to California. Alas, some may “Escape from L. A.”

             2. LOL

          2. Can we evacuate the Met Museum, Frick, and a few other places first?

             Um, just curious is all, ah, in case someone is thinking about a techno-thriller plot. Why do you ask?

             1. We’re all talking about an unfortunate hypothetical wherein foreign actors nuked NYC, though of course it could make a nice techno-thriller plot.

                If somebody were to hypothetically decide to evacuate a few things beforehand, they should add the AMNH and The Cloister to the list. If anybody hypothetically asks, they should explain they’re hypothetically doing their best to comply with the Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property.

                1. B-gger that for a game of soldiers, I paid a lot of money for our apartment in Manhattan not to speak of what it would do to the value of my current residence, walk to the NYC train. I’d at least want a refund of my MMA membership, that don’t come cheap! Blow up LA by all means, nothing would be missed. I think a neutron bomb for San Francisco — take out the people but leave the place, it is the most beautiful location for a city I. America, We have to figure out how to save the good bits of the Smithsonian and Library of Congress before they take out DC then raze it to the ground. leave the 5 nice buildings and call it done. Nothing of note in Boston so, blast away. Don’t need to do Philly, Chicago, or Detroit since they seem to be doing very well on their own.

                   You could keep your lefty loonies at home. Please. Pretty please.

                   1. I have friends who live in all of the places likely to get hit.
                      Hence why I said “take a long holiday.”
                      Other than DC and only if we can get all politicians and bureaucrats in there (or a large number) I don’t wish for a hit. But I fear one is coming.

                   2. I grew up in New Jersey. We imported most of our lefty loonies from NYC and Philly, though there were a few native infestations – though many of them were offspring or grandkids of NYC or Philly imports.

                      1. I live in NJ something I swore I’d never do when I was growing up.

                   3. I’m so glad we got out of Jersey.
                      30-odd years ago I remember listening to the classical station and hearing, “This is the Emergency Broadcast System. This is not a test. Repeat, this is not a test.” This was several months after the 1991 coup and I was 60 miles from NYC. That was a nasty moment, until they announced the alert was for flooding in NYC from a passing nor’easter.

                      1. I left Jersey a quarter century ago, because I was still living with my parents then and my Dad was transferred. I miss relatives in New Jersey, I miss the Jersey Shore, I miss the abundance of good Italian food. I do NOT miss the taxes, the overabundance of dumb laws, the other Leftist BS, the traffic near the Shore or on the Turnpike, or the frequent influx of New York drivers.

       3. Now if Russia really wanted to hurt us (and the rest of the world), they’d nuke New York City due to the massive numbers of finances that flow through there.

          meh, all that stuff has backups and hardware ready to go elsewhere. Only thing keeping the running parts in NYC is lightspeed lag.

       4. >> “Note: does not include Alaska or Hawaii as that moves the center to some place in southwest South Dakota.”

          You’re not thinking this through. First we allow non-continental land to count, then we annex something that puts the center in the middle of an ocean…

          1. Surrounded by a really high wall.

             1. And barbed wire. And guard towers. And mines. And SAMs. Patrolled by submarines.

                No emigration. No excuses. No problem!

       5. Apparently 4 in 10 New Yorkers want out of New York: https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/washington-secrets/four-in-10-new-yorkers-want-out-of-vampire-state

          1. Yeah, well, nobody else wants them! 😛

       6. Mike, I’m working a financial services contract now. If they nuked New York, all the transactions would shift to the secondary server farm in the Mountain West, the current users would re-log in, and the transactions would keep going. We actually did a production scale failover test (after several choice explanations and much argument) and we will do more.

20. “Once is a fluke.
    Twice is coincidence.
    Three time is (civilian) a trend | (.mil) enemy action.”

    by now, it’s so far into thing even the civilians should be seeing it as ‘enemy action’.

    It’s NOT that Putin cares a whit about Biden or US affairs, but that those running running (ah ahahaha..) US affair see letting Putin go unleashed as useful….

    FTR, I consider Putin a ratfink. His and Russian interests might be aligned, but Russia only benefits so long as that is true. Ukraine is hardly clean, but (at least in current leadership) has a great grasp of Propaganda warfare and has that amazing weapon, a sense of humor even in horrible times. Anyone having issue with that is welcome to research the Brit’s “Jokes That Won The War” tunes and suchlike.

    As for US politics and handling of affairs both foreign and domestic of late…. Dumbassamide is a HELLUVA drug.

    1. I’m not so sure the U.S. government is any less crooked than Ukraine’s.

       1. Ha, there’s no comparison! The US government is certainly far more crooked than Ukraine’s.

       2. I’m sure they’re MORE crooked…. and more hypocritical about it.

21. “Understand, I still don’t believe in conspiracy theories in the normal meaning of it. I don’t believe there’s a super brain behind the scenes orchestrating all this.”

    I can’t agree with this. There is a super brain and his title is Satan. He’s been doing all he can to upset God’s order. he’s a miserable failure, and will be destroyed in the end, but he’s still there thinking he may succeed one day. Like Putin, one of his favorite children, he’s getting desperate.

    God is allowing evil to consolidate and God will destroy it in the very near future.

    By the by, nukes are going to be used. See Ezekiel chapters 38 & 39.

    If you would like to know where this is leading, Chuck Missler has a series he called “Prophecy 101.” It is in 4 parts of about 55-60 minutes each and is time very well spent. Before he died in ’18, he had several of his series re-mastered and placed on You Tube. There are sites where you can download the videos from You Tube and watch them anytime. God knows where this is going and has outlined it for us.

    Session 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gpcp93Egr_U

    Session 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4CoIANQ7_vw

    Session 3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VlX4ouL70s

    Session 4: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOsdb8UVV-w

    1. Sure. But hey, I come from an alternative of your religion, and I could quibble with half/most of that, because that’s not how it works as far as I understand.
       So why in Ned’s name, would you try to shout this out in a secular/mixed religion blog.
       Piffle. You’re not serious, sir (or madam. Or penguin.)

       1. I’m serious as your heart attack, and was not attempting to shout. It’s certainly your privilege to disagree with that. So far, what is in those videos is the way things are shaping up. In the end, we will see.

22. I still think that if they had intentionally released the virus, it would have shown up in Hong Kong before the US. (Remember the huge Hong Kong protests? Funny how they just suddenly vanished.)

    1. The Hong Kong protests vanished when the Chinese stopped them with mass arrests and disappearances of protest leaders. I’m not sure what the death toll was, but I’m sure it was substantial.

       1. THIS.
          While everyone was busy freaking out about wuflu

          1. 2019: HK Chief Exec uses Emergency Law to ban masks and face coverings during protests (against the government).
             2020: She uses same law to mandate masks to protect against the Coof.
             2021: Democratic leaders/Pan Democrats (NOT like US Democrats- they opposed the HK Chief Exec’s policy decisions) are arrested/discredited. That done, they pass National Security Law. Couldn’t in the Legislative Council while D/PD were still there.
             Now they arrest anyone that might even think of protesting.

             The youth of HK and anyone who can have fled. They’ve gone to Europe and America (just in time for Biden- what rotten luck). The ones that remain are stuck. The old, according to some sources, are resigned. Think that China will draft them to use as cannon fodder for invading Taiwan, possibly.

             China has HK in its grip. They moved fast in early 2021. Anybody have a guess as to why? What happened in early 2021? Anyone? Bueller?

             There is no way for the Democrats/Pan Democrats to get back in power the way things stand now. HK is in sheep dit. The kind of power our Democrats want, China has over Hong Kong.

             1. Speaking of HK and China being assho. Last couple of days has seen the Chinese markets, all of them, stocks, bonds, property, start to crack. They were essentially closed during the Olympics and have plunged since. Today, things started to crash, especially in HK, until presto changeo China came out with utterly ridiculous, I mean totally impossible, implausible economic numbers. Everything reversed in an instant and China inc is back baby, BTFD.

                Yes, they lie reflexively when they don’t have too, but they’ve never lied in such an obvious, risible way before about economic variables. I wonder if it’s actually worse than I thought especially since they seem to have decided to do the Covid castration polka.

                1. I’m no trained economist (merely an interested amateur), but judging by what’s been going on for quite a while China wise, I wouldn’t bet against things actually being worse. They’ve managed to paper over the cracks before. But I don’t think they’ll manage to keep things going much longer this time.

                   It wouldn’t surprise me if they didn’t have another punitive “war” to cull potentially troublesome population. Put themselves on a war economy, seize some assets, divert attention, like. I could be wildly wrong. But we’re in a very strange time recently, and on a global scale.

                   1. The problem is that China has been edging every closer to the classic end-of-regime era for the mainland. The government loses the Mandate of Heaven, the leadership-if they are very lucky-are killed before they are thrown into pits for the rats to eat, warlords happen, and there’s chaos and destruction and bloody strife until either somebody outside of China conquers them or one Chinese warlord takes over and “deals with” his rivals.

                      The only thing that has kept this from happening has been Beijing (and Shanghai, let’s be fair) playing games with the fiscal structure to keep it looking like things are getting better. That, and nobody wants to see the PRC fall and all of those nukes getting into the hands of warlords that might sell them to someone that won’t use them on the Mainland and are willing to pay cash up front.

                      1. I’ve said it before, and I’ll repeat it. The grassroots-level Western understanding of the “Mandate of Heaven” is incorrect. People don’t run around in China claiming that the current government has lost the Mandate of Heaven, and needs to be overthrown. The Mandate is the excuse that historians use decades later when trying to rationalize why a given dynasty fell. It’s bound up in the philosophical ideas that the Chinese have about virtuous government.

                         1. The American expat who does “The History of China” podcast answered a listener question about the Mandate of Heaven with “it has about as much currency in modern China as Europeans give to the Divine Right of Kings”.

                         2. I forget where I read it, but the idea of “when the illusion dies, so does the state” is what I’m trying to imply. The current rulers have been able to maintain the illusion of prosperity, security, and progress. They’re having issues with all three, and that’s usually when a lot of people start thinking about…other alternatives.

                            1. Tzu Kung asked for a definition of good government. The Master replied: It consists in providing enough food to eat, in keeping enough soldiers to guard the State, and in winning the confidence of the people.—And if one of these three things had to be sacrificed, which should go first?—The Master replied: Sacrifice the soldiers.—And if of the two remaining things one had to be sacrificed, which should it be?—The Master said: Let it be the food. From the beginning, there have always been war and hunger. But without the confidence of the people no government can stand at all.

                         3. While I can see the specific idea of “Mandate from Heaven” to be incorrect, I nonetheless believe that a general idea of “Mandate from Heaven” is correct — and it applies to our society as much as it does theirs. There’s only so much ruin a government can inflict on the people before the “Mandate” disappears.

                            1. “Legitimacy” is the Western version of the Chinese “Mandate Of Heaven”.

                               A David Weber character was musing that “Legitimacy” was hard to define but people knew when a government had lost it (or never had it). The character was Rob Pierre (in the Honorverse) and knew that the government he led had lost it. 😉

                            2. >> ‘“Legitimacy” is the Western version of the Chinese “Mandate Of Heaven”.’

                               I was going to say “Consent of the Governed” was our version of it, but I guess that’s a big part of legitimacy anyway.

                      2. Didn’t work. HK down 7% at the open, unchanged when I went to bed, down 6% at the close. Shanghai down 5% at the open, up a bit when I went to bed down5% on the day. The data fraud worked for less than a day.

                         This is real bear market, wheels coming off the bus stuff. Not good, not good at all. China is a real mess and the “home team” hasn’t been able to catch it.

                         1. Oh. Crap. And with China invested so much in all sorts of places in the US, and US companies in China, that’s bound to cause some problems here too. Things have been slipping over there for a while, if I remember correctly.

                            Definitely not good. And I think “bad” territory is right around the corner.

                            1. I suspect it’ll be “bad” here. We’ve had bad times before, including the 1970’s (which this decade is increasingly starting to resemble a bad rerun of).

                               China, Russia, and a lot of other places? It’s going to be terrible.

                            2. *nod* There are things that can be rapidly fixed, should the government get its heavy boot off our necks. And there are things that are gone for good. Businesses, lives lost. Some things got off the ground rapidly after Reagan took office. Others took a lot longer.

                               That’s one of the reasons Sarah and a lot of others have been pushing the “prepare” so much. The Great Suckage is coming. In some ways already here. But that doesn’t mean that we just wait around for things to get better.

                               Its time to take a good hard look at the people that say they want to represent us. Not lead. Never lead. Represent. I want my guy or gal to be as unflinchingly Constitutionalist, pro 2A, pro Life, pro small government, and anti basically everything Biden and his handlers have been doing. Not a whiff of Establishment cronyism. That stuff’s poison.

                               I don’t give two sheeps what they look like or where they came from as long as they represent me and mine. And the anger, the defiance, the cussed stubborn insistence that we fix what’s broken or *get rid of it,* whichever is more effective. I am done with sheepweasels in red ties and expensive suits.

                            3. It’s why I’m looking at where I’m going to go once I graduate. Short of somebody giving me a phone number, it probably isn’t going to be anywhere in California in my field. Most places need a marketing/technical writing person and my question is where I’ll go.

                            4. marketing/technical writing person

                               –
                               What youngest niece does. She scored a job in Portland OR for an international firm, based in Portland (no I do not remember the name of the company).

23. …he’s asking for Arab fighters. Arab. Fighters.

    I forget the details, but I suspect “Mad” Mike was involved, at my first LibertyCon in 2007 or so, there was some discussion of Arab/African fighting methods involving firearms. At that time there was some video of some young guy (NOT a China joke, this time) who did this crazy stuff: Kept both eyes open, AIMED, etc. The stuff that is Known To Work. (If you actually DO THEM!) The comment I recall was, “The deadliest guy in Africa” (or wherever).

    1. Sounds about right.

    2. Yeah. The “Inshallah [or Deus Vult], the bullets will hit something important” school of marksmanship tends not to have a lot of success, despite the high graduation numbers.

       1. So more accurate than a 95% chance to hit in X-COM? 😉

          1. Something like this…

    3. They have to be taught that a gun is not a magic wand to be simply waved at the enemy. 😛

    4. There were also all of the shocked “They’re actually practicing trigger discipline!” comments when pictures of the Taliban leadership posing in Kabul started to circulate.

    5. And speaking of Africa, apparently there’s a bunch of gunmen from the Central African Republic who have sworn to fight for Putin in Ukraine. If there’s an even more spray-and-pray bunch than Arabs…

24. I keep stumbling into your blog, According to Hoyt, usually thinking it’s a bit wordy and scattered, but then I realize that I agree with all of your main points. This essay, WALK THE LINE, has me nodding my head in agreement.

    1. It’s not edited, because I don’t get paid enough to make it terse and to the point. This is me uncaffeinated and off the cuff.
       The real writing is edited.

       1. I’m a ‘content’ person and I very like/enjoy/respect the intellect that underpins your blog. Motives are everything and you clearly have a keen sense for the motives of the people running the country/our world. Thank you.

    2. >> “I keep stumbling into your blog,”

       Careful; don’t read the comments or this group of oddballs will suck you in just like they did me.

       Save yourself and run while you can. 😛

25. totally off topic. I posted 2? weeks ago that people should get a bank account that is not attached to their SSN. I didnt tell how and some people seemed upset. – I was out of town for about 10 days and didnt know this. so – SARAH – do you want me to post how?

    1. you can if you wish.

26. Pingback: Just a touch tired | Dio's Workshop

27. Be careful about just *where* in flyover country you go for vacation. There’s not all that many targets you can get really close to, but a lot of what’s out there requires ground bursts, with their attendant huge fallout plumes, to kill …

    1. I’ve lived almost my entire life within the “instant death” range of a major first-strike target, and within the “lingering death” range of two secondary targets for nukes. It was actually kind of weird to live in places farther away from guaranteed death from any nuclear war with a major power. So I’m not exactly worried.

       Tornadoes, OTOH, are a lot more likely to kill me dead on the short term. So I’m a lot more worried about the current weird spring weather swings than nuclear war.

       1. We seem to actually be learning more about tornado genesis,a dn to how they might be predicted.

          OTOH, if you get around by bus, and don’t have good tornado shelter close to home, a survivable tornado maybe should be a contingency you want to think more on.

       2. One random horrifying thought I had was if a full-scale nuclear war broke out and I got killed because foreign nitwits forgot to remove closed and dismantled Cold War era targets from their list, I would die most unhappy. Two things cheered me up: a full-scale nuclear exchange still seems unlikely, and I’m close enough to a still active strategic target I probably won’t be killed by mistake if one does happen. I believe you’re in much the same boat.

          1. Look on the bright side — you could get nuked just because their missile guidance is F’d up. 😛
             ———————————
             Murphy’s Law Of Combat #23: Anything you do can get you killed, including doing nothing.

28. Well-put, and that is the $64,000,000,000 Question (adjusted for inflation), isn’t it? I’ve got no idea what the next bit of stupid’s going to be but getting kicked by all this is frazzling for sure. And yep, I tried a lot of the balancing as a kid, too, and remember taking one especially painful fall off a small brick wall near an apartment building. Here’s hoping things hold on long enough for my own escape from the Atlanta fringes, especially since things are becoming a little less stuck these days.

29. I once spent a pleasant evening with my then fiancé visiting in the home of her former coworkers in the town of Hostomel. Another nearby town is Irpin. Both have been prominent in reports of fighting since the first day of the Russian invasion. Trying to glean any reliable information from the conflicting propaganda is challenging and generally distressing.

    I don’t know how this war is going to be resolved, but I’m pretty sure Putin and anyone in the west who might have encouraged him were believing too much of their own propaganda. Putin’s line seems to be that the Ukrainians are just like Russians and are being oppressed by the Nazis and Jews, all of whom are in the pay of the CIA. This led him to assume that the people would welcome a liberating army. Western diplomats and policy wonks seem also to have assumed that the Ukrainian people could be ignored in making their geopolitical plans.

    This is all based on ignorance of Ukrainian history and Ukrainian attitudes. Ukrainians have fought for independence several times over the last couple of hundred years and have been an identifiable nation, usually without a country of their own for hundreds of years before that. This time around they have had thirty years to get used to the idea of being an independent country. Most Ukrainians over about 35 years old had at least some Soviet indoctrination, but younger people have not.

    The closest U.S. analogy I can think of would be the war of 1812 in which we successfully avoided being re-integrated into the British Empire. I don’t expect Ukraine to be so successful. There is very little we outsiders can really do about the situation. Russia has a much more powerful military, but Ukraine is a large country and difficult to fully subjugate. I expect that eventually Ukraine will be an independent country, but it will probably be back under the thumb of Muscovy again for some period of time before they get full independence.

    If anyone was hoping this would be a way to neatly divide the world into two (or maybe three) competing spheres of influence, I think they will be disappointed. There are several economically advanced non-aligned nations who will see that the post WWII peace is over and will acquire their own nuclear deterrents within a few years. This will make for a diplomatically messy and dangerous world. The Planners will see more of their best laid plans come to ruin. Let’s just hope we can get through all this without too big a global catastrophe.

    1. Russia has a much more powerful military

       Perhaps on paper…

       1. Ukraine’s military would not be able to do as much damage to a neighboring country as Russia has already done to Ukraine. What is still unclear and being fought over is whether Russia has enough military power to achieve its goals. Subjugating an unwilling populace is expensive in lives and in destruction.

          1. Russia’s military has been amazingly ineffective given it’s size and general materiel. They have failed to get Air Superiority. Rumors are Ukraine captured several Anti Air assets early in the making Russian IFF useless until they can securely get updated IFF info to their remaining Anti Air assets lest they shoot down Russian craft. On top of that apparently Russia’s training is far lower in quantity and far simpler than US/Nato training standards (and in some of our allies, I.E. the Germans and Dutch that has been none to high). On the ground front they seem to have totally screwed the pooch on logistics being dependent on rail which the Ukraine had long ago cut from Russia, forcing them back on to trucks which seem to be having their own issues due to poor maintenance and bad design, and just don’t exist in the numbers they need. Also they seemed to have grabbed a bunch of conscripts in addition to their long time contract folks and the conscripts seem utterly untrained (and generally unblooded) so give up easily. In addition the Russians apparently are using unencrypted radio communications (WTAF?!?). That seems downright strange, the ex Soviets KNEW they were going to face US/NATO with encrypted communications and skilled EW folks listening to (and spoofing/jamming/targeting) anything that broadcast. How in the heck did they lose that skill? And every bit of this information comes with a HUGE serving of NaCl. Makes me wonder just how good/tough the old Soviet army was in the 80’s. Operations showed the special forces (Spetnatz, Etc) were on a par with most US/Nato operators (Seals, Delta Force, SBS and SAS, etc), but at this point who can tell about the plain old Soviet Army?

             1. The continuing debate about a long term ground war in Cold War-era Europe had this break point around 1984 or so. I wish I could remember the source, but some former Soviet and NATO/US senior officers war-gamed it out and from about 1968-1983, it would have been a nasty ground campaign that the USSR/Warsaw Pact might win without nukes. It would have been tight, but it was possible.

                About 1983/84, a lot of the big Regan reforms came online in terms of the US ground forces. M1 tanks were coming in large numbers, training levels went up, etc, etc, etc. The gaming out of the scenario started to go “short of the US and NATO screwing up by the numbers, any non-nuclear/non-chemical weapon ground war would be a NATO victory.”

                One of the big things that they cited was that the old Soviet Army had various tiers of units, some that had long and storied reputations and got the best gear and recruits (and often volunteers), down to units that were okay and got the best of what was left from the draft, and finally they just had “warm bodies in uniform” that had gear that was pulled from a depot that might have been WW II vintage. And, for a lot of the elite units they had no issue with testing-to-destruction recruits in one form or another.

                Corruption was endemic in the old Soviet Army and current Russian Army. And, when I say endemic, I mean that I’ve heard stories that if you knew the right people to ask, you could get whole companies of first-line Soviet and Russian weapons for cheaper than the “official” price. Gear would be “lost in action” and need to be replaced, etc, etc, etc. Especially with the logistics troops, a lot of Russian military trucks are built close to civilian platforms that I suspect a lot of things like tires and spare parts vanished “on the left” to the black market before the Ukraine War.

                1. Yeah there was a lot of looking at the potential battles it in the 80’s, “Team Yankee” by Harold Coyle and Tom Clancy’s “Red Storm Rising” are from that period, “Team Yankee” far more realistic though I’ve always liked both. they’re both set in the post ’84 period with US/NATO getting stronger. Of course now they’re both effectively alternate history. At least the ship battles in “Red Storm Rising” were gamed out with Harpoon. One issue that controls both of those narratives is US/Nato resupply. Assumption was we would burn through LOTS of ammo/ other expendables and that the Soviet Navy (especially Submarine forces) would give us serious issues. Not so much thought on Soviet resupply although “Red Storm” does hinge on Soviet oil/fuel issues. One thing Iraq War I and II showed was that those estimates of expenditure were somewhere between correct and overly optimistic. It kind of sounds like the Russian Generals paid little attention to that historical info.

                   1. The other thing those books (and Gen Hackett) showed is that David Drake called it in Hammers Slammers when he said that ATGWs would end the tank, because they described accurately the tactics we’re seeing the Ukrainian Javelin teams using.

                      1. well…

                         he also predicted antimissile systems, which actually exist.

                         1. They do.
                            https://spectrum.ieee.org/tactical-laser-weapon-module-can-laserify-almost-anything

                            1. most of the functional ones aren’t lasers, they’re essentially shotguns.

                      2. My only criticism is that these are Russian tanks, which is to say that once you beat the armor, there isn’t a lot of other protections and defensive systems.

                         But, then again, I’ve had this idea for a PD system for tanks for years and I can’t figure out how to get past the “in my head” step of creation.

                   2. Once again, dredging this up from my brain, was that almost every realistic naval scenario I could think of had the Soviet Navy playing the role of the Imperial Japanese Navy-they were able to run wild for about eight months to a year, then most of the surface ships were dead or stuck in port for one reason or another. Subs lasted longer, but not by much. And the subs gave us serious issues, especially the few times they could do coordinated air and sub attacks

30. I liked-and still like-walking lines and curbs when I can. For some reason, I’ve been trying to get back into practice walking heel-toe on the lines, and then heel-toe on the balls of my feet rather than the whole foot…

    I’m weird. Yes.

    The only thing I can assume right now is that nobody has a clue what’s going to happen or what’s going on. Nobody. The only thing I can assume is an ever-increasing spiral of f(yay!)kups as the sanest person in the world appears to be Elon Musk.

    I want off this planet, right now.

    1. I want off this planet, right now.

       You’re not the only one.

       Unfortunately, I’m figuring that, at my age and with my health issues, I’m unlikely to qualify for spaceflight, so I’d be leaving the usual way, and needing a new body at my destination.

       Preferably the Grissom timeline. Having to re-do childhood would be a drag, but if I can avoid re-making some of the dumb mistakes of this life, I’ll be happy.

       1. There are a few world-lines I’d want to be at, and most I’d prefer to avoid at all costs. Anything with 90%+ of space-going calamari is a good sign of somewhere to avoid.

31. Hey!! Larry Correia is on Nick Rekieta’s law channel!

    1. Posted that this morning on MGC. Larry is good people, and Nick’s alright. Going to watch that one later after I finish writing my chapter.

    2. Just finished watching. Larry was, surprisingly, NOT the biggest geek on the stream. Nick is a massive 40k geek (who apparently has no time to read the more recent books). The Hero of Krasnovia acquitted himself well. Laughed my butt off a time or two.

       Highly recommended.

32. 1. I think all children naturally do the walking on walls/lines thing. I’ve always thought it was a combination of balance practice and learned risk-taking.

    2. “And Europe is seizing this opportunity to grab population” Really? Because the past example of Poland is that all the western European countries would normally be complaining about all those damned Ukrainians coming in and working for cheap and they should just go back home.

    3. Again, I caution against the “isn’t it funny that the war started just as Covid was winding down” thing, because it’s reversing cause and effect: the war happened on nobody’s schedule but Putin’s and then the Left seized on it, rather than the Left needing a new crisis and influencing Putin to start the war. And of course our minimal-attention-span media just ramped everything up to eleven because they desperately need clicks and eyeballs or they’re all going to be out of a job.

    4. Not a direct response to the OP, but to various other commenters: I do not for one second believe that Covid was a deliberately-created bioweapon, deliberately released, or deliberately designed to cause miscarriages and heart disease and tinnitus and brain shrinkage and the heartbreak of psoriasis.

    a. I think it was a Jurassic Park-level extremely stupid “could but not should” misguided scientific endeavor driven by greed and ambition.

    b. I think it was an accidental release that, after China realized what was happening, was not intentionally spread to the rest of the world as such, but certainly not strongly contained.

    c. I think that since we know the timeline of the original virus from the Yunnan mine to the Wuhan lab to the release, there wasn’t nearly enough time to design all that stuff into this one virus. If we didn’t literally have hundreds of thousands of reported vaccine injuries we wouldn’t even know about most of the different kinds because they would disappear statistically. There’s no way that China could have tested all that stuff from in vitro culture in the lab, and if they had been deliberately infecting hundreds of thousands prior to November 2019, checking the results, modifying the virus, and checking again, they wouldn’t have panicked the way they did in December and even though it’s China we would probably have heard about it by now.

    d. Besides, in terms of mortality, the virus isn’t really all that dangerous as viruses go; the tragedy is that the spike protein — the one part that actually was engineered — turned out to be horribly toxic whether it was attached to the rest of the virus or not, and that it was the natural target for the one and only one whizzy new biotechnology that promised to give us a vaccine in less than ten years, so that in some people the vaccine itself manages to replicate the symptoms and effects of the disease itself. That’s a Vast Cosmic Whoops, but I don’t think for one minute that it was planned that way.

    5. Much of the “plandemic” and “cull the population” stuff is the rumor enhancement cycle and Illuminati Fallacy working on things like: New York sent sick old people back to their nursing homes. Why? Because the hospital association would look bad on federal reports if they had a huge death spike, and they contribute way more to the governor’s campaign chest than bullsh*t shoestring nursing homes, so take these geezers off our hands, okay, Gov? Most of the other measures are due to the Politician’s Syllogism: 1. Something Must Be Done!. 2. Measure X is something. 3. Therefore we must do X. And once you’ve done X you can’t go back and say oops, we shouldn’t have done X, we should have done Y, or even done nothing, because then in the next election the Republicans will scream that you killed people and you might have to [gasp] spend more time with your family. But if X isn’t 100% ironclad logical, then yahoos on the Internet (that would be us) will pick it apart and start inferring devious motivations and wheels within wheels where really it’s just politicians and bureaucrats being not too bright and unable to think outside their preconceptions. (On the Left, those preconceptions may well be “people are too stupid to do what they should by our lights so we should take away their choices for their own good” which is where the knavery comes in. But it’s not four-dimensional chess.)

    1. 2- REALLY. At least subconsciously they know they’re in trouble, and are very happy to see young people coming in.

33. c4c

34. Three thoughts:
    1) Grandma told me that if I walked ten jointed railroad rails in a row, it was “good luck”. Not exactly walking ledges, but it did occupy a curious child
    2) Thank you for using the word “bastages”. Anyone who doesn’t like it is a fargin’ icehole.
    3) The left apparently doesn’t understand human nature. If I understand what Jesus said, He knew that human nature was to love ourselves above others, to think more highly of ourselves and our own limited knowledge. I get that from the second greatest commandment in Mark 12:31, “Love your neighbor as yourself”. And that was from Leviticus, so it looks like loving ourselves is far older than communism, but has the same root.

35. Re: incompetence — Yesterday I ended up being in the break room while a mainstream network had a morning segment about bras. The female hosts were leading it in by talking about how some women stopped wearing bras while stuck at home during the pandemic, and how they were reluctant to start back in some cases.

    The hosts clearly opened the door for the bra representative to talk about how to get measured for a comfortable fit, support to prevent back problems, support to prevent other problems, and so on. (Even if just in a few sentences.) It was a long segment and they would have had time.

    But the person was there to sell bras that were actually kinda iffy on support, so she basically noped out of explaining the basics and encouraging women to look after themselves.

    At that point, they segued into how convertible strap bras were an amazing invention, selling a bunch of weird styles, and trying to get women to wear adhesive “bras” that just cover one’s nekkid bits. (Which could be important with some outfits, but she didn’t really talk about that, either.) The hosts seemed unconvinced by the argument that essentially taping your breast up would constitute “support,” while the saleswoman kept insisting that women with D cups would be totally fine wearing this thing all the time….

    I used to work at a department store, and occasionally helped out in the lingerie department when they were understaffed. And I thought the scripted sales pitches weren’t even particularly convincing, much less the refusal to preach the gospel of accurate measurement, fit, and support.

    That said, I think she was actually the morning show’s “I shill for whoever buys time, and they call me a fashion expert” person, as opposed to someone who actually knows anything about clothing and/or undergarments. But the bra industry really needs to get talk shows like this to let them send a better shill, because that segment actually decreased consumer knowledge and might tend to accelerate this braless trend. (Which is not healthy, especially since US breast size is tending to increase, and back problems for both men and women are getting more common in the US.)

    They didn’t even have the shill say that braless women probably need to wear camisoles to prevent chafing, and thus sell a different undergarment.

    1. Prevent chafing, and to reduce the sort of workplace distractions that lead to complaints of harassment. Just like gents not wearing pants so tight that it is easy to observe both denomination and “does the gentleman button to the left or to the right.”

    2. OK, trying again.

       To prevent chafing, and to prevent the sort of workplace distractions that lead to accusations of harassment. (This also applies to gents who wear trousers so tight as to allow one’s denomination to be observed and noted.)

       1. Think your response is still getting eaten by gremlins. WP has been oddly slow and weird lately, too.

          1. Every so often, when I come here after logging in at my own blog, I get kicked out of WP in the process and have to log back in to comment. That seems to glitch comments. YMMV.

             1. Is that what does it? I tend to log in from the comment section wherever I’m at, but every now and then I’ve gotten the same thing. Good to know what might cause it.

          2. >> “WP has been oddly slow and weird lately, too.”

             I subscribe to get emailed comments, and just yesterday two comments from September and October of LAST YEAR showed up in my inbox.

             And today, WP is consistently making me try twice to make comments; the first attempt keeps failing while the second one succeeds.

             1. WPDE. WordPress has always been a little strange sometimes. It just seems to have gotten stranger of late.

                Reminds me, I need to update my chapter log. I’m about double the ones that are actually listed in the sidebar.

       2. I did ask permission for my Halloween costume and did mention that “you might think I’m Jewish”. I figured if women can wear yoga pants, so can I. I wonder if I have a picture… It’s now posted on my blog, if you dare 🙂

       3. This also applies to gents who wear trousers so tight as to allow one’s denomination to be observed and noted.

          :steals, adds to the ‘answers the question of boxers or briefs without being asked’:

    3. while the saleswoman kept insisting that women with D cups would be totally fine wearing this thing all the time….

       :shudders:

       Dear heavens, what kind of non-work is someone doing to seriously think THAT?!? I know that ranching is especially rough for that, but OW!!!!

       They could’ve at least put in a plug for some of the newer sports bras– doesn’t work for every lady, of course, but they’re a lot better than they use to be.

36. how to get a legal bank account with out using your name or SSN.
    step 1 (this is a little morbid) find someone to help – ideal person is elder and/or sickly. preferable someone with a different last name and different address.
    step 2 have them open a bank account (using your cash)
    step 3 hire a lawyer to set up a simple trust for this acct. the trust should list the youngest person around (a child).
    step 4 have the trust state it pays out when the child reaches 25. (this is different in every state)
    step 5 – have the lawyer (not you) be the trustee
    step 5 have your fiend/helper sign a durable power of attorney over the trust.

    you now have an untraceable acct. deposit only cash. do NOT ever use the ATM to pay for anything that can be traced to your name or address (no amazon).
    need to pay rent/utilitys? write a check. cost – about $1,000

37. When I hear “biolabs” I first think of agricultural research, because that’s what I’m familiar with. And with Ukraine being a big ag country it would make sense. However, I wouldn’t put it past our betters to outsource bio research on pathogens that they can’t work on here to over there.

    1. Bioweapons aren’t just for people. Lots of pests and blights that can cause starvation.

38. Sarah:

    2- The international left are simultaneously incredibly stupid and convinced they are the most brilliant and educated humans to walk the Earth. They are not stupidin raw IQ. I suspect most of them are middle-wits with a high social drive.

    If I may suggest — there is Intelligence — that which you can learn from books. And there is Wisdom — that which you learn from experience. I assert that, when you consider it, you will find that leftists can be quite high on Intelligence, but very low on Wisdom. If there was a “WQ” test to match the IQ test, then the Left would routinely score in the bottom 1/3rd of the resulting bell curve.

    This explains a lot of the observable behaviors — The endless love for big government. And Marxist ideas. And so many other things, that, no matter how many times they do it and it fails, they just want to try again. “it just wasn’t done right!!!” Which is true, if you ack that the only way to do it “right” is to not do it at all.

    Once you see this, The Left becomes far more comprehensible. Buttfuck Insane, yes, but comprehensible.

    1. they are NOT quite high on intelligence. These people are AT BEST midwits.

       1. They believe they are Wits, and they’re half right.

    2. Humans are weird and complicated. No matter the summary you make, a case can be made for wrong.

       Intelligence is a tool, and can be used in very effective, extremely useless, or outright harmful ways.

       Folks with little experience can be wise. Folks with much experience can be extremely unwise.

       If you use your memory capacity to remember a bunch of items as being unrelated, and your processing speed to keep up with the current fashion in various ideas, that may be a waste of intelligence.

       If you instead use your memory capacity to remember fewer items, and the probable relationships between them, and use your processing speed to propagate changes through the model when you get more information, you may make a better use of your intelligence. Or you may end up spending all your mental ability on updates, and have nothing left to do anything with.

39. “They are people who are unable to do second step thinking. They plan for the first, desired result. It never occurs to them something else could happen. ”

    [raises hand in back of class]
    Ummm, teacher you mean like the Russians ivade Ukraine?

40. >> “1. I think all children naturally do the walking on walls/lines thing. I’ve always thought it was a combination of balance practice and learned risk-taking.”

    I don’t know about that.

    When I was a kid there was a public park my mother would sometimes take me to. It had a big wooden fence that went nearly all the way around it. The first thing I’d do every time I went there is get up on one end of it and walk all the way around and back. I don’t know why; it just seemed like the thing to do.

    I never noticed any other kid there doing the same, even though I’m sure many of them must have noticed me doing it. Up until Sarah’s post just now I assumed it was just me.

    1. Damn it, that was supposed to be a reply to balzacq. WP is screwing up again and wouldn’t take the comment the first time.

       1. try me on hotmail again. Maybe we’ll get through this time?

          1. Right, you said you tweaked some things didn’t you?

             Okay, I just sent you an email entitled “Email test.” It has an .rtf file attached with an embedded image and a couple of lines of text, so if you get it let me know if the embed works properly.

    2. And none of the other kids in the playground ever walked my ledges…..

       1. A thought occurs. Didn’t you say once that Cro-Magnons were naturally much more agile than Neanderthals?

          Perhaps the Neanderthals who survived to pass on their genes were the ones who made a point of training up their agility. The rest tripped and got eaten by whatever was chasing them…

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