Before the crash 4

305 thoughts on “Before the crash 4”

1. Great response in all its parts.

   I’ve been seeing (seeing through?) more and more “patriotic” appeals. Some of them are like the one you read, not recognizing that they’ve taken a side that will undermine everything they want to uphold.

   Just this morning, I got angry at a Canadian mother whose son, a former drug addict, died trying to save others in a fire at a homeless encampment. She said he’s a hero; she’s right. She said no one should live in the terrible conditions like those. She’s right. She said individual housing accommodations should be given to them because they, like her son, don’t like shelters.

   You lost me, sister. Open your house. Convert your garage, your attic, your formal dining room into free apartments. Don’t ask everyone else to ante up to create high-rise versions of the hellscapes.

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   1. Tell her to take a tour of Chicago Public Housing (the infamous Projects) and see how that turns out.

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   2. There’s a homeless guy in my neighborhood. Been here for three or four years. Pretty nice guy, overall. He basically acts like a low-level security guard for the area, letting the cops know when bad guys start moving in. Last month, he was chasing off porch pirates.

      Every month or so, someone from the government drops by and tries to get him to move into a subsidized apartment, and offers to get him an actual job. He always turns them down. When I ask him about it, he says he doesn’t want to change the way he lives.

      So…

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      1. So Oregon, at least Eugene, has “safe camp space” locations. Some are just fenced locations where the homeless can pitch their own tents or what passes for tents. The others are the covered platform huts. Both setups have buildings setup for showers, garbage, and have multiple porta potties, that are kept maintained.

         Are these sites being used? Yes.

         Are people who not using them not using them because all off them are full? Hell no.

         Not because there are rules. Unlike non-profit shelters, they are allowed their pets, they are allowed their alcohol and drugs, as long as not disruptive (which applies to street side camping, realistically).

         Partly because of locations. The one tent site is half a mile to a mile from homeless services, depending on which ones they are using. One hut shelter area is a good 2 or 3 miles from one. The largest one? Even though transportation is made available, is miles from the nearest homeless service.

         The other part? Not safe. Parse that for a minute. Homeless feel that these fenced “safe areas” are less safe than somewhere on the streets. Could be numbers. But the homeless tend to congregate together camping on the streets too.

         Are there other reasons these sites aren’t being used? Well, duh. I wouldn’t know. Not homeless myself. Don’t know anyone homeless. Don’t work with any agency or anyone who does have contact from the homeless, other than what is rumored on NextDoor comments.

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         1. I’d guess too far for drug traffic sellers and clients to go. No, seriously. all homeless encampments are centers of drug trade. And you know, commerce is all about location, location, location.

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            1. True. While the camps won’t come down on personal drug use, they do frown on distribution for profit.

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         2. I do know a young lady who was homeless from the ages of 16 to 20. She has had a rather miraculous rescue from trafficking.

            She says one of the reasons Meth is so bad amongst the homeless is because it keeps you awake. She said you are most vulnerable when you are sleeping and if you aren’t somewhere that you have someone to watch over you while you sleep, then that is an option.

            I have been horrified and praying for the homeless ever since I heard that.

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            1. That is what the safe space sites, especially the small hut versions, are suppose to supply. They are even lockable from the inside, and issued padlocks for the outside to protect meager belongs, when homeless are not there.

               Does make those who burrow into areas of blackberries and other thick brush, the more sensible. “Visible” if one knows what to look for, during the day. Invisible unless one knows exactly where they are, at night.

               But when the above is mentioned someone always comments that “they heard from someone that heard from someone who knows, that homeless tend to disappear from these camps.” Rumor at it’s finest.

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2. Marxism is a religion, a religion dying upon the alter of its own lies. The violence will come from the true believers when they realize their god is dying, choking to death on its own lies and failures. Then they will turn upon themselves and everyone around them as they try and take their ball and go home like the petulant little children they really are. The problem being they have no home but in the delusions of a reality that never existed but in their own diseased minds. I pity them.

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   1. Problem is, they don’t have a ball. They didn’t bring one. They want to take everybody else’s balls and go home. And they screech hysterically when we say, “No, that’s not yours, you can’t have it.”

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      1. Exactly. They categorize “wreckers” as anyone who won’t hand over “the ball” – whatever it might be. Most of them decry capitalism’s “exploitation” while simultaneously declaring they have “human rights” to others’ labor.

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3. My fear is that the order for their new “summer of violence campaign” will be to tell the illegals to just take what they want. Then the regime will tell us that we didn’t really need those things and the illegals are so much better than us anyway. Then they’ll say vote for us so we can welcome in more.

   It’s insane, but they we’re sure the 2020 riots got them the votes last time so…

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   1. That… will not go well. For anyone.

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   2. Already happening. U.S government has been seizing public schools in New York for illegal immigrant housing; displacing all those students (and further destroying their education, such as it is), not compensating the school district taxpayers; in short, violating the U.S. Constitution.

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      1. It wasn’t the US government.

         It was the city government, which does represent the school district tax payers.

         (Badly, but I repeat myself.)

         The backlash stems from a last-minute decision by Mayor Eric Adams to bus hundreds of migrant families from a controversial tent shelter at Floyd Bennett Field to the school 5 miles away — with asylum seekers forced to nap on a gym floor before being rustled back to the shelter just hours later.

         https://nypost.com/2024/01/10/metro/parents-outraged-booted-nyc-students-used-by-city-hall-in-out-of-control-migrant-crisis/

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         1. You see, they DIDN’T LIKE tents.
            They could go home.

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            1. Don’t we wish.

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         2. My mistake. It would have been more accurate, although less specific, to merely say “the government”, rather than the U.S.
            However, the city government is most certainly NOT acting as representatives of the school district taxpayers as the majority of those taxpayers have not given their permission to evict their children from school, or use their school taxes for illegal immigrants. I believe that’s called abuse of authority, and theft by deception.

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            1. Oh, absolutely the “city” government — run by a mayor whose first attempt to question Biden’s border policy resulted in jumping him to the head of the line for a Federal investigation.

               As Harlan Ellison once put it, “It’s not a blacklist; just don’t breathe too deep, you know?”

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            2. They ARE acting as the legal representatives for the school.

               Can probably give you all the paperwork, based on natural disasters, that says they’re allowed to use the schools as emergency housing.

               Like I said, they’re doing it badly.

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         3. A school in an area that votes more heavily conservative than most of the rest of the city, as noted at Ace’s blog this morning…

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            1. You mean the areas they’re eager to use illegals to help re-district blue?

               https://www.theblaze.com/news/house-democrat-gives-damning-explanation-for-why-she-needs-illegal-aliens

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               1. More like “An area that was already going to vote against Adams anyway, so why not put them there?”

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            2. Guess he got tired of targeting the Orthodox Jews for a bit?

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               1. Got the impression it’s red because there are a lot of former Soviet citizens there. So it might be a two-fer.

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                  1. Add to that what middle class that exists in the city is starting to flee, and they are looking at a major tax hit next time around.

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                     1. The real criminals in all of this, barring the Biden demons in office, are the NGO’s who are making millions from the government smuggling illegals across the country. Abbot isn’t sending the thousands the blue sanctuary city’s are complaining about, that is being done by the NGO’s who also make millions setting up housing for the ILLEGALS. Not to mention the Biden Demons flying and busing them around.

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      2. Already happening. U.S government has been seizing public schools in New York for illegal immigrant housing; displacing all those students (and further destroying their education, such as it is), not compensating the school district taxpayers; in short, violating the U.S. Constitution.

         And people think that the Feds don’t occasionally do good things…..

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4. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Fauci testified in closed door hearings that there was no basis for the 6 foot social distancing, it “just appeared” with no scientific basis and the Wuhan lab origin theory is “credible”.

   No word on where we go to get our civilization back.

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   1. I seem to remember reading somewhere, at least a year or more ago, that the 6-foot distancing rule was established by taking a 3-foot distancing rule for contagious disease that the WHO had recommended for years and doubling it just to be on the safe side.

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      1. And where did THEY get that from?

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         1. A small study of flu transmission on airplanes.
            https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4969063/
            Of course the general environments we spend our lives in are not close enough to an airplane for any conclusions from the study to actually apply here.

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      2. Which is total nonsense anyway. Droplets from sneezes can travel 2 dozen feet. Coughs for at least a dozen. You’re going to be exposed no matter what, and those face diapers usually aren’t going to save you. It’s a matter of resistance, and (virulence of the virus, amount of virus exposed to, and duration of exposure.) Avoidance/quarantine is the best way to prevent transmission; i.e. if exposed, stay home until avg incubation period passed, or stay home if you’re symptomatic. But we all saw that two week to flatten the curve was total BS.

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         1. “(virulence of the virus”

            Which was never accurately calculated, BY DESIGN.

            https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/17/influential-covid-19-model-uses-flawed-methods-and-shouldnt-guide-us-policies-critics-say.html

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            1. Yep. Lack of information, or too many pieces of mal-information to obscure the truth.

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         2. ” But we all saw that two week to flatten the curve was total BS.”

            But the direction arrows…

            Taking a mask off to eat in a restaurant that can’t be open past the witching hour of 10pm then putting it back on to go to the restroom….

            Plastic barriers between you and the check-out person who is touching everything you just handled and then putting it in a bag for you to take home and handle some more…

            Wearing plastic headgear over your face in addition to your mask while driving alone on a country road in your car…

            THOSE were all scientific, right?

            RIGHT!?!!

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            1. I would bet that most of the covid infections were passed hand to hand, or hand to object to hand, like a damn race baton.

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               1. And most were “average winter cold”. Seriously.

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                  1. And the timing here is almost scary, reading this portion of the comments and the DJ on the station I was listening to was telling how they had gone to a city for a show, and “got covid, it was like a cold”

                     This is not a “small” station, it’s XM, so make of this what you will.

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                  2. Mine was a flu. A nastier than most flu, but it was a flu. I have had worse seasonal flu several times.

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                     1. Both times I had it, either extremely bad cold, or bad flu without the throwing up. Hadn’t been so sick in years. First bout, I was due for a bad cold or the flu, despite annual flu shot. Just the history of how I get sick (except during when kid was in public education, dang petri soup that is the classroom, especially grade school). Get really sick every 3 to 4 years. Then good for another 3 or 4 years. It’d been six years, so, yes, due. But then was retired, so not in contact with those at work who still had children in the petri soup called school. Now the second time, 14 months later, that was 100% not fair. Pout. Note been 3 years. Still have son working and in contact with others. I’m due, again.

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                  3. Considering it’s been several years since covid hit the world, that’s a lot of time for it to have recombined with the various flu and cold viruses out there. To the point where I would seriously question whether their tests are specifically for covid, or if they are now effectively testing for any coronavirus, the common cold being one of them. (Note the common cold can also be a rhinovirus, but nothing says you can’t have a corona-rhino mashup either.)

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                  4. Most. Ugh.

                     I was down for a month on the first round, and on the second round a sibling lost sense of smell that has still not recovered near two years later.

                     Still. Not the Virus of Death we were promised. Hmph.

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                     1. Still. Not the Virus of Death we were promised. Hmph.
                        ………………….

                        No. Just felt like it. But I’ve had as bad, in the past. I mean what is the difference between “feels like dying” and “OMG go away, feels like dying”? I love nighttime version NyQuil. Haven’t tried the new Honey based version. Two criteria clears the sinuous and puts me to sleep.

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                  5. The person I know whose infection got to the stage of “plan his funeral” just had his second bout with it. He said the overall symptoms were worse, but given that the first round was nothing until he was suddenly in the hospital with blood clots in his lungs, this was definitely a better outcome. (Though his oxygen saturation did get down to 91%, where his doctor said 90% was his cue to go to the ER.)

                     Nobody knows why some people react worse, or get brain fog, or anything, really. Some of the risk factors they initially said turned out to not be risk factors. (Like asthma—one supposition is that a common maintenance med for it has a good effect for the user, but that’s as far as it’s gotten. No metadata studies…)

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                     1. Vitamin D. Of course, vitamin D helps prevent most diseases.

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                     2. Let me tell you from personal experience, having your O2 levels below 90% will give you serious brain fog.

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               2. The only thing that any the retrospective locality comparison studies showed might have had a small but barely statistically significant impact on infection rates was the hand washing. Everything else they look at, mask mandates or imaginary 6-foot virus bubbles or closing schools or closing bars, all have no detectable difference on infections.

                  So of course the response is “everyone was doing masks and distancing and school closures and bar closures wrong – next time we’ll enforce better!!!”

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                  1. AND church closures. I haven’t forgiven the churches yet. Likely I never will. The martyrs went to the coliseum singing, to be eaten by lions, but these cookie-eating-bitches closed because the government told them to.

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                     1. Heh – I actually had churches in my comment too but it was already getting long. We are the locale where they ran surveillance on a large local church, including cell phone tracking to derive information inside the building, with no warrants required because public health.

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                        1. GRRRRRRRRRRRRR.

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                        2. That’s a serious perversion of the law, and needs to be stamped out.

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                        3. Now they would just buy it from Big Tech with no protests because there’s a “muh private company” with a 3 megabyte license agreement that you “agreed” to have them turn over to anyone with cash.

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                        4. I’ve been saying for years now: if the 2nd was in the same state as the 4th / 3rd you would be allowed to fire one round at a range per year through a rented gun only, after weeks of training and background checks plus sign off from local LEOs, with a 10,000% tax on the ammo.

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                           1. All of the commentary I’ve ever read on the Bill of Rights always got to the 3rd and said “Yeah, this will not come up.” The law.cornell.edu page on the 3rd says “This Amendment is not considered controversial and has never been litigated before the United States Supreme Court.”

                              So now states are quartering people who arguably invaded the US by fiat in hotels, as public accommodations, displacing US citizens.

                              Hmmm.

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                           2. People don’t consider the 3rd relevant because they don’t know what it was for.

                              Putting soldiers in people’s homes wasn’t just a way to save money on barracks. It was a spy network.

                              The NSA is a wanton violation of the 3rd amendment.

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                           3. Yep. It was to ensure compliance from the cowed populace.

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                  2. Small but barely significant impact on infection rates does back up the hand to something to hand contact infection route. My biggest complaint about hand washing is whether you have to touch a door to enter and exit the area you wash your hands in. Patients’ rooms usually have the door open, and totally hands-free access to handwashing. The rest of the hospital? Doors with handles and push pads with the sink and trashcans too far to use a paper towel to open the door and then toss it. Similar problem in almost every building in the country.

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            2. I had a plexiglass sheet between me and the tax clients. I called it the Magic Plexiglas Shield of Protection. To the clients’ faces.
               Of course, this is the South, so nobody complained about my lack of reverence.

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               1. I called our mask and face-shield bag “cosplay bag” when we carried it around. No one objected. Some people giggled.

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                  1. I used to stand on the six foot spots and loudly proclaim that “I was safe from covid because I was on the magic spot” it got giggles from people. I am 6 4 and 250+ lbs some may have given me dirty looks but those that complied were generally the meek anyway.

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               2. Did you also have a cone of silence for confidential communications?

                  Or maybe a phone in your shoe too?

                  /wink

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                  1. No, but I’m more the Agent 99 type.
                     Amusing bit of trivia: Barbara Feldon appeared in first-season, “Man from U.N.C.L.E,” as an UNCLE clerical worker. She was longing to do field work. (A lot of first-season episodes were about women longing for glamor and excitement in their lives interacting with Napoleon and Illya, and deciding happy domesticity or routine work has its points). Because Napoleon screwed up, she heads into the outside world carrying actual top-secret information and the boys have to go after her. As it happens, she manages to successfully hide the data once she realizes she has it, and is offered the chance at field work when they return to headquarters. But she’s decided clerical work is fine, thank you.
                     So did she change her mind and move over to CONTROL? Who knows? / grin.

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         3. It was two weeks to flatten the economy, so they had a chance to get their zombie in power. When that wasn’t enough, well, they kept us locked down and ramped up the fraud.

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5. Or as Aaron Tippin wrote it ; https://www.lyricsmania.com/youve_got_to_stand_for_something_lyrics_aaron_tippin.html

   I always liked that song. Apparently Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X also used this version of the quote.

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6. I don’t know if I need to read less or more of Ayn Rand’s or Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s stuff. Certainly, they make for interesting counterpoints with Sarah’s blogging.

   The right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness must be defended by each of us, to the maximum extent of our capabilities. Those who would deny us the capabilities to do so are our enemies. They might be converted by reason; we should use that first, but we should not rely on that. They might be opposed by peaceful use of law; we should use that too, but we should not rely on that either. There comes a time when reason and law fail, and the only way to oppose the barbarians who seek your death or enslavement, whether they are wearing bearskins or three-piece suits, you must take up your weapons and hack a bloody way through them. God didn’t take the cup from Jesus; He’s not going to take it from us either.

   As for passports and friends in other countries to run away to, that’s a delusion. There is no refuge for the free around the world. No place is better than the U.S. We are literally the last beacon left. Which is why the Left wants to extinguish us so badly. Running away just means you become a faceless, impotent number to be controlled or eliminated by those elitists running the country your refugee camp is in. And it doesn’t take much to convert a refugee camp into a concentration camp.

   I suspect Washington would have burned Biden’s house in Greenville before crossing the Delaware. Especially if he’d heard any of his speeches.

   “Modern tyranny is terror management.” Well, I can agree with that. Considering Antifa and BLM are managed attacks on American cities and businesses for the purpose of causing fear so Uncle can convince people to hand over the few rights they have left. Calm? Yeah, I’m going to be calmly pissed off as I make my list(s), lists that won’t be in easy to hack electronic form either.

   America should be the place that you keep what you worked for, what you earned. There should be zero tax dollars subsidizing anything or anyone in this country. That should be left to private businesses or organizations not sucking from the government slops trough.

   Don’t die for nothing. Americans are not suicide bombers. Unlike radical Muslims, most Americans cherish life. Like Kirk in “The Wrath of Khan”, we don’t believe in no-win scenarios; we’re looking for a way to live even in the face of certain death. General Patton said it best, “No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making some other poor dumb bastard die for his country.” And Sarah is right, the best way to not get killed by a bomb, gunfire, murderous psychos or enraged mobs, is to not be there when it’s happening.

   Re-reading before posting, this seems awfully dark. But then the subject isn’t exactly all sweetness and light, or a warm fuzzy either. I think I need a few minutes with my emotional support kitty.

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   1. The Reader embraces the power of ‘and’ with regard to Rand and Solzhenitsyn. Rand had better insight into what happens as a successful capitalist society catches the Marxism virus. Solzhenitsyn had better insight into the hearts of those infected.

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      1. 👍

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7. “Disinformation” is the old control word, carrying the implication that the information is not true.

   The new control word is “Malinformation” which is defined as true information that someone does not like, which therefore must be suppressed for “Teh Common Good”.

   They can take “Teh Common Good” and stick it in unconventional places sideways wrapped in razor wire.

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   1. dipped in ben gay.

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      1. I would think that chlorine trifluoride would provide a much more authentic experience than BENGAY® could ever hope of providing.

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8. They’re trying to shove illegal replacement populations into places where they don’t belong, they’ll start demanding- and taking- private property for them next. Couple that with their blatant refusal to let Trump be elected by deplorables because that saves democracy somehow, shooting is almost inevitable.

   “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.”

   The left loves to use that quote. But they never see themselves as the ones standing in the way of the peaceful revolution, and when the violent revolution is inevitably unleashed against them they’ll be shocked it could happen to such wonderful, kind, caring people like them.

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   1. “They’re trying to shove illegal replacement populations into places where they don’t belong, they’ll start demanding- and taking- private property for them next. ”

      Already happening to hotels in LA, Chicago, NYC.
      I believe some of the hotels are challenging on 3rd Amendment as well as 5th grounds.

      In a few cities (NYC and Philly, others?) they’ve already asked for “voluntary” individual homes.

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      1. Schools in NYC.

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         1. Hotels too; I can run down the links.

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            1. Fricking. They are NOT refugees:
               https://thefederalist.com/2024/01/10/border-jumpers-are-pushing-american-kids-out-of-school-all-across-the-country/

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            2. WHY IS THE FEDERALIST — THE FEDERALIST! — CALLING THEM REFUGEES?
               Two middle fingers. Straight up.

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            3. Please do, the only stuff coming up when I try to find it is the lawsuits by cities against hotels renting out rooms being converting to a homeless shelter without proper permits. (And some fluff-pieces about a nice Korean lady who lost her son and is housing and feeding “migrants” in the hotel she’s already sold to someone else, which is notably lacking in anything but feelz.)

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               1. I haven’t been able to run this down completely, but I haven’t done an Internet archive search either.

                  The closest thing is this, describing how the bills haven’t been getting paid since September, as of Dec 15.

                  https://abc7ny.com/nyc-hotels-migrant-crisis-hotel-association/14184373/

                  Given that it’s ABC, I’m surprised they’re admitting that much.

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                  1. That’s about when the budget battle started up, no?

                     This part is more information than shows up anywhere else, though:
                     The New York City Comptroller said the city’s Department of Homeless Services did not timely seek approval of the one-year extension of the hotel contract. The city would not confirm the information with us.

                     So we know who is ordering the hotels.

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         2. Gee, being a sanctuary city was ever so much easier when nobody showed up claiming sanctuary.

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            1. Yeah, funny how that works:

               “Why are all these undesirables coming to my sanctuary city for undesirables?!? THAT WASN”T SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN!!!” :-x

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         3. On the other hand, given the state of NYC schools and the indoctrination going on in them, not having students attending may be a net positive:

            https://nypost.com/2024/01/11/metro/brooklyn-public-school-erases-israel-from-map/

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            1. Point taken. But it’s the principle of the thing.

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      2. They’re having kids “learn from home” so they can house “migrants” (illegal invaders) in the school.

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         1. They have already done studies where schooling online is a failure, but then again liberals/communist whores from hell, don’t want the masses educated in the first place. May they all rot in a hell of their own making, while rats chew off their sexual appendages.

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            1. schooling online is a failure
               …………………

               When done by standard normally in seats schools. Why would they have any better success whether they are teaching to the kids in the classroom or at home? A few kids, those who are ignored, because they aren’t disrupting the class, but can’t continue because the babysitter teacher can’t teach while there are disruptions in the classroom. Some because they have additional at home support. Some even if they don’t, at least neither they or the teacher are being distracted. There is a reason why true actual home schooled outperform in classroom students. It isn’t because home schooling is bad in principle. But because the schools implement home schooling badly.

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         2. Is this supposed to be a bad thing?

            The only reason to not cheer them on is because you never interrupt your enemy while he is making a mistake.

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      3. Someone here (a while back so don’t remember who, sorry) suggested “trespassers” for illegal immigrant. Works for illegal replacement populations. S/b “Trespassing populations”.

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         1. It’s not trespassing, it’s breaking and entering, refusing to leave, and if you try to throw them out the government arrests you.

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         2. Trespassers suggests it’s kids taking a shortcut across your lawn, or hunters not in the correct place. I prefer “invaders” as being more properly descriptive.

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            1. “THAT’S RRRAAACISSST!!! REEEEEEEE!!”

               We can counter with

               Invasion — a word derived from the Latin verb invadere and then incorporated into Middle English, defined as:

               1. An instance of invading a country or region with an armed force.

               2. An incursion by a large number of people or things into a place or sphere of activity.

               3. An unwelcome intrusion into another’s domain.

               …and ask them “What part of this does not meet that definition?”

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               1. Racist schamacist. Dos it say ANYTHING of country (beyond ‘not this one’?) Or COLOR? O rrace? No. It. Does, Not. Crossing Border without approval, thus INVADING, could be Mexican., could be Canadian, could be from Suriname, or Sengal. race matters NOT AT ALL!

                  So, those SHOUTING “RACISM” are, when one THINKS, the actual racists!

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                  1. That doesn’t stop them from shrieking ‘RRRAAACISSST!!!‘ and foaming at the mouth. Or stop the media trained seals from barking along in unison, and the NPC’s nodding like bobble-heads.

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                     1. IDIOTS gonna idiot. Can’t be helped, alas.

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               2. My problem with the word is that the flipped left who think they’re right apply that word to people like me and even my kids and Larry C.
                  That’s crazy cakes, in a culture that — by definition — can’t be blood and soil.

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            2. “Invaders” and Squatters?

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         3. That’s what TX did in it’s law change last year / this year.

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   2. Thing is, don’t stop with just the looters. You need to continue until all their enablers & supporters are gone too.

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   3. The taking will be…. interesting. Either up front spicy or SSS and probably both.

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   4. They never see themselves, period, as the OP cookie-eating-bitch proves.

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   5. They clamped the safety valve down and wired it shut.

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      1. I wonder.. how far away will the remains of the boiler be found?

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         1. But the asshole that tied down the safety valve will be nowhere near when it happens.

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            1. They will be near enough. Most of them are old or very, very, very stupid.

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9. Don’t despair. There are a ton of little battles going on that we’re starting to win. Just a simple example. A graduate program I’m in. 2 years ago NO ONE would say a word against green energy. It was just accepted as the future. Today, very few talk about it and the ones that do all say it’s not economically viable. Nuclear energy is the future.

   Mask mandates coming back? Ignored by most people. No one is bothering with the “new” Coronavirus vaccine. People know it doesn’t work. All of the supposed “reset” ideas are being abandoned. No one supports them. The poor policies of the left for the last 30-50 years are obviously failing, and most people see it.

   Right now I think we’re watching the monopoly of the left fall apart. And they are going to make their own downfall as painful as possible. But they will lose.

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   1. Sometime in the 1980’s (1984 or earlier, I think) there was some pop. techie (for the time) TV show and one half-hour “episode” was on alternate or various energy… at the end was the host singing a strange tune… I recall only bits of it. It started:

      “Atom power converters,
      Are sex perverter,
      Now would you let your daughter?
      Bathe in heavy water?”

      and went on about “kinky kinds of fission” and how “atomic self-abusion stunts the growth of fusion.”

      It went on to mock biofuels (“With enzymatic action, you’ll get greater satisfaction, from a combination outhouse and a car.”) and tide/wave (“..things tidal, are exceptionally idle. Someday… they hope to dam the Bay of Fundy.”) and various other alternates. You can tell this was before the Global Warming, er Climate Change, nonsense as the end was…

      “Coal maybe our savior,
      With a gassified behavior,
      Our new black paramour.”

      I no longer recall the title of the show, or I’d be hunting this down for a cleaner copy of the tune than the thing I have (somewhere…) on (poorly) acoustically coupled cassette recording. I don’t agree with it, but it’s a fun, amusing bit of nonsense.

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10. Learning from other countries? Possibly not. Learning from peers in other countries, as this person wrote? I think we can do that. Solzhenitsyn comes to mind. And Havel; and Walesa …

    I could mention that Milei fellow in Argentina, but then we get to the chicken and egg problem. Should we be learning from him, or has he been learning from us? (Not that we’ve had anyone in power doing things nearly as vigorously as he, but I like to think he’s found at least some intellectual and rhetorical inspiration here.)

    Republica restituendae
    et
    Hamas delenda est.

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    1. Well, Trump has visited with Milei. We hope he got some ideas. Which of them?
       Yes.

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    2. Don’t forget

       Sinistra Delenda Est

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       1. What have you got against Frank Sina…

          Oh, wait…

          Never mind!

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          1. Well, I do prefer Bing, but….

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    3. Considering that his super persona is “Captain AnCap”, he has been learning from us.

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11. With respect to point 17, I’m watching the German farmer’s rebellion. The MSM (and the usual suspects on Con-Inc media) are portraying the protest as the loss of a subsidy. That’s something best found in a cow pasture…

    My understanding is that the ag fuel had been taxed, then the government (some time ago) rescinded that tax. IMHO, ag fuel should not be taxed; like the situation in the US. Green-colored diesel includes a road tax (it was $0.50 a gallon the last time I looked), while off-road diesel doesn’t have that tax, and is colored red. (Heaven help somebody caught with red diesel in their truck’s fuel tank.)

    The protest is because the German Feds decided to reinstate the tax (to help pay for the hideous losses caused by the Green Nude Eel and other disastrous decisions. (Looks at sanctions that afflict Europe, but didn’t cause trouble for Russia. See CTH for Sundance’s take on all that.)

    Dammit, it’s not a “loss of subsidy”. Looks like it’s FedGov breaking a promise.

    (TPTB in Oregon seem to be flirting with the concept of bans on ag diesel power. I don’t want to see friends and neighbors hurt by that idiocy, not to mention having to replace my own small tractor.)

    [Checks: yes, I had the blood pressure med this morning…]

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    1. FWIW, US green-colored diesel has a road tax applied. Somebody figured out that ag equipment spends minor amounts of time/distance on the road, so shouldn’t have to pay. I wonder if FICUS will try to “fix” that issue.

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       1. “I wonder if FICUS will try to “fix” that issue.”

          Battery powered tractors won’t burn diesel; Problem Solved!

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          1. My farming relatives laugh at the concept of battery powered harvest equipment. When you run the combine tanks to empty late into the dark because the crop is ready and there’s a storm coming, getting more diesel to it out in the field is a much less complex affair than somehow getting a charge on the batteries, or heaven forbid trying to do a battery pack swap in the mud in the dark.

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             1. Swap battery packs?

                Heh. Haha. Ahahahahahahaha!!

                The lightest of the Tesla batteries – for the Model 3 – weighs over 1000 lbs.

                No one’s going to be swapping batteries on an electric tractor!

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                1. Be easier to just run an extension cord out from the milk house.

                   A really looooooooong extension cord.

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                   1. In the tune mentioned above, another bit I recall was:

                      “Power needs dimension,
                      A new electrical invention,
                      Only needs a 93 million-foot extension!”

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                      1. Like my design for a solar-powered night light:

                         1 LED light
                         1 Solar panel suitable for powering the light
                         12,000 miles of zip cord

                         Some assembly (and travel!) required.

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                         1. I can’t work up the enthusiasm* to figure out just how big the wire would be to actually power an LED on the other side of the planet**, but I guess it would be quite large. (Is there enough copper on the Earth?)

                            ((*)) Maybe tomorrow. I was starting my tax worksheets (not buying a Windows PC just to run turbotax).

                            ((**)) Just looking at resistance losses. I’m going to insist it has to be DC.

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                            1. OK, let’s use 18 ga. copper zip cord. I found a table that lists the resistance as 6.51 Ω per 1,000 feet, and weight as 4.92 pounds per 1,000 feet, doubled for two conductors.

                               For 12,000 miles I get 825 KΩ resistance and almost 623,500 pounds of copper. If the night light draws 20 mA at 3.5V, you would need a solar panel that supplies 16,500V at 20 mA to power it. Cable loss would be 330 watts, yielding electrical efficiency of 0.02%

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                            2. So you put it in orbit – panels in a halo that stays out of the shadow over the night side, and a targetable maser to transmit the power to surface rectenna farms as they rotate into view, then go to AC and drop it on the grid to get your 20mA LED to light up in your bedroom.

                               No problem!

                               The cool thing is as a side effect of your night light now you have an orbital maser scalable to the megawatt range.

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                         2. If I’ve run the numbers correctly, to get two lengths of 225 ohm cable (to light a 3V LED at 20mA from a 12V panel, you’d only need a zip cord with two 29 meter wires.

                            I’m not going to bother with weight calculations. :)

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                            1. That’s diameter.

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       2. Not really any difference between diesel fuel and home heating fuel. The tax on fuels is supposed to be for highway maintenance funding; ergo, if it’s AG use, or home heating, it should never be taxed for highways. The thing to beware of is the government imposing a tax for pollution control or climate change abatement; those are totally wealth grabbing scams

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          1. Electrics dodge that highway tax, eh? And mostly for upper-tier folks.

             That will be “solved” with a combination of much higher taxes on -everyone’s- home electricity and with GPS tracking of all cars, all that to get the taxed mileage that could be read from yearly odometer sworn statements and spot-checks. Because reasons, serf.

             I had a very low-drive-milage car long ago, because I was a bicycle maniac. The insurance company cut me one heck of a rate break, provided I gave them opportunity to read my odometer at renewal, and an agreement to an on-demand spot check occasionally if asked. They never did spot check and only checked it once on renewal. Once I stopped using the bike as primary, I switched back to a more normal policy.

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             1. Tire tax. Until hovercars arrive (where is my flying car?) everything uses tires, and tire use correlates to road wear, so just bump the tire tax while reducing (hah!) the fuel tax.

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             2. That’s true. Realistically, you want a weight-mileage formula, because that combination is the closest to highway wear and tear. FMs tire tax, while not a bad equivalent for use, has a very nasty secondary effect of causing more people to drive on unsafe tires, and increasing the accident and injury rates.

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                1. That’s okay, nobody will own anything in the glorious collectivized future, so I guess you’ll just rent tires and be happy, or else.

                   The part I like about a tire tax is it skips the whole “we’ll have to track your electric car and bill you per mile to make it fair” thing, which obviously is why none of the .gov people are suggesting it.

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                2. not to mention the weight of EV batteries/vehicles cause more wear and tear on the roads

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             3. Our 2016 Subaru phones home on a regular basis (I think it uses a cell link). One of the bits it reports is the mileage. When I put the winter tires on (without TPMS), it gives me a pearl-clutching email.

                Our 2019 Honda probably does the same thing, but while the Subie has about 35K miles on it, the Honda is closer to 8K. Not as many opportunities to flag an event.

                So, for modern cars, they wouldn’t need the GPS. Except to snoop, so we’d get it.

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                1. Hyundai does the same. But only as long as the BlueLink is active. Still might we just don’t get text or email reminders. BlueLink is “free” for the first 3 years on a new vehicle. After that one pays for it. We choose to not pay for it. Lose the remote start, but “oh, well” :-)

                   Chevy does the same, only StarLink and free (or was in 2010) for a year. StarLink we kept longer. Worth it for when we locked ourselves out with keys in the cab. (Every single time by the dog. She could lock it, but she didn’t unlock it.) Hyundai can’t do that.

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                   1. We have StarLink for the ’16 Subie Forester. I got the basic O-chit! service; haven’t had a lockout problem with that one (did once with the ’03 pickup, but AAA rescued me).

                      (I got fooled by the name and thought that the car transmission was to a satellite. Cell only for outgoing signals, if I have it right. My usual route to town is reasonably good for cell signals, but if I take the river route, the canyon is a dead zone. There’s one cell tower about 10 miles west of us, and mountains in the way for that route.)

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                      1. Yes. Both only work in cell coverage. Vehicles comes with GPS have some satellite. But even mapping upgrades require pulling a specialized SD card. The Sonata had satellite which is how I know. Also why we chose to forgo that upgrade level when we went to the Santa Fe. Doesn’t work any better than your cell phone connected to the system when you go off of the maps but your cell phone mapping does update VIA cell (provided you get it downloaded before you lose coverage).

                         FYI. Sister and BIL are taking bets on when we change vehicles again. My 2019 is 5 years old this March, since we replaced the Sonata at 5 years. No, we replaced it at 80k miles at a good sale price (kind of fell into it) in 2020. Sold the truck at 59k at 11 seasons (they really let it go too. Hurt watching it. They’ve now sold it, so don’t have to watch it again.)

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                   2. In the days of metal keys as primary (not “Hope you need to use this EMERGENCY backup) I kept a duplicate key in the wallet. Well, after The Incident.

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                      1. …Hope you NEVER need to use this….

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                         1. Normally hubby has a key. I have a key in my purse. All incidents we were at places where it was safe to leave the truck unlocked, keys in the ignition, purse in the car, or we were standing right there (wildlife viewing). First type we’d just put the dog in the car and were saying goodby when she pressed down on the lock. Second type, not safe to let dog out, or have windows down. Learned to keep secondary key fob on me, we were lucky to be within cell coverage (barely) when it happened.

                            With the new vehicle fobs, that isn’t possible. If either fob is in the vehicle, doors won’t lock (which means that if leaving my purse in the car, must have key fob on me). That and the dog when in the vehicle is clipped to a dog bed in the backseat, can’t get to the door lock button.

                            Pepper is a little lot more energetic than Taylor was. Taylor was content to curl up on floor behind driver seat while driving (not driving was different). Pepper must be in your lap. Not good when I am driving by myself, so she is clipped in. Also an accident safety, keeps her with the car. Hubby didn’t agree with this until the neighbors had an accident. Their little terrified dog jumped out the broken window. Wife got out of the vehicle, in a hurry to get the dog, proceed to fall and break her arm. Did get the dog. Dog was fine, other than terrified (missed cutting itself on the broken glass).

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                      2. One time I encountered a plastic duplicate key on a credit-card sized plaque. I suspect it was good for one (1) use.

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                   3. I like keypad entry. Saved my backside when the fuel pump went out, we had to leave the car at a mechanic in Salt Lake City and then pick it up a week later… on a Sunday. Everything in the area is closed on a Sunday. We had no idea how I could pick up the car until my husband texted me “you know the door code, right?” So they locked the keys in the car (hidden) and I came in, keyed in the code, and drove away. (All fixes and payment had been arranged by my husband. Whee.)

                      You can’t do that with a keyless car, one more reason I hate the very concept.

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             4. Well, they “dodge” it.

                But in reality what they do is reveal and as much as the statists crowed endlessly about how they knew how to build roads and you stoopid lolbertards didn’t………. the statists didn’t have a flipping clue either, they just faked it.

                Also every car on the road is actually subsidizing trucks: trucks put far, far more wear and tear on the roads than they pay for in diesel taxes, with gas taxes making up the difference. This was an intentional — and arguably correct — policy choice as everything depends on the logistics those trucks are carrying.

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                1. Aye… and since rail is NOT shipping everything everywhere (and gee, what do locomotives run on?) it’s semi tractor-trailers hauling pretty much everything.

                   It would be fascinating to see how teleportation would affect things, even if the ONLY thing that could be safely and reliably (and inexpensively!) teleported was “bricks” of a single element (aluminum, copper, IRON, etc.).

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                   1. (and gee, what do locomotives run on?)

                      There is zero good reason for them to not be running on nuclear power.

                      But that topic is several thousand pages worth of rant material.

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                      1. Aye… since Diesel-ELECTRIC…. it makes sense to provide the ELECTRIC the BEST WAY… and that is nuclear. (NOTE: Does NOT need to be on-board.)

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                         1. True, but it could be. And those particular reactors can be built hardened enough to survive every conceivable accident a train could have.

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                            1. Could be, but can you imagine the utter freakout at people knowing they have nuclear power a few feet away? Like climate change, people have a trained image of nuclear power that doesn’t change easily.

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                            2. I am about as GO-/PRO- nuclear as there is or can be, and I want some assurance on THAT claim.

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                            3. We lived across the river (north/west) of Trojan. From a practical view, was sorry to see Trojan shutdown as power costs went up. From a short term financial view, was thrilled. Last 48 months we had the Longview rental, the management company was using the house as short term rentals for engineers (every six months) in the area for the decommissioning process. We were netting double the rent we’d been charging the first year trying to manage it on our own.

                               https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trojan_Nuclear_Power_Plant

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                            4. So don’t call the nuclear trains energy nuclear. Not like the masses aren’t miss lead ever.

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                            5. People don’t think very much. They’re exposed to more radiation flying in planes, or just living in the Granite State (we have a lot of radioactives in that granite, that’s where all the radon comes from), than said mini/micro reactors give off.

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                            6. Sometime I need to set my counter to SILENT and walk though a local cemetery with it…

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                            7. Colorado.

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                            8. Mike, the thing standing in the way of your vision can be summed up in one word: weight.

                               All that hardening piles on the pounds. Now we have to have a stronger railcar / engine chassis to haul it. Which is still more pounds. Which then raises the question of the tracks / roadbed / bridges that need to be reinforced.

                               It’s never just one thing….. 8-)

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                      2. Give a precis as a guest post, Kid.

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                   2. er, it must be noted that a lot of the truck traffic goes on rails for parts of its journey.

                      But you can’t effectively substitute trucks for local delivery. For pretty much the same reasons why mass transit loses to personal cars.

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                2. Hmmm. The costs would still have to be paid. What this does is dump it on the taxpayers and removes the costs from the items transported. Which means Joe Consumer doesn’t have a clue to the actual costs he’s paying for his goods and food.

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                   1. The fact that the most numerous beneficiaries of the cost transfer would seem to be urbanites, many of whom don’t drive cars but do buy the products shipped by trucks, obviously has nothing to do with it… :roll:

                      “Move along; nothing to see here.”

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       3. Probably. They want us dead. And they think that not taxing is the same as subsidizing.

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       4. How about changing out diesel for alcohol fuel? The homemade kind?

          Sure TPTB would throw a fit.

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          1. Alcohol is a sucky fuel. Low energy density, and it absorbs water from the air and corrodes your fuel system.

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             1. Dang. That sucks. It was “make it yourself” part. C.J. Box in the last Joe Pickett novel had individuals (wealthy landowners) using escaped gas as fuel for large bitcoin harvesting operations. Using the capped wells escaping natural gas as fuel for generators for many banks of computers mining bitcoin and distribute however the coins were distributed.

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                1. The “make it yourself” is why Tito-Landi lamps were popular in (wartime) Europe. They ran on alcohol, rather than rationed petroleum products. That alcohol also is less “boomy” than gasoline (though moreso than kerosene) likely helped. And perhaps not realized at the time, tends to burn fully and thus is less of a carbon monoxide hazard.

                   LikeLiked by 1 person

             2. That and alcohol is wrong for a diesel engine. You need an oily fuel. A chemist friend was doing biodiesel for another one of his friends. Used cooking oil is a good source stock. Never tried it myself. I use so little (10-20 gallons per year unless we get a really wet spring), it’s not worth experimenting.

                As Mike Houst said, Kerosene is close to diesel, though I tried running (old, free) diesel in an oil heater once. The wick didn’t do well.

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                1. Diesel folks (engineers, mechanics) will tell you, in STRONG LANGUAGE to avoid “biodiesel” if you want the machinery to last.

                   And while Kero & Diesel are close… diesel has additives to keep engines happy. Those additives do NOT make wicks happy.

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                   1. Aye. Old tractors (not sure of the age, possibly up to 1930-40s) were available that could run on gasoline to start, then the fuel switched to the kerosene tank.

                      If my memory is correct (it’s been a while since I read/learned all these bits), “farm gas” was running about 60 octane.

                      Random side note: we (the consulting firm) were in Bavaria for a really cold week, and when we filled the car, the attendant recommended we put a bit of gasoline (perhaps a liter, vs 8-10 gallons of diesel) to help the engine deal with the extreme(ish) cold. It was running 0F for most of that week. And yes, I’ll mix ANSI and ISO values at Will. Nate, too. :)

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                      1. TVO…. TRACTOR VAPORIZING OIL.
                         No, it was NOT an oil that vaporized tractors.
                         It was KEROSENE….but GASOLINE was used to get things up to temperature.
                         WHY? KERO wasn’t as STUPIDLY OVERTAXED as gasoline!

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                         1. Amusing to realize that gasoline was originally an undesirable byproduct of kerosene distillation. ‘Til somebody used it for an engine.

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                            1. Aye…..

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                   2. Said chemist friend was running a titration to get the pH levels right for the batch he was doing. I just reviewed the process for backyard BD manufacture (h/t MuthaEarth Newzzzzzzz), and yeah, there’s a lot of ignoring the useful additives. Not to mention the potential for screwups with the other chemicals. Methanol + Sodium Hydroxide. Sounds like fun to have a bit in the biodiesel mix…

                      Biodiesel sounds like the liquid fuel version of wind power. Lots of virtue signal, lots of problems down the road.

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                      1. Burning off to run on is stupid.

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                      2. Whether our food or cow food.

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    2. Of course they didn’t cause trouble for Russia. They dismantled their power plants and hydroelectric dams, so they have to import MORE Russian fuel.
       Russia is behind most of the green movements of the world.
       And why do other countries think our retarded progressives are geniuses? Al Gore, AOC…. ? I think it’s their media selling them on this idea.

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       1. Trent Telenko on the Site Formerly Known as Twitter says that sooner or later, Ukraine will have to start hitting Russian oil tankers, never mind what their allies want.

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          1. They need to, if they want the aggression to stop.
             I have no sympathy for China. NONE. They’re unmaking civilization to keep themselves afloat on oil prices. They’re an immoral, evil regime built on a chauvinistic Russian-supremacy-over-the-world history that included the USSR which was really Russian nationalism in an international mask.
             They need to stop. Or the world won’t survive. Their dreams of glory need to be buried in the perma frost already.

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    3. Oregon. Bah, Oregon plays dirty.

       I feel compelled to co-operate with some of the Oregon Health Authority mask garbage, because OHA doesn’t come after me, but it hits the businesses I depend on.

       I can’t afford to have my health system ‘fire’ me. Had an appointment yesterday, back office staff were not wearing masks with no patients around. I’d like to have a word with their Infection Control Officer …

       If my barber closes due to fines, I’m inconvenienced but I’d live – will she?

       Fines for restaurants over mask policy enforcement were in the $10K range last time; the restaurant biz is tough enough, but a few of those fines against local businesses (not chains) would probably sink them.

       I just don’t feel I can rationally put those neighbors and acquaintances out of business by exposing them to OHA tyranny. And, OHA is, to put it mildly, ‘not responsive to my concerns’; I can’t seem to find a pressure point.

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       1. Feel free to publicize that Fauci has no clue where these mask and distancing rules came from, and they were certainly not science. Yes, he said so.

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          1. I matter-of-factly remarked at work a bit ago, “So Fauci finally admitted at the Congressional hearing what we all knew back then, that there was no scientific reason for 6ft social distancing or masking and the Wuhan lab origin theory was plausible.”

             Of course by, we all, I meant me because, they all, Love Science but don’t actually know any.

             It was interesting and secretly amusing to watch the gears grind as they processed this completely unexpected (for them) information.

             I predict that shortly everyone will be convinced that they were never taken in by the hysteria and were all champions of freedom.

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             1. I’ve already seen some of those.
                Those who were hysterical but I respect (though i wouldn’t trust them in a panic, mind) are the ones who afterwards apologized for their panic and what they did during the panic, including insulting me and wishing I’d die.

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                1. Most of them did not apologize. Most of them do not think they did anything wrong; they want a reconciliation and effectively say “everyone got opinionated, and so we should all forget that they said what they said about us, and then they’d forgive us for the badthink…”

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                   1. I know. And I wasn’t talking about people in general, but long-time readers and commenters of this blog. Some are still away, maybe because I called them idiots, more probably because they don’t want to admit they were wrong. But some have admitted they were idiots and apologized.

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             2. At the time postwar observers noted how every living French citizen was in the French Resistance, retrospectively.

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             3. “Why yes,” says they, “the gaslights did flicker.”

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                1. Gaslights never existed.
                   Psychiatrists just made that up to sell more therapy.

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          2. But we know, like almost all things, this is not about facts or health or whatever – it’s about Power.

             I used to write legislators. I have learned to save my printer ink and electrons, ’cause Thomas Sowell is right:

             No one will really understand politics until they understand that politicians are not trying to solve our problems. They are trying to solve their own problems— of which getting elected and re-elected are number one and number two. Whatever is number three is far behind.

             Damned government agencies are yet more focused on not-problems.

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             1. Government agencies are bureaucracies, and all or most have existed long enough for the Iron Law to have become firmly entrenched, the precise analog of the politicians’ “get elected and re-elected” mandate.

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       2. Please note that OHA rescinded the mask requirement as of April, 2023. (Though, some health care environments might be under federal mandates.) FWIW, I had to go to the big clinic in Flyover Falls for my periodic blood clotting check. Some patients were wearing face diapers, but I didn’t notice any of the counter people nor the lab techs wearing masks.

          One restaurant in F-Falls was vehemently violating the OHA shutdowns when dining rooms were supposed to be closed. (Sign posted in the front door: “Hungry People Matter”.) OHA (under Despicable Kate Brown) told the county health department to shut them down. The county supervisors (sadly, the better ones are gone) told the state to pound sand. Never heard if the restaurant got fined, but it’s still open and going strong.

          At least in the flyover counties, there was a lot of Irish Democracy. Mask policy was completely ignored for the duration at $TINY_TOWN’s sole store (bait, beer, snacks, groceries, and gas. For country music fans, “Dixie Rose Deluxe” is the model.) We figured if OR-OSHA showed up, they’d be either a) finding their car with four flat tires, or b) the wrong end of SSS. Seems TPTB agreed. (Yeah, it’s a rough town. We deal with it.)

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12. “And when we enter it, we finish it.”

    Correction – When we don’t fight with one hand tied behind our back, we finish it.

    Korea and Vietnam are both instances in which we limited our military capabilities for political reasons. And we didn’t “finish” either war.

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    1. Kindly keep in mind those weren’t TECHNICALLY entered into by “Americans” but by Marxists. Yeah, arguably WWII too, but Marxists weren’t everywhere once, and FDR couldn’t f*ck up everything at once.
       The infection is everywhere.

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       1. We were going to get into WW2 regardless of anything FDR did or didn’t do. The American public was upset with Japan over the war with China, so the oil sanctions against Japan were unavoidable. And the Japanese never would have felt safe grabbing the Dutch possessions in the Pacific with the US -controlled Philippines sitting directly astride the supply lines.

          As for Korea and Vietnam – Marxists may have gotten us into those wars. But it was to stop even more dedicated Marxists. And given the gross disparities between the two Koreas these days, it’s hard to argue that keeping the South free wasn’t the right thing to do.

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          1. On a side note, I’ve occasionally wondered whether a free and peaceful Republic of Vietnam would have meant a city on track to becoming the Seoul of SE Asia (since it took the ROK over 30 years after the war to have free elections).

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          2. Oh, Wilson was also not really American but Marxist. But then again, I am divided about WWI

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             1. I’m not divided about WWI. It was catastrophic for Western Civilization and we are still suffering from the effects. If I had a time machine I’d go back to 1910, kidnap a crapload of government officials and give them a Tragical History Tour.

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                1. And pre-emptively shoot Lenin for good measure?

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                2. You’d be shocked how many would like it. It ended up in more and less trackable power for their class

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                   1. They would be fools to do so, but that hasn’t stopped them yet.

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             2. I would not call Wilson Marxist. What Wilson was, was an unregenerate Southerner who still looked back to the days of slavery, and regarded the Klan as American heroes. He just wanted to extend the plantation ethic to treating factory workers as slaves, and run the corporate economy like one huge plantation.

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                1. He was a progressive of the, “Let’s make things more Efficient!” type. And an unregenerste Southerner, even if he was the president of Princeton.

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                   1. I think you are being kind to him. He was an out and out bigot and I think he was more of a wannabe aristo than any believer in efficiency. He saw himself as Bismarck.

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                      1. I didn’t say I liked him. The sort who gives Southerners a bad name.

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                2. Plantation, collective, potato, patato.

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                3. Um…. perhaps not in principles, but in results it’s a distinction without a difference. Marx’s doctrine is the doctrine of slave-holders and aspiring slave holders

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                4. A ratfink by any other name is still a ratfink.

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                   1. Eh. I call the French Revolution proto-Marxist. The bad and stupid ideas have been around a LONG time.
                      And how is this for a slap in their face? Marxism is a THOROUGHLY bourgeois invention. It was created by and appeals to disaffected bourgeoisie. (And is used by fallen aristocrats as a vehicle back to power, but that’s a post for another time, maybe.)

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                5. The plantation system was explicitly neofeudal in nature. The planters bragged about it in the run up to the ACW, and how they protected their vassals from the depredations of capitalist Yankee factories. (And why a very large part of the South’s critical infrastructure was in Chattanooga, where the planters had very little influence.)

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             3. I may have to write some more in that timeline where the war came in 1913, and was over before America could get involved. Maybe I’ll finally figure out whether it’s a world in which TR didn’t form the Bull Moose Party, and Taft got a second term.

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                1. I wonder if the death of Archibald Butts on the Titanic had any effect on Taft losing. 🤔

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             4. With more than a little Messianic streak. The capitalization is intentional. I read in a book on Versailles how Wilson gave his fellow heads of government a brief disquisition on where Jesus Christ went wrong, and how he would correct His mistakes.

                The other leaders did not react strongly. One gathers this kind of talk no longer surprised them.

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                1. Dear BOB.

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                   1. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, so I dug up the book from deep in my Kindle. From Versailles, by Charles L. Mee, Jr.:

                      “The president wanted, he explained to his colleagues, to call the document that they produced a covenant, because “I am an old Presbyterian.” On occasion, Wilson seemed to have forgotten entirely where he was. At one point he amazed [British Prime Minister David] Lloyd George and [French President Georges] Clemenceau by explaining how the league [of Nations] would establish a brotherhood of man where Christianity had not been able to do so. “Why,” Lloyd George recalled Wilson as saying, “has Jesus Christ so far not succeeded in inducing the world to follow His teachings in these matters? It is because He taught the ideal without devising any practical means of attaining it. That is the reason why I am proposing a practical scheme to carry out His aims.”

                      Clemenceau, said Lloyd George, “slowly opened his dark eyes to their widest dimensions and swept them round the assembly to see how the Christians gathered around the table enjoyed this exposure of the futility of their Master.””

                      And people accuse Donald Trump of having an ego. Which he absolutely does, but geez Louise …

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                      1. Yeah. But Wilson was a progressive, so he was “a good person”

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          3. Yes. But Marxists don’t want us to win. They just want us to fight bravely and lose. And keep American boys busy so they don’t see what’s happening to their country.

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             1. That is the “War is Peace” part of the principles of Ingsoc

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          4. Japanese planes strafed the USS Panay. On purpose, up close and personal, and on film. You really cannot get the outrage at the time without watching the newsreel footage.

             People.can forget about atrocities (which the Japanese did big-time in China), but strafing a neutral in a gleeful way, in broad daylight, takes a lot of walking back.

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             1. Japan wanted us out of the way. We wanted to stick around in Asia. Clash inevitable. Neither side much respected the other. Violence inevitable.

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             2. Yeah, the Japanese did so much in China that I tend to forget about the Panay.

                Even without that American anger over what was happening in China, though, war was probably inevitable. The Japanese at the time were completely broken as a culture. Even if the Philippines hadn’t been a US territory, I suspect eventually the Japanese would have been arrogant and conceited enough to make a play for Hawaii.

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                1. If the IJN had lost the argument so that the Japanese had only moved south and not attacked Pearl Harbor the way the Japanese Army wanted, the USN would have sortied all the BBs to relieve the PI per the existing rainbow war plan, and the IJN would have “decisive battle”-d them and sunk all of them in deep water, along with likely some of the CVs, leaving basically the subs and the one CV that was over in the Atlantic and that’s it for at least a year.
                   And FDR would be stuck explaining how he lost the entire Pacific Fleet, when no U.S. territory was attacked.

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                   1. Two carriers in the Atlantic – Yorktown and Wasp. Three if you count Ranger, but the Fleet would never have sent her to the Pacific.

                      And Hornet was undergoing training with her crew at the time on the East Coast.

                      Losing all of the carriers in the Pacific would have been bad. But it wouldn’t have been the end of the world.

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                      1. I was thinking of Ranger. I forgot they had Wasp and Yorktown on Atlantic antisub duty too. And Hornet I should have remembered given the Doolittle raid. But that’s only 3, and I’d not count on many escorts or supply ships getting back from the big IJN sinkex mid-Pacific.

                         My bottom line is our timeline was a much better whole-fleet result than if the BB Admirals had got to run their rainbow plan into the forte of IJN doctrine and training and driven the entire PacFleet right into the subsurface vicinity of the Marianas Trench.

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                         1. IIRC, about half of the fleet was in each ocean. The newer battleships were in the Atlantic (which is why Washington and South Dakota were available at Guadalcanal), while the older ones were in the Pacific. That’s not absolute. For example, all three of the New Mexicos were in the Atlantic, while two of the newer Colorados were at Pearl Harbor. But by and large the ships at Pearl were the less important ships in the fleet (insofar as a battleship could be “less important” in 1941).

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                      2. It would have been the end of my world. My Dad was Machinist Mate 1st class on the Wasp.

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                         1. The point we’re making is that Wasp wouldn’t have been involved in the PI expedition, as she was in the wrong ocean. It would have been Lexington, Saratoga, and Enterprise.

                            The irony, of course, is that the two carriers that survived the war + Enterprise and Saratoga – were in the Pacific on Dec 7th. The three fleet carriers in the Atlantic at that time -Yorktown, Hornet, and Wasp – were all sunk during the war.

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                   2. Note by 1935 the PI was a Commonwealth with the US only on the hook for diplomatic and defense responsibilities, as the 10-year Tydings-McDuffie Act clock ran to full independence in 1946.

                      Losing the entire U.S. Pacific Fleet to fail to defend folks who were on the clock to be completely independent would have only been a slightly less difficult sell to the U.S. population than losing those ships and sailors to try and defend all the European colonial possessions that also were the main target of the attacks for their resources by the Empire of Japan.

                      The fact that these resource grabs were a direct response to the U.S. embargoes on oil and steel would have been icing on that cake.

                      FDR has leftist sainthood for all the domestic stuff, which screwed up the recovery from the Depression, while he was also royally screwing the pooch with the entire situation leading up to WWII internationally. Wilson was still worse, but only by degree.

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             3. The more I hear of Imperial Japanese behavior during WWII, the less I give damn what surrender-monkeys say about the use of Little Boy, Fat Man, and even the plans for 1946 (hint: the nukes were KINDER).

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    2. Oral history had that much of the country was ready to rise when Truman cashiered MacArthur.
       There’s a reason for the public statements and speeches were made by the suddenly unemployed general. He was actively tamping down public outrage.

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13. On a side note, I suspect the issue was that industrialization was driven by specialization being more productive than being fully generalist. And at the time, central direction may have been the only mechanism people had figured out for interfacing specialists.

    The innovation of this era seems to be building systems for specialists to interface more directly, and more directly with the end customers for more tailored results.

    One of the proposed applications for phone AI engines is to be able to build an actual 3d model of their user so you could do things like virtually see how clothes look, and automatically check fit.

    From there it’s just a short hop to being able to just straight up order automatically tailored clothes that fit you, and once there is a standard interface, you could order it from pretty much anyone, from an Indian sweatshop to your favorite Etsy crafter.

    And even have it on auto-reorder for those of us who wear basically the same thing every day.

    I think that’s the sort of leverage we’re going to see from the decentralization revolution.

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    1. Yep.

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    2. A variable that may be useful to make explicit, in its own line– cost of communication and experiment/failure.

       Centralization does still work… but not as far up, and not as far out. Small teams are better able to get materials, and can afford to screw up, like the AI engines or being able to afford to mess around with ordering clothes that might not fit right.

       In turn, they can offer the results they get to a wider range of people– your standard interface for ordering.

       If the price of either of those variables is high, then the advantage of centralization is higher, because there’s something in place to GET the advantages of trying things out without destroying yourself.

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       1. Only if decentralized does Centralisation work best (~_^)

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          1. Chesterton would grin. :D

             Lowest effective level– which can also be phrased as “when centralizing stops paying off, don’t do more of it.”

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          2. “Privilege escalation” is NOT just a digital/networking attack.

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       2. A variable that may be useful to make explicit, in its own line– cost of communication and experiment/failure.

          The overarching technical term you are looking for is “transaction costs”.

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          1. Yes.

             Folks don’t think about how those change, though.

             If you’re lucky, they think about “how much does it cost to move the stuff from the farm to the store?” or maybe even “how much does it cost to get the stuff from the farm to my house?” if they’re really good.

             Stuff like “there’s a cost to organizing things so that they can happen at all” gets ignored, which is why “middle men” are so easy to villainize. Nobody sees what they’re doing less stuff stops working.

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             1. Fox, remind me tonight. I have no idea where I put the notebook of blog topics. Perhaps Indy has kidnapped it. I need to post on the newsletter what that brat did to the water fountain. I just knew about it from Dan’s laughing. He hasn’t figured out how to refill it, but he keeps trying.

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                1. Hai-hai.

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                2. Sigh. Why we could never have one of those water bowls with the bottle reservoir that auto filled the bowl, except outside. We had a pair of feral litter mates who were caught at different times. The second kitten was on his own long enough that before he drank water, he “cleaned off” the top of the water. He’d half empty the bottle by pawing out the water. Don’t know what he’d do with the Pagoda water fountain, and the smaller (we have 2) Hy-drate recycle pump, neither of which we had back then.

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                   1. One of my cats sticks his paw in the big, heavy 2-quart stainless steel water bowl and drags it around, spilling water everywhere.

                      I put the water bowl in the shower. Spill it all you want, bub.

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    3. Already there to some extent: My last Etsy thing was from a Pakistani sweatshop. They did ask me to confirm measurements manually.

       I wonder what the U.S. customs folks who opened it for special inspection thought of my new Napoleonic war Admirals frock coat.

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       1. Some are forgetting the 3-d printers and what they can do, eventually you’ll just have a 3-d printer that can make products for you when you need them. Totally decentralized, you’ll pay for the materials and a licensing fee to use the pattern for whatever you need. Sure it is years down the road but that is here we are heading.

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          1. Whether we get to that level of replicator in our lifetime, I don’t know.

             But even having 1-in-10 or 1-in-100 adoption rate completely changes things.

             Even with adoption rates orders of magnitude lower it has completely flipped some industries upsidedown.

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             1. It was.. jarring.. to see obviously “printed” items for sale at a Renaissance Faire. Uh….

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                1. I mean, clearly that’s more a Society for Creative Anachronism thing.

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       2. I found a … knitted … cactus arrangement (think “bowl of succulent plants” but in yarn) for a friend. It was shipped from a custom knit-things shop in Latvia. Etsy … the true global marketplace.

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    4. “From there it’s just a short hop to being able to just straight up order automatically tailored clothes that fit you, and once there is a standard interface, you could order it from pretty much anyone, from an Indian sweatshop to your favorite Etsy crafter.”

       As someone with not obviously non-standard proportions, I can’t wait. (“Not obviously” means that I look poorly tailored most of the time, and it’s not my fault.)

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14. I think it’s highly entertaining that the current “refuge” for those escaping the US with money seems to be New Zealand.

    Where they still have “rights.” Torn between a chortle and a scream.

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    1. they are insane.

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    2. They think they have enough money to buy all the rights they want for themselves. Even in New Zealand.

       And money does work…. Until it doesn’t.

       And that is when you get a very Ceausescu Christmas.

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       1. If you guys have seen what is happening in Poland….

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          1. I think Poland has single-handedly caused a worldwide shortage in tanks and jet fighters all on its own. And they are building up a frankly huge reserve formation, not just a draftee pool, all with training.

             And politically it’s getting interesting too.

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             1. Actually, Poland has single handedly brought South Korea to the forefront as a major arms supplier.

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          2. Um… Are you talking about the arms build-up that others are mentioning? Or are you talking about the probably illegal arrests of two opposition politicians?

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             1. No, I’m not. I’m talking about the soft coup under color of law, similar to what happened in Portugal a few years ago, where the communists and socialists allied with a bunch of “no hoper” parties to form a government. And as soon as secured took measures they’d never be unseated again.
                NOT THE ARMS BUILDUP.

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                1. Yes, this is troubling. There’s been very little news about this. I was lucky to see the snippet that I did early today.

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             2. The most important and most terrifying news of the day: https://t.co/S0pDSqFN8N
                The lights are going out.

                — Sarah A. Hoyt (@SarahAHoyt) January 11, 2024

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                1. Yep. I’ve been watching that through a few other sources. to be honest, I thought Germany would go first. It’s not going to be pretty when the Poles wake up.

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                   1. Yeah. this is a counterrevolution of the left, trying to consolidate its power.
                      It won’t be pretty when Americans wake up either.
                      And this is why I pray.

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                      1. I wonder what that will do to their commitments to Ukraine? Will they still fight against Putin, I know the Polish people will they despise Russia and all things Russian.

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                         1. Probably. This guy is the EU stooge.
                            They will therefore at least PRETEND to fight Putin.

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                         2. I don’t know that they can do much more. Isn’t one of the reasons for the rearmament because they’re already sending most of their current equipment to Ukraine? Short of actively entering the war (and Poland isn’t ready to do that), I don’t know how much more Poland can do.

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                            1. They initially sent old stuff, upgraded ex-Soviet along with ammo for same.

                               They also were sending Polish-built wheeled IFVs, but the new government is making decisions that are Putin-adjacent, so that’s now up in the air.

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                      2. I’m both dreading it and impatiently waitin for it to finally happen. The best metaphor I’ve ever read is from Boston T. Party (Kenneth Royce) its like throwing up, you dont WANT to do it because you know the experience will be horrible but at the same time you want it because you know you’ll feel way better after expelling what’s hurting your body.

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                         1. Remarkably appropriate metaphor for getting rid of leftists, both the action and the “product”…

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                      3. I’m curious how the public will respond. The President of Poland is a member of the party that lost power in the Parliament, so the Tusk government (it sounds strange to call a government after the PM when the country in question has a president, but apparently that’s the way it works there?) can’t run completely unchallenged yet (though I wouldn’t be surprised if they start trying to throw him out of office early). So if the public starts throwing massive demonstrations against Tusk’s actions, the government can’t start pulling the stunts that Trudeau did in Canada. Or at least I don’t think that it can.

                         Would be nice if someone here was from Poland, and could shed some light on the situation. Ironically, Podcast of the Lotus Eaters put a segment up on YouTube today talking about the “We had to destroy democracy to save it!” nonsense in Europe… and not a single mention of Poland.

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                         1. According to google translate of one of the polish news sources places bucket of salt There were protests of at least 300,000. The government says 35,000. Our hostess says to apply ‘Sheik troop number adjustment’ in reverse (so multiply by ten not divide) to government protest figures so the 300,000 may be low.

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                            1. The only overhead picture of the protests that I can find is the first one in this Reuters article. I’m not a very good judge of numbers, though, and it looks like this doesn’t show all of the protesters.

                               https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/polish-president-moves-pardon-jailed-ex-ministers-deepening-turmoil-2024-01-11/

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                            2. Here’s one I found. Looks like the same angle from earlier in the day. There are more people in yours. This link also has some other information: https://notesfrompoland.com/2024/01/11/former-ruling-pis-party-holds-anti-government-protest-in-warsaw/

                               Google translate versions of the polish radio station is a bit more favorable to the left, but a LOT of their news isn’t talking about it much. Firstnews Dot Com seems to be another one of theirs, and it’s in English. Cross reference what you can.

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                2. That’s partly what I meant by “interesting” but I’d only seen the “take over the TV stations” stuff, not the “ignore the court rulings we don’t like and arrest the former government” stuff.

                   Lovely.

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                   1. And anyone thinks this isn’t what “Dark Brandon II The Sequel” would look like they are nuts.

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                      1. of course it is.

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                      2. It just goes to show that you can never, ever, ever rest.

                         It was not that long ago they had Solidarność, a Polish pope who has become a Saint, and we had Reagan and Thatcher in the West.

                         Now it’s Commies as far as the eye can see.

                         Including the Vatican.

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                         1. But all were hostile takeovers, and the resistance is massive enough to spook them. Don’t lose hope and courage.

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                            1. Yes, and the President of Poland is from the party that just lost power. I don’t know what powers the president has in that country, but that means that the new government doesn’t control all of the levers of power yet.

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                            2. Which probably explains why they waited until he had left the building to move in and arrest the two they did. They apparently weren’t willing to have him in the potential crossfire, OR he shopped them to the new boss so he wouldn’t be, take your pick.

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                            3. No. He didn’t shop them. He’s fit to be tied.

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                            4. Never lose hope and courage.

                               Beacons are lit.

                               Not sure when the dawn will come, but come it will.

                               We win they lose.

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                            5. Not only is the President of Poland not shopping them, he’s the one who originally pardoned them in the first place. So the steps leading up to their arrest have been a direct attack on the president’s own power and judgement.

                               Two other men were apparently pardoned at the same time, though I haven’t seen anything to indicate whether Tusk is going after them, as well.

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                   2. So, I didn’t see the take over of TV stations. That’s SIGNATURE commie.

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                      1. And the cartels are apparently running rampant (or just running) Ecuador, and after police went on strike in Papua New Guinea the looters swarmed the capital.
                         Things are getting rougher.
                         And we finally sent airstrikes to Yemen. FWIW.

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                         1. The cartels aren’t running Ecuador yet – at least not officially. This cartel stuff appears to be part of some sort of conflict with the government of that country.

                            Though if the government doesn’t find a way to quickly deal with the cartels, that might end up being just a difference of semantics.

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                      2. Basically the ‘private’ news media was leftie so the previous government built the public news media to be European values of Conservative. Now that the commies have the country they’re taking the public ones over so all news media sings the same song. But obviously not all of them are playing, at least not yet, based on the translations I was reading last night.

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                         1. “Conservative” NPR.

                            Heh.

                            That’s an amusing thought.

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                            1. Eh, for European values of media shenanigans… they don’t HAVE private media the way we do. Also for European values of conservative. These words do not cross cultures well.

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                            2. Precisely.

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                            3. Yes, that’s why I put conservative in quote marks.

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                            4. Innit.

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       2. That reminds me, and it ties in with what Sarah said “when the US sneezes, the world catches pneumonia.” the Christchurch mosque shooter was hoping to provoke a serious response-in the U.S. he knew his actions would cause the Left to freak out and blame guns and hoped our leftists would do what old Horse Face did in New Zealand, because that would cause a new Ameican Civil War/Revolution and that would cause serious problems throughout the world. Unfortunately for him the left isn’t THAT stupid…yet.

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    3. Yeah – New Zealand. Or a fortified bunker and farm in Hawaii. Both of which are islands, with a lot of ocean all around. Which has some advantages, I suppose – but some disadvantages as well.

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15. ” Unfortunately for him the left isn’t THAT stupid…yet.”

    And also, half of America couldn’t find Christchurch on a map of the world. Nor do they care what happens there.

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    1. Christchurch? Isn’t that on the southeasternmost trailing poop of Australia?

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       1. about halfway up the bigger lump

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    2. It has “Christ” and “church” in it’s name. It must be some christo-fascist thing.

       /sarc off

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       1. Which just makes it obvious it’s all a setup…

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    3. Half of America could not find Canada on a map.

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       1. “Oh anyone can miss Canada, all tucked away down there ”

          (Simpsons quote)

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       2. Canada? Half (or more) of America couldn’t find the U.S. on a map. And I specifically include the current crop of “scholars” in colleges.

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16. Democrats showing that their open borders policy is part and parcel of their pursuit of global socialism/communism:

    https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2024/01/11/maine-builds-new-rent-free-apartments-for-migrants-paid-by-states-taxpayers/

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    1. of course.

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17. BTW, seeing reports that the US and UK have bombed or missiled targets in Yemen. Houthi areas, and the Houthis are allied with Iran.

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    1. Yes. PM Sunak announced earlier today (or yesterday by now in GB, I suppose) that the USN and the Royal Navy would be conducting coordinated attacks against the Houthis. This is in response to the recent Houthi attacks on shipping in that region.

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    2. Why doesn’t Yemen do something about it? Wouldn’t we, if there were criminal gangs in the U.S. supported by Mexico and China — oh, wait, there are.

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       1. uh uh

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       2. The official Yemeni government is in a war with the Houthis right now, so…

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18. I don’t want to be in charge of the world.

    At the rate things are going…I might be given the job by default.

    Nobody wants me to be in charge of the world.

    Mostly because there are far, far too many gallows bait walking around…and that would be the first problem solved.

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19. They say, “We need to give government more power to do good.”. And I say, “H. O. A.”

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