Pebbles And Votes

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

As some of you know I watch very little TV. Even very little SF TV. I’ve assumed for QUITE a while this means I’m extensively broken and not normal. I mean my father used to tell people I didn’t watch TV in the same tone that you warn someone your kid has a handicap. It’s not exactly wrong. I work around it just like I work around the driving phobia.

Mostly, if a series makes enough impact, you guys will eventually tell me all the highlights and important points with references over time. But also eventually Dan will be in a hard project — coff, the last five years — which doesn’t leave him mind space to do anything after work, but sit vegetating in front of the TV. These days, with streaming available, he usually catches up on old tv series. All of them. At once. And I sit in the next chair, usually doing blog posts or reading. So, I kind of get a bit of it and some visuals. Sometimes I get enough for the politics to p*ss me off. Other times, as with Star Gate, I get a general impression of it, but would be hard pressed to name a character, much less an episode.

Anyway, for a while there, I’ve heard a quote going around. “The avalanche has already started. It is too late for the pebbles to vote.” – Ambassador Kosh (Vorlon on Babylon 5)” Straczynski J. Michael.

Note, I only figured out it was Babylon 5 when I looked to attribute. I thought it was some commie. (Looks at Hollywood politics, snaps mouth shut.)

You see, there are two versions of history and how it happens. There is the “great man” version of history. And then there is the “popular movement” version of history. I was taught both, because the culture in Portugal is “Great Man” or if you prefer “People are born special and fated to lead and they change history.” And I was raised in the sixties and seventies, and after the revolution it was all Marx all the way down, so I was taught a lot of “The inevitable forces of history, blah.”

Of the two, I’d say the first is more correct. The second is typical Marxist autism, trying to reduce humans to widgets and history to economic pressures. Something like “Given 26 inHg of economic pressure per capita, the people all together, at once, rise and blah blah blah.”

Some of it takes in account things like propaganda which then puts the cart before the horse and assumes Nationalism and Militarism caused WWI, instead of WWI required a ramp up of nationalistic and militarist propaganda. Particular kudos to the idiots who convinced us that fashions that imitated military uniforms led to WWI. Instead of their being inspired from the Napoleonic wars and– (BTW WWI was the LEAST stylish of ALL wars. So no.)

Note I said the first is more correct, not that the first is correct. There needs to be what I’d call the “one guy who had about enough” version of history.

Note even we fall into the Great Man version when talking of the founding fathers. And indeed, they were cultured, and relatively smart and– But the thing is, for their time and place they were only slightly above average. People just thought and studied a lot more, partly because they didn’t have as many distractions, to be fair but also because life was harder, and you needed to be better to survive it.

But to an extent the American revolution happened when a few guys (and gals) had had about enough. It was never the Marxist “if only everyone.” And it was never just great man leading. Apparently 3% engaged in fighting, and they were probably supported by 15%, opposed by double that, and the rest of the people were trying to survive in the maelstrom.

Not that I’m saying we’ll get a second American revolution. That is not where likelihood lies if people don Hawaiian shirts and organize a big luau. Most revolutions consume themselves and end badly.

But there is something building, all over the world. And the quote above keeps coming through my mind.

A friend this week told me that something seems to have changed in Israel — which weirdly has more bleeding hearts than even we do, despite the proximity to danger — with 10/7 and the response to it. Something material. In the past, they would have stopped in response to the usual ginned up “international outrage” about nine months ago. But they’re not.

I told him I think it’s because 10/7 rubbed their noses in the fact that it’s fight or die. And it might be both, but at least you have a chance.

Mind you, for all that, they’re still being civilized people, who aren’t killing indiscriminately and take care not to destroy more than they must. In fact, almost unearthly careful in waging their war. (And brilliant. The page thing. Chef’s kiss.) It makes me think of the motto of the kosher hotdog brand (National Hebrew? I think?) “We answer to a higher authority.” (I prefer them, because I like hotdogs, but most give me heartburn.)

ANYWAY…. The rest of the world doesn’t answer to a higher authority. America sort of does, to the extent we’ve internalized our founding documents. I don’t know how many of us have.

But… bear with me. This is the feeling I get. You can hit me with cudgels later.

For a hundred years, and a little more, the “elites” and “the educated” have been trying to shape a future that made sense with the story in their heads. You know that future as well as I do, because it was the thing of all the early SF: centrally controlled everything by enlightened rulers, with people who are “educated” en mass to all behave like polite automatons. A world government. Humans being almost superfluous while machines do everything for them.

Yes, 1984 and Brave New World were the dark side of this, but most of the books sold it as the desirable thing, or if not desirable inevitable.

Communism — mostly the USSR — piled on top of that, because the ethos suited their politics to the ground.

But the problem is, like communism, none of it works like those fantasies. The “international elites” are not actually educated. They go to important schools that accept them because daddy has money. In fact, most of our “big schools” internationally were taken over by communists very early (There is a reason for this. Psychologically communism appeals to slightly autistic idea people.) They teach, but other than practical things, most of the teaching is not for this particular time line. Or reality. It’s stuff you learn by rote, which lets you signal you were very well educated.

The “International elites” are ultimately rich and connected elites who do not understand even slightly where food comes from, or how a huge, chaotic world keeps functioning. They think they can direct what you eat — eat the bugs! — what you drive — bicycles — and what you own — nothing — without realizing if they inflicted that on the masses their own world would break.

…. And they’ve been running with their program for about 100 years. Listening to the “experts”, reading approved books, and running in possession of bright ideas. (Which are much more dangerous than scissors, if left unchecked.)

Which means right now the world is on fire. If you think we have it bad here, you haven’t looked at the rest of the world beyond the headlines.

I fully expect our government junta to hold on by fraud, because people like them, the delusional elite, have been doing that everywhere in the world. Fraud or force, from Brazil to France to Venezuela.

The problem is that they can hold on, but they can’t do anything functional. At this point, I don’t think they’re even trying to. They know their ideas don’t work, and are breaking everything (“We can’t afford four more years of this- Tim Walz”) but they are trying to stay in power to avoid the reckoning AND to avoid being PROVEN WRONG. Because that means their entire life was in vain. People will do anything to avoid admitting that.

The other problem is that the longer they stay in power, the worse things get, and the more a lot of common guys get close to saying “Screw THAT.”

I think most of the world is really close to a final snap, like what happened in Israel. I think the US is more so, due to our scheduled supposed to be peaceful revolution this November.

The problem with being in this state is that it can last forever or seem to. Look at the last forty years and Israel. But eventually there is something that just snaps it. There always is.

Here, the way I see it, and trust me, I hope I’m wrong — not hoping for any of this — there are two potential breaks and then we tip in the pot.

One, they fraud themselves in, then feel super-confident and do what Brazil or Venezuela have been doing: start randomly rounding up people in batch lots. People who talk against them. People related to people who talk against them. Random people they don’t like, like say Jews (particularly observant Jews) or Catholics, or PTA moms, or homeschoolers, or well, yes, bloggers. But in the end, when you get to the “batch lot” stage these things are always more or less random. (Even in Nazi Germany they swept up non Jews as Jews, and some Jews managed to avoid attention, the same way that they also rounded up random Catholics, gypsies, Poles, etc. etc. etc.) And yes, I’m aware there are people under unjust arrest right now, and that they’ve been arresting pro-life people almost at random. Just not batch lot stuff yet.

It’s just I predict they’ll be even more jumpy if they fraud themselves in this time, partly because they’ll know the REAL numbers. And that’s a heck of a lot of jumpy, considering last time they had barbed wire and National Guard units. So I predict batch lot rounding up AND weaponizing the people they brought in to “demonstrate” and commit violence. Sort of a combination antifa and illegals. Because that scares them, so it will scare us.

If they do that, it will tip in the pot. Not right away, I think. It will take six months for the outrage to penetrate and pile up. And then it tips in the pot.

Or they don’t fraud themselves in, and Trump wins. And they activate their antifa brown shirts and incentivize illegals to cause mayhem. That tips in the pot overnight, because I think the result will be so much like 10/7 in a significant number of town — and I don’t mean just sanctuary cities like NYC or Denver or Seattle or …. — I mean I’m not sure MY town will be safe, because there’s been an increase in obvious third worlders homeless, hanging around.

Keep in mind this doesn’t work as they expect. The third worlders aren’t an army. They’re not even a rabble in arms. They’re a bunch of mutually warring groups. It will be rape and pillage.

And that happens almost immediately if Trump wins.

I suspect the response will be a lot of average guys just losing it, utterly, with the whole “elite” project.

After that…. After that I don’t know.

I suspect that if the US goes up like a Roman candle in that sort of thing, it will carry the world with us. Look at it this way, Israel already changed a lot of us. 10/7 marks a worldwide inflection point. The US will be more so.

If we’re lucky we’ll break the same way Israel did: remaining essentially ourselves, but relentlessly getting rid of the stupidity and evil we’ve tolerated for far too long.

Will we be that lucky? I don’t know. Hence why I don’t wish for any of it. Also, I know, even if we’re lucky, those of us who survive will be different. Call it hardened. Call it bitter. Call it broken. An entire generation will bear scars, and the marks won’t pass away for at least a hundred years.

But–

What I know is that while the quote about pebbles voting is essentially right, it’s also fundamentally wrong.

Take Covid. I drove myself nuts, because I kept trying to find a way to stop the insanity. I couldn’t, of course. Some events are too large for an individual to stop or change.

But I flatter myself I kept a significant number of you sane, and perhaps alive. Not that I was alone in this, and that’s important, too. There were a number of us doing that work. And overall, maybe society came apart less than it would have. It certainly came together again faster than the “elites” expected. And has resisted attempts at locking us down again, etc.

So, the pebbles do have some vote.

There is nothing you can do about the macro event. Oh, vote, for the love of heaven. Even though I think war will happen faster if they don’t fraud themselves in, there is a very narrow chance we’ll escape it. Can we overwhelm the fraud? Probably not. But it’s worth a try given the alternative.

But that probably won’t do enough. We’re caught in things larger than ourselves.

However, we’re not insignificant. Keep yourself sane as possible. Keep yourself healthy as possible. Prepare to look after yourself and those you can help in circumstances that you can barely imagine.

Try to make arrangements to keep in touch with those who matter to you who are further away. Have a place to run to and go to ground if your area is one that goes up in flames.

Most of all, study history. Become as informed as possible about how we got here.

And if needed, if that’s the only hope we have? Teach the children well.

For now, keep clothes and weapons where you can find them in the dark.

Be not afraid. These pebbles ain’t getting ground up.

311 thoughts on “Pebbles And Votes”

  1. History is mostly chaos. Shit happens, and millions of people all deal with it in their own individual ways. Then, years later, some bunch of Intellectuals tell us all what really happened. Which bears little resemblance to what the people who lived through it remember.

    Liked by 2 people

        1. There’s a thing called “angle of repose”, describing the angle where stuff piled up stays in place, beyond which it can’t help but be moved, which in some part is dependent on the characteristics of the stuff piled up. Round smooth stuff has a different angle of repose than spiky angular stuff.

          At some angle, or with some amount of force behind it, all stuff is going to move. But if one aims to be resilient to involuntary movement, being spikier is a strategy that increases resistance do displacement

          So be spiky.

          Like

  2. Yup. You did a great service with this site, providing linkages and/or pressure relief, for a whole bunch of folks.

    …..

    I suspect there will be usual fraud, but not to such a degree as to make it obviously a fake game. They do -not- want to convince Joe and Jane Average that The Time Has Come. Trump may very well win “too big to rig”. There will be much fuss, but I doubt very much any significant violence. Why? Because it is -demonstrably- ineffective. Sure, it may nudge. Sure, some idiots may give it a go. But it really only Blues the Blue places. That wont help them all that much anywhere else. 2020 was instructive for them. Note the relative lack of widespread mayhem currently.

    What -does- work, is lawfare and sabotage. They were unprepared for Trump 45, and still managed to keep him from doing too much damage to their long game. For Trump 47, they will pull out all the stops on the pipe-organ of pleadings. Trump better have his efforts lined up like a speed-metal band battle. Because they are going to try to do that to him.

    But what the Left cannot, must not drive the opposition to do, is to start Article 5 amendment gatherings. Because -that- is the train-wreck moment for the Left. They could very well find themselves lacking the newly repealed 16th and 17th amendments. Possibly even the 26th. The danger for all is that almost -anything- could be proposed, although the ratification hurdles are enormous. For every “repeal 16/17” we could see a “repeal 1/2”, or something to codify nationally some Leftroid shibboleth. And the promises to limit it to “just the good ones” ring hollow when compared to all the “just the good ones” we get promised every legislative session, anywhere. And once the gathering is authorized, there are no real rules to limit its scope. You can say “we only meet to discuss these specified”, but what power prevents them from proposing “amended” versions?

    I must point out that the 1787 convention had zero mandate or authority to junk the Articles of Confederation. They were supposed to fix it, not nix it. They flat out defied that instruction. Sure, the States had to ratify it. Yes, they ultimately did. So the template and precedent are there. And no handwavium can make that inoperative.

    Be careful what you wish.

    Ultimately, I think the Leftroids realize they overplayed their hand, created Trump and their current troubles, and now decide to ride it out another four and then go back to “normal” chicanery with a de-Trumped uniparty. If Trump can produce a successor -team-, then the game may permanently change. otherwise, he is in interesting eddy in the overall flow. Does he slay the RINO, or just delay the RINO?

    Builders like to think their works are permanent. I suspect Trump has the “what next?” items covered.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. What -does- work, is lawfare and sabotage. 

      Except that a lot of us just view those as an extension of The Steal. Want to prove that elections, and laws, and constitutions are simply ineffective scraps of paper? Because that will do it.

      The Democrats have pushed as hard as they can to demonstrate that “What are you going to do? Sue me?” has been replaced by “What are you going to do? Shoot me? You even got a SCOTUS ruling on loan forgiveness, or immigration, or Presidential immunity. SO FSCKING WHAT? We’re just not following it.”

      Liked by 2 people

      1. Creatively playing by the rules, versus outright fraud. There is a huge difference.

        Helps if both parties get creative with the rules, instead of one constantly “losing with dignity”.

        Note that Trump played very, very much inside the rules, yet was Yugely effective because he saw -how- to play it better than most.

        “Doooooom!” is pointless, and serves only the enemy.

        Liked by 1 person

    2. Lawfare, sabotage, and stubborn, mule-headed defiance/obstruction within the rules, a la “Irish Democracy.”

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  3. Fraud requires constant monitoring of lies, and takes those that believe the fraud isn’t fraud. Regardless of much of the media, opinions of the experts, and the opinions of other nations, the United States is filled with those that either left societies that despised liberty, or are descendants of those that did. The basic laws (Constitution) outline how liberty can be preserved, and it doesn’t take a scholar to understand the document. It demands a society that uses every means necessary to preserve the basic right, and even the most timid understand they either participate, or contribute to those that will not comply with tyranny.

    Will things become terrible? Maybe, but there’s an angry populace that’s had enough, and have arms more than any military. They’ve had enough, and will retaliate.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Fraud requires constant monitoring of lies, and takes those that believe the fraud isn’t fraud.

      Not a fortnight since, I posted the “Voter ID, so Trump Doesn’t Cheat!” meme to Facebook, and was rebuked by a mostly-rational person (who knew what I was getting at) that “in the past fifteen years, almost every single instance of election fraud was perpetrated by Republicans.”

      Göbbels said something about The Big Lie, but sometimes when “That’s the stupidest, most bass-ackwards acid trip delusion I’ve heard this year!” is inappropriate, what do you say?

      Oy vey iz mir.

      Liked by 1 person

      3. That’s one of those cases when you just know that two contradictory bits of social programming engaged at the same time.

        I think the effective response is to agree – “Yes, exactly and voter ID will keep them from doing more!”

        Liked by 1 person

        1. I think I led with that when he called me on tweaking his nose, as it used to be called—I’d tagged him in the post—and the “only the GOP” contrafactual was in answer to THAT.

          Ah, well.

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  4. What’s Larry’s description? Something like the Left treats violence as if it is on a dial, that can be turned up or down. For the Right, it’s a bipole switch – on, or off.

    Liked by 2 people

        2. I was thinking more along the lines of the bomb run from Doctor Strangelove.

          It takes forever to get to “out you go”, and can be unexpected as to specific moment, but once it is out of the bay, things move along right smartly to “kaboom”.

          But the loud “YEEEEEHAAAAWWWWWWW!” and hat waving can be a bit unnerving to the bystanders.

          Liked by 1 person

          1. But that was because of a fault in the bomb release wiring. Major Kong had to take the junction box apart and poke around inside to find the right wires. Ordinarily dropping The Bomb is a fairly straightforward procedure.

            Followed by an Earth-shattering KABOOM!

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            1. There is always grit in the gears of plans.

              Note also, the bomb bay damage was from enemy action.

              “Everybody has plans until they get hit.” – Mike Tyson

              Liked by 1 person

        3. OK, I didn’t remember it quite right. Here’s the actual quote, straight from the movie:

          “Look, Dave. I can see you’re really upset about this. I honestly think you ought to sit down calmly, take a stress pill and think things over.”

          …which more-or-less sums up what the Leftroids’ response will be if that switch gets flipped after 10+ years of constant attacks and provocations.

          Liked by 1 person

          2. Also, I am very much interested in hearing them sing ” Daisy” as we lobotomize them one cpu card at a time.

            In that novel we are writing. Yeah.

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        1. Unfortunately.

          I very much wonder about the progressive mindset, that it finds violence so apparently seductive. I, as a semi-sane human being, do not want violence.

          OTOH I very much prefer breathing. And have dealt with people who enjoy being the masters of slaves. If the situation is made so that we can’t get away from them and leave them to their delusions….

          Well. If you must do something, do it professionally and thoroughly.

          Or as the saying goes, “If violence isn’t your last resort, you didn’t resort to enough of it the first time.”

          Like

          1. It gets things done.

            …. in the stories. If you don’t pay any attention to the “and what next.”

            A very masculine failure state; slay the dragon to fix the problem, rather than take out the trash.

            But it’s simple, and then it’s done, and that is incredibly seductive when you’re already feeling worn down.

            Liked by 1 person

            1. True on the seductive part. But we’ve studied history, here – it’s never ever that simple.

              (And heh. I have to admit to a lot of sympathy for that line from Jurassic Park 2 – it’s nice of you to charge in on a white steed, but I need you to show up regularly in a cab….)

              Liked by 2 people

              1. Not just history, the…. argh… the people-level stories.

                Like, my grandfather was a prison guard for the captured Nazis.

                ….they were mostly just kids who got drafted. He was a bit old for the Army, and stupidly good at … everything, basically. So he talked to them, a lot.

                They were just people, and the history books all act like they were demons who vanished in a puff as soon as the surrender documents were signed.

                NONE of the work gets noticed.

                Liked by 2 people

                1. And then people get surprised when they hear about Operation Paperclip.

                  Like, dudes. We already knew what these people were capable of working for Bad Guys. Why would we want them running around loose where any other would-be Evil Overlords could snatch them when they could work for the good guys instead?

                  (Bit lesser known is that we later got some of the people working in Soviet bioweapons programs. A few of whom crossed things like rabies and polio to watch a nervous system melt in test animals, and really wondered what it might do in people, they’re just curious…..

                  Those are some scary, scary people.)

                  Liked by 1 person

              2. Foxfier is presenting a typical false choice. You’re buying it.

                It’s NEVER either-or. It’s always both-and. The trash has to be taken out, but first the dragon nesting in the burning dumpster has to go. Guess which one makes it to the movie?

                Gaslighting is still gaslighting even when our friends are doing it.

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                1. Read her comment again: she was saying that it’s both-and, and that the failure state was thinking that it’s just one or the other. The failure state was “slay the dragon to fix the problem, rather than take out the trash.” (Italics in original, bold emphasis is mine in order to draw attention to the wording). Yes, both need to be done, as her follow-up comments also indicate.

                  Liked by 1 person

                2. Slow blink.

                  Really. Really?

                  Okay, since you have not met the long list of dragons that made the majority of my life a living nightmare, I’m going to pass on a tidbit of info you may not know.

                  The dragons nesting in the dumpster are the ones making all the trash you have to deal with. And they are surrounded by a cohort of vicious, whip-wielding goblins who demand you pick up this trash, now, or they will hound you through every waking hour and all the hours you try to sleep until you clean up the mess they don’t want to deal with.

                  Which keeps you too flippin’ busy and exhausted to realize that hey, you know, you actually need to slay this dragon.

                  Unless someone helps you take out the trash, you will die without a chance to stab the beastie.

                  Like

                  1. I’m sorry. If I had realized this was a discussion of a personal situation rather than a discussion of national politics, I wouldn’t have replied to you.

                    Like

                    1. You’re missing the point.

                      If we don’t do the mundane taking out the trash of things like clearing the voter rolls of people who shouldn’t be there, making sure laws are enforced equally, and pushing back against the de-personing attempts of progressive mobs unleashed on anyone who says a word they don’t like, then attempts to slay the dragon by just getting a sane president into office will, ultimately, fail.

                      And the bureaucratic agencies also fulfill the role of tormenting goblins, here.

                      Liked by 1 person

  5. I am reminded of the parable of the dung beetle and the eagle.

    A small animal fleeing the eagle asked the dung beetle to protect it, so it said it would, and told the eagle to stop. The eagle laughed, then took and ate the animal under the beetle’s protection.

    So, the beetle found the eagle’s nest and rolled out all of its eggs. So the eagle flew higher and nested higher, and the beetle again, found its eggs, and rolled them out. So the eagle found a still higher and even less accessible nest, and again the beetle found it, and rolled out the eggs again. And so on.

    I think in some versions the eagle apologizes, and future nests are spared, and in some versions, it is never able to nest again.

    That said, I suspect if we have another revolt, it is going to be the absolute weirdest one imaginable. The US is not ‘normal’. Our first civil war was unusually bloody, followed by an equally unusually complete reconsiliation afterward. I suspect that was because we were autistically fighting over one of the absolute fundamental questions.

    This one seems to be about to be precipitated by the petty blind silliness of bureaucracy. That just doesn’t seem to be something really worth armies stacking up over. But I can see civil disobedience and malicious compliance of the most Monty Python degree for many of it.

    Which does make me wonder if it would be possible to prank the swarm dumps into deporting themselves?

    Liked by 3 people

    1. This one seems to be about to be precipitated by the petty blind silliness of bureaucracy.

      Look beneath the surface. This is still about slavery and who serves who, but now they disguise it with mounds of paperwork.

      Liked by 2 people

        1. The Democrats have NEVER forgiven the Republicans for freeing their slaves the first time.

          They are desperate to stop the Republicans again. How very DARE we not bow to our obvious betters!

          Liked by 2 people

          1. Count the slavery: Debt slavery for professionals like lawyers and doctors — with debts not dischargeable in bureucracy. H1B slavery of people who have to have their green card renewed piecemeal. And then things like the people trafficked for immoral purposes. And THEN the hapless Hatians and others who are being paid starvation wages while we subsidize them with our taxes. HOWEVER someone is making out like a bandit not paying them normal wages. And htey have no resort if they walk off.
            ALL OF IT IS SLAVERY BY OTHER MEANS.

            Liked by 2 people

              1. A couple of months ago, Tyson closed their plant in Perry, Iowa and put 1,300 Americans out of work. They will be replaced with illegal aliens in other states. Apparently Iowa makes it hard to use illegal aliens.

                Liked by 1 person

                1. In August, a customer asked the meat guy at Fred Meyer (Kroger) about the lack of Foster Farms chicken. The employee said that FM switched to Tyson.

                  Costco in Oregon still sells the big bags of non-breaded chicken breasts from Foster Farms. (A California brand. Probably some legal citizens working there, but it is California.) Haven’t seen Tyson at Costco yet.

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    2. What was it? 751? “Intelligence experts” endorsed Kamala Harris? Including the people who signed off on the fraudulent Russia-Trump crap? Our foreign and domestic intelligence ‘services’ are like pre-schoolers compared to Mossad. And the nations of the world are justifiably laughing at us.

      Liked by 3 people

      1. That’s the sort of thing that makes me sooo glad that my initial plan to go into military intel or just intelligence in general fell apart (or Someone had other plans). I’d have gone stark raving mad trying to do my duty with that sort of [Family blog, remember?] around me.

        Liked by 1 person

    3. This one seems to be about to be precipitated by the petty blind silliness of bureaucracy. 

      –

      It’s mostly groups of billionaires with mutual overlapping interests and their minions trying to establish world fascism. Bureaucrats are just their permanent lackeys.

      Not much is going to change immediately, since they own almost all the elected officials in both parties.

      Smarm will eventually be cut off from the free gibs and then chaos will insue.

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  6. For one thing, rounding up in batch lots is awful hard when those lots they want to round up are heavily armed…

    But yeah. I am particularly hopeful that if Trump DOES win, despite inevitable violence and lunacy erupting from the left, that we WILL break like Israel did. For one thing–how many of us do you think have spent the last two weeks chuckling gleefully at the brilliance of the pagers (and all that has followed. Them blowing up a Hezzie spokesman while he was LIVE ON AIR yesterday was just glorious)? A great many of us, I think. And that does give me hope that the backlash won’t be as general as many of us have feared: we know what the third worlders behave like, and the so-called elites as well. We’ll be going after actions, not simply “looks like” (though sadly some of that probably will still happen)

    Also worth noting: To be sure, Kosh did make that comment about the pebbles…but Kosh and the Vorlons (although Kosh was an outlier, and possibly would have broken ranks if he’d lived), like their enemies the Shadows, were at their core tyrants. One for “lawful” one for “chaotic”–and in the end, the younger races of the galaxy banded together and booted BOTH the Vorlons and the Shadows (and all the other remaining First Ones) out so they could be left alone to live their own lives and make their own choices.

    It is chilling, though, rewatching stuff from B5 where the tyrannical gov is taking over Earth, and hearing what is going on. “There’s no homelessness, because, well, we redefined what that word means. Same with unemployed.” Crap that we are hearing right now…

    (And I can’t figure out how J. Michael Straczynski could write with such clear vision back then…and have somehow morphed into a near-complete lefty shill three decades later. Sigh.)

    Liked by 3 people

    1. The only reason why they were able to round up the J6s is because they:

      (1) Had the media establish the narrative that they committed crimes.

      (2) Had their pet lawyer stooges invent ham sandwich crimes for merely walking through the doors that the metro police held open for them.

      (3) Waited until they were all dispersed and unsupported at their homes before serving and arresting them.

      What SHOULD have happened was the moment Pelosi & Co. started their round up, we should have invaded D.C. and busted down the doors of Congress, and arrested the Dems and RINOs.

      Liked by 1 person

      2. Indeed–but, now they’ve blown THAT approach. Like with COVID lockdowns–we won’t be fooled (or willing to cooperate) again.

        Especially since they also have spent the last four years screaming there isn’t a double standard of justice while openly demonstrating (and gloating about) the fact that there is. After all, there’s a reason the “I’m voting for the felon” tshirts, etc are pretty popular…

        Liked by 1 person

        1. I’m waiting for the “I’m voting for the felon that the SCOTUS declared not a felon. Biden DOJ are poopy heads. So there!” (In legalese.)

          Liked by 2 people

    2. JMS was writing a righty mil-centric takeover, with the brave B5 folks taking the traditional-definition-“liberal” position and not going along.

      He’s a really solid TV writer, but he’s been an un-secret consistently Hollywood standard lefty – he said the late Jerry Doyle’s basically center-right conservative politics were “to the right of Ghengis Khan”.

      I mean, he has been consistently working in Hollywoodland for decades, so it is not surprising.

      Liked by 1 person

      1. JMS was writing a righty mil-centric takeover

        Then he did a uniquely bad job. Let’s look at the villains:

        PsyCorps: Not military, more like the Bureau of Indian Affairs with more powerful Indians.

        ISA Intelligence: Again, civilian spooks.

        Nightwatch: definitely not military; more like Obama’s “civilian equivalent”, before Obama.

        The Shadows: not military.

        Whereas all the Resistance we see is coming from the military: Sinclair, Sheridan, Ivanova, Gen Hague, etc.

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        1. I think it can be, at least in part, ascribed to JMS telling a good story before message, and unconsciously basing villains on actual authoritarians–none of whom in recent memory have been anywhere even close to right-wing.

          And while I’ve never met the man, and so can’t say, I do wonder if it was also because in the 90s, ideological purity in Hollywood wasn’t NEARLY as rabid as it is now, and JMS gave lip service to it (the Rush Act, etc), but was still focused just on telling a good story. It would also explain why I find much of his more recent stuff unpalatable–he’s had to move ever farther left to stay pure enough to remain uncancelled.

          (I also suspect he got along better with Doyle than it might seem now that Doyle is dead and comments are made about his politics to satisfy the leftist masters. After all, Garibaldi was there for all 5 seasons, and carried a pretty major storyline in season 5. I do gather that Doyle was fairly hostile to Michael O’Hare, which JMS didn’t like–but that’s also because no one else at that time knew what was really going on with O’Hare (ie, that he was struggling with SEVERE mental illness) and so Claudia Christian and Doyle and others thought he was being a creepy jerk, and Doyle was under the impression he was pushing back against a creepy a-hole, not–in hindsight–bullying an extremely ill man. I don’t remember if Doyle died before or after O’Hare, or if Doyle had died before JMS finally shared the full story.)

          Liked by 1 person

          1. I think that Doyle didn’t know until after O’Hare died and he admitted that had he known, he would have not been as big an ass. And for the same reason-he thought he was dealing with a creepy a-hole jerk, not someone with a genuine mental illness.

            But I also have to wonder if JMS failed to give “a word to the wise” when dealing with O’Hare to people. There’s ways of doing that if you’re careful.

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            1. I think I get why JMS stuck so incredibly hard to the “keep it entirely mum until O’Hare dies”–even with the best of intentions, had word gotten to the studio execs about his illness, the show undoubtedly would have been axed, since it was only in its first season, and it was very much an experimental show at the time (5 seasons only, overarching plot). Given how the execs fought him tooth and nail on everything ELSE about the show, having your lead actor fall apart and leave after only one season would have been a death knell. I do admire O’Hare, for all that his illness did make him terrify his costars–he knew this as well as JMS did, and he didn’t want to be the reason all the cast and crew lost their jobs, so he hung on by his fingernails to finish the first season and get it set up so that he could be safely written out. (It also explained, when I learned about it, why he was acting so oddly–nonstop blinking, among other things–in the two parter he came back for in season 3. Or was it 2?) And if JMS had let the cat out of the bag BEFORE O’Hare died, it would have ruined his ability to get hired in the event he ever got well enough to work again. (Sadly, I don’t think he did.) Iirc, JMS originally tried to swear he’d never tell anyone, ever, but O’Hare told him just to hang onto it and let people know the real story if he died before JMS (which he did), because he felt his former coworkers and the fans did deserve an explanation.

              Liked by 1 person

        2. I wouldn’t call it uniquely bad. We did have much the same sort of “right-wing coup attempt” here IRL a couple of years ago on J6. Again, it was run from top to bottom by spooks, alphabet shops, and the (Left-wing, big-gov) Deep-state scoundrels.

          I am well behind on B5 and only just binged through the end of S1 and the opening of S2 last night. It struck me how exactly the inauguration of “President Clark” was staged as a reenactment of LBJ’s swearing-in after Kennedy was shot. Camera angle, placement of staff and supporters around him, shape of the set, placement of the presidential seal too, I think.

          There’s no way that’s not deliberate.

          Liked by 1 person

          1. There was no ‘coup attempt’ on January 6. There was a mostly peaceful protest against the Democrats’ coup-by-election-fraud. The crowd was seeded with left-wing instigators and agitators and it was still mostly peaceful.

            Liked by 3 people

            1. You know that and I know that, and so do most here. I was referring to the similarities between what J6 was and what B5’s incident was, and what both were claimed to be in their canonical narratives.

              Liked by 1 person

        3. I’d say instead that it was ideological, the shadow-aligned thing of sacrificing order/embracing chaos for power, combined with the results of the older races messing around with humans resulting in psy powers emerging, which drove the EarthGov takeover, and then some fraction of the mil types remaining faithful enough to the old order values to eventually openly break. But the PsyCops and the new-order-compliant mil were the ones that made the jump and took over, so you can’t say the military was just a concerned bystander.

          The Nightwatch and all the rest of the societal changes were part of the creeping battlefield preparation for the open takeover, after the prior Pres got zapped because he was not turnable.

          Overall JMS did a better takeover story that Lucas did in the Star Wars prequels, where the Chancellor just suddenly announces “Those Jedi were bad! Oh, and we’re switching to Galactic Empire now!” and the Senate applauds.

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          1. He did it a MILLION times better than Lucas.

            Honestly, I think one of the most “break the usual narrative” things that JMS did (which is why he doesn’t quite code as hard leftist in B5’s writing) was to have the younger races tell BOTH Order and Chaos to get stuffed and go away and let them make their own choices. At the time I first saw it (I was in my late teens), I was a bit startled when, after Kosh sacrificed himself, it suddenly started becoming clear that the Vorlons were really NOT the good guys they were portraying themselves as…In the end, it boiled down to “telling us it’s your way or nothing (both sides) ain’t gonna work, so piss off.”

            Liked by 1 person

            1. I never had as much use for this show or its creator as most here, so I might be wrong about this part, but I thought Original Kosh was more sympathetic/”gone native” in his interactions with the younger races than Successor Kosh, who was more doctrinnaire and following Vorlon policy more closely.

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              1. Yep, Ulkesh was a lot more hard-line than Kosh Naranek. A lot rougher with Lyta, too. The younger races were just tools and puppets to be used, and discarded if they broke.

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              2. In a nutshell, yes. Original Kosh cared about younger races, and it was his willingness to go out on a limb to keep the good opinion of Commander Sheridan, even though he knew it would result in his murder, that really set him apart. There were hints, prior to this, that the Vorlons were not all they were cracked up to be (their Inquisitor Sebastian, for example, aka Jack the Ripper, kept around past his time and not allowed to die so he could “test” their potential “chosen ones” in extremely brutal ways), but since Kosh was the one we saw the most, it was easy to think they were the good guys.

                Original Kosh also appeared to have an actual sense of humor, albeit one that ran to the “major troll” type. Replacement Kosh very much did not.

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    3. That and Kosh’s quote was when he was asked if he would let a doctor examine him without his consent… which happened in the pilot movie. Hence his very Vorlon answer.

      Liked by 1 person

    4. Straczynski was always a leftist (remember “the Rush Act” mentioned for strike breaking during season 1? Named after Rush Limbaugh.) He just had an ability to right for a more center based audience. Nobody in Hollywood believes in that audience anymore so he has shifted with his party.

      Liked by 2 people

      2. Fair. I think it really boils down to JMS is (or at least WAS*) an excellent writer and storyteller, that he wasn’t terribly ham-handed, so what he thought was “right wing = bad” also translated in the other direction. (And I suppose he could be unself-aware enough to fail to realize that the tactics EarthGov was using in B5 were straight outta Stalin’s USSR…) Rather like Whedon and Firefly, heh.

        *I don’t really consider him excellent anymore, not after that abomination of a storyline he did for a Spiderman comic run. It was stupid even for Marvel comics (albeit before they went full-retard.)

        Liked by 1 person

    5. “blowing up a Hezzie spokesman while he was LIVE ON AIR yesterday”

      Do you have a link about this? I can’t find anything.

      Like

            2. Video worked for me as well.

              I like the director eventually getting themselves mentally unstuck and cueing the card graphic wipe: “No, you idiots, put up the card! Put up the card, now!!”

              Liked by 1 person

          2. “Software glitch” is usually the answer before “conspiracy”.

            Don’t make giants out of kobolds. Bad for morale. (gin)

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            1. I think back when it was pre-Elon Twitter, it absolutely WOULD have been taken down. But I think if someone had attempted it on X now, Musk would have promptly put it back up–he seems to have been cheering on the “blowing up the terrorists” as much as the rest of us!

              Liked by 1 person

          1. 👏👏👏

            Joining *applauds*. Other than knowing what happened before seeing video hard to tell exactly what happened. Great Karma.

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    7. (And I can’t figure out how J. Michael Straczynski could write with such clear vision back then…and have somehow morphed into a near-complete lefty shill 

      “It’s just fiction, no real person would ever think like that…”

      G’Kar: “We all believe in something .. greater than ourselves, even if it’s just the blind forces of chance.”

      Na’Toth: “Chance favors the warrior.”

      Liked by 1 person

      1. It also holds up the idea that good storytelling trumps preachiness. At least with B5, telling a good story came first, and it shows. (And, let’s face it, B5 was ALSO heavily, HEAVILY influenced by Tolkien, so whatever leftist crap JMS believes, he also took the themes of LOTR to heart, and translated them well to a scifi setting.)

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      2. JMS said his B5 characters got so they’d dictate dialog to him in the shower, in accent. He said having Ambassador Molari nattering at him while he was shampooing his hair got a bit tiresome.

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        1. ….that might not be a quote now that I think about it. But something along those lines. I know he mentioned Mollari, in Peter Jurasic’s full on accent, dictating lines to him in the shower…

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    8. On the topic of Babylon 5, is season five worth continuing to struggle through? I’m not really a fan of the telepath storyline.

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      1. Season 5 is a little uneven, but definitely worth watching. More is going on than just the rogue telepath situation. And you have got, got, GOT to watch the final episode ‘Sleeping In Light’.

        Like

      3. Yeah, Byron is awful (the actor himself is fine, but I hate Byron). But other than that–yes, it’s worth it, if only for the finale. Although there are a few gems scattered throughout the season. I quite like the Day of the Dead episode and the View from the Peanut Gallery one. And like Imaginos said, more going on than the stupid telepath storyline (in which everyone acts totally out of character). I’m sorry, but Sheridan and co. would NOT have just left Lyta out high and dry–although I don’t blame Sheridan for NOT appreciating the crap that Byron keeps pulling. Since Byron’s approach to telepath “freedom” is to fill every damn bad stereotype normies have about telepaths…

        I am personally a supporter of the fan theory that Byron wasn’t *really* an ex-psicop, he was a plant. :p

        I do wish they had not left Bester’s comeuppance to a trilogy of novels, though. (Although all the B5 novels ARE canon, per JMS, so at least there is that.)

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      4. Season 5 is very uneven (mostly, I suspect, due to Claudia leaving the show and them not knowing that they would have a Season 5, so plot points were moved forward), but there were a few good episodes that just hit it all out of the ballpark.

        The hints that the Earth Alliance is going to go down the same fascist rabbit hole as before was annoying, especially since that was going to be the big story arc of “Crusade” (the Drahk plague was going to be cured sometime in the middle of Season 2, and it turns out that a faction inside the EA decides to go full Imperium of Man on the universe-which you can’t blame them after nearly getting exterminated twice in living history).

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        1. What I’ve seen of Crusade…I know it only got one season, but I did feel even then (albeit this was years after it aired and was cancelled) that it felt somewhat stale. Many of the characters were quite promising, but–yeah. The storyline was already starting to feel like a rehash of B5.

          (And this is why I continue to fervently pray that the B5 reboot–even, or possibly ESPECIALLY because it is to be headed by JMS–never happens. What he did was fresh and original at the time–but I fear he might have been a one-trick pony on that front, or he wouldn’t be trying to retell B5.)

          Liked by 1 person

          1. He’s already tried to revisit it with Babylon 5: The Road Home. The animation approach is interesting; not so much the story.

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      5. You can safely fast-forward the scenes the telepaths are in; you won’t miss anything. I wouldn’t recommend skipping the episodes entirely, as I’m pretty sure (without checking) that the B-plots for those episodes are important later on.

        You’ll know when the telepath story is wrapped up, and from that point on, it gets back to being as good as season 2. Not quite as good as seasons 3 or 4, but good.

        What happened is that JMS was told during season 4 that it would be the show’s last season. So he took a plotline that was supposed to be resolved around the middle of season 5 (I assume, see footnote below) and shoved it into the end of season 4. Then when a different network picked the show up for season 5 after all, he had to stretch his existing material to cover the hole where the planned plotline had been. That’s why the telepaths, who had two or three episodes’ worth of total plot, stayed around for nine or ten episodes. (NOT an exact count, just an estimate, so that’s not a spoiler; for all I remember, the plotline wraps up in episode 7 or 8 or 11 or 12.) And that’s why their story feels so “thin”, like butter stretched over too much bread.

        But I second/third/Nth the chorus that you simply MUST watch the last episode of Babylon 5. Have snacks (and tissues) handy and make sure you can watch the whole thing in one sitting, because you will NOT want to pause it.

        Footnote: the civil war against Earthgov wrapped up so quickly in season 4 that I personally believe it was supposed to carry on into season 5, and wrap up around episode 10 or so. Then the telepaths would have been a couple episodes, and episodes 13 to the end would have been unchanged from the versions we ended up getting.

        P.S. What kind of stupid spelling dictionary thinks that “telepath” is a misspelling?

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        1. he had to stretch his existing material to cover the hole where the planned plotline had been.

          He also had to cover the hole left by the loss of Claudia Christiansen / Ivanova, since I’m fairly sure that the Marcus / Ivanova relationship resolution was part of Season 5.

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  7. You forgot the third path to tipping into the pot: assassin number 3 (or 4 or 5 …) gets the job done this time. In July it would have been at least mass civil disorder, though possibly not to the level of actual civil war. That would have required unity on both sides, and with no clear successor to Trump at that time, Team Red would have had no leader. It would have been an unholy mess, but Team Blue would have gotten on top of it, and then not let that crisis go to waste. Ten days ago, with J.D. Vance a plausible standard-bearer, it might have been a full-fledged civil war, or it might have held off long enough to see if Vance could gain a vengeance win at the polls. Now, with multiple attempts having been made, I think any forbearance after a successful one is off the board. Too many people now think it’s just too obvious what is going on. If the assassination itself doesn’t throw the switch, the celebrations will. (You know there will be in-your-face celebrations.)

    And I wish I could agree with you on Israel, but the size of their demonstrations in favor of cutting a deal, any deal, to get back the Gaza hostages doesn’t leave me that sanguine. It is a historical irony that the Jewish state resists going Old Testament on its enemies. I hope you’re seeing something clearer than I am.

    Republica restituendae, et, Hamas delenda est.

    Liked by 2 people

    2. I’m very curious how large the actual protests in Israel have been, and who is funding them. I’m getting mixed signals – the outside media say “huge, groundswell of popular support for Hamas hostage deal et cetera et cetera.” Other closer to the ground sources say, “The usual idiots and some families of hostages, with pre-printed signs, not as many as it looks on the news footage.”

      Tired kitty shrug. No idea which is closer to the truth, although I personally incline toward the second batch of sources.

      Liked by 3 people

      1. Me, too. I can’t find it in me to blame the families; not least because some of the hostages were peaceniks trying to help their Palestinian neighbors.

        Liked by 1 person

          2. Folkscsholdctakevheed the pictures of hostages, female and male, with bloody asses.

            If Israel goes totally Carrerra on Ham/Hez, just gonna shrug.

            Liked by 1 person

      2. I have some friends living there. There is no real dissent – the Israelis have finally come to the conclusion that there is no peace to ever be had, and are acting appropriately.

        Liked by 2 people

        2. Reading from a distance from the english language outlets, it seems like a couple of their media outlets are trying to walk a fine line between still hating Netanyahu deeply and totally while not as a result coming out on the Ham-Ass / Hez-ball-less side of things.

          The demonstrations seem like the standard interpretive dance, “we’re demonstrating for the hostages” that gets “reported” as being in favor of giving up any- and everything and leaving things to re-fester for return of remains.

          Liked by 2 people

        3. Just practically, if there really was a groundswell of anything that could go against Netanyahu, his political opponents would be screaming for elections right the heck now. Nobody is doing that in any media I can see, so QED, there ain’t no ground swellage.

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    3. I keep hoping we don’t get an equal-opportunity loon. But now, with Joe openly being run by his wife and Walz being, well, someone who makes Harris look good, that could put Mike Johnson in the White House and I don’t think they want that.

      OTOH, this close to the election can you run Vance as President, or does the whole messy house of cards fall into a holding pattern while the parties rerun their primaries?

      Liked by 1 person

      1. This close to the election, the National Committee would select a replacement candidate, almost certainly the previous VP candidate, and fill the #2 slot with someone else if thus vacated. There are procedures in place: it would be legitimate. You’d vote the (in this case) Trump-Vance line, but the votes would go to the Vance-Lordpleasenotarino ticket.

        It actually sort-of happened once. In 1916, the Republican VP candidate died several days before the election, and the party selected another in his place. It ended up not being very historic, as Hughes could not carry California and Wilson got his second term.

        Republica restituendae, et, whatever the Latin is for blow up more Hezbollah crotches.

        Liked by 2 people

          2. Publicize that far and wide, it’s the best deterrent against any more assassination attempts. Just like Biden was the best deterrent against anyone thinking about killing Obama, and Kamala was the best deterrent against anyone thinking about killing Biden.

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          3. Your lips => God’s ears, but with the primary results, we would probably be given Nikki Haley. That would be satisfactory to Certain Elements: one more elimination, and they’d be down to someone acceptable, someone … pliable.

            The black pill that day would be the size of an eight-ball.

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            1. Some folks think of “black pilling” with an M-67 frag grenade.

              Although, technically, that would be “Olive Drab Pilling”.

              “BRRRRIIIING! …. BRRRRIIIIIING”

              (pops safety clip, pulls pin)

              “It’s for you!”

              (Release spoon … 1…2… toss)

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                1. Yes.

                  And an M-67 frag is olive drab, with yellow markings. Sometimes with a red “spoon” stenciled “impact” if so fused, otherwise the usual delay. “Attitude adjuster of most of the Free World”

                  Missed something? I do that too.

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      2. Walz … makes Harris look good.

        • Biden’s ruled out by reason of senility.
        • Harris makes Biden look smart (or at least, formerly smart).
        • Harris should be ruled out by reason of inanity. With no senility to hide behind.
        • Walz makes Harris look (relatively) innocent, or at least Not Guilty By Reason Of Inanity.
        • Walz should be defenestrated by reason of being a craven and tyrannical bastard, without either senility or inanity to hide behind.
        • The malfeasance and abuses of Joe Biden (Senator, VP, and POTUS, both in person and proxy) prior to the current extremis of his decline make Walz look like a piker and Johnny-come-lately in the Political Scumbag department.

        Rub-a-dub-dub, three Dems in a tub….

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  8. “bunch of mutually warring groups”

    ……………

    In addition the home grown US gangs are pissed. They are ganging up on the imported warring groups. No together, but each are hitting at the gangsters TPTB have imported.

    Regarding 2020 fraud. PTB in this state are not admitting fraud. Nor are their news lackeys. But what else is it when they have to admit that ineligible to vote have been registered to vote. At first it was “but none voted”. Well that ship has sunk. Trying to pad with “very few voted”. That has been torpedoed. The numbers are going up for both, ineligible to vote but registered to vote, and actually voted. It has been stated, but not acknowledged, that even ONE registered, but not eligible to vote, voted, it is fraud. Wouldn’t have changed the outcome? To dang bad. Fraud. Only eight electoral votes won’t make a difference. Tough. Fraud.

    Liked by 2 people

    2. The Crips and Bloods have waaay more in common with each other than with any of the imports.

      I have a feeling the scene in The Rocketeer may play out “I may not make an honest living, but I’m 100% American”

      Liked by 1 person

      1. Apparently that’s what some of the gangs in Chicago are saying. It’s one thing for them to go after each other, but the “outsiders” are taking benefits and other things that belong to locals (i.e. African Americans and local Hispanic residents.)

        Liked by 2 people

      2. I read (somewhere) that a war between the imports and the homies might be ugly for the home crowd. It’ll depend on how well organized the illegal gangs really are. I have family back there, but hopefully nobody is in the blast radius if things get sporty in Chicago.

        Liked by 1 person

        1. Henry Kissinger’s take on the Iran/Iraq war seems appropriate: “It’s a pity that both side can’t lose.”

          Unless it goes wide. Then Henry’s wish might come true.

          Liked by 1 person

          1. In case you haven’t noticed, those tips are getting round filed; dozens of blue cities simply don’t report that a crime occurred.

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            1. Yes, I am going to listen to Mr. “Your friends that work for law enforcement who say the opposite of what I keep insisting are going to murder you Any Day Now, starting most of a decade ago”.

              Over actual arrests.

              And cute on the pretending that blue cities are the whole country- guess that’s some shared ground with the Progressives for you.

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              1. ‘Blue’ cities are where almost all of the crime is, so when you’re talking crime statistics most of the country outside those ‘blue’ cities is of little consequence. Changing how crime is (or isn’t) reported in those ‘blue’ cities swings national crime statistics like nothing else can.

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                1. Somewhere on PJ media, I saw a bit where the “violent crime statistics” are “going down”, but the author noted that LA and one other large city never reported anything for that year. So, presto-chango, lowered crime stats!

                  Tips to Flyover Falls PD had an amazing response some years ago. The people infesting the large independent grocery story disappeared after a wave of FFPD walk-throughs. (First hand knowledge on this one, folks. $SPOUSE called it in after I was considering the “two to the chest, one to the head” drill in the store. The prospective target decided easier pickings were elsewhere.

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                    1. Well, in reality, Portland and Seattle are not the entirety of the US, and even in Portland and Seattle they are still arresting, charging, and sentencing people.

                      You can go check out Andy Ngo for reports on the arrest, charges filed, trial and sentencing of AntiFa and BLM “protesters.”

                      Which we’ve also been assured doesn’t happen.

                      Hm….who whos interest would it be to get everyone to believe that there’s no point at all in resisting? Gosh, I wonder.

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                  1. Says the guy who hates to give any kind of assertions that can be checked, because then it is disproven.

                    Yeah.

                    Evidence you don’t want to believe is totally gaslighting.

                    And I’ve been dead for years.

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                    1. I’ve provided literally hundreds of examples over the years, and you’re too dishonest to admit it. So now I just point out the gaslighting and laugh.

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                    4. Your obsession is noted. If I were similarly obsessed I’d have bookmarked your comments for cherry-picking too.

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                    5. Your obsession is noted. If I were similarly obsessed I’d have bookmarked your comments for cherry-picking too.

                      Snelson: goes out of his way and makes nasty accusations

                      Foxfier: provides evidence showing claims are incorrect and establishing pattern of behavior

                      Snelson: “Ew, you’re so obsessed, by continuing inability to give any kind of evidence that stands up to investigation is proof I’m right.”

                      Gaslighter.

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                    6. Of course, it’s absolutely on brand that a defender of overreaching law enforcement is keeping a dossier on people whose opinion she disapproves of……

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                    7. Aw, did I get in the way of your gaslighting, little blackpill?

                      Just like I’ve done when you make other claims that can be investigated, including when you want to make accusations of what I’ve said that on investigation are not true?

                      Guess things are only bad when YOU are not in control of them.

                      Just like executing people for failure to follow a doctor’s orders was perfectly fine, because the woman you wanted dead was accused of badthink.

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                    8. No, you didn’t get in the way; you made yourself a prime example of why people should never be trusted with positions of authority to give scope to their pettiness.

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                    11. Or we can go into where your claims about history were corrected by RES, specifically the creative notion that rational discussion means support of whatever you’re willing to talk about rather than scream slogans in response to.

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                    12. There’s definitely gaslighting going on.

                      It’s not the people willing to back up their assertions with evidence, or willing to look at what was said in the past and actually give links rather than making claims.

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        3. I suspect this is an attempt to manufacture the sort of violence that justified all sorts of restrictions, bans, and “emergency measures”.

          Plus, the whole scene is “Boast Culture”. Lots of big talk. Relatively minor, and usually nihilisticly pointless, actions.

          Then the “business” minded folks draw new lines. The spice must flow.

          Liked by 1 person

          1. No, it’s actually a continuous process that’s been going on for decades in every area that’s had a major settlement of invaders.

            There’s a reason Compton is no longer a black neighborhood. Note this is from 2013.

            https://www.latimes.com/local/la-xpm-2013-jan-25-la-me-0126-compton-20130126-story.html

            The local law enforcement is apparently unable/unwilling to act.

            And the same factors are everywhere. Look at what happened to Mayor Adams in NYC. He questioned the immigration narrative, and now he and his supporters are being selectively prosecuted to remind them that the new slaves are more numerous and valuable than the old slaves.

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              1. Looks for people with pinkie fingers pointed strangely. I loved me some Quinn-Martin TV shows. (IIRC, they did The Fugitive, long before Harrison Ford and Tommy Lee Jones came along.)

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            2. Most neighborhoods change over time, especially in cities, where new poor move in looking for work and old poor move up and out.

              Pittsburgh, for example. The “North Side” of my childhood is unrecognizable.

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              1. But having neighborhoods change peacefully is not what’s going on here. And that’s obvious. Pretending otherwise is gaslighting.

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        4. I think, though, that if things get bad enough? The home team gangs have the option of allying with the non-gang home team to fight back. (If not cops, then at least non-gang civilians. But I could even see allying with cops in some manner if it meant getting rid of the invaders)

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      3. Or my favorite Joker scene of all time:

        To Red Skull:

        “I may be a criminal psychopath, but I’m an AMERICAN criminal psychopath!”

        “Stay back, boys. This creep is MINE!”

        Like

    3. Heh. I keep imagining something along the lines of that scene from the Rocketeer, where the American gangster, upon realizing that the guy he was previously willing to work with is actually a foreign agent provocateur, declares that he may be a criminal, but dammit, he’s an AMERICAN criminal, and throws his (and the rest of his gang’s) lot in with the good guys.

      (Though in reality, I think it’s more along the lines of “Yeah, no, we were here FIRST, you’re not gonna cut into our profits”)

      Like

      1. “reality, I think it’s more along the lines of “Yeah, no, we were here FIRST, you’re not gonna cut into our profits””

        ………………..

        Well. Yes.

        OTOH Classic case of temporary sanity of the American gangs. I am 100% for American gangs running out foreign imports. American gangs still can be arrested for what illegal acts performed in America. But running out the foreign gangs where the police are impotent, isn’t one of them. As long as innocents aren’t caught in the crossfire.

        Like

        1. Sadly, since the gangs don’t care overmuch about catching innocents in the crossfire during their local conflicts, I don’t think that’ll happen–but yeah. I am all for them running out the foreign invaders. Innocents are going to die either way, most likely, but preventing an actual invasion is the lesser of the two evils.

          Like

  9. Read last night we will almost certainly have a longshoreman’s strike starting Tuesday. Biden has said he wouldn’t use the Taft-Hartley act to get a cooling-off period and the man I was reading said it was unlikely, to say the least, that Joe could announce he’d changed his mind, appoint a committee to study the conditions, prepare a case that a strike would be a national security issue and put it before a Federal judge to get an injuction in four days (now three). So the question becomes how long the strike lasts and how much damage it does. Ick.

    Does it seem to anyone else that Joe is, ahem, not cooperating with the Program? The Harris campaign keeps trying to distance themselves from his every decision, while he keeps tying her close. Almost like Hunter “forgetting,” his laptop and leaving it where it could be found and read.

    Liked by 2 people

    1. Toss in the Canadian port strike in British Columbia and it’s going to be a mess for a while. (Can’t truck enough grain cheap enough to the Great Lakes to ship via the Soo Locks. The prairie provinces are already making unhappy noises.)

      Liked by 1 person

    2. An actual strike would be an opportunity for Joe to completely -b(HONK!)k- the Donks. Harris would look stupid and weak if she tries to jump in and Biden doesnt “help position her for success”. If he does, it him solving not her and she again looks weak. And an active strike of more than a day or three is going to wreck stuff they cant fix by November.

      All the while Trump pointing out that he could get “such a great Deal!”

      Also highly suggests someone with the Longshormen have decided to go for broke, because their strike will totally b(HONK!)k the other unions by driving work offshore.

      There is a very strong chance for soem major Blue-on-Blue here.

      Liked by 1 person

      1. So Biden seems to be showing severe signs of Alzheimers/Dementia. A classic symptom of these is paranoia and spiteful behavior. And honestly in the Turnip in Chief’s case they were out to get them. On top of that the First Lady Edith II has been engaged in catfighting (my apologies to felines, they behave far better than that) since the point Harris was selected as VP.

        The Dems forgot a basic rule from Machiavelli “When You Strike At A King, You Must Kill Him”. The Dem’s issue was they didn’t dare use either the 25th amendment or the martyrdom of the Turnip in Chief by some “far right” person. They couldn’t because that would leave the VP holding the bag and she seems almost impossible to control as she isn’t bright enough to remember direction (or thinks she’s so competent she knows better classic incompetent idiot behavior). So they have this venomous old geezer and his squeeze lashing out left, right and center at Harris and anyone else they perceive as having caused his downfall. I almost wonder if they’ll try a martyrdom say late October perhaps 2 weeks before the election. That would let them pull Harris off the campaign trail(Highly desireable she is an AWFUL campaigner), have a state funeral for the Turnip in Chief to gin up sympathy, Let Kamala look Presidential without much to actually do, and with 2 weeks to go how much could Kamala screw up (don’t answer that !).

        Madam Hostess I apologize I just created a nightmare scenario while you will be out of the country. Here’s hoping the dem leadership is not as downright evil as I think they might be. Or at least that Von Bismark’s thought that the Author had special grace for America is true.

        Like

        1. Oh, they are plenty evil. The problem is they are not plenty competent. They can pull off big things, but they cant hide the toolmarks. They manage top keep folks distracted, but that eventually fails.

          And as a bucket of scorpions, doesn’t take much to get their own factions infighting. And it is looking like some other folks have finally figured that one out.

          Like

          2. My feelz is that we are talking about people with very finite information sources, and very low order estimates of consequences at best.

            I don’t think we can really predict two or three stages of them reacting. Anything they cannot anticipate is a surprise to them, and they might not know their freeze/fight/panic preferences, or the way they implement, until the event itself.

            I think we have a forecasting bias towards ‘high energy’ events.

            However, it might be that people are a little tired now, and would actually much prefer low energy reactions to high energy excitement. If the high energy can at all be avoided. My suspicion is that the opposition cannot forecast, plan, and prepare well enough to have closed off all low energy possibilities.

            But what do I know? Can I even make a good plan for Thursday? (1)

            (1) I tried, but I have not formed a conclusion about the results yet.

            Like

          1. Do me a favour, Sarah – take a coin or bill with you, with the intent to give it to charity on the way back. That way, you are enroute to perform a mitzvah, and thus protected.

            Liked by 1 person

            1. And also that this visit be pleasant please. It’s unlikely to, partly for political reasons and the last four years. BUT it’s likely due to age and world events to be the last time I see my parents.
              So, good memories only would be nice.

              Like

        3. …paranoia…

          Well, in Joe’s case, they really were all out to get him, and they did the Iulius Caesar Senate reenactment metaphorically on his reelection run, so there is that.

          ”Et tu, Pelosi?”

          …spiteful behavior…

          …and this is undemented classic Joe. He’s been a mean spiteful SOB of a politician since his lifeguard days.

          He’s just lost all the governing limiters that kept him from showing it all the time.

          Liked by 1 person

    3. Oh, he is 1000% not cooperating. This is honestly going to go down as one of the few “good” things Joe Biden has ever done in his long and sordid life, and I am cackling madly watching him do it. He is, of course, doing it all ENTIRELY out of spite (because he is a hateful little gnome), but boy, it could not happen to a more richly deserving bunch, lol. It’s VERY clear that he did not step down voluntarily.

      Liked by 2 people

  10.  But the thing is, for their time and place they were only slightly above average.

    There’s a bit of selection bias there, since they or their close ancestors had to pick up and move across an ocean to get here. Some were because they saw the potential, some were to get away from religious persecution, some wanted to make a new start and took an indenture to get here, some jumped on a ship because the girl got pregnant, some were sentenced to be sent here, and, like the first people to leave Africa, some were simply because they just could not abide one more day with their mother in law being on the same continent.

    But all of them that came over had to leave hearth and home, and that obviously meant something.

    Liked by 1 person

      1. Yes, okay, and there’s plenty of native bloodlines in everyone but Senator Lieawatha, but still, generally the sedentary everything-is-okay types, at least those who were not sentenced to be deported to the penal colonies here, stayed home.

        Liked by 1 person

        1. Naw. Not all of us. Extended family is working on 350+ years (~1645-ish). Almost 180-ish years (1843), just on the west coast. Far as I know, not a single native in the mix. Could be. But as far as I know we don’t.

          Liked by 2 people

  11. I’m just so very frustrated by the people we’re dealing with.

    I’m tired of watching them turn people I loved into grey-skinned zombies that can only speak the current Democratic cant.

    I’m frustrated that we’re getting far too close to a world where we’re going to have to solve a lot of these problems with blood.

    I’m angry that I’m having to fix all these things, because fixing these things isn’t what I want to do right now. I wanted to try and have relationships with people. I wanted to get published more. I wanted a lot of things. But our idiots have made it almost impossible to get anything done.

    Liked by 2 people

    1. II understand your anger. Mine will keep me warm this winter.

      I wanted a few more years of work then a retirement spent building radios and walking the dogs with the spouse.

      But now, I have to stain my soul helping clean up Their frickin’ mess. Mf’ers could have retired super rich a thousand times over, but they got “bored” and had to play ghod.

      Liked by 1 person

          1. Which they used as a theme in, Guardians of the Galaxy Pt 3. The High Evolutionary loses it and screams to his minions that there is no God, and that’s why he stepped in.

            Like

            1. My biggest disappointment with GotG3 wasn’t the lame-ass nineties/aughts pop they swapped in for “classic rock” in its soundtrack (that was about #2 or 3), but the complete missed opportunity to follow up GotG2 with something appropriately Zeus-like for Quinn (after his reenactment of the Fall Of Kronos myth against his filivoric° father Ego the Living Planet).

              ° eater of one’s sons.

              Like

        2. The Klingons decided theirs were annoying, so they killed them.

          Theologically a mess, but if one appends “pagan imposters”, it kinda works.

          Bustin idols.

          Liked by 1 person

          1. Reminds me of when Cohen the Barbarian gathered his Silver Horde for a last hurrah, and they headed off to the Hub, to return the gift of fire to the gods.

            The Horde were octa- and nonagenarians, athritic, largely deaf, going blind, and mostly crippled from battle.

            If the gods were smart, they would promptly un-ass from Dunmanifestin and hide.

            Liked by 1 person

      1. Having to look for a Plan B job and keep interviewing for that (and it has to be a City/County/State job to keep Dad happy, he does not like private industry, thinks it’s highly unreliable after the last few years), while trying to get the Plan A start-up going at my end, trying to write, trying to get into shape, trying to learn how to actually interact with people (another of Dad’s concerns, he’s known far too many people that have died alone, including two uncle-in-laws), and now this particular set of disasters that we have for government…

        I know, “interesting times” is a curse, but could my interesting times be something a little more of the good kind of interesting?

        Liked by 3 people

        1. Why are you obliged to limit yourself tot he blind spots of your father? He will get over it when you succeed. Build that bank account and asset list and “pension” is almost meaningless. A bankrupt city will gut pensions for the peons. Sure they can.

          He will guide you the best he knows how. Doesn’t mean he is -correct-.

          The “getting in shape” will help energy and mood. Finally improved my health to the point I can hit a gym. -Huge- improvement. Do it. Even a light regular workout habit pays huge dividends. Set the -habit- and collect the gains.

          Liked by 1 person

          1. Because I am living in his house and the cheapest place I can rent w/o roommates (and knowing nobody that I would want to be with other than family) is far outside any starting salary that I can get. So to maintain domestic harmony with my father, I have to look for a job with a government agency on the basis of union protection, a pension versus a 401K/RothIRA, health care, etc, etc, etc…

            I haven’t been able to hit the gym for the last week or so, but I have been walking our German Shepard five, six miles a day with a thirty-pound ruck so that helps a lot.

            Liked by 3 people

              1. It’s “maintaining domestic harmony” and if Plan A fails, I’ve got some possibilities in the pipeline. I didn’t do well after I lost my last two jobs-one case of driving myself into a panic attack just before Christmas after losing my job literally the Monday after Thanksgiving and another where I forgot how interconnected we are on the various Social Media apps (if you’re going to slag someone on LinkedIn, make sure you’re at a minimum safe distance beforehand. Out of the industry is a good indication of that distance).

                Liked by 1 person

            2. Union protection? Iffy at best these days, even government. Pension? Try again. These are now (more or less) employer 401(k)/Roth401(k); government shaded as PERS, self contributing with employer match percentage, but unless 5+ years, the matching must be vested by 20% of the match per year. Plus then can contribute to outside IRA/Roth. Oh, wait! Same as private employers …

              Hubby’s employer had a pension, then finally a 401(k) too. I had an employer pension for 7 years (just enough to be vested, now paying out $1455/year. No, not mistyped.) Plus 401(k). Subsequent employers just had 401(k)/SimpleIRA, depending on company size. All subsequently rolled into each of our private IRA’s started as soon as IRA were available. (ROTH. We each have one, neither very big. Never made sense financially to convert the IRA’s.)

              Private employees can belong to unions too. These days? Just as effective on protection for the employee as government unions. Not very.

              Liked by 1 person

              2. Dad believes. Mostly because he’s a retired cop and the reason why he’s even relatively well-off is because he was in charge of the police union that kept the City from retroactively pulling benefits from him and other retired officers.

                …look, right now I have a job. It’s a startup. The pay is irregular at times, but it does happen. If/when it takes off, the money will be impressive. I’m mostly doing what I’m doing to have a viable Plan B, just in case.

                Like

                1. Have plan, backup plan, oh s(HONK!)t plan, and “It all went to H-E-double-toothpicks” plan.

                  Skills, accumulate them. Pad the resume with volunteer work and oddjobs. Make connections, and leverage them. Make sure all your acquaintances know you are looking for better. An early job of mine came from an associate saying “I quit, boss, cant take y’all’s crap. But you might want to hire this guy, he is even more stubborn than me.” LOL. Yup.

                  My main gain was being willing to do almost anything that wouldn’t shame me to Mom and Dad, presuming the check cleared. And Cash is … discreet. Got paid to play glorified doorman and badge reader at a secure site. Installed email software at NASA. Grabbed an M-1 and guarded a panicked trade-show geek from a group of local hoodlums. Bartered IT geekery for medical services to a family member. Baby-sat a nervous bank manager with a crap-ton of money someone forgot to hand to the money truck folks.. All sorts of goofy crap jobs for money. Had some -really- amusing resumes for some odd jobs I sought.

                  But the “crap sandwich” rule generally applies. The more Bread one has, the less Crap one has to eat.

                  Liked by 1 person

          1. I should be a little more specific, i.e. “good for me interesting, not good for you interesting,” because if I’m not specific something interesting might happen and it might be something like cancer or the house burning down or somehow turning into a Japanese girl without any warning…

            Liked by 3 people

              1. The last could be incredibly embarrassing, and everyone would suddenly wonder why there was a sudden rush on clothing in the right sizes on Amazon and other online retailers and an influx of pretty ladies wearing men’s sweats that are far too large for their frames…

                Liked by 2 people

              1. “Just wanted to make sure, is that the number itself or the number of things or something like that?”

                “Specific number itself, single instance, in that order. The Boss doesn’t want to make it too easy, but He also realizes that if we try to play this game too deep, things go wrong and you’ll drive yourself mad trying to figure out things that aren’t there. We lost three Noahs that way.”

                “WHAT?”

                “How long can you tread water?”

                “…right…”

                Liked by 1 person

  12. In other news, the Mayor of New York City has been indicted by a Federal grand jury. The indictment is sealed, but speculation involves his election campaign and contributions from Turkey. And maybe Israel, Q.tar, Uzbekistan and a couple more…

    Liked by 1 person

    1. This is the sort of news that would be bad for any incumbent party’s chances of being re-elected and having it come out now can only be for one of two reasons-

      1-They weren’t going to keep it under wraps until after the election, so they got ahead of it by setting the indictment up now, and/or

      2-This is retaliation for Eric Adams’ plans to get the current overflow of illegal immigrants to New York to go anywhere else, because the Inner Party plans require thousands of illegals that are dependent on the government.

      Liked by 1 person

      1. Other item that is happening in NY State, is the repeal for President Trump on the civil suit “fine” by NY city was heard by the NYSC. Based on questions by judges, does not look good for NY city. Non legalese translations of the questions: “Loans taken were paid back, with interest. The private entities set property value, made the loans, and said they were happy with the outcomes. Who was harmed? How?”

        Liked by 1 person

    2. word is that Diddy Combs’s indictment was caused by a spark from this, or perhaps the other way. hard to tell. It’s been difficult to realize that they’re all utterly depraved.

      My home town is about to get it good and hard since the clown who would become mayor makes Bill de Bolshevik look like Edmund Burke.

      Off topic, lots of China news, fiscal bazooka and all that. It’s the perfect illustration of pushing on a string, but it’s making life exciting in the short term and might delay the full onset of recession here past the election — shocking — I give it three months to fizzle.

      Liked by 1 person

      1. I was wondering. When the WSJ starts talking about efforts to jump-start, “China’s faltering economy,” I notice.

        My beloved has noted the number of, “We’re headed toward economic catastrophe!” YouTubes is up, though he thinks most of them are, ahem, exaggerated. I have seen one, “It’s going to be really bad after the election,” tweet, but no (yet), “And this is why they’re running Harris, they want to lose so Trump takes the blame,” articles.

        Liked by 2 people

        1. Things are bad. Not end of the world bad, but bad. The mistake we all make is assuming it will be a sudden collapse and not a slow, grinding slide. I’ve made that mistake about China more than once, which doesn’t change the unfolding disaster there, just it’s timing and there’s a lot of ruin in a nation.

          The employment structure in the US has changed and the traditional metrics are both changed and manipulated. Severance pay changes a lot and the labor force still hasn’t recovered from the WuFlu lockdown. Hiring is down and if you lose a job you tend to not be able to find one, but new fires are not up and the headline number is a disaster because there’s nothing but model since response rates have plummeted , don’t get me started in all the economists that are abandoning long established measures since admitting we’re in a recession — we are — would give talking points Tom trump.

          All the China stimulus will do is spike the markets for a week or so followed by more inflation since it’s all just money printing with no addition to productivity. The money illusion illustrated, in fact. they have so much excess capacity, it’s ridiculous. If they push it too long then hyper inflation becomes a real possibility. Some of that would spread to the US because basic commodities will become more expensive. As of now, it’s a damp squib since Xi Jinping seems to have ADHD.

          Liked by 2 people

        2. China has been an ongoing disaster area for at least the last decade, and they are far overdue for bad times, especially considering the current leadership is in the “failing” part of the Mandate of Heaven.

          Xi wants to prove history wrong, take Taiwan, and make China the de-facto power in the world, replacing the United States.

          The problem is that China has hit limits that should be tearing it apart and its only careful economic manipulation that has kept it from happening…so far.

          Liked by 2 people

        4. Hitting too fast. At least locally. Already layoffs happening locally.

          Industries that, while needed supplies took longer to get, sailed through Obama years, 2020 – early 2024, are now letting people go. The want ads are still present, but instead of employers complaining of no-shows, either no applicants, or hired but at best last a few days, applicants are complaining of their applications being ghosted (nothing new, but new to these youngsters). Layoffs happening both in tech, and production areas. The incoming impending teamsters strike? Is not going to make things better.

          I suspect the usual democrat youngster crowd the democrats might find them thoroughly pissed by October (which is when mail in voting starts locally).

          Liked by 1 person

          1. There’s also the rise of “ghost jobs” (i.e. jobs that the company puts out, maybe interviews for, but never fills the position so that they can claim to “be hiring,” put pressure on employees to work harder for less, and maybe claim some tax benefits) and employers very much slow rolling even necessary hiring, which is hiding a lot of numbers as well.

            Liked by 2 people

      1. I have no doubt that, given a few minutes alone with a grenade, any cat worth its salt could figure out how to detonate it.

        Sarah: looks at grenade “Indiana Hoyt, bring me that Acme catalog, NOW!”

        Indy: “mewho, meee?”

        Liked by 1 person

        1. The brat did something to the automatic feeder. WE THINK he was trying to program it to dispense more often, but he turned it OFF.
          So this morning he kept dragging me to it, till I figure out WHY. Oh, we have reason to believe he used one of my art markers to get to the button, because paws aren’t suited.

          Like

  14. You and your readers might enjoy this true story of an event that happend in East Tennessee in 1946, “The Battle of Athens, Tennessee”.

    Fed up people finally had enough and did something about it.

    Like

      1. I think folks were plenty aware of it. Just no one here is gonna start nuthin. (smile)

        Plenty of “play” left in the system. No need to wreck things.

        Liked by 1 person

  15. Has anyone read the Glass Bead Game by Hesse. It does describe some of the elite disconnect we are now suffering through due to their “infinite wisdom”.

    Liked by 1 person

  16. A few random thoughts:

    CommieLa has been a politician her entire adult life. Lies and backroom deals are her bread and butter. What she’s been doing is saying whatever her minders think the voters need to hear to cast in her favor. Should she be seated next January she will most certainly revert to her well established radial beliefs and positions on immigration, gun control, and so on.

    The Israelies have demonstrated a mastery of their intelligence service capability for retaliation with the whole pager business on a micro scale. Iran has or very soon will have a working nuclear device without the ability to refrain from using it against their hated enemies, Israel being at the top of that list. It’s commonly believed that Israel has somewhere between 60 and 100 tactical nukes in their possession, and delivery systems capable of pinpoint precision. That green glass desert we all wished for immediately after 9/11 is still a distinct possibility.

    On an entirely different note, getting to a negative inflation rate is not only very unlikely but in the greater scheme of things unwise for any number of reasons. Prices for common goods on the other hand could be lowered quite easily by a reduction in the elements that contribute to total cost. A major component of that is the cost of energy required to extract the raw materials (minimg, farming, etc.), process that into finished goods, and transport said goods to market and consumer. Cost of energy is highly dependent on our use of fossil fuels as was proven during Trump’s first term. So it comes down to “drill baby drill” vs “fracking bad!”

    Liked by 1 person

    1. And what’s frustrating is that if (God forbid) it happens, so many people are going to be saying,: “But that’s not what I voted for! She said she was going to–”
      And the rest of us are going to be saying variations, on, “We tried to tell you….”

      Liked by 2 people

    2. No. The biggest single contributor to high prices, of everything, everywhere, is: TAXES!!!

      EVERYTHING is taxed, at every stage of every production process. The land is taxed. Digging a hole in it is taxed. All of the equipment used to dig the hole, and dig out the ore, is taxed. The trucks/trains/ships/barges that transport ore to smelters are taxed. The fuel is taxed. The ORE is taxed. The smelters, and the land they’re built on, are taxed. The metal is taxed. The workers are taxed, re-taxed, and taxed again. Every time a product or a dollar changes hands, it gets taxed.

      And all that tax money is used to oppress us.

      Like

      1. Some of that tax money is used to oppress us. Much is funneled to private coffers. A tiny bit is used to keep some of the roads and bridges from crumbling too fast for politicians to dodge blame.

        Liked by 1 person

      3. While I agree you have a point and taxes are a major portion of totals for goods and services, the cost of energy is something we can actually do something about. Two things that are embedded in every aspect of good and services from origin to final destination, energy and taxes. One has a workable solution to at least mitigate the overall cost, and news flash it ain’t taxes.

        Liked by 1 person

      4. Don’t forget the regulation tax, where government forces you to spend your money to do something someone else wants, instead of bothering with that pesky budget law and takings.

        Like

    3. “Tactical”? Certainly some of them. You can rest assured that a great many of them are all-up multi-stage thermonuclear weapons, with selectable yield for flexibility of employment.

      Our B-61, for example, is a plane-dropped bomb with selectable yield, from smallish tactical 0.3 kt to an enormous 400kt city-buster (exact numbers vary by specific model and purpose). A bit wasteful of materials on the low end, and utterly city-wasting on the upper end. it weighs about 750 pounds, so very portable.

      If the Israelis wanted to, they could have multi-megaton warheads, even three-stage 100MT monsters. They have had -plenty- of time to make whatever they felt was needed, and also to scatter them worldwide for a “Sampson’s exit” scenario. For example, some tramp freighter calls on an Iranian port, vaporizes it, and drives a radioactive tsunami 20 miles inland.

      The very dangerous problem, is that the cult currently running Iran is an Apocalyptic cult of Islam. The “twelfth Imam” types are working actively to usher in the end times as they see them. They do not believe they can possibly lose. “By any means necessary” on steroids.

      -Highly- likely Israel has contingency plans if they get hit with nukes. But as a tiny country, it would only take about four 50kt single-stage “boosted” weapons to essentially gut Israel. if those weapons were jacketed with the right materials, the result is persistent fallout, essentially extinguishing the area hit. Note two can play that game, and thermonukes work very much better for such mayhem than crude single stage weapons.

      Israel can get wiped, but can easily completely gut most any country short of huge ones like US/Russia/China. And if they really wanted to, they could do enough damage to a major nation to set it -way- back. They -appear- to lack large numbers of ICBMs. But the could easily have a sub or three loaded up with shorter range theater missiles or cruise missiles. or a set of freighters so equipped. FAFO is in effect.

      Iran needs local proxies to do the dirty work of eradicating Israel, or they get wrecked in retaliation. The problem is, Israel is well aware of who is playing puppet master, and if they are going down, have very biblical examples of taking their persecutors with them.

      US/Russia/China detente is based on rational actors. Iran essentially is missing a few chips on the motherboard.

      Like

  17. My morning coffee time is delightful today, reading Sarah’s thoughts and then the comments.

    This blog was a candle in the darkness to me back in 2020, when all seemed lost. A light that saved me from despair. The evil seemed transcendent, and then … Sarah, with her light held high. And then it just wasn’t me refusing to wear a mask, and refusing the jab, and refusing to hide about it. All of us little pebbles broke the system they were trying to create. I think it all started right here.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. It all started right here.

      I agree. The beautiful, but evil, space princess and the huns who follow her were the first source of outside the official channels of communication I discovered.

      Many thanks to all you all for that. Prayers up for our continued safety in these interesting times.

      As an aside, it’s being said that Mayor Adams is going down because of his involvement in the P. Diddy monstrosity.

      So the pizzagate story turns out to be another spoiler and not a conspiracy?

      Sad.

      Liked by 1 person

    2. I know the SAH analysis of the Diamond Princess outbreak, at the front end of the pandemic of jackbooted Chickens-Little, was a big piece of my arithmetic to say “This is not the health catastrophe we are being told to treat it as.” By the end of the Two-Weeks-To-Fatten-The-Curse, so late April/early May 2020, I refused to mask anywhere without explicit lawful orders. And it was nice knowing that the thing I was told to fear was no more than a terrible bother (and that my distrust of The Narratives was vindicated and shared).

      Of course, the number of otherwise-reasonable people who washed down the fearbait with extra Kool-Aid was often disheartening, but one must start somewhere.

      Liked by 1 person

  18. With the banking system hanging by a thread, our debt going ballistic, and the world on the brink of WWIII, its entirely possible they’ll let cackling Kamala, who everyone actually hates, lose (by not cheating enough to win). Then they’ll pull out the chocks that are barely holding things together to deliver a burning bag of dog$#!+ to DJT. Finally they will blame him for the mess they created, and do all they can to impede his actions and destroy him personally for four years. Plus, Josh Shapiro has no incentive to push her over the finish line since it would box him out for potentially 16 years. In summary: blame Trump for their catastrophe and clear the decks for new cabal leadership.

    Like

    1. I fully expect that, yes, BUT you must understand that the left is NOT COMPETENT. And that Trump…. probably is aware of this as well. Almost for sure. And has plans.
      Be not afraid. Spit out the black pill. You know where it’s been.

      Like

      1. The left has the advantages of interior position in our intellectual, entertainment, and legislative fields, and a willingness to do terrible things before decent people decide they have no choice but to do worse things in self-defense.

        Take away either of those advantages and they’re mostly the madmen mumbling on street corners, if they’re lucky.

        Liked by 1 person

    2. And when one considers just how many times Trump pulls gold out of turds, I am tempted to again say

      “Oh PLEASE brer Fox! Oh PLEASE brer Bear! Please DOAN throw me in DAT DERE briar patch! Oh NO suhs! PLEASE no!”

      (grin)

      Because Trump will make them all look like utter jackasses when he -does-turn it mostly around in less than four, leaving his successor to finish up some longer running bits.

      Good goofy loofas, look at what he did the first time around.

      China, for example, and the Weirdbeard Mullahs, are brownstorming their loincloths over the thought of Trump 47. They are -(HONK!)ed-, hard, if he wins. And they -know- it. (Can we get Mike L to send them pillows to bite? Just to be nice?)

      Liked by 1 person

      2. There’s not much left of Hezbollah. There are street celebrations going on across Lebanon and Syria.

        But what sort of “protests,” will take place here?

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  19. As an aside, Erick Erickson (who is begging people not to believe that Adams’ immigrant standing has anything to do with it because it’s not fair to demonize immigrants) says the indictment says Turkey donated to Adams’ election campaign in exchange for Adams pushing for Turkey to get a consulate in NYC.

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    1. Erick Erickson has been a GOPe squish for as long as I’ve been aware of him (2009). In this case, he’s (deliberately?) confusing the motive of the charges (Adams immigration heresy) with the mechanism of punishing him.

      There’s probably not a single Democrat who couldn’t be prosecuted for corruption, but Adams was somehow a priority? Pull the other one.

      Liked by 1 person

  20. I agree with Sarah – no matter who wins in November … it’s gonna get spicy.

    I THINK that the red or reddish state small towns and rural areas will escape the worst… but if Trump wins, the anti-trumpists will be insane with fury. If Kamala-walla-bang-bang wins, she and whoever is supporting her will overstep catastrophically; probably by trying to exert heavy-handed federal authority over something that a state will resist … and then it will be ‘game on.’

    Yeah, clothes-weapons-dark.

    Liked by 2 people

  21. I can’t believe no one has mentioned this given the high number of scifi geeks here. The ULTIMATE “trend of history” was from Asimov – Foundation – Hari Seldon – Psychohistory!

    Like

  22. I can’t believe no one has mentioned this given the high number of scifi geeks here. The ULTIMATE “trend of history” was from Asimov – Foundation – Hari Seldon – Psychohistory!

    Like

  23. I can’t believe no one has mentioned this given the high number of scifi geeks here. The ULTIMATE “trend of history” was from Asimov – Foundation – Hari Seldon – Psychohistory!

    Like

    1. But as it turns out, Psychohistory required a Secret Order dedicated to “make the proper history” to come about.

      IE: Asimov had to create the “Second Foundation” to make Psychohistory work. [Very Big Twisted Grin]

      Liked by 1 person

  26. I’ve said this before, but I think it’s worth repeating. Whatever it is that leads to mass problems (resistance, riots, shooting of gun confiscators, whatever it ends up being) is going to be something that is seemingly small, has happened before, and for no apparent reason causes a mass reaction.

    The “Haitians eating pets” thing _could_ have been it. People are being killed (with cars) and no one seems to care. Pets are killed and it’s “news” everywhere. If John Wick had lived in Springfield, his rampage – or the police shooting him while the illegal who killed his dog walks – might have done it.

    It will be something like that. It won’t be the election results, per se. It might be something that happens due to something that happens because of the election results, though. Same thing with a Trump assassination – the most likely violent result of which that I see is snipers taking out Democrats and bureaucrats (birm) and I don’t see that as very likely. (Is there a word for grim/morbid schadenfreude?)

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Nope. We are all just Peaceful Good Citizens, here. If we don’t win this one, we work on winning the next one. “Winners Never Quit” and all that.

      And we wont ever quit. Ever.

      (grin)

      Liked by 1 person

    2. What I envision as knocking the spice jar over is some poor schlub getting raided by the Authorities – and then, instead of the poor schlub shooting back at the Authorities (and getting stomped) the poor schlub’s neighbors shoot the Authorities IN the back.

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  27. Apropos of elections have consequences, the German Green Party leaders have all resigned, and the party will have to find new ones at the big meeting in November. Why this matters is 1) they have been spanked in their usual strong districts this year, and 2) it makes the Chancellor have to work a lot harder to keep the “Anyone but AfD” coalition together so he can form a government.

    Möchten Sie mehr Popcorn haben?

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    1. [Kickstarts mumble decades old memories, sighs, and goes to Collins on shelf to confirm]
      Ja, ein Bisschen mehr, bitte. Danke sehr.

      (My unicode skills are nil. Ess-szet ain’t gonna happen. Nor umlauts. :) )

      Like

  28. And the story is out that China’s newest nuclear sub sank several months ago and it’s just coming out.

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  29. The real problem here is that none of the commie/lefty/lib/elites(BIRM)have been taken to task in a permanent way in so long that they think/feel that they are truly invincible. But should an untoward event befall Trump, should he be it by a car. . . (see Godfather for the rest)

    And when the rude awakening begins they will no doubt go to the wall like good little Bolshies, complaining that if if only commiela or barry-o, or soros, or etc. . . knew it would all get fixed. In the mean time the ones NOT going to the wall will be ruthlessly hunted by the other side. After that it’s liable to get ugly.

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  30. MSG A-Walz, under whose intrepid dereliction th@áe Minnesota capital burned in the name of Fentanyl Floyd, for the first role of the nursery rhyme. The half-baked harridan Harris follows, then the senile wax-faced guy trying to ban natural-gas lighting and cooking (thus selling more candlesticks).

    But each of them could qualify as any of them.

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