Tuesday, January 31, 2023

It's Teh Covid, See??

For some reason or other.....

...By the second year of the pandemic [2022], heart attacks for the 45-64 age group increased by 19.6% and for the 65 and older group had increased by 13.7%. However, it was the youngest age group [25-44] that had the highest increase of nearly 30%....--quoted at Vox

2022.  Hmmmm.  Isn't that the year when Teh Vaxx was fairly widespread?

But it's NOT THE VAXX, DAMMIT!!!

Whose "Culture," Ms. Mace?

McCarthy wants to toss the brother-marrier/immigration criminal off a House committee.  This rebuke, by some rather ignorant dame from South Carolina, is offered:

“I think we have to be very careful about what we are as a constitutional republic. I am not a fan of Ilhan Omar. She’s an anti-Semite. She’s a bigot. She’s a racist. She’s a socialist. But that doesn’t mean that we cancel people in this country. Republicans don’t stand for cancel culture. And that’s essentially what this is.”  --Nancy Mace

Quoted at Ace's place.

There are certain things which should be 'cancelled,' Nancy-poo.  One of them is Islam, which has been warring on Christians (and Buddhists, too!!) for about 1300 years.  But that's real 'kulturkampf', obviously something you don't understand.  

You should try reading up on 'cult' which to literate people is the root of the word 'culture,' Nancy-poo.

"Republicans" who 'don't stand for cancelling this illegal-immigrant Muslim terrorist' are not really 'Republicans.'  They are actually the slattern consorts of such as Omar.

That's what you want, Nancy-Poo??

Monday, January 30, 2023

RoJo Truth-Tells on Ukraine

Wauck found this in a podcast from an Englishman.

Christoforou leaves the last word to Ron Johnson, who had just come out of a secured briefing on what's going on in Ukraine. Johnson wanted to talk about budget matters, but in response to a reporter's question he tersely stated:

    "We just came from a secure briefing on that. Um, the question I had was, How are we gonna change the dynamics on the field? Um, so, I certainly wanna support the people of Ukraine, but at some point in time we're gonna hafta start recognizing what the reality on the ground is."

Boom. Exit stage right. Johnson just blew right through that WaPo nonsense about a “stalemate”.

Of course Johnson feels compelled to maintain the pretense that this is Ukraine's war. But we all know what he's saying: The dynamics and the reality on the ground are that Russia is winning and is in no particular hurry to stop the winning any time soon. How can the US--the real power behind the war on Russia--change those dynamics? By recognizing what the reality on the ground is. In other words, by accepting defeat and entering into negotiations with Russia on terms of equality.
The reality on the ground is that this party's over and we're going to have to buy titanium ore at market prices instead of stealing it from Ukraine's mines.

Sunday, January 29, 2023

Carbon Footprint? Hold Muh Beer!

Insty comes up with the most interesting stuff.

According to a 2006 two-year study by UCLA, the Hollywood film and television industry produces more air pollution in the five-county Los Angeles region than almost all of the other five sectors studied. In other words, Hollywood creates more pollution than individually produced by aerospace manufacturing, apparel, hotels, and even semiconductor manufacturing. Only the petroleum industry and its fuel refineries contributed more emissions.

The study also found that the industry produced 140,000 tons of ozone and diesel particulate emissions per year.  --Instapundit quoting Oil Price.com

Stuff that up your pipe, Jane Fonda.

FDA Covers Pfizer's Ass

You knew something like this would happen.

Pfizer was supposed to complete a study on the occurrence of subclinical myocarditis, or heart inflammation, after receipt of its COVID-19 vaccine. The completion date was listed by the FDA in 2021 as June 20, 2022. Pfizer was also supposed to submit the results of the study to the FDA by the end of 2022 as part of a list of requirements the FDA imposed as a condition of approving Pfizer’s jab.

But after the deadline passed, the FDA quietly changed the date.

Under a list of postmarketing requirements for the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, the FDA now says the same study has an “original projected completion date” of June 30, 2023.

The current status of the study is listed as “pending.”

The FDA and Pfizer did not respond to requests for comment....

What 'comment' could they make?  "Yah, FDA is covering our butt"?  Or this:  "FDA makes whatever rules we damn well want to make.  Sit down and STFU!!"

At least those are honest.

Maritain and Recent Popes vs. Aquinas and Cultural Nationalism

A thought-provoking essay at The American Conservative (PJB's old hangout).

The author, Krzysztof Tyszka-Drozdowski, reviews Rome ou Babel: Pour un christianisme universaliste et enracinĂ© by Laurent Dandrieu, which notes that the new 'theology of migration' espoused to one degree or the other by Popes since John XXIII is founded on Maritain's 'personalism.'   While Francis I is by far the most extreme on the matter of mass migration and Benedict XVI is the least so, the concept has been around for quite some time.

...The consideration of the issue exclusively from the point of view of migrants, without taking into account the societies that receive them, can already be seen in Pius XII's apostolic constitution, Exsul Familia. The questions of how the scale of migration or cultural background of the newcomers affects host societies are absent in it.

Catholicism's globalist turn begins in earnest in the 1960s. John XXIII saw mass immigration as a sign of a new era, and in his encyclical Pacem in terris argues that the current evolution of the world requires global institutions to govern the world. Despite the fact that he developed his own theology of nations, John Paul II also regarded mass migration as a process that, as he proclaimed on the occasion of World Day of Migrants in 1987, would create “a new world… founded on truth and justice.”...

The book's author, Dandrieu, points to Babel as the origin of this globalism.  He's correct.

Previous Popes disagreed with this globaloney-think.

...Leo XIII, [...] argued in Sapientiae Christianae that we owe special fidelity and love to the homeland into which we were born. Pius X did not hesitate to put it more bluntly: “If Catholicism were an enemy of the homeland, it would not be a divine religion.” The globalist unity of the Tower of Babel, Dandrieu claims, should be countered by Catholicism's rooted universalism: the spiritual unity of nations anchored in their cultures.

Now to Maritain:

 ...Dandrieu points to personalism [as the root of the problem]. This intellectual current has detached Catholicism from the notion of the common good, shifting the focus to the individual. While the ideas of Jacques Maritain and his disciples sought to criticize liberalism, they inadvertently led to its triumph within the church. In a personalist vein, John XXIII defined the common good as “safeguarding the rights and duties of the human person,” thus disregarding its inherently communal dimension, central to St. Thomas’s thought and to the whole classical Catholic tradition. Absent an anchor in the common good, personalism has degenerated into subjectivism, providing the intellectual and moral conditions for the utopian pipe dream of a united humanity. ...
Of course, 'the common good' and 'immigration' are not necessarily opposed, and Francis' description of Europe as 'a grandmother in need of new blood' is not entirely silly; Italy, Germany, and France's birth rates are effectively depopulating those countries.  If there is no immigration, there will be no one to pay for the grave-diggers.

...The Catholic Church's attitude toward immigration, especially under the pontificate of Francis, seems purely romantic. It takes into account neither any real limitations of states nor of national communities called to absorb all “the wretched of the Earth.” It provides moral "intoxication” to the faithful and hierarchy, denies the constraints of the “here and now,” and represents, in essence, a rupture within the tradition of Catholic doctrine, undermining one of the most crucial rights to which nations are entitled—the right to continuity....

"Romantic."  He means "unrealistic."  

PJ Buchanan's thinking on the matter of immigration was simple and clear.  He maintained that immigration was a good thing, so long as the immigrants were from a Judaeo-Christian culture.

Yep.  Religious discrimination.  But remember this Iron Rule of Civilization:  "Cult" is parent to "Culture" which is parent to "Politics."  PJB knew that very well, and understood that importing millions of Muslims, or Shintos, or Buddhists, would Balkanize the US.

No mere politician ever looked at culture as a screening device for immigration, of course.  They're either incapable of the thinking or totally devoid of courage.  Or both.  

You got what you paid for.

Kilmeade Revives the Old Domino Theory. It's Still Stupid.

The military-industrial (War War!!) complex sold US involvement in Viet Nam by using the 'domino theory':  if the Commies take South Viet Nam, they'll take everything else in SE Asia.  Everything. Then they'll move on the Philippines, then Hawaii, and then California.  (They got California.)

Kilmeade ran the same specious argument against Sen. J.D. Vance the other day.  For whatever historically-uninformed reason, Kilmeade thinks that Ukraine should have Crimea in perpetuity and Russia should be forcibly evicted, otherwise Russia will take over all the rest of Ukraine, then Belarus, Hungary, Poland, Germany, and New York State (which is already Communist.)

What Kilmeade did NOT articulate was any good reason that the US should give a flying damn about that dispute.  We didn't give a damn in the 1800's, nor the 1900's, for good reason:  there's nothing in this for the US.  Nothing.

What IS in it?  A lot of money for lots of US military contractors and a small group of politicians.

Kilmeade's not part of that group, is he?

Jason Whitlock Drops a Bomb re: Memphis

Whoah!  Jason Whitlock's analysis of Memphis is the nuke bomb.

...Jason Whitlock, host of the “Fearless” podcast, said the actions of the five Memphis Police Officers charged with the murder of Tyre Nichols were a reflection of the breakdown of the family.

According to Whitlock, the beating was a clear-cut case of illegality by the accused law enforcement officers. However, it also appeared to represent the culture of single mothers who have risen to leadership posts in many American cities.

“They don’t want us focused on reality. Hey, if they want to devote an hour of coverage to this and weekend coverage of this, and they want to take us to a good place, I would examine the racial element of this because there is a racial element. And this is a story about young black men and their inability to treat each other in a humane way. Everybody involved in this on the street level was either 24 to 32 years old, everybody. It was a group of young black men, five-on-one. It looked like gang violence to me. It looked like what young black men do when they’re supervised by a single black woman, and that’s what they’ve got going on in the Memphis Police Department.

“They’ve elected some — put some black woman in charge of the police force, and we are getting the same kind of chaos and disunity and violence that we see in a lot of these cities that are run by single mothers,” Whitlock continued. “If we want to discuss the breakdown of family that leads to disrespect for authority that causes you to resist the police and run from the police and not comply with the police because you resist authority at all time because there was no male authority in your home, let’s have that discussion.”...

Whitlock voices what a lot of people know:  the family needs a dad.  Once the State becomes the daddy, bad things happen.  What Whitlock did NOT say was that there are pathologies in white single-mom families, too.  

Expect that Whitlock will be under siege for the rest of his life.

Saturday, January 28, 2023

Who Ordered New Fighter Jets?

You know that Zelenskiy has demanded that the US provide fighter jets, right?  In case you don't get it yet, Zelenskiy and the military-industrial complex control the US government.

And you know that Zelenskiy owns the Biden Crime Family; the military-industrials own Congress.

What you never heard is that the US is going to provide those fighter jets.

Lockheed is 'ramping up production' according to the Financial Times of London?  (Go to 36:00 on the video here.)

Lockheed is not run by some Las Vegas gamblers.  They aren't going to lose money.

Someone has already placed the order.

How Things Work in D.C.

Courtesy WRSA:

Patrick Buchanan

PJBuchanan has retired from public life, after a public life very well-lived.  We were fortunate to meet him and spend a bit of time hustling votes for him during the '92 primary...........egads.........that was THIRTY years ago.

Another fellow writes:

...Pat Buchanan stands head and shoulders above the other political men of these last few generations for a simple reason: He has been, since the era of Richard Nixon, a man in the arena who knew and thought the things that American men have known and thought since the founding of the country.

The productive jobs with which American men once supported families and built an empire should not be sold by global oligarchs to third-world wage slaves for pennies on the dollar.

The vibrant factory and farming towns that once dotted the continent from coast to coast cannot be left hollowed out and rotting, nowheres for the heroin-addled sons of American stock to live and die and kill in without ever darkening the doors of churches in whose overgrown yards their ancestors are buried.

Once-great cities like Detroit, Chicago, New York, and San Francisco cannot be allowed to crumble while violent criminals rule their streets and untold millions of dollars flow from American workers’ hard-earned wages to the federal government’s unjust taxes and then to the pockets of grifter activists and crooked politicians.

When the border is a warzone; when enough drugs to kill the whole population are trafficked by organized cartels while the federal government sits on its hands; when American labor cannot keep up with illegal competition, we do not have a country.

American boys should not be sent to die in the deserts and mountains of foreign lands for causes that have nothing to do with them, or with their country, or with their faith—to lay down their lives in service to an order that does not know their names, that does not know any better than they do why they have to go.

American children should not be compelled in state-run schools to spit on the graves of their forefathers.

The natural and moral law written immutably at the moment of creation was not overturned by human powers in 1973, or in 2003, or in 2015.

These are a few of the simple truths Buchanan has affirmed, week after thankless week, no matter how far or how quickly they fell out of popular favor....

It is true that Donald Trump took a number of those ideas and re-floated them, leading to his success in the '16 election and his success in the '20 (which was stolen.)

That theft leads to the question:  Who Benefits when Buchanan's and Trump's ideas are forcibly removed from the table?

When we learn the answers, there will be (brief) trials before the executions commence.  And don't give me that "violence is evil' crap while you live a privileged life, existing in a country created by violence, jackwad.

Group Life's Covid Payout

One common work benefit is "group life insurance."  This is usually a term life insurance policy, often paid for by the employer, in a relatively small amount like $10,000.00  The policy limits can be enhanced if you wish to do so.

The group life insurers are taking a beating.  And--by the way--employers who had "Vaxx or Be Fired" policies are constructively guilty of involuntary homicide.

...In 2021...group life payments exploded by 20.7% over the five year average and by 15% over the acute pandemic year of 2020. Why would healthy young and middle-age people suddenly begin dying in large numbers in 2021 when they’d navigated 2020 with relative success?...

We do not know what role Covid played in the jump, as that number has been extremely hard to obtain.

But there is a suspect out there:

...As you will remember seeing in our three all-cause charts, August, September, and October of 2021 showed a gigantic upward bubble – the worst ever period of concentrated young and middle-age deaths, at least in modern times.

Heart attacks, strokes, pulmonary embolisms, accidents, and many seemingly-inexplicable sudden deaths, which continued into 2022, and now in 2023....[Graphic at the link]

... the group life insurance data show vaccinated groups may have suffered the worse outcomes. By August, most large and mid-size companies and organizations across the country had vaccine mandates, and most employees complied. Yet these workers suffered extraordinary – indeed, totally unprecedented death rates – in 2021, especially the second half of 2021....

 That's one way to cut payroll costs, eh?

Trump Makes Wrong Promises on Education

The twice-elected President of the US, Donald Trump, has issued a deeply-flawed statement about education.

...First and foremost, Trump pledged to “cut federal funding for any school or program pushing critical race theory, gender ideology, or other inappropriate racial, sexual, or political content onto our children” and noted that he would direct the “Department[s] of Justice and Education to open civil rights investigations into any school district that has engaged in race-based discrimination.”...

Further (quoting from Trump's statement):

... on day one, we will begin to find and remove the radical zealots and marxists who have infiltrated the federal Department of Education, and that also includes others, and you know who you are, because we are not going to allow anybody to hurt our children. Joe Biden has given these lunatics unchecked power. I will have them fired and escorted from the building, and I will tell Congress that any appropriations bill I sign must reaffirm the president’s ability to remove defiant employees form the job. It’s all about our children. ...

Trump has a grip on the 'right thing.' but his love of top-down governance is a major problem.

What he should do?  Far more simple and guaranteed to work the first time:

Eliminate the Department of Education, whole and entire.  Education is the province of the States, not the Feds, Donald.  Read the Constitution!  Save a lot of time, money, and angst, Donalddump DoEd into the Atlantic.

Surprise!! +McElroy Endorses Sin!

There can be little doubt that today's 'regular-Joe' Catholic is disappointed and perhaps a bit stressed about the condition of the Roman Catholic Church.  Aside from a Pope who likes idolatry (PachaMaMa) and is on--if not over--the edge on sexual morals, we in the US also share a problem with Germany:  outright contradiction of Catholic moral teaching and sacramental discipline by prominent Bishops and Cardinals.

Latest:

...One of America’s top liberal bishops [McElroy/San Diego] is ramping up his attacks on Catholic teaching and tradition, insisting that homosexuals and remarried couples in “objectively grave sin” be allowed to receive the Eucharist and that women be admitted to the diaconate....

It is true that +McElroy lacks imagination and is perfectly happy to be third or fourth in the Race to Schism; he's not a man of intellectual gifts nor of courage--he's just another also-ran in the Brave New World of Progressive race.

But he is a favorite of the current Pope.

Refer back to paragraph one of this post.

Then pray.  Hard.

Dump China's PNTR!!

 We are happy to note that several US-Patriot Republican Senators (by definition that excludes Mitch McConnell) have introduced a bill to strip PNTR status from Red China.  (See post below for history.)

...The China Trade Relations Act, which would strip China of its PNTR, was filed by U.S. Sens. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., Rick Scott, R-Fla., Ted Budd, R-N.C., and J.D. Vance, R-Ohio.

If passed, according to the bill language, it would revert China’s Most Favored Nation (MFN) status to a pre-2001 designation, requiring its status to be renewed every year by the president with congressional approval. The bill would give Congress the authority to override a presidential extension of MFN status by passing a joint resolution of disapproval....

Where is Ron Johnson?

G W Bush's Biggest Error?

G W Bush is justifiably reviled for his inane invasion of Iraq, which gave Iraq back to Moslem extremists and utterly failed to "spread democracy" all over the Middle East.

Was that his biggest error as President?

How about "Permanent Normal Trade Relations" with Red China?

...Granting PNTR to China will signal to the world that the United States has, in effect, abandoned the cause of putting worker rights and environmental standards on the agenda of international trade and financial institutions....

 ... The U.S. trade deficit with China continued to rise throughout 1999, reaching almost $70 billion by year’s end. A $70 billion trade deficit translates into a loss of almost 900,000 jobs in industries producing “tradable” goods.1 On its current trajectory the trade deficit will double over the next 10 years.   The largest contributors to the trade deficit with China have been industries that produce apparel, toys, and footwear, with imports in these areas having grown by 60% in the last five years. The next largest contributor to the trade deficit has been the machinery and transportation equipment industry, where imports in the same period have grown almost 140% (Scott 1999).   The new China-U.S. trade pact – even if fully and faithfully implemented by both sides – would aggravate this trend....

 ...At some point, the United States will have to force a reduction in its trade deficit. Already the trade deficit has been cited by Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan as one of the growing economic “imbalances” that has prompted him to slow down the economy with higher interest rates (Reuters 2000). Reducing the trade deficit will involve some combination of a substantial depreciation in the dollar, a forced increase in the domestic savings rate, a prolonged period of domestic austerity, and a restructuring of U.S. trade policies to reduce imports and stimulate exports.   Trade with China now represents one-fifth of the United State’s total trade deficit, and it is certain to keep growing whether or not the U.S. Congress approves the China trade deal.  [It is currently about FORTY percent.]...

Bush, whose family has been very friendly with Red China interests for a few decades, can't take ALL the blame for this; Clinton's regime was pushing hard for PNTR/WTO-Love for Red China, too.

Come to think of it, that makes the case that the Deep State and very large money are most likely the root causes for the US giving up its industrial base, its pharmaceutical manufacturing, tens of thousands of family-supporting jobs, and its leadership on real civil rights.

Other than that, pal, how's your day going?

NOT From the "Visit Milwaukee" Committee

Isn't this just wonderful??

Milwaukee police have sent out a 'Situational Awareness Bulletin' warning of a crime trend in the downtown entertainment area.

Police say armed robberies and entry to autos are happening between the hours of 4 p.m., 7 p.m., 11 p.m. and 2 a.m. possibly driving stolen Kia's and or Hyundai's and targeting personal property of other vehicles.

Police recommend parking in well lite areas with cameras, not leaving valuables in your vehicles. 

IOW, don't go downtown.

P.S.:  We think Channel 12 should consider hiring a copy writer who is familiar with the English language and is able to read MPD releases.  For that matter, MPD should consider hiring someone who knows the difference between "plural" and "possessive" diacritical marks.


Friday, January 27, 2023

Book Review: The Music of Christendom

 The Augustine Institute and Ignatius Press have published The Music of Christendom by Susan Treacy.  (Ignatius Press:  San Francisco, 2021 ISBN978-1-950939-24-4)  This will be a very brief review.

Prof. Treacy (emerita, Ave Maria U) holds a Ph.D. in Historical Musicology and degrees in music from Oberlin and Manhattan School of Music.

The book's title promises a lot; after all, the music of Christendom has been around for 2000 years or so, not counting the music of Chant which was allegedly founded in Temple chant going back another several hundred-plus years.

But the promise is not well-fulfilled.  Dr. Treacy's 211-page offering appears to be a typescript of a first-semester music course.  It mentions many of "The Names," of course:  Bach, Beethoven, Viadana, Dufay, DesPrez (etc.) right through current-day writers such as MacMillan and Tavener.  

But the narrative she gives on them is very frustrating.  Treacy mentions 'significant compositions' of each of them, and even tells the reader of the construction of the pieces, such as how the harmony works (etc.) but does not provide a screen-shot of the score for the reader.  One suspects that Treacy would use her classroom CD player to illustrate her points for students, perhaps in conjunction with screen-shots of the score.

She tends to be heavy on the biographies of the composers (another clue that this may have been a semester's outline).  To this reviewer, that was superfluous.

It is startling that Treacy never mentions Benjamin Britten.  Britten definitely wrote 'music of Christianity' and his War Requiem has been praised as the most significant choral-orchestral work of the 20th Century.  Yet no mention of the composer, the Requiem, or--for that matter--his Ceremony of Carols, which is a favorite of college choirs everywhere. But she does bring up Messaien, a French composer of...........ahhhhhh.........problematic music.  It's difficult to hear and difficult to enjoy--but Dr. Treacy likes it a lot.

In sum:  Dr. Treacy's book will be most useful for high-school or first-year college 'music survey' courses, or for someone who was trained in another discipline but would like to learn about Western music as a whole.  We can hope that Ignatius and Dr. Treacy will bring forth a CD which consists of the music she discusses (even just the appropriate snippets) to make the offering much more complete.

Wednesday, January 25, 2023

Friends of Soros Populate the MSM

When you drop $32 BILLION or so 'making friends,' you can buy befriend some big fish.

Lester Holt/NBC, Christiane Amanpour/CNN, Margaret Brennan/CBS, Fareed Zakaria/CNN, Sally Buzbee/WaPo Exec Editor, Cesar Conde/NBC Universal Chairman, John Lansing, CEO/PBS, Angie Holan, Editor-in-Chief/Politifact, Julie Pace, Exec Editor/AP, and Allessandra Galloni, Editor-in-Chief/Reuters.

If you were surprised by any of this, you should be wearing the Dunce-of-Shame cap for at least the next 12 months.

If you actually believed anything you read or heard on any of those outlets, you can join Dunce-of-Shame.

And all of you should lose the right to vote.


Shaping the "News"

Little Local Pravda tells you that the price of natural gas is going down.

That's true--as far as it goes.

But if you look at the chart they provide, you'll notice that the price has doubled since Biden "became President."

They didn't tell you that, and hope you don't notice.


Tuesday, January 24, 2023

Now Comes a Bush-China Problem

You always knew, in the back of your mind, that this was a possibility.

Another Washington Free Beacon sleuth, Chuck Ross, reports federal money is going to the George H.W. Bush China Foundation, which has close ties with the China-United States Exchange Foundation.

Ross explains:

“According to federal spending records reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon, the State Department in September gave $180,076 to the George H.W. Bush China Foundation, which has partnered with the China-U.S. Exchange Foundation, an organization that promotes the interests of Beijing and the Chinese Communist Party. The China-U.S. Exchange Foundation donated $5 million to the Bush China Foundation, a significant portion of its annual revenue, in 2019, Axios reported.

“The Bush China Foundation’s ties to the China-United States Exchange Foundation make it an odd choice for the government grants, which are meant to advance ‘U.S. foreign policy goals.’ The China-United States Exchange Foundation is a top organization in the Chinese government’s United Front system, which the Chinese Communist Party uses to influence foreigners in favor of Beijing’s policies.

You really should not be surprised.

Pence Had His LAWYER Search the House??

"Mr. Clean" apparently is not so clean.

 A lawyer for former Vice President Mike Pence discovered about a dozen documents marked as classified at Pence’s Indiana home last week, and he has turned those classified records over to the FBI, multiple sources familiar with the matter told CNN.

The FBI and the Justice Department’s National Security Division have launched a review of the documents and how they ended up in Pence’s house in Indiana.
...--CNN quoted at Last Refuge

So Mike paid his LAWYER to dig through boxes in his basement?

Something about that story does not pass the smell test.

J6 "Official" Story Falling Apart

It's bad enough that a Capitol Cop murdered (2nd degree) an unarmed demonstrator.

But now it appears that the Clueless Cap Cops also gassed themselves.  (Video at the link)

...body camera footage from a D.C. Metropolitan police officer on duty that day raises serious doubts about the government’s claims and the Times’ face-saving story about what happened to Sicknick. In fact, the video shows how police, not protesters, gassed their fellow officers with chemical spray. Stricken officers, including Sicknick, appear to seek aid and shelter from the toxic gas, causing the collapse of a security line on the west side of the building.

This six-minute clip from Officer Daniel Thau’s body camera shows the accidental discharge of a 40-millimeter canister of a chemical irritant around 2:25 p.m. on January 6. Thau ordered Officer Richard Khoury to aim a launcher with the canister at protesters assembled on scaffolding erected for Biden’s inauguration. “Fire it up in the air,” Thau instructed Khoury. “Just fucking shoot.”

 But Khoury misfired. “What the fuck?” he asked. A large cloud of chemical powder fell short of the scaffolding and instead enveloped a crowd of officers standing on the northern end of the west side of the Capitol. Officers coughed and gasped for air; some were bent over in pain. 

The gas cloud quickly traveled southward to where Sicknick was stationed, propelled by a brisk 18-mile-per-hour wind out of the north in Washington on January 6....

Sicknick died as a result of two strokes which occurred the day after the disturbance (1/7.)

Come to think of it, aren't strokes one of the side-effects of The Vaxx?

 

"Gutsy" Pubbie Move? Nope.

This vignette tells you just how useless the Republicans really are.

...Biden has put our national security at risk by depleting the [Strategic Petroleum Reserve] to the lowest level in almost 40 years. 

What Republicans were introducing was a bill that would stop them from robbing our savings account for political reasons, not voting to raise prices. As we noted, the bill would require the Energy Department to develop a plan to increase the percentage of federal areas leased for gas and oil production before releasing oil from the reserve....

"Develop a plan".

Not "Lease More Land NOW"; not even "Lease More Land by Year-End."

Nope.

"Develop a plan".

Are there any Republicans who are genuine MEN?

Oh, NO!! Canada!!!

Egads and little fishes.

New alcohol guidelines recommending that Canadians limit themselves to just two drinks a week – and ideally cut alcohol altogether – have prompted intense debate over risk versus enjoyment in a country where the vast majority of adults regularly consume alcohol.

The Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction (CCSA) this week called for a substantial reduction in consumption, warning that seemingly moderate drinking poses a number of serious health risks, including cancer, heart disease and stroke.  --quoted at AOSHQ

Drinking causes cancer, heart disease, and stroke?

Wait........wait.  The heart disease and stroke follow The Vaxx, not Molson's or Canadian Club.

That leaves only cancer, and most of us will take that chance.  But in all likelihood, the "study" supporting that claim is just as valid as the "studies" on Pfizerdrugs and Global Warming/Cooling/Changing.


"Show Right" Is HALF the Key

This guy, LaNelle Ramey, is not wrong.

...Every week so far this year, a teenager has been shot, killed or arrested.

Most recently, over the weekend, two teenagers were shot near 52nd and Clarke. A 13-year-old boy was injured in that shooting, and a 14-year-old boy died.

"Young people shouldn't be dying at an early age to something like violence, but they are mimicking behavior we, as adults, sometimes are showing," said Ramey, Mentor Greater Milwaukee executive director. "If we want them to do right, we have to show right."...

Yah--but you also have to make 'wrong' costly.  That's not happening in Milwaukee County.

Cong. McCaul Doesn't Know History

War-War McCaul (R-Tx) is an un-informed (or dense) congress-critter.  And he's not very good at needs analysis for the defense of the US, either. 

...The Texas Republican contended that the potential fall of Ukraine could cause a cascade effect, which could create conflict between China and Taiwan.

“If Ukraine falls, Chairman Xi in China’s going to invade Taiwan. It’s Russia, China. Iran is putting drones in Crimea, and North Korea that is putting artillery into Russia,” he explained to CNN....

No, pal.

The Chinese Communists will invade Taiwan no matter the outcome in Ukraine.  That's been on the Red Chinese agenda since Mao.  Further, your BFF Zelenskiy is going to lose this contest no matter how many battalions of tanks we send.

It gets worse.

 ...The war in Ukraine has exposed widespread problems in the American armaments industry that may hobble the U.S. military’s ability to fight a protracted war against China, according to a new study....--quoting the WSJ

 ...According to Seth Jones, senior vice president at CSIS, the defense industrial base in the United States is running at its maximum capacity. But that capacity is currently fixed at the peacetime levels we have grown accustomed to. But while the United States isn’t technically at war in Ukraine, we are burning through ammunition and weapons at a wartime pace. This is not a sustainable situation....

We'd like to have a few tanks and some shells around to defend the US, Mr. McCaul.  Or did you forget which country you live in?

Monday, January 23, 2023

1 0f 500 Or So....

They got one.

A former top FBI official in New York has been arrested due to his alleged ties to a Russian oligarch, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced on Monday.

Charles McGonigal, formerly the special agent in charge of counterintelligence in the FBI’s New York Field Office, was arrested because of his ties to Oleg Deripaska, according to a DOJ news release and court documents....

Only another 499 (1,499??? 2,499???) to go.

And fuggedabout Russia.  Ukraine, Iran, and China are even more fertile areas to examine.

That Windmill in Dodge County Isn't Alone

You've read that a windmill collapsed in Dodge County.

You also read that such a collapse is 'rare.'  Well, that depends on how you define "rare."

Bloomberg Business Week, no foe of green energy, headlines:  Wind Turbines Taller Than the Statue of Liberty Are Falling Over.” The article beneath the headline reports on a variety of alarming disasters involving wind turbines, including collapses of very tall structures....

...The article blames the “rash” of incidents on the rush to install turbine capacity, but there are also permanent factors that make engineering, building, and maintaining wind farms difficult and risky. To develop meaningful amounts of power, the blades on the turbine have to be big, and when big blades spin in heavy winds, the tips can end up hitting supersonic speeds, putting great stress of the materials used to construct them. Big blades also requite tall towers, which are then subject to stresses as winds blow and can gust during storms to velocities that test the strength of the materials and the design of the towers....

Although Lifson (the article's author) doesn't mention it directly, there is the matter of QC; stress analysis and finite-element analysis should be first on the list of tests.

After that, dismantle the windmills.  They're nearly useless except as a tax-dodge.

Back in 11/2021......

In November of 2021, we noticed that Manchin was running for President.  We are not that bright, politically; it just became as obvious as the demolition of America by the Deep State.

He finally announced yesterday, in the accepted non-denial style.

There's a reason:  he is not likely to get re-elected to the Senate by West Virginians.  So he'll try to sucker the other 300++ million Americans.

After all, many of them voted for Biden.

By the way, I did NOT read Surber's column #13 before writing this.

"Assault PISTOL"??

L A County Sheriff is ....... a sad case.

...Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna identified Tran as the suspect on Sunday and confirmed that his motive is unknown. 

'He intended to kill more people,' Luna said in a news conference on Sunday night. 'They saved lives,' he said of the patrons. 'This could've been much worse.' 

He continued: 'The weapon that we recovered at that second scene I am describing as a magazine-fed semiautomatic assault pistol. Not an assault rifle, but an assault pistol that had an extended large capacity magazine attached to it.' ...

"Luna" may be a mis-spelling of "Looney."

Here's a pic of the "assault pistol" which is cleverly disguised as a normal semi-auto:

 Tran was carrying what was described as a semi-automatic pistol with an extended magazine, and a second handgun was discovered in the van where he was found dead, officials said


Sunday, January 22, 2023

Food for Thought


Only 7.7%??

Lookie here, friends!

...after multiple legal demands, appeals, and two federal lawsuits, the CDC finally capitulated and agreed to a court ordered schedule compelling it to produce the data.  Now that ICAN, and therefore the public, have received the check-the-box portions (as opposed to the free-text field portions) of this data, the data itself may explain why the CDC refused to release it without a fight. 

V-safe’s data shows that 7.7% of its approximate 10 million users reported having to receive medical care after receipt of a Covid-19 vaccine, and over 70% of those users sought outpatient/urgent clinical care, emergency room care, and/or were hospitalized. ...

Only 7.7%, you see, and only 70++% of them were sick enough to go to a clinic, ER, or hospital room.

No big deal.  

And if you think it's a big deal, you're obviously a raaaaaaaaaaacissssssssssss Q-anon J-6 election-fraud conspiracy theorist.  And probably homophobic, too.

So there!

Blind, Deaf, Dumb: LBJ's VietNam Strategy

As a reminder that military adventurism for the purpose of 'stopping the bad guys' is too often mis-informed by "intel" and/or persuaded by "experts" who can't find their ass with both hands we are told about LBJ, McNamara, and VietNam.  (Further, much of that adventurism is pushed by mil-supply grifters; remember that the "genius" McNamara was a Ford Motor exec--and Guess Who made the 'new' Jeep (known as the Rollover Special)?)

...We are still learning new information about the Vietnam War that reveals glaring deficiencies in American understanding of that conflict. For decades, American conventional wisdom held that the United States greatly overestimated its adversary’s casualties and underestimated its adversary’s military prowess and patience, causing it to hang on too long in a futile conflict....

Like what?

 ...Previously hidden sources show that the Lyndon Johnson administration never discerned North Vietnam’s greatest vulnerabilities. President Johnson and Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara rejected recommendations from American generals to send ground forces into Laos and Cambodia to cut North Vietnamese infiltration routes, on the advice of civilian experts who claimed these measures wouldn’t be very effective and would invite Chinese intervention. We know now from North Vietnamese, Chinese, and Soviet sources that Johnson and McNamara and their experts were spectacularly wrong....

Further, McNamara dissuaded LBJ from bombing the living s*** out of the North, although LBJ did order one such event ..............which nearly starved Hanoi!  But McNamara eventually prevailed and Nixon had to extract the US from the resulting mess.

There is little reason to believe that Biden is better-advised today on the increasingly bloody Ukraine war.  Certainly people like Lindsey Graham (who never fired a rifle nor lost one drop of blood in combat) and his ilk should be ignored, just like that Zelenskiy grifter and his shopping-spree wife.

The German, French, and Italian resistance to US demands should be a warning.

Think the Oval Office and the nutbag war-mongers surrounding it will notice?

 

John Quincy Adams, Prophet

An interesting rabbit-hole run at American Conservative to a column by Bill Kauffman...

...for foresight it’s tough to beat JQA’s 1844 prophecy that the annexation of Texas would be “the turning-point of a revolution which transforms the North American Confederation into a conquering and warlike nation. Aggrandizement will be its passion and its policy. A military government, a large army, a costly navy, distant colonies, and associate islands in every sea, will follow of course in rapid succession.”...

Clearly, Texas can be blamed for a lot of things, and the worst among them is George W. Bush. Guess Who put Adams' prophesy into high gear?

(Side note:

...David [author of the book Freedom, Independence, Peace: John Quincy Adams and American Foreign Policy] and I overlapped for a time in the employ of Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, one of the precious few recent members of that august body who would be interested in reading and capable of appreciating this brief and luminous volume.

Senator Moynihan grew wiser as the end drew nigh. In that invigorating American Spring following the fall of the Soviet Union, he questioned U.S. involvement in NATO and called for abolishing the CIA...

The more one learns about Daniel Patrick Moynihan--who ran as a Democrat--the more one admires the "Old" Democrat Party's leaders. )

What's Up With Matt Schlapp??

Matt Schlapp is currently the Head Honcho of the American Conservative Union (ACU), and his wife Mercedes is a near-co Honcho.  His election was controversial; the old Human Events gang didn't like it. (Human Events is under new ownership.)

Schlapp is a Notre Dame grad (which is a straw in the wind) and he's made a lot of controversial moves since he took the position with ACU, including defending the U Penn tranny-swimmer and stating that perhaps Ashli Babbitt 'deserved to be shot.'

He's also taken $183K from a Soros-connected outfit and--perhaps not co-incidental--has hired some woman who is ferociously anti-Trump.

Not surprising, since Schlapp was political director for G W Bush, a NeoCon war-war guy.

Now Schlapp is accused of sexual impropriety.  The lawsuit follows the rumors, which have been out for several months.

Maybe Conservatives should find another, better, venue than CPAC.


What's Up in Ukraine

This is not a long video.  Watch it and learn stuff from a guy who has multiple contacts in NATO and the US European command structure.

Short version:  it's all over except for the shouting.

Kiss $100 BILLION goodbye.

Thanks, Sen. Johnson and Scott (War-War) Fitzgerald!!

Climate Change? Nah.

Channel 58's meteorologist did the research.  Looks like "climate change" is a regular occurrence.  

150 years after the first recorded warm January we're still here!  So is Lake Michigan.  Somebody call AlGore and the Deep State morons who predicted the end of the world in 2012, please.