Ray Stevens

Shipping Up To Boston

I'll be out of pocket for a few days.

So Obvious It Shouldn't Need To Be Said

Nevertheless, of course, it is very much in need of saying: Politicizing the FBI is very dangerous.

Men of the West, Rangers of the North

Headline: "ISIS Calls for Random Knife Attacks in Alleys, Forests, Beaches, 'Quiet Neighborhoods.'"

Aragorn:

If Gondor, Boromir, has been a stalwart tower, we have played another part. Many evil things there are that your strong walls and bright swords do not stay. You know little of the lands beyond your bounds. Peace and freedom, do you say? The North would have known them little but for us. Fear would have destroyed them. But when dark things come from the houseless hills, or creep from sunless woods, they fly from us. What roads would any dare to tread, what safety would there be in quiet lands, or in the homes of simple men at night, if the Dúnedain were asleep, or were all gone into the grave?

'And yet less thanks have we than you. Travellers scowl at us, and countrymen give us scornful names.... Yet we would not have it otherwise. If simple folk are free from care and fear, simple they will be, and we must be secret to keep them so. That has been the task of my kindred, while the years have lengthened and the grass has grown.

'But now the world is changing once again.'

If Kurt Schlichter Did Parody Videos of Famous Hollywood Actors Acting Influential ...

Ranger Up language warning for the next video (NSFW).

Good Piece, Colonel

A defense, not exactly of Trump the man, but of the phenomenon. It was written for a German audience, so it's got an enviable level of detachment -- what you get from trying to explain the thing to outsiders.

Probably most important is the anger at being treated like suckers by a corrupt establishment:

At the same time, rampant corruption among those connected to the liberal establishment – most shockingly with Hillary Clinton being cleared of charges of misusing classified material when the same facts would have doubtlessly led to the imprisonment of unconnected Americans – opened a path for Trump. This was especially disruptive because so many Republican politicians, while ideologically conservative, culturally identified with prosperous coastal, urban elites over the suffering citizens of “flyover” America and tried to enforce the same “political correctness.”

It makes sense that people are tired of having their government run by self-dealing liars who treat them like fools, while also subjecting them to social pressures designed to shame them into knuckling under.

Still, what caught my eye about this piece is the author's comment on the shift toward isolationism. It's partly about a failure of allied governments (and, frankly, allied nations' populations) to be willing to stand up and suffer for allegedly shared values. But it's even more about a loss of trust in our own leaders to defend our sacrifices:

The non-elite Americans who make up the military have suffered greatly in wars they see as perfectly justifiable morally, but which were fought without a commitment to victory and therefore led to an inexcusable waste of soldiers’ lives.

Furthermore, Trump has given voice to the feeling that those America has fought to free – and keep free – are ungrateful and unwilling to shoulder the burden of their own defense. His recent heresy on NATO’s Article 5 was not based upon a misunderstanding of America’s treaty obligations but upon the widespread feeling that America’s allies have had a free ride on America’s largesse, and that this must end. Having served in the U.S. Army in Germany in the Cold War, I understood my mission in case of a hot conflict would have been to kill Russians until either the reserves arrived or I died, and this was fine – I knew a large and powerful Bundeswehr would be fighting by my side. But today, Germany and Europe have allowed their militaries to wither into near uselessness. Trump embodies the question on many Americans’ minds – if the Germans don’t think defending Germany is worth German money and lives, why is it worth American money and lives?

If we can't trust either our allies or our leadership, why go off to die in foreign lands? For adventure, perhaps, or for glory; those are good things, to be sure. But more important than either adventure or glory is the sense of being engaged in a moral purpose, especially in war where you will often have to do morally difficult things, or watch good men die. It needs to be worth it, and that means you need to be able to have confidence both that there is a moral purpose, and that the sacrifices will not be in vain.

Our leaders have not taken either of those factors seriously since George W. Bush left office. The nearly complete erosion of the American position in west Asia and the northern Middle East is a consequence. I doubt it will be the only consequence.

SHARP = 'Office of Gender-Based Misconduct'

DB: "‘We’re just as good as men,’ Infantrywoman says from back of ambulance."

Quaker City Night Hawks

Listening to BRMC ever since Grim posted it and this popped up on YouTube's recommendations this evening. Good stuff.

I get pretty odd sets of YouTube recommendations. Three on the same screen tonight were BRMC, a Dwight Yoakam tune, and the Royal Navy's "Heart of Oak." I'll bet most of you get sets like that.

Gosh, I've Seen This Movie Before, Too...

Obama DOJ drops charges against weapons smuggler to avoid political embarrassment for himself or Hillary.

Yeah, I've Been Getting That Impression

While media outlets endlessly poll and probe the American people to understand why they feel so disenchanted with their government, Professor Benjamin Ginsberg and Senior Lecturer Jennifer Bachner instead looked at America's political ruling class for answers. The federal bureaucrats, think tank leaders, and congressional staff members they surveyed, Ginsberg said in an interview with VICE News, "have no idea what Americans think and they don't care. They think Americans are stupid and should do what they are told."

I have an amusing counter-proposal.

"Gender-Based Misconduct"

The biggest thing I didn't realize about this story was the fact that it happened in the "elementary" section of a rather difficult foreign language (Chinese, I assume Mandarin). This is a point at which you're lucky if you can say much of anything at all, and may be struggling to come up with any of the phrases you know under the pressure of being called upon in front of the class.

He got in trouble for doing something completely inoffensive: he referred to himself as handsome in a class.... According to Sweetwood, the incident happened in his Chinese class. He was supposed to say something in Chinese, and that's what he picked. The professor later told him she thought it was a funny remark, but one student had complained. That was just the beginning:

Later that day, my advising dean emailed me to say, "The University's Gender-Based Misconduct Office contacted us because they received a complaint about your behavior towards your Elementary Chinese II professor. It is important we meet to discuss this as soon as possible." I responded in a defiant tone, denying any wrongdoing, though I agreed to meet the next day.

Sweetwood's dean made him promise never to make any upsetting remarks. When the student refused, he was sent to the Gender-Based Misconduct Office, where an administrator attempted to persuade him to abandon his micro-aggressive ways.

If the phrase is so offensive, by the way, why was it among the first things taught to students?

UPDATE: Related.

You Should've Seen the Other Guy

And Now

The FBI is actively destroying evidence.

Eric Hines

Bitter Fury, October Edition

I find myself very angry right now, perhaps because I am still working through grief. But perhaps it is also because of stories like these, which are daily events now:

Donald Trump: Military suicides happen to servicemembers who 'can't handle it'

FBI Allowed 2 Hillary Aides To "Destroy" Their Laptops In Newly Exposed "Side Agreements"

Unfortunately, I can't just walk away. None of us can.

Lindsey Stirling

h/t My Muse Shanked Me

I'd never run into MSgt B before tonight when I wandered in on a Lindsey Stirling video link, but he's got a Nathanial Rateliff video up and a dog that eats lawnmowers, so I figure he'd fit in here.

Smaller libraries

Martin Amis on re-reading the authors whose voices you hear best:

I find another thing about getting older is that your library gets not bigger but smaller, that you return to the key writers who seem to speak to you with a special intimacy. Others you admire or are bored by, but these writers seem to awaken something in you.

For me the two, the twin peaks, like two mountains, are Saul Bellow and Nabokov. And those two I go on reading and rereading. And the great thing about the great books is that it’s like having an infinite library, because every five years you can read them again and the books haven’t changed but you have. And they seem to renew themselves, transform themselves for you.

So you can never say you’ve read a novel. Nabokov always said, funnily enough, you can’t read a novel, you can only reread a novel. If you listen to music, you don’t say, “That’s it.” If it speaks to you then you play it dozens of times, and you probably won’t like that piece of music until you get to know it. It’s the same with a novel. You have to know the kind of thing a novel is, you have to know what it’s about, and the second time you read a novel you can see how this is achieved.

When I teach literature I always tell them, these would-be writers (we don’t do workshops, we just read great books), I say, “When you read Pride and Prejudice, don’t if you’re a girl identify with Elizabeth Bennet, if you’re a boy with Darcy. Identify with the author, not with the characters.” All good readers do that automatically, but I think it’s helpful to make that clear. Your affinity is not with the characters, always with the writer.

NRO On Why Hillary Wasn't Indicted

This has been Mr. Hines' theory all along.

Is this MRAP Really Necessary?

Police go after unarmed "water protectors" in full kit.

OK, I get that the law has sided with the corporation here, and thus that these protests are a kind of trespassing that the police have a duty to stop. However....

"After the Republic"

If it is not res publica, it is because the government has turned against the people:

The Democratic Party—regardless of its standard bearer—would use its victory to drive the transformations that it has already wrought on America to quantitative and qualitative levels that not even its members can imagine. We can be sure of that because what it has done and is doing is rooted in a logic that has animated the ruling class for a century, and because that logic has shaped the minds and hearts of millions of this class’s members, supporters, and wannabes.

That logic’s essence, expressed variously by Herbert Croly and Woodrow Wilson, FDR’s brains trust, intellectuals of both the old and the new Left, choked back and blurted out by progressive politicians, is this: America’s constitutional republic had given the American people too much latitude to be who they are, that is: religiously and socially reactionary, ignorant, even pathological, barriers to Progress. Thankfully, an enlightened minority exists with the expertise and the duty to disperse the religious obscurantism, the hypocritical talk of piety, freedom, and equality, which excuses Americans’ racism, sexism, greed, and rape of the environment. As we progressives take up our proper responsibilities, Americans will no longer live politically according to their prejudices; they will be ruled administratively according to scientific knowledge.

Emphasis added.

Of Course She Did

Preparation is easy when you get the test questions a week in advance.

Is anybody surprised by this?

UPDATE: Ironically, an article on how dangerous it would be if the American people came to believe the election was rigged.

The right question

A lot of the debate coverage is an argument over which candidate won the kind of contest the author thinks should matter to the rest of us.

Drew McCoy wrote, “Before declaring one ‘the winner’ and the other ‘the loser,’ consider their goals, their specific audiences, etc. Did they accomplish them?”

What did blue-collar voters in swing states get from Hillary Clinton in this debate? What did college-educated whites in the suburbs get from Trump in this debate?

Glenn Reynolds calls it a draw on the ground that Trump didn't throw anything and Clinton didn't cough up blood.  Others point out that although Trump's arguments were lackluster, all he really needed to do was appear calm enough to dispel his persistent portrayal as a nut job; from there he can rely on the desperate desire of many voters for a change, any change.

Joe Bob Briggs was right on point:

I’ve got news for these Rhodes Scholars. People don’t care about who’s prepared. They care about who’s lying and, in this case, who’s lying more than the other liar. . . . This is where we end up—two liars arguing over who’s the bigger liar and who’s more crazy. Trump probably wins that argument, simply because all his sins were under the rubric of surviving in a brutal business world, whereas all Hillary’s were committed while serving as an office holder.

First Convention of States Simulation Completed

The first ever, historic Convention of States Simulation is now complete. One-hundred and thirty-seven delegates representing every state in the nation convened in Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia, Sept. 21-23. It was an amazing experience and the Convention operated flawlessly. If you watch the live stream link below, we know you'll agree.

Click over to read the whole report and watch the vids.

Here is a summary of the amendments agreed upon:

1. Requiring the states to approve any increase in the national debt
2. Term limits on Congress
3. Limiting federal overreach by returning the Commerce Clause to its original meaning
4. Limiting the power of federal regulations by giving an easy congressional override
5. Require a super majority for federal taxes and repeal the 16th Amendment
6. Give the states (by a 3/5ths vote) the power to abrogate any federal law, regulation or executive order.

And here's a PDF with the full amendments. Interesting stuff.

It's good, but I am disappointed that no check on the Supreme Court made it through.

Joe Bob Renders Judgment

Here is his summation of the debate.

UPDATE: It may be his style, but here as in the last long piece I cited from him, you have to read to the very end to get the point.

Analysis of an Analysis of the Alt-Right

There's a lot packed into this WaPo article which purports to analyze changes in the alt-right community over the last 9 months. The method of analysis, relying on new machine-assisted text analysis techniques, and the conclusions from that are interesting, and the article suggests a method for "de-radicalizing" people in the alt-right. How to change minds is a big question, and their suggestions seem good in general (not just for changing the alt-right), if difficult to accomplish.

On the other hand, the definitions and assumptions given by the author tell us a lot about the team that did the analysis. I wonder if we don't learn more about them than the alt-right.

We also find out that Facebook, Twitter, Google, the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, and ExitUSA have been working together to change minds within the alt-right. That's a bit creepy.

I don't have time to get into it right now, but if anyone cares to read it, I'll be back to discuss this evening.

Jill Stein Arrested For Trying to Participate in Presidential Debate

And boy, you can see why. I'm sure we're all grateful to the powers that be for making sure that only quality candidates like those two show up on our national stage.

I've heard her talk several times now. I don't agree with her about much of anything, but she's far and away smarter than either of those two. She has a better command of the issues as well.

Changing the Definition of Rape

I was unaware, until this morning, that the FBI had changed the definition of the crime "rape" for the purposes of its Uniform Crime Reports. We've discussed these reports at times. There are some known issues with them, but they are also the main tool that we have for trying to understand crime rates at the national level.

A change in the definition of a crime is a major change, as it means you lose backwards compatibility that would allow you to compare earlier years. Such a change should therefore be done only if there is some extremely good reason for doing it. Rape itself is not new, and indeed almost certainly more ancient than human history. So what could be driving a change in our understanding of it, if it is not a change in the nature of the offense itself?

Let's look at the definitions.

Previously, offense data for forcible rape were collected under the legacy UCR definition: the carnal knowledge of a female forcibly and against her will. Beginning with the 2013 data year, the term “forcible” was removed from the offense title, and the definition was changed. The revised UCR definition of rape is: penetration, no matter how slight, of the vagina or anus with any body part or object, or oral penetration by a sex organ of another person, without the consent of the victim. Attempts or assaults to commit rape are also included in the statistics presented here; however, statutory rape and incest are excluded.

So there are two particularly significant changes:

1) The old definition stated explicitly that only females could be raped.

2) The old definition was interested only in cases in which force was used to effect the rape, whereas the new definition doesn't care about the issue of force at all. It is only interested in whether or not there was consent.

If the issue of prison rape is taken seriously, just the first change should more than double the incidence of rape in America. It would also put an end to a statistical anomaly: rape has heretofore been the only violent crime that women suffer more often than men, and that will no longer be true. (So far they don't seem to be considering prison rape in these statistics, as the rate jumps according to the definition only from 24.0 to 39.0, and not to ~50+.)

The removal of force from the definition won't change the statistics as much as the change that removes the restriction against men being considered rape victims, but it is still also a very significant change to the standard.

Tomorrow's Debate

The Legendary Joe Bob Briggs will be live-"tweeting" the whole thing. I'm planning to read his summary rather than watching it myself. Given that the word of neither of these clowns can bear a feather's weight of trust, the words that they say will not matter one tiny little bit. Their words are empty and hollow.

The only thing that does matter is the spectacle, and how it sways human hearts. Joe Bob Briggs is a master at understanding this kind of blood-and-gore, low-budget, badly-acted, unbelievable farce. He's made his career out of performances like this. No one could be a better guide.

New Social Media Platforms

I dislike facebook and have been looking for other social media platforms. Have any of you tried any of these? If so, what did you think?

Codias: The Social Network for Conservatives -- This site seems more like a way to organize for political action and less of a way to share interesting pics and stories with friends. It's still in beta testing, but I signed up just to check it out. Apparently a week or so ago you had to swear an oath to join, but I didn't have to today.

Gab.ai: The People First Social Network -- A Twitter replacement? It apparently focuses on allowing users to control what they see rather than stopping people from posting offensive material. Emma Grey Ellis at Wired seems to think it's already alt-right dominated.

MeWe looks like a possible replacement for facebook. Its advertising focuses on privacy:

We are social creatures by nature and private people by right. That’s why MeWe offers the power of self-expression delivered under the umbrella of safety. 

At MeWe, you can enjoy amazing online experiences that give you the freedom and safety to be and share the real you. 

As individuals, our creativity and innermost thoughts require privacy. It’s how we change ourselves and the world. That’s why we believe that everyone should have the right to be their uncensored self online, without worrying about who can watch and where our information goes.

I like their Privacy Bill of Rights (click the pop-up link on their main page):

1. You own your personal information & content. It is explicitly not ours.
2. You will never receive a targeted advertisement or 3rd party content based on what you do or say online. We think that's creepy.
3. You see every post in timeline order from your friends, family & groups. We do not manipulate, filter, or change the order of your content or what you see.
4. Permissions & privacy are your rights. You control them.
5. You control who can access your content.
6. You control what, if anything, others can see in member searches.
7. We're a private network. That means we do not track or profile you.
8. Your privacy means we do not share your personal information with anyone.
9. Your emojis are for you and your friends. We do not monitor or mine your data.
10. Your face is your business. We do not use facial recognition technology.
11. You have the right to delete your account and take your content with you at any time.

Diaspora looks interesting as well. This is the first social network site (that I've seen, anyway) where they let you choose where your data is stored, so you could opt for a country that has stronger privacy laws. They also explicitly allow pseudonyms, and they provide integration for cross-posting to facebook, Twitter, etc.

Are there others you would recommend checking out?

September

But not for much longer.

A Useful Legal Analysis of Self-Defense with a Vehicle

Considering the Sage of Knoxville's recent suggestion to keep moving if surrounded in your car, Andrew Branca, a lawyer who specializes in self-defense law in the US, provides a quick analysis of how self-defense laws would be applied in the case of blocked highways and riots.

Here's a taste, but the whole thing is worth reading over at Legal Insurrection:

In short, one would apply the usual five elements of a self-defense justification to evaluate such a use of force against others, just as in any other instance of self-defense. Those elements are, of course:  innocence, imminence, proportionality, avoidance, and reasonableness. 

When all required elements are present, the use of force was legally justified. If any required element is missing, whatever that use of force might have been it was not lawful self-defense. 

One of the challenges to legally justifying the use of force against highway blockades is the element of imminence. Do people who are merely blocking a roadway represent an imminent threat against which some defensive force might be justified?  

A second challenge is the element of proportionality.  That is, if the force contemplated to be used against them is one’s vehicle, this will almost always constitute deadly force–that is, force capable of causing death or grave bodily injury.   Deadly force can be used in self-defense only [when] the force with which you are threatened also constitutes deadly force.

Taking Trump Seriously...

...but not literally. The Atlantic makes a distinction between the press and those who attend Trump's rallies in how they are taking him. The press doesn't take him seriously, only literally. The people at his rallies turn that around.

The Hazards of Incomplete Planning

Planning a home invasion? Let's go through the checklist:

House has enough stuff to make it worth robbing? Check.

Do we outnumber the residents? Check.

Did we bring guns? Check.

Hey, did anybody stop to see what state we're in? Georgia?

Uh-oh.

Another Ring on the Equinox

I took this yesterday evening ...

According to the All-Knowing Wikipedia:

A great deal of folklore surrounds fairy rings. Their names in European languages often allude to supernatural origins; they are known as ronds de sorciers ("sorcerers' rings") in France, and Hexenringe ("witches' rings") in German. In German tradition, fairy rings were thought to mark the site of witches' dancing on Walpurgis Night, and Dutch superstition claimed that the circles show where the Devil set his milk churn. In Tyrol, folklore attributed fairy rings to the fiery tails of flying dragons; once a dragon had created such a circle, nothing but toadstools could grow there for seven years. European superstitions routinely warned against entering a fairy ring. ... 

Equinox

The end of this summer is more welcome than I can possibly convey.

The Sage of Knoxville Suspended from Twitter

I don't use the platform, which strikes me as ridiculous -- 'let's have a conversation in 140 characters or fewer!' -- but InstaPundit is as non-radical as they come. In the very near future of America, though, a law professor with even slightly unacceptable views will be forced out of the public space.

Tossed in the "basket of deplorables," I guess.

UPDATE: Apparently reinstated, provided he deletes what offended them. That was a suggestion that protesters shutting down freeways should be run down. It's a stupid tactic of protests, one that really does get people killed in terms of ambulances not being able to reach hospitals in time. If you are willing to kill people to make your point, you can't complain too much if they're willing to run the risk of killing you right back.

We're rapidly getting close to the point of real conflict.

UPDATE: Apparently his university is now investigating him.

Rolling South

Going to go meet my new niece tomorrow, the one who was born the same day that Dad died. If I hear another man say, "Oh, the circle of life!" I swear I will break his jaw. I won't hit a woman, no matter how many say it, but you men should know they've used up my patience for you. Somehow, "The Lord gives, and the Lord takes away" does not provoke the same wrathful reaction from me, but I'm about done with the secular metaphor.

All the same, I'm looking forward to meeting her. I've been saving gasoline for days so I could make the trip, us having the Mad Max thing going on in Atlanta since that pipeline burst in Alabama. As of today, they've got a bypass rigged up, so within a few days we'll have gas available again. Right now, we don't, and the city's pretty dry.

No problem. I've still got five gallons in reserve, over and above a full tank.



UPDATE: I guess we're having riots in Southern cities like Charlotte, too. Maybe Atlanta tomorrow, I guess.

Well, that's a small matter compared to the gasoline. I'll take appropriate precautions.

Another Military Times Poll

Johnson, Trump in statistical tie overall. Clinton leads Trump among officers (but both lose to Johnson). Trump devastates Clinton among enlisted (and barely beats Johnson).

Among the front-line branches, Army prefers Trump to Johnson by 5 points, and Trump to Clinton by 16 points. Marine Corps goes Trump by clean majority, 24 points over Johnson and 40 points over Clinton.

There's Something About Her...

Watch the debate audience burst into laughter and boos when this politician tries to tell them that Hillary Clinton is "honest."



Twenty years ago, when Hillary Clinton was unaccountably put in charge of 'health care reform,' she dispatched agents across the land to hold town hall meetings to explain her arcane plan to ordinary Americans. A much-younger Grim attended one of these meetings in Gainesville, Georgia. The earnest young spokesperson they had sent tried very hard to explain all the graphs and charts about how this plan would make sure we got health care.

It was, in fact, a very complicated approach she had devised, and it was clear the audience was very skeptical that this giant new bureaucracy would work well. Finally, in exasperation, the spokesperson said (I quote from memory):

'Look, the thing you have to understand is that from now on you'll get whatever care you need, and it won't cost you anything!'

The auditorium broke into such peals of riotous laughter as were a joy to hear.

"Brave"

So, years ago now, Cassandra and I had one of our regular disputes over the trailer for a Pixar movie. (T99 wrote about it too.) Neither of us had seen the movie; both of us meant to do; but life is complicated, and I never got around to it. Not until this weekend, that is.

It turns out that we were all right, more or less. Cassandra nailed the basic plot (snot-nosed girl and overly controlling mother learn to respect and forgive each other through conflict). The portrayal of gender stereotypes was just as expected: the men were all oafs, loud and foolish, brash and ineffective. They somehow managed to repel invasions of Romans, English, and Vikings off screen, but it's not clear how since they were undisciplined, enthusiastically violent, but dangerous to nothing except the furniture. The Queen and the (warrior) Princess exercise all of the effective agency in the movie, determining everything that happens. (The only male figures who can accomplish anything turn out to be the triplet baby boys, who are another stereotype: 'boys will be boys' hellions who are constantly in mischief.)

This scene more or less captures the whole of the film:



The movie still manages to be charming in spite of having lived down to all of our expectations. There are some scenes that are downright funny. Too, the bold Highlanders may be oafish fools, but they are beloved by the women, and it is even possible to sense why at points. In an early scene, when the Queen is bossing the very young Princess about, the husband steps in and wins the girl a little space for her un-ladylike impulses. The Queen protests, "She is a lady!", and suddenly jumps and squeaks -- the husband, adults in the audience will realize, has just goosed her behind. The look on the Queen's face shows that she appreciates, to some degree, the reminder that he knows something about ladies.

There is another similar scene between the Queen and her husband later. Still, when she and the Princess get into a gigantic fight, he goes to the Queen and has her talk it through with him, listening to her patiently as she rants about what her daughter won't stop to hear her say.

So the stereotypes are just as expected, but it has its moments.

Trump and Aristotle

I'm not really going to talk about Aristotle, of course, or I'd be breaking Grim's rice bowl.  Still, he does come up in this Politico article about Trump, which makes several interesting points, including the following warning about what happens when we assume only the state can solve collective problems and ignore the natural functioning of private institutions and voluntary associations:

To its credit, the Democratic Party has made the convincing case, really since the Progressive Era in the early part of the 20th century, that the strong state is needed to rearrange the economy and society, so that citizens may have justice. Those who vote for the Democratic Party today are not just offered government program assistance, they are offered political protections and encouragements for social arrangements of one sort or another that might not otherwise emerge.

But where does this use of political power to rearrange the economy and society end? Continue using political power in the service of “identity politics” to reshape the economy and society and eventually both of them will become so enfeebled that they no longer work at all. The result will not be greater liberty for the oppressed, it will be the tyranny of the state over all.

11 Times the President Ran Down America

Today, that is. In his final address to the United Nations, at least until he becomes Secretary General.

I'm still pretty excited about seeing the word "final" attached to Obama's appearances as President.

I Think We're All About There

Milo decided on an obscene response to a "triggered" protester.

I was raised to be a gentleman, and for the most part I still am gentle with people. However, the last couple of years have been very draining on my patience for some of this nonsense. It is more of a struggle to be courteous than it once was, though I still try.

What A Moron

We're also very very lucky that the attackers tried to use explosives rather than guns.

— Christopher Hayes (@chrislhayes) September 19, 2016

In the deadliest mass shootings in America in living memory, only one has topped 50 dead -- the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando. Only five have topped 20 dead. Add up those top five attacks, and you get 152 people killed in the worst mass shootings we've had in our lifetimes here.

In Oklahoma City alone, 169 people were killed by one bomb.

Regularly in Iraq we would see dozens of people killed by truck bombs -- VBIEDs, as we called them. Pull one in a crowded market place, maybe 80 people would be killed in a second. You never saw numbers like that from gun attacks ("SAF," for "Small Arms Fire").

Don't wish for bombs. We're very lucky that most of our crazies here still want to shoot you. Then they have to kill you one at a time.

You even get a chance to fight back.

Smart Power

Ahem.

Ahead of the Jewish new year next month, the U.S. embassy in Tel Aviv sent gift baskets to a number of Israeli organizations, as it does every year. Among the recipients was Peace Now, a group opposed to Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank.

There was only one problem - among the gifts in the basket was a bottle of wine made in an Israeli settlement....

An embassy official confirmed the baskets had been sent out, saying they were purchased from a vendor who put together the contents, which were not checked before distribution.

"This should in no way be interpreted as a change of our policy on settlements, which is long-standing and clear," the official said.

Good Guy with a Gun

Score one for the NRA.

USPSA Shooter, 3-Gunner, and NRA-certified firearms instructor Jason Falconer has been identified as the man who shot and killed a 22-year-old Somali immigrant who went on a stabbing rampage inside a St. Cloud, (MN) Mall on Saturday.

The apparent terrorist—who apparently asked victims if they were Muslims before stabbing them—was engaged by Falconer inside the mall.

Falconer is the president and owner of Tactical Advantage LLC, a shooting range and tactical training facility with a strong focus on arming concealed carriers. He’s also a former chief of the Albany (MN) police department, and he remains a part-time officer.

But Falconer has consistently been identified in the mainstream media only as as a “former police chief” and “off-duty police officer.”

Yes, Exactly

Taleb is right, as he often is.

I would resent being told how to live even by people who were perfectly right and competent to do it. No one likes to be mothered past a certain age, not even by your mother. What's really aggravating about the current case is the attempted mothering by the likes of the Obamas, Hillary Clinton, or Ezra Klein:

[T]hese self-described members of the “intelligenzia” can’t find a coconut in Coconut Island, meaning they aren’t intelligent enough to define intelligence hence fall into circularities — but their main skill is capacity to pass exams written by people like them. With psychology papers replicating less than 40%, dietary advice reversing after 30 years of fatphobia, macroeconomic analysis working worse than astrology, the appointment of Bernanke who was less than clueless of the risks, and pharmaceutical trials replicating at best only 1/3 of the time, people are perfectly entitled to rely on their own ancestral instinct and listen to their grandmothers (or Montaigne and such filtered classical knowledge) with a better track record than these policymaking goons.

The same is true of the ilk of Lois Lerner. They're willing to be vicious to us to enforce their power to order our lives, but they're completely clueless about how to improve anything they touch.

Problem Solved

DB: "Marine Corps exceeds gender quota by ordering men to identify as female."

The only problem is now they have to give those 'guys' four and a half months off for maternity leave.

Dr. Jill Stein on Clinton, Russia, SCOTUS

Charles Krauthammer and she are apparently alumni of the same school. He has a question for her: won't you feel bad if you get Trump elected?

"I will feel terrible if Donald Trump gets elected and I will feel terrible if Hillary Clinton gets elected," Stein said.

"Equally so?" Krauthammer asked.

"Yes," she said. "Hillary Clinton wants to start an air war over Syria with a nuclear-armed power [Russia] with 2,000 nuclear weapons on hair-trigger alert. Given Hillary Clinton's record not only in Iraq, but in Libya, I think this is as dangerous as it gets."

"Donald Trump wants to bar Muslims from entering into this country, but Hillary Clinton has been very busy bombing Muslims in other countries," she said.

The woman loses me when she starts talking about making Medea Benjamin the Secretary of State. Clearly I don't agree with her on a lot of issues. On the other hand, she's an honest woman -- and she's clearly the outlaw candidate, having a warrant out for her arrest even now.

They asked her about that too: "I think we're in a crisis situation, which I do not take lightly.... bulldozed gravesites... loosed attack dogs... putting at risk the water supply, not just for the Standing Rock Sioux but for 17 million people downstream...."

Assuming she believes all that honesty, and she does seem to be an honest woman, spray-painting a bulldozer is if anything a weak response. Thermite would have been better.

Oh, and DNC / Jeh Johnson and pay to play: "Pay to play is the name of the game these days. We can look at the Clinton Foundation. I think the American people are very uncomfortable with the blurring of the lines between p ublic interest and private interest... to exert that interest behind closed doors... big banks, the power of the health insurance companies that have had a hand in creating Obamacare... the American people are really being thrown under the bus by what they see as a rigged economy and a rigged political system...."

She's no Trump fan, as she goes on to paint clearly. No, she's running on her own. She won't win, of course, but there's a chance she's the best candidate left standing.

Nessie?

Is that you?

A photo appropriately taken by a whisky distillery worker on Loch Ness.

Title X

Apparently attempts to bar Planned Parenthood from receiving funding have just been made illegal.

Birthers

Hillary Clinton is the Queen Birther, the mother hen of the movement. It came out of her campaign's astroturf efforts to smear Barack Obama as un-American, because her campaign manager had decided that was the way to win.

Here's the memo.

The primary astroturf outlet was Hillbuzz, "Founded and edited by Kevin DuJan while working on Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign in 2008."

You can find tons of astroturf rumors there, not just birther stuff: just search for terms like "Obama gay site:hillbuzz.org", or "birth certificate site:hillbuzz.org", or other similar things. The stories are still on the internet.

Now, the Hillary campaign (of 2016) would have you believe that they employed this guy, but that he did all this research and writing on his own time, on a website named after her, without their knowledge or support. None of that time-consuming research and writing happened on the clock, no. And it's just his initiative that caused him to build a website designed to imply that there was grassroots support for her, which was a major part of her approach to not conceding the nomination during a long fight. Oh, and this astroturf site's main thrust -- questioning whether Obama was an American -- happened to be literally in line with the core strategy for discrediting Obama that her top campaign officials came up with.

Yet of course, we are going to be told that the only acceptable position is that Hillary Clinton had nothing to do with this. And that she has pneumonia, and nothing else. And that she was cleared by the FBI in its investigation of her.

UPDATE: Further confirmation from McClatchy's former editor. It's as if they think that none of us were there at the time, or won't remember how it happened -- or, in the case of Hillbuzz, can't just go look it up because it's all still there on the internet.

UPDATE: A second confirmation from a journalist that the story was pushed to them by Clinton operative Sid Blumenthal.

Colin Powell's Leaked Emails

I expressed disappointment with Colin Powell in an earlier post for explaining to HRC how to use email to get around records laws, so I thought I would cover his leaked emails where he defended himself, and provided tasty soundbites, as well.

According to an Intercept story on them, Powell's defense is that he viewed email more like a phone call than a cable machine, so the written record was not important. He used an AOL account for non-classified communication and the State Department computers for classified, so he didn't violate security rules. He also claims he discusses the situation in greater detail in a chapter of his book, It Worked for Me: In Life and Leadership.

In one of his email, he also added, “Everything HRC touches she kind of screws up with hubris.” And then, “I told you about the gig I lost at a University because she so overcharged them they came under heat and couldn’t any fees for awhile. I should send her a bill.”

Update: Richard Wolff's Guardian article on the topic doesn't add much that's new, but he shows a remarkable self-awareness as he writes:

To be clear: hacking personal emails is reprehensible, and those behind the hack are scumbags who are trying to manipulate American voters.

To be doubly clear: the news media (including this column) have no principles and no shame in exploiting the ill-gotten product of those scumbags. Guilty, as charged.

And yet the Powell emails are so insightful and direct, it seems a shame – even if we have no sense of shame to let them pass by without comment.

The Gatlin Brothers

...demur.

My wife found this on YouTube.

Eric Hines

Who's Buying?

I have decided that while "The Deplorables" would be a great name for a Punk Rock band, "The Irredeemables" is a better fit for a Metal band.

A protester against the DNC in Philadelphia
The fact is that this plays in so nicely with Hillary Clinton's rhetoric. Here's NPR annotating her stump speech:

[I]n almost every speech these days, she talks about how Donald Trump's rhetoric about immigrants and Muslims is out of sync with American values. It's a theme that came into full relief at the Democratic convention. There the unstated message was that this wasn't a campaign between Trump and Clinton but between Trump and America, American values. Clinton has always had American flags at her events, but since the convention they have been even more prominent as a backdrop at her events.

It's even more obvious in last Friday's speech, in which not Trump himself but his supporters were said to be "irredeemable" and "not America." Her move is the authoritarian one, appropriate for someone on the verge of taking over not only the Presidency but the Supreme Court: from now on, she and hers will tell us what is America, and what is not. The unfit, by her standards, will be excluded.

A good Metal anthem could be written against that. Maybe one has been already.

What do you mean, "I don't believe in God"?
I talk to him everyday.
What do you mean, "I don't support your system"?
I go to court when I have to
What do you mean, "I can't get to work on time"?
I got nothing better to do.
And, what do you mean, "I don't pay my bills"?
Why do you think I'm broke?...

What do you mean, "I hurt your feelings"?
I didn't know you had any feelings.
What do you mean, "I ain't kind"?
Just not your kind.
What do you mean, "I couldn't be the President
Of the United States of America"?
Tell me something, it's still "We the people, " right?

Speaking of being broke because you pay your bills, don't forget that today is quarterly tax day for those of you who are self-employed, contracting, or otherwise responsible for both halves of your FICA taxes plus also your own health insurance. You may not be America, but you're still on the hook for funding her.

Zeiss Z1 F133 Lenses

Those were some pretty cool sunglasses Clinton was wearing this last weekend, weren't they? Well, she wears designer clothes worth lots of money, so fancy sunglasses aren't too surprising.

Except...

My readers want to know what type of space age eyewear Clinton was wearing when she collapsed. According to an expert on Reddit.com, the sunshades are Zeiss F133 blue protective lenses.

The prescription lenses are designed specifically to help prevent seizures by filtering out light and the color red, the most seizure-provoking color, according to Videgameseizures blog.

We should probably take "an expert on Reddit.com" with a grain of salt, but it's a plausible claim that's worth investigating further. It sounds like these lenses aren't hideously expensive, but they are specifically about cutting down on the risk of seizures. Given a fair amount of evidence that Clinton suffers from periodic seizures, if indeed these are sunglasses of that type, it would seem to be a kind of confirmation from Herself that seizures are a problem she's thinking about. That's something her doctor hasn't copped to, not yet.

The DNC Leak and the Health Stories Must Not Be Silenced

The DNC leak reveals a spreadsheet tracking donations from potential ambassadors or other public officials, along with what they've been assigned in return for the money they've brought to the table. There's an email chain in which they themselves call this "pay for play." It also contains details on a plot to gerrymander House districts, bamboozle the Republican party with a series of frivolous lawsuits to prevent them from responding, and a cynical plan to label Republican opposition as racism.

To read the big media, however, you'd think the whole content was ' mean things Colin Powell said about people.' That's the only story they're even trying to tell.

It's not the main story.



Hillary Clinton collapsed last Sunday and has retreated to a concrete-barricaded compound, from which she has not emerged all week. As the New York Post points out, if it weren't for an amateur who happened to video the collapse, we'd know nothing about her health conditions. I haven't seen any outlet in America comment on the barricades -- that's just the UK press.

These stories aren't going to get in front of many American voters unless there's a way to get past this wall of silence.

The DNC Leak

It's massive and brutal. Here are some highlights.

The corruption revealed should be a scandal. Will it?

UPDATE: They actually used the phrase "pay for play" in their own emails. They weren't even slightly kidding themselves about what they were doing.

UPDATE: It's just a constant stream of lies, bribery, and bad news about the state of our government.

DB: 2000 Sailors on USS Eisenhower Request Paternity Leave

In what was an originally exciting, if not unexpected situation, the Eisenhower’s administration department has become “flooded with a deluge of paternity leave requests,” said Master Chief Yeoman Reginald “Reggie” Frank.

“It’s an admin nightmare, but I can’t blame these guys. The mother and baby were airlifted to Bahrain, so... that means two weeks shore leave in Manama, whether or not she’s actually your baby-mama,” Frank added.

According to other sources, the carrier has convened a panel of officers and senior enlisted to sort through the ream of paternity requests, in an attempt to determine the most probable candidate.

Not quite. Paternity leave is ten days in the Navy, not two weeks.

Maternity leave? Four and a half months.