The Best Party

I was just adding to my list of reasons to love Iceland, when I remembered actor, comedian, and mayor, Jon Gnarr.

The All-Knowing Wikipedia informs us that:

In late 2009, Gnarr formed the Best Party with a number of other people who had no background in politics, including Einar [Örn Benediktsson]. The Best Party, which is a satirical political party that parodies Icelandic politics and aims to make the life of the citizens more fun, managed a plurality in the 2010 municipal elections in Reykjavík, with the party gaining six out of 15 seats on the Reykjavík City Council (34.7 percent of the vote). Einar, who was second on the party's list behind Jón, won one of the seats on the city council.

Jón ended up defeating the centre-right Independence Party-led municipal government of Hanna Birna Kristjánsdóttir, which came as "a shock" to Icelandic Prime Minister Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir. Jón's victory is widely seen as a backlash against establishment politicians in the wake of Iceland's 2008-2011 financial crisis.

Gnarr won the mayoral race in that election, and I've always wondered whether he actually did add any blathering loons to the Reykjavik zoo. Here's one of the Best Party's political ads, with probably one of the best campaign speeches ever at the end.

Compare & Contrast

Brazil's impeachment scandal involves corruption at high levels, and an attempt to use political clout to protect a favored political ally from prosecution. It looks as if the money involved was bigger than what we're seeing so far with regard to the Clinton Foundation: the Clintons have only managed to raise about half as much money as the Petrobras scandal involves.

Also, Brazil's political structure is sound enough that impeachment is a real possibility.

Advantage Brazil?

Russian MMA

H/t: We Are The Mighty.



It's a pretty good likeness.

Ah, said Turquine, Launcelot, thou art unto me most welcome that ever was knight, for we shall never depart till the one of us be dead. Then they hurtled together as two wild bulls rushing and lashing with their shields and swords, that sometime they fell both over their noses. Thus they fought still two hours and more, and never would have rest, and Sir Turquine gave Sir Launcelot many wounds that all the ground thereas they fought was all bespeckled with blood.

THEN at the last Sir Turquine waxed faint, and gave somewhat aback, and bare his shield low for weariness. That espied Sir Launcelot, and leapt upon him fiercely and gat him by the beaver of his helmet, and plucked him down on his knees, and anon he raced off his helm, and smote his neck in sunder.

Iceland Bows

Iceland has been forced to bow to pressure from elves and uncover a supposedly enchanted elfin rock after highway workers accidentally buried it - infuriating the mythical creatures, reports said on Tuesday. The angry elves were suspected of causing a series of mishaps after the rock was covered over when workers cleared away the debris from a landslide, the Morgunbladid daily reported.

“Hey hey, ho ho, innovation-stifling regulatory regimes have got go!” [sic]

A snarky punk reviews Charles Murray's By the People: Rebuilding Liberty without Permission, and it's not a bad review. If you ignore the snarky punkishness.

Murray spends the first third of his book explaining what’s so wretched about our democracy today. ...

You can all fill in the blanks. Murray's points here would only remind you how doomed we are. Let's get to the good stuff: Answers!

A Republican president and GOP congressional majorities would not set things right. The system is too ingrained, and besides, Murray admits, Republicans are no better than Democrats at constraining government or upholding individual liberties. (This is not an anti-Obama book; Murray sees the current president as symptom, not cause.) Tired of waiting for America to do the right thing, he wants it to do the wrong thing in service of a righteous cause.

How, you ask?

The regulatory state has two related weaknesses, he explains: It relies on voluntary compliance, and its enforcement capabilities are far inferior to its expansive mandate. So he proposes a private legal defense fund — the “Madison Fund,” honoring the father of the Constitution — that businesses and citizens can rely on for representation against federal regulators. By engaging in expensive and time-consuming litigation on behalf of clients that refuse to comply with pointless rules, the fund drains the government’s enforcement resources and eventually undercuts its ambitions. The state can compel submission from an individual or company with the threat of ruinous legal proceedings, Murray writes, “but Goliath cannot afford to make good on that threat against hundreds of Davids.”

Sounds like a good idea. Where's their Kickstarter page?

The review makes it sound interesting. I may read this one, in 2020 or so, after the other million books I've promised to read.

Update: Sic & link to article added. Can't believe I missed that.

Templars

Here's an interesting GoFundMe page.

We want to build a monastery with facilities for training templars in the Word of God and in the meaning of bring a true templar, that they may become Lambs in the church and Lions in the field, and also to train them in other skills of self-preservation as the earlier Templars were trained also to learn to battle in spirit. Once the land is ours we will begin looking into the cost of building. In the first phase we may use just tents for the housing of monks and staff. We ask not just for financial support but your prayers as well.

Help spread the word!

There aren't a lot more details, so I don't even know for sure what denomination they are from -- or if they're very concerned about the question.

Is Perjury Still A Crime?

Is anything, if your name is Clinton?

'Today's disclosure that 30 additional emails about Benghazi were discovered on Hillary Clinton's private server raises additional questions about the more than 30,000 emails she deleted,' Trump campaign Senior Communications Advisor Jason Miller said in a statement.

'Hillary Clinton swore before a federal court and told the American people she handed over all of her work-related emails.'

Special War

You may have noticed an uptick in Russian propaganda efforts targeting the United States and its political process. John R. Schindler reports:

There’s general consensus that the Kremlin’s weaponized propaganda represents a significant component of Russia’s arsenal in the shadow conflict of ideas, information, espionage, and secret warriors that I’ve called Special War.... This is merely an online version of the well-honed Cold War practice of what Kremlin spies term Active Measures, meaning the dissemination of lies and semi-lies at the West for political effect.

There’s really nothing new about this except how the Internet gives such propaganda unprecedented reach, quickly. This is merely an online version of the well-honed Cold War practice of what Kremlin spies term Active Measures, meaning the dissemination of lies and semi-lies at the West for political effect. More properly it’s called disinformation – dezinformatsiya or deza for short among Kremlin insiders — a murky amalgam of fact and sordid fiction.

This has been ongoing throughout the Global War on Terror, or whatever we're now calling it (or, more likely, refusing to call it anything). The former Soviets are trying to do something interesting, and from a position of demographic weakness: they're trying to reassert Russian regional power, while knocking America out of the northern Middle East. They're also trying to portray themselves not as Godless Communists this time, but as the real defenders of Christian civilization against the Islamic tide -- while, at the same time, setting America up as the real enemy of Islam, in the hope that the heat from the various radical Islamic groups will point at us instead of at them.

Their alliance with Iran and burgeoning activity in Syria is kinetic, but a major part of the effort really is this sort of "Special War." The United States has some capacities here: the Foreign Broadcast Information Service (now called the Open Source Center at the CIA), the Broadcasting Board of Governors at the State Department, public diplomacy worldwide, and military information operations and psychological operations. The military especially employs contractors in a supporting role here, so that they can draw on industry expertise -- global strategic information operations are run by the Strategic Command.

Schindler lists some other assets, although a number of those resources are Cold War relics that were disbanded ages ago. Still, we've got assets we could use. The problem is, we're really not in the game. It's for the usual reason. Schindler notes a recently abandoned State Department initiative and asks:

Who killed the Counter-Disinformation Team and why? What did the team produce during the time it existed? What has become of this product? How many people were on it? Does the State Department not consider countering Kremlin disinformation to be in its remit? Does the White House agree? What about the National Security Council? Is anybody in the U.S. government authorized to debunk Putin’s lies – if so, who? If not, why not?

Good questions.

Religious Liberty is a Gift from God

...not an indulgence by the state.

The Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals refused to exempt the nuns because it considered their understanding of their own religious beliefs “unconvincing.”

That's just the kind of thing that is going to bring this situation to a head.

UPDATE: It's not just nuns.

Coming to the fore over issues of personal identity, most saliently in relation to the gay-rights movement, same-sex marriage, and transgender rights, it has resulted in a legal battle in which the radioactive charge of “discrimination,” borrowed from the civil-rights movement of the 1960s, is wielded as a weapon to isolate, impugn, and penalize dissenting views held by Americans of faith and informing the conduct of their religious lives.

Jews are hardly the only group at risk from developments in this area of progressive agitation; up till now, its main targets have been believing Christians. Perhaps for that same reason, Jews have also not been in the front ranks of those raising an alarm. Nevertheless, the threat to them, and to the practice of Judaism, especially by Orthodox Jews, is very real. Unlike in the past, the threat comes not from private initiatives; it comes from government.

1,200 Year Old Viking Sword Discovered

This story is a month or so old, but I don't remember seeing the picture before.

While hiking an old mountain trail in Haukeli (on the border of Telemark County, Norway), Goran Olsen was surprised to discover a 1250 year old Viking sword among some rocks near the road when he sat down to rest. The sword was in excellent condition, especially considering its immense age.

I Haven't Got One Unbroken Rib on My Right Side

Since we're doing Corb Lund songs.

That's How We Do It In Dixie

Monday Night

Life is short. Raise some, while you may.

That is Straight Whiskey

Mat Best hits some notes.



It's funny to me because he's a generation behind us, and doesn't know it -- Kim du Toit was on a lot of this nearly twenty years ago, and BLACKFIVE was all about this stuff in its heyday.

Good to see the kids picking it up.

Give Me Money

Shamelessness is the new norm in Clinton's America.

The price of entry at several of the stops, such as Monday’s dinner at the Beverly Hills home of entertainment mogul Haim Saban, is $50,000 per person. On the Vineyard on Saturday, Clinton netted roughly $2 million at a single cocktail party, then darted off to a small dinner event at a billionaire’s home that generated another $1 million.

By midweek, the Clinton war chest had grown by many millions more, as Clinton hopscotched on a three-day California swing from Johnson’s house to the Saban affair and then to the home of Justin Timberlake and Jessica Biel, where Jennifer Aniston, Jamie Foxx and Tobey Maguire also showed up. Then it was off to the Bay Area for multiple events, including one hosted by Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook.

Just remember, if you're a foreigner who wants to buy influence, the deadline is Inauguration day. After that, there will be a timeout while we figure a work-around for you to continue to give money.

Because She Doesn't Have To

When it comes to the Clintons, it’s not only about what happens, but how they react. The fact that Clinton has not given a press conference in 264 days is far more damaging than the seeming corruption itself.

If she didn’t do anything wrong, why won’t she defend herself?

Qudosi

I happen to know Shireen Qudosi, the Muslim activist apparently permanently banned from Facebook this weekend.

The spat originated after Qudosi stood up for Clarion Project’s National Security Analyst Ryan Mauro, who provided training in San Diego to various police departments last week on what to be aware of when fighting radical Islam.

Mauro was subjected to a silencing campaign by the Muslim Brotherhood-linked Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), which attempted to shut down the training sessions by inundating the police with complaints. CAIR was founded by Muslim Brotherhood members and was designated by the FBI as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation trial, the largest terrorism financing trial in American history.

CAIR was designated as a terrorist organization in 2014 by the United Arab Emirates.

Qudosi is an American woman who believes that her native Islam can be reformed to respect international norms about women's rights and personal liberty. I think she's got a hard row to hoe, but I also think that if Islam is to survive it's going to have to make the kind of transition she wants for it. Banning her voice isn't going to help Islam, not in the long run nor even probably in the short run.

Fair Warning: Frenetic, Stream of Semi-Consciousness Posting Ahead

The fall semester has counter-attacked. Summer vacation has been forced to fall back and relinquish the field. While I regroup to counter-counter-attack yet again, my posting will probably be frenetic and possibly even more stream-of-consciousness than usual. Maybe even stream-of-near-unconsciousness.

At some point I'll probably post something downright dumb and I won't realize it until you tell me. Be assured: It will have sounded pretty good on not-enough sleep and maybe a relaxing adult beverage.

Meanwhile, here's another round of Corb Lund. Let me recommend a double Tullamore Dew Single Malt 10-year, neat, for accompaniment.

Hypothetically, How Does the Revolution Happen?

I was over at neo-neocon recently and the topic of a new American revolution or civil war came up. It's kind of difficult to imagine how it would begin, and since Krag and some others seem to think it's likely, I thought I'd ask for hypothetical answers.

Here are my thoughts on insurgency / civil war / revolution in the near future.

I don’t see a new civil war happening unless some states decide to secede. This isn't unthinkable (Texit, anyone?) but I think the states would at least try a constitutional convention first, and then if that failed, secede. That would be quite some way down the road.

There could possibly be an attempt at revolution, maybe in the form of a coup, but I doubt it. At least, not as a first step.

I think it’s more likely an insurgency would be the way it developed. A small insurgency would probably be quickly crushed, but a widespread insurgency could develop into either a civil war, if it could somehow gain territory and regular forces, or a revolution, if it were widespread and popular enough.

An insurgency could be where it stopped, as well. We could be looking at a situation maybe similar to Northern Ireland. Possibly the insurgency could create no-go zones for the authorities, but not get any further. I think this would eventually fail, although it could take a generation or so.

It's difficult for me to assess what would happen with our current security forces. I've read a number of commenters on various sites who claimed that the military and police would be on the revolutionaries side, but that's not necessarily true. I think Conservatives are divided between those willing to go outlaw and those whose honor is bound up in law and order, even if it ends in results they find objectionable. It's hard to say.

I also think that answers the claim that Conservatives have the police, military, and gun owners, so the Left can't win. I think the fighting would be done by Conservatives on both sides, outlaws vs. law-and-order types.

I think it ends in disaster for several reasons. First, I don’t think enough Americans understand or care enough about liberty to join the revolutionaries. If they cared enough to fight for liberty, they would have cared enough to vote for it before now. Many young Americans are increasingly hostile to liberty, and many of the old are risk-averse. So I don’t think it would ever be successful enough to draw in those sitting on the fence.

Another reason is, without outside help, insurgencies never win, not as long as the government is willing to keep fighting. It is only when the government decides it isn’t worth fighting anymore and gives up that insurgencies can win.

Instead, I think any insurgency or attempt at revolution would end up being just another crisis the Left would not let go to waste, and they would become more powerful from it. And we would all lose more liberty.

There are other disasters that could occur as well. The drug cartels would almost certainly get into it, and what if Russia or China decided to play by providing arms, money, advisors, etc.? What if La Raza took the opportunity and made their “reconquista” a violent insurgency as well? Bad news all around.

Anyway, what do you think? How does it start? How does it play out?

"Scientific Canon"?

Now that is an enlightening way of putting it.