"Climate Change Started Those Wildfires"

In a way, that turns out to be true. That madness inspired by being taught to believe in catastrophic climate change was in fact responsible. 

A former forestry student-turned-shaman and yoga teacher has been charged with starting a huge California wildfire that has destroyed 41 homes - and was being investigated in connection with other fires - after claiming the blaze was triggered accidentally while she tried to boil bear urine so she could drink it.  

Now if you think that sounds like a reasonable explanation, hang with us here folks.

During questioning by investigators, Souverneva... claimed that she had been thirsty whilst out hiking and found a puddle in a dry creek bed which contained bear urine. 

She then claims she attempted to filter the water using a tea bag but when that failed tried to start a fire to boil the water. Souverneva said that it was too wet to start a fire so she drank the water and continued walking. 

Boiling urine does not improve it, but she wasn't even actually able to boil it, so she drank it anyway. 

Souverneva is known to be a graduate of the California Institute of Technology and former Bay Area biotech employee. 

She has also worked as a yoga teacher and describes herself as a shaman - a person who claims to have a direct connection with the world's good and evil spirits. 

Now, just on the off-chance that any of you out there reading this should think that you're a shaman in contact with good and/or evil spirits, let us have a short safety briefing. 

1) Do not drink urine, boiled or otherwise.

2) Do not start forest fires. 

That is all.

Riding with the Peshmerga

An American "embedded" with the Peshmerga encounters a suicide bomber in a car bomb ("SVBIED" in the post). Language warning, but he's having fun.

FBI Investigating Vet-Led Afghan Rescue Efforts

The few State Department officials who'd been willing to work with any of us are starting to peel off, citing pressure from on high. Now the FBI is showing up at people's door.

In one instance, agency officials showed up at the home of Scott Mann, founder of Task Force Pineapple, said Tim Parlatore, the group’s legal counsel. Such a visit is normal for the FBI, and the group cooperated fully, Parlatore said.

Some of the people described the outreach as nothing out of the ordinary and part of the growing public-private partnership on evacuations. “In my mind, the FBI was trying to be helpful, not intimidating,” a person familiar with the outreach said.

Others saw it differently.

Yeah, ask LTG(R) Michael Flynn how that friendly, helpful FBI visit 'just to clear things up' worked out for him. 

Related: FBI Admits its Really Hard to Solve Crimes They Didn't Make Up Themselves. 

The Mountain Heritage Festival

Mule Train! The Mountain Heritage Festival occurs annually (except in the annus horribilis of 2020) at Western Carolina University. It features mountain crafts, singing, dancing, and general good fun.

A team of Cherokee from the nearby reservation play a spirited game of stickball, "the little brother of war." It involves wrestling as well as running, tossing the ball with the stick, and so forth. 

If you enlarge the signs in this photo, you'll find that it is a blacksmith next to and working with a Cherokee coppersmith. The blacksmith produced traditional Scottish arts, including knives, swords, hammers, and chain mail armor. The collaboration between them mirrors that of the Scots immigrants and the Cherokee on the frontier, where the two communities were very close. 

Naturally there was bluegrass, gospel, and other mountain music.

Finishing the day with chicken grilled over the coals.

Redrum MC

There were a lot of these guys at the recent bike rally I went to, I think because they're a "First Nations" motorcycle club and it was held on the Cherokee Reservation. They're the only MC to ever address the United Nations; and apparently actor (and one time Conan the Cimmerian actor) Jason Momoa is a patched member. 

Momoa, if we take the whole 'nobody from the wrong ethnic group should ever play a character from another,' is definitely not a Cimmerian -- they're, according to Robert E. Howard who created Conan, the ancestors of the Celts and the Gaels and Highlanders. That said, Momoa is apparently a pretty cool guy and I am not in any way bothered that he played the character. It wasn't a great rendition, but that is more the director's and writer's fault. I thought he was great in Road to Paloma, and I'm looking forward to seeing him and others in the new Dune.

All the members I met or interacted with were honorable and upstanding. They say they're about positive images and respect for their traditions, and I notice that they aren't unwilling to take on non-Natives who happen to share their views. In that way they're inclusive beyond the ethnic lines they represent, which is nice to see going the other way as it often does not. 

Arizona Audit

The report was published today, and apparently has found issues with ballots at five times the margin of victory. I have not yet had a chance to read it, listen to the hearing, or review the findings. Nevertheless it is important to note.

The margin of victory was only about ten thousand, and normally in an audit of 2.1 million votes a difference of 50,000 wouldn't necessarily be out of line with expectations. It might change the result, but a certain amount of user error and mistakes are to be expected in a large election.

In this case, though, they knew how many extra votes they needed and had extra days to generate them. Sure enough, Wendy Rogers reports, 96% of the duplicate votes that were counted in the audit arrived after election day. The fact that the total numbers are relatively small doesn't mean that this wasn't a fraudulent outcome, because they had the opportunity to know exactly the target they needed to hit. 

I'll look at it as I'm able. I hope some of you will as well. 

UPDATE: I think she might have misunderstood what he said, but the spike is obvious and significant. 

UPDATE: The Federalist has a piece analyzing the results. 

Hospitalizations down again

 The numbers continue to go in the right direction.

A Lamb

He spoke very gently to her when they were first together.

For example, she once asked him if he had ever seen a lamb.

"I saw a lamb this morning," he said. "I looked in his eyes."

Then he stopped speaking, and she knew he was not happy.

...And If You Don't Like Me, Then Leave Me Alone

That advice is widely quoted in old folk songs, and it's good advice for these people. (By the way, having old folk songs is evidence of having a culture, though "whiteness" is not what it's properly called.)

Here's one of those old songs, as a matter of fact. 

Actually Charlie Daniels says about the same thing in "Long Haired Country Boy." 

It's very fine advice. It goes well with the two rules of business: mind yours, and stay out of mine.

UPDATE: Here's a folk song called "Fisherman's Son," which looks to be sung to the same tune as "Moonshiner." 

The sea is my lifeline the shore is my home

I've been to your cities I didn't stay long

I stared at the bright lights the dark city ways

I'll tell you that's not for me, no I couldn't stay....

I'm a fisherman's son got fisherman's blood

Just hauling the lobster and jigging the cod

And if you don't like me then leave me alone

And I'll go on singing my fisherman's song.

The Barrow Downs

Barrows are rising in popularity in the United Kingdom as a burial option. 

From the outside, they typically look just like small grassy hills, perhaps buttressed by some jagged, upright slabs that could’ve been nicked off of Stonehenge. But, each one also has a doorway literally into the hill, and some feature shelves lined with human remains, like a public mausoleum built into the earth....

Angel, whose company, Sacred Stones, has built three barrows since 2015 and is exploring building another six, recalls a visit to an ancient barrow.... the Cairn Holy tomb, which dates back to the fourth millennium B.C. The identities of those interred there are long lost, but something caught the eye of Angel and his daughter: fresh flowers recently left inside. “This is thousands of years old,” says Angel. In the intervening millennia, burial practices changed countless times. And yet, he says, he makes a point of returning to this same ancient barrow on every Scottish holiday he takes. Each time, without fail, he finds fresh flowers. The identity of those interred seems less important than celebrating their time on Earth, and the ancient barrow’s permanence made that possible thousands of years later.

Here is another article on the subject. 

Who Needs Industries?

The FDA decides to kill vaping. I always thought vaping was silly, but it's no worse than smoking (some argue better) and employed a lot of people. You'd think with the economy like it is that employment issue would be a concern.

It would be paranoid to think that the government was actively trying to destroy small businesses, but this has been a devastating year for small businesses of all sorts thanks to government actions. You might believe that some of those actions were necessary and justified. Even if so, why make it worse?

Equinox

 

Autumn arrives. 

Australian Horror Show

Mobs of police open fire on fleeing, unarmed protesters. For their safety, I suppose. 

Ghosts and Barracuda

 Hard blues for the last day of Summer. 

What Just Happened Here?

White House staff suddenly freaks out and expels the media during the middle of a conference with Biden and Boris Johnson. Johnson was mid-sentence when they suddenly push the press out of the room.

UPDATE: The White House explains that Johnson didn't have permission. 

"Our relationship with the United Kingdom and with Boris Johnson is so strong that we will be able to move beyond this, but he called on individuals from his press corps without alerting us to that intention in advance."

So it's a diplomatic affront that an allied head of government took questions from the press, at a press conference, without seeking permission. Fortunately, though we are understandably upset by this, our relationship is strong enough to survive it. 

Hey Oney!

This woman was tired of working at Walmart, and decided to tell the world.

After letting out a deep exhale, Mcgrath began by saying, “attention Walmart shoppers and associates, my name is Beth from electronics. I’ve been working at Walmart for almost five years and I can say that everyone here is overworked and underpaid.”

She continued to express her frustrations by calling out the store’s policies and management. “The attendant policy is b*******,” she continued. “We are treated from management and customers poorly every day. Whenever we have a problem with it we are told we are replaceable. I’m tired of the constant gaslighting. This company treats their elderly associates like s***.”

Mcgrath then got personal with her criticism of the store’s management. “To Jared, our store manager, you’re a pervert. Greta and Kathy, shame all y’all for treating your associates the way you do. I hope you don’t speak to your families the way you speak to us,” she declared. Mcgrath ended the video by exclaiming, “F*** management and f*** this job. I quit!”

In honor of that, a song from Johnny Cash.

 

More from Wuhan

This sounds like a great idea whose time has come. 

New documents show that just 18 months before the first Covid-19 cases appeared, researchers had submitted plans to release skin-penetrating nanoparticles containing “novel chimeric spike proteins” of bat coronaviruses into cave bats in Yunnan, China.

They also planned to create chimeric viruses, genetically enhanced to infect humans more easily, and requested $14million from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) to fund the work.

Papers, confirmed as genuine by a former member of the Trump administration, show they were hoping to introduce “human-specific cleavage sites” to bat coronaviruses which would make it easier for the virus to enter human cells. 

So, they told us they were going to do this. DARPA has been one of the leading agencies on preparing for coronavirus and other pandemics, and in fairness they have had notable successes in preparatory work. All the same, "let's engineer new spike proteins and release them to the wild" is not the kind of plan I would expect from anyone other than a James Bond villain. 

VP Harris: Biden Administration's Handling of Border Must Be Investigated

I seem to recall that she was named 'Border Czar,' but I suppose she means to say that she supports the investigation of and accountability for underlings, not the person in charge. 

Adventures in Headline Writing

The headline here is:

"Less than Half the Country Believes Biden Lacks 'Mental Soundness' To Be President: Poll."

The poll's actual finding: 48% believe he lacks the mental soundness, and 49% think he has it. 

So you could just as easily have headlined this:

"Less than Half the Country Believe Biden Has 'Mental Soundness' to be President." 

Or, since 3% said they weren't sure, giving you 51% who are sure he isn't fit or not sure he is:

"More than Half the Country Unsure of Biden's Mental Soundness as President." 

His speech today at the UN was pretty awful, but the UN itself is pretty awful. Anyone who commits to taking it seriously is already on the wrong track. 

#TraitorCawthorn

Some group called "Really American" is targeting my Congressman, Madison Cawthorn, with this ridiculous video. They are apparently trying to convince Pelosi and the House leadership to expel him from Congress over his rhetoric. 

The video intends to make him look like some kind of militant, but it is carefully edited to leave out the fact that he is in a wheelchair. It uses all the normal tricks of political ads -- slow motion, washed out colors, violent language and the like -- plus footage arising from Cawthorn's own choice to appear often with firearms in order to appeal to Second Amendment voters who are a big part of his constituency in Western North Carolina. 

This kind of thing is ridiculous and offensive. I have no brief for Cawthorn, who as far as I can tell from observing him is completely useless. Nevertheless he was chosen by our voters, and it is none of their business to deny us representation according to the choices our voters made. I'd rather see a better man in the office, but whichever representative occupies the space is our choice and not theirs. 

Meddling strangers are not welcome in these mountains.