The Hand of God

Author Lincoln Brown is having similar thoughts to the ones that have been troubling me. The piece is raw and painful, questing after the justice of things like this. 

But what about Corey Comperatore, a loving and devoted husband, father, and public servant? Was it God's plan for him to die? 

For every person who is saved from cancer by the power of prayer, there are thousands for whom those prayers are never answered. When we were in Cambodia, I witnessed more than the horrific effects of human trafficking. We visited some of the Killing Fields....

I understand: my best friend is dying of stage four cancer at a very young age. I watched my father die too, and he was a brave and faithful man, one who saved lives, a firefighter, a volunteer. 

We are told that death has been conquered, and therefore perhaps it is of no real concern. That's hard to accept as people who have to die, and who have seen the effect of death on those we love. Yet, like Jules in the movie, I think you can't help but acknowledge the miracle. I don't understand it, but I can't deny it.

Fear

I have been to war three times. I’ve been mortared, rocketed, machine-gunned and shot at with Kalashnikovs. I once stood a bear off its kill to force him to let us pass on a trail. I ride motorcycles almost every day. 

The clear footstep of God is the scariest thing I have ever seen.

When my grandmother was buried, child me asked why anyone would fear God, as the scripture said. I know now. God getting involved is terrifying. 

People say to pray for the nation. I’m not the sort to say things like that. But I am praying. 

RIP Newhart

We loved you anyway, you SOB. 

Spam

Gringo alerted me that a comment of his had disappeared. I checked the spam folder of the blog, and found that many of our comments have been automatically assigned to that by Google -- including some of mine! I have restored all the ones I recognize (except Greg's, who really is spam and should go bother someone else). If you notice a comment disappearing, ping me and I'll fix it.

This is getting annoying, Google. The whole purpose of Blogger, when it was new, was to serve as a host for free speech. Go **** yourselves. Having money doesn't make you right. We'll say what we want, one way or another. 

Always loved Sarah Isgur

She tweets: "MSNBC’s bewildering coverage of the RNC this week is further proof that the left leaves elite universities and institutions with no clue about what conservatives believe or why. Whereas conservative students leave college being able to speak fluent liberal."

Good Lord

Conspiracy theories and all that, but it's actually worse if this really was the product of extensive, institutional failure. It'd be better if there was a plot! This indicates the complete failure of all of our institutions... er, as did the Afghanistan situation, the "pier" to Gaza, the border situation, oh good gracious. The whole thing needs to be torn down and replaced, or not replaced where it's not helpful.

More Glorious Behavior

So undercover cops need to drink to keep their cover. However: 

The Pagan's MC are accusing the cops of excessive force, false imprisonment, and malicious prosecution after a confrontation in a bar suddenly degenerated into violence caused by cops who had been drinking for hours.

Maybe all this secret police stuff is not befitting of a free society. 

Corporate Interactions

I had a meeting today with a team led by a former SFOD-D operator and Silver Star awardee. He opened by questioning whether I would be able to make our upcoming in-person meeting from “prison,” and then asserting that “you look like you’re ready to murder somebody.”

I responded, “Every day all day,” which he loved. However, I had to circle back with the team to explain some cultural differences between their world and the world of the American infantry. 

Pulp Fiction

It’s hard to avoid Jules’ conclusion. The way the film was portrayed out of sequence masks that Jules’ conversion also saves his life. His faith does. 

It’s terrifying to think that God would take the side of so flawed a vessel; or to think that God would be so directly involved in human affairs at all. It’s obvious why Vincent rejects the idea. To do otherwise is to admit the existence of a far greater power. 

Dragon’s Breath

View from my front porch. 

Then This Happened...

...at the Republican Convention in Milwaukee, per @DanScavino via @cdrsalamander (I don't seem able to post X videos): 

https://x.com/DanScavino/status/1813067403703820757 

BZ, indeed. 

Eric Hines

Safety first

I held off on posting this, because it referred to an ABC News interview I couldn't at first find in the original, and I feared it must be satire or a hoax. At the 1:50 mark in this ABC News interview with the Director of the Secret Service, Kimberly Cheatle, she explains that the roof from which a young man shot former President Trump on Saturday was not manned by law enforcement because the sloped roof was considered too dangerous for security personnel.

Honestly, I'm still wondering if it could be a clever fake. Could she really have said this on camera? Perhaps next she could reconsider whether live ammunition should be issued to SS personnel. Someone could put an eye out with one of those things.

I wish I could still post images here, to show a comparison between the roof Crooks shot from and the roof the counter-sniper shot from after Crooks opened fire. Both look to be about 3 in 12 slope.

Couldn't agree more

I'm a big believer in price signals and a big doubter on erasing them.

Cities have used rent control for decades as a way to keep renters from experiencing the price signals of bad policies enacted by local and state politicians, and it's been a disaster without escape all along.

Prices are the balance between supply and demand.

You can lower demand by creating alternatives. You can raise supply by removing obstacles to the natural tendency for supply to flow in wherever prices are rising. But a sure way to crash supply is to react to high prices by capping them in order to pander to voters who are deserting you in droves. It's an especially unsavory form of pandering when the price shocks your voters are experiencing result from your own boneheaded economic policy, but President Unity likely couldn't have understood economic principles even in what passed for his cognitive prime.

"Affordable" housing is meaningless if it's unavailable at the state-mandated price, just like "affordable" healthcare.

That’s All Right

 

Hillbilly for (V) President

I have not read Vance's book nor followed his career, so I don't have a highly informed opinion on his selection as Trump's VP nominee. In the spirit of all the recent talk about 'representation' and 'feeling seen,' it is kind of nice to see someone who will self-appellate as an Appalachian on a major ticket. 

That doesn't make him a good choice, of course. Probably many of you have better information about that.

Were I advising Donald Trump, I would have suggested to him that he make a self-defensive nomination of somebody so crazy that any future assassins would think twice about taking a shot at Trump himself. All public information makes this shooter look like a loner, but Dad29's original remarks that led us to talk about assassination before the attempt happened was about Deep State concerns on Trump prompting them to take a shot at him. "Did the CIA kill JFK?" was a question a lot of people asked for many years. Similar people might wonder about a young man with no obvious connections, possessed of the perfect demographics to offend no protected group, getting to an unprotected rooftop with a short clear shot that he was allowed to take before being immediately killed so he couldn't talk.

I'm not saying that it was a conspiracy. That would be paranoid. I'm just saying that a Presidential candidate might pick a VP whose personality made a strong argument against anyone taking another shot. He might also want to hire some private professionals to bolster his government-provided security, which would be prudent rather than paranoid given how badly the USSS performed in this case.

Experimental Photo Editing

Yesterday’s ride back from the Games was hot and hazy, so the photographs of long distance shots were blurry at the horizon. Normally I wouldn’t heavily edit photos, but I found that by lowering the light level and boosting the saturation I could restore the outer line of vision. They look different from the way they looked to the naked eyes, but you can get the longer ranges. 

Jack Smith isn't special

Judge Cannon has dismissed the Florida documents case on the ground, as set forth in Justice Thomas's recent concurring opinion, that Jack Smith's appointment as special counsel was unconstitutional.

Heroes and Volunteers

The WSJ:

A volunteer firefighter died saving his family from the shots fired by Trump’s would-be assassin.

Here is their major citation, which unlike the Journal is not behind a paywall. 

The Grandfather Games

Grandfather Mountain

The Parade of Tartans

An Impromptu Mead Hall

Mead Horns

My wife has discovered that she likes the mead that I brew here at the Hall. So, I bought her as a present the central horn today at the Games. It’s more her size than the big ones, and also more elegant as befits her. 

GoFundMe for grieving Butler families

I saw the link last night and contributed when it was up to only about $85K of its $1MM goal. Today it's pushing $2MM.