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September 30, 2014
Drone Crews
The flying branch refers to each on-station drone as a “Combat Air Patrol,” or CAP.Normally, a CAP includes four drones. One is in the air over the target area. Another is en route to replace it when its fuel runs out. The other two machines are in maintenance. But a CAP also needs people—186 people, to be exact. Fifty-nine people launch, land and repair the Predators at airfields near the actual combat zones, in places such as Afghanistan, Pakistan and Djibouti. Forty-five CAP members live and work at an air base in the United States, flying the drones via Ku-band satellite. Another 82 people scattered across the U.S. pore over the video imagery the robots acquire and forward it onward to intelligence officials and front-line commanders.Air Force Drone Crews Got So Demoralized That They Booed Their Commander — War Is Boring — Medium
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 6:49 PM | Your Say (1)
400 = Brazil's 200 Million
That’s about the same as the gross domestic product of Brazil, a country of 200 million people. The average net worth of list members is $5.7 billion, $700 million more than last year and a record high. An impressive 303 of the 400 saw the value of their fortunes rise compared to a year ago. Only 36 people from last year’s list had lower net worths this year. Twenty-six people fell off the list; another six people died, including businessman and Tampa Bay Buccaneers owner Malcolm Glazer.Inside The 2014 Forbes 400: Facts And Figures About America's Wealthiest
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 5:57 PM | Your Say (5)
The Refuge
a tiny locker room thousands of feet below the Earth's surface where the miners congregated to await either rescue or death—is, it seems, still intact, a room now sealed off from the surface but peppered with hand-written notes and objects the men deliberately left behind.There is something weirdly nightmarish about this room —
the very fact that it's still down there. Indeed, it's not hard to imagine the metal doors of those old lockers swinging shut now and again, or suddenly popping open, their hinges rusted, trembling as distant caves implode in the mountain all around them, or even the sound of small rocks bouncing down the Ramp from higher levels, like the awful footsteps of someone lost and alone, as if the miners are all still down there.BLDGBLOG: Collapse
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 4:21 PM | Your Say (0)
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:46 AM | Your Say (11)
Real science doesn’t make you feel smart. Fake science does.
No matter how smart you think you are, real science will make you feel stupid far more often than it will make you feel smart.Real science not only tells us how much more we don’t know than we know, a state of affairs that will continue for all of human history, but it tells us how fragile the knowledge that we have gained is, how prone we are to making childish mistakes and allowing our biases to think for us. Science is a rigorous way of making fewer mistakes. It’s not very useful to people who already know everything. Science is for stupid people who know how much they don’t know.Sultan Knish: Science is for Stupid People
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:25 AM | Your Say (3)
“Catastrophic Gradualism”
Nothing is ever achieved without bloodshed, lies, tyranny and injustice,but on the other hand no considerable change for the better is to be expected as the result of even the greatest upheaval. History necessarily proceeds by calamities, but each succeeding age will be as bad, or nearly as bad, as the last. One must not protest against purges, deportations, secret police forces and so forth, because these are the price that has to be paid for progress: but on the other hand “human nature” will always see to it that progress is slow or even imperceptible. If you object to dictatorship you are a reactionary, but if you expect dictatorship to produce good results you are a sentimentalist.House of Eratosthenes
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:11 AM | Your Say (1)
What did the president not know and when did he not know it?
Obama has had accurate intelligence about ISIS since BEFORE the 2012 election, says administration insider 'Unless someone very senior has been shredding the president's daily briefings and telling him that the dog ate them, highly accurate predictions about ISIL have been showing up in the Oval Office since before the 2012 election,' said a national security staffer in the Obama administration who is familiar with the content of intelligence briefings.Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:09 AM | Your Say (8)
The Modern Campus Cannot Comprehend Evil
Liberalism lacks a profound sense of evil— but so does conservatism these days, when evil is facilely projected onto a foreign host of rising political forces united only in their rejection of Western values. Nothing is more simplistic than the now rote use by politicians and pundits of the cartoonish label “bad guys” for jihadists, as if American foreign policy is a slapdash script for a cowboy movie.Camille Paglia: | TIME
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:09 AM | Your Say (4)
QOTD
"You can tell for whose benefit an institution is run by looking at who gets the closest parking spaces. At universities the students get the most distant spaces, administrators and faculty the closest. At Wal-Mart, they ask the employees to park away from the entrance."Posted by gerardvanderleun at 6:52 AM | Your Say (1)
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 6:49 AM | Your Say (5)
An Interview with the Former Weekly World News Editor Who Created Bat Boy
We enlarged the eyes and did wonders in these computer programs. Even then, in 1992, there were no add-ons. I worked in concert with the retouch department and designed this character. In this specific case, it was absolute and they followed my detailed instructions to the letter. So that’s where Bat Boy was born, but it wasn’t called Bat Boy originally.| VICE United States
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 5:45 AM | Your Say (0)
September 29, 2014
If you looked at a chicken sandwich lying next to a double cheeseburger,
You’d think, “There’s a slightly shittier than average meal for an adult.” But slap the chicken sandwich between the double cheeseburger and suddenly it becomes this depraved amalgam of obesity and Obamacare-causing quasi-foods. It becomes the salient indicator, the shibboleth of America’s largest health problem since fucking polio. Fuck that noise, bro.Culinary Bro-Down
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:13 PM | Your Say (6)
Dear Internet Fact Checking: Now that every product on the shelves claims to be gluten-free, I started to wonder what happened to all of that gluten that used to be in everything.
Is it just a coincidence that the same question was raised (hidingstuff.com) about the eventual destination of the trans fats that so many products claimed to have rid themselves of? What about reports (photosquashed.com) that astronauts took pictures from space of quivering mountains of trans fats in the Chihuahuan Desert, and that the pictures were suppressed because of pressure from the Trilateral Commission?Internetfactchecking.com
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:19 PM | Your Say (3)
We may live in a degenerate age but we are told by the media that it is progress.
Even the outright disgusting is celebrated as a renaissance.Divorce, illegitimacy, gays, gay marriage, transgender people, soon to be followed by polygamy, bestiality (transspecies romance?) and loosening of age of consent laws (probably for gays horny female teachers only). This is not progress, only change. This is not new, just located on our shores. We live in the United States of Weimerica.28 Sherman: Weimerica
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:17 PM | Your Say (5)
Fired Oklahoma City nursing home worker threatened beheading, police say
“The victim said Jacob asked her what time she got off work and she replied by asking him in a joking manner if he was going to kill her,’ the detective wrote. “Jacob told the victim, ‘Yes,’ he was going to cut her head off. The victim asked Jacob what he was going to cut her head off with and he said, ‘A blade,’ then told her after he did it he was going to post it on Facebook.Vigilantism coming right up. Sooner or later. Depend upon it. Sad but true.
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 3:23 PM | Your Say (5)
Presenting ISIS-Beating "Mad Max" Battle Tanks And Buses
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 3:15 PM | Your Say (2)
#TOLDYA On Goldman
You ask "How can Goldman Sachs be running at 545 times leverage relative to its assets?"And the answer is, because Goldman Sachs and the United States government are, for all intents and purposes, the SAME. FISCAL. ENTITY. And if anybody has any explanation other than that, I would love to hear it. And again, I would just encourage you to look at the people who are populating the United States government, the bureaucracy, the federal reserve banks. And look at their CVs. Where did these people come from? They came from Goldman. ‘Kay? Again, I don’t like the whole conspiracy theory worldview, but sometimes it’s real. And when it is real, you have to be brave enough to face it. That’s it.-- | Barnhardt
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:09 AM | Your Say (4)
21st-century U.S. politics in miniature:
a half-assed listicle penned by a half-bright celebrity and published by a gang of abortion profiteers.It is an excellent fit, if you think about it: Our national commitment to permanent, asinine, incontinent juvenility, which results in, among other things, a million or so abortions a year, is not entirely unrelated to the cultural debasement that is the only possible explanation for the career of Lena Dunham.Five Reasons Why You’re Too Dumb to Vote | National Review Online
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:55 AM | Your Say (3)
The Japanese. Nuked Too Much or Not Enough? (KS)
Muzzle invisible muzzle for just a good relationship of pets and people, it is the muzzle that can be used freely. To prevent biting, excessive barking, eating and picking up training for. Motif of the beak: By be in the form that is charming, such as the beak, you can use it freely.
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:25 AM | Your Say (3)
How Big Bird Works
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 6:46 AM | Your Say (3)
Inside the black markets for your stolen credit cards
the digital cryptocurrency first popularized by Silk Road, but also accept transfers via Webmoney, MoneyGram, and Western Union, among others. Since such payment methods aren’t reversible like credit card transactions, the storefronts rely heavily on their reputations. They can also use third-party services that add an additional level of security, an act that’s become necessary with the recent surge in sites selling fake credit card numbers across the stolen personal data industry.Kernel Mag
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 6:43 AM | Your Say (7)
September 28, 2014
The Flying Flivver: Henry Ford's Attempt to Make Us All Pilots
(Koppen later said that Ford wanted a plane that would fit in his office.) By the summer of 1926, Koppen had come up with an aircraft that fit the bill. The Ford Flivver was a small single-seat plane that was just over 15 feet long and had a wingspan of just a hair under 23 feet. It ran on a 3-cylinder, 35-horsepower engine made by the Ford company Anzani, and it weighed just 350 pounds when empty.| Mental Floss
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:21 PM | Your Say (4)
They are always somebody elses’ intelligence failures, never the president’s.
Two days ago, Josh Earnest argued the fact that the US was evacuating the embassy didn’t mean the administration strategy wasn’t working.ED HENRY, FOX NEWS: In terms of decisive action by the president, how can you cite as a success Yemen when the country is falling apart?
JOSH EARNEST, WHITE HOUSE: Because, Ed, what we have seen is the effective deployment of counter-terrorism strategy that involves building up the capacity of local forces, on occasion backed by American military forces, to counter extremist threats that are emanating from that country.
HENRY: If it has been so successful why are we pulling our embassy personnel out of there?
EARNEST: Ed, what we have been focused on is mitigating the threat from extremists and denying them the kind of safe-haven that would allow them to plot –
HENRY: The embassy said we are pulling out. We have to get our people out of there.
EARNEST: Ed, what we have seen in Yemen is the effective deployment of a counter-terrorism strategy to put continual pressure on extremist groups that seek to do harm to the United States.
HENRY: If there is so much pressure why are we leaving?Belmont Club » Strike Two
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:03 PM | Your Say (3)
A Nigerian Prince Called Islam
To protect your self-esteem, you go on believing that no matter what Prince Ngobo does, he is credible and sincere.
That is where Western elites find themselves now. They invested heavily in the illusion of a compatible Islamic civilization. Those investments, whether in Islamic immigration, Islamic democracy or peace with Islam have turned toxic, but dropping those investments is as out of the question as writing off Prince Ngobo as a con artist and walking away feeling like a fool.Sultan Knish:
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:33 AM | Your Say (3)
Reliable Source: “Next Attorney General Will Be A Woman”
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:13 AM | Your Say (7)
"Warmunists"
The New York demonstration, full as it was of communist organizers and sympathizers, inspired one wag to argue the marchers really were warmunists -- that is, far left-wingers posing as environmentalists. (Any question respecting their commitment to environmentalism and keeping the planet clean were resolved by shots of the mounds of trash they left behind while purporting to save the planet.) Articles: Jihadis and Warmunists: Brothers Under the SkinPosted by gerardvanderleun at 7:11 AM | Your Say (3)
Welcome back to reality, Mr. President.
For those paying attention, the core of ISIL was formerly known as “Al Qaeda in Iraq.”And some more history for those not paying attention to the Iraq War from 2003-2010: Al Qaeda in Iraq got its ass kicked by the US military. It was baby steps at first, and then it was in earnest from “The Surge” onwards. Who championed this “Surge”? He’s now a painter in Texas. What the surge accomplished- against virtually every voiced opinion put out by the wizened sages in Foggy Bottom, Democrat activists at CIA and all the panjandrums that were part of the Iraq Study Group- was very much like the objectives announced a little over a week ago by our peace prize Nobel Laureate President.DANSEN: Take A Bow, Neocons... | Truth Revolt
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:08 AM | Your Say (2)
Generation Wuss
When you don’t have the cushion of rising through the world economically then what do you rely on?Well, your social media presence: maintaining it, keeping the brand in play, striving to be liked, to be liked, to be liked. And this creates its own kind of ceaseless anxiety. This is why if anyone has a snarky opinion of Generation Wuss then that person is labeled by them as a “douche”—case closed. No negativity—we just want to be admired.- - Bret Easton Ellis | Vanity Fair
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 6:48 AM | Your Say (3)
He Who Hesitates Has Had It
Ferguson officer wounded after confronting burglars; suspects remain at large : NewsPosted by gerardvanderleun at 6:44 AM | Your Say (1)
September 27, 2014
Britain is on Fire, Let the Motherfucker Burn [Bumped]
a deadly poison the Islamic immigrants are only too happy to pour down their quivering English throats. They deserve what they get. No one forced this on Britain. The English had a long conversation with themselves, and decided to commit mass suicide and welcome the Muslim hordes intent on replacing them. If anything, Britain should serve as a haunting lesson of what happens when a people intellectualizes themselves into a position so far to the left it condones their own self-destruction.| The Right Stuff
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:17 PM | Your Say (12)
Alton Nolen: religious black man gunned down by white racist
Sometimes, some of us will have to give our heads in order for Muslims to have the civil right to fully practice their religion. There are more important things to be concerned with in the United States, such as the right of Muslims to practice Sharia law, and whether blacks are being gunned down in huge numbers by racist whites. Today, the world mourns the double civil rights violations (bigoted racism and religious persecution) that occurred in Oklahoma. The incident in question involved Alton Nolen, a black man and a practicing Muslim.- - People's Cube
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 1:49 PM | Your Say (8)
"I just can't bear it any longer."
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:28 AM | Your Say (2)
Seen at "Climate Movement Drops Mask, Admits Communist Agenda"
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:26 AM | Your Say (8)
Never Trust Anyone Who Hasn’t Been Punched in the Face
When good men who will fight are all extinct, there is no more civilization.No lantern-jawed viragos are going to save you from the barbarian hordes. No mincing nancy boys with Harvard diplomas will stand up for the common decencies: They’re a social construct, dontcha know. The conservative movement won’t save you: They’re chicken-hearted careerists petrified of offending a victim group.- Taki's Magazine
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:06 AM | Your Say (10)
In an utterly unrelated news story,
the chief of police of Ferguson offered an apologyfor one of his officers shooting a over-sized violent criminal punching him in the face after the criminal was done robbing a store. The mob was stirred to greater fury, and the mainstream news media merely clucked its collective tongue that the apology was not more prompt, more unctuous, more submissive, and he should have resigned.Teddy Roosevelt’s Lion and Bear. Obama’s Bike Helmet. | John C. Wright's Journal
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:04 AM | Your Say (2)
Against Stuff!
The march was initially billed as “an invitation to change everything.”I suspect many of the protesters would not be in favor of changing their ability to binge watch episodes of Modern Family on Hulu Plus or gaze endlessly into smartphones produced by Third World slave labor, but that’s just my intuition speaking. One justice-marcher’s sign read “Boobs Not Bombs.” Presumably, a convergence of forces has finally collapsed upon a Femen-inspired singularity whereby public nudity is now morally equivalent to a carbon offset. Another sign called for a “nuclear free, carbon free future.” Apparently this protester advocates a return to the lifeless void of the primordial universe. This seems in keeping with the general trajectory of leftist thought, which holds nearly every human act to be “problematic”—their term for “sinful.”
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 6:56 AM | Your Say (1)
September 26, 2014
As soon as a white Christian beheads a black man,
you won't be able to keep Obama off the TV. Carl Gustav on TwitterPosted by gerardvanderleun at 10:25 PM | Your Say (5)
Why is Aluminum Foil Shiny on One Side But Not the Other?
This initial foil is sent through still more rollers, several times, until it reaches the desired thinness. For the type of foil that is bright on one side and matte on the other, it is so thin that during some of the last rollings, two sheets of the thin foil must be placed together lest they tear or crimp during the final rolling of the sheets. One consequence of this is .... Today I Found Out....Posted by gerardvanderleun at 5:50 AM | Your Say (5)
September 25, 2014
Acoma Pueblo
Location: US Continuously Inhabited Since: c. 1075 Cool Fact: Acoma Pueblo is located on a 365-foot-high mesa, a type of land formation similar to a plateau, which made it isolated from conflict for hundreds of years. [Been there. Done that. And they weren't selling t-shirts when I was through.]
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:05 AM | Your Say (7)
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:51 AM | Your Say (3)
The Rise of SPECTRE
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:01 AM | Your Say (2)
The slums of the 21st century will be
— already are — strange things:inhabited by enormously fat people surrounded by a clutter of magic gadgets none of which whose operation they can understand. They can watch but can’t read. They can eat but unable to get their teeth fixed or unable to hire a skilled workman to fix anything. We are poor in a cave of wonders.Belmont Club
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:57 AM | Your Say (1)
Break out the air-sickness bags! NatGeo's Martha Hamilton scribbles dumbest race story of the 21st century!
And she calls this chunk of excrement she has squeezed out of her tiny mindhole,Colorful World of Birding Has Conspicuous Lack of People of Color "More diversity among bird-watchers is in everyone's best interest."Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:28 AM | Your Say (9)
September 24, 2014
What never gets mentioned by modern economists or public policy types
is the fact we already have scads of people in useless jobs.Having experience with the federal government, I know about a third of the people employed do nothing. They show up, perform tasks as instructed, but it is all busy work. Another third do real work, but we should probably stop them. The army of people coming up with new warning labels for shampoo bottles are a net negative to society. The rest probably do useful work, but I’m probably being generous. The same math is true in state and local government. It’s not just the public sector. The private sector has millions of pointless workers. Lawyers are an easy example.Z Blog › Free Riders
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:32 PM | Your Say (2)
There’s an expression old Africa hands used to use.
It is “AWA” or Africa Wins Again. The Europeans tried everything they could to turn their colonies into outposts of civilization, but they all failed. No matter what you do, the Africa can’t stop being Africa. You’re not allowed to think that so we think other things. The Z Blog › Ebola and YouPosted by gerardvanderleun at 9:01 PM | Your Say (2)
G.K. Chesterton observed:
The Declaration of Independence dogmatically bases all rights on the fact that God created all men equal; and it is right; for if they were not created equal, they were certainly evolved unequal. There is no basis for democracy except in a dogma about the divine origin of man.From Taboo to Common Sense - Taki's Magazine
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:56 PM | Your Say (1)
Tru' dat
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:41 PM | Your Say (2)
September 23, 2014
At this point, an improvement
Barry Manilow Halloween Surprise: “I Sing with Dead People” Duets with the DeceasedPosted by gerardvanderleun at 9:18 PM | Your Say (3)
It's an ill wind.....
West Coast warming linked to naturally occurring changes - LA Times Naturally occurring changes in winds, not human-caused climate change, are responsible for most of the warming on land and in the sea along the West Coast of North America over the last century, a study has found.Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:18 AM | Your Say (3)
"Well begun is half done."
The Decline & Fall Of Europe: French Farmers Set Tax Office On Fire | Zero Hedge [Let's hope it catches on.]Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:02 AM | Your Say (3)
"As Putin is being demonized as a monster and mass-murderer.
Syria Is 7th (Muslim) Country Bombed By 2009 Nobel Peace Prize Winner in concert with his lovely and inspiring group of five allied regimes: Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and Jordan. [But who's counting?]Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:57 AM | Your Say (4)
Ye Olde Nautilus
That’s more than double the time that the first dinosaurs roamed the Earth roughly 231.4 million years ago. Fossil records indicate that nautiluses have not evolved much during the last 500 million years and are often referred to as “living fossils“.Four Ancient Animals That are Older than Trees «TwistedSifter
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:16 AM | Your Say (4)
Good actor. Lousy story.
Sense of Events: Why “Left Behind” should be... left behind By Donald Sensing The real problem, though, is that the majority of non-Christian Americans (a number growing rapidly) take their cues about Christianity from pop culture and default-think that nitwittery such as the Rapture is what all Christians believe.Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:12 AM | Your Say (4)
Who Says There's No Good News?
Murderers Of Three Israeli Teenagers Killed By Israel According to the Shin Bet, Marwan Qawasmeh and Amer Abu Aisha were hiding in a house in the West Bank. Israeli forces arrived at the area, and according to Palestinian reports, fired a rocket at the house and additionally used a bulldozer.Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:02 AM | Your Say (5)
Who Says There's No Good News?
Face mites live on all adults."They're semi-transparent, they have eight legs, they kind of look like a tiny, in a way, see-through caterpillar."
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:54 AM | Your Say (2)
NYT Issues Correction: Sorry, Bush Did Seek Allies in Iraq
In point of fact, Barack Obama had a total of nine allies in his battle against ISIS as of September 5. George W. Bush’s original “coalition of the willing” had 48 countries as members. | Truth RevoltPosted by gerardvanderleun at 8:45 AM | Your Say (1)
Blah blah blah corporations blah blah blah. Capitalism destroys the planet.
How come changes in our society that are collectivist in their direction, from reduced independence of the local jurisdictions to diminished labor participation to the swelling of the political class to the increased government spending to the bloating of the welfare state, never seem to be bad for the planet? It’s always “capitalism” or something related to it, that is the problem. House of EratosthenesPosted by gerardvanderleun at 8:44 AM | Your Say (1)
September 22, 2014
From Norbert Wiener’s The Human Use of Human Beings, published in 1950:
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:37 PM | Your Say (8)
The Piety of Plutocrats
The picture above the text is dripping with sanctimonious self-regard. These people arranged for the profile in the Cult’s main organ so they could advertize their virtue before a major Cult gathering. The breathless prose in the story is so fawning I think I got a cavity while reading it. The key bits are right there in the beginning. It is a “movement” and that means it has religious overtones. Religions are just a type of mass movement. The fact that it started on college campuses is a big deal to the Cult. That means it is innocent and pure, according to the mythology of their faith.The Z Blog ›
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:11 PM | Your Say (5)
Is it “kinetic military action”? Is it an “extended counterterrorism operation”? Is it war? Nah. Never war.
“War” would mean that America was actually out to win against ISIS/ISIL/ISI?.So far only ISIS has announced the intention of beating America. America just wants to manage ISIS/ISIL/ISI?. A bombing doesn’t make a war any more than Pearl Harbor did. And like Bluto said, ‘was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?’ No way. It ain’t over. It ain’t even war. The only ‘war’ the world today is the War Against Ebola and the world is losing that.Belmont Club » US Bombs Syria â Can We Say That?
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:50 PM | Your Say (0)
In the 1930s members of CPUSA (the Communist Party of the USA) got instructions from Moscow to promote non-representational art
so that the US’s public spaces would become arid and ugly.Americans hearing that last one tend to laugh. But the Soviets, following the lead of Marxist theoreticians like Antonio Gramsci, took very seriously the idea that by blighting the U.S.’s intellectual and esthetic life, they could sap Americans’ will to resist Communist ideology and an eventual Communist takeover. The explicit goal was to erode the confidence of America’s ruling class and create an ideological vacuum to be filled by Marxism-Leninism.- - Gramscian damage
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:45 PM | Your Say (5)
Life is a cabaret, old chum, here in Caligula’s bedroom.
A sort of insanity rules, warning of stress building along many political San Andreas faults waiting for the Big One.A pathologically aggressive United States bombs countries almost at random while little boys are dragged from school in handcuffs for pointing a finger and saying âBang.â Girls suffer from bulimia and anorexia, lunacies nonexistent in psychically healthy societies. A crack-brained feminism makes cockamamie circuses of the universities. Bastardy runs at a perilous thirty percent among white women, verging on cultural disintegration, and seventy percent among blacks. The epicene young grow in sheltered, meaningless hothouse-suburbs, never having worked, baited a hook, been in a schoolyard fight, or existed outside of a feckless bored helplessness. From the cellars come prancing homosexuals, men in dresses and panties, the surgically altered inverts and sadomasochistic hobbyists. The high schools are become drug markets, differing only slightly from the middle schools.- - Fred On Everything
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 6:07 PM | Your Say (4)
The vast chasm between the ruled and the ruler is hardly news.
The interesting bit is that the political divide looks a lot like what’s happening in trendy coastal cities. Upper middle-class whites are systematically driving out non-Asian minorities.Washington DC is getting whiter by the day. This old list shows that DC, like other trendy ruling class places is becoming less vibrant. Harlem went white a few years ago and is on its way to looking like Reykjavik. It only makes sense that the governing class would follow the same path, getting whiter, richer and more self-absorbed.- -The Z Blog › The Colonists
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:15 AM | Your Say (0)
Bow Down to the Tiki Cocktail, Douches and Douchettes!
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:01 AM | Your Say (8)
The Abominus Noah.914.GFNP Salmon fly,
The fly's name includes the September 2014 date it was made, reference to the gold filled wire and nickel metals used, and a "P" for prototype.... As the names of fly patterns grew more romantic and evocative, so, too, did the palate of feathered materials used to create them grow increasingly colorful and imaginative. Where earlier provincial fly dressers were content to get their feathers from ordinary domestic chickens, turkeys, ducks, and geese, the new “gaudy fly” required the contributions of Asian pheasants, Latin American cotingas, Indian kingfishers, and African and Asian bustards.- - Never Yet Melted
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:40 AM | Your Say (4)
September 21, 2014
“Once again, thanks to everyone who stayed home last election day because Mit wasn’t conservative enough.”
The “social justice warriors” are only happy when they’re destroying someone. That’s because they’re awful people with mental and emotional issues. InstapunditPosted by gerardvanderleun at 4:50 PM | Your Say (8)
Tens of Thousands March Against the Common Cold
FROM today’s New York Times: Under leaden skies, throngs of demonstrators stretching as far as the eye could see moved through Midtown Manhattan late Sunday morning, chanting their demands for action on the common cold.With drums and tubas, banners and floats, the People’s Common Cold March represented a broad coalition of ages, races, geographic locales and interests, with union members, religious leaders, scientists, politicians, manufacturers of tissues and students joining the procession. “I’m here because I really feel that every major social movement in this country has come when people get together. And besides I had nothing better to do with my life than protest something,” said John Tipton, the president of a teachers’ union. “It begins in the streets.”The Thinking Housewife
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 4:30 PM | Your Say (0)
They will keep trying until they find some way to get greater control political speech.
Today it sounds absurd, but a generation ago it was absurd to think bakers would be forced at gun point to make cakes for homosexuals. Yet, here we are. The Z Blog › The Next Turn of the RatchetPosted by gerardvanderleun at 7:52 AM | Your Say (5)
Now that's gonna leave a mark....
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:05 AM | Your Say (6)
It’s not hard to explain why the Muslim world dislikes Obama.
Nobody likes a loser. -- Belmont ClubPosted by gerardvanderleun at 7:01 AM | Your Say (1)
The thing is, the Obama approach works once.
It’s why his vote fell off in 2012.You can only be the first black President one time. You can only be the Progressive Messiah once. It’s not that the coalition that supported Obama is temporary. It’s that its natural size is not enough to win elections. Without some way to get these people infuriated enough to vote in bulk, it is a loser hand. 2010 was a GOP blowout, despite the fact even the most loyal Republican thinks the party is run by idiots. 2014 is looking like another blowout, even though the GOP is just a little more popular than cancer.The Z Blog › Racial Politics
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 4:37 AM | Your Say (3)
The Invention of Morphine
Friedrich’s discovery was not well received at first by the medical community. Discouraged, he set the work aside for several years until, while enduring a painful tooth ache, he treated himself with a small amount of morphine. After a nice nap, he believed his product was safe for human consumption. But just to be on the safe side, he began testing it in on local children.-- Today I Found
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 4:34 AM | Your Say (1)
September 20, 2014
Ebola's Not Airborne So Don't Worry Be Happy
The minimum level of protection in high-risk settings should be a respirator with an assigned protection factor greater than 10. A powered air-purifying respirator (PAPR) with a hood or helmet offers many advantages over an N95 filtering facepiece or similar respirator, being more protective, comfortable, and cost-effective in the long run.COMMENTARY: Health workers need optimal respiratory protection for Ebola | CIDRAP
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:30 PM | Your Say (5)
White House Shakin' In It's Secret Service Boots!
The man who jumped over a White House fence and made it all the way inside the executive mansion before being caught was carrying a 3 1/2-inch knife and told officials he was a veteran of three tours in Iraq, according to the complaint released today.Humm, let's see. That would be almost limitless guards with automatic weapons, SAM missiles on the roof, a platoon or so of Marines, and Barack "MouthBalls"Obama versus a 3 1/2 inch knife. Be afraid. Be very afraid. What a crap sack of pussies.Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:58 PM | Your Say (6)
Sex in Scotland
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:49 PM | Your Say (2)
"The war on drugs has not been a failure, because it has never been fought. "
Contrary to what the IQists assert, most people are not born with a strong propensity for self-discipline and self-regulation, no matter what their IQ. That is a Rousseauist fantasy. Dumb people can be very disciplined, and smart people can be out of control. Discipline must be learned, in fact implanted, and therefore must be part of the culture. The mainstreaming of drug use, to the point where a majority of middle-class kids start using drugs at an early age with little adverse consequence, has meant the ghettoization of the middle-class. The old bourgeois culture that made Republicanism and capitalism possible is nearly dead, and the mainstreaming of drug use has been a major factor.
I would be all for drug legalization if the entire welfare state was dismantled beforehand. In the old days, when drugs were legal, only the very poor or the very rich could be incessant drug users, because the one could afford it, and the other would die without consequence. A middle class or working class person who did drugs would end up in the bowels of society, with no support or succor. Punishment was swift and ruthless. You ended up dead, or the living dead, which was worse. The elites made drugs illegal when they amped up the welfare state for a reason. They were smarter then.
The war on drugs has not been a failure, because it has never been fought. Where it has been fought it works. What we have in the West is a game that produces revenue and justification for the therapeutic managerial state, and an excuse to put problematic members of the lower orders in jail. The war on drugs is working just fine in Asian countries, which is why they are now stomping the West. Kids in Singapore don’t smoke pot at 14. Low level drug dealers are executed in China and their organs are harvested. The Asians learned from the Opium Wars. They made it extremely punitive for their citizens to do drugs, while taking over the supply side. They are very happy to supply the West with the means to its own destruction. I’ll bet the Chinese Politburo is eagerly awaiting the day drugs are completely legalized in the U.S. and Europe.
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:48 PM | Your Say (10)
The first time a “dispensary” blows up or the owner is gunned down,
everyone will suddenly remember that the drug dealersdid not pack up and go away just because weed is legal. Not that it will matter. The rulers have concluded that it is too much fuss to defend western civilization. The easy choice is to give the mob free drugs so they can sleep through the rest of the collapse. The Romans gave away free grain. The new Rome gives away free weed. I’m sure it will turn out just fine.The Z Blog › Legalized Soma
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 4:35 PM | Your Say (9)
See No Evil. Hear No Evil. Speak No Evil.
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:14 AM | Your Say (1)
Death to Urban Elves!
Elves can breed with humans, but they are embarrassed of their attractions to brutish and short-lived humans so they prefer to murder the children before their Elders find out.This is why elves tend to be feminist and vote Democrat. Elves also tend to be outspoken feminists because the elvish race, which has much in common with the Dwarves (but we’re not going to get into the whole gold-mongering Dwarf thing here), is almost completely androgynous and elvish communities have been matriarchal since their Age of Vulvar began in 33 AD. Elves will often say that “gender is just a construct” because they like to tease “unevolved” humans, who they know full well have more fully differentiated sexes. Hen-pecked Elvish males are secretly jealous of human men, though, so they work with the Dwarves to market birth control pills, human pornography, soy products, plastics and other products with dysgenic, emasculating effects.Jack Donovan
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 6:34 AM | Your Say (1)
"Hustlers of the world,
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 1:06 AM | Your Say (3)
September 19, 2014
Developing effective combat mindset and killer instinct is the most important aspect of tactical training.
Some believe this is something you have to be born with.They say it cannot be developed. They are wrong. We are all born with it. It is the legacy of our ancestors. We just have to learn to overcome post-modern cultural conditioning to bring it back to the forefront of our options. Of course, the past of history may change course. The Republic may be restored peaceably, and you may never face violent physical danger. You may die of old age, peacefully in your bed, surrounded by a legion of loving children and grandchildren.Or, you may die face down in the mud on a wet, dark night, choking on your own blood and lung tissue, a burst of 7.62ﾗ51 through the chest, listening to the screams of your wife and children as a mob drag them off to a living hell. The choice is yours.Combat Mindset and Killer Instinct | Forward Observer Magazine
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:13 PM | Your Say (3)
The Difference Between White People and Black People
The eager, fact-seeking Martian would learn that white people have historically hated black people and have conditioned them to hate themselves.
Life has been unfair and oppressive for black people ever since being kidnapped from their homeland, despite the fact that by most measures of living standards such as longevity and yearly income and access to medical care, it is far better in America for them than it is back in their homeland.- Taki's Magazine
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:11 PM | Your Say (3)
The coming hundred years, in one hundred words
heaping plastic and gnarled brambles of wrought steel wrapping the earth to form a solid mass of techno-pathocracy, instead to have evolved, prodded along by its new stewards, give birth, grown and green and basking in eternal sunlight. A techno-primitivism where mankind lives in harmony with its surroundings, a new eden, a cornucopia, a garden earth. Our ancient foes flora and fauna kept now as a momento of our past. Not to conquer nature with asphalt but the barefooted first steps of post-scarcity. A feast for the touch. A miraculous biology. -- Sean MorivaThe Technium: A Desirable-Future Haiku
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:10 PM | Your Say (3)
September 18, 2014
Obama's No Muslim. He Just Plays One on TV.
Obama came from Chicago culture, arguably the most corrupt if not criminal, burg in North America.After an undistinguished spell in the US Senate, Mister Obama became the new face of the Left in Washington, DC, a Beltway culture populated by the likes of John Brennan; big city Irish Catholic -- and like Pflegler, a product of progressive Jesuit schools, too. The progressive worldview is informed by a theory of Orientalism, the shop-worn notion that race and exploitation are the unitary explanations for First World (pale) success and Third World (brown) failure. A good part of the black American minority in America and the Sunni global Islamic majority share a victim’s outlook: false pride, dependency, an inferiority complex, and generational rage.-- Taking Sides in the Muslim Civil War
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:02 AM | Your Say (11)
Hey, 'you guys' I need another vacation in Hawaii on the dime of 'you guys.'
Michelle Obama: 'Being Married to the President ... Can Be Hard'"About being in the -- about being First Lady is being able to do stuff like this, really. And it is so special for me to get to meet kids like you guys, Because sometimes living in the White House and being married to the President and trying to live a life like that, it can be hard. But when I meet you guys, I am so inspired, which is one of the reasons why I like to come and spend time with you guys."
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 6:10 AM | Your Say (3)
September 17, 2014
Certain parts of San Francisco are what happens when white people have no natural predators.
But everything else is like if New York's Gramercy neighborhood got a whole town. On any given night there are way too many "going-out shirts" and the women dress like there was a fire sale at some emporium that only sells clam-diggers and kicky little jackets with ornamental zippers. I have never so frequently witnessed pinstripe and patchwork meeting in the middle as I have on the tragic A-line skirts of Valencia Street. Every man who isn't contemptibly rich enough to be famous for it reminds me of Matthew Lillard's pigtail-braided Rollerblader in Hackers. I have never tallied so many "Pick-Up Artist" hats or labret piercings outside of 1996. Fashion is no more than an indication of larger trends.- - Never Yet Melted » Bring Back the Grizzlies
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:56 PM | Your Say (4)
[Bumped] Perhaps it’s an ungenerous attribution,
The tattoo seems to summon their eyes, to draw their focus even if they have other things they wish to think about. In that sense, a tattoo is narcissistic, and narcissism is coercive. It lives off of others’ notice, and when the narcissist fails to draw attention, he feels disturbed and wounded. Whenever we sense that need, we recoil from it.A Theory for Tattoos | Mark Bauerlein | First Things
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:56 PM | Your Say (33)
The Great Influenza
“These men start out with what appears to be an ordinary attack of LaGrippe or Influenza, and when brought to the Hosp. they very rapidly develop the most vicious type of Pneumonia that has ever been seen.
Two hours after admission they have the Mahogany spots over the cheek bones, and a few hours later you can begin to see the Cyanosis [blue color due to lack of oxygenation] extending from their ears and spreading all over the face, until it is hard to distinguish the coloured men from the white…- - neo-neocon Ebola and influenza: pale rider
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:48 PM | Your Say (4)
In case you weren’t paying attention: this is war.
And the sooner we realize that these zombies mean what they say, will not be mollified with saccharine overtures, and will keep coming at us until they are put down en masse,the sooner we can steel ourselves to the necessary resolve for the monumental task at hand. Our Constitution is not a mutual suicide pact. Curbs on immigration and maybe even the expulsion of 5th-column elements who mean us evil should be on the table and strongly considered. The shape-shifting mask of Islam, given the grim reality of its relentless demographics, should not be allowed a foothold here to secure a dagger into our backs at a time of its own choosing.Articles: Foreign Policy and Roosting Chickens
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:19 PM | Your Say (4)
Puffy pedant Neil deGrasse Tyson
is enduring a meteor shower of criticism over his totally unscientific obsession with how stupid everyone is.Most notably, from The Federalist, which first published, “Another Day, Another Quote Fabricated by Neil deGrasse Tyson” and followed it up with, “Did Neil deGrasse Tyson Just Try to Justify Blatant Quote Fabrication.” Turns out, Neil is a complete douche. I told ya so.- - McINNES: Universal Truth | Truth Revolt
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:14 PM | Your Say (2)
What Obama's Kids Will Be Eating in Their School
While the self-appointed, unelected grunt chunker Michelle tells American kids to eat crap, here's her daughters' Sidwell Friends Menu for Thursday, September 18 Snack: Cinnamon Breadsticks & Pears Roasted Vegetable & Israeli Couscous Salad Sweet Italian Sausage Fresh Hummus & Veggies Wraps Sauteed Peppers & Onions Gemelli Pasta w/ Pesto Local Nectarines Nothing is too low for this couple. Nothing.Posted by gerardvanderleun at 5:58 PM | Your Say (5)
"A helmet. A helmet. My kingdom for a helmet!"
Richard III Killed by Sustained Attack, Suffering 9 Wounds to Head The forensic study of Richard's remains has revealed that the doomed king—the last English monarch to die in combat—suffered 11 wounds at the time of his death at Bosworth Fields in 1485. Nine of these were to his apparently unprotected head, two of them "nonsurvivable."
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 5:30 PM | Your Say (2)
For socialism, like Islam has its warrior elite:
the people who count act for causes and not money.Didn’t Chelsea once boast she had tried making money and got bored with it? Working was for dull people; Chealsea wanted a meaningful life, a warrior life; a wonk existence. Drudgery has been too boring for the aristocracy of any society, beneath the great men of its legendarium.Belmont Club ｻ Myron Vs Atilla
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:09 AM | Your Say (2)
More Stupid
I can’t make up my mind on the November elections.I think the country would be best served with a massive Republican victory. They could bottle up Barry’s judicial nominees for two years and stop his planned amnesty. Barry would be a lame duck and spend the next two years playing dress up with Reggie Love. The Republicans would do nothing to address the many things that ail the nation, but at least they would probably staunch the bleeding. On the other hand, a loss would throw cold water on Conservative Inc and the Wets in the GOP. I fear I would blow a funny fuse watching guys like Hannity burst into tears on election night.- - The Z Blog
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:02 AM | Your Say (4)
September 16, 2014
We conjure up more fabricated outrages and controversies in a month than past civilizations could have mustered in a thousand years.
Does anybody remember what everyone was super worked up about four weeks ago? Yeah, me neither.Maybe something happened on an awards show, or maybe some Republican said something about gay people, or maybe a blogger wrote an opinion of some sort — who knows? We moved on to something else, and then something else, and then something else, and then something else. We have located the Fountain of Eternal Indignation, and we drink it by the gallon.It's racist to ask someone where they're from, according to your kid's college - The Matt Walsh Blog
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:22 PM | Your Say (4)
It’s time to quit worrying and learn to love the battle axe. History teaches us that if we don’t, someone else will.
A rule not ultimately backed by the threat of violence is merely a suggestion.States rely on laws enforced by men ready to do violence against lawbreakers. Every tax, every code and every licensing requirement demands an escalating progression of penalties that, in the end, must result in the forcible seizure of property or imprisonment by armed men prepared to do violence in the event of resistance or non–compliance. Every time a soccer mom stands up and demands harsher penalties for drunk driving, or selling cigarettes to minors, or owning a pit bull, or not recycling, she is petitioning the state to use force to impose her will. She is no longer asking nicely.Jack Donovan | Violence is Golden
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 6:23 AM | Your Say (1)
Muslims are waging war
in South East Asia, The Middle East, Europe, Asia, North America, Russia and China. In what way is this not WW3? Wrath Of Gnon / TwitterPosted by gerardvanderleun at 5:54 AM | Your Say (7)
September 15, 2014
Despite being the greatest orator of the last thousand years,
he's a complete bust at selling anything but himself,as comprehensively demonstrated in his first couple of years: see his rhetorical efforts on behalf of ObamaCare, or Massachusetts Senate candidate Martha Coakley, or Chicago's Olympics bid. When it comes to war, he suffers from an additional burden: before he can persuade anybody else, he first has to persuade himself. And he can't do it. So he gave the usual listless performance of a surly actor who resents the part he's been given.Coalition of the Unwilling :: SteynOnline
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:49 PM | Your Say (5)
Regardless if it's a gun or a marshmallow
if someone tries to prevent your ownership of anything at all they are trying to control you.That person is genetically flawed and cannot be fixed and it will continually try to own you. There is only one remedy for this. Total and instant destruction at the source. Anything less is coddling and encouraging.Ghostsniper commenting @ AMERICAN DIGEST
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:58 PM | Your Say (5)
Why are all the excuses made for Islam?
Islam, after all, is a religion, and has been for over a thousand years.You can call it a weird religion, a violent religion, an intolerant religion, not a âtrueâ religion (whatever that means), but it certainly has claimed to be one quite successfully for all that time. Unlike the other Abrahamic religions which preceded it, and which have a text (the so-called Old Testament) that contains some violence and misogyny, Islam is steeped in bothâpositively marinated in them -- and those Muslims who don't espouse such things are not in the overwhelming majority.-- neo-neocon
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:48 PM | Your Say (6)
The post-Christian, post-modern man will not fight to defend himself.
He is psychologically emasculated and saturated with self-loathing.
Further, war will never be formally declared. You will not see the U.K. (whatever is left of it), France, Germany or the U.S. declare war on anyone, ever. That’s all over. For the U.S., that ended with World War 2. You all know that the U.S. never declared war in Korea, Vietnam, or anywhere else since World War 2, right? Additionally, while World War 3 grinds its way forward through time, and as millions upon millions die, the media will continually state that THERE IS NO WAR, and anyone who says that there is a war is just a loon. And the people will nod their heads, and the body count will rise, but it won’t be WAR you understand, because everything’s fine.Octet | Barnhardt
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 4:21 PM | Your Say (2)
September 14, 2014
The Headchopper Next Door
Mohammed would have been as happy rampaging around Iraq and Syria as a pig rolling around in dung.ISIS is Islam. It’s the naked religion. There are no angels or djinns, no revelations, just piles of mutilated corpses and children playing with severed heads while other children are raped in prison cells. It’s Mohammed, but it’s also Saddam Hussein, Bashar Assad and Gaddafi. Islam doesn’t end the cycle of tyranny and oppression. It is the reason that the cycle continues.Sultan Knish:
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:33 PM | Your Say (3)
“I was not ‘converted’ to the Church,
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:15 AM | Your Say (2)
September 13, 2014
"How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries!
"Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy.The effects are apparent in many countries, improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement, the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property, either as a child, a wife, or a concubine, must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men."-- Winston Churchill
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:07 PM | Your Say (9)
This just in....
Obama Unable to Sleep After Learning Limbaugh Liked His Speech - The New YorkerPosted by gerardvanderleun at 8:35 PM | Your Say (0)
And, lo, it doth beginneth...
Christ Arrested for Assaulting Muhammed in San RafaelPosted by gerardvanderleun at 10:25 AM | Your Say (0)
If You Liked Vietnam, You’ll Love the War With the Islamic State
Young progressives of Barak Obama’s generation were taught by their professors that the Vietnam War was an evil undertaking few had the inclination to seriously study. Obama himself described it as one of the “dumb wars” when he was a candidate. There are no dumb wars; there are however, wars fought in a dumb manner. Our president appears to be embarking on one. | Small Wars JournalPosted by gerardvanderleun at 8:51 AM | Your Say (3)
Confucius Say:
A superior man, in regard to what he does not know, shows a cautious reserve.If names be not correct, language is not in accordance with the truth of things. If language be not in accordance with the truth of things, affairs cannot be carried on to success. When affairs cannot be carried on to success, proprieties and music do not flourish. When proprieties and music do not flourish, punishments will not be properly awarded. When punishments are not properly awarded, the people do not know how to move hand or foot. Therefore a superior man considers it necessary that the names he uses may be spoken appropriately, and also that what he speaks may be carried out appropriately. What the superior man requires is just that in his words there may be nothing incorrect.The Rectification of the Names
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:04 AM | Your Say (3)
And counting....
There Are Now 52 Explanations For Pause In Global Warming | The Daily CallerPosted by gerardvanderleun at 7:58 AM | Your Say (1)
You've come a long way, baby. [Bumped]
UK Soldier Converts to Islam, Gets Surgery, Becomes First Transgender Gay Muslim Woman["I try to become more cynical every day, but lately I just can't keep up."]
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:55 AM | Your Say (14)
Bogart from Above!
Mysterious Men Dropping From Helicopters In CA To Chop Down Marijuana Plants...Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:43 AM | Your Say (0)
I love the smell of irony in the morning
A lawyer in the IRS ethics office is facing the possibility of being disbarred, according to records that accuse her of lying to a court-appointed board and hiding what she'd done with money from a settlement that was supposed to go to two medical providers who had treated her client....[Despite this] the office has dispatched Ms. McGee to lecture professionals about the importance of maintaining high ethical standards. - Washington TimesPosted by gerardvanderleun at 7:19 AM | Your Say (3)
You're Not My Real Stepdad!
My real stepdad used to let me take the dirt bike out by myself all the time.He gave it to me when he told me he was marrying my mom and explained that I should try to call him "Dad." Dennis was awesome. He even promised to take me hunting once, and he would have, if he didn't have to spend all his time and money on a good lawyer. He treated me like his own son through marriage. And unlike you, my real surrogate father raised me from the time my mother sat us down and told us that Dennis would be spending the night at our house from now on.- America's Finest News Source
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:08 AM | Your Say (2)
September 12, 2014
The Unitary Cult Theory.
This is when members of a mass movement, always jostling with one another for status within the movement, close the information loop,excluding information from people outside the movement regarding a topic. The result is a piety contest where members of the movement stand up and commit increasingly extreme acts of public piety. As more and more members jump into the ring, the contest quickly spirals out of control resulting in these absurd public displays. Because the country is run by the Cult of Modern Liberalism, these piety wheels get maximum attention. The public is often sucked into the the false drama in the same way people get caught up in a TV serial. That’s gasoline on the fire. With Ferguson, the public has seen that drama too many times to stay interested for very long. The Gay Gayington story is too disgusting. This Ray Rice story gets more interest because the NFL is so popular and everyone can relate the story at the center of it.The Z Blog
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:59 PM | Your Say (1)
The great thing about World War 2 is that it ended
whereas the current conflict has been ongoing since September 11, 2001 with no end in sight.The only thing worse than war is endless war, especially a war which nobody wins after decades of fighting. This is the kind of conflict which modern political leaders specialize in fighting: violence without ultimate effect, sacrifice without any tangible result; conflict without any milestones, guideposts or landmarks. A war that never ends on the quarterdeck of a battleship, but only in the slow drawing of the blinds.Belmont Club ｻ World Views
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:18 PM | Your Say (3)
September 11, 2014
Gays are 2.6% of the population, including Lesbians.
Not much to hang a sports league on.But the motivation is essentially religious. Owners care more about being seen as one of the chosen, the Saved, the special, the “good White” who gloriously saves the downtrodden non-White, or Gay, or Muslim, or what have you, and thus performs the sado-masochistic (credit the tweeter Roissy/Heartiste retweeted) rituals of recycling, yoga, tofu, vegetarianism, jogging, etc. along with “racial cuckoldry” that makes up the religion of Racial Penance and Redemption.Michael Sam and Denzel Washington: the Gay NFL and Black Equalizer | whiskeysplace
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:30 PM | Your Say (6)
Europeans and their colonial descendants may pen laws of war, but only they are constrained by them.
In the real world outside the dinner parties of Washington D.C. and Brussels, there are no laws in war.Islamic law which has regulations for which foot to use when entering a bathroom (the left foot) and which side to sleep on (the right) has very few laws of war that cannot be nullified by necessity or even whim. On the battlefield, Islamic jurisprudence is boiled down to, Do what thou wilt in the cause of Allah, that is the whole of the law.Sultan Knish: Divided We Stand
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 4:52 PM | Your Say (4)
September 10, 2014
Where did the future of 2000 go?
Ironically it rumbled along unnoticed under the public narrative.For in the years since 2000, revolutionary new medical treatments, practical robotics, new nuclear energy technology, life extension and host of advances have made the future we no longer wanted attainable again. Quite without meaning to, North America became the energy capital of the world. With an Ebola epidemic ravaging Africa, the brightest source of hope came from a biotech startup with a dozen employees operating out of a California strip mall.Belmont Club ｻ Rescuing the 21st Century
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:32 PM | Your Say (1)
What POSident Obama Should Have Said
"My fellow Americans, we just completed the bombing of every ISIS target we can identify,we have frozen their assets in this country and we have indicted all their conspirators and supporters in the United States. I want to thank the men and women of the USS George H.W. Bush, the entire Fifth Fleet, the airmen and women al-Udeid air base in Qatar, the Secret Service's treasury operations and U.S. Attorney Andrew M. Luger of Minnesota and his staff, as well as the FBI special task force who assisted them in apprehending more than 100 militants in the Minneapolis area alone.-- Don Surber
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:07 PM | Your Say (3)
Lawrence Lessig
At the dawn of the Internet age, these faculty lounge philosophers were just about out of options.Sitting around smoking clove cigarettes and talking about Che was seen as ridiculously out of step with the times. Making money, living the good life and jumping on the speeding train of technology was where the cool kids were at, not bookstores and coffee shops. This ever-present caravan of crazies that poses as the avant guard needed to figure out how to get in on the act. Guys like Lessig figured out how to attach themselves to the productive class by philosophizing about technology.- - The Z Blog
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:59 AM | Your Say (1)
And then I go to sites like Ace of Spades and they are still, STILL trying to parse Obama
and the Obama regime from the false premise that Obama and the regime are NOT the malignant, psychopathic (incapable of feeling shame or guilt), sworn enemy belligerents of the American people and milieu that they are.What can Obama be THINKING?? How could he possibly be so INEPT? Well, what Obama is thinking is, “I’d sure like to smoke some crack and then be fellated by one of my male concubines. It’s been six hours since the last time I smoked crack and was fellated. I gots to get me some crack and fellatio. Somebody bring me some crack. And then **** my ****. ”- - | Barnhardt
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:53 AM | Your Say (14)
A terrorist organization that beheads Americans and posts the video needs to be annihilated, but this is not particularly difficult.
We cannot do the killing ourselves, except, of course, from the air.We are too squeamish under the best of circumstances, and we are too corrupted by cultural relativism (remember George W. Bush's claim that Islam is "a religion of peace"?) to recognize utterly evil nihilism when it stares us in the face. In practice, a great deal of the killing will be done by Iran and its allies: the Iraqi Shi'a, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the Assad regime in Syria. It will be one of the most disgusting and disheartening episodes in modern history and there isn't much we can do to prevent it.14 Million Refugees Make the Levant Unmanageable
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:10 AM | Your Say (5)
[Bumped] What on earth leads the Establishment to think America
can go into a country with a radically different and largely dysfunctional culture,about which it knows virtually nothing, and “manage its transition to more democratic politics,” much less “rebuild societies that didn’t have any civic traditions?” Who do the Establishment think they are? Merlin? The Archangel Michael? The degree of hubris is astonishing. The United States, or any foreign power, has no more ability to do those things than we do of commanding the tide to recede.The View From Olympus: The Origins of Our Distress | traditionalRIGHT
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 5:22 AM | Your Say (40)
September 9, 2014
Short of actual credible threat of war by the United States,
Russia intends to possess the Cossack regions of the Eastern Ukraine– a land bridge to their newly seized Crimean peninsula – and to insure against the seizure of the rest of Ukraine by NATO. Any American foreign policy that does not realize this is deluded. What we must be concerned about is the Baltic Republics, which are already NATO members and thus war trigger allies of the United States.- - Jerry Pournelle [And this is why having a craven coward as a faux-president is so dangerous.]
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:13 AM | Your Say (6)
“Transparency and the rule of law will be the touchstones of this presidency.”
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:05 AM | Your Say (5)
“If we are part of Christendom, then we must fight the Islamics,
because they will attack us as soon as they think the odds favor them.If they succeed in Boston, they will try the same thing in every one of our cities. Nor should you think the appeal of Islam will be only to blacks. They will shape and tune their message to white audiences as well, and they will penetrate them. They will use any means that work. Saudi Arabia used to pay tens of thousands of dollars to any American citizen who would convert to Islam.”Victoria: Chapter 25 | traditionalRIGHT
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:00 AM | Your Say (6)
Evil is ancient, unchanging, and with us always.
The more postmodern the West becomes— affluent, leisured, nursed on moral equivalence, utopian pacifism, and multicultural relativism — the more premodern the evil among us seems to arise in nihilistic response, whether it is from the primordial Tsarnaev brothers or Jihadi John. We have invented dozens of new ways to explain away our indifference, our enemies hundreds of new ways of reminding us of our impotence. I suppose we who enjoy the good life don’t want to lose any of it for anything — and will understandably do any amount of appeasing, explaining, and contextualizing to avoid an existential war against the beheaders and mutilators, a fact well-known to our enemies.Works and Days » Are the Orcs Winning?
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:28 AM | Your Say (2)
If it's taxed, it must be California
After a number of days touring volcanoes on Oregon's amazing Route 97, I pulled into a border check station where a uniformed member of the state of California demanded to know if I had any concealed "produce" in my Cadillac. "There's a Fuji apple in the cooler," I said. "Go ahead," he said and waved us through into the long vallleys and fir-clad mountains and dried-up reservoirs of California.Posting here will continue to be essays from the archives and occasional notes for a few weeks until I am settled. If anyone among my readers knows of any rental apartments or homes between Sacramento and Chico / Davis and Tahoe I'd love to hear about it at vanderleun@gmail.com .Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:24 AM | Your Say (8)
Serial Monsters
Serial killers are pretty much proportionate to the population.So out of 100 of them, about 72% are white (of which around 17% are hispanic), about 13% are black, 5% are asian, and about 5% are native American. So yeah, most of the killers are going to be white because the bulk of the population is still (despite what you might have read in the news or see in entertainment media) white in America.Word Around the Net
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:15 AM | Your Say (3)
10 Things about Murderers we Learned from “The First 48.”
Things we’ve never seen. We’ve never seen a murder done with a legally-bought firearm on the show.We’ve never seen a murder where the firearm precipitated the crime. (It may have contributed to hotheaded urban “disrespect” killings). We’ve never seen a suspect who turned out to be someone from the gun culture — considering how standard that plot point is in TV, it seems to be a screenwriter fantasy of a piece with the same guys’ dread of “Eurotrash neo-nazis,” a group which has the virtue, from Hollywood’s viewpoint, of being too small and nonexistent to pursue a defamation action.| WeaponsMan
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:14 AM | Your Say (0)
September 2, 2014
'Imaginary Elegies: IV'
This much I’ve learned
In these five years in what I’ve spent and earned:
Time does not finish a poem.
Upon the old amusement pier I watch
The creeping darkness gather in the west.
Above the giant funhouse and the ghosts
I hear the seagulls call. They’re going west
Toward some great Catalina of a dream
Out where the poem ends.
But does it end?
The birds are still in flight. Believe the birds.
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:25 PM | Your Say (2)
The goal of Women’s Liberation is to wear each female down to losing all empathy for boys, men or babies.
By the time Women’s Studies professors finish with your daughter, she will be a shell of the innocent girl you knew,
who’s soon convinced that although she should be flopping down with every boy she fancies, she should not, by any means, get pregnant. And so, as a practitioner of promiscuity, she becomes a wizard of prevention techniques, especially abortion. The goal of Women’s Liberation is to wear each female down to losing all empathy for boys, men or babies. The tenderest aspects of her soul are roughened into a rock pile of cynicism, where she will think nothing of murdering her baby in the warm protective nest of her little-girl womb. She will be taught that she, in order to free herself, must become an outlaw.Marxist Feminism's Ruined Lives
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:52 AM | Your Say (6)
Anthony Watts reminds us of what the settled scientists were saying half-a-decade ago:
World Will Warm Faster Than Predicted In Next Five Years, Study Warns.Duncan Clark in The Guardian laid it on as only a devout warm-monger can: The world faces record-breaking temperatures as the sun's activity increases, leading the planet to heat up significantly faster than scientists had predicted for the next five years. Er, no. None of that happened. That was The Guardian on July 27th 2009When Science is Settled - by Government :: SteynOnline
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 5:32 AM | Your Say (5)
September 1, 2014
Things rarely end the way we think they will,
usually a low-probability event occurs, something it seemed safe to ignore, or at least to discount, until suddenly it wasn't.Once the stuff of novels, the unexpected is now the stuff of life. It's what makes interesting times dangerous times. We're seeing a replay of 2008 but at the next higher level, not unstable financial outfits, not even unstable markets, but unstable regions of the world. Where we had banks fail we're having nations fail, at the near periphery for now but moving toward the core like Genghis Kahn at a gallop.ol remus and the woodpile report
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:44 PM | Your Say (1)
"If you are going 80 miles per house how long does it take to go 80 miles?"
Watch the great debate here at Lequelle Moore-El ye mighty and despair!Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:43 PM | Your Say (11)
May Day in Europe and Labour Day in America do not celebrate work,
as a spiritual good when properly directed,but the organization of workers into a political force. We have the unions which replaced the ancient guilds, in which the member is only incidentally a labourer, and need have achieved no craft skill at all. His real identity is that of an anonymous and dependent cypher, serving the interests of men with power, who serve his interest by getting him more paper money, through “collective bargaining”: a legalized process of threats and extortion. The modern worker is a faceless man, or interchangeably a faceless woman, employed in office or factory, including our factory farms. He is part of the machinery. He must be “efficient” in machine terms, or like any other defective part he will be replaced.Labour Day : Essays in Idleness
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:40 PM | Your Say (2)
"And, lo, there was a basso-profundo 'har-de-har-har' in heaven:"
Proof of a Merciful God with a Sense of Humor is found in the fact that this insectoid life-form is still consuming oxygen and drooling on a daily basis.
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 1:07 PM | Your Say (5)
There’s a degree of contempt for the rich, in general, amongst the ruling class.
they can buy their way into the right parties are particularly loathed by the Ted Baxter set. Even so, the sophisticated classes that run things in Washington are very good at handling wealthy rubes from the provinces. They want their money, of course. They just don’t want to put up with the bullshit that rich people bring with them.So, they direct them into harmless endeavors....
the game was to guide the rich dumbasses into funding projects that employed friends of the political class. It was a form of patronage. It was also a way to keep the rich people from doing something stupid. Think about all of the Hollywood assholes who get involved in a cause. Most of them can’t count their balls twice and come up with the same number, but they are loaded and they have free time. That’s a dangerous combo if they want to “make a difference.”The Z Blog › Fools And Their Money
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:37 PM | Your Say (1)
They were just regular fellas, living life and doing things the right way,
same as all over the country, men of that generation, Americans to their last breath.What they didn’t do was talk like some kinda punks that had paper assholes. They didn’t have to. They knew their strength and were secure with it. I learned from this that first comes the man. His reputation follows like dust down a country road. It's not like that these days. A lot of guys in my generation, Boomers if you will, their reputation is concocted and sent in first, like a brass band marching into town ahead of the circus. It is fear-driven. Large promise and poor performance might be their mantra.Spillers of Soup: FATHERS DAY
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:49 AM | Your Say (2)
The trouble with these disquisitions on inequality is not that they are mere sentimentality.
The trouble is the sentiment is imaginary.No one really believes inequality is a problem, save for maybe a few bitter Marxists in your local state college faculty lounge. These are those old rancid hippies who have posters of Che Guevara on their office wall. No, the people who prattle on about inequality simply wish to replace the current inequalities that don’t favor them with a new set that do favor them.The Z Blog › More TED Talks
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:21 AM | Your Say (0)
On the World’s Oldest Trousers
According to a paper in Quarternary International, the garment was unearthed by a team of scientists excavating the tombs in an ancient burial ground, the Yanghai graveyard, in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region of western China. This vast cemetery, which covers an area of two square miles, was discovered in the nineteen-seventies by local villagers. It lies on the fringes of the Taklamakan desert, close to the Turfan oasis, in the Tarim Basin, a stopping place for nomads of the Bronze Age and, later, for the caravans of the Silk Route. The extreme dryness of the climate preserved the bodies and their grave goods to a remarkable degree, including perishable items like clothing and food. In one tomb, there was a basket of fruit and leaves near the mummy of a presumed shaman and, next to his head, a stash of cannabis that was still green.- - The New Yorker
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:07 AM | Your Say (3)
California is no longer the 15 million person state that once was adequately served by our forefathers’ water-transfer projects.
It is not even the 40 million person statethat our ancestors warned could survive long droughts (but only if their descendants of course finish the state and federal water projects). It is instead a 40 million person state with a 20 million person system of reservoirs and canals. In that regard, California’s population would long ago have stayed static, given the recent three decade exoduses of millions of residents tired of high income, sales, and gas taxes, and poor roads, schools, and law enforcement in return. The great equalizer was illegal immigration.Works and Days ｻ Mythologies and Pathologies of the California Drought
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 5:37 AM | Your Say (4)
Falling on Grenades:
Thinking quickly, Jack threw himself on the first grenade, shoving it into volcanic ash and used his body and rifle to shield the others with him from the pending blast. When another grenade appeared directly after the first, he reached out and pulled it under himself as well. His body took the brunt of the blasts and the massive amount of shrapnel. His companions were all saved, but his injuries were so serious they thought he had died. Only after a second company moved through did anyone realize he was somehow still alive. Jack endured nearly two dozen surgeries and extensive therapy and convalescence. Despite the surgeries, over 200 pieces of shrapnel remained in his body for the rest of his life.
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 5:24 AM | Your Say (6)