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February 29, 2016
It's probably nothing....
A new GOP is born Regardless of nominee, Trump surge marks 'death rattle' of establishment.Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:00 PM | Your Say (4)
It's probably nothing....
Amid Trump surge, nearly 20,000 Mass. voters quit Democratic party | Boston Herald
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 6:57 PM | Your Say (7)
It's probably nothing....
SPECIAL: Valley prepares for next wave of Central American children | KVUE.com "In the past few months the number of unaccompanied alien minors unlawfully entering the U.S. soared to over 17,000 and the number of family units increased to 21,000," Chair Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC) informed the U.S. House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration and Border Security in a February 4 hearing on Capitol Hill. "If these trends continue it is predicted there will be a 30 percent increase in the record high numbers we witnessed in 2014."
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 6:55 PM | Your Say (0)
Our governing class no longer has the consent of the governed,
Our governing class no longer has the consent of the governed, and many of them are shocked when you point that out. The protected – the governing class – pretty well consents. Why would anyone object? The intentions are good. And in fact it is so: they have good intent. They are well-wishing with a vengeance.... The Protected and the Unprotected are not quite the same as the Enlightened and the Benighted, but the Enlightened, who know what’s best for everyone, have gained more power among the Protected and are using it. As I have been saying for two decades, we sow the wind. Now comes the reaping. Unprotected and Benighted – Chaos Manor – Jerry Pournelle
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 6:04 PM | Your Say (1)
Mark Cuban: What Do You Have to Hide ?- The Most Dangerous Question in America
So when I hear candidates ask that another make public their tax returns, it scares me. What’s next ?What if one candidate decided to turn over all their emails ? We have seen Mrs Clinton’s for a period. Why wouldn’t a candidate who was careful about what they wrote in their emails publish all of theirs and offered the “I did it, why won’t you ? What do you have to hide ? ” to the other candidates ? Or here are my detailed medical records and every medication I take. “What do you have to hide ” ? Or better yet, here is my search history and every website I have looked at over the last 4 years. “What do you have to hide ” What do you mean you deleted them ? What are you a ……… (Fill in the blank any way you want ) It doesn’t matter if producing tax returns has become a “tradition”. It is a poor one that should not be part of the electoral process. The irony of course is that it is coming from candidates who have gone on continuous tirades about their love of and ability to interpret our Constitution. | blog maverick
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 5:43 PM | Your Say (3)
The Minutiae Man: Paul Lukas and the Uni-verse
"It's a universal touchstone in our culture; like there's literally nobody in America you can think of whose foot has not been in a Brannock Device at some point. But almost nobody knows what it's called. So it's simultaneously ubiquitous and anonymous, which to me is a very powerful combination." | VICE Sports
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 5:24 PM | Your Say (1)
“How could it be that hundreds of thousands of Americans fought and bled – and many died
just a few years later, we would gaze up at the pinnacle of power in our own country and behold leaders in thrall to essentially the same core ideology we fought and died to protect strangers from?” The answer to this is can be found within the culture itself and more specifically within Americas youth who have seemingly embraced the concept of socialism with little to no understanding of what socialism even is. Yet, like frogs slowly boiling to death in the cesspools that have become our college campuses, our nations youth collectively embrace the ideology that will destroy them while demanding that they be “protected” from opinions that run contrary to their beliefs. Progressive Totalitarianism – Politically Short
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:05 PM | Your Say (2)
First is the “blogging”…which we could, and should, recognize as any means of mass communication linked to the newer technology.
Seems unhealthy. Viewed up close, it is. All that time burned away by someone? And all it does is start fights, no minds get changed. I agree with all that. But it’s a lesson in what’s called “seeing the forest for the trees”; you have to take a few steps back, think long term. Blogging is the healthy part, because now our trans-society discourse is capable of some level of dialogue. Of rebuttal, and counter-rebuttal. Pre-blogging — oh, let’s just be honest about this, can we for just a moment or two? — that was not the case. Uncle Walter told us “And that’s the way it is,” and that’s the way it was…House of Eratosthenes
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:49 AM | Your Say (2)
Who Says There's No Good News: Black Racist Bumped Off Racist News Network
MSNBC severs ties with Melissa Harris-Perry after host's critical email Commenter notes:
"I guess the repugnantly, self-satisfied, "full-o-myself", sassy attitude, swingin' and beaded hair extensions and hate-whitey commentary wasn't enough to keep her on board. Could this mean the long-awaited demise of cowardly politically--over-corrected network token hiring decisions? Oh well, there's definitely a "why-I-hate-whitey" book deal coming up and endless appearances on Oprah, Ellen, The View and Good Morning America will have to do for now. "
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:12 AM | Your Say (1)
The "Religion of Peace" Takes a Sunday Stroll in Moscow
The victim was a girl identified as Nastya M - and the child's 38-year-old nanny Gyulchehra Bobokulova, from Uzbekistan, has been arrested. The woman was seen pulling the severed head out of a bag and walking around near the entrance to the metro station as police moved in. According to local media, she shouted: 'I hate democracy. I am a terrorist. I want you dead.'
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:16 AM | Your Say (6)
February 28, 2016
PVC solvent is the nastiest substance I know of that's commonly found in regular construction.
Lead paint, asbestos, mercury, and everything else you encounter while remodeling is a mere bagatelle compared to PVC solvent cement. None of that stuff is good for you, but their ill effects are well understood, and they can be handled fairly readily with a little common sense. Safely using solvent cement, according to the instructions, involves going outside to make your joints, or wearing just short of a scuba outfit. Go find me a plumber that does either of those things in order to glue up the drain under your bathroom sink. I'll wait, but I won't hold my breath. Neither will he.
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 3:34 PM | Your Say (3)
How could such a giant system, which withstood the onslaught of Nazi Germany itself, fail?
Consider: the USSR's vital signs gave no warning of failure.
The Soviet Union in 1986 was as as big and populous as it had ever been. It had thousands of nuclear warheads. It's economy was bad it's true but no worse than at many points in its past. There was no significant opposition to the Politburo. "After 20 years of relentless suppression of political opposition, virtually all the prominent dissidents had been imprisoned, exiled ... forced to emigrate, or had died in camps and jails. There did not seem to be any other signs of a pre-revolutionary crisis." How Tyrannies Implode | PJ Media
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:23 AM | Your Say (2)
Cereal Isn't Cool In 2016
You need a bowl, a spoon, the cereal itself, and milk. Then, and only then, can you actually have your bowlful. But milk is a nightmare. Who has enough milk, ever? - - Cereal Isn't Cool in 2016 - Buzzfeed
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:06 AM | Your Say (4)
Our governing class no longer has the consent of the governed,
and many of them are shocked when you point that out. The protected – the governing class – pretty well consents. Why would anyone object? The intentions are good. And in fact it is so: they have good intent. They are well-wishing with a vengeance. - - Chaos Manor – Jerry PournellePosted by gerardvanderleun at 8:29 AM | Your Say (1)
February 27, 2016
Okay everyone remember where we parked....
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:52 AM | Your Say (5)
Howard Terpning: The painter of the Native Americans
“…They followed the warrior’s way. They were proud prairie horsemen with an appetite for honour and the visceral thrill of danger. They looked death in the face and fought on, emboldened by bravery and the armour of their medicine. They rode for revenge but would fight too for no other reason than to plumb the depth of their courage. There was blood on the prairie where they passed by, and women wailed in the lodges of their enemies…”| my daily art display
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:58 AM | Your Say (0)
February 26, 2016
The First Boeing 727 Will Fly Again—For 12 Minutes
United paid $4.4 million for the airplane and it paid them back handsomely, generating revenues of more than $300 million during its career. A small team of volunteers including former United or Boeing employees led by Bob Bogash, a 30-year Boeing veteran, has labored at the Museum of Flight's restoration facility at Paine Field for two decades, overcoming funding challenges and missing parts (many of which were cannibalized for other 727s in the early 1990s). In a turnabout, the team acquired the parts it needed from two other 727s donated to the museum in 2004 and 2005 by FedEx and Clay Lacy Aviation. Painted in its original United livery, the 727 will lift off from Paine Field at around 10 am Pacific time on March 1 and head directly for Boeing field flying with an FAA Special Flight Permit. -- Popular Mechanics
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 2:01 PM | Your Say (1)
The true definition of first world problems - wearing the same dress as your dad. pic.twitter.com/Fi2HCxSEib
— Gareth Soye (@GarethSoye) February 25, 2016
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:54 AM | Your Say (4)
It Was a Dark and Stormy Night at Sippican Cottage's Excrement Geyser
The saga continues..... Sippican Cottage: That's Funny. 'Disastrous Ersatz Rube Goldberg Clusterfarge' Is the Name of My Little River Tribute Band. But I Digress
It was well below zero that night, but my first instruction to my son was to open the big swinging doors we had installed after we jacked up our house and slipped a foundation under it. That required a bit of doing, because snow and ice were bunged up against it pretty solid. My son dutifully squeezed through a crack we opened up by shoving like mules, went into the shed-type thing where we keep a disreputable assortment of broken tools, and got a pry bar and some metal shovels. After some chuffing, we got the doors to swing free.
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:33 AM | Your Say (0)
What marks this political moment, in Europe and the U.S., is the rise of the unprotected.
It is the rise of people who don’t have all that much against those who’ve been given many blessings and seem to believe they have them not because they’re fortunate but because they’re better.You see the dynamic in many spheres. In Hollywood, as we still call it, where they make our rough culture, they are careful to protect their own children from its ill effects. In places with failing schools, they choose not to help them through the school liberation movement—charter schools, choice, etc.—because they fear to go up against the most reactionary professional group in America, the teachers unions. They let the public schools flounder. But their children go to the best private schools. Trump and the Rise of the Unprotected - WSJ
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:15 AM | Your Say (2)
February 25, 2016
I'd like to watch this next "debate" tonight but....
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 3:57 PM | Your Say (6)
Barack Obama was Fortune’s gift to the democrat party:
Hillary is every man’s shrewish wife, the pot-throwing termagent who drives all of America out to the nearest saloon to drown our collective sorrows. Hillary is the mean old lady, heading up the Ladies’ League For Social Reform that is going to ban everything that’s fun. Obama was Chingachgook, Queequeg, and a younger version of every Morgan Freeman character. Hillary is Lady Macbeth.... One can picture Bill sitting down with his pal Donald, and saying, “Donald, old boy, I need you to do Hillary and me a solid. The good news is that the whole thing is going to be one of the greatest larks of all time, and together we are going to make history. This is really going to be a hoot! If it works, you get all the billions of dollars of federal contracts, leases, and subsidies you can use, and Hillary will appoint you ambassador to the Court of St. James. If it fails, sheeeit! you get to be president. This is a no-lose operation.” -- RTWT @ Never Yet Melted » What If?
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 1:17 PM | Your Say (1)
Shock Poll: Over 68% of Terrorists Donât Believe Obama Is Muslim
The poll was run by Mujahideen for Public Policy (MPP), a non-profit group in the Islamic State which regularly conducts terrorist public opinion polls, such as the best way to kill homosexuals or how many slave girls is too many. â Duffel BlogPosted by gerardvanderleun at 11:39 AM | Your Say (0)
Great civilizations require great Mannerbunds to found and lead them
The source of civilization is the Männerbund, hereafter rendered in English as the Mannerbund. The Mannerbund is the source of property rights and sexual morality, as well as the vehicle through which effective group action is performed.For our purposes, we will define a Mannerbund as a group of men organized in an organic hierarchy that springs from the male competitive instinct. Mannerbund 101 - Social Matter
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:55 AM | Your Say (3)
Remember "colony collapse"? Now it appears as the bee-pocalypse has been called-off!
The dreaded global warming “bee-pocalypse” that wasn’t[T]he number of honeybee colonies has actually risen since 2006, from 2.4 million to 2.7 million in 2014, according to data tracked by the USDA. The 2014 numbers, which came out earlier this year, show that the number of managed colonies — that is, commercial honey-producing bee colonies managed by human beekeepers — is now the highest it’s been in 20 years. So if CCD is wiping out close to a third of all honeybee colonies a year, how are their numbers rising? One word: Beekeepers. A 2012 working paper by Randal R. Tucker and Walter N. Thurman, a pair of agricultural economists, explains that seasonal die-offs have always been a part of beekeeping: they report that before CCD, American beekeepers would typically lose 14 percent of their colonies a year, on average. So beekeepers have devised two main ways to replenish their stock. The first method involves splitting one healthy colony into two separate colonies: put half the bees into a new beehive, order them a new queen online (retail price: $25 or so), and voila: two healthy hives.
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:33 AM | Your Say (0)
February 24, 2016
The Sippican Cottage "Geyser of Excrement" Saga Continues....
The typical grease trap in a McPtomaine's is maybe a couple of feet wide, a couple of feet deep, and perhaps four feet long. The top of it is flat, and it's set just above the level of the concrete slab. When tile is laid atop the concrete, the top of the trap is level with the finished floor. It's got a diamond-plate lid that's bolted down hard -- for a good reason. Its contents are the foulest smelling thing in the world. It's hard to describe the smell of a rancid grease trap to a civilian. Opening up a neglected grease trap is like sorting out corpses after a mustard gas attack on a Passchendaele trench.
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 5:57 PM | Your Say (0)
Corrupt governments, unable to master diplomacy, strategy or governance have turned to the shortcut of the drone as the magic solution.
It includes, believe it not, third world countries like Nigeria. The LA Times writes, "the grainy video might appear to be another U.S. drone strike, but this was a Nigerian military crew operating a Chinese-built Rainbow drone against Boko Haram, an extremist militia allied with Islamic State, in northeastern Nigeria's remote Sambisa Forest on Feb. 2." Demagoguery as Unskilled Labor | PJ Media
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 5:34 PM | Your Say (4)
Cash, it turns out, is the Achilles’ Heel of the financial system.
The momentum to “ban cash”, and in particular high denomination notes like the 500 euro and $100 bills, is seriously picking up steam. Prominent economists and banks have joined the refrain and called for an end to cash in recent months. What’s really behind this? Why is there such a big movement to ban something that is used for felonious purposes by just a fraction of a percent of the population? Cash, it turns out, is the Achilles’ Heel of the financial system. Woodpile ReportCommenting on this article: The ban on cash is coming. Soon. – Sovereign Man
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:50 AM | Your Say (4)
I'm sure it's just a spray-on tan from them thar booths down in Redneck Hollar.
Stay classy democrats 😉
— Jared Wyand (@JaredWyand) February 24, 2016
The days of shouting racist to scare minorities are over #NVcaucus #DemTownHall pic.twitter.com/hQcluMgbCk
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:30 AM | Your Say (0)
Okay, Here's the Plan
A. Back off and let those men who want to marry men, marry men. B. Allow those women who want to marry women, marry women. C. Allow those folks who want to abort their babies, abort their babies. D. In three generations, there will be no more Democrats.I love it when a plan comes together; don’t you? [Email]
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:22 AM | Your Say (1)
THE “DEMON CORE”
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:36 AM | Your Say (1)
In discussing crime or poverty, social scientists are allowed to imply that the dirt that white people live upon is inherently magic
while the dirt under black people is obviously tragic.But anything smarter and more interesting could get them furiously denounced by angry know-nothing students (or Watsoned out of their jobs if they lack tenure). So it’s safest just to blame everything and anything on white people. Still, as the generations roll by, that’s increasingly sounding like a senile conspiracy theory. In 2016, blaming white privilege for everything you don’t like isn’t quite as lame as blaming the Bavarian Illuminati, but the gap is closing. The Replication Crisis and the Repetition Crisis - Taki's Magazine
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:30 AM | Your Say (1)
U.S. military could topple like Jenga blocks
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:28 AM | Your Say (4)
The members of this band used to think gun control was a good idea. They don't any more.
Maybe that's why I believe everyone ought to tell politicians that all of the 50,000 gun laws on the books are (1) unconstitutional and (2) if they insist on them they are treasonous bastards and ought to be in prison -- and mean it. Yes, this means that every one of them, their spouses, their children, all of their staff and their families ought to be considered persona-non-grata everywhere, in every place, in every instance.This is Why.... in [Market-Ticker]
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:26 AM | Your Say (2)
February 23, 2016
This Week's Woodpile Is Bigger and Better Than Usual
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 5:23 PM | Your Say (0)
Trump is casting a spell on stupid people like the Pied Piper.
The problem both American parties face and what mainstream parties face all over the West is the dilemma of the turd sandwich.One side of the political class offers the voters a turd sandwich on rye. The other side offers a turd sandwich on whole wheat. Both sides lecture us nonstop that voting is our moral and civic duty. Therefore, we must eat our turd sandwich. The Turd Sandwich Salesmen | The Z Blog
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 5:05 PM | Your Say (5)
The Age of Wonder
Wondering who can possibly watch the 2016 clown show and think, "Yes! I want the political process to control ever larger parts of my life!"
— Radley Balko (@radleybalko) February 21, 2016
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 1:48 PM | Your Say (4)
The Bovine Menace
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 1:41 PM | Your Say (3)
The "Geyser of Excrement" Saga Continues....
You've been told that lo-flow toilets, miserly sink faucets, and water-rationing showerheads will cut your water usage bigtime. They won't
Your clothes washer dumps between 30 and 50 gallons of water down the drain. Our clothes washer was currently running. A gallon of water weighs about 7 pounds. Fifty gallons of water weighs about 350 pounds. Tree-fitty pounds of pressure in a pipe that's not supposed to have any pressure can result in deleterious effects on your plan to move excrement outside your house expeditiously.
Turn off the clothes washer, dear. Geyser goes to sleep for the night
OK, so we've stopped the bleeding. Now we have to cauterize the wound. We've got a sheared off plastic knuckle glued in a rusty cast iron knuckle jammed into another cast iron knuckle that's buried in a concrete floor. At 10 at night on Sunday in the middle of nowhere. What to do?
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 1:20 PM | Your Say (2)
Monarchies can have a bad king. But Democracies always have a bad king.
Traditional power arrangements can be stupid and ineffective. They are by definition nepotistic, and often nothing gets done. But they have the important function of impeding the access of evil sociopaths to the highest reaches of power. You really don’t want those people up there; all they do is suck the coffers dry, and hurt everyone they fancy in order to satisfy their greed. Democracy, by opening the levers of power to free competition, all but guarantees that evil sociopaths will end up ruling everything. People who have no issue with giving sick men access to girl’s toilets, or bringing hostile barbarians to rape the women of their country. A biological case against democracy | Bloody shovel
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:17 AM | Your Say (3)
Elites have also tried to restore their broken authority by striking poses of moral superiority,
as in the immigration question, or by pretending to stand between the public and doomsday, as with climate change. The public is having none of it. The flight of national governments into transnational hiding-places has ignited a powerful and contrary movement among the governed. The war-bands at the vanguard of this movement have been labeled “nationalist” – but this too is a misleading term. - - Foreign policy in the age of the Fifth Wave
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:14 AM | Your Say (1)
The perpetrator of a divorce is never practicing charitable love.
She divorced him because she’s so selfish that she would rather cluster-bomb her family than let go of her overgrown sense of entitlement. The perpetrator of a divorce is never practicing charitable love. The victim of a divorce might not be either, but for the perpetrator, it is a certainty. Frivorce Apologetics | The 96th Thesis
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:30 AM | Your Say (0)
February 22, 2016
Penis sausage waffle seller shafted after food market protest at obscene phallic fancies
Hey, I don't write all the headlines here. Sometimes I just report them:A MARKET trader has been brought to task after provoking outrage when he began selling punters ”penis waffles" with sausages inside them. -- Daily Star
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:00 PM | Your Say (3)
Popular culture has become a 1930s collective Berlin cabaret.
Apple—whose iPhones cause more fatal distractions than driving while under the influence of alcohol or drugs—refuses to help the FBI to open one phone of a dead Islamic terrorist. It protects the last calls of a mass murderer as if the logs were records of Apple’s $180 billion stashed in offshore investment schemes.Weimar America | PJ Media
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:19 PM | Your Say (3)
The world operates on Darwinian principles plus pretense.
Every other group looks at your group; if you are above them in any way, their goal is to tear you down and subjugate you, taking your women and impregnating them. This is one half of Darwinism. The first part is that the best rise above the rest, and the second part is that if the best degenerate, or lose their ability or will to rise above, the rest assimilates them. The Potemkin economyPosted by gerardvanderleun at 12:48 PM | Your Say (1)
Denmark: I lived there two years. IT SUCKS
Seriously what the hell is wrong with you people? You have all the freedom you can ever have in the US and you sit here talking about how wonderful Denmark is? Let me tell you I live in this place and it is nowhere NEAR the fairytale that you people are describing.. It’s basically a socialist hellhole, you get up, go to work and do the same sh.it day in day out.. you know there’s a reason why they call the danes one of the happiest nations on earth.. Basically people have no expectations whatsoever.. Everything is already mediocre today so why should it be any different tomorrow? the prozac popping citizens of this country makes everything seem happy and all hunky dory to the outside world but did you know that over 450.000 people in this country are registered as “patients” in the system? When I say patients I mean people who either sees a psychiatrist or sees a psychiatrist and recieves goverment funded medication… this is out of a population of 5,5 million people! 1 out of every 11!! That does not even count half of the people who smoke weed and drink their their brains out every week. As a wise man once said.. "you would have to be cortically challenged to want to live in Denmark, unless you are a spineless and unproductive welfare leech." - - My rant to all the dumb American Denmarkphiles
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:47 AM | Your Say (4)
"Don't you want to have a home inspector look at it first?"
I may have said,"My dear lady; a home inspector is engaged to determine if anything is wrong with a house before you purchase it. I can assure you that his services will not be required, because there is absofarginlutely nothing right with this house. Every atom of its being is corrupt and contemptible. There is a hole in the roof I can climb through, if I'm willing to be elbowed by squirrels on the way by. The electricity is borne on raw wires strung through the house like a Depression-era photo of a Arkansas dirt road. The boiler will not boil, and the walls do not wall out much of anything. The plumbing does not plumb, is not plumb, and cannot achieve anything plumbish.There is a box in the basement filled with 25 pounds of asbestos batting. The good paint is lead, and the bad paint, the part that shows, is the color of a Soviet battleship hull. The floors are concave and the pipes are convex. Most of the interior walls are covered with shingles for some reason, including the backsplash behind the stove. This house is an affront to the trees that were massacred to produce it." It's also possible I said, "No thanks." I really can't remember. Sippican Cottage: Interestingly, 'Dented Wedding Photographer' Is the Name of My Firefall Tribute Band. But I Digress
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:27 AM | Your Say (1)
No one can figure out how and why America’s youth have borrowed a collective $1 trillion for college tuition,
and yet received so little education and skills in the bargain. Today’s campuses have become as foreign to American traditions of tolerance and free expression as what followed the Weimar Republic. To appreciate cry-bully censorship, visit a campus “free-speech” area. To witness segregation, walk into a college “safe space.” To hear unapologetic anti-Semitism, attend a university lecture. To learn of the absence of due process, read of a campus hearing on alleged sexual assault. To see a brown shirt in action, watch faculty call for muscle at a campus demonstration. To relearn the mentality of a Chamberlain or Daladier, listen to the contextualizations of a college president. And to talk to an uneducated person, approach a recent college graduate.
If all that is confusing, factor in the Trimalchio banquet of campus rock-climbing walls, students glued to their iPhone 6s, $200 sneakers, latte bars, late-model foreign cars in the parking lot, and yoga classes. Affluence, arrogance, and ignorance are quite a trifecta.Weimar America | PJ Media
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:56 AM | Your Say (7)
February 21, 2016
The word is out, even among allies. He's a busted flush.
For the moment, the consensus appears to sit tight, get ready, take no chances and wait out Obama's term. Remain Overnight |
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:56 PM | Your Say (1)
Of all Primo Levi’s searing stories, the one that I can’t get out of my head is his account of his arrival at Auschwitz,
parched with thirst after days in a boxcar with no water, and reaching for a glistening, crystal-clear icicle hanging out a window. An SS guard slapped it out of his hand. “Why?” asked Levi. “Hier ist kein warum,” growled the Nazi. “Here, there is no why.” Liberty—If You Can Keep It by Myron Magnet
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 4:33 PM | Your Say (1)
Afghan Hipster Crafts Locally-Sourced Artisan Bombs
Gul, an unassuming figure in his skinny jeans and ironic Osama bin Laden t-shirt from Turban Outfitters, casts a big shadow in his community. When he’s not running operations at his shop, his sister says he lives green and is an outspoken feminist. “Hesh was zero-emission before those Taliban posers destroyed all the roads and infrastructure,” his sister claims. “Hesh also supports equal employment for women in jobs like law enforcement. When I am killed for speaking with you because you are not my husband, Hesh will insist that more women and less men do the stoning.” – Duffel Blog
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:33 PM | Your Say (1)
Interestingly, 'Geyser of Excrement' Is the Name of My Tears for Fears Tribute Band. But I Digress
I don't think I can accurately describe what that geyser of excrement in the carhole meant to me at that moment. It was literally an existential threat. If I couldn't figure out what was wrong, almost immediately, we would be homeless. Not fake homeless like an indie-rock drummer sleeping on strange couches. My family and I would not be able, or more to the point, not be allowed to live in our house while I sorted it out. It's fight or flee, and since it was below zero at the time, fleeing only lasts until you get to the end of the street where you re-enact the end of The Shining. I prefer fighting anyway. -- Sippican Cottage:
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:06 PM | Your Say (0)
They hate you because of who you are, not what you do.
You can vote democratic, march in civil rights protests, bring Muslim jihadis into your living room and be feminist all you want. It will not save you. They want to destroy you and take what you have, even though it will not last for them because they cannot keep it alive. They are not reasonable. They are emotional. Resentment is determined by relative position
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:25 AM | Your Say (1)
Racism is the mother's milk of Democratic Party politics.
When all else fails, when it looks as if even an aging Wax Museum copy of Eugene V. Debs can beat you for the nomination, exploit black people. Tell them anything, pretend you're the second coming of Harriet Tubman, belt out a few like Bessie Smith, fly them to the polls on your private jet and let them play among the stars, if you have to. Just make them vote -- for you. Never mind that almost everything you ever did for them has made their lives worse. Lie, lie and lie some more. Identity politics über alles! Did the Republican Fat Lady Already Sing in South Carolina? | PJ Media
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:20 AM | Your Say (1)
February 20, 2016
What am I doing here?
Malcom's got questions. Me too: "Readers, if you look at my early archives you’ll see that I used to explain a lot of things in here that had nothing at all to do with political matters. I’m now so very deeply sick of writing and arguing about politics and decline — sick of picking unwinnable fights, preaching to the choir, alienating old friends, changing nobody’s mind about anything, and all the while making myself socially radioactive, that I might just go back, at least mostly, to other things." – waka waka waka
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:26 AM | Your Say (3)
Shallow Talk about Iraq on the Brink of South Carolina
The real reason most of us wanted to go to war was far grander, far nobler and, alas, far more mistaken. We wanted to transform the Middle East, free that benighted part of the world from the brutal religious and secular dictatorships that oppressed its people for generations by giving them democracy and bringing them into the modern world. Yes, we wanted to "nation-build," and there was nothing inherently evil about that. The impulse was positive, idealistic. It just happened to have been dead wrong. It couldn't be done, at least not in the way we were willing to do it. (We brought democracy to Germany but we had to firebomb Dresden first. Also, the Arab Middle East was and is far more primitive and tribal than Japan or Germany.) -- Roger Simon
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:15 AM | Your Say (4)
The Unbearable Asymmetry of Bullshit
There is a veritable truckload of bullshit in science. When I say bullshit, I mean arguments, data, publications, or even the official policies of scientific organizations that give every impression of being perfectly reasonable — of being well-supported by the highest quality of evidence, and so forth — but which don’t hold up when you scrutinize the details. Bullshit has the veneer of truth-like plausibility. It looks good. It sounds right. But when you get right down to it, it stinks. | Quillette
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:04 AM | Your Say (0)
February 19, 2016
Peek-A-Boo!
Hundreds of hidden galaxies spotted behind the Milky Way | Our galaxy is hurtling through space at two million kilometres per hour, inexorably drawn to a mysterious region with a gravitational force equivalent to a million billion Suns. The problem is astronomers' telescopes can't see this so-called "Great Attractor" as the Milky Way is blocking the view. And they can't shove the stars and dust aside, nor wait the hundreds of millions of years for our part of the spiral galaxy to swing round to the other side.
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:58 AM | Your Say (2)
Five Years of Gas Can Hell!
I’m pretty sure gas cans used to work. Yes. It was a can. It had a spout. It had a vent hole on the other side. You stuck in the spout and tipped. You never saw the gas. Then government “fixed” the gas can. Why? Because of the environmental hazards that come with spilled gas. You read that right. In other words, the very opposite resulted. Now you cannot buy a decent can anywhere. You can look forever and not find a new one. Instead you have to go to garage sales. But actually people hoard old cans. There is a burgeoning market in kits to fix the can. - Jeffrey Tucker - Liberty.me
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:50 AM | Your Say (10)
Canadian Island, Short on Dumb Canucks. Invites Dumber Americans.
Canadian Island Launches "Move Here If Trump Wins" Campaign To Americans | “Hi Americans! Donald Trump may become the President of your country! If that happens, and you decide to get the hell out of there, might I suggest moving to Cape Breton Island!”What began as a bit of a tongue-in-cheek jab at the surprising support for the brash, xenophobic, and oddly anti-Iraq war billionaire candidate, the website Cape Breton If Donald Trump Wins quickly garnered over 10,00 hits — and a number of serious inquiries.
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:27 AM | Your Say (4)
Every totalitarian state in history made liberal use of the ordinary cops for its political roundups,
and no police element has ever mutinied or walked off the job when faced with that task. For example, the Gestapo and SS did not need to round up the Jews in occupied France: the ordinary French beat cops were glad to do it. None of them was ever punished; they transferred their loyalty seamlessly and unquestionably from the 3rd Republic to Vichy to the occupying power to the 4th Republic. Likewise, the Weimar cops became Nazi cops, who in turn became East or West German cops, and now unified Federal German cops. Hitler? Stalin? Who cares, we can retire at 45 with a good pension, and no one will miss a few Jews. Caching your Guns for a Civil War, Parts I and II | WeaponsMan
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:26 AM | Your Say (3)
Boquila trifoliolata:
The Sneaky Life of the World’s Most Mysterious Plant Boquila feels more like a cuttlefish or an octopus; it can morph into at least eight basic shapes. When it glides up a bush or tree that it’s never encountered before, it can still mimic what’s near. And that’s the wildest part: It doesn’t have to touch what it copies. It only has to be nearby. Most mimicry in the animal kingdom involves physical contact. But this plant can hang—literally hang—alongside a host tree, with empty space between it and its model, and, with no eyes, nose, mouth, or brain, it can “see” its neighbor and copy what it has “seen.”
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:00 AM | Your Say (0)
Why aren’t more people making fun of Kanye West? Is it because he’s retarded? Who cares?
Everyone is too scared to mock him because he’s black and they don’t want to be called racist. He’s aware of this, so when his clothing line fails he says it’s because people were too “racist” to buy his stuff (this from a guy who gets to wear the Confederate flag on his bomber jacket). His clothing line was made up of people wearing brown nylons and strange “skin-colored” sweatshirts that looked like they were made out of Nazi lampshades. - - Kanye West Is Retarded
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:49 AM | Your Say (4)
February 18, 2016
A Robotic 9/11
- Ten drones would take off autonomously in 1 minute intervals.
- Each would follow a GPS flightpath to a preselected portion of an airport.
- Upon arrival, a digital camera would identify the nearest wing of an aircraft.
- The drone would land itself in the middle of that wing.
- A pound of thermite in the payload would ignite upon landing.
- The thermite would burn through the wing, igniting the fuel inside...
- Most of the airport and nearly all of the planes on the tarmac are destroyed.
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:27 PM | Your Say (5)
Public acts of piety have become a staple in the mass media.
It’s hard to watch anything on television because every five minutes, it seems, someone is on screen telling us they are a good thinker in some way. Watch a sporting event and before long they are preaching about women, NAM’s, homosexuals or whatever fad is whirling around the Cult of Modern Liberalism at the moment. Hitler’s Swoosh | The Z Blog
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 5:32 PM | Your Say (3)
And why do the best hackers on the planet not work for the FBI?
Because the FBI will not hire anyone with a 24-inch purple mohawk, 10-gauge ear piercings, and a tattooed face who demands to smoke weed while working and won't work for less than a half-million dollars a year. But you bet your ass that the Chinese and Russians are hiring similar people with similar demands and have been for many years. It's why we are decades behind in the cyber race. MCAFEE: I'll decrypt San Bernardino phone free - Business Insider
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 2:39 PM | Your Say (4)
And now this message from our sponsor....
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:53 AM | Your Say (3)
American Idol
With the next weeks certain to bring a foreign policy crisis, and the next months a likely economic crisis, the death of Antonin Scalia is a reminder of how few degrees of freedom the old order has left. With the presidential races now dominated in both parties by outsiders; with actual war drums beating on the international scene; with domestic politics galvanized around a fight over the Supreme Court, the inflexibility of Barack Obama himself will soon become the main issue. It's drained the system of the last degrees of flex.He is like a great, deaf, stone god whose acolytes must either decide to continue worshiping or flee for their lives. His immobility is a great source of comfort to the Leftist faithful who see in their high priest the inevitability of the progressive project even as thunder and lightning gather over the temple. But it is also the source of unease among those who suspect the stone is just stone; that there is no there, there. Events will soon put his fitness as Leader of the Free World to the test even as he finds himself under pressure domestically. | PJ Media
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:44 AM | Your Say (1)
The New Mind Control
How the internet flips elections and alters our thoughts... SEME’s near-invisibility is curious indeed. It means that when people – including you and me – are looking at biased search rankings, they look just fine. So if right now you Google ‘US presidential candidates’, the search results you see will probably look fairly random, even if they happen to favour one candidate. Even I have trouble detecting bias in search rankings that I know to be biased (because they were prepared by my staff). Yet our randomised, controlled experiments tell us over and over again that when higher-ranked items connect with web pages that favour one candidate, this has a dramatic impact on the opinions of undecided voters, in large part for the simple reason that people tend to click only on higher-ranked items. This is truly scary: like subliminal stimuli, SEME is a force you can’t see; but unlike subliminal stimuli, it has an enormous impact – like Casper the ghost pushing you down a flight of stairs.
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:42 AM | Your Say (1)
North Korea's 'biggest' export - giant statues
"These statues look like they're made to be toppled," says historian Adrian Tinniswood. "And they look weirdly North Korean. They're statements of liberation but they represent a failure of confidence - where are the African designers and African sculptors who'd be better representing African consciousness?" - BBC News
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:14 AM | Your Say (0)
If your moral code requires you to drop everything to defend the local homosexuals, but is silent on your use of child labor and slavery,
your religion is barbaric and you are a dangerous lunatic. A world full of boorish guys like this boxer is going to be far more safe for homosexuals than a world run by sociopaths like the people at Nike. The former has empathy, which provides a natural limit on cruelty. The latter sees humans as exploitable resources. Hitler’s Swoosh | The Z Blog
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:35 AM | Your Say (1)
February 17, 2016
"The atmosphere of fiasco"
There is about the current international situation the atmosphere of fiasco. The Russia/Iran buildup continues, fueled as the Free Beacon notes by cash the Obama administration gave Tehran itself. Russia is now increasingly in command of the Syrian Army fighting beside an Iranian "foreign legion", eliciting nothing more than a squeak from the president. There are warnings it is now time to start preparing for the collapse of Saudi Arabia without the expectation of being able to prevent it. Remain Overnight | PJ Media
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:51 PM | Your Say (4)
Of Flying Cars and the Declining Rate of Profit
Where are the force fields, tractor beams, teleportation pods, antigravity sleds, tricorders, immortality drugs, colonies on Mars, and all the other technological wonders any child growing up in the mid-to-late twentieth century assumed would exist by now? Even those inventions that seemed ready to emerge—like cloning or cryogenics—ended up betraying their lofty promises. What happened to them? - The Baffler
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:36 AM | Your Say (4)
The Six Sacred Groups.... Plus 1
For many years now, there have been six sacred groups. You know, the big three are African-Americans, women and LGBT. That’s where most of the action is. Then there are three other groups: Latinos, Native Americans, and people with disabilities. So those are the six that have been there for a while. But now we have a seventh–Muslims. Something like 70 or 75 percent of America is now in a protected group. A Conversation with Jonathan Haidt | Minding The Campus
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:31 AM | Your Say (8)
The Parmesan Cheese You Sprinkle on Your Penne Could Be Wood
According to the FDA’s report on Castle, obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, “no parmesan cheese was used to manufacture” the Market Pantry brand 100% grated Parmesan Cheese, sold at Target Corp. stores, and Always Save Grated Parmesan Cheese and Best Choice 100% Grated Parmesan Cheese, sold by Associated Wholesale Grocers Inc., which along with its subsidiaries supplies 3,400 retail stores in 30 states. Instead, there was a mixture of Swiss, mozzarella, white cheddar and cellulose, according to the FDA. - Bloomberg Business
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:17 AM | Your Say (6)
Can These Castrati at Least Sing?
Dutch men put on mini-skirts to support victims of sex attacks. My appeal to somebody in the Netherlands: please beat them with wet rubber hoses. - - PA
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:47 AM | Your Say (3)
"Something we consider too dangerous to create"
We have great respect for the professionals at the FBI, and we believe their intentions are good.Up to this point, we have done everything that is both within our power and within the law to help them. But now the U.S. government has asked us for something we simply do not have, and something we consider too dangerous to create. They have asked us to build a backdoor to the iPhone.... The government suggests this tool could only be used once, on one phone. But that’s simply not true. Once created, the technique could be used over and over again, on any number of devices. In the physical world, it would be the equivalent of a master key, capable of opening hundreds of millions of locks — from restaurants and banks to stores and homes. No reasonable person would find that acceptable. -- Tim Cook, Apple CEO Customer Letter
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:57 AM | Your Say (2)
February 16, 2016
These 360 TB Discs Will Last for 13.8 Billion Years
The storage allows unprecedented properties including 360 TB/disc data capacity, thermal stability up to 1,000°C and virtually unlimited lifetime at room temperature (13.8 billion years at 190°C) opening a new era of eternal data archiving. ｫTwistedSifter
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:55 PM | Your Say (7)
I once believed that there were limits to the depth and breadth of the lies the media and the government could tell.
That if, for example, 100 women were assaulted in the middle of a busy city on New Years Evethen the progressive media would be forced to admit that they had supported in good faith a terribly flawed plan that demanded remedy. I understand now that they will step over the corpses of a thousand Christian and Jewish children to interview a single muslim who “faces new fears of bigotry”. The elephant in the room is this. We need to stop talking in public and start talking in private. Woodpile Report
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:34 PM | Your Say (1)
The Original Horsepower
This version, dubbed Impulsoria by Italian inventor Clemente Masserano, was driven by four horses that walked continuously at their best speed; a gearbox could be set to forward, reverse, or neutral. Horsepower - Futility Closet
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 5:58 PM | Your Say (1)
"OK, EVERYONE REMEMBER WHERE WE PARKED."
300 skeletons found under English parking lot - - History NewsPosted by gerardvanderleun at 4:52 PM | Your Say (0)
After 9/11, Americans trusted government to make things right, and the government failed miserably.
Two wars, big debts, a sour economy, Obamacare, a Supreme Court that upheld Obamacare, Christians being forced to bake cakes for gay weddings -- what the heck is this? Don Surber: Jeb Bush knows it is overPosted by gerardvanderleun at 4:39 PM | Your Say (3)
Don’t Get Seduced by Alien Philosophers.
Because they are not one of you, and because they have conflicts of interest with your interests, don’t trust them to tell you how to think or how to live.The catastrophes of the twentieth century are a testament to the errors of following the counsel of Karl Marx and Sigmund Freud. Same goes for the Neocons, whose hijacking of the American conservative mind bore fruit during the disastrous George W. Bush administration. Another example of alien counsel, this time for young women watching Sex and the City: “Enjoy yourself – that’s what your 20s are for. Your 30s are to learn the lessons. And your 40s are to pay for the drinks!” And your dusty uterus will spasm every time you see a baby. What Have We Learned? – PA
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 4:22 PM | Your Say (1)
File Under Unthinkable Thoughts: Do You Have What It Takes To Survive In a FEMA Camp?
No one can say for sure. However, history has proven that government gun confiscations from private citizens are the chest pains prior to the heart attack. In the 20th century, there were 17 major genocides committed against civilian populations resulting in a death toll of around 60 million people. Every one of these genocides was preceded by gun confiscation which rendered the intended victims defenseless against the slaughter that awaited them. Do You Have What It Takes To Survive In a FEMA Camp?
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 4:01 PM | Your Say (1)
Paris Massacre Band Eagles of Death Metal frontman: "Until nobody has guns everybody has to have them."
“Did your French gun control stop a single fucking person from dying at the Bataclan?And if anyone can answer yes, I’d like to hear it, because I don’t think so. I think the only thing that stopped it was some of the bravest men that I’ve ever seen in my life charging head-first into the face of death with their firearms. I know people will disagree with me, but it just seems like God made men and women, and that night guns made them equal,” he said. “And I hate it that it’s that way. I think the only way that my mind has been changed is that maybe that until nobody has guns everybody has to have them. Because I’ve never seen anyone that’s ever had one dead, and I want everyone to have access to them, and I saw people die that maybe could have lived, I don’t know.” - - The Guardian
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:46 AM | Your Say (3)
Grammy Awards' worst dressed stars hit an all time low on the red carpet
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:30 AM | Your Say (4)
Clowns. Why did it have to be clowns?
in this clown motel in the middle of the Nevada desert:The Clown Motel is located in the town of Tonopah, where just under 2500 people live. But there are plenty of dead in this town, and they’re all resting peacefully right next to this motel. Yup. Right. Next. Door. I don’t know which is more terrifying, clowns or zombies.
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:52 AM | Your Say (3)
First of all, a message to English left-wing journalists and intellectuals generally:
Don’t imagine that for years on end you can make yourself the boot-licking propagandist of the Soviet régime, or any other régime, and then suddenly return to mental decency. Once a whore, always a whore.’ - - George Orwell
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:36 AM | Your Say (3)
Meanwhile, in the first 100 days of the Clinton 2 administration....
She (the general) is informed that her troops are authorized to use deadly force at will. So she relays these instructions to battalion commanders, and on down to individual companies, all in their positions around the state capitol grounds. Finally, the order are given: Company B opens suppressive small arms fire on the Texas National Guardsmen protecting the capitol grounds and Company A and C move in. -- America's Greatness â PA
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:13 AM | Your Say (5)
February 15, 2016
The smart money always wins.
The smart money understands human nature and risk. The path of righteousness requires smart money to defend its interests, not wishful thinking, not magic realism. Smart money understands the longevity of the Record of the Year, of the legislative agenda of a new class of Congressional Reps, of the charge and counter-charge of candidate debates. The smart money understands the value of real estate when the market is focused on collateralized debt obligations. The smart money understands how to find evidence of colliding black holes at the edge of the known universe. The smart money understands the extent to which all fictions can be believed, and the difference between conviction and commitment. On Regulatory Capture - Cobb
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 6:33 PM | Your Say (0)
Understanding: Just In Time Inventory
That means within 5 days that package was: warehoused, sorted, shipped to the supermarkets master hub, sorted again, shipped via their own distribution network directly to the store, received, sorted, then stocked onto the shelf where I purchased it for consumption. All within 5 days. This can not, I repeat; can not happen unless there is nothing in the pipeline prior, as in, cases sitting in some warehouse waiting to be purchased and distributed. i.e., there’s no warehouse, as opposed to, some giant big building holding days worth of production. Let alone weeks. - – MarkStCyr.com
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 6:26 PM | Your Say (4)
The wailing and moaning coming from the Conservative Industrial Complex conceals the terrible truth at the core of their thing.
That is, there’s nothing there.The “movement” they carry on about has nothing to show for itself since the 80’s and now it is being knocked out of the box by a guy they call a “witless ape.” Whatever it was or intended to be, it’s just an artifact of a bygone era now. It’s a museum piece. - - Yesterday Men |
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 6:17 PM | Your Say (4)
Who Says There's No Good News?
Instead, the first bullet – designed to tumble as it travels, in order to maim – struck him in the back of the head. The source said: ‘One minute he was standing there and the next his head had exploded. ‘The commander remained standing upright for a couple of seconds before collapsing and that’s when panic set in. ‘He was an extremely sadistic and ruthless individual, feared by the locals and the jihadis alike.’
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 1:21 PM | Your Say (14)
Spare Me Your Protests About Trump and Decorum
provide us peons with a suitable candidate who embodies these elements who is also, like Trump, an immigration restrictionist and opposed to globalist “free” trade deals. Oh wait… that’s right… there already was one. His name was Pat Buchanan, and he thrice ran for the Republican nomination in ’92, ’96 and ’00.Intellectual Conservative «
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 1:13 PM | Your Say (4)
For when you’re out of Solid Trump
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:39 PM | Your Say (0)
I want a fridge that says Life is Under Control.
When wife wants to scoop up a week's worth of yogurt to take to work, it is there. Should I need pickles, they are there, but they do not play a prominent role. The freezer compartment is where the important goods are stored, of course - there is The Meat. The Chicken. The Bread. Emergency Ravioli. Yes, there are French Fries in the dreaded half-bag state, but they are secured by rubber bands. Yet still they shed. The bottom of the freezer has crumbs. Crumbs lead to suffering. LILEKS (James) :: The Bleat 2016
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:29 PM | Your Say (2)
Alexander Graham Bell Flies a Kite... a BIG Kite
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:49 AM | Your Say (1)
How Terrible Is Mrs. Bill?
Mrs. Bill is so terrible once she gets in front of the publicthat even those in the rigged system that should be her safety net abandon her. Again, this is largely because the Hillary Clinton pitch to the electorate is mostly myth. She's not really a strong feminist. She's not really even a strong woman. She's ridden the coattails of two men who embarrassed her publicly to get where she's at. Even Democrats' Rigged Superdelegate System May Not Be Enough for Hillary to Prevail
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:14 AM | Your Say (0)
A take is an opinion that has no aspiration to a belief,
an impression that never hardens into a position.Its lightness is its appeal. It is provisional, evanescent, a move in a game, an accredited shallowness, a bulwark against a pause in the conversation. A take is expected not to be true but to be interesting, and even when it is interesting it makes no troublesome claim upon anybody’s attention. - - The Atlantic
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:07 AM | Your Say (0)
How to Win at Monopoly and Lose All Your Friends
If their rent exceeds their cash on hand, it's often easy to convince them to give you a property instead, particularly if it's for much more than they paid for it. - Album on Imgur
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:44 AM | Your Say (0)
History is the story of error,
but the errors we are seeing today are so ham-handed, they feel deliberate.Merkel inviting a million Muslims into Germany only makes sense if she is surrounded by nerd boys claiming it is good for the economy. No one bothered to speculate about the reaction of the citizenry. Speculation | The Z Blog
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:35 AM | Your Say (0)
February 14, 2016
How cold is it?
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:28 PM | Your Say (1)
Lileks, James' The Bleat is 19 Years Old
AMAZING:
By the way: this month is the 19th anniversary of the Bleat. I think I'm the only one who's been there since the start and stuck around. It certainly has changed - in the early days you got 400 words or so, and that was it. Now? LILEKS (James) :: The Bleat 2016
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:04 PM | Your Say (2)
"Being a good person begins with being a wise person." -- Scalia
Nobody — remember this — neither Hitler, nor Lenin, nor any despot you could name, ever came forward with a proposal that read, ‘Now, let’s create a really oppressive and evil society.’ Hitler said, ‘Let’s take the means necessary to restore our national pride and civic order.’ And Lenin said, ‘Let’s take the means necessary to assure a fair distribution of the goods of the world.’ “In short, it is your responsibility, men and women of the class of 2010, not just to be zealous in the pursuit of your ideals, but to be sure that your ideals are the right ones. That is perhaps the hardest part of being a good human being: Good intentions are not enough. Being a good person begins with being a wise person. Then, when you follow your conscience, will you be headed in the right direction.”—Excerpted from Justice Antonin Scalia’s commencement address at Langley High School, in Virginia, where his granddaughter was graduating in June of 2010. Via Michelle Obama's Mirror
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:32 AM | Your Say (8)
The Stupid Are Always Unlucky
The Stupid Party makes this point regularly and we now have a great example of why the stupid are unlucky.For decades they have been hosing their voters, mostly because they can’t run a competent political party. Some portion of what they do is just a grift. They tell the voters one thing and then take a bribe to do the opposite. That’s just corruption. Most of the GOP’s problems, however, are the result of incompetence. When presented with three options, all good, they find a fourth that is self-defeating. The political ineptitude is so breathtaking that many of their voters have concluded it must be deliberate. No one can be this dumb this often by accident. It’s why they have a revolt brewing in their primary. | The Z Blog
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:57 AM | Your Say (2)
"Here's another nice mess you've gotten us into..."
Both internationally and domestically, the super-powerdom upon which he thought to underwrite his Hope and Change agenda is giving way under his feet. It's uncertain whether there is even enough to ride out his term in peace. While the foreign policy establishment still goes through the motions of offering him advice, deep within them they must know the president is incapable of changing course. He will remain the same president who got them into this mess in the first place. Nothing will change him.American Idol | PJ Media
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:49 AM | Your Say (1)
February 13, 2016
Feets Do Your Stuff
Severed feet — still inside shoes — keep mysteriously washing up on Pacific Northwest shoresSixteen of these detached human feet have been found since 2007 in British Columbia, Canada, and Washington state. Most of these have been right feet. All of them have worn running shoes or hiking boots. Among them: three New Balances, two Nikes and an Ozark Trail. The most recent one turned up earlier this week.
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:38 PM | Your Say (2)
It's Probably Nothing: Russia Needs Three Days to Conquer Estonia and Latvia
Assuming NATO has a week to detect a coming invasion, the alliance could deploy an equivalent of 12 maneuver battalions in the Baltic states.This includes the 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team rushed from Vicenza, Italy, but no main battle tanks. Poland — which has the largest tank force in Europe west of the Bug River — would be “assumed to be committed to defend the [Polish] national territory” and blocking Russian forces from moving south from Kaliningrad.
However, Russia could mass the equivalent of 22 maneuver battalions, including four tank battalions and large amounts of artillery from its Western Military District. Russia would also have an advantage in the air, with 27 squadrons of fighters and bombers compared to 18.5 NATO squadrons. While able to challenge Russian aircraft, the NATO planes could not quickly establish air superiority. Russian combat planes would then create “bubbles” of undefended airspace to launch “massed waves of air attacks.” | War Is Boring
Posted by gvanderleun at 1:08 AM | Your Say (10)
February 12, 2016
The Race Race
That’s two dudes and one block which takes a few minutes. Expand that to millions of dudes, make the block into planet earth, and allow the race to go on for a quarter of a million years. What are the odds every race / culture is going to arrive at the finish line at the exact same time? Of course we’re not all equal. Some have endured more. Colder weather alone is a HUGE factor. That’s why Asians cream whites by just about every metric imaginable. Sorry, is that Asian supremacism? S- STREET CARNAGE
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:32 AM | Your Say (4)
Vermin Supreme finishes fourth in New Hampshire Democratic primaries: And the jokes and parodies just write themselves.....
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:07 AM | Your Say (3)
Dear NASA, What part of "'ALL THESE WORLDS ARE YOURS, EXCEPT EUROPA.ATTEMPT NO LANDING THERE" don't you understand?
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:16 AM | Your Say (1)
February 11, 2016
This is a presidential nomination, but it is also an armed negotiation.
We have tried everything, in fact, short of insurrection, and I guess, all other options having failed, we're left with that one. I would not mind being in a coalition with the Establishment again: But it must be a coalition. The GOP cannot exist for very long as a vehicle for such a small cohort of the country's population, while throwing out meaningless rhetorical chum for the Dummies they think will keep voting them power. It is too late for any negotiations this presidential cycle -- no, we're not going to agree to Rubio based upon some very-late-in-the-game, completely-insincere-promises. -- Ace @Armageddon for the Establishment?
Posted by gvanderleun at 8:36 PM | Your Say (5)
Militarily, Trump seems like the lowest risk of any candidate we have ever seen.
Clinton and Rubio – to pick two examples – are probably in the pocket of the military industries. Those two are likely to start expensive wars for profit, like past presidents. THAT seems dangerous to me. Trump is the least likely to start a war to benefit the defense industry. Sanders is anti-war too, but his military might look weak to outsiders and invite some risk. Militarily, Trump seems like the lowest risk of any candidate we have ever seen. Why Does Trump Terrify People? | Scott Adams Blog
Posted by gvanderleun at 5:46 PM | Your Say (6)
All You Need Is Paper: Why Antique Valentines Still Melt Modern Hearts
Women might embroider messages of love on fabrics. Some suitors wrote verse in beautiful calligraphy on a piece of embossed paper stationery, but if they lacked the skills to do so, they could pay for help. Better stationery shops offered a service where a clerk with lovely handwriting would write out your Valentine poem for you. And if you had trouble coming up with an appropriately romantic rhyme, you could purchase a broadside or chapbook known as a Valentine Writer, which provided both initial declarations of love and also poetic responses for the recipient. | Collectors Weekly
Posted by gvanderleun at 4:55 PM | Your Say (0)
The point isn't who is right. The point is what works.
Trump is labeled as a destructive candidate, yet he's the only one to have grasped the most basic principle of politics, which is that you have to tell people how you will improve their lives in a way that is easy for them to understand and remember.Trump has done that. His rivals haven't. Republican dysfunction and left-wing extremism made Trump's candidacy happen. And that's usually how Republicans get ahead in New York. Trump is doing nationally what successful Republican candidates do locally, bypass a broken New York party organization and make their own campaign happen. Giuliani did it. So did Bloomberg, despite having zero conservative credentials. Sultan Knish: To Understand Trump, You Have to Understand New York
Posted by gvanderleun at 4:41 PM | Your Say (0)
Shopping Spree
A worker told an officer that the suspect, David Wylie, was seen urinating on the sales floor near the alcohol while trying to put a package of trout in his pants and he then attempted to leave the store without paying, the warrant stated. The officer wrote that Wylie told him he indeed urinated on the floor but "was not concerned because it was a misdemeanor."
Posted by gvanderleun at 4:27 PM | Your Say (2)
The traditionalist rebel is not seeking perfection, but humanity.
He is above all else an individualist with an instinctive distrust of any movement that requires him to abandon his rights for the greater good. The traditionalist rebel is the snake in the liberal Eden because he does not have faith in the noble motives of the bureaucratic activists who claim to be the gods of this Eden. He knows enough of human nature to reject the fallacy that the right ideology makes men so righteous that they can be trusted with absolute power without absolute corruption following in their wake. He knows that socialists have not risen above the crimes of selfish self interest that they condemn mankind for. Sultan Knish: The Traditionalist Rebel
Posted by gvanderleun at 9:28 AM | Your Say (1)
Always Stimulating for More Than a Decade, Bird Dog's "Morning Links" at Maggie's Farm Is Especially Strong Today
Posted by gvanderleun at 9:16 AM | Your Say (0)
Wage Slaves
“The original workers that were not paid anything by their employers were newly freed slaves,” she tells Quartz. “This whole concept of not paying them anything and letting them live on tips carried over from slavery.” Many Americans in post-slavery America initially resisted tipping, a custom that originated with European aristocrats. To tip was patronizing, Jayaraman writes in her book; it was seen as “despicable, undemocratic and wholly un-American.”
Posted by gvanderleun at 9:11 AM | Your Say (3)
Yes Virginia, There Are Erotic Bernie Sanders Panties
Posted by gvanderleun at 9:09 AM | Your Say (4)
Translation: "Cut Here"
Posted by gvanderleun at 9:09 AM | Your Say (6)
February 10, 2016
The last Moslem invasion was a huge Ottoman army invading Europe from Turkey in the 17th century.
The present Moslem invasion is one of "capital betrayal" by Europe's nominal gatekeepers.Were this the 17th century the palaces of Europe would be stormed, the nobility dragged through the streets and executed in memorable ways. By sundown there wouldn't be a live Moslem or a dry gutter in the realm. Then, sausage and beer all around. Tribal consensus is what matters. They're getting there. -- The Woodpile Report
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:06 AM | Your Say (1)
February 9, 2016
As part of this drive for the final minority rights—becoming a majority—
American elites now frequently switch the moral denominator from their responsibility to do what’s good for American citizens to doing what’s putatively good for all 7.3 billion earthlings.While they find the ethical theory of open borders self-evident, they have no interest whatsoever in following out its logic to its conclusion: global democracy. Why not? Well, for one reason, in worldwide elections, foreigners would vote for their own kind, eliminating American elites’ American privilege. The Ultimate Minority Right - Taki's Magazine
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:27 PM | Your Say (0)
The Eternal Stupidity of the Conservative Industrial Complex
The Right concluded that in order to keep pace with the Left, they had to race into the vibrant future where the only pale penis people that matter are the homosexuals.For over a decade they have been yapping about how immigrants are natural conservatives, apparently not understanding the glaring contradiction in that assertion.The result was a push foramnesty, open borders and the whole buffet of multicultural nonsense. The disaster that is unfolding for the GOP and the CIC is not simply due to getting too far over their skis. Mitt Romney built his campaign around polling and he knew he needed to be against amnesty. He tried to split the difference between what the data said and what the party leaders said. The result was no one believed him and he lost a winnable election. Revenge of the Dirt People | The Z Blog
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:51 PM | Your Say (1)
The Leftists' Utopian Eden is a false paradise built on lies and maintained by abuses.
It is not the paradise where mankind can return to a state of innocence,but a hell whose innocence is only a willful ignorance of the crimes being committed in its name, whose followers maintain their false virtue through a steady diet of moral outrage over the crimes of everyone but their own superiors and their own ideology. Sultan Knish: The Traditionalist Rebel
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:48 AM | Your Say (1)
Thinking of buying a Jeep Grand Cherokee SUV? Fergeddaboutit!
So you just can't wait for self-driving cars?Electronic gear shifters on some newer Fiat Chrysler SUVs and cars are so confusing that drivers have exited the vehicles with the engines running and while they are still in gear, causing crashes and serious injuries, U.S. safety investigators have determined. Never Yet Melted Chrysler/Fiat Had a Really Bad Idea
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:48 AM | Your Say (5)
Perhaps they'll make the combat a bit more feminine
who have declared that every combat job in the military is now open to women. Including shitting on your shovel, hand to hand combat (called "hand to gland combat" in the infantry), and pissing while walking. Many - I want to say most - men cannot handle the rigors of combat arms jobs, and it is reflected in the wash out rates just in the infantry. The two things the flurry of studies before this stroke-of-a-pen change have proven about women in combat arms are: if the president says women shall graduate Ranger school, then farking wimmin shall farking graduate farking Ranger school, and the standards shall be de facto lowered. Perhaps they'll make the combat a bit more feminine to make up for the shortfall. Meanwhile, at the same time, the military will now account for global warming in all activities. I'm serious about that: they must write it into every op order at every level of command. See? Just when you thought Obama was through fukking with the army, he has more up his sleeve. I cannot wait to see what's next. Posted by: Casey Klahn "Trannie, get your gun!"
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:19 AM | Your Say (1)
Who Says There's No Good News? Less Than 10% in Poverty For the First Time.... In the History of Mankind
World Bank Forecasts Global Poverty to Fall Below 10% for First Time |The number of people living in extreme poverty around the world is likely to fall to under 10 percent of the global population in 2015, according to World Bank projections released today, giving fresh evidence that a quarter-century-long sustained reduction in poverty is moving the world closer to the historic goal of ending poverty by 2030.
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:08 AM | Your Say (0)
Self-Driving Cars: It’s time to hit the brakes for a reality check.
outside of The Jetsons this one is…not…happening…soon. Besides the remaining technological challenges, the liability and regulatory issues involved in letting a 3,000-pound death machine steer itself with no human at the controls are huge. Why Driverless Cars Will Screech to a Stop | Observer
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:23 AM | Your Say (1)
"Trannie, get your gun!"
Here's the horrible discriminatory reality of selective service:Individuals who are born female and have a gender change are not required to register. U.S. citizens or immigrants who are born male and have a gender change are still required to register. Got that? If you're a female-to-male transgender, you don't have to sign up. But, if you're a male-to-female transgender, you do: "Trannie, get your gun!" for me but not for thee. Is there no Republican panderer willing to take a stand against the appallingly selective transphobia of selective service? Where The Bern Is :: SteynOnline
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:03 AM | Your Say (3)
February 7, 2016
You don't want to click this link. Trust me.
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:53 PM | Your Say (5)
The "Better Mousetrap" is 155 Years Old
So, this retired rodent had managed to sneak past University of Reading security, exterior doors and Museum staff, and clambered its way up into our Store. Upon finding itself there it would have found the promised land; a mouse paradise laid before it full of straw, wood and textiles. Then, out of thousands of objects, it chose for its home the very thing designed to kill it some 150 years ago: a mouse trap.
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:07 AM | Your Say (1)
Admirably Frank
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:00 AM | Your Say (0)
February 6, 2016
FAUX HATE
Nobody even questioned her claims. And it was all lies, from start to finish. She was the first fake hate crime victim I remember hearing about, although there had been plenty invented to demonize the south in the past. As if the lynchings and church burnings weren't bad enough, people invented more to make the civil rights struggles more dramatic and horrible, I suppose. I'm actually having a hard time remembering the last valid 'hate crime' even assuming the category has the slightest shred of credibility. Word Around the Net:
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 4:09 PM | Your Say (4)
Strong statements appeal to the right because we face a mental virus, liberalism, which succeeds because it is simple.
A normal person goes seeking answers, and gets back a rant on God, guns and the flag (plus “working hard” at do-nothing, pointless jobs). Someone goes to a white nationalist and instead of finding a working solution, encounters angry people who are more concerned with harming other races than promoting their own. Naturally, people of sound mind flee from these crazies, which gives the crazies the clubhouse they want: everyone inside must bow to their authority now, or be driven out and called nasty names. For a change, the Right should demote loudmouths
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 3:53 PM | Your Say (1)
It all works. There is no need for spirits or poltergeists to explain it. Except that it obviously can’t happen.
For a very small, short hollow bone to grow into a large, long hollow bone, unlikely things have to happen. Osteoclasts inside the cavity have to eat away the bone to make a larger cavity. Osateoblasts outside have to lay down more bone. They do this in precise coordination, which is impossible because they are on opposite sides of the cavity. Look at the skeleton of an adult. The bones are smooth, and flawlessly formed. The bone also has to grow in length. The mechanism of the articulation also has to grow, and do it exactly right. All of this works perfectly, which is impossible.Impossibility Theory, An Advance over Mere Indeterminacy
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 2:38 PM | Your Say (2)
I Heart Huckabees
Mike Huckabee has decided to end his presidential campaign but I think he should be forced to carry it to full term.
— Bryan Donaldson (@TheNardvark) February 3, 2016
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:12 AM | Your Say (1)
Plows Working Around Clock To Keep New Hampshire Roads Clear Of Campaign Signs
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:07 AM | Your Say (0)
February 5, 2016
I want to get back to free speech and away from all this thought policing and the right seems more likely to do that than the left.
Breitbart used to say, “Politics is downstream from culture,” and that is where Obama has done most of his damage.Over half the country agrees that race relations have taken a nosedive since he took office and a mere 8% say they’ve improved. This is relevant because blacks who have been brainwashed into thinking America has mandatory racism are more likely to burn down the CVS when a cop shoots a black kid. Insisting Muslims are our friends allows Iran to get nukes and opens the door for #rapefugees. When our president refuses to Google the mythical wage gap, we lose billions to affirmative-action policies trying to correct a sexism problem that isn’t there. Liberal leaders are so adamant we let gays do whatever they want; it includes bullying Christians into violating their own religions. The same people who want the government out of the bedroom don’t mind the government in your brain. The Cost of Prejudice
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:51 PM | Your Say (2)
What is the fastest speed of any object on the earth?
As it happens, a very high speed film camera was recording the event and was expected to capture in slow motion the path and speed of any ejecta from the hole. Unfortunately, the camera, which had quite a wide view of top of the hole and and the area around and above, recorded the “manhole cover” on only one frame. There was no malfunction of the camera, it’s just that the “manhole cover” blasted out of sight so fast that the camera only saw it for one frame. Later calculations showed that the heretofore mundane four-foot metal disk had been launched at six times Earth’s escape velocity. That’s one hundred fifty thousand miles per hour. Talon Torres @ Quora
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:34 PM | Your Say (1)
Why bald eagles are always photographed from the side
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:02 AM | Your Say (4)
It’s “deer-dodging season” around Moab, Utah.
Bored deer entertain themselves by standing around in the roadside bushes waiting for cars and trucks to come along so they can launch kamikaze attacks by bounding across the road in front of drivers. It’s a bizarre sport - played by deranged deer on one side and anxious drivers on the other – with deadly results for both sometimes. Every hunter has a deer-dodging story. “Almost got my buck – an 8 pointer – just grazed his ass when he shot out in front of my car.” -- Robert Fulghum
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:59 AM | Your Say (2)
Water. It’s all around, but it’s bloody hard to drink in Antarctica.
Worsley spent part of his journey climbing the Titan Dome, which rises above 10,000 feet. Every minute, you inhale dry-as-bones air, humidify it with moisture in your lungs, and expel that water into the environment. Plus you’re sweating. Tibton estimates that you’d need to drink about six liters a day—which, by the way, you can’t just scoop up from the snow as you walk along. Every drop you drink, you have to gather and melt over your little stove. People Cross Antarctica All the Time. It's Still Crazy Hard | WIRED
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:13 AM | Your Say (0)
February 4, 2016
The long reach of time
All four of them had held and reassured my mother when those booming noises had announced the end of the Great War in that scene that constituted her first memory. So, although my mother became a modern woman who smoked cigarettes, drove a car, went to college, and voted as soon as she turned twenty-one (in that order, I believe), two of the people closest to her in her youth remembered the Civil War vividly. - - neo-neocon
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 2:20 PM | Your Say (4)
If you are a normal, traditional American of any race or religion, the Democrats hate you.
Yeah, they hate white men with a purple passion, but they hate middle-class black guys and Korean shopkeepers too.Their appeal is exclusively to poor minorities, plutocrats, government employees and the upper reaches of the managerial class. If you are a mailman, the Democrats are the good bet, even if you are a pale penis person. If you are running a UPS Store franchise, the Democrats are your enemy, even if you are a one-legged black lesbian Elvis impersonator. That’s the thing. Their appeal is really just a relentless assault on an ever widening array of enemies. It’s a party of old rich white people promising to smash up the while middle class and give the bits to those who vote Democrat. The Null Party | The Z Blog
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 1:37 PM | Your Say (5)
The fact a man (or woman) wants to be president should disqualify him, of course;
but as there is no prospect of return to the original Electoral College, envisioned by the American Founding Fathers,the responsibility to eliminate quacks, demagogues, criminals, careerists, the unteachably stupid, and the insane, falls on the public at large. As those Founders realized, “the people” would make an extremely unreliable “safety net,” for the preservation of their own liberties. Men of some character and understanding would be indispensable. Backhand compliment : Essays in Idleness
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:49 AM | Your Say (1)
It was “long distance,” and that cost money.
She (it was always a she) would then call the number you wanted and patch it through, often by plugging a cable between two holes in a “switchboard.” Toll-free calls could be made only to a few dozen local exchanges listed in the front of your phone book. Calls to distant states were even more expensive, and tended to sound awful. Calls outside the country required an “overseas operator,” were barely audible, and cost more than a brake job. Doc Searls Weblog · The Giant Zero
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:39 AM | Your Say (2)
I do not want America to be the world's policeman;
I want America to be the world's king. Someone will be. Might a well be us. - Don SurberPosted by gerardvanderleun at 10:19 AM | Your Say (4)
Well Ghost, it's like this....
You, me, and other in agreement will simply be overrun by sheer numbers. You cannot shoot enough of them or move far enough away. The answer probably lies in secession, dividing the country into two Americas. And who is to say that "they" would allow anyone to escape their clutches freely. The Civil War aka The War of Northern Aggression will seem like a school yard "Oh Yea!" fight. It won't end with one side drying "Uncle" either. This will leave no one standing on the losing side. -- Vermont Woodchuck
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:56 AM | Your Say (7)
My worldview has receded to that of the European thirteenth century, which I don’t find represented by any of the current political parties.
My loyalty to “the West” is only a knee-jerk extension of my loyalty to Christendom— which rekindles whenever the sun catches upon a shard of its broken stained glass. I am a “neocon” only in the sense that I remain gung-ho against the Saracens, and am for clearing highwaymen off the open roads — for sake of pilgrimage even more than for trade. I am aware, however, that circumstances have somewhat changed, over the last eight centuries; to my mind, almost entirely for the worse. The neoconical hat : Essays in Idleness
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:52 AM | Your Say (0)
In the ‘First date’ section she put “something with animals, or we could go to a protest and make up fun chants,”
I’m a woman who is socially conscious, and the challenges women face enrages me, as do the challenges and discrimination faced by people of colour, and the working class, and the disabled, and the old. I can discuss that and the dynamics of our society endlessly. If you disagree, or ask for proof that this is happening, then we will probably find each other very annoying…. so message me only if you are impassioned by the unfair social construct of our world and history which leads to the oppression, sickness and death of billions. - - STREET CARNAGE
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:30 AM | Your Say (6)
February 3, 2016
Man Shot By Trump Now Leaning Toward Undecided
“I just dunno anymore. I mean, one second I’m just walking across 5th avenue during my lunch hour and the next second, Donald comes up to me, says something about ‘it’s going to be huge’, and shoots me in the gut.” “However, I don’t know who else I can vote for,” he added. Never Yet Melted »
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:16 PM | Your Say (3)
The Barnhardt Axiom
"The culture has degraded such that seeking and/or holding office, especially national-level office, is, in and of itself, proof that a given person is psychologically and morally unfit to hold public office." -- Personal Update | Barnhardt
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 5:53 PM | Your Say (2)
The oldest joke on record, a Sumerian proverb, was first told all the way back in 1900 B.C.
Don’t feel bad if you don’t get it — something was definitely lost in time and translation (you have to imagine it was the Mesopotamian equivalent of “Women be shopping”), but not before the joke helped pave the way for almost 4,000 years of toilet humor. - - The 100 Jokes That Shaped Modern Comedy
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 5:29 PM | Your Say (3)
“I saw it all. I saw Prep H. I saw Geritol. I saw Fixodent. I saw Depends.”
“I saw it all. I saw Prep H. I saw Geritol. I saw Fixodent. I saw Depends.” He continued, “I saw it all. I saw … dripping saliva. I saw it all, folks. It was…it was…it was astounding.”Limbaugh went on to describe Hillary’s speech, likening it to “screeching [from] a bunch of seagulls that have starved out near Alcatraz for a while.” -- TheBlaze.com
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:58 AM | Your Say (8)
The Clinton System
there is the stream of six-figure lecture fees paid to Bill and Hillary Clinton, mostly from large corporations and banks, which have earned them more than $125 million in the fifteen years since Bill Clinton left office in 2001. There are the direct payments to Hillary Clinton’s political campaigns, including for the Senate in 2000 and for the presidency in 2008 and now in 2016, which had reached a total of $712.4 million as of September 30, 2015, the most recent figures compiled by Open Secrets. Four of the top five sources of these funds are major banks: Citigroup Inc, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase & Co, and Morgan Stanley. by Simon Head | NYR Daily | The New York Review of Books
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:29 AM | Your Say (0)
"Everyone else is galvanized into inactivity."
As the late, great [New York Times columnist] David Carr used to say, "It's fighting season." Look, everybody talks about disruption until you actually f—ing disrupt something, and then everybody freaks the f— out. Warning! This Shane Smith Interview Has 52 F-Bombs: - Hollywood Reporter
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:02 AM | Your Say (0)
February 2, 2016
Congress seems to me to be of so little importance as not to merit attention. I mean this seriously.
Consider:The crucial issues facing the country are the endless wars, racial hostility, immigration, affirmative action, federal surveillance, uncontrolled looting and burning, the deterioration of the universities, wildly excessive military spending, the abandonment of the Constitution, the conversion of the schools into indoctrination camps, the federal practice of torture, and the enforcement of political correctness by the federal government, academia, and the media.
What is the relevance of Congress to these? Is it possible to imagine the alleged legislators (allegislators?) actually doing anything about any of them? If they were going to, they would have.Who are Boehner and Pelosi? : A Slough of Irrelevance | Fred On Everything
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 2:02 PM | Your Say (4)
My message to today’s left-wing journalists: no one believes your story.
Everybody goes straight to the comments sections of your articles for the truth. You have placed yourself in service to lies in defiance of your code of professional ethics and common decency. But your name is on the bylines and history’s forthcoming judgment will be clear: Not only are you a whore, you are also accessory to genocide. Orwell on Leftist Media: “Once a Whore, Always a Whore” – PA
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:45 AM | Your Say (6)
Yellowing?
Cops: Florida man screams about penis size, then shows his off | Stuart police took Kenneth Snider into custody at 3 a.m. Tuesday after he “began yellowing about the size of his penis,” the report said.Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:21 AM | Your Say (2)
Inside Jobs
Its doors were almost never opened, the room itself closed to public view. There was no believable explanation for where the materials might be going, so the least believable reasoning soon took hold. It was the work of the devil, the residents said. A poltergeist. A symbolic act of God meant to communicate something, if only they could interpret the signs. - - CABINET //
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:37 AM | Your Say (2)
February 1, 2016
Galactic Doom at a Million Miles per Hour!
Andromeda smash-up: distant galaxy is rushing towards Earth at one million mph - with no hope of deviation." - - Sense of Events:Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:54 PM | Your Say (1)
Samurai Girl Power: Mess with these female Japanese warriors and you’ll regret it |
Tomoe was especially beautiful, with white skin, long hair, and charming features. She was also a remarkably strong archer, and as a swordswoman she was a warrior worth a thousand, ready to confront a demon or a god, mounted or on foot. She handled unbroken horses with superb skill; she rode unscathed down perilous descents. Dangerous Minds
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:44 PM | Your Say (4)
He is no one’s idea of a great candidate
Trump, with all his faults, is a better candidate than Sanders, simply because he does not have a head full of nutty ideas.Even so, he is no one’s idea of a great candidate. He’s rude and he is often crude. His speeches don’t make a lot of sense most of the time. My bet is most people planning to vote for him get that, but they want to send a message. They also trust he will not do anything crazy if he ends up in the White House. That and he is right on the big issues like immigration. The Revolt | The Z Blog
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:26 PM | Your Say (2)
Nowadays, “working class” almost always means not working.
As soon as you hear the phrase, “working families” you know that no one is working and there’s no father around to make it a family. The Revolt | The Z BlogPosted by gerardvanderleun at 8:22 PM | Your Say (2)
Who Says There's No Good News?: 25% of Feds Would Consider Leaving Their Jobs if Trump Becomes President
One in four federal workers would consider leaving their jobs if Trump were elected president, according to a new survey conducted by the Government Business Council, Government Executive Media Group’s research arm. - - GovExec.comPosted by gerardvanderleun at 4:41 PM | Your Say (6)
I realized we are like the hapless, squatter Greeks of the Dark Ages.
In a word, it is now a medieval place of lords and peasants—and few in between. Or rather, as I gazed out on the California Aqueduct, the Golden Gate Bridge and the San Luis Reservoir, I realized we are like the hapless, squatter Greeks of the Dark Ages, who could not figure out who those mythical Mycenaean lords were that built huge projects still standing in their midst, long after Lord Ajax and King Odysseus disappeared into exaggeration and myth. Henry Huntington built the entire Big Creek Hydroelectric Project in the time it took our generation to go to three hearings on a proposed dam. California of the Dark Ages | PJ Media
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 4:06 PM | Your Say (1)
"TRUMP DON'T GIVE NO FUCKS"
The fact that I’m not in a GULAG, means that the Far Left never wins. That could change. For some reason, the emotion in this cycle is on the Right: Trump has created a movement and whether you like it or not, it’s real. The Donald is rocking the populist mood as the guy who just doesn’t give a fuck. He’s a billionaire. Why would he? In Iowa, you need a “ground game” say the experts. Yeah, unless you have The Donald—if the comb-over cat wins the corn state, I don’t see any way the so-called Establishment stops the man. - - STREET CARNAGE
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:21 AM | Your Say (1)
Lincoln preserved the Union, at terrible cost and using some tactics that would be considered over the top in the viewpoint of some today.
The newspaper and chewing the fat at the dry goods store, or feed & farm supply store, or at Sunday service was more common means of information exchange. Traveling salesmen and 'tinkers', or even snake-oil vendors were common methods of communication. In those times, it was just luck that Lincoln got to DC alive.
I find it rich that people today know 'so much' about what life was like back then that they can judge fairly the facts of 150 years ago. They must belong to the same family of people that want to reconsider the Nagasaki and Hiroshima bombing along with firestorm that destroyed Dresden.
We were not there, were not alive to know the conditions, and did not have the luxury of KNOWING WHO WAS GOING TO WIN.
Sure is easy to cast stones, especially at people long dead.
To those who wish the Confederacy still existed, I have one question: Was slavery, a condition for states joining the Confederacy by their Constitution, a good thing, to be continued endlessly? Was it 'Christian'? If you think it was a good thing, I am glad to not have your acquaintance. At least, I think so.
My thought is that Lincoln used the tools at hand, and would have put them away soon after. His plan for reconstruction was destroyed with his death, and Booth did a lot more damage to the South than is allowed by historians. To this day, I wish that Booth had failed.
I refuse to become one of the "knowitalls" that can judge after all the facts have become history rather than during the time of their occurrence. My crystal ball is on the blink: "Things are blurry, ask later." is all i seem to get. Posted by: tomw at Lincoln's Eulogy and Air to Be Played at the Funeral of America @ AMERICAN DIGEST
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 1:49 AM | Your Say (18)