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April 30, 2016
Can you imagine a liberal being a potato farmer? It would never work.
The conservatives who clean the crap out of the sewer lines and lay the foundations upon which buildings will be erected, that will house all sorts of publicly funded liberal-egghead think tanks, have come to the unpleasant realization that previous generations never quite learned: They have to make the time for politics.They’ve got to attend to it, as if it’s yet another chicken with eggs not yet gathered, otherwise everything else they’ve done is for nothing. They’ve got to write the code that works, they’ve got to build the diesel engines that successfully contain the explosions, they’ve got to manufacture the action boxes for 9mm pistols that don’t rupture under the stress, and do all the other things that liberals can never do. Then, they have to participate in politics like the liberals do. And the conservatives have to grow all our food. House of Eratosthenes
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:58 PM | Your Say (1)
Another element we have today that works well for pandemics is the mass movement of people.
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:51 PM | Your Say (0)
It wasn't "eco," another word for wasteful useless disposable plastic crap.
I knew it was shellac. Of all the dumb luck. No one had "fixed" this piece of furniture in 75 years. It didn't have any new, improved finish that wouldn't last but couldn't be fixed. It wasn't "eco," another word for wasteful useless disposable plastic crap. The finish was made from the nasty ooze that comes out of a lac bug and dries on a tree branch. Your favorite Hindoo used to gather the stuff by putting tarps on the ground under trees where the lac bugs congregate, and then beating the limbs with sticks to make the amber flakes rain down. When you mix lac leavings with alcohol, you get shellac. It's wonderful stuff. Sippican Cottage: Happy Birthday, Mrs. King
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 6:28 PM | Your Say (0)
Some People Just Need to Be PreKilled: Died as he lived but not soon enough by a long shot.
Serial rapist killed by runaway trailer while distracted by porn on his cell phone in Memphis... just blocks from where he terrorized numerous womenPosted by gerardvanderleun at 5:21 PM | Your Say (0)
No matter how hard the Americans and Europeans have tried to show Russia as a busted flush, the joke’s on them.
Putin is authentic and authoritarian, the type who wins wars, a spontaneous and courageous leader who has shown up the West as a paper tiger.Let’s face it. When was the last time a world leader did something really bold? And he didn’t declare mission accomplished, either, a declaration that has proved fatal in the case of Iraq and Libya. This is the man the clowns in Brussels tried to bluff with Circe-like songs to Ukraine, so he took back Crimea as a bonus. His standing by Assad has shown up Uncle Sam yet again as an unreliable ally when the going gets tough. Over Two Centuries Ago…
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 4:50 PM | Your Say (2)
Enemies of the State
Billionaires Battle for America's Soul The more I cover this campaign, the more mysterious it seems to me, the more mysterious the whole electoral process appears to me.
Who would actually be the best president may not be revealed by it all. For all the sound and fury, we never really know until the man or woman is in place. And even then, it may remain a mystery. But what I do know is that, until groups like MoveOn.Org, #BlackLivesMatter and the billionaires that support them learn to respect that founding fundamental pillar of our nation the First Amendment, I reject every word that comes out of their mouths and every act they perform. They are, to put it bluntly, enemies of the state.
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 4:47 PM | Your Say (2)
A slow-talker and a homeless guy walk into a bar.
Apparently, John Kasich and Ted Cruz are at their most appealing when no one is paying attention to them, which, conveniently, is most of the time. Ann CoulterPosted by gerardvanderleun at 9:50 AM | Your Say (1)
The little sign said EDAMAME CRACKERS AND UNEXPECTED CHEDDAR.
The sample bestower saw me and said "Would you like some" -"WOAH I DID NOT EXPECT CHEDDAR!" I said, except I was about ten feet away and I said it really, really loudly. Surprised myself, actually. "DON'T DO THAT." LILEKS (James)
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:05 AM | Your Say (0)
"The Cascada comes off the line like an arthritic bloodhound comes off the couch when called—painfully, noisily, yet eager to please. "
Buick Cascada: Getting Lost in a Time Warp This car is destined for seniors in the Sunbelt, particularly Florida. One thing we know about senior car-buyers is they do fewer comparison test-drives, often one or none. They might thus be unaware what a trembling relic the Cascada actually is. Dynamically, the Cascada never had a chance. Sitting sideways under the hood is a 1.6-liter turbocharged, direct-injection in-line four, pedaling the front wheels through a pretty dated six-speed automatic. Four-thousand pounds divided by 200 hp comes to a well-marbled 20 pounds per horsepower. The Cascada comes off the line like an arthritic bloodhound comes off the couch when called—painfully, noisily, yet eager to please. Figure 0-60 mph in 8.6 seconds, but somebody will report you to the SPCA.
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:49 AM | Your Say (1)
Co-Opting The Culture Of Victimhood
Evangelicals have for the last 30 years acted as the useful idiots and earnest footsoldiers of the GOP establishment.While clinging to empty promises of ending abortion and vows to halt the moral decay of the public square, Evangelicals willingly sat by as the very material conditions that permitted the flourishing of their cherished Middlebrow Christianity were destroyed by free trade and the obscenity of a hyper-capitalist popular culture.
Likewise, for the Democrats, the black underclass has filled the same niche of the useful idiot. In exchange for continuous handouts (in the form of lifetime social service benefits) and a series of never-ending affirmative action initiatives, blacks have become the most consistently loyal members of a party’s base in the history of American politics. This is, of course, in spite of the fact that it is the ideologies of their benevolent overlords, i.e., the perverse stupidities of free love and atomized individualism, which have so thoroughly devastated their communities. Walk through any black ghetto in the United States, and immediately you will be immersed in conditions so degenerate that the social mores of feral dogs seem genuinely aristocratic in comparison. - Social Matter
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:44 AM | Your Say (0)
Barbour gives the collection of all possible moments an evocative name: The Heap
Following a single thread, one would experience an apparent flow of time. Most threads would follow isolated paths that are without sense or meaning, but a very few threads and their neighbours follow paths that are mutually coherent. We might say that such paths tell a story, or that they include a sensible memory of the past at each step. The family of threads that are mutually coherent is robust, whereas the isolated and incoherent threads are fragile, with brittle associations providing no neighbouring reinforcement. | Aeon
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:16 AM | Your Say (0)
Zap the Machine
A weasel has just shut down the Large Hadron Collider"I can confirm that we had some issues overnight with electrical trouble," CERN spokesperson Arnaud Marsollier told New Scientist. "We suspect it might be due to a small animal." The culprit, a fatally curious weasel, was zapped to a crisp after chewing on a power cable. The weasel’s tragic snacktime caused a power outage throughout CERN.
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:05 AM | Your Say (1)
The process of turning one thousand gallons of maple sap into fifty gallons of syrup
takes about two thirds of a cord of dry firewood, preferably flat slabs of well aired pine cut from the outside of the timber when we make lumber and eight hours of standing in front of a raging fire that must be fed every six or seven minutes.The hot air is drawn from the front of the arch to the double walled stainless steel chimney at the read. Between these two point the super heated air passes beneath two finish pans and the main pan, or evaporator. Within minutes of lighting the seventy five gallons of sap is brought to a roiling boil, foam rising eight inches above the surface as hundreds of gallons of water are turned into steam, concentrating the sugar solution as it moves from the intake end of the rig and moves as it's density increases. The sugar content of the sap can vary widely from tree to tree and as the season progresses. DROP BY DROP ｫ The Burning Platform
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:52 AM | Your Say (3)
Vanished! The Surprising Things Missing From Ancient Art
There are, says Richard Mabey in his new book, The Cabaret of Plants, “galloping horses and rippling bison,” reindeer, cattle, the occasional rhino—animals you might eat, animals you might chase, or simply admire, maybe even worship … But here’s what there’s not: While all these animals lived on plains or in forests and ate plants, Mabey found no convincing image of grass, no landscape imagery showing a deer nuzzling a leafy thing, pecking at a bush. Leafy things don’t appear in Paleolithic art. – Phenomena: Curiously Krulwich
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:52 AM | Your Say (2)
April 29, 2016
"Prolechic:"
The clothes offered in the catalog were tawdry, the sartorial equivalent of much modern architecture, that is to say without elegance or unified design, elements cobbled together in the hope that something worthwhile will emerge. No absurd price tag could disguise the aesthetic cheapness of the designs, or their resemblance to the products sold in the cheapest stores and worn by the denizens of modern slums. No doubt this was part of the catalog’s cunning: It managed by its prices to appeal to snobbery and by its designs to democratic, or demotic, sentiment. Its designs might be called proletarian chic, usefully shortened to prolechic. Catalog Slog - Taki's Magazine
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:24 PM | Your Say (0)
Scapegoat
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:03 PM | Your Say (0)
Why do we board planes?
The sublimity of the act is heightened by the earthly mess around it. On arriving at the airport, you push your way through snarled security lines—the shoes, the belt, the laptop, the canopic bag of fluids—and purchase a day-old ciabatta sandwich. You sit and read, glancing at a suspended screen that seems to play only disaster news and weather reports from the Midwest. You hear your boarding announcement: more queues and lost elderly people with enormous bags. The airplane seems to hail from the same era as your old dishwasher, which conked out last year. The guy beside you has a wide stance and an overmedicated gaze that suggests he will drool during his sleep. It has been three hours since you left home, and you are still waiting. Has the Internet Made Air Travel Irrelevant? - The New Yorker
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 5:15 PM | Your Say (4)
The Shuttlecock Paradox.
The enigma of the robot-batted shuttlecock | Robots are capable of doing amazing things — playing badminton with the premier, for instance — but the amazingness is often thin and brittle. Robots may soon be able to beat the best badminton players in the world, but that’s not going to put professional badminton players out of work. Because it’s still a lot more fun to watch people play badminton than to watch robots play badminton. Remember how automatic teller machines were going to put bank tellers out of work? And yet, even though ATMs are everywhere, there are more bank tellers at work today than when ATMs were invented.
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 4:43 PM | Your Say (1)
“Native Advertising”—i.e., the disingenuous pimping of ad content as though it were actual news—
will be the calling card of the Viceland cable network, by the looks of things.As Wall Street Journal media reporter Keach Hagey previews the look and feel of Viceland, it doesn’t conjour the fearless energy of a millennially minded “60 Minutes” so much as the terminally hungover ambience of the final day of an over-branded trade show: Within a year, Viceland is aiming for roughly half its advertising inventory to be made up of “native” ads—ads packaged to look like editorial content and keep audiences from tuning out. Often made by Vice itself, these spots will frequently be longer than a typical 30-second ad and will be tailored specifically for the network, whose other owner, A+E, is jointly owned by Walt Disney Co. and Hearst Corp. “We are trying to displace the clutter by injecting some humanity and authenticity,” said Eddy Moretti, co-president of Viceland and Vice’s chief creative officer. Your Media Future: Cheesy and Skeezy | The Baffler
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 4:20 PM | Your Say (0)
They only saw the public lie. The private truth remained hidden until some galvanizing event forced it to the surface.
It's becoming evident that the European elites failed to understand how explosive the migrant issue was until it detonated full in their face. Now it is in the midst of a crisis which could literally bring down the European Union. Why didn't they see it coming? Because they believed their own Narrative, even when they should have suspected it was a lie of their own making. If the PC Western elites are overtaken by a cascade similar to that which collapsed the Soviet Union, the ultimate irony will be that the very migrants which they had counted on to create the Curley Effect will turn out to be the engine of their own destruction.How Tyrannies Implode | PJ Media
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 3:05 PM | Your Say (0)
Before I am carried away by time’s flow,
I want to share one last memory, again as a small child. I am sitting in a warm sunbeam on the living room floor of our farmhouse, watching the gentle chaos of drifting dust motes, small worlds entire, next to my sleeping dog, King. We were – are – will be – best friends forever. Always at peace. Why doesn’t physics help us to understand the flow of time? | Aeon Essays
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 2:16 PM | Your Say (1)
Who says there's no good news?
— tom carbone (@oneyedjack) April 29, 2016
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:51 AM | Your Say (0)
Melissa Cook is a forty-seven-year-old surrogate in California with four children of her own.
When C.M. learned of the triplets, he asked her to abort one because he was not capable of caring for three children; Cook refused. C.M. continued to ask for an abortion by arguing that giving birth to multiples was dangerous for the babies. Despite threats from C.M.’s lawyer that they’d cut off funding to Cook throughout the rest of pregnancy if she did not comply with the abortion, Cook refused and C.M. relented. The Schizophrenic and the California Brood Mare
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:32 AM | Your Say (1)
"Get your mind off 1,237; get your mind on the wind at Donald Trump’s back."
The wind is at Donald Trump’s back, and it’s the kind that doesn’t lessen but builds.Last week he won the New York primary with an astounding 60% of the vote to John Kasich’s 25% and Ted Cruz’s 15%. This week he swept the five-state Northeast regional primaries with numbers that neared or surpassed the New York results—54% in Maryland, 57% in Pennsylvania, 58% in Connecticut, 61% in Delaware and 64% in Rhode Island. He beat Mr. Kasich in Greenwich, Conn., the affluent enclave of the old moderate Republicanism. Amazingly, he carried every county in all five states, and every county in New York except Manhattan. With 10 million votes, Mr. Trump is on track to become the biggest primary vote-getter in GOP history. He did well with varied demographic groups, old and young, college graduates, rich and not. This is the kind of political momentum that tends to grow. A political saying attributed to Haley Barbour is that in politics this is the dynamic: Good gets better and bad gets worse. Simple Patriotism Trumps Ideology - Peggy Noonan
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:10 AM | Your Say (0)
April 28, 2016
Ten Things You Should Know About The Reptilian Elite Conspiracy
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 5:06 PM | Your Say (7)
I don't write the headlines, I just report them.
Man in "adult animal onesie" threatened to blow up TV station before being shot by sniper. https://t.co/wuiJZZHGrA pic.twitter.com/YerskzKJcP
— NBC Nightly News (@NBCNightlyNews) April 28, 2016
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 2:41 PM | Your Say (3)
"Understand us and understand this clearly: you have everything to learn from us; we have nothing to learn from you."
Oxford, let us remind you, is the world’s second oldest extant university. Scholars have been studying here since at least the 11th century. We’ve played a major part in the invention of Western civilisation, from the 12th century intellectual renaissance through the Enlightenment and beyond. Our alumni include William of Ockham, Roger Bacon, William Tyndale, John Donne, Sir Walter Raleigh, Erasmus, Sir Christopher Wren, William Penn, Samuel Johnson, Robert Hooke, William Morris, Oscar Wilde, Emily Davison, Cardinal Newman. We’re a big deal. And most of the people privileged to come and study here are conscious of what a big deal we are. Oxford is their alma mater – their dear mother – and they respect and revere her accordingly.
And what were your ancestors doing in that period? Living in mud huts, mainly. Sure we’ll concede you the short lived Southern African civilisation of Great Zimbabwe. But let’s be brutally honest here. The contribution of the Bantu tribes to modern civilisation has been as near as damn it to zilch. You’ll probably say that’s “racist”. But it’s what we here at Oxford prefer to call “true.”"Dear Scrotty Students" - Maggie's Farm
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 1:17 PM | Your Say (2)
The cardinal error of the Germans who opposed Nazism was their failure to unite against it.
At the crest of their popular strength, in July 1932, the National Socialists had attained but 37 per cent of the vote. But the 63 per cent of the German people who expressed their opposition to Hitler were much too divided and short sighted to combine against the common danger which they must have known would overwhelm them unless they united, however temporarily, to stamp it out. -- William Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, 1960, p. 185Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:57 AM | Your Say (1)
I have not endorsed Mr. Trump.
I do refuse to denounce him. – Jerry PournellePosted by gerardvanderleun at 8:20 AM | Your Say (1)
It's easy if you don't pay attention to the news. Or weather. Or traffic report.
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:27 AM | Your Say (0)
While we in the moribund West gabble self-congratulatory nonsense about the “right” and “wrong” sides of history,
China — which doesn’t bother with such rubbish — is rapidly reconfiguring itself. It has always been aware of the risks that Western infection brings, and so it is clamping down on foreign influences, and on the free expression of ideas (such freedom of expression being itself a Western notion, of course, and a relatively recent one at that). Foreign journalists and NGOs are leaving the country, and homegrown muckrakers are being rounded up, pour encourager les autres.... What has made this great expansion possible? The great wealth that China has accumulated through, among other things, its openness to global trade and influences — and in particular, the 3.6 trillion-dollar trade surplus it has racked up against a decadent and profligate United States just since the year 2000. That kind of money will buy a lot of nice new things, including a robust and rambunctious military, and a fat class of loyal political dependents.Mission Accomplished
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 6:36 AM | Your Say (0)
April 27, 2016
Trump has won. The current practice is to find someone to blame for this, other than ourselves; but really the whole team stinks.
I refer, of course, to Team Conservative, which took the battering from this glitzy goon, who didn’t need a “ground game” for his strategy was viral. The great majority of Americans, like a larger majority of Canadians, will actually vote for a Clinton or a Trump; even for a Trudeau. Who cares which huckster they choose? A gentleman like Cruz, who employs reason, and tries to complete his passes (ice hockey again) has no chance with such opponents. They aren’t playing the same game. Wednesday morning : Essays in IdlenessPosted by gerardvanderleun at 11:39 PM | Your Say (0)
The Democrats are the party of lunatics and black people now.
The other goofy bit was how the party nominates delegates to the convention. I picked from a slate of women and a slate of men. By rule, the seven delegates voted to the convention must be four biological women and three biological men. You just know where this is headed. A few more turns of the wheel and there will be a list for the one tranny, the one left handed gay ginger and so on. The Democrats are the party of lunatics and black people now. Voting in the Ghetto | The Z BlogPosted by gerardvanderleun at 10:23 PM | Your Say (1)
Trump does not scare black people.
That does not mean Trump will win many black votes.It just means they have no reason to fear him. That’s why I suspect Hillary is in deep trouble. Blacks will vote for her over an old Jew, but they are not turning out in big numbers for her unless the Republicans run someone scary. Trump does not scare black people. In fact, blacks seem to respect him and appreciate his showmanship. It’s a small thing but politics is a game of small things. Voting in the Ghetto | The Z Blog
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:21 PM | Your Say (0)
Dear Canada,
If Trump is elected and you do not take these miserable celebrities off our hands it may be considered an official declaration of war.
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:34 PM | Your Say (6)
I don't write the headlines, I just report them.
Cruz to Tap Fiorina as Running Mate Translation: Cruz to play the "Who Bitch This Is" card.
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:54 AM | Your Say (3)
6-Day Visit To Rural African Village Completely Changes Woman’s Facebook Profile Picture
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:24 AM | Your Say (8)
Person Who Will One Day Become Warlord-Ruler Of What Was Once Nebraska Born In Omaha Hospital
and unaware that he'll one day violently subdue dozens of warring, radiation-scarred factions under a brutal regime of torture and forced fealty the likes of which the Gamma Quadrant wasteland has never seen. According to Mr. Crowley, both mother and future mass-murdering tyrant are now resting at home and "doing great." == News Source
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:57 AM | Your Say (0)
April 26, 2016
"They are unaware of the disaster that godlessness in the West has led to."
A Note to Conservatives Who Are Secular Dennis Prager The vast majority of leading conservative writers, just like their liberal colleagues, have a secular outlook on life. With few exceptions, the conservative political and intellectual worlds are oblivious to the consequences of secularism. They are unaware of the disaster that godlessness in the West has led to.
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:28 PM | Your Say (9)
The Life and Times of the Tactical Backpack
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:11 PM | Your Say (7)
The modern lynch mob is it is almost always composed of women.
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 2:27 PM | Your Say (2)
An idea gaining currency
They should put Prince on the 20 dollar bill and call it $19.99. It will be the bill formerly known as twenty. pic.twitter.com/8deZSGnu8e
— John Dee (@brokencountry1) April 24, 2016
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:03 PM | Your Say (2)
"Tonight there are no lights."
Hate, as a political strategy. Law, used to divide and conquer. Regulation used to punish. Elections used to cement dictatorship. Corruption bleeding out the lifeblood in drips, filling the buckets of a successive line of bureaucrats before they are destroyed, only to be replaced time and again. - - The Suicide of VenezuelaPosted by gerardvanderleun at 9:36 AM | Your Say (2)
April 25, 2016
The Medium Is the Message, 50 Years Later
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 6:48 PM | Your Say (1)
The last contemporary fiction I had any interest in is Auntie Mame, and I’m not kidding.
The fiction writers are off in another world. They don’t see the world as it exists now. They don’t use the language of the contemporary world. Their English is utterly stale and cloistered. I cannot read a page of contemporary fiction, I’m sorry. A Conversation with Camille Paglia
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:29 AM | Your Say (3)
Every revolution begins by attacking the collaborators.
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:05 AM | Your Say (0)
The longer I live, the more humbug there is.
There is no subject to which humbug attaches more than humanity, of course. Who will admit that he doesn’t love humanity, that it wouldn’t matter to him in the slightest if half of it disappeared, that he can sit through the news of the worst disaster imaginable (provided far away) and eat his dinner nonetheless with good appetite? - - Theodore DalrymplePosted by gerardvanderleun at 6:40 AM | Your Say (2)
April 24, 2016
A traffic stop
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:41 PM | Your Say (1)
One more reason to celebrate every night of Passover
Orthodox rabbi declares medical marijuana kosher for PassoverPosted by gerardvanderleun at 11:41 AM | Your Say (0)
I don't write the headlines. I just report them.
French finance minister denies twanging journalist's pantiesPosted by gerardvanderleun at 11:36 AM | Your Say (2)
First tomb of the Nuclear Age. But not... by any means.... the last.
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:02 AM | Your Say (0)
Does God get stoned? Check out the Platypus, Dude
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:44 AM | Your Say (0)
So Many People, So Few Crashes
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:12 AM | Your Say (0)
Beyond Mellow Yellow (And don't even think about using the patch to quit.)
Smoking Scorpions in South Asia:So how does one smoke a scorpion, anyway? It’s a simple yet effective process – a dead scorpion is dried in sunlight for several hours or a live one is burnt on coal until it dies. The dried carcass is then lit on fire and the smoke is inhaled. Since it’s the tail that contains the poison addicts seek, some smokers prefer to crush the dried tail and mix it with hashish and tobacco, smoking it in the form of a cigarette.Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:00 AM | Your Say (0)
The great majority do not care much for civic freedom, and never did.
They want to be taken care of; they want someone looking out for them;they want to feel part of something; they would like to avoid hard work and intelligent thinking. All these are legitimate desires, in their proper contexts. But a man with the rat cunning of, say, a Trump, or an Obama, knows how to exploit these desires, with sparkledust dreams and empty promises. Those who care little for freedom they enslave. -- Essays in Idleness
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 6:27 AM | Your Say (0)
April 23, 2016
Why Vladimir Putin’s People Love Him [Bumped]
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:46 PM | Your Say (28)
Having trickled down from the top, moral licence has now percolated up again from the bottom.
Its tidemark, is tattoos. The middle classes began tattooing themselves out of empathy with marginal people like criminals or bikers. "But unfortunately, when you imitate something, the role becomes the reality." --New English ReviewPosted by gerardvanderleun at 7:23 PM | Your Say (4)
"For poetry makes nothing happen: it survives
In the valley of its making where executives
Would never want to tamper, flows on south
From ranches of isolation and the busy griefs,
Raw towns that we believe and die in; it survives,
A way of happening, a mouth.
Auden, In Memory of W. B. Yeats
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:09 PM | Your Say (1)
Physics is not just what happens in the Department of Physics.
Physics, properly understood, is not a subject taught in university departments; it is a certain way of understanding how processes happen in the world. When Aristotle wrote his Physics in the fourth century B.C., he wasn’t describing an academic discipline, but a mode of philosophy: a way of thinking about nature. You might imagine that’s just an archaic usage, but it’s not. How Can We Apply Physics to Biology?Posted by gerardvanderleun at 6:52 PM | Your Say (0)
By the time of his death, he had retired and was considered past his prime.
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 6:46 PM | Your Say (1)
"What am I in the eyes of most people – a nonentity, an eccentric or an unpleasant person
– somebody who has no position in society and never will have, in short, the lowest of the low. All right, then – even if that were absolutely true, then I should one day like to show by my work what such an eccentric, such a nobody, has in his heart.... " - - Van Gogh on his life's missionPosted by gerardvanderleun at 6:43 PM | Your Say (5)
Renovating the species is a job best done on the sly.
Ten years ago, Larry Page and Sergey Brin couldn’t stop talking about their excitement at the prospect of extending or replacing the human brain with computers. For the last several years, they’ve been much quieter about their mind-disruption project. I sense that a soldier in Google’s flak army warned them that in voicing their fantasies they risked weirding people out. Renovating the species is a job best done on the sly. ROUGH TYPEPosted by gerardvanderleun at 6:40 PM | Your Say (2)
So far, seven of the 13 Colonies have spoken:
Georgia, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia — and, on the anniversary of Lexington and Concord, New York.All seven held elections, not party-rigged conferences or caucuses. All of them have gone for Trump. It looks like the 13 Colonies are trying to save America, once again. Ann Coulter
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 3:27 PM | Your Say (0)
“Cunning Con Man versus Cunning Con Woman, the first from the world of business and the second from the world of politics.”
It does no good to disrespect working class people, and I don’t think I’ve ever done it (I don’t even like the term “working class,” although I can’t think of a better one to designate a certain group of people).I grew up in a mainly working class community, and although my father was a professional, my parents had a number of working class friends because the community in which they grew up and lived was a tight one where people had mostly known each other since childhood. I’ve lived ever since in mainly working class communities, and I see stupidity of mind and coarseness of thought and culture as equal opportunity qualities, cutting across classes and educational levels. Some of the dumbest people I know are well-educated professionals, some of the smartest are not, and vice versa. - - neo-neocon
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:22 AM | Your Say (0)
Affirmative action raised to fanaticism.
Treasury Secretary Jack Lew is putting on the U.S. currency six women -- three white, three African-American -- and King. No Catholics, no conservatives, no Hispanics, no white males were apparently even considered. This is affirmative action raised to fanaticism, a celebration of President Obama's views and values, and a recasting of our currency to make Obama's constituents happy at the expense of America's greatest heroes and historic truth. Leftist role models for American kids now take precedence over the history of our Republic in those we honor. RealClearPolitics
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:55 AM | Your Say (4)
It is officially required that you write about this trend as if it were a bad thing. It is merely the new normal.
Chicago Disintegrates - Gun Shootings Soar An Unprecedented 89%: "It's The Struggling Economy"The 141 deaths in the first three months of the year mark a 71.9% jump from the same period in 2015, when 82 people were killed. It's the worst start to a year since 1999, when 136 people died in the first three months the year, according to the Chicago Tribune. At that pace - an average of three killings every two days - Chicago would have 564 homicides by the end of the year. That would eclipse the 468 killings recorded in 2015 and 416 in 2014.
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:53 AM | Your Say (5)
So here is some reality: You cannot pass a law that will make human beings equal.
You can pass a law that will force everybody to act as if human beings are equal, but that is not the same thing.The government could just as well pass a law forcing everybody to act as if unicorns existed, and enforce it with penalties so harsh that virtually nobody would be willing to speak up against it. In fact, you can go even father. You could mandate teaching about unicorns at schools and universities, and indeed, you could even set up whole Departments of Unicorn Studies. You could make sure that films and television were careful to never question whether unicorns existed. You could get people kicked off of social networks for snickering at the idea of unicorns. You could make it so that those who dared to disbelieve in unicorns were fired from their jobs, blacklisted from entire professions, and rendered unable to make enough money to put food on the table for their children to eat. You could do all of that, and it still won’t make unicorns exist. The Lion And The Ox | AntiDem
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:40 AM | Your Say (1)
When I was a kid, cars said something about the owner. It was an extension of his personality so variety was everywhere.
That’s still true, except the guy driving is no longer a free man driving his own car.
Instead, the car is leased to him and he is permitted to drive it by a gaggle of faceless bureaucrats, who spend their lives in committee meetings. That’s why our cars look like extras in a funeral procession. An optimistic people buy weird looking cars in bright colors. A society marking time leases gray sedans that go back to the dealer when they are done for. Car Shopping | The Z Blog
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:22 AM | Your Say (3)
Reporting this as if it was a bad thing is getting a bit thin at the Chicago Tribune
Grim milestone: Chicago tops 1,000 shootings weeks earlier than recent years - Chicago TribuneThe number of people shot in Chicago so far this year has already passed 1,000, a grim milestone as gun violence in the city continues at a pace not seen since the 1990s.Translation: "Yawn."
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 3:30 AM | Your Say (3)
Lately conservative thinkers and journalists had taken to making clear their disdain for the white working class.
I had actually not known they looked down on them.I deeply resented it and it pained me. If you’re a writer lucky enough to have thoughts and be paid to express them and there are Americans on the ground struggling, suffering—some of them making mistakes, some unlucky—you don’t owe them your airy, well-put contempt, you owe them your loyalty. They too have given a portion of their love to this great project, and they are in trouble. - - Peggy Noonan, That Moment When 2016 Hits You
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 3:13 AM | Your Say (0)
April 22, 2016
You must be wondering who the “they” are that I keep referring to.
The answer is simple. The government employees who live in gated rings around the capital cities of our country’s four Zones, the biggest by far is what used to be called Washington, D.C., in Zone I.They don’t have implants. They get to watch whatever movies they want, read whatever books they want, talk freely among themselves, travel freely around the world, where thay can mingle with their counterparts in what used to be called Europe, Africa, South America and Asia. My parents told me you used to be able to apply for a job with the government. That merit (another Forbidden Word) had something to do with it. Amazing. Now it’s all hereditary. I hear helicopters overhead. Gotham III (Formerly Denver) 2084, ｩ James LePore
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:32 PM | Your Say (0)
Our war with ISIS continues its endless futility, an inevitable result of war by pinking.
We think we have to do something, but our military leadership has few options to offer. We can invade, but as we have experienced in Iraq and Afghanistan, doing so merely increases the scope and cost of our defeat. We can carry out an aerial campaign of annihilation, but our civilian leadership’s ideology forbids it. It might also generate new enemies faster than we can kill them, no matter how many bombs we drop. Approaches that require both imagination and skill cannot make it through our leaden, elephantine military decision process (where the process is the product). So we plink. – traditionalRIGHT
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:32 PM | Your Say (4)
One of our biggest problems is that our poor eat too much.
Bernie told reporters in 1985 while defending the bread lines in socialist countries.“In other countries people don’t line up for food. The rich get the food and the poor starve to death.” Was he talking about Venezuela? The poor have both lines and starvation there. They also have a minimum wage. It’s $20 a month. Caracas is the most dangerous city on earth and Chavez’s daughter is worth $4B. We don’t need their socialism to prevent our citizens from starving to death. In fact, one of our biggest problems is that our poor eat too much. Lining Up to Get Berned
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:05 PM | Your Say (0)
Most of the people denouncing other people for being white and wanting to live in San Francisco are white San Franciscans themselves.
—like Washington, D.C., and Brooklyn, and unlike almost all the rest of the country—is becoming more white. In 1990, young people in San Francisco were only 22 percent white, but by 2014 they were up to 33 percent white. And the future looks even whiter. The San Fran Whitening Plan
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:30 PM | Your Say (1)
All in Favor Say "Aye"
The GOP is not my party, hence this shitshow ain't my problem.
— LMR (@LilMissRightie) April 22, 2016
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 6:24 PM | Your Say (1)
A Ted Cruz friendship
Ted was like a lightning rod for controversy and a stickler for process and was disliked by many of his classmates until his friendship with the popular and extremely likeable Jamaican. They became debate partners and roommates for the rest of their time at Princeton and continued when they went to Harvard Law School, winning the North American Championship in 1992 and becoming the top two debaters in the country. They both participated in political studies. Resulting from their close friendship, they became business partners. Cruz has made numerous visits to the island. Panton became Cruz’s best man at his wedding, whilst Cruz became godfather to Panton’s son with Lisa Hanna. Ted Cruz David Panton
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 4:43 PM | Your Say (0)
The problem with science is that so much of it simply isn’t.
Open Science Collaboration announced that it had tried to replicate one hundred published psychology experimentssampled from three of the most prestigious journals in the field. Scientific claims rest on the idea that experiments repeated under nearly identical conditions ought to yield approximately the same results, but until very recently, very few had bothered to check in a systematic way whether this was actually the case. The OSC was the biggest attempt yet to check a field’s results, and the most shocking. In many cases, they had used original experimental materials, and sometimes even performed the experiments under the guidance of the original researchers. Of the studies that had originally reported positive results, an astonishing 65 percent failed to show statistical significance on replication, and many of the remainder showed greatly reduced effect sizes. Scientific Regress by William A. Wilson | Articles | First Things
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 3:43 PM | Your Say (1)
“White feminism is about as feminist as Dr. Pepper is a medical doctor.”
These intellectual sloths talk themselves into a froth all the time.Their exclusionary language, conspiratorial tones, and inability to understand the basics of biology and climate show that women and non-white people can be just as pampered as the stereotypical frat boys of yore. They speak of white privilege but they mean the opposite. White privilege -- a term I do understand -- is a notion that it is white people's turn to serve as second-class citizens. Don Surber:
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 1:09 PM | Your Say (1)
Condition White
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:34 AM | Your Say (4)
SJW Attack Survival Guide
The eight stages of the SJW attack sequence are as follows:
1. Locate or Create a Violation of the Narrative.
2. Point and Shriek.
3. Isolate and Swarm.
4. Reject and Transform.
5. Press for Surrender.
6. Appeal to Amenable Authority.
7. Show Trial.
8. Victory Parade.
The rest of this guide consists of the correct way to respond to an SJW attack once it has been identified,
ideally at the earliest stage possible.
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:51 AM | Your Say (1)
The enemy of your enemy is NOT your friend; they are BOTH your enemy.
Those who sought to align with occupying German forces against the Red march were also ultimately dispensed with (having conveniently forgotten that both Stalin & Hitler didn’t intend to “occupy” Poland – they intended to obliterate it, biologically, as a people, to the last trace of DNA.) Real-Life Resistance | Western Rifle Shooters AssociationPosted by gerardvanderleun at 7:46 AM | Your Say (1)
Quote of The Week candidate here:
“…Nonetheless, Germany should round up most of its migrants and send them back to their own countries.That would be a difficult and nasty business. Germans object that they do not want to be concentration camp guards. But that is no excuse; they could hire Ukrainians, just like last time…” -- | Western Rifle Shooters Association
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:36 AM | Your Say (2)
Make That One Metric Ton Each
Trump's balls must weigh 50lbs each. https://t.co/S8NyqQI4Vo
— Hydra (@ManyHeaded) April 21, 2016
JUST IN: Trump: Leave Andrew Jackson on $20 bill and put Harriet Tubman on the $2 https://t.co/rQSg02DGNW pic.twitter.com/GglIdQwLQu
— The Hill (@thehill) April 21, 2016
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:18 AM | Your Say (7)
April 21, 2016
Life may not be machine-like. We may be orchestral.
Maybe you can’t take a bunch of well-known genes, clamp them together, each one doing its own thing, and then, when you tighten the last screw, suddenly—SHAZAAAM!—a new creature sparks into being. Instead of focusing on genes, maybe we should consider the whole operating system—not the genes but the “genome,” a functioning whole. We Built the World’s Simplest Cell—but Dunno How It Works
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 4:53 PM | Your Say (0)
"Unqualified!" "Unqualified!" "Unqualified!" And now let's play, "Vet the Trump!"
I'm constantly bemused at the full-throated concern and background scrutiny of the guy.I mean, after 2008, after a candidate for whom so little is still known? After a guy who is working so obviously against the best interests of the country? After a guy who gave the mullahs a bomb, with a cash bonus? Posted by: Will in Trump as Public Servant: The Early Years
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:53 PM | Your Say (0)
It is not that Trump is about to be elected president -- it is about the people who will elect him.
I began by thinking Trump's critics in the media live in a bubble -- you know the usual stereotype of Pauline Kael covering politics.But as Trump rose and nears the nomination, that mask fell. Never Trump is not about him. It is about us, his supporters. Kevin Williamson of the National Review pleasured his bosses at the National Review by writing, in his "Father Fuhrer" piece last month, that rural towns that white people live in deserve to die. He is from Amarillo, so he can get away with this, right? Don Surber: It is the Trumpkins they fear
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:10 AM | Your Say (1)
"The basic nova mechanism is very simple:
always create as many insoluble conflicts as possible and always aggravate existing conflicts
— This is done by dumping life forms with incompatible conditions of existence on the same planet — There is of course nothing “wrong” about any given life form since “wrong” only has reference to conflicts with other life forms — The point is these forms should not be on the same planet — Their conditions of life are basically incompatible in present time form and it is precisely the work of the Nova Mob to see that they remain in present time form, to create and aggravate the conflicts that lead to the explosion of a planet that is to nova — At any given time recording devices fix the nature of absolute need and dictate the use of total weapons.… " William Burroughs, Nova Express
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:12 AM | Your Say (0)
"The Worse, the Better" -- Chernyshevsky
Instability is the best ally we have. Tactically, we must do all we can to disrupt the conservative movement, to destroy its ability to serve as a safety valve to diffuse discontent, to racialize the policy issues of the day, to ensure conservativism can never return to the “safe” territory of tax cuts for billionaires and enterprise zones. Because as long as Conservatism Inc. can provide a profitable living for its minions in Arlington or Georgetown, we’ll never be able to connect to the mass base we need. The Conservative Media and the Microphone
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:12 AM | Your Say (1)
A key difference between conservatives and progressives.
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:58 AM | Your Say (0)
Cruz is following the rules, such as they are. But the rules do not look good.
That Ted Cruz did so poorly in the New York primary, coming in a distant third to Kasich, can be ascribed to his ill-conceived remarks about "New York values,"but also to a reaction to his backroom delegate hunting approach to the nomination. That may not be fair to Cruz, who is following the rules, such as they are. But the rules do not look good. Few of us were aware of them, because it has been so long since they were even remotelyat play in the nominating process. They are now and they look in sore need of changing. The Republican Race Becomes The People vs. The Delegates | PJ Media
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:29 AM | Your Say (1)
As is always the case with Progressive fanatics, nothing they say should be taken at face value.
This move has nothing to do with Tubman, blacks, Civil Rights or women. It’s about spiting the the bogeymen that haunt the Cult of Modern Liberalism. Progressivism is defined by hatred of southern white males. It defines everything they believe and do. It’s pretty much all they are now. Striking the southern white guy from the money in favor of a black women is a deranged act of vengeance. Brother, Can You Spare A Tubby? | The Z Blog
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:15 AM | Your Say (2)
The List of Forbidden Words isn’t published, which gives them a lot of flexibility.
They’re probably listening to me right now as I write this. If not, their key-word engine will alert them to me very quickly, probably before I’m done typing. I just have to think one or two of the Forbidden Words, and I’ll be flagged within minutes. So here goes: black, white, undocumented, hate, politics, disabled, fat, ugly, gender, girl, boy, man, woman, America, religion, freedom. The List of Forbidden Words isn’t published, which gives them a lot of flexibility. You have to guess at it, but I’d bet my life those words are on it. Gotham III (Formerly Denver) 2084
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:08 AM | Your Say (0)
Not one in ten university students today benefit from higher education.
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 6:24 AM | Your Say (2)
April 20, 2016
Facebook Can Flip Elections. Does It. Only Zucks Hairdresser....
A study by Robert M Bond, now a political science professor at Ohio State University, and others published in Nature in 2012 described an ethically questionable experiment in which,on election day in 2010, Facebook sent ‘go out and vote’ reminders to more than 60 million of its users. The reminders caused about 340,000 people to vote who otherwise would not have. Writing in the New Republic in 2014, Jonathan Zittrain, professor of international law at Harvard University, pointed out that, given the massive amount of information it has collected about its users, Facebook could easily send such messages only to people who support one particular party or candidate, and that doing so could easily flip a close election – with no one knowing that this has occurred. And because advertisements, like search rankings, are ephemeral, manipulating an election in this way would leave no paper trail. How the internet flips elections and alters our thoughts | Aeon Essays
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 1:50 PM | Your Say (0)
"Liberals love humanity and hate people."
In our once great, still beloved, but evermore daft United States,precisely those who are not liberal, as in broad minded and generous in their attitudes towards others, have appropriated "liberal" as theirs. The political philosophy of this "liberalism" is one which portrays life as a series of problems that needs addressing by the state--the state guided and run, mind you, by the "well-educated liberal elite" produced by our increasingly decrepit "liberal" universities and informed by "liberal" Hollywood and "liberal" Big Media. The DiploMad 2.0: Poverty, Mass Murder, and Liberals: A Complete Package
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:03 PM | Your Say (0)
"The mark of a basic shit is that he has to be right."
You are a Shit Spotter. It's satisfying work. …We have observed that most of the trouble in the world has been caused by ten to twenty percent of folks who can't mind their own business, because they have no business of their own to mind, any more than a smallpox virus. Now your virus is an obligate cellular parasite and my contention is that evil is quite literally a virus parasite occupying a certain brain area which we may term the RIGHT center. The mark of a basic shit is that he has to be right. And right here we must make a diagnostic distinction between the hard-core virus-occupied shit and a plain, ordinary, mean no-good son of a bitch. Some of these sons of bitches don't cause any trouble at all, just want to be left alone. William S. Burroughs - Wikiquote
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:12 AM | Your Say (1)
I don't write the headlines, I just report them.
Campus community hunts for missing vulva
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:01 AM | Your Say (4)
I say “I don’t believe in equality”
in the sense that I might say that I don’t believe in unicorns, or the Tooth Fairy, or Santa Claus.I mean that I see no convincing evidence that the thing being discussed actually exists, either at an individual level or at a group level. Thus, it is immaterial whether I support it, or wish for it, or think it would be a great idea if we had more of it. Perhaps it would be the most wonderful thing in all the world if equality really existed, and perhaps I can’t think of a single reason why it wouldn’t be. Similarly, I daresay it would be the most wonderful thing in the world if Santa Claus really existed, and I most certainly can’t think of a single reason why it wouldn’t be. And yet reality remains what it is. The Lion And The Ox | AntiDem
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:39 AM | Your Say (4)
April 19, 2016
I see clear signs that Google is backing Hillary Clinton.
In April 2015, Clinton hired Stephanie Hannon away from Google to be her chief technology officer and, a few months ago, Eric Schmidt,chairman of the holding company that controls Google, set up a semi-secret company – The Groundwork – for the specific purpose of putting Clinton in office. The formation of The Groundwork prompted Julian Assange, founder of Wikileaks, to dub Google Clinton’s ‘secret weapon’ in her quest for the US presidency. We now estimate that Hannon’s old friends have the power to drive between 2.6 and 10.4 million votes to Clinton on election day with no one knowing that this is occurring and without leaving a paper trail. How the internet flips elections and alters our thoughts | Aeon Essays
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 1:59 PM | Your Say (2)
it’s not Nuremburg rallies or Hitler Youth leagues that I fear but the entropy of our beliefs and institutions.
Self-government by know-nothings, the soft tyranny of unaccountable apparatchiks: each dismays—especially when one sees bureaucratized Europe too enervated so much as to have babies, so that Portuguese schools close by the hundreds and whole Spanish villages lie abandoned and decaying. Liberty—If You Can Keep It | City JournalPosted by gerardvanderleun at 9:35 AM | Your Say (1)
The law gets enforced because the people in power want in enforced.
If they don’t want it enforced, it doesn’t.Border security is the law. It’s not enforced. Firing employees for being opposed to gaymarriage isn’t in the law. But it does get enforced. As Moldbug said of the Constitution, either a law reflects the will of the powerful, and it’s thus superfluous, or it doesn’t, and is then deceitful. It’s not that simple in practice: putting things to writing is not superfluous. It creates a small milepost, a Schelling point, which people can point at in order to use in their status competition. But it only works so far as people in power find it useful, or there’s a culture which upholds respect for agreements beyond their actual use. The Law | Bloody shovel
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:15 AM | Your Say (3)
“The prophets prophesy falsely, and my people love to have it so”
No man with a prophetic spirit likes to foresee and foresay the doom of his own period.
It exposes him to a terrible anxiety within himself, to severe and often deadly attacks from others, and to the charge of pessimism and defeatism on the part of the majority of the people. Men desire to hear good tidings; and the masses listen to those who bring them. All the prophets of the Old and New Testaments, and others during the history of the Church, had the same experience. They all were contradicted by the false prophets, who announced salvation when there was no salvation. “The prophets prophesy falsely, and my people love to have it so”, cries Jeremiah in despair. They called him a defeatist and accused him of being an enemy of his country. But is it a sign of patriotism or of confidence in one’s people, its institutions and its way of life, to be silent when the foundations are shaking? Is the expression of optimism, whether or not it is justified, so much more valuable than the expression of truth, even if the truth is deep and dark? -- Paul Tillich, The Shaking of the Foundations.
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:33 AM | Your Say (0)
April 18, 2016
New York City: "Hell, with good restaurants."
With crazy homeless people randomly smashing, slashing, and stabbing passersby,graffiti spreading across the city with no one bothering to clean it, racial tensions stoked by race hustlers in Gracie Mansion, welfare rolls mushrooming, a reborn pay-to-play political culture, school discipline so dead that public education fails more than ever, police demoralized by a mayor who not only doesn’t have their back but publicly slanders them, while the city council weakens the quality-of-life policing tools that brought New York back to life under Mayors Giuliani and Bloomberg, you have to wonder if any element that created the urban dystopia of Mayors John Lindsay, Abe Beame, and David Dinkins is still missing. NYPD Blues | City Journal
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:14 PM | Your Say (2)
Ben Shapiro On His Height And Michelle Fields
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:53 PM | Your Say (2)
But for many people, there will always be something wonderful about a full-calorie, ice-cold cola.
After the company got out from under Posner’s ownership, it gained a solid advertising and development budget. Its first attempt to jump-start sales came in 1995 with RC Draft, a so-called “premium” soda made with cane sugar. Unfortunately for RC, people didn’t see what was so “premium” about the drink, and within a year it was pulled from shelves. In 2000, Cadbury-Schweppes bought RC, then moved it over to its Dr. Pepper Snapple Group. In the years that followed, RC came out with a few souped-up colas—RC Edge and RC Kick—along with low-calorie options RC Ten and a re-branded Diet RC. None of the new products managed to move the dial, and today no RC product is anywhere near the best-seller charts. | Mental Floss
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:04 PM | Your Say (0)
"Who? Us? Why We Would Never...."Facebook denies that it would ever try to influence the election
"We encourage any and all candidates, groups, and voters to use our platform to share their views on the election and debate the issues,” the spokesperson said in a statement. “We as a company are neutral — we have not and will not use our products in a way that attempts to influence how people vote.”| TheHill
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 4:25 PM | Your Say (2)
The severe weakness of present-day North American Christianity
is that its adherents are increasingly less interested in whether the Christian proclamation is True and more concerned with how church makes them feel. Sense of Events: "Felt" religion predominatesPosted by gerardvanderleun at 10:30 AM | Your Say (1)
"The pleasure of possessions that are part of the fabric of your life, not just stuff"
One Christmas season, I sneaked them into my basement, re-glued the veneer, sprayed them with shellac and varnish, and reupholstered the seats with jolly coral-colored cloth with a bit of crewelwork on it. I had to complete the whole process in little bits and bytes every time my wife went to the supermarket, and hide everything in the interim. I eventually put them under the Christmas tree as a present for my wife, who never suspected a thing. We sit on those chairs every morning and look out the window at our tree swallow house, and know the pleasure of possessions that are part of the fabric of your life, not just stuff. Sippican Cottage: How The Festival of Trash Saved My Bacon
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:44 AM | Your Say (2)
Tax Day 2016
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:31 AM | Your Say (2)
The Saudis risk physical extinction
if the neighboring swathes of terror and war, much of it their own making, are not held back by the United States. Therein lies the rub. They don't have the money to buy protection anymore. The decline in the Saudi bank balance has made them less influential in American political circles. The Global World Hits a Snag
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:39 AM | Your Say (1)
April 17, 2016
I don't write the headlines. I just report them.
Cirque du Soleil Boycotts North Carolina Until Men in a Dress Can Bake Gay Wedding Cakes Using the Hand Dryer in the Girl's Bathroom - The Rumford MeteorPosted by gerardvanderleun at 11:37 AM | Your Say (0)
From today's Lectionary
Psalm 23
23:1 The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want.
23:2 He makes me lie down in green pastures; he leads me beside still waters;
23:3 he restores my soul. He leads me in right paths for his name's sake.
23:4 Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I fear no evil; for you are with me; your rod and your staff-- they comfort me.
23:5 You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.
23:6 Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the LORD my whole life long.
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:49 AM | Your Say (0)
Remember When Dealing with Ragheads
Russia has nuclear weapons. The US has nuclear weapons. Saudi Arabia has a large royal family with prediabetes. @Alea_
— NassimNicholasTaleb (@nntaleb) April 17, 2016
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:48 AM | Your Say (1)
"Summary Executions of Parasites In the Streets:" Coming Soon to a City Near You
The protests at Trump rallies reveal the tension between keeping things the way they are to the benefit of the parasite, and the knowledge that the West not only doesn’t want the Other in its midst, but that we’d be better off without them.
Our current society was taken over by a parasite that reprogrammed our brains to think that democracy, pluralism, diversity, tolerance of moral deviance and compassion for the stupid are positive values. Instead, they are death, and as long as we try to make them work, we will be like the living dead, walking zombie-like among the ruins and trying to pretend we don’t notice. Amerika: Modern People Are Miserable Because We Have Nothing To Look Forward To[HT: Happy Acres]
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:01 AM | Your Say (2)
I don't write the headlines, I just report them.
Bearcat Urine Might Make You Crave PopcornPosted by gerardvanderleun at 12:25 AM | Your Say (0)
April 16, 2016
"Putin is Biff and Obama is Marty McFly"
If they had really been simulating an attack the crew of Donald Cook would never have seen them. They would have "launched" their anti-ship missiles from beyond visual range. Sense of Events:
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:44 AM | Your Say (6)
Why the GOP can't take the nomination from Donald Trump
The argument from the other side will be much more complicated and obtuse: You may not have known this, but the guy who wins the most of everything is ultimately at the mercy of a faceless mass of delegates, some of whom can be essentially bribed, and therefore giving the nomination to another candidate is fair game.Millions of Republicans will be told that their vote did not matter, and that the GOP, in its wisdom, has settled on a candidate that has been rejected by its electorate. Commentary: - CBS News
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:24 AM | Your Say (3)
If your kids make too much noise, take a bugle into their room and blow it until you get tired.
This works even better if you can't play the bugle.
Tested, proven effective. Another childrearing hint: when your sons become teenagers, keep your hammers in a locked tool cabinet. That way they are harder to get at, and you will have a moment to think while you are fishing for the key. This hint may keep you out of prison. || Posted by: Quent in Kids Today
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:58 AM | Your Say (1)
We no longer hate people for their vices – we hate them for their virtues.
There are many things to dislike about Donald Trump if you’re a conservative– he’s very middle-of-the-road on most issues – but his moderate policy stances aren’t why people hate him; they hate him for everything that he’s doing right: calling out the media, shaking up the GOPe, putting America first, and behaving with confidence, swagger, and sincerity – that’s what people hate about him. A Generation of Cheap Sardonics - Stares at the World
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:05 AM | Your Say (0)
The phrase “alt-right” has become an abracadabra phrase for the commercial Right
in the same way that “extreme right-wing” is a magic phrase for the loonies of the Left.The theory is that if the good-thinker says the phrase three times, their tired old excuses and arguments are declared the winner and they can dismiss their critics. The hacks of Conservative Inc now call everyone to their right, “alt-right” so they can avoid debating them. The Surrenderess | The Z Blog
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:57 AM | Your Say (1)
You can’t make people happy by law.
If you said to a bunch of average people two hundred years ago“Would you be happy in a world where medical care is widely available, houses are clean, the world’s music and sights and foods can be brought into your home at small cost, traveling even 100 miles is easy, childbirth is generally not fatal to mother or child, you don’t have to die of dental abcesses and you don’t have to do what the squire tells you” they’d think you were talking about the New Jerusalem and say ‘yes’. Terry Pratchett
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:27 AM | Your Say (1)
April 15, 2016
Drudge saves Republicans
This is what a free press is supposed to do. The big donors can withstand a Trump loss in November, but they cannot survive an institutional suicide by the Republican Party. The silly season is over, thanks to Drudge. People are coming to their senses. The grownups want to quit bleeding money. Between the Jeb campaign, the Rubio campaign, and the Cruz campaign, the big donors have burned $200 million to stop Trump. Politico reported Rove capitulated. Megyn Kelly went to Trump Tower to make peace. Don Surber:
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:12 AM | Your Say (1)
And this just in, to make your week: McDonalds might offer all-you-can-eat French Fries soon –
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:06 AM | Your Say (0)
Table talk when Larry Geiger was a kid on Cape Canaveral
One of my Dad's cameras. He mostly worked on the real-time analog cameras around the pad,but his group also performed service on the film cameras. The film guys would actually load the film and set the exposures. After the first Saturn V launch they found one of the pad cameras out by the beach. Another one was never located. My Dad installed the video switcher in the LCC and maintained and supported it for the Apollo launches. The subjects that came up when my dad and his friends sat around talking were different than what most kids of that time heard. Larry Geiger at Something Wonderful: The Journey of 230,000 Miles Starts With the First Step Up
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What do British Muslims Really Think? Now we know. And it's terrifying.
British Muslims are not part of some rich tapestry of urban life.It's a myth, dreamed up by the BBC, and perpetuated by the Islington elite. It is them and us. And THEY have no wish to be anything like US. The reason Muslims enjoy our country is because it is tolerant. Not the bits where we are tolerant of each other, you understand. Not the fact we respect your right to be Jewish or utterly ungodly. Or our warm embrace of those who identify as straight, gay, lesbian or as gender-fluid as a snail. No. They enjoy our country because we are tolerant of their right to be as as prejudiced against Jews and as homophobic as they please. KATIE HOPKINS | Daily Mail Online
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:41 AM | Your Say (0)
I don't write the headlines, I just report them.
UK Government concerned too many people could be trying anal sex It's unclear what the correct number would be.Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:02 AM | Your Say (5)
Civilizations go through three stages; Barbaric, Vigorous and Decadent.
The decadent civilization is convinced that if it can amass enough information, its interpretations will be superior, but its information gathering techniques and its interpretative techniques are both fatally flawed by an inability to focus, by ideological obsessions and structural corruption. Scientists may have more rapid access to more information, but their community is more intellectually contaminated leading to worse results. Similarly, corruption undermines information gathering efforts from the start. Vigorous civilizations understand that a process must be kept clean by open debate. Decadent civilizations operate corrupt closed processes while convinced of their own innate superiority. Decadents and barbarians both believe that they are always right and that the outcome will reflect that. They learn to forget setbacks or blame them on others. This is why they frequently fail. Sultan Knish: In the City of the Decadents
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“Would you like to take a shower? I’ll show you up to the door” I said, “Oh, no! no! I’ve been through this movie before”
The Centers For Disease Control confirmed another sexually transmitted case of the Zika virus was discovered in Dallas. This time the virus was shared between two men. One man traveled to Venezuela, then came home and was intimate with his partner, according to the CDC. Health officials said it's the first report of infection between a gay couple, and worry that Zika will spread even faster through sex -- as well as through mosquito bites.Well, what can one say other than "Bless their pointy little heads."
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Exodus 10:5, “And they shall cover the face of the earth, that one cannot be able to see the earth:
Flip the aforementioned “they” from locusts to cicadas, and that’s actually a pretty apt description of what residents in some parts of Ohio, New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia and West Virginia will experience next month when the soil warms to 64 degrees and billions of cicadas rise from the ground to mate. Billions of cicadas will descend upon the northeastern United States as another 17-year cycle concludesIt's such a fine thing that we no longer believe in omens, isn't it?
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"Top 1% pay 45% of California taxes..."
Forty-five percent of the state’s income tax money comes from the top 1 percent of filers– those with adjusted gross income of at least $501,000. Those taxpayers recorded an average adjusted gross income of $1.6 million in 2013, almost double what it was in 1994. For other taxpayers, real income has stagnated or declined. | The Sacramento BeeImagine how much they'd pay if they didn't employ very clever accountants.
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:53 AM | Your Say (1)
April 14, 2016
The Origins of Cuckservatism: The Slow Retreat, The Benedict Option and “Exit”
Conservative retreat — and cuckservatism — begins with the idea that we cannot fix civilization and must rationalize the decline, or “lie back and think of England” as it happens, as the saying goes. Instead of fixing the problem, conservatives propose we compensate by defending our individual right to stay outside of the decline.
Unfortunately, this approach totally fails for several reasons. One, stated above, is that Leftism then replaces culture and turns everyone into a zombie. The second is simple economics: Leftist societies impoverish themselves while simultaneously forming mobs based on the idea of their own entitlement. If there is a wealthier community or wealthier individuals nearby, those will be raided and assimilated so that the Leftist mob can keep itself from starving.
Conservatives have never really grasped the fact that in Leftism, competence and success are the enemy. Those who succeed are presupposed to be morally bad, which means that those who are naturally competent — and thus prone to succeed — are bad news. The Leftist denial of race, genetics, IQ, and HBD through the “blank slate” phenomenon finds its roots in this psychology.-- Amerika
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Growing Up Clown
does anyone have a sharpener—play up!—is the wheel act gonna—TEN MINUTES—slap it on thick boys—three shows—yellow ladder—don’t forget to—play up!—wheel act gonna—TEN MINUTES—have a—THANK YOU TEN—somersault.” As the scent of sock powder crept under the door and made its way toward my nose, I was comforted by the memory of my mother painting red onto her cheeks. – Narratively
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The Cephalopod Redemption: Inky Says "I'm Outta Here"
Octopus slips out of aquarium tank, crawls across floor, escapes down pipe to ocean -Inky had said see ya to his tank-mate, slipped through a gap left by maintenance workers at the top of his enclosure and, as evidenced by the tracks, made his way across the floor to a six-inch-wide drain. He squeezed his football-sized body in â octopuses are very malleable, aquarium manager Rob Yarrall told the New Zealand website Stuff â and made a break for the Pacific.
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:39 AM | Your Say (1)
You Might Be a Liberal If...
If you believe that white people are to blame for all that is wrong in the world, and run with the "Black Lives Matter" crowd, you're probably a liberal. If you believe that people who make money and create jobs are evil and if you choose to live off the government despite your good health, you might be a liberal. If your Subaru has a "coexist" bumper sticker and you embrace the idea that multiculturalism and peaceful world-coexistence is possible, despite what's happening across Europe, you might be a liberal. If you lock your doors at night while preaching the gospel of open borders, there's a good chance you're a liberal. -- - Susan Stamper BrownPosted by gerardvanderleun at 9:04 AM | Your Say (1)
The Republican Party's self-evisceration defies understanding
unless we accept the notion that, in politics, all consequences are intended.Assume they are. Now we have a line of inquiry: who benefits from rousing the silent majority from their torpor, then betraying them in a public and humiliating way, and in doing so, revealing the Republican Party for the craven fraud it is? - - Woodpile Report
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It bears repeating.....
My favorite part about the Obama era is all the racial healing.
— jon gabriel (@exjon) November 24, 2014
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Goodperson Fever
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This will sell a few Camaros
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I don't write the headlines, I just report them.
The Plan to Make California Wet By Spreading Beavers Up and Down the StatePosted by gerardvanderleun at 7:02 AM | Your Say (2)
April 13, 2016
400 generations since we were hunter-gatherers.
Time flies.Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:34 PM | Your Say (1)
This could push back the origin of the Bible by centuries.
one of the team, archaeologist Israel Finkelstein, told Jennifer Viegas at Discovery News, "it makes sense that at least the literati could read them. If a large number of people could read the text, it could have been easier to distribute the ideas of the authors among the Judahite population of the time". This could push the origin of the earliest Biblical texts back at least 200 years, archaeologist Christopher Rollston from George Washington University, who wasn't involved in this study, told Gizmodo, adding that we have good amount of archaeological evidence that suggests that parts of the Bible were written as early as 800 BCE.
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Sadly, I have looked in my own attic and found nothing but dust bunnies
PARIS — It seems almost too good to be true: A long-lost Caravaggio worth millions is discovered languishing in an attic in France, unseen by the family that had lived there for generations. But that is indeed the case, a French art dealer said this week, in declaring that after two years of research, a painting of “Judith Beheading Holofernes” found near Toulouse in 2014 was an authentic work by the Italian Renaissance master.
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I’m a true believer.
In the ’60s I would have been a Maoist. In the ’50s, a Stalinian. In the ’30s, a Trotskyist. In the ’20s, a Leninist. Right before that, a Bakuninist. | ObserverPosted by gerardvanderleun at 10:13 AM | Your Say (0)
Robert Crumb Is Dead—to Me
He spends his days looking at his old comics and fucking that disgusting wife of his which might very well explain why every man over 70 is looking for his Tadzio. His wife, Aline the star fucker, is vile. She is what you would imagine the screaming brunette standing at the stage door of the Ed Sullivan theater on that chilly day on February 9, 1964 who left with one of them would look like today. She hated me on the spot. Vermin have a chemical way to sense their own kind. -- | Observer
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Goose Creek Tower: the quirky 185-ft edifice known as Goose Creek Tower looks like a bunch of houses built on top of each other.
“I plan to eventually put a telescope in the top of it. Also, probably a ham radio station and call it Radio Free Goose Creek, and broadcast appropriate information to the world.” - Alaska's Whimsical Dr. Seuss House\
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:35 AM | Your Say (3)
Civilization is not the endpoint of modern history, but a succession of interludes in recurring spasms of barbarism.
The liberal civilization that has prevailed in some Western countries over the past few centuries emerged slowly and with difficulty against the background of a particular mix of traditions and institutions. Precarious wherever it has existed, it is a way of life that has no strong hold on humankind. For an older generation of liberal thinkers such as Alexis de Tocqueville and Isaiah Berlin, these were commonplaces. Today these truisms are forbidden truths, which can no longer be spoken or in many cases comprehended. Liberal civilization is not the emerging meaning of the modern world but a historical singularity that is inherently fragile. This is why it is worth preserving. Defending this form of life against ISIS requires a clear perception that the jihadist group is not an atavistic force that—with a little assistance from intensified bombing—will fade away with advancing modernization. If the threat is to be removed, ISIS will have to be defeated and destroyed.The Anomaly of Barbarism
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Trumping along
It is interesting, at least to me, that I have received more “negative feedback” from the few words I’ve expended on Donald Trump, than on any topic I have touched in the history of this little blogue.I have, in addition to quick abuse, received long anguished letters from several people who say they had been following me for years, in mainstream media and out, and were now parting ways. A couple of correspondents regretted there was no way to cancel their free rides. I have been effectively and repeatedly accused of “elitism,” which seems to replace treason as the crime most egregious in a democratic polity. - - David Warren, Essays in Idleness
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The world has changed a lot since I was young and naively swaddled in the belief that anti-Semitism had finally been vanquished.
It’s back and it’s back with a vengeance. Hitler only wanted to rid Europe of its Jews. When he died, his dream died, too.
The new genocidal dreams are global and today’s would-be Hitlers are plentiful. When one dies, 100 more are recruited. This time around, a sizable number of our Jewish intelligentsia think the way that hate is framed in modern times — as Israel cleansing, rather than racial cleansing — is kind of cool. And it is my youthful naiveté that has been vanquished. Barbara Kay: The scourge of anti-Semitic Jews | National Post
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"You were added to the list because you publicly called for someone to be fired, disinvited, shunned, no-platformed, or otherwise punished or silenced for refusing to submit to the SJW Narrative."
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:47 AM | Your Say (2)
Ye Not So Old Pencil
Western pencil tycoons wanted their customers to know their pencils were filled with top-quality lead, so they painted their instruments in the color associated with Chinese royalty: yellow. Remind your children of this regal heritage the next time they’re scribbling dead stick figures all over their math homework. -- History of the Pencil [HT Sensing]
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"What of the ignorant-commons? They flock to social media to recycle the talking points the scheming-elites gave them.
They think it makes them look smart. How it makes them look, is like Lenin’s “useful idiots,” except on the wane curve of their declining usefulness…What motivates the ignorant commons to persist in their ignorance, and to spread it to others? This answers itself, somewhat, because of the enabling factor. Wallowing in ignorance feels so much better if others share in it. And so we are burdened in the tragedy of ignoramuses working so much harder at recruiting, at pulling others into mire of the ignorance, than those who have successfully extracted themselves work at keeping others out of it. House of Eratosthenes
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April 12, 2016
The New Old Masters
Collins’s own rigorous studies—starting with classical fundamentals and working up to the live figure—form the basis of the pedagogy. In the first year, students dedicate mornings to cast drawing and cast sculpture, and afternoons go to master copies, block-ins, figure drawings, and perspective. The next year, students spend mornings on cast paintings and afternoons learning figure grisaille and anatomy. Year three involves figure painting in color and color theory, and year four focuses on figure painting in color, figure sculpture, and still life. | City Journal
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Baba Yaga's Back! Crazy Grandma Speaks While the Eyes Tell the Story of Soul Death
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The Mindset You Must Have For Concealed Carrying A Handgun
You must decide, as you start to carry, under what grounds are you personally decided to kill someone.There can be no hesitation, as the only worse thing to do other than be caught unarmed by violence is to pull a gun and not use it. Shoot to stop the threat, and shoot enough times to make sure it is stopped. Legalities aside, you need to be discreet. If you are open carrying, or even badly concealed carrying, you just told the local bad guy that you’re his first target, and you also have a gun that he can use on other people. I don’t believe in warning people that you have a gun; if it’s time to use it, use it....[But].... You should never start a fight, or be drawn into one, whether you carry or not. If you’re in a bar, get into an argument, and he goes to “get mah piece” from his truck, you need to run out the back door, even if you have a gun yourself. Any gunfight you are not in is a gunfight you won. There are very few things that need to be won with a gun, and silly arguments are not among them. -- Return of Kings
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Anti-Muslim Sentiment in the United States: My Two Cents
In the United States, there have been four Muslims that have been killed over the last fifteen years as a clear result of anti-Muslim bigotry or “Islamophobia.” Four deaths is a tragedy, of course, but the number seems low if as many Americans were as dead-set on causing harm to Muslims as some have suggested. Certainly there are some Americans that have wanted to do harm to U.S. Muslims, as beyond the four deaths there have also been many reports and prosecutions of threats, physical assaults, and even some additional attempted murders, but very few actual killings. | Andrew Holt, Ph.D.
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The Promise of a $9 Computer
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How Google Controls You: The Search Engine Manipulation Effect (or SEME, pronounced ‘seem’)
Does Google ever favour particular candidates? In the 2012 US presidential election, Google and its top executives donated more than $800,000 to President Barack Obama and just $37,000 to his opponent, Mitt Romney.And in 2015, a team of researchers from the University of Maryland and elsewhere showed that Google’s search results routinely favoured Democratic candidates. Are Google’s search rankings really biased? An internal report issued by the US Federal Trade Commission in 2012 concluded that Google’s search rankings routinely put Google’s financial interests ahead of those of their competitors, and anti-trust actions currently under way against Google in both the European Union and India are based on similar findings. How the internet flips elections and alters our thoughts | Aeon Essays
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Lurch: No Bull
His horns measured 38 inches around at the widest point, and spanned seven-and-a-half feet from tip to tip! Lurch lived for fourteen years at Rocky Ridge Refuge in Arkansas, a respectably long life for a steer, but he succumbed to a cancer that formed in the base of his horns and died last month. - - Mental Floss
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I write most of these posts micro-dosing mescalin so I can tell you the future will not be too bad, except for the giant spiders.
The day when science can “cure” drug abuse and alcoholism is a lot closer than people realize. Imagine a time when you can drink all the beer you like and never get drunk.
That may sound far-fetched, but look at the way our keepers treat vice today. They are endlessly hounding us about our diets, our drinking and our exercise. My fondest memories of my father are of him with a Marlboro in his hand. Today, a gaggle of angry lesbians will assault you if you light up in public. All the things that come natural to men will be banned. That’s what awaits the toddlers crawling around on the floors of Western homes right now. The Future Will Be No Fun | The Z Blog
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At this point some people will interject that Trump only has himself to blame for allowing [Colorado]to happen.
That's undeniably true. It is not, however, something that regular American are impressed by.To the contrary, it's something that they find off-putting, more of a bug than a feature. It's sneaky and corrupt, bemusing and byzantine. Most Americans don't want the insider who has all the right political connections and who, through a long career in politics, has learned all the right tactics to employ in an effort to out-technocrat the other guys to claw his way to the top. At least not if he fails to appeal to most of them, anyway. This seems to be especially true in this presidential election cycle. The Audacious Epigone: It's written in the wind
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The cult of climate change is a church with no sanctuary
Climate change fanatics have nothing but a hopeless misery. Even if all of their policies are enacted, nothing comes of it.The cult of climate change is a church with no sanctuary, so everyone assembles in the nave for no reason other than to be seen by the other believers. These are people suffering from a form of phantom limb syndrome. Instead having had a leg chopped off that they can still feel, it is their sense of the divine that has been amputated. The result is this weird nature cult run by billionaires. The Eco-Struggle | The Z Blog
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:24 AM | Your Say (0)
Liberalism: An Infinitely Valuable Doctrine for Infinitely Worthless People
Indeed, the "right" to a dead child is considered higher than the child herself -- such that the abortion industry is of infinite value to a species which is of no value at all. So, why shouldn't the first amendment be repealed if it is deployed to question this orthodoxy? If a human being doesn't have the right to live, on what basis can she have the right to speak?
In order for leftism to "work," there must always be slaves and there must always be corpses. For example, what is Black Lives Matter but the systematic insistence that there be more deaths due to black criminality? What is the gay rights movement but the assurance that its beneficiaries live shorter and more miserable lives? What is the minimum wage movement but the desire for increased numbers of the unemployable to be dependent upon the state? And what is the right to healthcare -- or any other "positive" right -- but someone else's obligation to provide it, AKA involuntary servitude? One Cʘsmos:
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:47 AM | Your Say (0)
Putin knows that's what American politically correct leadership does. It does crazy things.
His advisers would have told him thatthe US elite lives in a fantasy world of Manhattan salons, Sunday morning talk shows and Hollywood opening nights. They would have explained to the formersecret policemanthat Global Warming, transgender bathrooms and safe spaces were for some incomprehensible reasonthe most important policy issues in the capital city of the world's greatest power. They will have told him that the mayor of New York could ruin acity with impunity yet face a political crisis for making a politically incorrect joke. The Spring Offensive | PJ MediaPosted by gerardvanderleun at 9:33 AM | Your Say (0)
This just in from Sweet Meteor O'Death
BREAKING: States rush to pass transgender bathroom laws in a last-ditch effort to protect their residents from Bruce Springsteen's music. (@smod2016) | TwitterPosted by gerardvanderleun at 8:20 AM | Your Say (0)
Oh sweet meteor of death at last I've found you....
CNN - South Korea believes its neighbor to the north may be able to mount a nuclear warhead onto a medium-range missile.Fox News - North Korea says it has successfully conducted an engine test of a new intercontinental ballistic rocket it claims will strengthen its ability to stage nuclear strikes on the United States.
Washington Post - North Korea has developed a large-caliber multiple launch rocket system and could use it to strike South Korea as soon as this year, the South's defense minister said Wednesday.
Brush Beater - North Korea is jamming South Korean GPS signals, continuing their pattern of belligerence as of late.
Forward Observer - Putin Announces Establishment of the Russian National Guard
Aviationist - The exercise is going to involve more than 25,000 soldiers: 12,000 troops will be provided by Poland and 10,000 troops will be deployed from the USA.
National Interest - Get Ready, Russia, China and Iran: America's New Submarine Killer is Here
Zero Hedge - Iran Releases Video Showing Arrival Of First Russian S-300 Missile System
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Now yer store-bought yuppie prepper he's got himself some mighty big dreams, see.
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April 11, 2016
This is a war universe. War all the time. That is its nature.
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:29 PM | Your Say (0)
We sowed the wind for decades; we will reap the whirlwinds,
but we have some control over how long that will be. That’s easier to do if we’re rich than poor. We are in a Depression and have been for some time; and each man, woman, and child owes at least $50,000 to the US Government; that’s $200,000 for a family of four. Clearly not all can pay their share, meaning the some of us must pay more. There are not many ways out of this. The easiest is to grow our way out; we have the computers and 3D printers and robot manufacturing tools to do it – look at what we did in 1941-44 – but it is going to take that kind of effort. We spent the money to rebuild the infrastructure, but it was used for the primary purpose of government: to hire and pay government workers and pay their pensions. That much was done.
It did not build infrastructure, new bridges, fix pot holes, build border fences, or much of the other stuff that needs doing. Bailing out Goldman-Sachs was important because it was important to the ruling class. Now we have to look to the rest of the people: to let them work while there is still a work ethic among most of the work force. Given our rotten schools and the permissiveness culture, the work ethic won’t last all that much longer. -- Chaos Manor – Jerry Pournelle
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:33 PM | Your Say (2)
U.S. Worries About Race Relations Reach a New High
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:42 PM | Your Say (1)
Apparently you can take it with you
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:56 PM | Your Say (0)
The Voyeur’s Motel by Gay Talese
With the assistance of his wife, he cut rectangular holes measuring six by fourteen inches in the ceilings of more than a dozen rooms. Then he covered the openings with louvred aluminum screens that looked like ventilation grilles but were actually observation vents that allowed him, while he knelt in the attic, to see his guests in the rooms below. He watched them for decades, while keeping an exhaustive written record of what he saw and heard. Never once, during all those years, was he caught. - The New Yorker, Yes, The New Yorker
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:00 AM | Your Say (1)
Unspecified
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:16 AM | Your Say (0)
"Most of the trouble in the world has been caused by 10% to 20 % of folks who can't mind their own business"
You are a Shit Spotter. It's satisfying work. … We have observed that most of the trouble in the world has been caused by ten to twenty percent of folks who can't mind their own business, because they have no business of their own to mind, any more than a smallpox virus. Now your virus is an obligate cellular parasite and my contention is that evil is quite literally a virus parasite occupying a certain brain area which we may term the RIGHT center. The mark of a basic shit is that he has to be right. And right here we must make a diagnostic distinction between the hard-core virus-occupied shit and a plain, ordinary, mean no-good son of a bitch. Some of these sons of bitches don't cause any trouble at all, just want to be left alone. -- William S. BurroughsPosted by gerardvanderleun at 9:24 AM | Your Say (0)
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April 10, 2016
3 Things You Must Do If Donald Trump Is Assassinated
If it happens, leftwing luminaries and the media will be shown to have no control over their supporters, despite them stoking the very same hatred that ended up killing him. The prospect of semi-anarchy in that situation is very likely.
In light of these very angry leftist zombies hellbent on destruction, here are three ways to respond if Trump is taken out by them: 1. Get a gun for self-defense.... -- Return of Kings
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:53 AM | Your Say (1)
Bill Maher Mocks Michelle Fields: "Oh My God It's Like The Zapruder Film If Nothing Had Happened"
And I thought what a charmed, lucky, clueless white girl life you have lived if that's the worst that happen to you. And do we have to politicize everything?" Maher said. -- Video | RealClearPoliticsAs much as I dislike him, Maher's right. The scent of bullshit is powerful on dainty little Michelle Fields.
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:00 AM | Your Say (3)
This New Battery is a Game Changer
The battery, which is now patent-pending at the US and other patent offices, is expected to cost less than $100 per kWh (about one-fourth that of the best batteries today),to weigh less and therefore provide longer range to cars, to have a greater power density (power to weight ratio), have a faster charging time and much longer life. Another substantial positive is the material itself, made from common acetylene. There are no rare earths to mine and extract, no toxic residues. The halogen dopants are also common, cheap, and abundant. | Watts Up With That?
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:23 AM | Your Say (8)
April 9, 2016
A Heaping Helping of Hitlers on the Left
Averaging that out and accounting for time spent sleeping, Stalin would have had to be threatened politically at least once per minute during his waking hours if those 1,000 executions a day were all due to individual political clashes and disputes. Once per minute, from the time he woke up in the morning until he put his weary head on the pillow at night, poor Uncle Joe would have had to suffer someone insulting him, threatening him, or otherwise getting on his bad side. The smug leftist atheist “IFL Science” crowd, the people who love to lecture conservatives about rationalism, honestly believe that Stalin offed 20 million people because of 20 million individual slights. One per minute, at a minimum. This is what our “intellectuals” truly believe. - Taki's Magazine
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:18 AM | Your Say (3)
A scientist is part of what the Polish philosopher of science Ludwik Fleck called a “thought collective”:
The group, suggested Fleck, inevitably develops a mind of its own, as the individuals in it converge on a way of communicating, thinking and feeling. This makes scientific inquiry prone to the eternal rules of human social life: deference to the charismatic, herding towards majority opinion, punishment for deviance, and intense discomfort with admitting to error. Of course, such tendencies are precisely what the scientific method was invented to correct for, and over the long run, it does a good job of it. In the long run, however, we’re all dead, quite possibly sooner than we would be if we hadn’t been following a diet based on poor advice. The sugar conspiracy
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:21 AM | Your Say (2)
Zone Seven
Our planet is divided into zones. Travel between them is not allowed. This helps prevent the spread of bad ideas.We thought we could end this problem (bad ideas) with an implant in the brain, but there is some process that we do not understand by which the implant is spontaneously disabled and sometimes perverted to anti-social uses. Some attribute this to the “soul,” an ephemeral thing that some say lives on after we die. This would be laughable, except that it causes so much trouble. We have found that we cannot kill all of our citizens who think they have a soul. There are too many of them who are too productive in many ways beneficial to our planet as a whole. We are in the process of placing them all in a special zone, which we’re calling Zone Seven. | Blogging About Books And Life
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:57 AM | Your Say (0)
April 8, 2016
Bullet indicates Lawrence of Arabia was no liar
by a team of archaeologists, led by the University of Bristol, confirming the accuracy of Lawrence's own account of the attack in his war memoir Seven Pillars of Wisdom.Professor Nicholas Saunders said: "The bullet we found came from a Colt automatic pistol, the type of gun known to be carried by Lawrence and almost certainly not used by any of the ambush's other participants." --- Phys.org
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:38 PM | Your Say (0)
We’re just on the cusp of the surveillance state. The looming end of cash
will mean all of your financial transactions can be quickly harvested by the state.We’ve been conditioned for this via the television for years now. Every cop show has the earnest detectives rummaging around in the suspect’s financial affairs without a warrant. Most people think it happens now so when it comes on-line no one will squawk. After all, public safety requires it and who could possibly be against it? The end of cash has another implication. Without cash, all transactions will be above ground. Implementing block-chain technology means that the history of every bit of currency will be carried with that bit of currency. The black market will have to be a barter economy. The above ground economy will be a permission based system. Fat people will not be allowed to solicit ice cream shops, for example, unless some thin person pays their way. In effect, everyone will be on allowance. The Future Will Be No Fun | The Z Blog
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:54 PM | Your Say (4)
The New Math Final. Grade? A+
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:37 PM | Your Say (1)
Bruce Jay Friedman's Masterful New Collection, 'The Peace Process'
“A chance to step out of the darkness. To step out of his hole,” Friedman writes, “To take a turn in the spotlight before the lights went out for good.” Remaining paralyzed means he won’t be able to travel ever again, but then, Gaylord reflects, “Did he need another visit to the Holocaust Museum? He’d visited five. When you’d seen Yad Vashem, you’d seen them all.” Adam Kirsch Reviews – Tablet Magazine
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:35 PM | Your Say (0)
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:30 PM | Your Say (0)
“Congratulations! Now you know how it feels to be a conservative.”
I have a leftist friend, supersmart in all other areas of life, who has really been buying into the whole “Trump is Hitler” thing.Recently, by accident, she found herself in a thread with some of my Facebook “alt right” friends. Some of these online acquaintances have—how shall I put it delicately—a relaxed attitude toward fascism. My friend was so disturbed by having been in a thread with “neo-Nazis,” she took to her own page to lament the fact that people with such “historically discredited” beliefs still exist. My point was, conservatives living in today’s world are surrounded, pretty much in all corners of mainstream society, by leftists who celebrate communism and deny or ignore its murderous history. On college campuses, in the media, in the arts, in “community activism,” it’s just something a guy like me has had to get used to—idiots wearing Che T-shirts, extolling Marx, Mao, Lenin, and Castro, whitewashing the history of those who supported Stalin, and outright evangelizing for the most destructive ideology of the 20th century, an ideology that cost over 100 million lives. A Heaping Helping of Hitlers
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:15 AM | Your Say (2)
April 7, 2016
"Honest, officer, it just jumped into my...."
Upon arriving at the county jail, Flores claimed that she could not go through a scanner since she was pregnant. But after a pregnancy test showed negative results, “jail staff processed Flores through the body scanner.” That is when officers noticed a “foreign object located inside of Flores’s vaginal area.”
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:41 AM | Your Say (8)
In case you think that you're having a bad day....
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:41 AM | Your Say (6)
Currently On Exhibit in Lileks, James' Matchbook Museum
They were incredibly popular when they moved into the market, because . . . oh, I don't know. Maybe the crust was softer and puffier. Fargo pizza in its original form was cracker-crust thin. These places just laid waste to the mom-and-pop stores. I enjoyed being a Pizza Hut waiter. Had a uniform; got tips; had purpose; ate pizza. Taught me everything I knew about the trade, and I would take it to the Valli in 1978. LILEKS (James) :: Matchbooks
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:36 AM | Your Say (1)
To put Dan Jenkins’ longevity in perspective, Jordan Spieth’s parents weren’t born when he covered his first Masters.
After 6 decades, Dan Jenkins is still covering the Masters - and having a blastPosted by gerardvanderleun at 10:29 AM | Your Say (0)
Chuck Bonnet and the Hallucinations
Most of the apparitions are strangers, although there are many reports of grieving people seeing their deceased loved ones during such hallucination episodes. These phantom people normally wear pleasant expressions on their faces as they loiter in eerie silence, and they make frequent eye contact with the viewer. Curiously, a great number of these imaginary characters are described as wearing hats, sometimes along with elaborate costumes. • Damn Interesting
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:30 AM | Your Say (3)
A Take
Make a smart remark and move on. 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. Another take will quickly follow, and the silence that is a mark of perplexity, of research and reflection, will be mercifully kept at bay. A take asks for no affiliation. It requires no commitment.” -- Leon Wieseltier HappyAcres
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:06 AM | Your Say (0)
‘Congratulations to Ted Cruz for winning his fourth primary!’
Usually Donald Trump wins the primaries — where you go and vote, like in a real election. Cruz wins the caucuses — run by the state parties, favored by political operators and cheaters.Until now, the only primaries Cruz has won are in Texas (his home state), Oklahoma (basically the same state) and Idaho (where Trump never campaigned). So now, Cruz has finally won an honest-to-goodness primary. This is great news for him, provided: (1) the general election is a caucus, and (2) the national media universally denounce Cruz’s Democratic opponent the same way the Wisconsin media denounced Trump. Ann Coulter MOONIES FOR CRUZ
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:02 AM | Your Say (5)
What elitists mean by Trump's vulgarity
Sitting here in Poca, West Virginia, I notice no difference between the socialists and some of these He-Man Trump Hater.Their ranks are dominated by professors, tax-exempt thinkers, and trust fund babies. It is not that Washington is filled with people who live in a bubble per se. That is a stereotype. The problem is Washington is filled with bubbleheads. They think they know it all. They reject any new idea that does not conform to their vision of the world. For all their intellectualism, they sure are a close-minded lot. Question free trade? How vulgar. Build a wall? How vulgar. Question Muslim immigration? How vulgar. Reduce legal immigration? How vulgar. Question NATO? How vulgar. Consider a one-time tax increase? How vulgar. Don Surber:
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:56 AM | Your Say (0)
April 6, 2016
The math says Cruz will be eliminated by April 26th, baring a miracle.
His rationale for remaining in the race at that point, is to be a dick and keep Trump from winning.Maybe that’s enough for him, but I wonder if his voters will agree. History says support drops off once a candidate is no longer viable. That means the Foundation has to think they can ignore April by shifting the conversation from Trump winning primaries to some other topic, like his inability to beat Clinton in the general. The flaw in this plan is that the Democrats suddenly have a Sanders problem. Kristol would be fine with a Clinton presidency. The Conservative Industrial Complex could raise money of it and they largely agree with Hillary anyway. Sanders winning complicates the math a bit.Checking in on the Encyclopedists | The Z Blog
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 6:27 PM | Your Say (3)
If you attend the typical university steeped in postmodern relativism,
it is overwhelmingly likely that the end result will be a systematic undermining of the first function of intelligence! In short, you won't just be unintelligent, but cosmically stupid. Is it any wonder that this -- the illiberal, totolerantarian multiversity -- is the great source of Bernie Sanders' support? One Cʘsmos: The Keys to the Damn World EnigmaPosted by gerardvanderleun at 6:18 PM | Your Say (1)
PS If you thought the tranny progtards were harming kids, you were right: Gender Ideology Harms Children |
American College of Pediatricians:Our opponents advocate a new scientifically baseless standard of care for children with a psychological condition (GD) that would otherwise resolve after puberty for the vast majority of patients concerned.Specifically, they advise: affirmation of children’s thoughts which are contrary to physical reality; the chemical castration of these children prior to puberty with GnRH agonists (puberty blockers which cause infertility, stunted growth, low bone density, and an unknown impact upon their brain development), and, finally, the permanent sterilization of these children prior to age 18 via cross-sex hormones. There is an obvious self-fulfilling nature to encouraging young GD children to impersonate the opposite sex and then institute pubertal suppression. If a boy who questions whether or not he is a boy (who is meant to grow into a man) is treated as a girl, then has his natural pubertal progression to manhood suppressed, have we not set in motion an inevitable outcome?
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 5:47 PM | Your Say (4)
I Clean Roadkill Off Your Highways
Although skimming the shoulder the way you would your local meat counter has always been a hillbilly punchline, it's also a burgeoning trend in some circles. A handful of states have legalized "harvesting" roadkill, and while it's a little off-putting to see Car And Driver magazine publishing recipes, roadkill certainly is a more economic source of protein for the broke and undiscerning. 5 Weird Realities
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 5:12 PM | Your Say (5)
This Tiny Frog Is the World's Most Poisonous Animals
A single amphibian packs enough venom in it to kill over 10 adult men in about 3 minutes. In fact, the species gets its name from the native Emberá hunters of Colombia, who once used the frogs to make lethal blowgun darts. | Oddity Central
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:38 AM | Your Say (2)
It is popular to sometimes highlight terrorism by other groups (e.g. Christians, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, etc…),
Indeed, as I have previously noted, in the case of the United States, there have been about 62 Americans killed by Islamic extremists, for example, for every 1 American killed by right-wing extremists over the last fifteen years. Again, a ratio of 62 to 1. Anti-Muslim Sentiment in the United States: My Two Cents | Andrew Holt, Ph.D.
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:16 AM | Your Say (1)
I have no sympathy for leftists who totally lose it when they see “fascism” and “Nazism” in the cracks and crevices of social media.
Of course, leftists simply don’t “get” Nazism/communism equivalence.Leftists have managed to blind themselves to the reality of the human cost of communism. They mentally separate communist mass murder from something like the Holocaust by convincing themselves that communist killings were all individually politically motivated. Stalin and Mao didn’t “round people up” en masse based on their identity. No, they just killed people who threatened them politically. Leftists genuinely believe that. As “history buff” and “most viewed writer” Scott Stolz wrote on the by-dummies-for-dummies Q&A site Quora, Hitler committed “organized” murders to “eliminate entire groups,” whereas Stalin and Mao merely “targeted people for political reasons, killing opponents and dissidents.” - - A Heaping Helping of Hitlers
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:18 AM | Your Say (0)
April 5, 2016
Today, Buckley Conservatism is mostly a Reagan Mystery Cult with a gift shop for their books, magazines and television programs.
The Buckleyites still run the Reagan Mystery Cult and the adjoining gift shoppe, the latter being the critical piece.Jonah Goldberg lives in a million dollar home in the Washington suburbs. To maintain that lifestyle means keeping the gift shoppe open. Even if he wanted to entertain alternative opinions, he has a mortgage to pay and a college fund to finance. He lacks the talent of a Mark Steyn and the courage of Ann Coulter so he cannot go it alone. He has to remain a clerk in the gift shoppe, writing copy about the wonderfulness of Buckley Conservatism. The War on the Alt-Right | The Z Blog
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 2:50 PM | Your Say (0)
Aged 286, The Rolling Stones
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:43 AM | Your Say (5)
The Fine-Tuning of Nature’s Laws
Or, indeed, anything remotely resembling life. Or even the complexity upon which life relies to store information, gather nutrients, and reproduce. A universe that has just small tweaks in the fundamental constants might not have any of the chemical bonds that give us molecules, so say farewell to DNA, and also to rocks, water, and planets. Other tweaks could make the formation of stars or even atoms impossible. And with some values for the physical constants, the universe would have flickered out of existence in a fraction of a second. That the constants are all arranged in what is, mathematically speaking, the very improbable combination that makes our grand, complex, life-bearing universe possible is what physicists mean when they talk about the “fine-tuning” of the universe for life. - The New Atlantis
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:22 AM | Your Say (1)
When the Pious Do Not Vote For Trump They Ensure Decades of Liberal Supreme Court Justices
Assertion: "I and most hard-core conservatives I know will never cast a vote for this man."My Response: Jewish sages millennia ago warned that people who place principle above human life are pious fools who are not only a danger to their community but are destroyers of the world. The rabbis gave as example, a pious fool says, "I will never lower my principles to exert myself on the Sabbath even to save a human life." I consider sticking to principle instead of doing the right thing as immoral.
In a choice between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, you would facilitate Hillary's election? You would rather see American citizens suffering under a leftist liberal than someone who wants our borders secure, our trade deals to be honored on both sides of the table, our taxes on corporations lowered so that doing business in America becomes profitable again, to halt immigration of certain groups during war-time as Roosevelt, Truman, and every other President has done until we can properly vet those wishing to enter our country, etc. Those issues are irrational to you? George Bush proposed mass deportation, Romney wanted a high-tech fence built along the ENTIRE Mexican border, but Trump suggesting the same is utterly devoid of substance, and even common sense? from Planck's Constant
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:17 AM | Your Say (4)
The Moral Hazard of Blessing the Marginal Gift
I am triggered(!) by the following style of argument: "If by this act you improve the life of only one person, then the world will be a better place.”Let it be known that I have a sensitivity to this particularly unctuous solicitation. Whenever I hear it, I see nothing more than an invitation down a slippery slope and a great moral hazard. It is by this clever little tool that pennies are extorted from the masses and aggregated into irresponsible millions. I say every simple kindness is its own reward and no man who is not a child ever need be reminded what is good and what is not. So let the judgment of men be upon men. Who is cruel and who is vicious and who is gentle and who is gracious is for all of us to see plainly. But let the good man be shamed for not giving the extra penny and who then is beyond our arrogant reproach? Let the murderer be redeemed by writing a children’s book and what cruelty can we not accept? - Cobb
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:20 AM | Your Say (1)
Let's talk doomsday guns.
equipped with a rifleman's sling and first-rate iron sights topped with a compact scope of modest power. No showpieces please. Simple, reliable and lovable. In stainless with a plastic stock it's as impervious to weather and general corruption as can be managed. The .308 will take down anything I'll encounter, four legs or two....P.S. A new Let's get to Yer ol' Woodpile Report.
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 4:15 AM | Your Say (5)
April 4, 2016
Trump has all the features one would associate with the top dog in a social group.
He’s loud, brash, confident and he attracts the best women. By best here I mean sexually attractive, not the ugly feminists majoring in penis chopping at Oberlin. Trump walks into a room and he’s the boss. Everyone knows it, especially the women. Sigma Male Versus Alpha Male | The Z BlogPosted by gerardvanderleun at 9:59 PM | Your Say (3)
Marily Monroe on Crutches in One High Heel
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 4:54 PM | Your Say (4)
The reclusive J. D. Salinger spotted at a nudist getaway
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 4:44 PM | Your Say (0)
IT'S PROBABLY NOTHING: Abe Cabinet-- Article 9 does not ban Japan possessing using N-weapons
News that Russia has decided to double the number of warheads on its new missiles or that Chinese military wants to put its nukes on hair trigger alert suggest the Obama is losing the fight, that he has gone down the wrong road.
Former Secretary of Defense William Perry recently told an interviewer that the chance of a nuclear catastrophe today is greater than it was during the Cold War. A Japanese psychological watershed of sorts may have been crossed yesterday, when the Abe cabinet announced its belief that the war-renouncing Article 9 of the Constitution does not necessarily ban Japan from possessing and using nuclear weapons. Thirteen Years Later | PJ Media
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:32 AM | Your Say (1)
The Revolt Of The Public And The Rise Of Donald Trump
Western Rifle Shooters Association notes in passing that Martin Gurri seems tot think (among other things Trumpian) that "The public is agitated and willing to vote for this strange and formless man." Perilously close to grokking the Rise Of The Dirt People. Even though he tut-tuts the consequences away. Just wait until this coprophagic putz gets walked onstage:
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:39 AM | Your Say (1)
“The illusion of freedom will continue
as long as it's profitable to continue the illusion.At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain, they will just take down the scenery, they will pull back the curtains, they will move the tables and chairs out of the way and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theater.” ― Frank Zappa Via Z-Man: The End Of Mass Democracy | Western Rifle Shooters Association
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:32 AM | Your Say (0)
The Ugly Truth About Abortion From A Doctor Who Performed Them
A former abortionist who turned against killing unborn children has just released a series of videos on YouTube explaining the truth behind abortion.Dr. Anthony Levantino uses the animated series to illustrate the procedures that claim some 3,000 lives a day in abortion clinics like the one he used to work in. That number represents far more deaths than those caused by gun violence, an issue liberals are obsessed with. An incredible 83 times more unborn humans are killed by abortion each year than all deaths by gun violence. - - ROK
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:52 AM | Your Say (5)
April 3, 2016
"Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? .... When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?"
It's a puzzle for the team that found it, led by Souza Oliveira Kepler from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil. "What happened to all these light elements?" he told William Herkewitz at Popular Mechanics. "How did they all get stripped away?" The answer isn't entirely clear, but astronomers have long speculated that elements being stripped from a star's surface over time could be a possibility. If that's what's happened here, SDSS J124043.01 671034.68 (or 'Dox' as the researchers have nicknamed it) is the first evidence of the phenomenon taking place.
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 6:27 PM | Your Say (0)
“Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.” This is a fact that the radical left have always known but the “conservative” movement has never understood.
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 4:39 PM | Your Say (3)
The Rest Is Advertising
Advertorials are what we expect out of BuzzFeed, the ur-source of digital doggerel and the first media company to open its own in-house studio—a sort of mini Saatchi & Saatchi—to build “original, custom content” for brands.But now legacy publishers are following BuzzFeed’s lead, heeding the call of the digital co-marketers and starting in-house sponsored content shops of their own. CNN opened one last spring, and its keepers, with nary a trace of self-awareness, dubbed it Courageous. The New York Times has T Brand Studio (clients include Dell, Shell, and Goldman Sachs), the S. I. Newhouse empire has something called 23 Stories by Condé Nast, and The Atlantic has Re:think. As the breathless barkers who sell the stuff will tell you, sponsored content has something for everyone. Brands get their exposure, publishers get their bankroll, freelancer reporters get some work on the side, and readers get advertising that goes down exceptionally easy—if they even notice they’re seeing an ad at all. The Baffler| Jacob Silverman
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:08 AM | Your Say (0)
This is why the last man standing is an angry, white-haired socialist.
The truth is, we don’t know how Mrs. Clinton would fare in a no-holds-barred debate with a tough challenger—because she’s not faced one in this primary.From the way the Democratic superdelegates have been awarded, to the number and timing of debates, the entire primary season has been orchestrated to serve Mrs. Clinton’s interests by a party that is mostly in her pocket. This is why the last man standing is an angry, white-haired socialist. And yet the former first lady still can’t put him away. Yes, Donald Could Beat Hillary - WSJ
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:42 AM | Your Say (0)
Farm Kid Writes Home After Joining The Marines.
Dear Ma and Pa:I am well. Hope you are. Tell Brother Walt and Brother Elmer the Marine Corps beats working for old man Minch by a mile. Tell them to join up quick before all of the places are filled. I was restless at first because you get to stay in bed till nearly 6 a.m. But I am getting so I like to sleep late. Tell Walt and Elmer all you do before breakfast is smooth your cot, and shine some things. No hogs to slop, feed to pitch, mash to mix, wood to split, fire to lay. Practically nothing.... | The Daily Headline
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:55 AM | Your Say (3)
If you are an unprotected American—one with limited resources and negligible access to power—
you have absorbed some lessons from the past 20 years’ experience of illegal immigration.You know the Democrats won’t protect you and the Republicans won’t help you. Both parties refused to control the border. The Republicans were afraid of being called illiberal, racist, of losing a demographic for a generation. The Democrats wanted to keep the issue alive to use it as a wedge against the Republicans and to establish themselves as owners of the Hispanic vote. Trump and the Rise of the Unprotected - WSJ
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:34 AM | Your Say (2)
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:37 AM | Your Say (2)
Let's rein in the Internet of Things before it's too late
We're beginning to see the extent of the surveillance the Internet of Things will entail.Thermostats and smoke detectors sold by Nest, a unit of Google's parent company, Alphabet, collect information on a home's temperature, humidity and lighting as well as the movements of people in rooms. Amazon's Echo, a voice-activated home automation device, records conversations and stores them in Amazon's cloud. The cars built by Tesla contain sensors that track and transmit a vehicle's location and its owner's driving habits. Vicks sells a rectal thermometer with a Bluetooth transmitter and accompanying smartphone app. Under Armour has announced plans to put biometric sensors in the underwear and other garments it makes. There doesn't seem to be anywhere companies won't go to collect information about us. - LA Times
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 6:43 AM | Your Say (1)
April 2, 2016
“When I realized that people believe what the Internet says more than reality, I discovered that I had the power to make people believe almost anything.”
He knew that accounts could be faked and social media trends fabricated, all relatively cheaply. He wrote a software program, now called Social Media Predator, to manage and direct a virtual army of fake Twitter accounts. The software let him quickly change names, profile pictures, and biographies to fit any need. Eventually, he discovered, he could manipulate the public debate as easily as moving pieces on a chessboard—or, as he puts it, “When I realized that people believe what the Internet says more than reality, I discovered that I had the power to make people believe almost anything.” How to Hack an Election
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:10 AM | Your Say (2)
Big Brother Birdhouse
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:51 AM | Your Say (0)
They believe “Diversity” is another word for “Pet Zoo”
Ask Brazilians what they think of us Argentines.
Ask Germans what they think of the Swiss. Even here, we’re wary of each other. Most racial tension in America occurs between, and within, minorities. Yup, we did notice. It’s the same as overseas. In Milan, Maghrebi immigrants repulse Central Americans so much that they don’t mind starting street riots to express such feeling. In London, Romanians don’t even let their kids play in the close proximity to the Gambian ones. It’s so blatantly out in the open and yet no one dares to address it. It blows our minds to see how some people rank the “open-mindness” of a specific area solely based on the amount of immigrants living there. As if we aren’t capable of heinous acts. Apparently, they believe “Diversity” is another word for “Pet Zoo”, which describes a fenced area were innocuous, cute and inferior animals live for the past-time pleasure of the ruling human class. - - WHY LEGALS HATE ILLEGALS
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:17 AM | Your Say (2)
Michelle Fields Is Not Black and Blue
It was a stupid meme, but it dominated the news cycle and had family members screaming “Are you fucking blind?!” at each other. The same thing is happening with this Michelle Fields case. I see a woman gingerly moved out of the way, while almost everyone I know sees a woman being assaulted.
There is plenty of photographic and video evidence of the exchange, but it doesn’t seem to affect people’s perception of what happened. Once again, the more we are confronted with evidence that contradicts our beliefs, the more steadfast we are in those beliefs.
I think the real reason so many people are jumping on this case is because they already hate Trump and hope this will solidify the accusation that Trump is a violent threat to our national security. We have become a nation of wimps who are so dangerously naive, we prefer infiltration to appearing intolerant. I don’t share this sensitivity. I believe the best way to deal with violence is better, stronger, smarter violence. If someone gets in your way, move them. If they attack you, wipe them out. - - Gavin McInnes
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 6:57 AM | Your Say (3)
April 1, 2016
Carl Akeley Who?
After a long day of hunting and observing wildlife in Somalia, Carl Akeley was headed back to camp, where he’d bagged a hyena and warthog earlier in the day. When he got there all he saw was a couple of big bloody streaks leading off into a thick brush. Akeley froze, realizing what was happening, just as an enormous leopard leaped towards him teeth-first. Unable to get his weapon back around quickly enough, Akeley dropped his gun and threw his arm up just in time to prevent the vicious beast from ripping out his throat. The leopard latched on to Akeley’s left hand, chomping down with all its might. When his attempts to pull his hand out of the leopards’ jaws only made the creature bite down harder, Akeley, locked in a life or death fistfight with one of the most perfect predators nature ever created, did one of the most insane things ever – he punched his fist further into the leopard’s mouth. Yes, you are reading that correctly. Carl Akeley, noted philanthropist and respected wildlife conservationist, punched a fucking leopard in the esophagus from the inside. The leopard gagged, Akeley pulled his hand out, and then he took the thing, bodyslammed it to the ground, and jumped on it with both knees, crushing it to death. Then Akeley, bleeding profusely from horrific wounds on both hands, clawed to shit, still recovering from a recent battle with malaria, and barely able to stand, picked up the leopard (despite a shattered hand), threw it over his shoulder, walked back to camp with it, and turned it into taxidermy for a museum exhibit. KA-CHING!
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:56 PM | Your Say (2)
Life In Cuckland
File Under: "Don't Wanna Be Your Beast of Burden".... Take it away, Mick.
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:31 PM | Your Say (2)
Dave Thompson's Traditional "Friday Ephemera" Is Out
And it is even more rich and strange than usual: davidthompson: Friday EphemeraI'll be stealing from it for days.
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:44 AM | Your Say (1)
Just the thing for spraying "Trump 2016" on college streets and paths.
Rain-Activated Street Art Spray https://t.co/xpc99HGdh9 pic.twitter.com/jWbJiFPppD
— ThisIsWhyImBroke (@thisisyimbroke) April 1, 2016
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:37 AM | Your Say (0)
Very very very bad
Cold blooded. #AprilFools pic.twitter.com/gcWrCxzD4A
— Scott McClellan (@bamasevere) April 1, 2016
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:36 AM | Your Say (0)
April Fool Will Long Be Passed / Before We See Who's the Biggest Fool At Last
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:04 AM | Your Say (3)
Let's Roll
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:01 AM | Your Say (0)
Says It All
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:55 AM | Your Say (0)