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July 31, 2016

The fatal flaw in the democratic mind of the Amerikaner, or "conservative,"

is that he believes that his country's political system basically works and is the best in the world.
It has just gone slightly off the rails in the last few decades. But it can be set right with a minor corrective operation, ie, replacing a few ceremonial officials with good, clean-minded, child-bearing Amerikaners. This belief system, which has no correlation with reality, is at the heart of "conservatism." Unqualified Reservations: How to occupy and govern a foreign country

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 2:24 PM | Your Say (0)

Pat Caddell Blasts Reuters' Back-Rigging Polls to Show Clinton Up

“This comes as close as I have ever seen to cooking the results,” said the legendary pollster and political consultant.

“I suppose you can get away with it in polling because there are no laws. But, if this was accounting, they would put them in jail.” The decision comes on the heels of a Breitbart News report that shows a 17-point swing towards Republican presidential nominee Donald J. Trump and away from Democratic nominee Hillary R.Clinton. -- Breitbart

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:47 AM | Your Say (3)

What happened to the Brexit recession?

One month on from the referendum, there is no sign of the Treasury’s VAR model predictions coming to fruition.
London is teeming with people, many of them foreign visitors, spending money in cafes, restaurants, theatres and other visitor attractions. The country roads are still jammed with caravans, tractors, tourists and white vans trying in all their productive mayhem to go about their business. Wimpish businessmen dithering over trade and investment plans are being forced to get on with life, and it should be noted that turncoat Remain supporter, GSK, this week announced a massive new capital investment programme, one of several such announcements in recent days. | Zero Hedge

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:12 AM | Your Say (0)

"I wish I had paid more attention to it."

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"There was a young couple strolling along half a block ahead of me.
The sun had come up brilliantly after a heavy rain, and the trees were glistening and very wet. On some impulse, plain exuberance, I suppose, the fellow jumped up and caught hold of a branch, and a storm of luminous water came pouring down on the two of them, and they laughed and took off running, the girl sweeping water off her hair and her dress as if she were a little bit disgusted, but she wasn’t. It was a beautiful thing to see, like something from a myth. I don’t know why I thought of that now, except perhaps because it is easy to believe in such moments that water was made primarily for blessing, and only secondarily for growing vegetables or doing the wash. I wish I had paid more attention to it. My list of regrets may seem unusual, but who can know that they are, really? This is an interesting planet. It deserves all the attention you can give it." —John Ames, in Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:10 AM | Your Say (1)

Corsica to Islam: "Commit a Nice, Munich, Paris, or Brussels here and your unwanted colony may expect a vivid series of unsolved accidents."

The regional parliament adopted a resolution urging Paris to ensure the immediate closure in Corsica “of prayer or meeting places that act as centres of radicalisation or where hateful speeches are made, creating an atmosphere that is favourable to violence”.
The resolution was adopted with a landslide, with MPs from the nationalist, left and right parties voting for, and only three Communists abstaining. The resolution was passed after a splinter group of the nationalist Corsican National Liberation Front (FLNC) in a statement warned Islamists that any attack on the island would trigger “a determined response, without any qualms”. We Weren’t Asking | The Kakistocracy

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:59 AM | Your Say (3)

We need a society that concerns itself with the knowledge and skills a person can acquire, not where or how they were acquired.

Why could we not restore the practice of bringing talented and ambitious young people into professions such as the law through apprenticeships,
as was done in the era of the founders, instead of insisting that they expend hundreds of thousands of dollars on a law school credential that means less and less with each passing year, and only serves to delay their entrance into the work force and the productive life of the community? Why could we not do the same with engineers, accountants, teachers, health-care professionals, and the like? Would not such changes move us back in the direction of a restoration of essential merit? - - A Distant Elite -

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:16 AM | Your Say (4)

The Enduring Legacy of 'The Twilight Zone'

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Wallace V. Whipple, the antagonist here, is a humorless numbers man who, over the protests of his loyal employees,
clearly savors the delicious sense of power that comes from slashing costs and making “the stockholders cheer.” He fires his foreman and chief engineer who, in passionate speeches worthy of Clifford Odets, protest the heartless dismissal of “men who have worked here for twenty to thirty years.” “You can’t pack ’em in cosmoline like surplus tanks!” shouts the foreman. But the sight of the sleek new machines whirring away simply intoxicates Whipple — until he too is replaced by a stout robot (the famous “Robby,” first featured in Forbidden Planet) shown busily ensconced in the executive suite in the final scene. Serling remarks in closing that man too often “becomes clever instead of becoming wise.” - The New Atlantis

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:06 AM | Your Say (0)

July 30, 2016

Pre-Christian Communion Was Less Symbolic

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“They took a captive,” says the Jesuit Acosta, “such as they thought good; and afore they did sacrifice him unto their idols, they gave him the name of the idol,
to whom he should be sacrificed, and apparelled him with the same ornaments like their idol, saying, that he did represent the same idol. And during the time that this representation lasted, which was for a year in some feasts, in others six months, and in others less, they reverenced and worshipped him in the same manner as the proper idol; and in the meantime he did eat, drink, and was merry. When he went through the streets, the people came forth to worship him, and every one brought him an alms, with children and sick folks, that he might cure them, and bless them, suffering him to do all things at his pleasure, only he was accompanied with ten or twelve men lest he should fly. And he (to the end he might be reverenced as he passed) sometimes sounded upon a small flute, that the people might prepare to worship him. The feast being come, and he grown fat, they killed him, opened him, and ate him, making a solemn sacrifice of him.” Killing the God in Mexico. The Golden Bough, 1922

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:53 PM | Your Say (2)

Communism/Socialism: "It just hasn't been done in the 'right' way yet."

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Mao emerges as one of the greatest mass murderers in history, responsible for the deaths of at least 45 million people between 1958 and 1962.
It is not merely the extent of the catastrophe that dwarfs earlier estimates, but also the manner in which many people died: between two and three million victims were tortured to death or summarily killed, often for the slightest infraction. When a boy stole a handful of grain in a Hunan village, local boss Xiong Dechang forced his father to bury him alive. The father died of grief a few days later. The case of Wang Ziyou was reported to the central leadership: one of his ears was chopped off, his legs were tied with iron wire, a ten kilogram stone was dropped on his back and then he was branded with a sizzling tool – punishment for digging up a potato.  Looking back on the Great Leap Forward | History Today
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- - Chairman Mao's Mangoes

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 2:51 PM | Your Say (5)

July 29, 2016

The Amerikaners' problem is that they're governed by their enemies, the progressives,

who have converted democratic politics into a reality show and rule through the extended civil service.
The civil service is nominally responsible to the elected arms, but the latter would have to put up a terrible fight to even touch them. And progressives fight the peril of a "populist" democratic reaction with two slow, but inevitably lethal, strangulation tactics: subsidized progressive education, and Morlock voter importation. - - Unqualified Reservations

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 2:23 PM | Your Say (0)

November 8th

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Early in the afternoon (EST) a small group of global guerrillas spring an N-1 trap (N-1 is a last moment action or betrayal) on the US: How the US ends up in a real Civil War this Fall - Global Guerrillas

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:29 AM | Your Say (0)

Calories are everything when prepping for a food deficient future.

When it all hits the fan, those who think they need an interesting variety of food are in for an epiphany.
Food isn't entertainment. They'll not only eat much the same thing day after day, they'd crawl over broken glass to do it. Choosiness will be a barely credible memory. Today's over-hydrated generation with their no fat, gluten-free, low calorie diets will have their teachable moment, as will those who demand a balanced diet at every meal. Calories first, nutritional nuances second. Woodpile Report

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:23 AM | Your Say (0)

July 28, 2016

The Nose Knows

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New superbug-fighting antibiotic discovered up humans' noses | Today’s study is the first one to zero in on a particular bacterium that lives inside people’s nostrils, called Staphylococcus lugdunensis. The study demonstrates that this bacterium produces a new peptide antibiotic, named lugdunin, that’s part of an entirely new class of antibiotics. "Lugdunin is just the first example," says study co-author Andreas Peschel, a microbiologist at University of Tübingen in Germany. "Maybe it’s just the tip of the iceberg."

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:08 PM | Your Say (2)

Terror Fatique

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[Today | Yesterday], Europe was hit with another Muslim terror attack. The nation of [France | Belgium | Germany] has declared a state of emergency and three days of mourning after a [gunman | suicide bomber | driver] killed [5 | 10 | 40 | 90 | 200] people and injured another [20 | 40 | 80 | 160]. [10 | 20 | 40] of them are in critical condition. This comes in the wake of last week’s [mass shooting | bombing | hostage situation] in [Paris | Brussels | Munich] which had put the nation’s security forces and police on high-alert. - -Alternative Right

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:57 PM | Your Say (2)

For the Republicans, the winning formula for several decades has been to offer culture war as red meat to the electorate,

then turn around and serve the donor class.
This is simple cynicism. For the Democrats, the driving force is, rather, moral vanity—a tendency to let the easy pleasures of righteousness stand in for the kind of public-spiritedness that would make real demands on us. Right and left need each other to keep the standard culture wars going, but Trump is short-circuiting the whole arrangement. No wonder both sides are in a panic. - On Frank Speech -
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Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:36 AM | Your Say (0)

I've decided to go all in for the destruction of western civilization after all....

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Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:24 AM | Your Say (5)

News you already knew.

San Francisco marijuana use scores highest in the nation

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:14 AM | Your Say (0)

If Donald Trump wins the presidency in November, I will literally fall to my knees and weep with relief.

I’m not proud of that. I hate feeling propelled, rather like a cat in heat, by a toxic cocktail of shallow novelty-seeking and primitive tribalism.
As a conscientious, civic-minded reason to cheer a presidential wannabe, “He annoys all the right people” ranks somewhere between “It’s just time for a change” and “This’ll teach the bastards a lesson.” I know. But 15 years after September 11—and however long it’s been since O.J., and since “global warming” became a “thing”—I just can’t cope. And drinking’s not an option. The Tepid Trumper - Taki's Magazine

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:01 AM | Your Say (4)

If it must be religious war, then let it be as they say, even if this is a terrifying thing.

If the cross falls to you, take it up. If it falls to me, then I will take it, also.
I implore the Islamists to remember this, however: we truly wanted peace, with all of our hearts, and you could not leave well enough alone. Deus Vult! General Mattis put it succinctly, once: “I come in peace. I didn’t bring artillery. But I’m pleading with you, with tears in my eyes: If you fuck with me, I’ll kill you all.”The Religious War Has Begun

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:25 AM | Your Say (2)

July 27, 2016

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:33 AM | Your Say (0)

It's probably nothing...

Could France be facing a civil war? Just down the road from me on the outskirts of Montpellier on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea,
there's long been a gun club where enthusiastic game hunters can polish their skills during the off-season. Unlike in Britain, it is perfectly legal for members of such clubs to own pistols and semi-automatic rifles. In the last few months, since the wave of terrorism has intensified, the membership of the gun club has quadrupled, from 200 to 800 members. The new members are not all motivated by the love of shooting sports. Benoit, a local olive farmer who owns more than a dozen rifles, pistols and shotguns, as well as an AK-47 assault rifle, admitted to me this weekend something much darker. "They're getting ready for a war," he said.

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:18 AM | Your Say (3)

It's probably nothing...

Recently, I grabbed a taxi in Moscow. When the driver asked me where I was from, I told him the United States.

“I went there once,” he said, “to Chicago. I really liked it.” “But tell me something,” he added. “When are we going to war?” The question, put so starkly, so honestly, shocked me. “Well, I hope never,” I replied. “No one wants war.” At the office I ask a Russian employee about the mood in his working-class Moscow neighborhood. The old people are buying salt, matches and “gretchka,” (buckwheat) he tells me - the time-worn refuge for Russians stocking up on essentials in case of war. War Fever | Wilson Center

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:05 AM | Your Say (3)

July 26, 2016

In 1999, he achieved the Holy Grail of arcade gaming, executing the first-ever perfect game on Pac-Man.

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The feat requires navigating 256 boards, or levels, and eating every single possible pellet, fruit, and ghost, for the highest score of 3,333,360, all without dying once....
He stands squarely with his feet planted shoulder-width apart, his back straight, and his knees bent slightly, in the stance of a baseball batter, taut and balanced. Staring intently at the screen, his loose hold on the joystick occasionally tightens into a full-fisted grip, and his hand jerks with a violent thrust, up or down, left or right. Even well past the easier early levels, Ms. Pac-Man, the hero-character Mitchell manipulates, whips around the board, darting through the pathways of the maze at flawlessly executed angles. The game’s four ghosts, charged with tracking down and “killing” Ms. Pac-Man, are hopelessly overmatched. Mitchell taunts and teases his pursuers, leading them into harmless circles, grouping them together and pulling them apart with such exact command that it almost seems that some flaw in the wiring has given his joystick direct control of the bad guys. -- The Perfect Man

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:02 PM | Your Say (5)

Muslims Make Every Day Flag Day

We are supposed to change our avatars back to the French flag after changing them on Friday to German
(and keeping them German on Monday) after turning them French after the Bastille Day massacre. We have to show our defiance by doing nothing. - - Don Surber

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 6:09 PM | Your Say (0)

Mankind Is Stuffed

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The juxtaposition of the guinea pig with the knuckle-duster,
the latter being the perfect symbol of the use of violence as a first rather than a last resort, was deeply ironical, then. I was reminded of the scene in Some Like It Hot in which men jump out of the huge cake brought as a peace offering and shoot the guests dead, the subsequent explanation of their demise being that “there was something in that cake that didn’t agree with them.” Something in the guinea pig wouldn’t have agreed with whomever was struck by it with the knuckle-duster inside. - Taki's Magazine

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 2:55 PM | Your Say (0)

It’s not hard to figure out why Trump is a popular option. People have had it.

They are tapped out and they look around to see the elites partying and dancing while the rest of the country is slowly crumbling away.

They see entire industries sold away or shutdown by ever more onerous regulations, taking their jobs with them. They also see the trend of people who seeming never actually doing anything worthwhile making the rounds of Washington and Wall St and walking away with millions for speeches that nobody can remember and selling access to our enemies. The wonder isn’t that Trump is likely to be the next President, but that the people are not burning Washington down. When You Are At The Bottom, You Want Volatility | The Arts Mechanical

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:56 PM | Your Say (1)

Pets: The second to last source of fresh meat.

Hungry Venezuelans Hunt Dogs, Cats, Pigeons as Food Runs Out

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:32 PM | Your Say (3)

There's a metaphor lurking here but I'm not sure what it is....

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A cabbage butterfly caterpillar stands watch over butterfly wasp cocoons, a common parasite that kills its caterpillar hosts by eating them from the inside out. -- NatGeo

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:09 PM | Your Say (0)

Bungling, Inc.: Yahoo Sold to Verizon :

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Yahoo is arguably the worst-run major company in the history of high tech.
In 1998, Yahoo could have bought Google for a mere $1 million. Four years later, after Google was already crushing Yahoo’s search-engine business, Yahoo offered $3 billion for Google, and was turned down. Google wanted $5 billion, but Yahoo wouldn’t pay that much. Google is now worth more than $350 billion. In 2008, Microsoft offered $44 billion for Yahoo, an offer Yahoo rejected. And then on Monday, it was announced Yahoo would be sold to Verizon for a mere $4.8 billion. The Other McCain

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:02 PM | Your Say (0)

Is Free Will an Illusion?

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For a moment, imagine how many people had to come together just for you to be here.
You’re sitting (presumably) there reading this. Maybe you’re at the office, maybe you’re sitting in your lounge chair or maybe you’re at the coffee shop. Try to calculate how many people had to come together—biologically, to pro-create—for you to be here, wherever you are as you read this…. You have your folks, their folks, and their folks. Beyond that, we start getting fuzzy. | Intellectual Takeout

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:25 AM | Your Say (0)

July 25, 2016

The Rarest Plant in Britain Makes a Ghostly Appearance

You look. It’s there. Then it’s not.
Decades go by, and people are prowling the woods, eyes down, hunting for it—crawling, searching, losing hope, and then, all of a sudden, there it is again! In a totally unexpected spot, far from the last sighting, hiding in the dark, barely as tall as your thumb, leafless, probably the rarest plant in Great Britain. It's known as the ghost orchid, and when it shows up, people go nuts. -- NatGeo
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Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:02 PM | Your Say (1)

Detailed List of Findings in Wikileaks DNC Document Dump

Gateway Pundit: HERE IT IS

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:47 AM | Your Say (0)

As I’m sitting in the cool shade of a large maple, letting the .375 H&H Magnum cool off while we sip mint juleps

here are few other important Newspeak words to pepper your cocktail party chit-chat with. Oldspeak meanings and explanations are given for all of you still with minds that function. Mind your usage when at the Faculty Club.
1. Vibrant. As in “a vibrant multicultural community in Cologne on New Year’s Eve”. If a crowd of White people rape hundreds of women in public, on the city streets, this is a heinous act of barbarism, whereas, if it’s Muslim “refugees”, the police would like you forget about it, even though it’s “vibrant multiculturalism”.
2. Non-judgmental. As in “What’s wrong with female genital mutilation in Islamic societies? Oh, I’m very non-judgmental”. As long as any act is carried out by non-White, non-Western, non-Christians then no criticism is allowed and you are non-judgmental. However, if a Mom and Pop bakery declines to make a wedding cake for lesbians, then you can be as judgmental as you like, preferably with multiple hissy fits and law suits to drive them out of business. But be careful, they have to be Christian; Muslims are allowed to decline to do anything for homosexuals due to their “cultural sensitivity”. -- Newspeak for Everyone

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:56 AM | Your Say (0)

And who of us doesn’t love Europe? If they say they don’t, they are lying.

Castles, quaint French villages overflowing with wine and cheese. Whitewashed Spanish villages perched on arid hills overlooking the Mediterranean: the smell of fresh-baked bread and strong coffee in the morning and calamari fried in olive oil at night. Tapas, wiener schnitzel, black olives and blood pudding; wine and beer and the great open spaces dotted with relics of 2000 years of history – history of the ‘west’, my history too. - - Joel D. Hirst

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:34 AM | Your Say (2)

What do tats and piercings on a woman really mean?

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It's a "tell". Probably 15%-30% of humans are mentally ill.
Most of them are functional. The majority would fall under the umbrella of bi-polar. But bi-polar is different for different individuals, sometimes very different. Serious symptoms usually become apparent at puberty but often are masked and difficult to identify.
Typical situation is while everything is going well the individual is fine but when things aren't going well... watch out. Usually this is discovered after you marry them and usually it isn't pretty. One major confounding factor with bi-polar is the mentally ill person thinks that they are normal and YOU are crazy. Everything that happens including everything they do is YOUR fault.
If you suddenly discover that your spouse is crazy there is only one safe choice to make: Apologize for whatever you did (or they think you did), promise to buy them something expensive and awesome, kiss ass and play nice... and rent a storage unit, move your shit out when they are gone one day and leave. If you fail to take this advise you will most likely one day be sitting in the back of a police cruiser in cuffs charged with domestic violence and mot likely you will not even have committed any violence.
They will harm themselves, tear their clothes, hit you and deny it, etc. When you get to court your spouse will appear sympathetic, be crying, will have bruises. or pictures of bruises, a good story and will cry on the stand. If you dare look up during this entire case expect the judge, jury, prosecutor and even your own attorney to be looking at you like you are shit.
You will go to jail. She will sell or throw away all your stuff. You will lose your license to drive, your job, your dignity and good name, and you will get to pay alimony, child support, fees for classes and shrinks, etc. Good luck. I told you how to avoid it but you didn't listen.
There is the chance of schadenfreude however. She will remarry (or more likely shack up so you have to keep paying alimony). And the guy who sleeps in your bed and plumbs your ex's depths will be all shitty to you when you try to see your kids. But his day will come. Sit back, wait, the shit storm will strike again.... Posted by: GoneWithTheWind

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:14 AM | Your Say (6)

July 24, 2016

Time By Kwame Dawes

We are at the edge of the madness,

sitting and swelling warm under the skin.

So you think that shuffling and press

of bodies against the fence will end?

You think the wail of that trumpet,

dizzy zig-zag over the tracks, leaping

off the tracks, doing their own junk,

not giving a damn about lining

up to something set out; you think

this is where we are going? Listen,

hear the chaos of that drum stinking

up the joint; we are crazy, brain missing

that screw they put in, it's gone, man,

and this madness is where all peace done gone.

- - Three Poems

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:12 PM | Your Say (0)

"Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and every city or house divided against itself shall not stand"

25 And Jesus knew their thoughts, and said unto them, Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and every city or house divided against itself shall not stand:

26 And if Satan cast out Satan, he is divided against himself; how shall then his kingdom stand?

27 And if I by Beelzebub cast out devils, by whom do your children cast them out? therefore they shall be your judges.

28 But if I cast out devils by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God is come unto you.

29 Or else how can one enter into a strong man's house, and spoil his goods, except he first bind the strong man? and then he will spoil his house.
- - Matthew 12 KJV

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:59 PM | Your Say (0)

[Munich Killer] Ali acquired his weapon illegally and, psychic that I am,

I can’t see a Muslim-looking boy speaking with a heavy foreign accent just going to a Bierhalle and asking the Bavarian barman where he could tool up.
What I do see is Ali getting the gun from… wait another second… oh yes… here, it has come to me. He got it from another Muslim, one in touch with an underground network providing weapons and explosives for devout chaps with suicidal tendencies. This network is part of an international criminal syndicate called Islam. “Freedom of movement is non-negotiable” – Alexander Boot

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:27 PM | Your Say (1)

Every so often, someone on Reddit realizes that about half of people wipe themselves with toilet paper sitting down,

and the other half do it standing up. This discovery is followed by horror on both sides that other people do it differently. | Slate Star Codex

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:02 PM | Your Say (0)

"I can choose…bandages in “flesh” color and have them more or less match my skin."

An essay included in high-schoolers’ reading list seeks to explain the hidden benefits supposedly enjoyed by white people. Some examples of so-called “white privilege”:
I have no difficulty finding neighborhoods where people approve of our household. I can go shopping alone most of the time, pretty well assured that I will not be followed or harassed. I do not have to educate my children to be aware of systemic racism for their own daily physical protection. I can choose…bandages in “flesh” color and have them more or less match my skin. I will feel welcomed and “normal” in the usual walks of public life, institutional and social.
New York City’s public schools join fight against ‘white power’ | New York Post

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:05 PM | Your Say (1)

Eating Local Doesn't Work In A Country of 300 Million +

Foodie localism loves farming in theory, but not in practice | While local food has emerged as an alternative to industrial food, many people have simply transferred their expectations from the grocery store to the farmers’ market.
Consumers still expect a global array of products, despite natural restrictions in season or geography. Additionally, emotional expectations surrounding food have increased. People want to imagine chickens free-ranging in a pasture without knowing anything about their deaths. They want their farmers to be simple, iconic food heroes. It is awkward to burst the bubble of this romantic image by raising issues that will make or break the entire movement: wells running dry, the ballooning stress of our producers, the fact that farmer suicide rates are twice that of the general population.

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:36 AM | Your Say (3)

July 23, 2016

Peak...very peak... PC. Not soon to be outdone.

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HappyAcres

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:58 PM | Your Say (0)

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Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:41 AM | Your Say (1)

It ain’t so easy robbin’ the rich; easier by far, to keep robbin’ the poor.

And lousy public schools are a good way for robbing the poor. It only takes one undisciplined student being either ignored by the teacher or coddled by the teacher, to really limit the education of the rest of the class. And of course students who don’t understand the language, or the culture, or have any background education, take up a great deal of the teacher’s time, so making sure every classroom has a fair share of kids who really need help is a very good way for seeing that the ordinary middle class kids whose parents pay for those schools don’t learn much. And we can import an infinite number of kids who need all of the teacher’s time, and fill the classrooms with them, and call it equality.

But if you were to try to design a system to produce low class education, and make going to private schools very beneficial, and thus widen all gaps into castes, I wonder what system would be better than the one we are developing? And closing the Charter schools, making sure that all but the rich have lousy systems, is a great way to continue; only we never catch wise, do we? - - – Jerry Pournelle

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:40 AM | Your Say (0)

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Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:33 AM | Your Say (0)

The Asian rise may have consequences.

It is not thought proper to notice that the white population of America, numbering very roughly two hundred million, provides nearly all of the scientific advance, engineering, and entrepreneurship. China has, again very roughly, a billion Han Chinese–you know, the kind that dominate Hagvacas (House and Garden Variety (non-Jewish) Caucasians) and Jews in the US. Jewish Decline and the Rise of China

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:32 AM | Your Say (0)

Being as I am a curmudgeon, and delight in human folly

and thoughts of huge asteroids, tsunamis, incurable plagues, continent-shattering volcanoes, and the Hillary administration, I follow the advance of robots with hope.
They may finally end civilization as we know it. Currently they spread like kudzu. Herewith a few notes from my favorite technical publication, the Drudge Report. It may convince you that the robots are upon us like ants on a sandwich. - - Fred On Everything

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:23 AM | Your Say (0)

July 22, 2016

The Black Heroes Who Took Down the Freddie Gray Hoax

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Not only is their Freddie Gray hoax being destroyed, trial by trial, based on the lack of evidence, but the destroyer is an articulate and principled African-American judge. Worse still, Judge Williams had prosecuted police misconduct cases for the Justice Department. And when he takes apart the Gray hoax, as he has done in multiple trials, it’s from the standpoint of a uniquely qualified expert. You can see why the media is staying away. Sultan Knish:

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 5:01 PM | Your Say (1)

The bewilderment of Barron Trump

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I found very refreshing Barron Trump's awe and inability to comprehend the moment.
His father had beaten the odds -- expressed by the experts -- to win the presidential nomination
Trump has a better chance of cameoing in another Home Alone movie with Macaulay Culkin—or playing in the NBA Finals—than winning the Republican nomination. —Harry Enten, FiveThirtyEight Politics, June 16, 2015

Trump triumphed. His way. He won not because of his style or his powers of persuasion but because of his message: Make America Great Again. Don Surber:

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 3:59 PM | Your Say (0)

None of us are immune from the impulse to shoot someone in the name of advancing the Brotherhood of Man.

If conservative civility proves just a veneer under which nativist passions seethe the same can be said for the impulses of the Left.
There's an commissar lurking behind many a mild mannered academic. For every bigot there's a commissar, In the end people just go and shoot without the niceties for the convenience. By and by we will miss civilization which is what holds barbarism and our worse natures in check. The entire apparatus of civilization is geared towards moderating raw passions it must control. The purpose of churches, custom, culture, manners and law is to restrain the Beast, because the Beast needs restraining. Unfortunately we are a juncture where restraint may have just left town. Not only have we, in our misguided wisdom, dismantled morality, civility and even law, but on both sides of the aisle the watchword is: power by any means necessary. Munich Follows Cleveland | PJ Media

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 3:08 PM | Your Say (2)

I don't write the headlines. I just report them.

Sec Army to Worldwide Army Commands: “Balance Lactation Support and Readiness”:

“Soldiers who are breastfeeding or expressing milk remain eligible for field training and mobility exercises.” So, a breastfeeding mother will deploy to the field and participate in field exercises while lactating? How is this going to happen? Is the mother going to bring her child to the field? Should the Army now bring tactical day care centers to field exercises with them?

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 1:09 PM | Your Say (3)

"Would you prefer seeing Bill and Hillary Clinton decompose in front of your eyes for eight years, or watch the Trump family develop their dynasty?"

A week ago you compared ugly Donald Trump with ugly Hillary Clinton and declared them a visual tie.
That matters because our visual “brain” generally wins against whatever part of the brain is pretending to be logical that day. But once we got a look at the entire Trump family, acting as a group, our visual brains started seeing them as a package deal. And when you compare the entire Trump family’s visual appeal to the entire Clinton family’s visual imagery it’s a massacre. Would you prefer seeing Bill and Hillary Clinton decompose in front of your eyes for eight years, or watch the Trump family develop their dynasty? Entertainment-wise, that’s no contest. And people usually vote for entertainment over policy. They just don’t realize it. That’s the biggest news from the convention, and you won’t see it in any headline. - - Scott Adams

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:46 PM | Your Say (2)

“For the Sake of the Prospect”: Experiencing the World from Above in the Late 18th Century

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With the “Balloon-Prospect” (Baldwin:154), Baldwin again departs from convention.
It is a coloured map, accompanied, upon unfolding the page behind it, by a key which moors the elements of the image to more recognizable, and labelled, cartographic features. The city of Chester is once again included, this time in the bottom right-hand corner. | The Public Domain Review

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:22 AM | Your Say (0)

How Russia Takes Over The World In One Sweeping Arc

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Viewing Russia from space, the West-East game of shifting buffer zones in European Russia is just a tiny part of Russia’s overall geopolitical picture.
European Russia has three-quarters of Russia’s population but is just one fifth of the land area. European Russia is perched on the edges of Central Europe, Anatolia, and the Caucuses. The rest of Russia’s territory makes an arc around the top of Asia, snaking around Central Asia, China, Korea, and Japan. That same arc extends into Alaska and down the West Coast of North America. - Social Matter

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:13 AM | Your Say (0)

July 21, 2016

America is packed to the gills with ideologues who for the life of them could never agree in principle to the following:

..forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil...
I just understood that in a whole new way, which is that the third and fourth phrases are continuations of the second and first. Which is to say that on the whole, vindictiveness is an evil temptation. You need to forgive those who break your heart. The forgiveness one might receive is dependent on the forgiveness given, and yet we are sorely tempted not to forgive but to blame and to punish. This is the evil from which we must be delivered. It is our forgiveness that allows us to be forgiven. - - Cobb

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 5:59 PM | Your Say (5)

Shopping Husbands

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-- Many more @ Imgur

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 5:54 PM | Your Say (0)

Barack Obama’s position on police shootings seems to be that more blacks get shot by police than their percentage of the population tells us is reasonable.

In other words, about 45 a year is okay, any more is racist.
Where the idea of a quota comes from no one knows. Maybe in a baby’s rocketship sent to Earth just before the planet Stupid exploded, because we don’t find it in the Constitution. In short, for every one hundred people that get shot by police liberals believe no more than 14 may be Black, 17 Hispanic, 60 White and the remainder miscellaneous. Woodpile Report

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:44 AM | Your Say (2)

'1 in a billion' police shooting: Cop's bullet jams suspect's gun

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If a jury in Colorado ever is asked to decide whether Jahlil Meshesha was pointing his gun at off-duty Jefferson County Deputy Sheriff Jose Ramon Marquez in an apparent attempted robbery last winter, they just need to look at a photograph of his weapon.
The photo shows Marquez’s bullet, which he fired at Meshesha while he was being fired on, inside Meshesha’s gun. Marquez’s .45 caliber shot had hit Meshesha’s gun exactly in the barrel opening and traveled down the barrel, jamming the assailant’s .40 caliber weapon completely. -- World NewsDaily

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:18 AM | Your Say (3)

The most amazing, astounding, astonishing statistic of the 21st century is that the annual rate of Muslim immigration into the U.S.A. increased after 9/11.

And still our leaders offer the same fool nostrums.
Most Muslims aren't terrorists, they soothe, as if anyone ever thought they were. If I give you a big box full of M&Ms and tell you just one of the M&Ms is packed full of Strychnine, I venture to speculate that you will not open the box and start decorating ice-cream cones with the contents. -- Radio Derb

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:53 AM | Your Say (0)

The Trumpioso family sat in the audience somberly listening to Cruz’s speech,

each of them looking like they were about to give the kiss of death to Scruz’s political career. In order: Disgust, Anger, Contempt.
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All three are vital emotions that have been sorely missing from the American Right, and never more needed than now. -- Chateau Heartiste

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:23 AM | Your Say (5)

It's probably nothing...

U.S. missile defense system is 'simply unable to protect the public,' report says - LA Times

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:47 AM | Your Say (1)

It’s impossible to “plagiarize” meaningless twaddle.

Obviously, Melania’s speechwriter didn’t think up those words — and neither did Michelle’s.
You can hear the same thing at any third-rate college commencement, at Orientation Day at Excel academies, at motivational speakers’ corporate events, and right now, in the greeting card aisle of your local Rite Aid. - - Ann Coulter

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:33 AM | Your Say (0)

July 20, 2016

8 Art Thefts That Went Wrong

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The MetaLisa
In 1911, Vincenzo Peruggia simply wrapped the Mona Lisa in his smock, tucked it under his arm and strolled out of the Louvre.
The same strategy didn’t quite pan out for a man perusing the works on display at a British art gallery in 2014. Surveillance cameras monitored his progress as he stopped in front of a £700 painting, checked to see if anyone was watching, then proceeded to shove the artwork into his hoodie. Bumbling he might have been, but a quitter he was not—when it didn’t fit under his jacket, the man put the work under his arm instead and strode towards the exit. Naturally, gallery staff barred his way; he surrendered the painting before fleeing the scene. -- Artsy

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 5:58 PM | Your Say (0)

The great mass of the Leftist public has no defense against their own deceptive signalling.

They actually take their own political line seriously.
They worry about problems that may not really exist, like the transgender bathroom crisis, the War on Women and Global Warming. They deny the problems that really do exist. They go to sleep thinking Iran is fixed, the refugee problem is solved, delighting in the idea that the administration has made all these sophisticated deals with Assad and the Ayatollahs and Putin. - - Battle of the Beams

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:16 PM | Your Say (0)

The people who consider themselves “cosmopolitan” in today’s West, by contrast, are part of a meritocratic order

They have their own distinctive worldview (basically liberal Christianity without Christ), their own common educational experience,
their own shared values and assumptions (social psychologists call these WEIRD — for Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich and Democratic), and of course their own outgroups (evangelicals, Little Englanders) to fear, pity and despise. And like any tribal cohort they seek comfort and familiarity: From London to Paris to New York, each Western “global city” (like each “global university”) is increasingly interchangeable, so that wherever the citizen of the world travels he already feels at home.
Indeed elite tribalism is actively encouraged by the technologies of globalization, the ease of travel and communication. Distance and separation force encounter and immersion, which is why the age of empire made cosmopolitans as well as chauvinists — sometimes out of the same people. (There is more genuine cosmopolitanism in Rudyard Kipling and T. E. Lawrence and Richard Francis Burton than in a hundred Davos sessions.) - - The Myth of Cosmopolitanism

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:46 AM | Your Say (1)

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If you've clicked on any articles about the victims of recent terror attacks, you might have seen this man's photo.
Following the deadly terrorist attack at Atatürk airport in Istanbul, Turkey, social media users shared his photo, claiming this man was among the 42 people killed. His photo was also shared online after the EgyptAir crash last month and, once again, he was believed to be a victim. This same mysterious man made it onto the lists of victims of the shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida on June 12. His photo was even included in a New York Times video showing images of the victims. Observers at France 24

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:11 AM | Your Say (3)

Comment of the Week. So Far.

"It'll be okay. It'll be better than that. It'll be 'GREAT!', again. And even if it's not, you can pretend it is until you're sure that it isn't. Why waste all that time with dread when you could have joy?" - - AbigailAdams in "And Away We Go!"

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:44 AM | Your Say (0)

July 19, 2016

As the Bible says, there is a time for peace and a time for war.

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We have already entered the latter, although at this point, any Man of the West who dares to take action will receive considerably more criticism from his own side than praise and support.
The West is not yet desperate enough. Neither the Men nor the Women of the West are truly cognizant yet of the existential threat to them. They don't fully believe the situation is what it is, and are still hoping that the system will, somehow, magically start working again. But it won't. As Dr. Pournelle has repeatedly written, there will be war. Vox Popoli: Criminality and the culture of victimhood

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:34 PM | Your Say (4)

BECOME AN OWNER OF THE FABULOUS WWII T-34 TIGER KILLER TANK.

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Price from:$ 44 531 (About the same cost as a 2016 BMW 4 Series) Details at - Tanks - Mortarinvestments.eu

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:30 PM | Your Say (8)

The Howard Hughes of Media: Matt Drudge is the man who could have stopped Donald Trump

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The news mogul, one of the most mysterious individuals in the media industry, operates entirely outside the New York City and Washington, D.C., apparatus.
He is seemingly accountable to no one. He is rarely spotted in public and holds close company with only a few select people. Reporters tip him off to stories through email or instant messages but never expect a reply, knowing he is unlikely to write back. Yet despite his reclusiveness, Drudge holds a firm grip on the conservative news cycle. As the founder and operator of the Drudge Report, he influences and often creates news narratives. - Business Insider

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:13 PM | Your Say (3)

This is the next great project of the American elite:

building a political system that ensures the winners in winner-take-all enjoy not just the fruits of material gain, but the certainty that their elevated station is deserved thanks to their elevated moral standing. Manhattan vocabulary for Manhattan people leading Manhattan lives, and all of it expressed in just the right terms. - - Fredrik deBoer

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:55 PM | Your Say (2)

camera… clothes… hair-straightener… picture frames…

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shelves… objets d'art… lighting… paint… interior to keep out rain… dependable food supply…
sorry, off topic, but it’s a habit of mine - whenever I see a photo of some ingrate posturing - to look around and count all the things she could never in a million years create on her own
soap… wheel… written language… HappyAcres

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:26 PM | Your Say (2)

Using cars as weapons by running into pedestrians has been seen numerous times in Israel.

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Rifles and pistols in the hands of police, soldiers, or citizens can stop a car pretty quickly.
A truck is a different matter. The truck’s massive front end offers the driver some protection against light weapons fire. Jihadis will also quickly start armoring the trucks. A few pieces of Kevlar, especially on the side doors, would provide significant protection against rifle and pistol fire. And no number of bullets will quickly stop a heavy truck coming at high speed. But an RPG will. - - Stopping the Truck Threat

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:16 PM | Your Say (1)

"Destabilizing the society is the last thing a widely distrusted and dependent minority should want."

These ambushes are the militant's way of saying, "the cops can't protect you, they can't even protect themselves."
Guerilla War 101. They're being used of course, their animus is without a discernable strategy, but they seem dimly aware of being part of the nebulous orchestration that sustains them, aware enough to be in awe of it. They are however unaware destabilizing the society is the last thing a widely distrusted and dependent minority should want. -- Remus @ Woodpile Report

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 4:04 PM | Your Say (0)

The "west is exhausted" because it has wasted an incredible amount energy on politically correct trivia:

climate change, transgender bathrooms, a bewildering labyrinth of victim categories, the endless guilt of being whipsawed over feeling sorry for cops or sorry for those they shoot, gaslighted into a near-breakdown by evil clowns. At the same time it is now besieged by long-term issues: Lucas' "Brexit, the latest terrorist attack in France, the failed coup in Turkey and racial violence in America", in other words by the high frequency, low frequency campaign signals.Battle of the Beams

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:14 PM | Your Say (0)

Americans take eight years to become doctors. Irishmen can do it in four, and achieve the same result.

Each year of higher education at a good school – let’s say an Ivy, doctors don’t study at Podunk Community College – costs about $50,000. So American medical students are paying an extra $200,000 for…what? | Jeb Kinnison

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:50 AM | Your Say (1)

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Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:40 AM | Your Say (2)

I would say that he was suffering from Islam, not depression. And, to a certain degree, so are we all.

Why, when a non-Muslim, say some Christian cracker,  goes insane, does he rob a bank, get drunk or commit suicide by cop?
Why does an American black thug shoot up a fellow male black thug in a park? Why does a Muslim, when he goes insane, strap a bomb to his chest and blow himself up in a supermarket filled with shoppers? Or drive for two miles along a famous boulevard killing scores -literally scores – of people. That is a lot of thumping bodies into the bumper, a lot of bouncing around in the cab as the truck wheels crunch bodies. It was not one or six people killed at once in a bunch outside a cafe, it was two kilometers worth of people. Slaloming down the road to kill as many as possible, that was our depressed Morroccan. Nothing to do with Islam - Barrel Strength

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:01 AM | Your Say (0)

July 18, 2016

Dallas: After-action Report

From Raconteur Report:
This is also bad news for Team Oppression, when they contemplate that there are 300 million guns in circulation nationwide at last rough SWAG, and some number of millions of veterans in the country, many with multiple combat tours, minimal tactical training, or both, and a significant number pissed off to the gills about the last 8-40 years' worth of Leftism on a rampage, and any number of other causes. That fact alone both undoes any hope of "gun control".

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:48 PM | Your Say (3)

Civilizations are created by religion, and destroyed by politics.

In the very word, “religion,” we find the principle of true social order — the voluntary direction of each human soul to a higher, encompassing, futurity. It is the unifying principle: men, animated by faith, gathered to serve something “higher” in the sense of transcending the conditions of human existence. Essays in Idleness

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:25 PM | Your Say (0)

“Too boring,“ you said.

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“We need more impulsive low-IQ third world diversity enrichment,” you said. HappyAcres

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:18 AM | Your Say (2)

A time for choosing....

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This is the issue of this election: Whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capitol can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves.
You and I are told increasingly we have to choose between a left or right. Well I'd like to suggest there is no such thing as a left or right. There's only an up or down—[up] man's old—old-aged dream, the ultimate in individual freedom consistent with law and order, or down to the ant heap of totalitarianism. And regardless of their sincerity, their humanitarian motives, those who would trade our freedom for security have embarked on this downward course. A TIME FOR CHOOSING 1964

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:47 AM | Your Say (1)

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Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:47 AM | Your Say (1)

If you're going to Cleveland, Ohio, be sure to wear some flowers in your hair....

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Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:47 AM | Your Say (1)

From the RNC, the prime-time schedule:

This is a great theme and a sensible roster of speakers. The themes address the concerns of Americans. Don Surber: Republicans have a great plan in Cleveland

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:46 AM | Your Say (0)

Countries seem to move in two directions, along two axes:

first, as they industrialize, they move away from “traditional values” in which religion, ritual, and deference to authorities are important, and toward “secular rational” values that are more open to change, progress, and social engineering based on rational considerations.
Second, as they grow wealthier and more citizens move into the service sector, nations move away from “survival values” emphasizing the economic and physical security found in one’s family, tribe, and other parochial groups, toward “self-expression” or “emancipative values” that emphasize individual rights and protections—not just for oneself, but as a matter of principle, for everyone. - - When and Why Nationalism Beats Globalism - The American Interest

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:36 AM | Your Say (0)

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Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:41 AM | Your Say (0)

Consumer electronics are the Soma of the technological age.

Keeping the people down at the bottom busy is an increasingly important issue in a modern society.

The bottom is creeping up as the demand for low-skill labor and low-IQ laborers declines. This is a problem that will only get worse over the next decades. Giving them enough money to buy game consoles and mobile phones means they have plenty of toys to fill their day. Consumer electronics are the Soma of the technological age. The iPhone and Xbox are what gives meaning to their lives. Mobile Phones | The Z Blog

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:41 AM | Your Say (0)

July 17, 2016

The fatal flaw in the democratic mind of the Amerikaner, or “conservative,”

is that he believes that his country’s political system basically works and is the best in the world.
It has just gone slightly off the rails in the last few decades. But it can be set right with a minor corrective operation, ie, replacing a few ceremonial officials with good, clean-minded, child-bearing Amerikaners. This belief system, which has no correlation with reality, is at the heart of “conservatism.” It shows no sign of going away. The fatal allure of insisting that right-wing conservatism is really the true democratic liberalism, the other having strayed, is an irresistible anglerfish lure. SWPLs, Amerikaners, The Alt-Right, And The Coming State - Social Matter

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 1:51 PM | Your Say (0)

Cops can’t be everywhere. There are at best only a couple hundred thousand on duty at any given time patrolling the entire country.

Excellent response time is in the three-five minute range. We’ve seen what bad guys can do in three minutes, but sometimes it is far worse.
Cops simply can’t teleport. So in some cases that means the bad guys can have ten, fifteen, even twenty minutes to do horrible things with nobody effectively fighting back. So if we can’t have cops there, what can we do? The average number of people shot in a mass shooting event when the shooter is stopped by law enforcement: 14. The average number of people shot in a mass shooting event when the shooter is stopped by civilians: 2.5. The reason is simple. The armed civilians are there when it started. An Opinion on Gun Control, repost – Monster Hunter Nation

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:34 PM | Your Say (2)

Turkey voted for Christmas

When the 1944 Generals’ Plot against Hitler was unfolding, one can’t picture Churchill saying something like:
“Admittedly, Herr Hitler is an implacable enemy of this country and her allies, and we are aware of the crimes his regime has perpetrated. However, we must not lose sight of the fact that, unlike the military junta trying to oust it, Herr Hitler’s government was democratically elected. Therefore, we cannot welcome the Generals’ Plot unequivocally. In fact, we denounce it for the denial of the democratic principles that HMG is here to uphold.” (figuratively speaking) – Alexander Boot

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:50 AM | Your Say (0)

Two items from....

HappyAcres

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Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:00 AM | Your Say (0)

July 16, 2016

"I saw some hipster in fake work boots loading 4 into his cart."

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In the MIDDLE of the RIGHT

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 1:32 PM | Your Say (3)

A River Runs Through It, and Through It, and Through It, and Through It....

Muskegon River tubing trip turns into overnight nightmare for three women "They were informed by somebody at the bridge that the river goes in a circle and if they put in there they would come back to their car."

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Posted by gerardvanderleun at 1:00 PM | Your Say (8)

That didn't take long. We'll see.

Liberal media already attacking GOP VP Mike Pence

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:05 PM | Your Say (0)

I think that Obama would dearly love to do the equivalent of what Erdogan did,

which in this country would be something like (for example) running for vice president under a presidential candidate who delegates all the power to him
, thus circumventing the two-term limit for the presidency (it may be technically possible to do so, by the way; see this). And then, once in the de facto (not de jure) powerful VP post, imprisoning the opposition, including journalists and jurists who criticize him. - - neo-neocon

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:00 PM | Your Say (3)

There are now three options for France: surrender, mass deportation, and mass elimination.

The French people can only choose one. Coexistence, which was their previous preference, is no longer on the table.
And they will have to choose in the next ten years, because the window of opportunity for choosing is rapidly closing. After that, there will be civil war regardless of what the French prefer, because Muslims reliably attempt to assume complete regional control once they reach a certain percentage of the population. See Nigeria for one example of that.Vox Popoli: A tale of two immigrations

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:40 AM | Your Say (2)

Turkey is supposed to be different from the rest of the Muslim world.

Following along via SkyNews, the BBC and CNN, I had to laugh at the confusion of the news people covering this thing.
They did not know which side they were supposed to support. Initially, they were just baffled, as they don’t know anything about the world that is not fed to them through their earpieces. They were reduced to stuttering through live images of people walking around the streets waving flags. Then Obama came out in defense of the Islamists and the rest of NATO followed suit. Instantly, the new media was anti-coup. Thoughts on Turkey

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:04 AM | Your Say (0)

NO MORE

No more flags of foreign countries posted on Facebook in a spirit of solidarity.
No more empathic Twitter hashtags. No more empty statements by heads of government declaring that “the terrorists have failed in their effort to turn us against one another.” No more equally empty statements by other heads of government expressing their own country’s support for “our ally in its time of grief.” No more calls for love in the face of hate, or candlelight processions as a response to murder. No more clicking of tongues and shaking of heads over the horrible loss of life—as if people had died in a one-off natural disaster, a hurricane or tornado or tsunami—followed, after a few days, by a return to normal. Until the next time, of course. No More | City Journal

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:59 AM | Your Say (1)

President Obama has been backing Erdogan as the democratically elected leader of the country.

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However, not only is Erdogan an Islamist who would like to make religion a much bigger part of the traditionally secular Turkish government, but he is a power-hungry wannabee dictator a la Chavez (Muslim-style).... Erdogan had already served three terms as Prime Minister, the constitutional limit. Therefore this “chose to run for the presidency” business (the phrase the Times used) was because he was unable to remain as PM and yet wanted to remain in power, as others have done before him.... - - neo-neocon

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:30 AM | Your Say (0)

July 15, 2016

The Islamic attacks will stop when the banlieus in Paris and Nice and Marseilles (and yes, Dearborn and Hamtrack)

are pounded with so much artillery and overhead carpet bombing, that the Islamics will know for certain that every attack will diminish them greatly.
When every mosque is specifically targeted to leave no stone standing, everything burnt to the ground, the ground salted and flooded with pork offal. And mounded with jagged metal scrap 10 feet high. Turned into a zone of evil pestilence for a hundred years. Comment by Fleming to "Tell me what the strategy is and I'll tell you if it's working....."

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 6:01 PM | Your Say (3)

Alice Cooper and Ozzy Osbourne could not be reached for comment.

Mummified macaw head found in Chihuahua cave

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:26 PM | Your Say (0)

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HT: Happy Acres

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:02 PM | Your Say (0)

"Vien Truong of Oakland will be named a White House Champion of Change for Climate Equity for her work to end environmental racism and empower communities of color to join in the fight against climate change."

Vien Truong // White House Champion of Change for Climate Equity // environmental racism // empower communities of color // the fight against climate change //
This is the weird, unreal language of Big Brother the telescreen pours it into your head day after day. | HappyAcres

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:25 AM | Your Say (2)

Five words are important now: failure, exposure, rejection, repression, and war.

"Bring It On!"

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:51 AM | Your Say (1)

We do understand being black in America.

Here it is: black America shouldn't be required to live by the same rules and laws as the rest of us because they, and only they, have had it tough. And if we go for too long without thinking of them, and only of them, they'll throw a bloody tantrum because nothing else and no one else matters but them. Woodpile Report

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:43 AM | Your Say (2)

The glorious future is always just over the next mountain.

The older you get, the taller that next mountain becomes and the further away it seems.
It’s this realization, this understanding, that young people often mistake for cynicism. They think their elders, poo-pooing their excitement for some new innovation, are just cranky old people unable to appreciate the dawning of the new age and unwilling to adapt to it. In reality those grumpy geezers are just tired of sitting through the same film, never getting to the end.

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:20 AM | Your Say (0)

Our will has eroded and our mind has dimmed – we simply can’t enunciate the only thought that, once uttered, would enable us to stop Islam in its tracks:

we aren’t at war with ISIS, Islamic fundamentalism or Islamofascism.
We’re at war with Islam. Except that it’s a phony war, waged by our enemies only. They know they’re at war and they know who the enemy is. We aren’t fighting the war because we don’t even acknowledge it’s under way.

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:50 AM | Your Say (0)

"It’s impossible for a civilisation to defend itself without a sense of its own righteousness."

Why we can’t defend ourselves against Islam – Alexander Boot

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:43 AM | Your Say (0)

July 14, 2016

Economists are fond of calling their racket the dismal science, but that’s not fair or accurate. It’s really just

Dismal Quackery

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:10 PM | Your Say (0)

Ceasefires ain't what they used to be. As now understood they mean "we cease, you fire."

The Earliest Train Out | PJ Media

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:51 AM | Your Say (0)

Headless Body on Topless Track

Woman decapitated during sex by passing train in Siberia, Russia

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:26 AM | Your Say (3)

July 13, 2016

Kids Lining Up to "Feel the Bern" of Laser Tattoo Removal

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Posted by gerardvanderleun at 5:31 PM | Your Say (4)

Trump didn’t do anything outrageous for a few weeks. That’s all he needs to do from here on out – more nothing – to win in a landslide.

Trump’s Glide Path | Scott Adams

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 2:38 PM | Your Say (4)

I should have known better to think that we were done with the public option. It was not dead. It was never dead. It was just resting quietly and pining for the fjords.

The Public Option: It's Baaaaaaaack!

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:35 AM | Your Say (0)

If your home happens to be in or near one of these areas, be aware that your city could be under siege.

Be Aware, But Not There! National 'Day of Rage' Scheduled For July 15th, 2016

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:47 AM | Your Say (1)

I don't write the headlines. I just report them.

Scientists are painting eyes on cows’ butts to stop lions getting shot

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:30 AM | Your Say (1)

We won’t see it coming. We never see anything coming.

Toward a Most Minimal Wage

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:20 AM | Your Say (1)

"Medical" Marijuana

'It looked like a scene out of the Walking Dead': 33 people collapse on the same New York street at 9AM after taking a bad batch of synthetic marijuana 'K2'

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:56 AM | Your Say (0)

“Ghostbusters” is one of the worst movies of the year for multiple other reasons, including: Bad acting. Uninspired directing, editing, cinematography and music. Cheesy special effects....

'Ghostbusters' reboot a horrifying mess

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:55 AM | Your Say (0)

"The Japanese...." Now Complete with USB Port!

Beat the heat in the smelliest arena with clip-on armpit fans from Japan!
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Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:47 AM | Your Say (0)

Democrats are unlikely to talk Republicans out of gun ownership because it comes off as “Put down your gun so I can shoot you.”

Why Gun Control Can’t Be Solved in the USA | Scott Adams

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:52 AM | Your Say (1)

With a predictability that makes sunrise look like a long shot, the company says that the robots do not replace but “help” humans.

New Rossum’s Universal Robots: Toward a Most Minimal Wage | Fred Reed

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:40 AM | Your Say (1)

"And how can you run, if your money is no longer any good and the vehicles no longer work?"

The elites have spent so long in the clouds that they don’t have any contact with how the world really works. Buoyed by the legacies of their ancestors who created their wealth and their membership in the elite institutions in academia, media, finance and government they don’t really have to worry about actually making, well anything. As far as they see stuff, it all just shows up, from someplace else. They don’t understand that that private jet they fly in required thousands of hours by hundreds of hands to fabricate all the complicated engineered parts that all have to fit together in order to work and requires still more hours of highly skilled and technical knowledge to keep operating. For that matter, everything they touch requires the same level of hard work from the very people who’s lives they are messing up.
The problem is that the gleaming enclaves are totally reliant on massive resources outside those enclaves. Does Davos produce any food? Does Aspen? San Francisco? New York? Certainly not enough to feed the elites in the style they have become accustomed to. So, if the system beaks down, which seems to be the goal from what they say, it’s not going to be pretty in the gold coasts of the world. And how can you run, if your money is no longer any good and the vehicles no longer work? I’m confident in my ability to keep myself alive if I have to, but are they? That’s a bet I would not be making. Yet here we are.

This Is NOT A Gamble I Would Make | The Arts Mechanical

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 6:24 AM | Your Say (0)

July 12, 2016

Well, there goes my morning....

The Woodpile Report

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:05 AM | Your Say (2)

Short of getting caught on video beating a Girl Scout with a puppy, there’s no way to get fired in journalism.

In The Cloud, You Never Have To Say You’re Sorry

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:31 AM | Your Say (1)

The U.S. most likely entered into a recession at the end of last quarter.

Ready Or Not The Recession May Have Already Arrived

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:21 AM | Your Say (1)

It looks like the guys on the beaches are going to be getting a lot of steel in the near future.

Still More Shipping Reports

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:16 AM | Your Say (0)

They love the man, but hate the manners. They want honor in retreat. Which makes the conservative movement largely a struggle for polite liberalism.

The Terrible Legacy of Matt Drudge

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:13 AM | Your Say (1)

July 11, 2016

The air of the US is no longer breathed in by slaves, but white liberals have exhaled the poisonous atmosphere of marginalisation.

A race lost – Alexander Boot

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 5:48 PM | Your Say (0)

"Who's more racist: black people or white people? Black people. You know why? Because black people hate black people, too."

Chris Rock Has No Time for Your Ignorance

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:07 PM | Your Say (3)

If you didn’t believe me that I endorsed Clinton for my safety, perhaps the recent shooting of police officers changed your mind.

When Persuasion Turns Deadly

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:53 AM | Your Say (0)

As Dallas shows, every street protest is down range....

Black Lives Matter is not leaderless

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:50 AM | Your Say (0)

Insta: "HAVE YOU NOTICED THAT WE GET THIS STUFF RIGHT BEFORE EVERY ELECTION WHERE THE DEMOCRATS ARE WORRIED ABOUT BLACK TURNOUT?"

Some Want a Race War, But Dallas Won't Deliver

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:48 AM | Your Say (0)

The high-priced puppy industry is unregulated, sometimes illegal, and currently enjoying a booming market.

“I Can Buy Whatever Dog I Want!”

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:33 AM | Your Say (0)

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, or ADHD, “is a prime example of fictitious disease.”

Scientist Says ADHD is Basically Bullsh*t

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:13 AM | Your Say (5)

To be an insect is to be relieved of the burden of having a soul of your own.

Before the Hive

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:02 AM | Your Say (1)

When violence is targeted against uniformed, armed government personnel, it’s not terrorism, classically; it’s guerrilla warfare.

Skull-Stomping Sacred Cows: Sun Tzu on Dallas, Cowardice, and Training

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:10 AM | Your Say (4)

I don't write the headlines. I just report them.

Glowing Vomit Attracts Female Crustaceans

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:32 AM | Your Say (0)

The only way to end terrorism is to end censorship.

The Civil War started on Facebook

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:28 AM | Your Say (0)

MIKE WALLACE: How are we going to get rid of racism until...?

MORGAN FREEMAN: Stop talking about it. I'm going to stop calling you a white man. And I'm going to ask you to stop calling me a black man. I know you as Mike Wallace. You know me as Morgan Freeman. You're not going to say, "I know this white guy named Mike Wallace." Hear what I'm saying?

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:43 AM | Your Say (4)

July 10, 2016

Mussolini, Stalin, and Hitler, after all, have had no lasting impact.

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Nothing remains of them today except the memory of their murderous buffoonery, of the crazy megalomania which governed their utterances and actions.
As we now see, they were men of insignificant attainments, who, partly as a result of the excessive adulation they received (often from reputable, but deluded, liberal intellectuals like Shaw and the Webbs), and the too easy successes they were able to pull off (often by making monkeys of eminent liberal statesmen like President Roosevelt), ended up more or less demented. Mussolini was publicly hanged; Stalin, having intimated that he was about to embark on yet one more orgy of insensate terrorism, was either secretly done to death or mysteriously died, to be discredited and repudiated by his successors; Hitler committed suicide, leaving his corpse to be set on fire. Not one of the three has bequeathed anything which could possibly enthuse, or even much interest, posterity. — “The Great Liberal Death-Wish” (1966)

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 1:02 PM | Your Say (6)

Fashionably Small: The Compact Nash Rambler

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This is a 1960 Rambler American Deluxe two-door sedan, which at $1,795 was the second cheapest of the Rambler American line. (There was also a business sedan with no rear seat for $14 less.) Powered by the same 196 cu. in. (3,205 cc) flathead six introduced for Hydra-Matic cars back in 1953, it had 90 gross horsepower (67 kW). Despite the earlier protests of Ted Ulrich and Meade Moore that it was impossible to build a four-door sedan on the short wheelbase, there was eventually a four-door version of the Rambler American. - Ate Up With Motor

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:06 AM | Your Say (1)

July 9, 2016

Technology and transportation allow the elite to travel from global city to global city,

unmooring them from traditional loyalties and reducing any stake they have in their native countries.
We have a ruling class with “no skin in the game” and to them, our entire society is expendable. The gamble most are making is they will remain invulnerable from the chaos of multiculturalism and global economic and technological progress, broadly defined, will continue. The Global Favela

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:01 AM | Your Say (0)

Cosmopolitan elites like to kid themselves about their love of universal rights and the common good, but it is total nonsense.

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Just take a look at their strongholds. These people talk like MLK, but they live like the KKK or like a KKK fantasy world.
Our elites live in hyper-white exclusive communities. Many are gated and walled. Often, they have their own private security forces. A modern college community, for example, operates almost like an autonomous zone with their own government and police. On the college campus, just like in the elite neighborhoods, minorities are decorations, not parts of the community. professor Boobingu from Ghana is not there for his intellectual contributions. He’s there as a decoration so the white people can feel good about diversity. On the home front, guys like Tyler Cowen get to visit the ethnic restaurants in your neighborhood or maybe in the Potemkin “arts section” near the campus, but he is not living anywhere near the people who work in that ethnic restaurant.Cloud People Blues | The Z Blog

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:14 AM | Your Say (1)

July 8, 2016

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 1:28 PM | Your Say (0)

Dallas Massacre: Progressives, You Built It, You Own It

Once again we see that it is the left, the progressives, the purveyors of approved thought, the protected ones, the Democratic Party constituents who engage in lethal violence.
Five decent police offers now lie dead, with more struggling to live. The day before this atrocity, of course, the Progressive Supreme Commander, off on some pointless trip to Europe, and his minions, e.g., the dimwitted governor of Minnesota, the Congressional Black Caucus, lectured us on our racism and on the need to reflect on our society, etc. In fact, even after this massacre, we have the usual idiots, and, of course, I do mean Reverend Jesse "Never Waste an Opportunity for Some Press" Jackson still going on and on about Trump and white racism. Give it a rest, Rev, give it a rest. Go reflect on how you and your corrupt associates--including your son--have betrayed the legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr. The DiploMad 2.0:

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:19 AM | Your Say (2)

July 7, 2016

"Investigation Into Clinton’s Email Is Over, Lynch Says"

In other Justice Department news, Attorney General Lynch announced that Bill Clinton has asked her to stay on as Attorney General, while also being the next nominee for the Supreme Court,
and that she signed a ten year contract with the Clinton Foundation with unspecified duties and an unlimited expense account. Her favorite niece will become ambassador to Monaco, her favorite nephew an astronaut, and Ms. Lynch will serve with Mrs. and Mr. Clinton on a new Semi-Unofficial Committee of Three that will oversee the FBI, NSA, and Navy Seals and choose targets of drone strikes (each member gets “one free one per year, no questions asked”). Also, the highest priority legislation of the New Clinton Administration will be “Shoulders & Up Only” hate crime legislation making it illegal to tweet a full body photo of a clothed female federal official. In other news … - The Unz Review

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:30 AM | Your Say (1)

Major Political News Outlets Offer Interviews for Sale at DNC and RNC Conventions

Sponsors who pay $200,000 are promised convention interviews with The Hill’s editorial staff for “up to three named executives or organization representatives of your choice,” according to a brochure obtained by The Intercept. “These interviews are pieces of earned media,” the brochure says, “and will be hosted on a dedicated page on thehill.com and promoted across The Hill’s digital and social media channels.” - - The Intercept

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:23 AM | Your Say (0)

I make wooden crates to hold a dozen Mason jars. Each crate costs me about $3,

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and will last the rest of my life or my kids' lifetimes.
They no longer make crates to carry Mason jars or much else – it is cardboard or plastic shrink wrap – use once and toss away. So there is nothing out there to hold your canned goods except crappy plastic wrap or paper – plastic wrap is not reusable and paper dissolves when wet and attracts insects. Nobody makes wooden crates anymore – unless they are decorative. I own wooden dynamite boxes from the 1940’s – still serviceable and still carrying or storing things. Today, dynamite is shipped in cardboard or special plastic, and the containers are not useful for anything else – specialized design, just for dynamite sticks… Hypercomplexity, Obsolescence, Plastics --oh my Rural Pioneer ®

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:13 AM | Your Say (0)

How credible would a future President Trump be if he won the election by the FBI’s actions

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instead of the vote of the public? That would be the worst case scenario even if you are a Trump supporter.
The public would never accept the result as credible. That was the choice for FBI Director Comey. He could either do his job by the letter of the law – and personally determine who would be the next president – or he could take a bullet in the chest for the good of the American public. He took the bullet.
Thanks to Comey, the American voting public will get to decide how much they care about Clinton’s e-mail situation. And that means whoever gets elected president will have enough credibility to govern effectively. Comey might have saved the country. He sacrificed his reputation and his career to keep the nation’s government credible. It was the right decision. Comey is a hero. The FBI, Credibility, and Government | Scott Adams' Blog


Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:25 AM | Your Say (7)

Repetitive Motion Injuries

Theirs is a chore of numbing repetition. Tectonic plates full of prog writers staring with dull bovine dumbness as they fill jars of column space with formulaic liberal peanut butter. One unit after another, each indistinguishable from the eternity that preceded it.

Of course pap doesn’t have to be palatable to have an effect. Its sheer weight of volume alone can suffocate the indulgent. And that’s largely the intent of our present anti-Trump assembly line: mass produce enough paste to plug the public’s senses.

It’s been about a year now since the Jif-Industrial complex shifted to a war footing over Trump’s candidacy. Since that time media consumers have suffered a pitiless fusillade of the brown viscous spread. Every hour of every day readers are mortar-shelled with incoming jars targeting the Republican nominee, many of which being launched by Republicans. | The Kakistocracy

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:09 AM | Your Say (0)

What we have today is an economy that functions in spite of regulations.

This happens because the governments cannot adequately enforce criminal laws, much less civil laws. At best they can make an example of some poor guy every now and then to keep the rest of the herd in line. Ignorance As a Methodology --Rural Pioneer ®

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:08 AM | Your Say (0)

July 6, 2016

Comment of the Year (So Far)

"Glenn" in Thug-ocracy | The Z Blog : "Pushing 80. No grandchildren. Great life mostly behind me. Pass the popcorn."

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:12 PM | Your Say (0)

This Week's Woodpile

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Woodpile Report

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:22 AM | Your Say (1)

So in the event of government coming to take away your guns, what must the government do?

Well, 11,000,000 people must force 98,192,000 people to surrender their firearms. That is roughly 9 gun owners for each gun ‘taker’ and 35 guns of various types for the gun ‘taker’ to confiscate.
Assume only 50% of the gun owners refuse, and you have each of the ‘takers’ responsible for 4 or 5 owners. One must also assume these ‘takers’ are willing to risk their lives to obtain your gun. That being acknowledged, I would stipulate that MOST of the takers are simply not going to risk their lives trying to force you to give up your firearms. Most are just employees, not crusaders. Crusaders abound when there is no risk of losing your life. This would be very different.

So let’s assume the military is ordered to confiscate firearms. That means 1,500,000 military, of which 65% are non-combatants. Remember, armies run on ther stomachs, maintenance and fuel supply – the number of actual, fighting soldiers is much smaller. So now we have 975,000 actual fighting soldiers attempting to take firearms from 49,096,000 citizens (remember – 50% simply surrendered their firearms earlier). This does NOT take into account any soldiers refusing to follow orders to fire on their own citizens, nor does it take into account heirloom or criminal firearms, nor does it deduct headcount for the soldiers required to man the 660 overseas military bases we currently have. If those are factored into this exercise, then the government position is even more upside down relative to the citizens.In simplest terms, each soldier must personally confront 50 families, which have 3.7 guns per household, or 1 automatic rifle versus 185 miscellaneous firearms. "They" are Not Coming to Take Our Guns - - Rural Pioneer ®

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:18 AM | Your Say (6)

The Mother of All Very, Very, Very Bad Ideas

Scientists are teaching robots how to hunt down prey
The predator robot's hardware is actually modeled directly after members of the animal kingdom, as the robot uses a special "silicon retina" that mimics the human eye. Delbruck is the inventor, created as part of the VISUALISE project. It allows robots to track with pixels that detect changes in illumination and transmit information in real time instead of a slower series of frames like a regular camera uses.

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:19 AM | Your Say (3)

FBI and Hillary: Banana Trees All the Way to the Horizon?

When Comey announced that he did not think any "reasonable prosecutor" (weird term) would seek an indictment of Hillary based on the evidence, "Banana Republic" was all I could think.
I have spent many years in Banana Republics and know the sound, feel, and smell of them. I could see, feel, and smell acres and acres of trees sagging under the burden of nice ripe, sweet bananas all the way to the horizon and beyond. For starters, clearly what Comey said about nobody knowing the content of his address was incorrect. At a minimum, AG Lynch knew; she probably passed that info to President Obama and to Hillary's husband, and both of them passed it to Hillary. Note that Obama scheduled his campaign stop today with Hillary in tow, well before Comey's press event. He would have done that only if he knew that Comey would recommend no prosecution. All this is in the bananas portion of this evening's entertainment. The DiploMad 2.0:

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:14 AM | Your Say (0)

July 5, 2016

We owe them nothing - not respect, not loyalty, not obedience. Nothing.

Now it seems we actually have a new social contract – do what we say and don’t resist, and in return we’ll abuse you, lie about you, take your money, and look down upon you in contempt. What a bargain! It’s not a social contract anymore – American society today is a suicide pact we never agreed to and yet we’re expected to go first. I say “No.” - - Kurt Schlichter

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:58 PM | Your Say (1)

A West Pointer Comes Home

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Tom Surdyke was a real-live Yankee Doodle Dandy, right down to his date of birth—the Fourth of July.
This one would have been his 19th. But instead of celebrating with cake and fireworks, this Independence Day Tom’s family wrapped him in their love for the last time and buried him here along the Hudson, at the academy that was his destiny and is now his final resting place: West Point. - WSJ

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:25 AM | Your Say (5)

No.

Just..... no.
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Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:55 AM | Your Say (5)

America, as envisioned by the Founding Fathers, is dead.

By every measure, large and small, the original vision of limited government by, for and of the people has been folded, spindled and mutilated beyond recognition. When one reads the Constitution, one simply marvels at the distinct difference between its words and our present reality. Our paper Federal Reserve Notes are not Congress-issued gold and silver coins. Our direct taxes are not apportioned. We are entangled in a veritable web of foreign alliances, Congress shamelessly makes laws regarding speech, religion and guns, and the judicial branch has arrogantly assumed for itself unchecked supremacy over the other two branches.Vox Popoli: What "Independence" day?

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:27 AM | Your Say (1)

We are led to believe that we are a democratic society, where the rulers rule with the consent of the governed.

In fact, we live in an oligarchy, the rule by an entrenched political class which, in the modern world, is semi-hereditary, globalist, rich, anti-national, anti-democratic and vicious.
It is active in all Western countries and is developing into a World Hydra with its tendrils extending into all parts of society. The foundation of the Oligarchy is the Doctrine. The Doctrine is a commitment to globalization, the destruction of the middle classes in Western society by shipping material production and all manner of jobs to China and other non-Western, low-wage countries. The Doctrine also includes any and every measure to destroy the nation state, hitherto the bastion of our Western Civilization and the Christian values that built it. The Oligarchy Trembles...Part the First - Barrel Strength

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:19 AM | Your Say (1)

July 4, 2016

I don't write the headlines. I just report them.

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Residents Kropotkin confused sticking out of the window a half-naked woman
"Browns she daily on a sunny day with 10-13 hours, in this interval, and then all of the time. I know that Old ladies collected signatures to go to the police and to the control house, but it does not end, the lady continued to sunbathe. Said her apartment, her body nothing. So and "admire" all the court ", - complains eyewitness. Also, a woman said that just under the window, 2nd floor, from which protrude naked female legs and buttocks, is a children's center" Octopussy ", which go including small children. On the other photo of the woman can be seen that it is not quite sunbathing naked, and shorts-thong."

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:37 AM | Your Say (1)

Safety First for "Extra" Freedom

Many of you can’t talk about this topic without being accused of sexism, losing your jobs, and being cast out of your social groups. But I can talk about it because I endorse Hillary Clinton for president. I did that for my personal safety, because I live in California, but still, I’m on the progressive side now. That gives me some extra freedom of speech. | Scott Adams' Blog

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:51 AM | Your Say (0)

I’ll admit I wasn’t crazy about the “cuck-” prefix when it got started, but I’m seeing the light.

Let’s try to get it up to dictionary-inclusion level. So far we have cuckservatives and cuckmercials. What else can we cuck-shame?

Well, there have been TV sitcoms along the same lines as those cuckmercials, going back to at least The Dick van Dyke Show. Cuck-coms!

I spotted the word “Cuckstians” in some comment thread, referring to Christians whose faith leads them out into missionary endeavors among people — preferably African — who accept their aid packages and medicines while laughing at the missionaries’ naive idealism when their backs are turned. Fair enough, I suppose, but I doubt “Cuckstians” will catch on: too hard to pronounce.

How about Cuck Lit.? Vanity Fair comes to mind, and Gone With the Wind. The memory’s dim, but I think The Wife of Bath’s Tale gets in there, too. And recalling the plot of Seeing Calvin Coolidge in a Dream, I think I may have contributed to the Cuck Lit. genre myself. - The Unz Review

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:38 AM | Your Say (1)

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas in WHOLE WOMAN’S HEALTH v. HELLERSTEDT notes:

"The majority’s embrace of a jurisprudence of rights-specific exceptions and balancing tests is ‘a regrettable concession of defeat—an acknowledgement that we have passed the point where ‘law,’ properly speaking, has any further application." - - Vox Popoli: What "Independence" day?


Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:26 AM | Your Say (0)

July 3, 2016

“The Great Liberal Death-Wish” (1966)

One can easily see how plausible this death-wish hypothesis would be.
For instance, take the case of universal suffrage democracy; a liberal product if ever there was one. In retrospect it will seem obvious that no device could have been more calculated to discredit and destroy the whole concept of representative government, as some perceptive observers like De Tocqueville clearly understood when it was first put in hand. We, in any case, should need no convincing, having seen how easily the theory of one-man-one-vote turns into the practice of dictatorship—whether in the Anglo-American style of the all-powerful party machine fortified by mass-communication media, or in the communist style, and its variants in former colonial territories, of the one-party state fortified by terrorism. In the light of these developments it will surely seem to posterity that only minds consumed with a death-wish would go on recommending the application of such a formula to newly independent African states where it could not but result in the substitution of black bully-boys for the dispossessed white ones. --- tcjfs

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:59 PM | Your Say (0)

First Self-Driving Car Fatality

Tesla announced yesterday that one of its self-driving cars was involved in an accident in May that killed the occupant, who was in the driver’s seat but letting the car drive itself at the time.
The car was on a Florida expressway and, instead of stopping when a large tractor trailer crossed its path, attempted to drive under the trailer. The low height of the trailer sheared off the top of the car. | The Antiplanner

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:32 PM | Your Say (0)

There’s a new darkness haunting the world today.

Terrorism, naked and unashamed – seeking to strike fear in order to obtain power.
A terrorism of the mind – because the terrorists lack great minds. When you can’t think, it’s always more comfortable to stop others from doing so; like the communists did. They have no place of their own, the terrorists don’t – not lawfully, not legitimately. We know how they would act if they did. Like communists old and new have their bread lines, their gulags and their molding, rotting buildings inside which the people cower from their neighbors – the jihadis have Raqqa and Mosul; had Timbuktu, Kabul and Fallujah. Cages full of burning girls; beheadings; throwing people from buildings; handless people walking the streets; quiet places, bereft of music or laughter or love; torture chambers under hospitals full of starving children and the wounded product of a fight that they will never stop – because their ideology has nothing else to offer. There’s Always A Darkness | Joel D. Hirst's Blog

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:10 AM | Your Say (0)

July 2, 2016

We're Being Played by the Clintons

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Ask yourself, how many times do people ask you, "Do you really think Hillary's gonna be indicted?" And they say it with anticipation and excitement. How many times do people ask you that? They ask me that all the time.
My answer, by the way, from the get-go has always been, "She's not gonna be indicted. There's no way it's gonna happen. You don't understand the Democrat Party and their use of power if you think their presidential nominee is gonna be indicted by an Obama DOJ. Ain't gonna happen." - Rush Limbaugh

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 2:44 PM | Your Say (0)

Brexit's babies: Why the Leavers won and the losers can't stop crying

It’s an online spectacle, this manic hissy fit orchestrated by A, B and C listers

who seemingly have ignored the scandalous depravity unfolding in Venezuela, the horrors of the Taliban in Afghanistan, the murderous homophobia of ISIS and assorted other Islamist terror outfits, the barrel bombing of Syrians (which helped foster the Brexit vote). Yes, the Chicken Littles’ pleading for a re-vote are the same ones who CAUSED the vote, through selective outrage, shallow taunts and cowardly ambivalence.Greg Gutfeld: | Fox News

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 2:28 PM | Your Say (0)

Incidentally, apparently Lynch does not have any grandchildren.

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What Went Down on the Tarmac? | Power LineThere is reporting out this afternoon from The Observer that Clinton delayed his departure from Phoenix so that he could meet Lynch, and that he caught Lynch by surprise. The first part of this is entirely believable; the second part is more difficult to believe, but not impossible. More difficult to believe is Clinton’s cover story that he was in Phoenix to play golf, as it was nearly 110 degrees there that day.

“I realized the power the law had over your life and how important it was that the people who wield that power look at each situation with a sense of fairness and evenhandedness,” says Lynch.... In 1999, President Clinton appointed Lynch the United States Attorney for the Eastern District, a post she held until 2001. | The Network Journal

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:35 AM | Your Say (1)

#Brussels, #Orlando, #Istanbul, #Paris, #SanBernadino, #Bamako

– these are the hashtags of our time that perplex a bewildered, exhausted world. - Joel D. Hirst

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:09 AM | Your Say (3)

Can we drop the phony pretense? This is about fucking with people. Period, full stop.

The Board of Supervisors voted 4-1 Tuesday in favor of the ban,
joining Sacramento and about 150 other communities in the state that have banned plastic bags that are not reusable. Supervisors said they wanted to end the use of such bags to protect the environment because they essentially last forever. “This, to me, really is a no-brainer,” said Supervisor Patrick Kennedy. “It has the most benefit for the least inconvenience.” Supervisor Phil Serna, who introduced the ordinance, said the bags have become ubiquitous and people will adapt to their demise by reusing bags. House of Eratosthenes

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:44 AM | Your Say (4)

July 1, 2016

The Secret History of Holywell Street: Home to Victorian London’s Dirty Book Trade

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If, when it comes to the pleasures of the flesh, we are accustomed to think of the Victorians as a prudish and repressed breed, a trip down Holywell Street in the late nineteenth century would be an eye-opening experience.
It was unusual in appearance. There were crooked timber-framed houses with gables lurching over the street, blocking out the light, as though caught in a time-warp from medieval London. In some senses this gave it an antique, picture-postcard charm. But many of the old wooden-fronted, deep-bayed buildings were grimy and semi-dilapidated – sleazy, even. Books abounded, stuffed into sooty shop-windows, spilling onto trestle tables on the pavement, and being forever unloaded from horse-drawn carts. Above one second-hand book shop, at number 37, was a golden crescent moon with pouting lips, thick eyebrows, a fine nose, and sad, sulky eyes – reportedly the oldest shop sign in London, one that features prominently in contemporary paintings. | The Public Domain Review

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 5:44 PM | Your Say (1)

There is nothing that is not foul about leftist hipsters.

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They traffic in the very fear, ignorance, and superstition that they accuse others of employing. Leftist hipsters will be the first ones to accuse conservatives of being “racist,” yet almost every political move the leftist hipster makes is in some way rooted in a pathological hatred of white people, a hatred that leftist hipsters—most of whom are themselves white—view as the ultimate self-critical virtue-signaling: “Look how evolved, enlightened, and noble I am—I’m willing to hate my own skin color.”

The night of the Brexit vote, I had a leftist hipster patiently explain to me that my fears about Muslims “invading” Europe through mass immigration are ignorant and unfounded, because the real threat is that now, with the U.K. severed from the E.U., England will most certainly reconquer India and reestablish Rhodesia. The leftist hipster in question, a New York avant-garde “artist” of some small acclaim, said this with a completely straight face, a face that reflected her absolute metaphysical certitude that whereas fears of Muslim immigrant rapists and jihadists are completely rooted in fantasy, the fear of England retaking India is thoroughly grounded in science and rationalism. Prom Night Trumpster Babies - Taki's Magazine

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 3:42 PM | Your Say (0)

What happened? My answer: the romance died.

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I think what did it, more than anything else, were the images of SJWs.
Everyone wants to discuss heady thinker with a pioneering, brilliant and attractive thinker, but what we saw instead were the pretentious lumpenproletariat that had learned to make its way through “education” by parroting and restating known theory. They were fat, tattooed, inarticulate, pointlessly angry, and most of all, ugly. The romance died when we saw the end result of modernity: alienated, frustrated people repeating dogma as if it would fill the holes in their souls. These were not life’s winners, but its losers, compensating for that fact with power and authority. In short, these were the same dimwits who ran the Soviet Union into the ground: obedient tools with an inner instability that propelled them forward through need. The Romance Has Died

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 1:15 PM | Your Say (0)

Why Ivy League College Liberals Hate Poor People

The reason college students are leftists is because they want to ensure the working class never breaks free from their chains.
In short, college students hate poor people and want them to stay poor. There are three ingredients in the strategy of the affluent to keep their boot on the necks of the poor: social liberalism, social signaling, and maintaining the structure of the system. -- Return of Kings

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 1:14 PM | Your Say (1)

It's Probably Nothing: China is in preliminary talks with Ukraine to finish the second Antonov 225 cargo plane

China plans to build more than 1,000 heavy strategic transport aircraft.
In January, the China Daily reported that the People's Liberation Army Air Force was preparing to develop a new fleet of stealth fighters and heavy transport aircraft. The latter, the Xian Y-20 transport, was in particularly high demand, given Beijing's lack of a "fast and reliable platform" to deliver arms and soldiers over long distances. Heavy transport aircraft are critical to extend the operational range of China's airforce. They can be used for mid-air refueling. It will also allow for rapid deployment of troops and tanks to different locations. - - Next Big Future

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 1:04 PM | Your Say (4)

Earn Big Money as a Certified Income Inequality Expert

UC Berkeley 'income inequality' experts earn more than $300,000 a year REPORT:
‘If UC Berkeley economists are really opposed to income inequality and are concerned about low-paid workers, they might consider sharing some of their compensation with the teaching assistants, graders, readers and administrative staff at the bottom of Cal’s income distribution’ Several UC Berkeley economics professors who support “income inequality” research each earn more than $300,000 a year, putting them in the top 2 percent of the public university’s salary distribution, according to a recent report by a nonpartisan California think tank.

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:38 PM | Your Say (0)

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:30 PM | Your Say (0)

First they made you put on seat belts, then helmets. Now, no eating of raw cookie dough. Ever. No excuses, slaves.

FDA: No more raw cookie dough ever - even if it doesn't have eggs Breaking news: Everything fun causes death.

The FDA, aka, killjoys, has said it is no longer safe to eat raw cookie dough â€” even if you're using one of those Pinterest recipes that doesn't use raw eggs. In fact, the administration said in a new blog post, it's not safe to eat raw flour in any form. Not homemade Play Dough, not licking the spoon of brownie batter. Nothing.

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:20 PM | Your Say (102)