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October 31, 2016

Now, everywhere you go, there are posting rules and moderation.

Alternatives to the mainstream options are growing up all of a sudden.
Gab is the first alternative to Twitter with any chance of succeeding. Quitter is actually a better platform, but it has not caught on with English speakers. Gab is targeting the alt-right and troublemakers like me, promising an anything goes environment. They are also improving on the concept, rather than trying to please the managerial class. Longer message lengths and a better interface are the two obvious improvements over Twitter. Unsocial Media | The Z Blog

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:24 PM | Your Say (0)

Understanding badger PROGRESSIVE behaviour

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There is frequent social grooming, for which badgers PROGRESSIVES use their incisors.
They also engage in scent-marking, particularly ‘bum-pressing’, where one badger presses the scent gland under its tail onto another badger, so that the group shares a common odour. | Discover Wildlife

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 5:19 PM | Your Say (2)

Huma Dating Poll: Line forms to the Left

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Huma: Hit It or Quit It
Yeah baby!
No condom thick enough!
Love Quotes

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 4:32 PM | Your Say (19)

Let’s face it: Our biggest problem here isn’t Trump – it’s Hillary.

She is hugely unpopular — nearly 70% of all voters think she is untrustworthy and dishonest. She represents the old way of politics, not really believing in anything other than what can get you elected.
That’s why she fights against gays getting married one moment, and the next she’s officiating a gay marriage. Young women are among her biggest detractors, which has to hurt considering it’s the sacrifices and the battles that Hillary and other women of her generation endured so that this younger generation would never have to be told by the Barbara Bushes of the world that they should just shut up and go bake some cookies. But the kids don’t like her, and not a day goes by that a millennial doesn’t tell me they aren’t voting for her. No Democrat, and certainly no independent, is waking up on November 8th excited to run out and vote for Hillary the way they did the day Obama became president or when Bernie was on the primary ballot. The enthusiasm just isn’t there. And because this election is going to come down to just one thing — who drags the most people out of the house and gets them to the polls — Trump right now is in the catbird seat. 5 Reasons Why Trump Will Win | MICHAEL MOORE

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 4:30 PM | Your Say (1)

Dear Progressives: My Path From Left To Right

When the left went from saying you should not harm homosexuals to attacking “heteronormativity,” that was a straw.

It was just insane to me to claim that heterosexuality wasn’t the biological norm. When racism went from the belief that you should not treat someone badly because of their race, to an impersonal, omnipresent, invisible, malevolent force against which you must guard every stray thought lest you be lead astray–when it became witchcraft–that was a straw. When the Sierra Club sold out the environment over immigration, that was a straw. The way leftists obviously expanded the definition of emotionally charged words like “rape” or “racism” for political gain was a straw. The slogan “diversity is our strength” was a big straw. | Darwinian Reactionary

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 3:12 PM | Your Say (1)

Sola Scriptura: The Erosion Of Authority

Scripture alone is the inerrant rule of the church's life, but the evangelical church today has separated Scripture from its authoritative function.
In practice, the church is guided, far too often, by the culture. Therapeutic technique, marketing strategies, and the beat of the entertainment world often have far more to say about what the church wants, how it functions and what it offers, than does the Word of God. Pastors have neglected their rightful oversight of worship, including the doctrinal content of the music. As biblical authority has been abandoned in practice, as its truths have faded from Christian consciousness, and as its doctrines have lost their saliency, the church has been increasingly emptied of its integrity, moral authority and direction. Word Around the Net: THE CURE

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:16 AM | Your Say (12)

They Leaks. Her Squeaks.

The Top 100 Most Damaging WikiLeaks | The Millennium Report

Stefan Molyneux: Let’s say you have kids in your life and you support Hillary Clinton. What are you going to tell them about lying? Just curious.

Will it be “You really shouldn’t tell a lie, my child.”

Kid: “But didn’t you vote for Hillary Clinton, dad?”

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:18 AM | Your Say (1)

Remember to support alternative media and remember to read old books.

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This system is startingto show cracks and those cracks may be just enough to propel Trump into the White House.
More and more people are realizing the system is rigged and are learning to reject the message being given to them no matter what. After being fed so much poison, some people are no longer considering whether or not to take the medicine the progressive mind control machine is giving them, they are rejecting it outright. Don’t be surprised if more actions are taken to cut off the flow of information coming from alternative media in the next year. Remember to support alternative media and remember to read old books. How the System is Rigged -- Caleb Q. Washington

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:00 AM | Your Say (3)

Question of the day, week, month for the rabid Clinton voter: "Have you no sense of decency?"

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:17 AM | Your Say (2)

October 30, 2016

The role of the Outlaw in the betterment of society

We are the riders approaching. We are the servants quietly slipping out from the walls in the darkness. We are the thieves stealing the stores of goodwill stocked inside the keep. We are the betrayers of secrets that never should have been kept. We are the peasants who refuse to give our share of tribute. We are the traders in the black market, the market that forever eludes princely control. We are the ones who, when the martial music starts thumping and the mob is cheering … stop and think.– Living Freedom
"Let us not talk falsely now. The hour is getting late."

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 1:27 PM | Your Say (5)

We don't write the headlines, we just report them.

'Well-built giant' arrested over mystery death of Brit found with genitals in can of tuna

Man arrested on manslaughter charge following death of Briton with ham on his buttocks

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:30 PM | Your Say (3)

"Be werry werry qwiet... we're hunting wabbits...."

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:16 AM | Your Say (0)

9 The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done:

and there is no new thing under the sun.

10 Is there any thing whereof it may be said, See, this is new? it hath been already of old time, which was before us.

11 There is no remembrance of former things; neither shall there be any remembrance of things that are to come with those that shall come after.

12 I the Preacher was king over Israel in Jerusalem.

13 And I gave my heart to seek and search out by wisdom concerning all things that are done under heaven: this sore travail hath God given to the sons of man to be exercised therewith.

14 I have seen all the works that are done under the sun; and, behold, all is vanity and vexation of spirit.

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-- Ecclesiastes 1

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:57 AM | Your Say (1)

The United States is not in danger. The Empire is.

This is not good. Empires, the Soviet Union notwithstanding, seldom go quietly.
Either Washington gambles on war of some sort against Russia, or Russia and China, in the desperate hope of reversing things, or the Empire gets slowly eaten. Or not so slowly. Once one country pries itself loose, many may rush for the door.
New York may go for calculated war against Russia–say, cyberwar expected not to turn into shooting war, shooting war in Syria not expected to turn into global shooting war, global shooting war not expected to turn into nuclear war. This will be a crapshoot. Note that America has badly misguessed the outcomes of every war since Korea. The Loosening Grip: A Beginner's Guide to Death Throes | Fred On Everything

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:31 AM | Your Say (2)

October 29, 2016

The Celsitude of the Faineant Rapt in Ataraxia

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celsitude
n. height; elevation; altitude

faineant
n. one who does nothing; an idler

ataraxia
n. a pleasure that comes when the mind is at rest

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 5:01 PM | Your Say (4)

A Spectacular Close-Up View of a Fiery-Throated Hummingbird

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| Colossal

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:45 AM | Your Say (8)

October 28, 2016

Hillary Issues a "Special" Message and Promise to American Christians

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Greetings, Christians of America.
I am running for President of the United States and I am writing today to ask for your vote. I know I do not have the best track record with religious voters. I understand that your rights as Christians are of utmost importance to you, as you feel them being suffocated in the current American landscape. You are concerned about the cultural tide rising against your values. You are worried about the force of the government coming against the practice of your deeply held beliefs. There is tension in the air that everyone can feel. But it doesn’t have to be this way, my Christian friends.J == | The Babylon Bee

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 5:38 PM | Your Say (5)

The fact is there was less difference between the rival factions of the elite than there was between them collectively and the unwashed.

The idea that the Republicans and Democrats had become two wings of one ruling party

is explained in my pamphlet Storming the Castle. The notion that the cultural elites had created an information store of falsehoods that would eventually poison them is laid out in my The War of the Words. Each of these pamphlets predicted the same thing: there was a growing gap not primarily between conservatives and liberals but between official ideology and reality, between the elite and the non-elite. - - The Conservatives at the Castle Walls | PJ Media

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:35 AM | Your Say (2)

October 27, 2016

The real issue that is plaguing the NFL is they have run out of ways to separate their customers from their money.

In fact, they ran out of sensible ways to do that a long time ago. That’s why they have started holding games in foreign countries.

They think they can maybe find new customers to exploit. The games they hold in London, for example, cost the league millions, but they hope that Brits will get hooked on the narcotic of the NFL and cough up millions for the product. So far, no good. As Marx observed, they are also ruthlessly trying to exploit their existing market. Go to an NFL game and you come away feeling like you have just been mugged. It’s not the absurd prices for everything. They constantly bombard the fan with marketing, because they expect the fan to commit his life to the corporate entity known as his team. Go to a Dallas Cowboy game, for example, and you are treated to a long pre-game ceremony about how you are not just a fan, you are soldier in the army of the Dallas Cowboys. Marx Was Right, Sort Of | The Z Blog

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:30 AM | Your Say (9)

October 26, 2016

Regarding "Trump's People: Michael Moore's Monologue Redone As a Trump Campaign Ad"

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Two threads down, there are fifteen (as of this writing) comments on the original Michael Moore rant, most all of which thoroughly denigrate him for the fat traitorous ignorant commie pig that we all know him to be.
And all of that is absolutely true, as well as being absolutely beside the point. Even though we all agree on the relative (specifically, the profound lack thereof) worth of Mr. Moore to every aspect of our lives, I will "say this about that", as concerns his rant. He's indeed an idiot, but right now, he's our Useful Idiot, and we should wrest the maximum exploitation out of this, his one and likely only, foray into the realm of sanity and truth.
To the millenials the LiVs and to many others Michael Moore is an Oracle, the Brietbartian hell-raiser of their zeitgeist and their very own Alex Jones-ian rooter-out DaVinci Coded secret truths, revealer of conspiracies and every other brain-addled spiderweb of ill-logic and fantasy as exists in the mind of a LiV/leftist. So, we still afford Mr. Moore the lack of respect which is his due from us. We still hold fast to our knowledge of him being, then, now and always the loutish man his reputation lives down to. But. BUT. We use his reputation as the lever, to pry open the weak and directionless minds of the LiV, the lazily leftist, and through that wedge, we pour Mr. Moore's words into the void where those folks brain would normally nestle.
If that's not enough to convert them to vote Trump, at least squirrel them up enough to cause them to not vote Hitlery, and hopefully, not to vote at all, to the great benefit of down-ticket Republicans. I'll always still despise the fat communist slug. But if he fashions himself into a wrench to use against his leftist tribe, well, I'll put as much torque on that handle as I possibly can. And with a four-foot cheater pipe, too. And like a cheap Harbor Freight tool, when it's useful no longer, I'll just toss it aside like the cheap crap that it is.
So, for now, for this, for what it's worth, I'll email that video of him at any suitable opportunity. To liberals, to fence-sitters and to staunch conservative leaders in their respective communities. I have absolutely no compunction against turning the enemy's howitzers around 180 degrees and pulling the lanyard. Fire for effect!
Jim | Sunk New Dawn | Galveston, TX AMERICAN DIGEST: Comment

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:12 PM | Your Say (6)

“America Could Enslave Black People Again.” [Bumped]

Tavis Smiley, whose name is so black you don’t even need to Google Image him for confirmation, is a black man who is paid handsomely to speak as a black man on topics which may or may not have anything to do with being a black man
but to which he insists upon bringing his black-man perspective, anyway. He takes it upon himself to speak for the underprivileged and the “infirmed,” even though neither he nor his editors at TIME seem to realize that’s not a word. Smiley says he “swallowed hard” and said “whoa” to himself when a “dead serious” student asked him whether our current supercharged racial climate could possibly mean an imminent re-shackling of black Americans and a return to a life of degradation where they are forced under threat of bullwhip to pick cotton and sing spirituals like they show in all those movies. The Week That Perished

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:19 PM | Your Say (17)

October 25, 2016

Dust of Snow by Robert Frost

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The way a crow
Shook down on me
The dust of snow
From a hemlock tree

Has given my heart
A change of mood
And saved some part
Of a day I had rued.

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:01 PM | Your Say (5)

If we play small ball, we will lose.

Specifically, we will lose America’s technological and scientific pre-eminence, our dominant position as a military power,
and a significant part of our living standard. In a competitive world, “losing” doesn’t mean giving up a couple of points of GDP growth: It means the sort of decline that the United Kingdom suffered in the 1950s and 1960s, when its auto, shipbuilding gand machine-building industries virtually disappeared. Small-ball conservatism or national greatness? | PJ Media

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:51 PM | Your Say (5)

Official Conservatism is so far from where it started, it is a crime against the language to call it “conservative.”

The traditional American Right was always an individual liberty cause, which starts and ends with freedom of association. Everything that can be “conservative” rests on the basic idea that you have a basic right to associate with whom you like, when you like, on the terms you like. No one on the modern Right has talked about that in so long it is now forbidden knowledge. A Meandering Post About Nothing

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:22 PM | Your Say (6)

Tweet of the Week

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:15 AM | Your Say (4)

They're doing wonderful things with time-release heroin implants and suppositories these days.

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

"Multikultistan:" The Price of Muslim Immigration in Europe

Thanks to political correctness and multiculturalism, Germany has now become a patsy:
Clearly, Germany is now well beyond the banana republic phase and has entered the realm of patsydom. Always lurching from one form of extremism to the next, Germans have now decided that the role of an über-schlemiel is a perfect fit. The New CorrectThink is: Deutschland unter alles!
Naturally, homophobia and hate crimes against gays are pervasive: 43% of gays in Berlin have experienced hate crimes perpetrated by Muslims in particular, while two thirds of Turkish high school students in Berlin display homophobia. As for assimilation, it is not happening. And not just for Muslims who arrived yesterday:Had Enough Therapy?:

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:23 AM | Your Say (1)

October 24, 2016

How to Legally Vote More Than Once

Prior to election day, note how lopsided the polls are in favor of Clinton.
Also point out that the pollsters are usually correct when you are this close to election day. Say you are thinking of not voting this year because lines are sometimes long and parking might be iffy. Put that thought in people’s minds a week ahead of election day. On the day before the election, and again on election day, engage Clinton supporters in conversations that involve concepts such as laziness, exhaustion, overwork, and stress. You don’t need to mention the election. | Scott Adams' Blog

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 6:45 PM | Your Say (1)

October 23, 2016

Will Hillary Accept Defeat?

The media’s focus has been on whether Trump would accept the results if he loses. Yet a better question might be whether Hillary Clinton would accept her defeat.

Even when it came to the battle for the Democratic nomination, Hillary Clinton refused to concede defeat until the bitter end and then past it. Not only did Hillary refuse to drop out even when Obama was the clear winner, while her people threatened a convention floor fight, but she insisted on staying on in the race for increasingly bizarre and even downright disturbing reasons. In South Dakota, Hillary explained that there was no reason for her to drop out because somebody might shoot Barack Obama, "We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California." There’s something disturbing in the revelation that Hillary was basing her decision to stay in the race in the hope that her rival would be assassinated. Sultan Knish:

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 5:57 PM | Your Say (7)

The Japanese: Nuked Too Much... etc.

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:24 AM | Your Say (3)

Everybody Remember Where We Parked

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Descend into a Tomb of Imprisoned Vehicles Frozen in Time
Nobody likes a visit to the car pound. It probably as one of my least favourite places to be on earth, but you wouldn’t have a hard time convincing me to pay a visit to this particular car pound, hidden 150ft below a piazza in the city of Naples, sealed off after WWII and forgotten about for more than 60 years.…

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:11 AM | Your Say (0)

October 22, 2016

All wars are media wars and all wars require sacrifice.

If the people offering themselves up as leaders of your thing are easily tempted by offerings from the other side, you can never trust them.

No man is so virtuous that he can resist the highest bidder. If being on TV is your goal in life, you will sacrifice your cause for it. That’s what happened with National Review and the rest of Conservative Inc. Like petty nobles bribed with a few extra acres of land or merchants bought off with title, they decided it was better to live a lie than suffer for the cause. Observations From The Front | The Z Blog

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 4:52 PM | Your Say (0)

Free Food Forever Fattens

That hummingbird that comes to my backyard nectar feeder lebenty-leben times a day for her free food has become the fattest hummingbird you've ever seen. She can't hover at the feeder. She has to sit down.

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Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:26 AM | Your Say (8)

October 21, 2016

It's Probably Nothing....

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 5:28 PM | Your Say (10)

"It cannot be saved"

Add up the bits and pieces. We laugh in horror, some of us, primarily the older, at the decline of schooling, the courses like Batman and the Struggle for Gender Equity.
Comic, yes. Yet in aggregate these constitute an academic and civilizational collapse both profound and irreversible. Enstupidation does not happen in a healthy country. Who even wants to reverse this onrushing night? Not the universities, nor the teachers unions, nor a professoriat gone as daft as the “students,” nor the banks battening on student loans. It is over. Hillary may start wars in her six months before going into a sanatorium. Trump may build walls. But the rot will go on. Vox Popoli

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 5:12 PM | Your Say (13)

Dashiell Hammett’s Red Harvest

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“If I don’t get away soon, I’ll be going blood-simple like the natives.”

In Poisonville, politics is blood sport.

Red Harvest explores how the corruption in a certain place can become so entrenched there’s no way to expurgate it except through bloodshed. Of course, this is like trying to clean house with a flamethrower. In the end there’s no mess and a lot of ashes stinking up the breeze. The Continental Op doesn’t care. He wants to see his mission of purifying Poisonville through. That’s what he’s been hired to do, clean out this spoiled little town, population 40,000. His mission is successful and meaningless. The inhabitants of Poisonville care more about power than their own lives, which means they’re just as ready to die as they are to kill. The bleakness and bile build. By the end, there’s enough blood to fill a billiard hall and nothing and nobody worth saving. A Book To Read In Times Like These: | HTMLGIANT

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

A CASE FOR JEFFERSON by Robert Frost

Harrison loves my country too,
But wants it all made over new.
He’s Freudian Viennese by night.
By day he’s Marxian Muscovite.
It isn’t because he’s Russian Jew.
He’s Puritan Yankee through and through.
He dotes on Saturday pork and beans.
But his mind is hardly out of his teens:
With him the love of country means
Blowing it all to smithereens
And having it all made over new.

neo-neocon

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:07 AM | Your Say (2)

Twitter Is Down : 9:00 AM Pacific

https://twitter.com/ is not available "This site can’t be reached twitter.com’s server DNS address could not be found."

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:58 AM | Your Say (4)

The entirety of the world economy is built on one thing.

That is the rock solid belief that the US government will never miss a debt payment and never devalue the dollar to arrest its debt.
The entire global economy is built on the asset value of US Treasuries. If there ever comes a time when people begin to doubt the security of that debt, the panic will plunge the world into a new dark age or possible something worse. I Bring Bad Tidings | The Z Blog

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:19 AM | Your Say (1)

October 20, 2016

It's impossible for most Americans to form a judgment with which they feel comfortable,

because they do not have sources of information they can trust.
Fox News is in a civil war between the pro- and anti-Trump Republicans. The other networks are with Hillary. The major media outlets have lost credibility. Only 32% of Americans said they had "a great deal" or "a fair amount" of confidence in the news media in a September Gallup poll survey. That's the lowest level in history, and should be no surprise: the major media has to spin a new cover-up every couple of days, before it is finished putting the previous set of lies to bed. The Roof Blows Off the Echo Chamber | PJ Media

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 5:50 PM | Your Say (3)

After years of "my old friend," the Darkness is tired of being friendzoned.

"Hello, Darkness, my old friend."

The Darkness huffed. "Oh, you've come to talk to me again? You sure do like talking, don't you?"

"What? What do you mean?"

"It's always you, you, you. Your problems. I'm just supposed to sit here silently, pretending I don't care," the Darkness sighed. Its tears, like silent raindrops, fell.

I bristled. "Are you serious right now? I've tried to connect with you so many times. Remember how I left the neon lights for you?"

The Darkness sniffled. "Wh-what? You like me?"

"I love you. I just want you to be happy."

"Oh! I never knew...!"

And then the Darkness enveloped me.

-- WritingPrompts

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:58 AM | Your Say (1)

Hillary laments 'no more naps' after final debate

After taking a couple questions, she was asked about the Project Veritas videos
appearing to show Democratic National Committee operatives bragging about triggering violence at Donald Trump rallies. “I know nothing about this. I can’t deal with every one of his conspiracy theories but I hope you all have something to eat, something to drink on the way back to New York!” she told the reporters. Three minutes after her Q & A started, it was over. - The American MirrorThe American Mirror

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

The electoral appeal of the Democratic party is to those who want more government,

and who feel that a whole litany of current and historical grievances can only be addressed by more government taking more from, well, from the "rich," defined as anybody who is not one of the aforementioned categories.

It is a party increasingly divorced from economic reality; it seeks to repeal the pesky and brutal laws of economics by reforming our souls, by getting us not to think or articulate bad thoughts, by getting us to give up on greed and privilege and allow the government to allocate resources and ensure the well-being of us all. And when that fails, it is a party that reverts to its violent lynch mob past to get its way. The DiploMad 2.0: A Little Piece on Nutty White Guys

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

The number of percentage points being allocated to Johnson and Stein is between 7 and 14.

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Notice something very informative about the wildly divergent national polls?
In 2012, the combined Libertarian/Green vote was 1.35 percent. In 2008, it was 0.96 percent. Now, let's be generous and pretend that the combined Libertarian/Green vote will be 2 percent, which would be a 48 percent increase from 2012 and 108 percent from 2008. That means that the national polls are, at a minimum, off by between 5 and 12 points. Vox Popoli: The national polls: stretch run

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:16 AM | Your Say (2)

Nothing beats war for waste and injustice.

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We should deflect or delay war where possible, and limit it when it's not. Survivalists should also prepare as if war were inevitable, if unpredictable. Because it is. Poets and utopians say it isn't. Thousands of years of war say it is. Woodpile Report

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

It's Probably Nothing:

Russia taunts US with biggest military offensive since the Cold War

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:49 AM | Your Say (1)

Socialism Retains Its Perfect Record

Corpses 'Exploding' In Decrepit Venezuelan Hospitals -- Doug Ross @ Journal

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:44 AM | Your Say (1)

October 19, 2016

"History may not repeat itself but

—oh wait, yes it does." -- Remus, Woodpile

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 6:16 PM | Your Say (1)

Our Neutron Bomb Election

They live in a confined coastal cocoon.
They went largely to the same schools, intermarried, traveled back and forth between big government, big banks, big military, big Wall Street, and big media — and sound quite clever without being especially bright, attuned to social justice but without character. Their religion is not so much progressivism, as appearing cool and hip and “right” on the issues. In this private world, off the record, Latinos are laughed off as “needy”; Catholics are derided as near medieval and in need of progressive tutoring on gay issues. Hillary is deemed a grifter — but only for greedily draining the cash pools of the elite speaker circuit to the detriment of her emulators. | Victor Davis Hanson

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:00 AM | Your Say (2)

I remind you that intelligence is not a defense against persuasion.

I’m here to tell you that if you are afraid that Donald Trump is a racist/sexist clown with a dangerous temperament, you have been brainwashed by the best group of brainwashers in the business right now: Team Clinton. | Scott Adams

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:53 AM | Your Say (0)

"And the Lord will not hear you in that day."

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11 And he said, This will be the manner of the king that shall reign over you: He will take your sons, and appoint them for himself, for his chariots, and to be his horsemen; and some shall run before his chariots.

12 And he will appoint him captains over thousands, and captains over fifties; and will set them to ear his ground, and to reap his harvest, and to make his instruments of war, and instruments of his chariots.

13 And he will take your daughters to be confectionaries, and to be cooks, and to be bakers.

14 And he will take your fields, and your vineyards, and your oliveyards, even the best of them, and give them to his servants.

15 And he will take the tenth of your seed, and of your vineyards, and give to his officers, and to his servants.

16 And he will take your menservants, and your maidservants, and your goodliest young men, and your asses, and put them to his work.

17 He will take the tenth of your sheep: and ye shall be his servants.

18 And ye shall cry out in that day because of your king which ye shall have chosen you; and the Lord will not hear you in that day. - - 1 Samuel 8:11-18

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:23 AM | Your Say (6)

October 18, 2016

The Blob

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Even just thirty years ago nobody seriously believed the government would monitor all our phone calls and drag people off to prison.
Nobody seriously believed that you could be arrested for how the dust blew off your property when you plowed a field or where you smoked. Nobody believed you could be fined or jailed for who you baked a cake for or didn't. And already by that time the federal government was far too vast. Now its even bigger, exponentially, like the Blob. Its eating everything. Word Around the Net: THE GROWING CANCER

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 3:34 PM | Your Say (10)

The Japanese: Nuked Too Much or Not Enough?

Volcano Kitchen, a casual restaurant chain with locations in Osaka and Nogoya, sounds pretty appealing.
The house specialty is a roast beef rice bowl, with the meat arranged in a volcano-like spire sitting in a pool of flavorful sauce, or “magma” as the restaurant refers to it. However, a series of snapshots shared by Japanese Twitter user @kalk_hanae are evocative of something quite different from the geological formation that makes up the first half of Volcano Kitchen’s name. Japanese restaurant's beef bowl looks so, so much like a diseased penis | RocketNews24
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Posted by gerardvanderleun at 1:44 PM | Your Say (3)

The Elite "Have No Idea" - Society Is Near The Breaking Point

Some might think this is all Trump’s fault.

Again, that shows a degree of ignorance and naïveté which characterizes the elite. Trump is a symptom, not a cause. He might even be a salve, as the changes he could bring might defuse some of the current anger. On the other hand, Hillary is a lit match in a room of dynamite. She, like many of the self-important, thinks her very existence is a favor to the rest of us. She epitomizes the absolute worst of what America has become. Above the law, wealthy not through accomplishment, but through influence peddling only, and a bull in a china shop in terms of her effect on both the country and the world---and I apologize to bulls for that analogy. The world is more unstable because of her. | Zero Hedge

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 1:42 PM | Your Say (0)

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

Foreskin Restoration on the Rise, 'Wanting to Feel Whole Again'

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:54 PM | Your Say (1)

The Old Man of the Lake

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What makes Crater Lake unique, though, is its most celebrated occupant: not a fish, not a bird, but a floating tree trunk known familiarly for decades as the Old Man of the Lake. And what makes this ancient hemlock so very remarkable is that it has been bobbing, absolutely vertically, in the water for as long as Crater Lake has been documented. | A Blast From The Past

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:36 AM | Your Say (0)

The Enduring Legacy of 'The Twilight Zone'

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Serling quickly sold television plays to the better New York-based anthology programs.
His first real hit, “Patterns,” was a character-driven big-business drama broadcast live on the Kraft Television Theatre; it was, New York Times critic Jack Gould wrote a few days after its broadcast, “one of the high points in the TV medium’s evolution.” In that age before reruns, “Patterns” became the first television drama to get a second airing — by having the original cast reassemble a few weeks later for a second live performance. - The New Atlantis

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:10 AM | Your Say (2)

TARGET: Plenty of room for dicks in the women's room. No room for "scary clown masks"

This just in from the store where America used to shop: Sense of Events: Now we've gone full stupid

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:53 AM | Your Say (3)

And losing the political battle, even permanently, does not mean losing the West.

It merely means that the Age of Democracy is at an end. The West existed before democracy and it will survive the demise of democracy. Vox Popoli: How the system is rigged

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:39 AM | Your Say (4)

November 8 Ballot Measures to Watch

If you think the presidential election is stupid, just get a look at all of the cities that are voting on stupid rail transit projects.
Los Angeles wants $120 billion; Seattle $54 billion; San Diego, $7.5 billion; San Francisco, $3.5 billion; San Jose, $3 billion; Atlanta, $2.5 billion, Kansas City, $2 billion; Virginia Beach, $310 million; and Tigard, Oregon, which has the chance to kill a $2 billion project in Portland. That’s nearly $200 billion worth of stupidity that has rail contractors salivating. | The Antiplanner

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:28 AM | Your Say (0)

October 17, 2016

Well done, thou good and faithful servant:

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R I P 20 faithful years, 350,000 miles
Bought it for my new bride after the car she brought to the marriage was stolen from our driveway in a ‘safe’ Atlanta suburb by roaming ‘youths’ Our son was born a year later and in the childseat he almost choked to death on a gummy worm; my screaming wife carried his tiny blue body into the house and I shook him frantically by the ankles for dear life.
When God ordained that a humid urban vibrantly enriched multicult hellhole didn’t suit a young family and in His wisdom moved us to the dry rural whitetopia of northern California, this car rode atop the furniture in the back of a United Van Lines truck.
For the past 5 years it served as a spare car, then learning car for my son, then my son’s car, then spare car again when he left for school, and finally as a learning car for my daughter, plastered with yellow STUDENT DRIVER magnets. But it’s hard for my daughter to steer, and we’re at the stage where random hoses & gaskets burst from sheer age. The handling feels unsafe. Suspension noises I can’t identify.
Yesterday on the spur of the moment, discombobulated by rain (what’s that?), I traded the old guy in. And now I’m the only man left in the house, surrounded by women in Priuses. HappyAcres

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

Agreed. If you don't carry a white cane, you don't need a "service animal"

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In my tiny part of the world I've been noticing "pets" with monogramed vest on which announce them as "service animals"..... "I want so suck it up" seems to be the new norm in society. True North

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 2:43 PM | Your Say (6)

The longest prison sentences ever served

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Richard Honeck before and after: mugshots taken at the time of his arrest (1899) and his parole (1964)

Richard Honeck (1879-1976), an American murderer, served what was, at the time, the longest prison sentence ever to end in a prisoner's release.
Jailed in November 1899 for the killing of a former school friend, Honeck was paroled from Menard Correctional Center in Chester, Illinois on 20 December 1963, having served 64 years and one month of his life sentence. In the decades between his conviction and the time his case came to public notice again in August 1963, he received only a single letter -- a four-line note from his brother in June 1904 -- and two visitors: a friend in 1904, and a newspaper reporter in 1963. | A Blast From The Past

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:54 AM | Your Say (0)

Report from the Blue Highways: Where the Trump Name Is Emblazoned Now: The Front Yard

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Over the course of eight days, while traveling some 3,000 miles by motorcycle across the northern United States,
I was steadily confronted by presidential yard signs. I idly recorded those in support of Donald J. Trump until, after the first few days, the number approached 100. I eventually lost count. Those in support of Hillary Clinton were comparatively easy to keep track of: I traveled nearly 2,500 miles before I saw a single one. By the end of my trip, I’d spotted a whopping five.- The New York Times

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:05 AM | Your Say (4)

October 16, 2016

It is one thing when the news is slanted. People adjust to the bias.

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We are in a strange age in that the mass media is entirely made up.
None of of it is on the level. It’s layers and layers of manufactured stories, crowding out real news, to the point where it is impossible to take any of it at face value. You can’t even be sure the people in the stories are real. The Clinton campaign is planting child actors in crowds, posing as adorable local kids, to ask questions. Our public life is now less authentic than professional wrestling. Nothing Is On The Level | The Z Blog

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 3:22 PM | Your Say (3)

"I’ll vote for Mr. Trump—grimly. But there is no alternative, no shadow of a responsible alternative."

Mrs. Clinton has nothing on Mr. Trump when it comes to character.
She lies (“Wipe? Like with a cloth?”—cute and charming Mrs. C.) the way basketball stars shoot baskets—constantly, nonstop, because it’s the one thing she is best at and (naturally) it gives her pleasure to hear herself lie—swish!—right onto the evening news. And her specialist talent of all is the verbal kick in the groin of a Secret Service man or state trooper who has the nerve to talk to her as if she were merely human. She is no mere rock star; she is Hillary the Queen. She is so big, and you are so small, she can barely even see you from up there. What are you? A macromolecule? I’ll vote for Mr. Trump—grimly. But there is no alternative, no shadow of a responsible alternative. Trump and the Emasculated Voter - DAVID GELERNTER

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:28 AM | Your Say (5)

Bill Clinton: The Early Years

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–Clowns You Might Not Want to Meet at Night

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:07 AM | Your Say (0)

If you like your race, you can keep your race. (If it's the right race.)"

Brazil Sets Up Controversial Boards To Determine Race
In order to "prove" that he was Afro-Brazilian, his lawyers needed to find some criteria. He went to seven dermatologists who used something called the Fitzpatrick scale that grades skin tone from one to seven, or whitest to darkest. The last doctor even had a special machine. "Apparently on my face I'm a Type 4. Which would be like Jennifer Lopez or Dev Patel, Frida Pinto or John Stamos. On my limbs I would be Type 5, which is Halle Berry, Will Smith, Beyonce and Tiger Woods," he said.

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:51 AM | Your Say (5)

It’s the big fact of American life now, isn’t it? That we are patronized by our inferiors.

A stupid man from a leftist think tank claimed the most “powerful elements” in the conservative movement are Catholic.
“They must be attracted to the systematic thought and severely backwards gender relations,” he wrote. Mrs. Clinton’s press aide Jennifer Palmieri responded: “I imagine they think it is the most socially acceptable politically conservative religion. Their rich friends wouldn’t understand if they become evangelicals.” When I read that I imagined a conversation with my grandmother, an immigrant who was a bathroom attendant at the Abraham & Straus department store in Brooklyn. Me: “Grandma, being Catholic is now a step up. It means you’re an aristocrat! A stupid one, but still.” Grandma, blinking: “America truly is a country of miracles.” America’s Decadent Leadership Class - WSJ

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:43 AM | Your Say (0)

The Perilous Whiteness of Pumpkins:

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This article examines the symbolic whiteness associated with pumpkins in the contemporary United States.
Starbucks’ pumpkin spice latte, a widely circulated essay in McSweeney’s on “Decorative Gourd Season,” pumpkins in aspirational lifestyle magazines, and the reality television show Punkin Chunkin provide entry points into whiteness–pumpkin connections. Such analysis illuminates how class, gender, place, and especially race are employed in popular media and marketing of food and flavor; it suggests complicated interplay among food, leisure, labor, nostalgia, and race. Pumpkins in popular culture also reveal contemporary racial and class coding of rural versus urban places. Accumulation of critical, relational, and contextual analyses, including things seemingly as innocuous as pumpkins, points the way to a food studies of humanities and geography. When considered vis-à-vis violence and activism that incorporated pumpkins, these analyses point toward the perils of equating pumpkins and whiteness.GeoHumanities: Vol 1, No 2

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:19 AM | Your Say (4)

October 15, 2016

Clueless or Cowardly WAPO Scribbler Misses the Point. Two Words: Colin Kaepernick.

Who says there's no good news? NFL ratings plunge could spell doom for traditional TV - The Washington PostTop Comment at Present:
"There are many comments here already and I've read none of them but I suspect many have already identified the problem: Colin Kaepernick. The NFL was once wholesome and all-American. Now it's inhabited by disgusting degenerates like Kaepernick that turn fans away in droves. He has a right to make his point and I, likewise, have a right to make mine. I will boycott him and the entire NFL organization that tolerates him. I haven't watched a single game this season and will not be tuning in again until the NFL gets a clue and cleans up its act."

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:00 PM | Your Say (16)

It's Probably Nothing:

Russian border patrol opens fire on North Korean vessel | Daily Star

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 1:31 PM | Your Say (5)

The Rise and Fall of the Army Surplus Store

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Known simply as “Bannerman’s,” the store eventually grew to cover a block in length and seven floors in height, encompassing over 40,000 square feet of floor space.
It also issued a 350 page Sears-Roebuck-like catalog from which subscribers around the globe could mail-order horse saddles, swords, African spears, Civil War rifles, and even cannons if they fancied. | The Art of Manliness

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:34 AM | Your Say (5)

A Quick Tour of the Remotest Island in the World

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Not a single ship visited Tristan da Cunha from 1909 until 1919, until the HMS Yarmouth finally stopped by to inform the islanders of the outcome of World War I.
Accessible on by sea, Tristan da Cunha is in fact an archipelago, the remotest inhabited one in the world, although only the main island was settled by man, with a permanent population of 265 residents as of September 2016. -- Messy Nessy Chic

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:04 AM | Your Say (7)

October 14, 2016

It's Probably Nothing:

Royal Air Force Pilots Ordered To Shoot Down "Hostile" Russian Jets Over Syria While the RAF's Tornado pilots have been instructed to avoid contact with Russian aircraft while engaged in missions for Operation Shader, the codename for the RAF's anti-Isis work in Iraq and Syria, their aircraft have been armed with air-to-air missiles and the pilots have been given the green light to defend themselves if they are threatened by Russian pilots.

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 6:48 PM | Your Say (2)

The Rot Goes to the Marrow of the Bone: Stealth Payment for the Trump Tape

Report: Billy Bush nearing $10 million settlement over NBC ouster
US News -- The former Access Hollywood host, who left NBC this week, is in the final stages of securing a multi-million dollar settlement with the network, Bush's lawyer said. Bush left NBC after a tape was released showing him make lewd comments alongside Donald Trump in 2005.
The stench of this reaches to heaven.

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 6:06 PM | Your Say (9)

File Under "Norming the Perverted" James Charles, Covergirl’s new face [Bumped]

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Getting nuked by Russia would be an act of mercy at this point.

Makeup: it’s not just for girly-girls any more. Michelle Obama's Mirror: The Basket People

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 1:28 PM | Your Say (22)

Day of the Tiles

Soldiers sent to quell the disturbances forced the townspeople off the streets. Some sources say that the soldiers were sent to disperse parliamentarians who were attempting to assemble a parliment. Townspeople climbed onto the roofs of buildings around the Jesuit College to hurl down a rain of roof-tiles on the soldiers in the streets below, hence the episode's name. This drove royal troops out of the city in the first outbreak of political violence that escalated into the [French] revolution. - Wikipedia

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:18 AM | Your Say (3)

‘All my friends are losers.’

“We told the kids, you can live at home for as long as you want.
And they did. But finally our youngest, our daughter, is moving out next week. She’s never even ordered a pizza delivered by herself… It was my middle child that was the real problem. One is always going to be a problem, right? One in the litter is going to be the runt. Lackadaisical at community college, and then drugs, gauges in his ears, nipple rings… but no tattoos thank god. He’s 24 when one night at 3am he wakes me and my husband to announce, ‘All my friends are losers.’ The next morning his long hair is gone, he’d shaved his head with a razor blade! Off came the gauges and nipple rings, he went back to community college, got As, got a scholarship to UC Davis, went to Washington on an internship, and he’s happily married in Sacramento. They’re expecting. I love her parents.” Conversation With My CPA | HappyAcres

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:52 AM | Your Say (0)

Your Morning Meat Meditation: Dunlap 101

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 2:24 AM | Your Say (7)

October 13, 2016

“These people are playing with matches…

I don’t think they understand the scope and scale of the wildfire they are flirting with.

They are fucking around with a civil war that could last a decade and cause millions of deaths… and the sad truth is that 95% of the problems we have in this country could be solved tomorrow, by noon… simply by dragging 100 people out in the street and shooting them in the fucking head.” The Pig Trap « Taxicab Depressions

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:51 PM | Your Say (10)

It never ceases to amaze me that there are still people on the right who genuinely think the left cares about subtleties and gray areas.

Regardless of a mountain of evidence to the contrary,
some conservatives continue to adhere to the myth that they can buy their way out of the race- and gender-card slurs. In this, the “year of the scary clown,” here we find the scariest clowns of all. The people who truly believe that leftists will cut them slack for abandoning Trump represent a rare combination of stupidity and reality detachment. They are indeed rats, and, may I add, rats that absolutely deserve to drown. - - Taki's Magazine

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:35 PM | Your Say (1)

It's Probably Nothing:

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NNSA and Air Force conduct two successful joint flight tests of inert B-61 nuclear bombs:
In collaboration with the U.S. Air Force Global Strike Command, NNSA conducted successful surveillance flight tests using joint test assemblies (JTA) of the B61-7 and B61-11 last month. Analysis and flight recorder data from the tests indicate that both were successful. JTAs are mock weapons containing sensors and instrumentation that allow scientists and engineers from national laboratories to assess their performance. The assemblies contain no nuclear materials and are not capable of nuclear yield. These assemblies also include a flight recorder that stores bomb performance data for each test.

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 1:26 PM | Your Say (4)

A tick rides on the dog’s back for so long it eventually forgets who’s doing the walking.

You Paul Ryan, Ben Sasse, Rick Wilson, and John McCain are apparatchiks.
Stewards. Showmen and functionaries. You only have value in the party to the extent you have value to its voters. They don’t serve at your pleasure, and they don’t require your approval of their choices. That choice was made clearly and unequivocally by tens of millions of people who do the actual work in this country that pays for your prostitutes and pomposity. Contempt in Stone | The Kakistocracy

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:27 PM | Your Say (4)

X Marks the Echo

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Lake George Mystery Spot If you stand in this exact spot, facing the lake, and start shouting, you'll hear your own voice echo back to you as if from another dimension. Only you can hear it, and only in this precise spot.

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:23 PM | Your Say (0)

One Salad, To Go

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Stranded in Java after the Japanese invasion of 1941, the Dutch minesweeper Abraham Crijnssen found a unique way to sneak out:
The crew covered the decks with jungle foliage and painted the hull to resemble cliffs, giving the ship the appearance of a small island. Traveling only at night and anchoring near shore, the minesweeper gradually made her way to West Australia, becoming the last Allied vessel to escape Java and the only one of her class in the region to survive. - - Futility Closet

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:56 AM | Your Say (2)

Oldest Democrat Voter Found In Italy. Absentee Ballot Sent Via FedEx

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About 150,000 years ago, a Neanderthal man was exploring the Lamalunga Cave in southern Italy when he fell into a sinkhole.
Too badly injured to climb out again, he died of dehydration or starvation. Over the ensuing centuries, water running down the cave walls gradually incorporated the man’s bones into concretions of calcium carbonate. Undisturbed by predators or weather, they lay in an immaculate state of preservation until cave researchers finally discovered them in 1993 -- Altamura Man - Futility Closet

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:53 AM | Your Say (1)

October 12, 2016

I say "give rage a chance."

SHINMEN'S OPEN LETTER TO DONALD TRUMP -- TAKE OUT YOUR TOMAHAWK AND GO TO TOWN

SO NOW WHAT?

My advice is that you ignore the cuckolds and pussies in the GOP establishment who have abandoned you at the first major bump in the road. They are worthless. They are slack-jawed droolers who buckle under the slightest pressure.

It literally is now: Donald Trump’s revolution against the world

The underdog aspect of this thought will assuredly draw more support and drive it home.
The American people know that the current GOP establishment are spineless and weak (see McCain, RINO-Ryan, McConnell and so forth).

They are more interested in maintaining their own grift, graft and power than propelling the interests of the USA.

You still have a massive base supporting you. Tell the American people you are definitely going to “upset the apple cart” –in fact toss the establishment apple cart into the dumpster. This is the only way you are going to counter this obvious sabotaging of your campaign.

Note: The operative term here is: POLITICAL SABOTAGE.

So how about no more Mr. Nice guy for a while—just be freakin’ smart about it.

Your timing is great (“because you’d be in jail” –delivered perfectly FYI)

You have every reason to be angry now.

Take out your tomahawk and feel free to go to town. I and millions of Americans will ride towards the sounds of the guns to support you.

I say "give rage a chance."

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 4:57 PM | Your Say (6)

The gist is this: humans aren’t biologically designed for rich food, yet in its presence we have no defense,

because we were evolutionarily designed to consume calories when found.
The reasons that sugar, fats, animal products, and lack of fiber cause disease are manifold and not completely understood, but the statistics don’t lie: simple eating leads to long, healthy lives; lives with radically reduced rates of cancer, heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and all the degenerative diseases. (Cf. epidemiological studies of Buddhist communities, Seventh Day Adventist communities, Chinese & Japanese of 2 generations ago, remote South American farming communities even today) “In my own clinic, childhood obesity was increasing 1% a year - 23% of our pediatric patients are obese - now that rate is increasing 2% a year.” “I’m in charge of the colon cancer program here and tomorrow I’m addressing my doctors. All they think about is detection and surgery. This in spite of the fact we know meat consumption is the largest correlation. It’s crazy, but I can’t get them thinking in terms of prevention.” – my doc to me, last week Four people have kindly written | HappyAcres

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 4:46 PM | Your Say (10)

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

Woman: Devil chased me into drain pipe under Pearl library

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 4:07 PM | Your Say (0)

Student columnist: 'Pockets are sexist'

Enlightened male-identifying person that he is, Eric Schucht unveils the 400-year-old conspiracy

to deny women the privileges of men and make them rely on men (like Schucht) to carry their personal items: It’s quite amazing how many pockets guys have at their disposal. From shirt pockets, sweatpants pockets, to even kilt pockets, clothing is stacked in our favor. Not only do men have numerous pockets, but they’re also huge. I’ve been able to hang onto to three phones, two wallets, and a pair of keys in just my jeans pockets alone. Why shouldn’t women receive the same luxury? - The College Fix

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 3:45 PM | Your Say (11)

Mistaeks Wir Maid

Experts said Arctic sea ice would melt entirely by September 2016 - they were wrong

Scientists such as Prof Peter Wadhams, of Cambridge University, and Prof Wieslaw Maslowski, of the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California, have regularly forecast the loss of ice by 2016, which has been widely reported by the BBC and other media outlets. Prof Wadhams, a leading expert on Arctic sea ice loss, has recently published a book entitled A Farewell To Ice in which he repeats the assertion that the polar region would free of ice in the middle of this decade. As late as this summer, he was still predicting an ice-free September. Yet, when figures were released for the yearly minimum on September 10, they showed that there was still 1.6 million square miles of sea ice (4.14 square kilometres), which was 21 per cent more than the lowest point in 2012.

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:19 PM | Your Say (3)

I had no intention of watching the debate as I’ve seen enough of them to know they will always be “two-on-one moonbat fun.”

The moderator will gang up with the Democrat to attack the Republican.
Even mild nothing-burgers like Mitt Romney got the business from that fat woman on CNN. But, friends told me Trump was beating the old bag up, so I tuned in just in time to see him put the saddle on the fat cow and ride her around the debate stage. I did not watch a lot of it, but it was fun seeing the good guys win. Two Worlds | The Z Blog

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:05 AM | Your Say (1)

Things to Do in America When You're Not Dead

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Two comments from The Top 40: They say they are “undecideds”
The whole thing [2nd Debate] was (another) clown show reasonable people didn't waste time with as they were doing more responsible things. During that approximate time period I manufactured about 300 rds of .308 while Shannon chewed on a beef broth boiled big Kong in the waning days autumn. It's coming.... Posted by: ghostsniper at October 11, 2016 2:06 PM

C'mon man, get with it
! Everything! Every thing!! Everything on teevee and the news and the radio and the 21Cen media is a lie. It's all lies! A relentless barrage of parasite attack vectors to enslave your mind. Decide on what you want to do, and do it. Ignore all distractions. Crush, evade, or overcome all obstacles. There is not a single person on God's green Earth who knows more than you about what you should do and think. Make allies, make friends, form teams. Teams get things done. By yourself you accomplish nothing. Posted by: John A. Fleming at October 11, 2016 9:58 PM

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:35 AM | Your Say (3)

As they toil for their ancient Clinton foes, they think, like many French World War II collaborators with the Nazis,

that they are saving the integrity of their cause — in this case, thoughtful conservatism.
They bewail the acceptance of Trump by other, allegedly less principled conservatives. They have read themselves into oblivion. Because Norman Podhoretz and Irving Kristol came quickly and cogently from the soft left to the Reagan right, where they were graciously received, and blended well with the such traditional conservatives as Bill Buckley and even such paleoconservatives as Pat Buchanan, they earned some of the stardom of the great Reagan victories. Whichever party wins this election, the heirs of the Reagan intellectual Right who have noisily endorsed Hillary as the lesser of evils will be wearing sackcloth and ashes and speaking inaudibly in the wilderness for a long time. To the Democrats, they are useful idiots; to the Republicans, they are deserters in battle, turncoats. Donald Trump – Democratic Hypocrisy Challenged | National Review

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:18 AM | Your Say (3)

October 11, 2016

Infogalactic: the planetary knowledge core

Infogalactic does not share the highly centralized structure of Wikipedia or the ideological dogma of the Wikimedia Foundation.

The primary requirements are for the information contributed to be true, relevant, and verifiable, rather than cited from a so-called “published reliable source”, since experience has proven how reliance upon the latter can be easily gamed by editors and administators alike. There is no culture of notability, ideology, or deletionism at Infogalactic. The addition of perspective filters and two levels of Context and Opinion to every page means that the average editor's contribution is much less likely to be deleted for political reasons or fall victim to the edit wars over controversial pages. -- Infogalactic

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:08 PM | Your Say (2)

They say they are “undecideds”

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(which to me means they are so stupid that they couldn’t choose between a Big Mac and chicken nuggets if they had five hours at a Drive-Thru) but is that really true?
Listen to the questions asked by the ones that were allowed to talk. I think they way they phrased things or the topics they chose to talk about reveal that they aren’t “undecided” at all. On top of that, CSPAN revealed how the whole process works: once these “undecided” people are chosen, they are given four cards to fill out, with one question per card. Then, Anderson Cooper and Martha Raddatz or people working for them went through the cards and selected which ones they wanted people to ask during the debate. 5 Takeaways from Second Presidential Debate

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 1:39 PM | Your Say (8)

Suicidalism:

The infection outlasted the Soviet Union itself and remains a pervasive disease of contemporary Western intellectual life. Consider the following propositions:

These ideas travel under many labels: postmodernism, nihilism, multiculturalism, Third-World-ism, pacifism, “political correctness” to name just a few. It is time to recognize them for what they are, and call them by their right name: suicidalism. | Armed and Dangerous

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:19 PM | Your Say (1)

The Montana Department of Employment, Division of Labor Standards claimed a small rancher was not paying proper wages to his help and sent an agent out to investigate him.

AGENT: I need a list of your employees and how much you pay them.

RANCHER: Well, there's my hired hand who's been with me for 3 years. I pay him $200 a week plus free room and board. Then there's the mentally challenged guy. He works about 18 hours every day and does about 90% of all the work around here. He makes about $60 per week, pays his own room and board, and I buy him a bottle of Jack Daniels every Saturday night so he can cope with life. He also sleeps with my wife occasionally.

AGENT: That's the guy I want to talk to - the mentally challenged one.

RANCHER: That would be me. Employment - Maggie's Farm

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

"Thou Shalt Not Suffer a Witch...."

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Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:17 AM | Your Say (3)

Feminism is a another good example of a cause becoming a lunatic cult. First Wave Feminism was fairly small bore in its goals and tactics.

Second Wave Feminism

was proof that women, lacking a man around to say no, will begin to commit suicide by destroying the culture that allows them to prosper. That it quickly degenerated into Third Wave Feminism is all the proof you need. The Wikipedia entry for Third Wave Feminism is mostly just word salad because there’s no way to provide a concise description of what amounts to a grab bag of outburst by mentally ill women.Broken Women | The Z Blog

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:00 AM | Your Say (5)

We're always talking about what it is we want our country to become,

about how we can save ourselves as a people....But maybe the answer is not somewhere in the future distance; maybe the answer is one we already had, and somehow threw away. Americana

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:40 AM | Your Say (1)

October 10, 2016

Hillary uses Bill Clinton's near-dead look to get dead vote

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API: Bill Clinton in heroic second try convinces the president that he has not inhaled in years
The swing states' Democrat Party chairpersons have always been able to correctly predict a massive turnout of the embalmed.
Anticipating strong necrophobic resistance from Tea Party types and other conspiracy theory aficionados, Democrat leaders in the House and the Senate vowed to preempt the living by expanding civil and voting rights of the decomposed by eliminating the voter ID requirement. The dearly departed have risen for the Democrats in past elections in large numbers, and this year the Democrat strategists predict a record turnout. -- People's Cube

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 6:10 PM | Your Say (1)

Boomerang: NBC Suspends ‘Today’ Host Billy Bush Because …

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Billy Bush has been suspended from the “Today” show “pending further review of the matter.”
It is unclear if he will ever return to the broadcast. “He will never be on the show again,” an on-air source said Sunday night, reflecting what staffers are saying behind the scenes. A second source at the network confirmed Monday that his return is unlikely. : The Other McCain
Meanwhile, Election 2016 rolls on....
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Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:50 AM | Your Say (6)

When even the most disloyal of craven rumpswabs concedes Trump won the debate, you know it was a great night for The Donald.

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The Return of The Mule | The Z Blog

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:36 AM | Your Say (7)

It's Probably Nothing:

While the press was focused on the Hillary-Trump debate, Iranian-backed rebels fired two missiles at the USS Mason off Yemen....
It is one of several scenes of an entire drama, almost an parallel universe which exists outside the 2016 spectacle which has captured the American public's imagination. Events epochal to those whom they directly concern and important by any objective standard are foreshortened by false perspective into tiny insignificant occurrences happening long ago and far away. The striking thing is how this administration is bequeathing a comprehensive catastrophe to the next president almost without anyone, least of all the semi-retired chief executive, paying more than cursory attention. - - | PJ Media

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:53 AM | Your Say (2)

October 9, 2016

Worship Leader Borrows Wife's Jeans After Sunday Morning Coffee Spill

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SEATTLE, WA—As star worship leader Eddie “Dimebag” Johnson was preparing for church Sunday morning,
the skilled guitarist and vocalist spilled nearly his entire mugful of freshly pressed artisan coffee all over his prized pair of skinny jeans, forcing the man to borrow a pair of his wife’s pants, sources confirmed Thursday. A source within the household reported that Johnson was reaching for his tub of all-natural hair pomade when he inadvertently knocked over his favorite Teavana mug, scorching his skin and rendering his pair of AG skinny jeans unwearable. | The Babylon Bee

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:48 AM | Your Say (2)

A man with a functioning libido is public enemy number one in the increasingly bizarre United States of America,

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a debased nation that liberalism is destroying.
Putting tampons in men's restrooms is just fine, creating 600 genders out of thin air when every other species gets by with two genders is fine, but a rich and powerful man talking about having sexual desire for women and making accurate comments about how women let alpha males do whatever they want has caused the castrati in the media to call into session an impromptu kangaroo court of persecution. Trump is also being given the Julius Caesar treatment by his own party. Republicans Use Trump's "Pussy" Comment As Pretext To Overthrow Democratically Selected Candidate

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:21 AM | Your Say (7)

October 8, 2016

The Deadly Israeli House

Forget the cluster bomb and the mine, the poison gas shell and even tailored viruses.
Iran can keep its nuclear bombs. They don't impress anyone in Europe or in Washington D.C. Who can even think about genocide in Africa in the presence of the fearsome weapon of terror that is an Israeli family of four moving into a new apartment. Sultan Knish:

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:11 PM | Your Say (3)

Celebrities are lying scum.

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Most celebrities, especially the actors, are literally, professional liars.
And when you begin to look at their lifestyle, from the unrealistic wealth you and I will never see, to the amount of divorces, drug and alcohol problems and lawsuits they accumulate, they’re not actually savory people. Not even really nice people in fact, unless they’re making videos about how they’re donating to some charity. Literally Bragging on Social media about what a giver they are conveniently timed around some theatrical release for their next filth laden flop you shouldn’t actually be watching with your kids. Celebritiies are banding together to fix the election. Don't trust them.

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:37 AM | Your Say (0)

#NeverTrumpTards like George Will, John Kasich, and others

might think they’re protecting their privileged positions at the trough

by bleating that they’re just too morally upright to lower themselves to vote for such a disgraceful swine as Trump. But they’re doing no such thing. If Hillary defrauds her way into power, all these useful idiots will have done is put themselves in the well-worn crosshairs—literally—of someone who will have no moral objection whatever to pulling the trigger on them the moment she begins to believe it will work for her rather than against her. - - Cold Fury

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:28 AM | Your Say (13)

The Real Reason Clowns Creep Us Out

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Clowns, as pranksters, have always toed a line between entertainment and mischief.
So it’s easy to flip the traditional, happy clown trope on its head—as we often do in literature and film. The opera Pagliacci debuted a murderous clown in 1892, and the evil clown took off in popular culture in the 1970s and ‘80s with serial killer John Wayne Gacy and Stephen King’s It. Today, clowns seem to be featured as scary more often than as funny. - - NatGeo

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:09 AM | Your Say (4)

It's Probably Nothing:

"On Monday Russia cancelled its weapon-grade plutonium disposal agreement with the US." PJ Media

Putin's decree ends one of the last remaining forms of cooperation from that remarkable era. ...And we're talking about a lot of plutonium here. ...One hundred and twenty-eight metric tons is enough for 32,000 nuclear weapons. Want to get your arms race on? ... what are we other than doomed?"

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:48 AM | Your Say (0)

October 7, 2016

Isn't it great that the Nobel Peace Prize winner in the White House has been able to keep this war just grinding along?

Happy 15th Birthday to America’s Endless War in Afghanistan
After 15 years, 2,385 dead U.S. soldiers, more than 20,000 wounded and hundreds of billions of dollars spent, the mission is unfulfilled. The war in Afghanistan is America’s longest and it seems it may never end. The Pentagon maintains just under 10,000 troops in the country. Those soldiers were supposed to come home in 2017 but now it looks as if American troops will be a permanent fixture of the Afghan landscape.

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 6:39 PM | Your Say (7)

October 6, 2016

The terrorist inside my husband's brain

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As you may know, my husband Robin Williams had the little-known but deadly Lewy body disease (LBD).
He died from suicide in 2014 at the end of an intense, confusing, and relatively swift persecution at the hand of this disease's symptoms and pathology. He was not alone in his traumatic experience with this neurologic disease. As you may know, almost 1.5 million nationwide are suffering similarly right now. Although not alone, his case was extreme. Not until the coroner's report, 3 months after his death, would I learn that it was diffuse LBD that took him. All 4 of the doctors I met with afterwards and who had reviewed his records indicated his was one of the worst pathologies they had seen. He had about 40% loss of dopamine neurons and almost no neurons were free of Lewy bodies throughout the entire brain and brainstem. -- Journal of Neurology

[Reading this I feel chastened for my rash judgment of this man's suicide.]

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:32 PM | Your Say (14)

What's your opinion on the recent clown outbreak as of late?

My state does not have an outbreak, we have a bag limit.

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RED-BLOODED AMERICA

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:22 AM | Your Say (4)

Sippican's Back

No one much understands the difference between practice and rehearsal.
You practice to learn rudiments and new material. This is done on your own. You gather to rehearse to prepare to perform. You do not practice at rehearsal. Then you perform. You do not rehearse during a performance. My children do not practice, really. Well, I think The Heir does, but it's always classical piano. Sippican Cottage: Imagine How the World Could Be, So Very Fine

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

WELCOME TO THIS INTERNET SITE.

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I AM A SIMPLE MAN, BUT WHAT I DO HAVE IS AN EXPANSIVE KNOWLEDGE OF THINGS LIKE
POLITICS, BACON, THE OUTDOORS, RED MEAT, FINE WHISKEY, FIREARMS, HISTORY, FREEDOM, AND OTHER MANLY THINGS. YOU MAY ASK ME WHAT YOU LIKE (IT IS A FREE COUNTRY) BUT DON'T BE SURPRISED IF I MOCK YOUR STUPIDITY IN THE PROCESS. OH...AND IF YOU CAN'T TELL, I LOVE THIS DAMN COUNTRY. -- RED-BLOODED AMERICA - Page 1 of 1599

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:11 AM | Your Say (0)

It's Probably Nothing:

To refresh your memory - which I’m sure has been consumed lately with Hillary’s charms and The Donald’s crassness:

-there was another train incident in New York yesterday. This follows hot on the heels of the Seaside pipe bombing, the Chelsea dumpster bombing (that Afghan born Muslim Ahmad Rahami has been charged with), the bomb detonation in the Elisabeth New Jersey train station, and the commuter train crash into the Hoboken station. Also, a pertinent aside: the two men who stole a travel bag, butt left a perfectly good pressure cooker bomb sitting on the ground in Manhattan, were (Muslim) security guards employed by Air Egypt. Michelle Obama's Mirror:

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:07 AM | Your Say (1)

It's Probably Nothing:

there’s been a new rifle attack on a power substation, in rural Utah.
It appears to have been less sophisticated and less persistent than the California attack, but more effective — the attacker or attackers blew the station off the grid with as few as three rifle shots. What Can a Mere Rifle Do, II | WeaponsMan

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:28 AM | Your Say (1)

This from a 60 year old lady who cares for her 90 year old parents.

“What makes it especially hard is that my parents are Social Justice Warriors, worse than any college kids.
‘Justice! Equality! Just Be Nice!’ And they believe everything they see on TV. It’s always 1934 and they’re listening to FDR’s fireside chats. When Hillary ‘recovered’ from her seizure and waved to wellwishers, my mom gushed endlessly about what a strong, beautiful lady she was - I finally had to leave the house and go driving. Last night Obama was on TV and I was screaming at the screen, unconscious of what I was doing, until dad scolded me to be quiet and show the president some decent respect.” Two Funny Recent Conversations | HappyAcres

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:24 AM | Your Say (0)

October 5, 2016

[Bumped] Yes, this guy thinks Trump supporters and the Alt-Right are “Nazis”.

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What We Can Learn From The Collapse Of Glenn Beck's EmpireThe 2016 election cycle is one that will be remembered by many as both a divisive and entertaining affair.
Although these observations are both positive and accurate ones, the election’s most important legacy consists of the fact that it has signaled the end of many “conservatives” or “republicans” who have turned against their own allies for short term political points. While this list is a long one that includes the likes of Mark Levin, Ben Shapiro and the National Review, the most prominent one is undoubtedly Glenn Beck, whose meteoric decline makes the fall of the Roman Empire appear childish in comparison.

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:34 PM | Your Say (21)

Like any other spoiled children, blacks are coming to believe that they can do anything they choose.

In the long run, it may not be a good thing. In the short run, it may not be a good thing. The run, I suspect, is getting shorter.
It is a great mystery why the least productive thirteen percent of the country, the most dependent on welfare, the most criminal, should be permitted to steal, burn, rape, and beat those who behave in accordance with civilized standards. To shout “kill Whitey” while buying groceries with an EBT card, to expect to be taken care of, to get welfare and affirmative action while attacking the caretakers, does not suggest a crushing burden of mental acuity. Undocumented Shopping: Legacy of an African President | Fred On Everything

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:33 PM | Your Say (3)

Bill Clinton Calls Obamacare ‘the Craziest Thing in the World'

Speaking at a Democratic rally in Flint, Michigan, the former president ripped into the Affordable Care Act (ACA) for flooding the health care insurance market and causing premiums to rise for middle-class Americans who do not qualify for subsidies.
"So you've got this crazy system where all of a sudden 25 million more people have health care and then the people who are out there busting it, sometimes 60 hours a week, wind up with their premiums doubled and their coverage cut in half. It's the craziest thing in the world," Clinton said. | Intellectual Takeout

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:03 AM | Your Say (4)

"Reports of Earth's demise were premature."

“Anyone who tries to predict more than five to 10 years is a bit of an idiot, because so many things can change unexpectedly.”
But isn’t that exactly what he did last time we met? “I know,” he grins teasingly. “But I’ve grown up a bit since then.” Lovelock now believes that “CO2 is going up, but nowhere near as fast as they thought it would. The computer models just weren’t reliable. In fact,” he goes on breezily, “I’m not sure the whole thing isn’t crazy, this climate change. You’ve only got to look at Singapore. It’s two-and-a-half times higher than the worst-case scenario for climate change, and it’s one of the most desirable cities in the world to live in.” Don Surber: Father of global warming says it's a religion

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:55 AM | Your Say (1)

In a world where stupidity dominates, looking good is more important than being right.

Advanced practitioners of corporate stupidity often spend less time on the content of their work and more on its presentation.
They know that a decision-maker sees only the PowerPoint show and reads just the executive summary (if they’re lucky). They also realise that most stupid ideas are routinely accepted when they’re presented well. Decision-makers will likely forget much of the content by the time they walk out the door. And when things go wrong, they can say: ‘They didn’t read the fine-print.’ You don’t have to be stupid to work here, but it helps | Aeon Essays

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

October 4, 2016

"God gave Noah the Donald sign, No more water, the fire next time!"

What happens to America, if the uprisings and rebellions in the two parties
- Donald Trump and Ted Cruz in the GOP, the Bernie Sanders revolt in the Democratic Party—are turned back, and we get in 2017 the same old people and same old policies we repudiated in 2015 and 2016? What happens if the election, in which America demanded change in both parties, results in change in neither party? One wonders: Do America’s reigning elites believe the Trump movement is but a passing phase? Aborting the Trump Revolution - Taki's Magazine

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:46 PM | Your Say (2)

Feelings Now Acceptable As Answers To Math Problems

One example problem given to illustrate the updated standards asked students

to figure out when a 6:00 a.m. train leaving Boston at thirty miles per hour and a 7:00 a.m. Milwaukee train headed the opposite direction at forty miles per hour will intersect. A list of possible solutions to the sample problem published in the Common Core standards obtained by reporters indicated that “Ugh,” “I’m offended,” “Triggered,” “Trains scare me,” “Boston scares me,” “Milwaukee scares me,” and “Kill yourself,” would all be scored as correct. | The Babylon Bee

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:07 AM | Your Say (2)

Crowds are forming up. Historic times have arrived.

When a movement grows in size and influence as fast as Alt-Right has, it means most of it was in place long before public notice by our keepers.
When the mainstream feels compelled to notice, i.e., trash, its ideas it suggests more disquiet than they'll confess, and when its ideas are denounced before they even rise to general notice, it reveals fear akin to panic. Conditions are right and opportunities are plentiful for the Alt-Right to become the major force in America and Europe. The counterattack will be ferocious of course, but it'll be one ham-handed blunder after another, the Alt-Right has consistently been a step or three ahead of the dull-witted and much despised "establishment". Crowds are forming up. Historic times have arrived. Woodpile Report

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:21 AM | Your Say (2)

Undocumented Shopping: Legacy of an African President

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Like any other spoiled children, blacks are coming to believe that they can do anything they choose. In the long run, it may not be a good thing. In the short run, it may not be a good thing. The run, I suspect, is getting shorter.
It is a great mystery why the least productive thirteen percent of the country, the most dependent on welfare, the most criminal, should be permitted to steal, burn, rape, and beat those who behave in accordance with civilized standards. To shout “kill Whitey” while buying groceries with an EBT card, to expect to be taken care of, to get welfare and affirmative action while attacking the caretakers, does not suggest a crushing burden of mental acuity. | Fred On Everything

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:27 AM | Your Say (3)

Only 5 People Have Managed to Finish This Giant Taco in the Last 18 years

.... And died the next day from thermonuclear flatulence after consuming

the 4-pound behemoth made with a giant homemade tortilla and lots of beans, cheese, carne guisada, egg, potatoes and bacon. Oddity Central

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:00 AM | Your Say (0)

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

Police in Utah Recommend Against Shooting Random Clowns

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:51 AM | Your Say (2)

It's Probably Nothing:

US State Department Threatens to Send Islamic Terrorists into Russia

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:10 AM | Your Say (1)

It's Probably Nothing:

Russia holds massive nuclear war exercise involving 40MILLION people as military tensions rise with US

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:08 AM | Your Say (2)

October 3, 2016

Was talking to a Chinese lady Friday night.

Once she realized that she could discuss non-American things with me,
she indicated that her father had called her recently from the PRC and asked her where she would be going when the war breaks out. She was serious. Think. | Western Rifle Shooters Association

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 6:44 PM | Your Say (0)

October 2, 2016

“If they bomb EVEN one city in Russia, I swear, in half an hour every muslim will die” Vladimir Putin

Wow. A national leader, with his country’s best interests first and foremost in mind, threatening annihilation against its avowed enemies.

Refusing the course of humiliating defeat, of abject, self-flagellating cowardice, of ongoing tolerance of intolerable acts threatening not just individual lives but his nation’s security and internal peace and stability, entire. Instead of rolling over, exposing his belly, and pleading for endless negotiations and bootless diplomacy, he states it flat: mess with us, and die. Don’t believe for a second we can’t do it; most especially, that we won’t. We will not take your making all-but-overt war on us lying down—meekly, humbly, quietly. Try to do us harm and suffer, unto not just your death, but the death of ALL your kind.Cold Fury サ What it looks like

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:35 AM | Your Say (7)

The Simple Reason Why America’s ‘Virginia’-Class Submarines Are So Good

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The biggest improvement to the Virginia class will come with the Block V vessels — the first of which will start construction in 2019 as the second submarine built that year.
The Block V submarines will add a Virginia Payload Module that will add four additional payload tubes amidship, each of which can accommodate seven Tomahawk cruise missiles for a total of 28 weapons. Overall, the Block V Virginia class will be capable of launching 40 Tomahawk cruise missiles from its payload tubes. -- War Is Boring

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:16 AM | Your Say (0)

Whatever.

Whatever gets you to think about God, His death on the Cross for our sins, and your eternal fate – heaven for eternity or hell for eternity.

If I have to make a spectacle of myself – a FOOL, if you will – then so be it. If this culture is so far gone that simply BELIEVING WHAT YOU BELIEVE constitutes a spectacle, and a secret attraction, hey man, so much the easier. I find it incredibly easy to say what I actually believe and know to be true. Too bad some other people don’t. Around the Innerwebz: Holy Intransigence Works | Barnhardt

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:45 AM | Your Say (0)

The Chinese government provides a good template for online censorship.

It bans certain sensitive words on social media, forcing Chinese netizens to create alternatives.
Superficially, what's happening in China and the West is the same. It differs in the official states. Private censorship in American is legal, but "un-American." In China it is state policy. In America, anyone could become a target of the mob for posting something "offensive." In China, one first gets posts removed. Then if persistent, a chat with police. One doesn't accidentally get sanctioned in China. Also, Twitter engages in shadow bans and along with Facebook will remove trending topics, but for the most part the censorship is openly discussed and even cheered by the media. Unorthodoxy: Learning the Taboos

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:38 AM | Your Say (0)

Is your dog’s Halloween costume sexist?

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On the site BaxterBoo.com, options for your female pooch include “sweet heart nurse” or French maid.
“Any tidy girl dog will look adorable wearing this French Maid Dog Costume,” the site’s description reads. “Whether your pup is a clean freak or a messy mutt, she will enjoy playing ‘dress up’ in this fun costume.”

The choices for male dogs, meanwhile, include fireman, mob boss and doctor (suggested pairing: “match up with a girl friend with the Sweet Heart Nurse Dog Costume.”)

“It seems silly on the surface, but this is part of a larger message we’re sending, that there are certain jobs for men, and certain jobs for women,” said Scott Lawrie, 36, who co-hosts a podcast, ‘She will not be ignored,’ about gender issues. “The career options for women — and dogs — need to go beyond pink loofahs and pink cowgirls.” - The Washington Post

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:32 AM | Your Say (4)

When Buttons Ruled the Earth

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I think we can all agree that buttons are extremely satisfying to push.

But with our touchscreen smartphones, tablets and all the interactive technology we use today, it seems the only buttons we’re pressing lately are those of our nearest and dearest. And I’m not just talking about those sad little keys on your laptop keyboard– I’m talking about those big, chunky, tempting (quite often red) buttons that you simply have to press or else you might just self-destruct. A Brief Compendium of when Buttons Ruled the Earth

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

October 1, 2016

Hunter S. Thompson's Prescient 1972 Warning

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That’s the real issue this time,” he said. “[Beating Nixon. [Clinton] [Trump]]. It’s hard to even guess how much damage those bastards will do if they get in for another four years.”
The argument was familiar, I had even made it myself, here and there, but I was beginning to sense something very depressing about it. How many more of these goddamn elections are we going to have to write off as lame, but “regrettably necessary” holding actions? And how many more of these stinking double-downer sideshows will we have to go through before we can get ourselves straight enough to put together some kind of national election that will give me and the at least 20 million people I tend to agree with a chance to vote for something, instead of always being faced with that old familiar choice between the lesser of two evils? Now with another one of these big bogus showdowns looming down on us, I can already pick up the stench of another bummer. I understand, along with a lot of other people, that the big thing this year is Beating Nixon. [Clinton] [Trump] But that was also the big thing, as I recall, twelve years ago in 1960 – and as far as I can tell, we’ve gone from bad to worse to rotten since then, and the outlook is for more of the same. —Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail ’72 | Zero Hedge

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 4:57 PM | Your Say (1)

I could have left the presidential choice blank,

out of my remaining loyalty to Hillary Clinton and the friendships I made on that 2008 campaign.
In Illinois, if you leave anything blank on a ballot, there’s a good chance that election officials will fill it in for you down the line somehow, so that’s not really a good option. If you leave a space blank, someone will cast a vote for a Democrat for you. Chicago Early Voting Begins as people break up with Hillary Clinton

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:02 AM | Your Say (0)

Ten Minutes in Lituya Bay

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Bill Swanson’s bunk tilted, dumping him onto the deck.
When he looked outside, the water around his boat was in a state of severe agitation. In the distance he could see the towering mountains that stood at the inland end of the bay, their peaks shaking. He also thought he saw the distant Lituya Glacier tossed up into the air. “I know you can’t ordinarily see that glacier from where I was anchored,” he later told Alaska Sportsman magazine. “People shake their head when I tell them I saw it that night. I can’t help it if they don’t believe me but I know what I saw that night.” • Damn Interesting

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:44 AM | Your Say (1)

Like everybody else Trump is now trapped in a revolution he may never have intended to lead nor know how.

He's riding a tiger that neither he nor anybody else knows how to dismount.

By rights the conservatives should be doomed. Yet with the possible exception of the British Brexiteers the American electorate alone of the Western voting public is broadly aware that it is Blue Model which is desperately racing for harbor before the onset of a Perfect Storm. The financial system is trembling on the edge, bad news is seething just under the surface and there is but dubious haven in an "Third Obama term" supplied Hillary Clinton. Kerry's frantic ceasefire efforts, the offers of bailouts to domestic constituencies and bribes to foreign enemies only serve to emphasize how the system is just living from moment to moment, with no other plan but to hang on. Zone of Insanity | PJ Media

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

Atheist Delivers Powerful Testimony Of Coming To Believe Life Has No Purpose

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“I’m here as a witness to the power of atheism—the only reasonable worldview,” she declared.
“Things like right and wrong, love and beauty, passion and empathy, ecstasy and heartbreak—these are but leftover, superfluous, physiological baggage from our completely naturalistic journey to being. They don’t mean anything.” “We should not even exist. Nothing matters. Literally nothing matters at all,” she added with a smile, to the crowd’s enthusiastic applause. After Newberry finished telling the moving tale of her lack of faith, she reportedly invited anyone who felt called to commit their lives to the void of nothingness to raise their hand, “with every eye closed and every head bowed.” | The Babylon Bee

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 1:44 AM | Your Say (10)