Saturday, July 25, 2020

Weekends and Wonder

The first sunrise of the weekend:

I suggest we take advantage of it.

I suspect somewhere (I’m looking at you Portland), someone will take this literally.

For the rest of us I recommend wallowing in the wonder of it all.

Friday, July 24, 2020

You Are the Ones You’ve Been Waiting For

“Change will not come if we wait for some other person, or if we wait for some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.” – Barack Obama, February 5, 2008

Portland marked its 57th straight night of ‘Anti-Fascist’ Fascist ‘protests’ by ongoing lasering of police and federal agents,

Protests on July 22

setting fires

and otherwise acting idiotic.

Oregon Local News, Breaking News, Sports & Weather

Meanwhile in Hong Kong, where protestors are protesting real oppression not trumped up charges of persecution -

“It is perhaps only a matter of time before the authorities start handing out life-imprisonment sentences for their political enemies — such harsh punishments are permitted under the oppression law — or even worse.”

Hong Kong celebrates 'Thanksgiving' as US signs Human Rights ...

 It has been nearly a month since the Chinese Communist Party enacted its invasive “security” law — better called the oppression law. If there had been any doubt before the law’s taking effect that its purpose was not to protect the people of Hong Kong from instability but rather to subject an innocent populace to Beijing’s despotism, there can be none now — even to the most optimistic onlooker.

Supporters raise blank white paper to avoid slogans banned under the national security law

After the oppression bill became law for Hong Kongers, a chilling effect spread throughout the commercial hub: Pro-democracy activists quieted down, faced with the once-unthinkable reality of being arrested for standing peacefully in public places and voicing their desire for freedom. Shopkeepers were compelled to remove customers’ protest artwork and pro-democracy sticky notes from their shops lest the government punish them for endorsing the democracy camp’s message. Protesters deleted their social-media accounts, as speech that had been legal just days previously was now a potential crime against the government. – NR

Here’s a little message for Portlandia Antifa protestors: not being allowed to trash, deface, bust windows and set buildings on fire is not the same as not being allowed to protest peacefully.

The people of Hong Kong are protestors,

How I fell in love with Hong Kong and other commentary

you are violent ‘fascists’ teetering on the edge of domestic terrorism.

FBI: 'No intelligence' linking antifa to weekend violence in Floyd ...

See the difference?

I didn’t think so, it’s too much to expect people who can’t even tell the difference between ‘anarchists’ and fascists to comprehend the difference between freedom – where peoples rights are protected by a Constitution – and tyranny, where your overlords determine what rights you have on a capricious basis.

Bad news dude, you are the ones you’ve been waiting for.

Thursday, July 23, 2020

And They Wonder Why We’re Cynical

“No matter how cynical I get, I just can’t keep up.” – Lily Tomlin

One study suggests that two-thirds of Americans between the ages of fifteen and thirty-four who were treated in emergency rooms suffered from injuries inflicted by police and security guards, about as many people as the number of pedestrians injured by motor vehicles.

- Jill Lepore, New Yorker

If that claim seems patently unbelievable to you it’s because it is simply not true, apparently the result of bad math and misunderstanding.The article’s subtitle, “why did American policing get so big, so fast? The answer, mainly, is slavery,” provides a pretty strong hint at Lepore’s predisposition as well as her entire case: slavery (and it’s corollary, “white privilege”) goes a long way towards explaining all the social injustice in the world - or at least in the United States.

It should be noted that Ms. Lepore is a highly respected professor of American history at Harvard, yet neither she nor her editor was struck by the sheer bodaciousness of a claim that fully two-thirds of ER visits for people between the age of 15 and 34 were due to police inflicted injuries. It’s almost as if they are predisposed to believe that the cops spend most of their day busting people’s chops.

While any reasonable person would question the absurdity of such a claim, it apparently did not strike Ms. Lepore as anything other than plausible. Despite her tendency to believe it however, it just ain’t so. As Louise Perry discovered upon nominal investigation (i.e. checking the author’s source study) it was easily disproven - spectacularly so. Excerpts from Perry’s article:

And it turns out I was right — the ‘two-thirds’ claim is not true. Not even close…But it’s not clear where Lepore got the ‘two-thirds’ figure from. Possibly she misunderstood a line from from the paper itself, which includes the finding that 61.1% of people injured by police fell into the 15-34 age bracket…

I did my best to work out a rough estimate of the true proportion of 15-34 year olds visiting the ER who had suffered legal intervention injuries, and arrived at a figure of 0.2% (you can follow my working in this thread). So I believe Lepore’s claim to be off by a factor of several hundred.

OK, I didn’t check Perry’s math either but common sense indicates that her percentage is more plausible than Lepore’s two-thirds. As Perry points out, we all know that political bias warps cognition, sometimes catastrophically. Take COVID for example. I’d also stake claim to the fact that when all the dust has cleared we will find that the “statistics” reported to date about COVID cases and deaths will prove to be equally and spectacularly inaccurate: another victim of “a small, troubling example of the effect of political bias on journalism.”

But don’t take my word for it, read Angelo Codevilla’s  long but excellent essay: The COVID Coup.

Panicked by fears manufactured by the ruling class, the American people assented to being put essentially under house arrest until further notice, effectively suspending the habits, preferences, and liberties that had defined our way of life…

What history will record as the great COVID scam of 2020 is based on 1) a set of untruths and baseless assertions—often outright lies—about the novel coronavirus and its effects; 2) the production and maintenance of physical fear through a near-monopoly of communications to forestall challenges to the U.S.. ruling class, led by the Democratic Party, 3) defaulted opposition on the part of most Republicans, thus confirming their status as the ruling class’s junior partner….

And they wonder why we’re cynical.

Scare me : calvinandhobbes

Wednesday, July 22, 2020

Trouble, Right Here In Rose City

Friend, either you're closing your eyes
To a situation you do not wish to acknowledge
Or you are not aware of the caliber of disaster indicated
By the presence of ANTIFA in your community

When your city has been racked with unchecked rioting for 50 plus days straight

Portland fires, vandalism, looting as protest turns into riot; at ...Fires, vandalism and looting – it’s officially ‘rioting’

it takes a peculiar type of cheekiness for your mayor to demand that federal ‘troops’ go home rather than demanding the criminals creating the violence go home.

But I guess, when in the course of human events it becomes necessary…well, to quote the Democrats’ presumed presidential nominee, “you know the thing.” “The thing” is, Mayor Wheeler, that you’ve got trouble. Right here in Rose City. With a capital “T” and that rhymes with “D” and that stands for Democrats!

Oh we’ve surely got trouble! Right here in Rose City!

Antifa At Large in Portland | City Journal

One fine night, they leave the ANTIFA hall
Headin' for the dance at the Arm'ry!

Portland protesters rally in front of Justice Center against ...

Libertine men and Scarlet women!
And Rag-time, shameless music
That'll grab your son, your daughter
With the arms of a jungle animal instinct!
Mass-staria!

Portlanders are marching from the George Floyd vigil at Peninsula Park towards the Justice Center downtown on March 29, 2020.

Friends, the idle brain is the devil's playground!
Trouble!

Mothers of Rose City!
Heed that warning before it's too late!
Watch for the tell-tale signs of corruption!
The moment your son leaves the house
Does he replace his facemask with a black bandana?

Dori: Portland police allowed Antifa mobs to take over the streets
Is there a brass ring on his index finger?
A baseball bat hidden in the van?

Agent: FBI tailed Portland anarchists headed to May Day riot ...
Is he starting to memorize phrases from Chairman Mao’s Little Red Book?
Are certain words creeping into his conversation?
Words like, like “doxxing”? And “White Fragility”?

Oh, we got Trouble! Trouble, Trouble!

**This musical message was brought to you by the unofficial Rose City Committee to recall Mayor Wheeler

Tuesday, July 21, 2020

The Beach Will Have To Wait

I’d really prefer to go to the beach but it’s tax day in the MOTUS household. We’ve delayed this year’s inevitable day of reckoning as long as possible – well technically we have till October with our extension but even I’m not that much of a procrastinator – so meeting with our accountant this morning. This is how I always feel by the time we’re done gathering everything required together in order to turn over a substantial portion of our annual income to the government for redistribution as they deem fit:

Well i never hulu i love lucy GIF on GIFER - by KajilabarCurrent mood: (fill-in-the-blank)

So you do what you have to today and Raj and l will do what’s necessary in order to avoid governmental seizure of assets and/or incarceration.

The beach will have to wait.

Monday, July 20, 2020

Reality Distortion Field Engaged: Resistance Is Not Futile But Rare

Today’s post was inspired by a comment left by Upcountrywater a few days back regarding the legendary charm of William Jefferson Clinton (nee Blythe). It is from an interview author Tom Clancy did with Foreign Policy News ahead of the 2008 presidential election in which he spoke of many politicians on scene and had this to say about Bill Clinton:

“His charm is like a physical force. Ever been in the ocean and have the waves come across you? That’s what his charm is like. If I was a girl, I would have gotten laid that night. But you sense talking to him he has no character. None. The secret service despised Hillary. They just disliked Clinton. He shit on the military pretty comprehensively. It didn’t do the country any serious harm because he didn’t care about anything enough to do any harm. I’ve never run into anybody quite like that before.”

Now if you’ve never met Bill Clinton you might think that Clancy was employing an author’s poetic license to describe the power of the man’s ability to “throw a glamour” as Pbird put it. However people who have met Clinton will confirm he possesses strong seductive powers.

It’s sometimes referred to as “Reality Distortion Field” (RDF)—an aura of charisma, confidence, and persuasion, in which people report it almost impossible to avoid surrendering to the man and following his will when interacting face-to-face. Steve Jobs was said to have it, but he’s a piker compared to Bill Clinton. I have met Mr. Clinton and I assure you, Mr. Clancy was not exaggerating. Even if you are immune to such charm – and few people are – you will still recognize it and it will awe you.

Take my Father-in-Law for example, a man who never once seriously contemplated voting for a Democrat in all of his 95 years on the planet. Not even JFK who was strongly favored by his Catholic Parish “Circle” friends and definitely the choice of my Irish-Catholic Mother-in-Law. Nope: Eisenhower, Nixon, Goldwater, Ford, Reagan…you get the picture. But in addition to being a capital ‘R’ Republican, Pop really disliked Bill Clinton; not as intently as people with TDS loath Trump, but definitely not in the  FOB (Fan of Bubba) camp.

However, when he was invited to to meet the President at a VIP ground-breaking for the new multi-billion dollar Detroit Metro Airport expansion (Raj was Airport Director at the time) he was thrilled. Possibly more so because of Raj than Bubba, but still thrilled.

Al Checchi, Northwest CEO,  Bill Clinton, Ed McNamara, Wayne County CEO 1996

So when Raj got us to the front of the line to shake hands with the man he’d disparaged for years Pop stepped up, looked the President in the eye, grabbed his outstretched hand with both of his, pumped it hard a few times and said… “you’re doing a great job Mr. President!”

Of course we all laughed about it afterwards. “The Handshake” became a topic at many family gatherings in subsequent election years and I suspect will become part of Raj’s family lore: “the time Grandpa shook President Clinton’s hand and told him he was great.” Although it’s likely to take on a different, more reverential tone as it is passed down to future generations as the family seems these days to consist of more hardcore Dems than R’s.

My Father-in-Law, who had a great sense of humor, always enjoyed relaying the story himself; he’d tell how Clinton would zero in on you with his mesmerizing eye contact, reach towards you intimately but not intimidatingly and fleetingly beguile you into believing that he’d come to meet you, exclusively.

Hello Pop!

When lesser humans - without the gift of “throwing a glamour” - try to do this they always come off as creepy. We’ve all met people like that, who can’t pull it off.

Former VP, Creepy Joe Biden Can Barely Fill a Union Hall at a ...

In the same interview cited above Tom Clancy commented on Joe Biden as well: “I’ve met Joe Biden. I don’t think he’s all that bright. He’s pleasant but he’s not bright.” In his waning years he’s not even pleasant anymore. And don’t even get me started on Hillary. I’ve written before about my one and only encounter with her in the 90s. Suffice to say for every dram of Bill’s charm and charisma Hillary provides an equal and opposite reaction. Truly the most anti-charismatic I’ve ever encountered.  But that’s another story.

Pop would always say that although he’d been a salesman his entire life he’d never run into anyone with as much charismatic power as Bill. He also said that if he’d been blessed with had even half of it he’d have been the richest man in town.

That is undoubtedly the truth. 

 bill-and-hillary-clinton-earnings-graphic

When you think about it, people who possess Reality Distortion Field powers to one extent or another explains an awful lot about what goes on in politics. While resistance is not entirely futile, it apparently it is for some.

Here is one of the few documented instances of a human demonstrating immunity to the infamous Clinton RDF:

Sunday, July 19, 2020

The Third Sundae in July

It’s Sundae!

The Best Ice Cream Sundaes | Restaurants : Food Network | Food NetworkTin Roof Sundae

Thanks to a proclamation that President Ronald Reagan signed in 1984 July is National Ice Cream Month and the third Sunday in July is National Ice Cream Day.

Strawberry Sauce Recipe - NYT CookingFresh Strawberry Sundae

So set the troubles of the world aside for today and just chill with an ice cream treat of your choosing.

Classic:

Whimsical:

Indulgent:

Sandwiched:Mint Chocolate Chip Ice CREAM with double chocolate chip cookies ...

Or boozy:

Detroit’s contribution to the ice cream drink category, the Hummer,  made with Kahlua, white rum and ice cream should more appropriately be named the Hammer. Don’t ask me how I know.

It’s headed to the high 90s here today with humidity to match so it’s a perfect day to imbibe in one of summer’s greatest, if fleeting, joys. So whether you fancy your ice cream in a bowl, a cone or a drink,  enjoy!

SweetAF (Aloma) a domicilio en Orlando | MenĂº y precios | Uber Eats

Unless you belong to the portion of the population that can’t keep race and politics out of anything.

Does “the Great Diversified” work for you?

In that case may all your ice cream come with a free treat.