Saturday, July 10, 2021

You Want Competition? You Can’t Handle Competition!

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While driving around yesterday I heard the presumed Presidential Whiz-kid on the radio saying how important competition is. His carefully prepared remarks were made prior to signing an executive order targeting “anticompetitive” practices in tech, health care and other parts of the economy. Emphasis on other parts of the economy whereas that is anything we say it it.

The sweeping order includes 72 actions and recommendations that Biden said would lower prices for families, increase wages for workers and promote innovation and faster economic growth.

Ha! That’s a good one – let’s give agencies and bureaucrats even more power to create regulations to dictate how we live and breathe. None of which will do a thing to improve competition, certainly not the kind that would actually allow us to compete in the dangerous arena of ideas.

For example, I daresay none of the 72 actions will do anything to make Twitter stop shadow banning and suspending accounts of people they don’t like.  Will any of them make Facebook stop censoring posts they don’t approve of? Or get YouTube to stop demonetizing and/or shutting down conservative channels? Or require search engines to show results from non-approved websites such as oh, I don’t know – Breitbart, PJMedia, Conservative Tree House, Washington Examiner etc. etc.  – without having to enter the name of the website?  No, to all of the above. Do you not know how the state-run propaganda media platform works?

And what about China? Will Joey do anything to make his CCP overlords compete on a level playing field? Again, no.

So lets stop pretending. Joey’s really big competition effort may do some helpful things such as require airlines to refund baggage fees when bags are delayed, but it will do absolutely nothing about establishing a basis for actual competition. In that way it’s just like the Infrastructure Bill, in which everything from childcare to diversity training is considered infrastructure; everything is “competition” except actual competition.

But that’s okay, we’ll just keep pretending we’re still trying to be world competitors.

lion-cat-mirror-image-fantasy

And Joey can keep pretending to be president. What could go wrong?

cat blindsNo, everything’s fine, I’m just relaxing and hanging out.

Friday, July 9, 2021

I Say You Should Continue To Avoid The Plague At All Costs

It’s FLOTUS Friday but news of the real FLOTUS is hard to come by.

I can’t imagine why Melania Trump would avoid the media, can you?

An unnamed source of the family told the outlet that Melania prefers to stay out of the limelight… 

"She never liked press scrutiny and hates it more now," the unnamed insider said. "She will do whatever she can to avoid being photographed or interviewed. She remains low key, enjoying her life with her family." – IBT

ombre melania

As long as you and your husband are going to be treated like hombrés you may as well go full ombré.

melania ombreMelania’s first ombré

Just because the entire media spent 5 years snipping, sniping and otherwise belittling and berating her that doesn’t mean she shouldn’t make herself available to them at every opportunity so they can continue to do so. It seems rather petty of her, don’t you think, just fading away like that?

The media is still trying to figure out why she avoids then like the plague they are.

i really don't cair f u

How can she not care about them?

Thursday, July 8, 2021

Two Scoops? You Can’t Handle Two Scoops!

In Kurt Schlichter’s column today he wonders  Who the Hell Is in Charge? 

banksy-monkeys in charge this is the dayThat day is now, and it’s no laughing matter

He concludes only that it isn’t the withered old fossil currently residing in the White House with Dr. Jill.

joe jill finger2Behold the old man that 80 million Americans were theoretically foolish enough to vote for

Last week President * went out for ice cream again, and the media was on it, quizzing him on what flavor he selected, the kind of cone, whether it was yummy. It seemed to be yummy, according to the flashcards that he uses to help him survive these intense journalist grillings.

moomers ice creamMoomer’s ice cream is outstanding but mind you: these are the same journalists who thought it a national scandal when President Trump had 2 scoops of ice cream.

Kurt concludes that nobody in particular seems to be in charge of the libs new chaos theory:

But what we have here seems to be a patchwork quilt of bureaucrats, politicos, and social media blue checks each pushing individual fetishes instead of their awful agenda as a whole.

…What it seems to be is various fiefdoms within the *dministration each doing their own thing, a federalism of failure as it were.

The only good news from this apocalyptic situation is that the *dimistration’s unbounded foolishness serves to energize the resistance of we mere mortals:

It’s a perfect storm of failure, and we should help them fail however we can…

When little Billy – because normal people name their kids normal names and not annoying ones like “Kaden” – comes home and announces his teacher’s pronouns are xip/xork and that he is personally responsible for slavery, that motivates people to resist.

The same with crime. The *dministration is packed with libs who insist that the cause of crime is not criminals but you normal people out there who are not committing crimes. Except, that’s insane and stupid, and when your Prius gets broken into a third time, you’re going to start moving right whether or not you have a “BERNIE 2020” sticker on the bumper…

Yeah, well I suppose that would be good news if these weren’t the same morons who were dumb enough to have voted for this semi-sentient cipher.

biden-doubles-down-on-assault-weapon-ban-days-before-election

The only problem is I’m beginning to wonder if I’ll live long enough for “the great awakening.”

etchells wait here

Wednesday, July 7, 2021

An Old War, A New Warfare

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"There's a point far out there, when the structures fail you. When the rules aren't weapons anymore, they're shackles, letting the bad guy get ahead. One day, you may face such a moment of crisis. And in that moment, I hope you have a friend like I did! To plunge their hands into the filth, so that you can keep yours clean!" Jim Gordon in The Black Knight Trilogy

If you don’t subscribe to the Epoch Times – one of the last news sites not filled with leftist propaganda - you should. Case in point, What Is to Be Done? Preparing the Information Battlespace** (premium article by Michael Walsh, which can be shared if you’re a subscriber). It forces us to grapple with the cold hard truth of last year’s electoral defeat:

As American conservatives—traditional Americans, we should more properly call them—continue to reel from the cultural and political onslaught of the Biden/Harris/Ron Klain/Barack Obama administration, it’s about time we come to realize that we are fighting the wrong enemy on the wrong battlefield, without a proper army…

angry2

The first step is to realize that whether the election was literally “stolen”—that is to say, that enough forged ballots with no chain of custody were deliberately injected into the electoral system in order to significantly affect the vote in the principal swing states—or that the illegal and unconstitutional changes in state election law made by leftist governors and attorneys general, using the phantom menace of Covid-19 as the excuse, tipped the scales, Donald J. Trump lost the election and is no longer president of the United States.

deserve more

Until that reality, however painful and provoking, is accepted it is impossible to make a plan for the future. Fighting the last losing war with the same strategy and tactics is never a good idea. The truth is, the Democrats were caught with their pants down in 2016, immediately vowed to never let it happen again, and then set about their four-year task of battlespace preparation. You can read all about how they did it in this by now-notorious piece in Time Magazine, which includes the following victory lap:

“There was a conspiracy unfolding behind the scenes …. They got states to change voting systems and laws and helped secure hundreds of millions in public and private funding. They fended off voter-suppression lawsuits, recruited armies of poll workers and got millions of people to vote by mail for the first time. They successfully pressured social media companies to take a harder line against disinformation and used data-driven strategies to fight viral smears.”

It is extremely painful and infuriating to read, but read it you must if anything is to be done.

By teaming up with the tech giants Twitter and Facebook, both of which eventually banned Trump in their effort to totally expunge him from public life, the Left controlled the public space, and with Google algorithmically consigning even the most respectable conservative sites to search-engine Outer Purdah, the war was lost.

And yes children, the GOP is beyond worthless in this pursuit, ergo, as Mr. Walsh points out:

Whoever may be the Alexander, the Hannibal, the Caesar of the right, this time he must come complete with his own Crassus, an ally or allies positively made of money and willing to spend all of it to finance information warfare  on a grand scale in order to preserve the Republic. Before we get to choosing the next champion, we first must discover the means behind him. Who will step up?

Who will be our Dark Knight?

PSX_20200518_080259-1

I have never wished more to be a gazillionaire…in order that I could step up to save America - the last, best hope for freedom on earth. So who will be our Dark Knight? What coalition of re-founding fathers will mutually pledge to each other their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor? Having no fortune I will pledge my life and sacred honor when such a man or men*** emerge.

why we fall

“I see a beautiful city and a brilliant people rising from this abyss. I see the lives for which I lay down my life, peaceful, useful, prosperous and happy. I see that I hold a sanctuary in their hearts, and in the hearts of their descendants, generations hence. It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known.” – Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities, as quoted by Jim Gordan in The Black Knight Rises

**This is the fourth article in a series, the previous articles may be read here, here, and here.

*** “man or men” in the generic sense – do you still remember the generic sense? When mankind referred to all humans, men, women, or any of the other 31 genders?

Tuesday, July 6, 2021

Get In Line

I missed Mutt Day due to the 4th of July part deux. To make up for that oversight I’ve decided to add another animal to the must-celebrate list; thus I hereby pronounce that Taco Tuesday shall henceforth serve as Chinchilla Day as well.

Since chinchillas are so darned cute it does beg the question:

Are chinchillas even real

“Are chinchillas even real?”

Technically yes, they are rodents native to the Andes mountains of South America. They appear to be a cross between a rat, ground squirrels and rabbits.

1920px-Chinchilla_lanigera_(Wroclaw_zoo)-2

They purportedly make good pets…but unfortunately like all cute things south of the border one must be vigilant as they can also be quite destructive if left to their own devices. Also, like all rodents, they can replicate surprisingly quickly -  to the point you might find yourself with more than you expected, or know what to do with.

Also, please note, they come in many different shades.

Four different chinchillas in different positions a blue box

But beware of the white ones – they’re privileged.

cute-baby-chinchillas-119-586cff70a4c5b__700

And likely to cause more trouble by virtue of this fact.

So if you must have a chinchilla, might I suggest a coat?

yves-salomon-grey-chinchilla-fur-coat-gray-product-2-540561682-normal

No, of course not; that would be offensive. And insensitive. Perhaps we should just leave the chinchillas to fend for themselves right where they are. Until such time as they are able to fill out an immigration form and get in line.

chinchilla lineup

Does that make me a privileged racist? (rhetorical)

Monday, July 5, 2021

Liberty: It’s A Bonus

Bonus: as my calendar indicates today is the “observed” 4th of July I guess it’s technically a holiday. So yay, again, America: long may you run.

flag2We’re going to need a lot bigger flag

It’s going to be in the low 90s here and the current humidity is 86% so I can tell you what’s going to be going on around here: nothing.

No holiday baking.

blueberry pie 1Not today, pie

No holiday cooking in anything other than the microwave – it’s even too hot to “man the grill” – a sexist term considered “triggering” in Leftist America today.

healthy lean t-bone steak grilling on a BBQUmmm! That’s a manly looking meal.

Fortunately I have leftovers from yesterday’s real 4th of July holiday: macaroni salad, baked beans and grilled hot dogs.

I don’t intend to spend anytime today catching up on the laundry, cleaning the floor…or anything. I’m on holiday! So I’m thinking root beer floats, a good book - the end.

root beer float

I’ll always be grateful for having been born in the greatest country on planet earth.

Screen Capture 1855

 

I can’t help but wonder though why “progressives” – so interested in the sustainability of everything else – are so unconcerned about the sustainability of our liberty.

So happy bonus holiday – Sustainable Liberty Day.

Sunday, July 4, 2021

Happy Birthday America!

Happy Birthday America!

declaration of independenceThe Declaration of Independence gave birth to the only country on earth founded on the twinned principles of individual freedom and limited government.

From that date forward “progressives” have attempted to flip the dynamic of limited government and individual freedom. They see our Constitution, in the words of Barack Hussein Obama, as “a charter of negative liberties” that is free to be changed to reflect what they believe is a better vision of governance – founding principles be hanged.

Certainly there are wrinkles and pitfalls with liberty, human nature being what it is. But they pale in comparison to the pitfalls associated with tyranny – just ask anyone who’s ever lived under it. Raised to understand and value the twin principles of America’s founding I cannot understand how anyone could, or would, so thoughtlessly throw them away as many are willingly doing today.

We find ourselves this July 4th, 2021, in a land of “woke” zombies seemingly content to sacrifice freedom and liberty for…serfdom. So, yes, I admit to longing for the nostalgic version of America where there were still some things that everyone agreed on and celebrated: freedom, liberty and justice in an unjust world.

500_puppylovepicttrrrrr

Somebody asked the other day if there ever were better times. I find it sad that we have to ask that; of course there were, despite problems. The real question is will there be better times ahead? I hope so, but it will require a great deal of work, and prayer.

I leave you with this reminder of what America and American Independence is about. It’s excerpted from Thomas Jefferson’s 1826 letter to Roger Chew Weightman on the 50th Anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

…our fellow citizens, after half a century of experience and prosperity, continue to approve the choice we made. May it be to the world, what I believe it will be, (to some parts sooner, to others later, but finally to all,) the Signal of arousing men to burst the chains, under which monkish ignorance and superstition had persuaded them to bind themselves, and to assume the blessings & security of self-government.

That form which we have substituted, restores the free right to the unbounded exercise of reason and freedom of opinion. All eyes are opened, or opening, to the rights of man. The general spread of the light of science has already laid open to every view.

The palpable truth, that the mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, by the grace of God. These are grounds of hope for others. For ourselves, let the annual return of this day forever refresh our recollections of these rights, and an undiminished devotion to them…

jefferson

 

Now get out there and enjoy the freedom of the Fourth of July with parades, barbeques, ice cream, sparklers and fireworks. Celebrate the birth of the greatest country on earth while we still have it.

 

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