Quote of the Day - Cancer edition

This week's ordeals made me think of a Churchill quote - unexpectedly a quote about Sir Winston, rather than by him.  His great bete noir in Parliament was Lady Nancy Astor of the Unionist Party (Churchill led the Tory Party).  Probably the most famous Nancy Astor story is the one where, after a particularly contentious Parliamentary debate she remarked "Winston, if you were my husband I would poison your coffee" and he replied "Nancy, if you were my wife I would drink it with pleasure."  Good times, good times.

But that's not the quote, although it does come from Lady Nancy.  Churchill developed a tumor, and it was removed.  Naturally, this was front page news throughout the realm.  A week or two later, the news reported that the tumor was benign.

At this, Lady Nancy remarked that "They seem to have removed the only non-malignant part of Winston".

UPDATE 25 JUNE 2024 14:27: Dwight has more Churchill here.  Funny and interesting at the same time.

Quote of the Day

Comrade Misfit looks at Dodge's plans to equip the new Challenger with a 3L six and brings a perfect analogy:

Only those CPAs and MBAs running things could take a six-cylinder car and. by having the engineers slap on turbochargers, claim to make it a muscle car. It's about as legit a muscle car as Mark McGwire and Barry Bonds were legitimate home-run kings. 

Yup.

 

Quote of the Day - AI edition

HMS Defiant brings a terrific suggestion:

In a somewhat saner world, I wonder what would happen to any given nascent AI after exposing it to the canon of English. It could start with every volume of The Harvard Classics, swallow the complete Encyclopedia Britannica and for an encore, learn French, Japanese, Spanish and Chinese and swallow the entire compendium of their literature for the last 1000 years. Then it gets everything written by Shakespeare for dessert. I wonder what that model would come up with. I bet it would be profoundly different from any model that got 100% of the ravings of twitter and reddit which seems to be what google was striving for with its useless clunker.

Endorsed.

Quote of the day - Government mandated electric cars edition

Johnathan Pearce hits the nail on the head:

In my view, the idea of making people rely on electric vehicles (EVs) and then curbing how much power they have, is a design feature, not a bug. Those of a Big Government cast of mind (most politicians) might rather like the idea of fitting “kill switches” into EVs so that a bureaucrat can disable them. By making cars costly and annoying, it also forces people to use public transport.

To dismiss the California ban on internal combustion cars as mere incompetence misses the depth of the fascist evil on display.  They want to own everybody in California, and make them submit to their will.  They simply hate freedom, and that's what cars mean.  It's what California used to mean.

Quote of the Day: Surf Rock edition

QOTD goes to commenter Matthew W in yesterday's post about The Ventures playing with their original drummer who had become a four star general in the intervening 4 decades.  His comment:

I like to tell people that I'm the lead singer in a Ventures tribute band...............

 Matt, The Internets you just won can be picked up at the Castle Borepatch drawbridge.  Use the usual password.

Quote of the Day - Combat Mindset edition

Bitter Centurion posts about the Combat Mindset, amplifying my thoughts on the matter and getting QotD: 

Because at the end of the day, it's all well and good to have the gun on you. It's even better to get the trigger time and put lead down range and be able to hit gongs on demand with razor sharp speed and accuracy. But if you don't have your mind right when it's time to slay the dragon, that gun is nothing more than extra weight on your belt that doesn't do you or anyone else any good.

You really should read his entire post which has a lot of practical experience.  And you should read the comments which are a good - if dismaying - view into the Reindeer Games being played with police forces by Woke politicians.

In praise of Mitch McConnell

No, really.

Long time readers will know that I don't have much use for Mitch.  But it is unlikely that today's gun control win - one that drives a stake in "May Issue" licensing - would have happened if he hadn't put Merick Garland's SCOTUS nomination on hold in 2015.  Today's 6-3 majority would have at a minimum been 5-4, and the case very well might never have made it to SCOTUS because the justices can also count votes.  This might not have been seen by the conservatives on the court as the hill to die on.

Yes, the GOP turn coats will see a new gun control bill passed, thanks to Mitch.  But today is without a doubt two steps forward, one step back.

Astute readers will see this as forward progress. 

UPDATE 23 JUNE 2022 14:25:  David Koppel thinks this ruling is a big deal, and doesn't seem very worried about the new gun control bill.  I hope he's right.  Clayton Cramer looks into his crystal ball and predicts how the new bill will play out.  I expect a lot of litigation on the vague parts, and suspect that Congress knows that most of this will be struck down but wants to be seen as "doing something".  Whatevs.

And quote of the day goes to Sebastian:

Long term it’s probably best not to rely on the Courts for protection. Just ask Planned Parenthood how well that’s working out for them. But we can use these reprieves to help repair the gun culture in these jurisdictions if the restrictions lighten things up a little. This is not over. There will never be a death blow to the desire of the nobility to control the serfs. Nonetheless we should use the circumstances presented to us for maximal advantage.

UPDATE 23 JUNE 2022 15:24: I haven't been feeling well, but that's no excuse for not pointing out that the hat tip to the article came in from Dwight via email. He's your go-to guy for obituaries and it sounds like more than a couple of The Usual Suspects will have aneurysms from this.

UPDATE 23 JUNE 2022 16:52: Carl Bussjaeger has a long post analyzing why this is likely a much bigger win for our community than many realize.  He seems to think that this may gut (or at least hobble) "Red Flag" laws.

Quote of the Day - Boogaloo Edition

Your humble host and The Queen Of The World were discussing the "Father's Day Ammo Sales" that are floating around (to her in-box).  It sort of went like this:

Me: I just got a bunch of .380.  Why do we need more?

The Queen Of The World: We need to order a thousand rounds because when the Boogaloo hits, we'll need it!

She's right, you know.  And she is the wind beneath my wings.  Of course, this isn't the first time we've had this discussion ....

Quote of the Day: Eye of Sauron edition

Tacitus muses on the algorithms that Google uses for suggesting new Youtube videos.  Unlike all the breathless stories about how "the AI is alive", he's not impressed.  He thinks he does a fair job of intentionally confusing the algorithms:

Back in the early days of the internet I used to salt my profiles with various fake information just to see if I would get ads in Portuguese, spam email from tailors in Denmark, stuff related to Icelandic scrimshaw art. The only entry on the above list that might still be carrying over would be the Bossa Nova music! I of course have all "notifications" turned to the OFF setting but another account in the household did not. Maybe that's where gardening came from.

But it seems to not matter. My efforts to punk the algorithms seem unnecessary, they autopunk themselves.

Quote Of The Day: the fish rots from the head edition

Larry Lambert brings it:

Imagine that you are in a trench somewhere, waiting for your commander-in-chief, creepy Joe Brandon to order you over the top into wire, pre-sighted artillery, land mines, and enemy machineguns for the glory of the regime

And then ask yourself why the US military is falling way short on enlistment quotas.

It’s not just the tranny thing or the “let’s all be queer” mantras that the generals and admirals chant.

It's an interesting post with a lot more, including Alexander the Great.  Joe Biden is no Alexander the Great.

Quote of the Day, American Civil War 2 edition

I think this from Divemedic makes a lot of sense:

Let the court decide that Americans actually have gun rights, let them actually decide that women don’t have a Constitutional right to kill their children, then follow that with their inability to pack SCOTUS to change it, and you will see a left that becomes insanely violent. Remember how they scream like petulant children when Trump defeated HRC? Remember that it was then that the left began systematically trying to destroy Trump by using the power of the swamp?

I used to think that CW2 would be triggered when the left pushed the right too far. I feel that I may have been wrong. It will be the left that kicks off CW2, and SCOTUS just might be the catalyst.

It will be interesting to see how the Democratic Party handles the Lefty Rage this summer.  It will no doubt poll very badly for them, and add to the many issues polling badly for them.  How they act will tell us much about how they view the November elections.  A "we don't care about the polls" attitude will strongly suggest a "we don't care how you vote because we're going to cheat like nobody's business" attitude.

And honorable mention to Toastrider in the comments over at that post:

My sole response to the left’s rhetoric:

“Say when.”

Yup.

 

Quote Of The Day - Queen Of The World snark edition

Do you think it's a coincidence that the Minnesota State bird is a loon?  Asking for a friend.

She's right, you know.  Even if Governor Jesse "The Body" Ventura could not be reached for comment.

Quote of the Day, Online Voting snark edition

This one is a joint effort by Aesop and your humble host, commenting on my post Online Voting is A Persistently Bad Idea: 

Aesop: Like people haven't already absorbed the lesson of what happens when you order a president online?

Borepatch: You get one from China. 

 I'm here all week.  Try the veal.

Quote of the Day - Conspiracy Theories edition

Francis Porretto thinks that we are entering the Golden Age of conspiracy theories and that it's all the Media's fault:

Now, whatever the truth of the matter – and it may be quite a long time before we have it, if we ever do – the proliferation of wild theories is a direct consequence of the loss of trust in the major media. The dynamic is fairly straightforward:

• The organs of information have proved themselves un-trustworthy, and the fora for discussion arbitrarily silence persons who deviate from the “official truth.”
• Thereafter, conversation will admit any and every thesis that might explain why we’re being force-fed a steady diet of lies.
• Since there are innumerable possible explanations for such a thing, they will multiply and proliferate without limit.
• The “zero plausibility threshold” was set by the major media, which have demonstrated indifference to the truth.

     Perhaps this would be beyond the comprehension of a small child. However, I’d expect a teenager to get it without a beat. Look at how much crap the “authorities” in their lives feed them.

I think he's right.  When all the media's legitimacy got sucked out of the room, something was going to fill the vacuum.  I guess we're seeing what that is.

Quote of the Day: Domestic Terrorist edition

This sounds about right:

The dissident right is made up of fringe dwellers, non-conformists, conspiracy theorists and just plain weirdos. We’re used to copping flack from the enemy; we have thick skins. But those being labeled today as domestic terrorists are normies. Mums and dads, regular people who go to the game and like a beer or three, hell, even Boomers, (God help us). They’re copping the domestic terrorist rap and they’re confused. They think that in the eyes of the law that they’re good people. They’re not like those fringe dwelling crackpots on the far right. They’re regular people who are just concerned at the way their country is going.

And they are the ones being accused of being domestic terrorists; not us. Nobody has accused me of being a domestic terrorist and I’ve been poking the bear for years now. But stand up and accuse your school board of being Marxist thugs and the government swoops in faster than pigeons on newly arrived tourists exiting a coach. It’s a bit humbling; they’re not really worried about us, they know who and what we are. It’s the normies waking up that really has them worried. Cause there are a lot more normies out there than us fringe dwellers.

Quote of the Day - Everything They Have Told You Is A Lie edition

This post by Adam Piggott is simply unimprovable.  RTWT, but this is a taste:

And really, they’re just profiting off modern man’s shallow desire to live just one more day no matter what the cost. That’s why they’re trying to jab 12 year olds with this toxic crap so the old fucks can live just one more day, it’s all I’ve got, hey, did you see my boat and my Porsche and the ski lodge?

Everything they have told you is a lie. Don’t take their pills, don’t take their jabs, don’t follow their dietary recommendations, don’t do their exercise routines, don’t take 0.7 glasses of wine per day while you have your 1.2 kids, don’t listen to their music recommendations, or their reading material, or watch their evil films, don’t do any of it. Don’t be a boring shitless bastard that does just what he’s told and then has the sheer stupidity to try and lecture those of us who haven’t fallen for the crap and are trying with some very small success to wake you all the fuck up.

Awesome. 

Quote of the Day - The Collapse of the Elite edition

The first 8 months of this year has well and truly shown that the technocratic elite are well and truly out of gas: 

The managerial class increasingly appears as a sort of funhouse mirror inversion of the doomed russian nobility of the late tsarist era; they no longer know how to run a country and only seem to parasitize on the body politic while giving almost nothing of value in return. In tsarist Russia, the nobility proved increasingly incapable of winning Russia’s wars or running its ministries, making their legitimating narratives proclaiming them to possess some natural-born right and capacity for rulership increasingly impossible to believe in. In modern America, it is the meritocrats who now openly lack any merit or ability to rule, quickly undermining the ability of the average person to believe in the very foundational claims behind the managerial order. And by what right does the collective of non-divine kings rule? To borrow from Schmitt: by the same right as the collective of stupid and ignorant technocrats. In other words, by virtue of simply not having been replaced yet. Nothing more.

I find it very likely that most future historians will put the date of the real beginning of the collapse of the current political and geopolitical order right here, right now, at the US withdrawal from Afghanistan.

This is an exceptionally insightful post, and I strongly encourage you to go read the whole thing.  Found via the Arch Druid, who has some similar thinking that is also worth your time.

Quote of the Day: Peak Western Civ edition

Aesop's post on the anniversary of the Moon Landing is a must read on many levels.  This part jumped out at me, as he remembers the even as he experienced it as a kid:

But on the day, that summer Sunday afternoon in 1969, when Armstrong stepped out the door to rendezvous with destiny, there wasn't one single car on the streets, anywhere. I was there, and I went outside, and I saw it with my own eyes, kids, from a house just up the street from where Rocketdyne made the Saturn V engines that took us there, again and again.
Nothing outside moving, anywhere. Not. One. Single. Person.

Every single human on the planet with access to one was huddled in front of black-and-white or color TVs, back when TV had those choices, and each holding their breath waiting for the moment that the cream of 1969 video technology broadcast the shadowy moment to the waiting world.

It made me remember huddling around a TV with family and friends, back in 1969.  Dad wasn't there - he was in Paris researching a book in the French national archives.  He said that the State Department set up an enormous screen in the Place de la Concorde where they projected the landing live (at Oh-My-God-30 in the morning, Paris time).  The place was packed, and he said that as an American, his money was no good in Paris that evening.  France and America have always had a complicated relationship, but not that day.

Go read Aesop's post.  You're welcome.

Quote of the Day: We're done with your nonsense edition

OldNFO wins the Internets with this:

I never cared about your political affiliation, until you started to condemn me for mine.

I never cared where you were from in this great Republic, until you began condemning people based on where they were born and the history that makes them who they are.

I have never cared if you were well off or poor, because I’ve been both, until you started calling me names for working hard and bettering myself.

I’ve never cared if your beliefs are different than mine – until you said my beliefs are wrong.

I’ve never cared if you don’t like guns, until you tried to take my guns away.

I’ve never cared about race matters, until you called be a racist for being white.

But, now I care.

 There's more.

Quote of the Day: Politicians and fowling pieces edition

 Dick Cheney, take your daughter hunting.

Snerk.