Remember the FISA renewal vote?

You know, the one today?  Guess what?

It's actually got new stuff in it - and you are now required to spy for Uncle Sam.

Yes, you. But fear not, Citizen: NSA no doubt will be responsible in how they use this.

President's Day - Best and Worst Presidents

It's not a real President's birthday (Lincoln's was the 12th, Washington's is the 22nd), but everyone wants a day off, so sorry Abe and George, but we're taking it today.  But in the spirit intended for the holiday, let me offer up Borepatch's annual bestest and worstest lists for Presidents.

Top Five:

#5: Calvin Coolidge

Nothing To Report is a fine epitaph for a President, in this day of unbridled expansion of Leviathan.

#4. Thomas Jefferson.

Jefferson is perhaps the last (and first) President who exercised extra-Constitutional power in a manner that was unambiguously beneficial for the Republic (the Louisiana Purchase).  He repealed Adam's noxious Alien and Sedition Acts and pardoned those convicted under them.

#3. Grover Cleveland. 

He didn't like the pomp and circumstance of the office, and he hated the payoffs so common then and now.  He continually vetoed pork spending (including for veterans of the War Between the States), so much so that he was defeated for re-election, but unusually won a second term later.  This quote is priceless (would that Latter Day Presidents rise so high), on vetoing a farm relief bill: "Federal aid in such cases encourages the expectation of paternal care on the part of the Government and weakens the sturdiness of our national character."

#2. Ronald Reagan

He at least tried to slow down the growth of Leviathan, the first President to do so in over half a century (see entry #5, above).  He would have reduced it further, except that his opposition to the Soviet fascist state and determination to end it cost boatloads of cash.  It also caused outrage among the home grown fascists in the Media and Universities, but was wildly popular among the general population which was (and hopefully still remains) sane.

#1. George Washington

Could have been King.  Wasn't.  Q.E.D.

Bottom Five:

#5. John Adams.

There's no way to read the Alien and Sedition Acts as anything other than a blatant violation of the First Amendment.  It's a sad statement that the first violation of a Presidential Oath of Office was with President #2.

#4. Woodrow Wilson.

Not only did he revive the spirit of Adams' Sedition Acts, he caused a Presidential opponent to be imprisoned under the terms of his grotesque Sedition Act of 1918.  He was Progressivism incarnate: he lied us into war, he jailed the anti-war opposition, he instituted a draft, and he was entirely soft-headed when it came to foreign policy.  The fact that Progressives love him (and hate George W. Bush) says all you need to know about them.

#3 Lyndon Johnson.

An able legislator who was able to get bills passed without having any real idea what they would do once enacted, he is responsible for more Americans living in poverty and despair than any occupant of the White House, and that says a lot.

#2. Franklin Roosevelt.

America's Mussolini - ruling extra-Constitutionally fixing wages and prices, packing the Supreme Court, and transforming the country into a bunch of takers who would sell their votes for a trifle.  At least Mussolini met an honorable end.


#1. Abraham Lincoln.

There's no doubt that the Constitution never would have been ratified if the States hadn't thought they could leave if they needed to.  Lincoln saw to it that 10% of the military-age male population was killed or wounded preventing that in an extra-Constitutional debacle unequaled in the Republic's history.  Along the way, he suspended Habeas Corpus, instituted the first ever draft on these shores, and jailed political opponents as he saw fit.  Needless to say, Progressives adore him.

So happy President's Day.  Thankfully, the recent occupants of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue haven't gotten this bad.  Yet.

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.

Monoclonal antibodies - a report from the field

So our doctor said to go get them.  Actually, she was kind of lukewarm on the subject - our Internet digging said that they may or may not handle the new variant, but the test doesn't tell you what you have and the doc said that it wouldn't do any harm.  So off we went.

Remember last fall when President Biden cut off monoclonal antibodies to Florida?  This looks like one of the many shoot-from-the-hip and then backtrack policies from this Keystone Kops administration.  You can get them, although we had to drive a bit.  There's actually a pretty nice web page to find the location nearest to you.

And so off we went.  It was the better part of an hour drive which wasn't too bad.  This was a pop-up clinic in a community center.  There were a bunch of folks there as walk-ins; we were glad that we made reservations.

The procedure can be given two ways - an infusion (The Queen Of The World got this) or a set of four injections (I got these thinking it would be quicker - it was, but they keep you for an hour after the procedure "just in case" so it really wan't).  Then we drove back.

A couple hours later I started feeling worse - not a ton worse, but I had felt like I was on the mend before and then I didn't.  Even today it feels like I took a step backwards, although this is pretty impressionistic.  TQOTW doesn't seem to be much different.

So, did it do any good?  Beats me.  What I think I learned from this is that all the panic porn has an effect - I'm kind of glad that I took TQOTW because she wasn't doing great - but this is an emotional side of me that has been manipulated for two years.  The logical side of me thinks that maybe it didn't do anything.

Your mileage may vary, void where prohibited, do not remove tag on penalty of law.  Oh, and the Biden Administration can suck it.  Thanks for nothing, guys, you vindictive pricks.

UPDATE 25 JANUARY 2022 13:10:  Aaaaand they're gone.  The FDA removed the Emergency Use Authorization for monoclonal antibodies in Florida.  Looks like it's the only State subject to this restriction.  I'm glad we got ours last week.  Man, the Democrats suck.

Let's go, Brandon!

The Managerial Elite's funeral pyre

The Right Sort of people are losing their minds:

For me, at least, it’s hard to read any of the literature of [the 1920s and 1930s] without getting a potent sense of déjà vu. The same autumnal sense of an era past its pull date, the same spectacle of people and institutions going through motions that stopped functioning a long time ago, the same plaintive voices wondering why the world just doesn’t seem to make sense any more—it’s all present and accounted for, the familiar backdrop for the last few decades of public life in the United States and a good many other industrialized nations. The sole remaining questions are what combination of crises will topple the hapless ruling class from its position, and how soon that inevitable moment will arrive.

Yet admitting that the managerial class has turned out to be incompetent at running societies is unthinkable, to members of that class. It’s not just a matter of status panic, either. The entire collective identity of our managerial aristocracy is founded on the idea that they’re the experts, the smart kids, the people who really know what’s what. They justify their grip on the levels of collective power by insisting that they and they alone can lead the world to a sparkly new future. That’s the theme of the slogans under which they seized power, and it remains the core of their ideology and their identity: “We can make the world better!”

This is John Michael Greer, who used to blog as The Arch Druid.  He seems pretty optimistic that the wheels are finally coming off of the Managerial State and that this is probably a good thing:

For the last six years now, accordingly, the failures of the managerial class have become a massive political issue across much of the industrial world. Britain’s Brexit referendum and the 2016 US presidential election both marked important turning points in that process, as significant numbers of ordinary people decided that the experts didn’t know what they were talking about and refused to vote as they were told. The various tantrums thrown by pundits, politicians, and self-anointed influencers since that time haven’t accomplished much, aside from convincing even more people to ignore the increasingly shrill demands of a failing elite.

That’s sending waves of stark shuddering terror through the managerial aristocracy. If the deplorable masses stop bending the knee and tugging their forelocks whenever one of their self-proclaimed betters mouths a platitude, after all, how long will the authority of the managers last? That terror, in turn, gives rise to the displacement activities discussed above. Since it’s impossible for them to admit to themselves that they’ve failed, much less that everyone else is aware that they’ve failed, they find other things on which they can focus their feelings of panic. The Covid virus is one of those. It wasn’t the first and it doubtless won’t be the last, but it’s serving its purpose now, which is to allow members of the managerial class and its hangers-on in the media and the academy to distract themselves from the end of their era of power.

Peter thinks that they are trying to crash the airplane into a mountain - create enough starvation and impoverishment that a desperate population turns to them to fix the crisis they created.  I could see them try this; I don't think that the reaction will be what they think it will be.

The problem is that the only people who will trust them to "fix" their problem are the ones who already trust them.  That is a continually shrinking portion of the public despite the increasingly shrill social shaming that they are doing.  They are not convincing anyone and indeed are doing the opposite:

My liberal friends (and yes, I do have a few still, though most tossed me under the bus as soon as there was any societal pressure to do so) will constantly chide me about my words, or my attitude, and go tsk tsk, how rude! But then when people on their side go bat shit fucking insane, they sit there meekly and stand for nothing, because they know the beast they fed will just as easily turn and eat them too.

Besides, as soon as a democrat stands for principle outside of the narrative, they get tossed. Pick any of them in media, punditry, or academia. Any at all. Glenn Greenwald. Tim Pool. Jordan Peterson. Those were all mushy moderates, until they say hey wait, the left is going nuts, and boom, now the left thinks they are the second coming of Satan-Hitler. The party is currently enraged at Sinema and Manchin.

And I’m not alone in this. Most politically alert non-leftists will tell you the same thing. You belong to a cult which will not abide heresy. You want to show us that you aren’t all authoritarian statist trash, DO SOMETHING.

J.Kb has an outstanding example of their closed - and clueless - world view.  This is the Elite that will solve the Republic's problems?  As John Michael Greer points out, Tomorrowland has fallen.

This so-called "elite" knows nothing of history.  Basically every revolution in history was started by a starving underclass.  While I think that Peter is right that they could very well pitch this country into that sinkhole, they do not seem to realize that each of these revolutions was against the Powers That Be who were running things.  Just how they will harness all this underclass rage against The Man when they're him is beyond me.

They're desperate, and they're out of gas, and it sure doesn't look like their scheme to start revolution in the streets can do anything other than build their own funeral pyre, the Sardanapalus option:

“The Death of Sardanapalus” by Eugène Delacroix depicts the tale of Sardanapalus, a king of Assyria, who, according to an ancient story, exceeded all previous rulers in sloth and decadence.

He spent his whole life in self-indulgence, and when he wrote his epitaph, he stated that physical gratification is the only purpose of life.

His debauchery caused dissatisfaction within the Assyrian empire, allowing conspiracies against him to develop. Sardanapalus failed to defeat the rebels, and then enemies of the empire join the battle against him.

After Sardanapalus’ last defenses collapsed and to avoid falling into the hands of his enemies, Sardanapalus ordered an enormous funeral pyre.

On the funeral pyre were piled all his gold and valuables. He also ordered that his eunuchs and concubines be added to the fire, to burn them and himself to death.

Nobody did romantic doomed fate better than Byron and Delacroix.  Alas, I feat that Hollywood will not be up to this level of artistic achievement for what the "elites" are bringing down on their own heads.

The inevitability of failure is baked in to Progressive Government

Peter highlights how the "homeless crisis" is manufactured, and intended to be a permanent gravy train for the government officials tasked to "solve" the problem.  Well, yeah.  It's Rich People's Leftism:

Rich People's Leftism is one of the clearest explanations I've ever seen for the utter failure of government in Blue States:

With this new approach in mind, let me contrast Rich People’s Leftism (RPL) with Poor People’s Leftism (PPL).

RPL thinks that its goal is to help poor people, while PPL thinks that RPL’s primary goal is to ensure that wealthy leftists dominate and get great jobs.

You really should click through to read about Rich People's Leftism, which dates to 2010.  We've known about this for a long, long time.  A different view is "red pill/blue pill": 

... an old post from Isegoria (you do read him every day, don't you?) gives the best introduction to the topic, phrased in explicitly "Blue Pill"/"Red Pill" terminology:

The nature of the state

• The state is established by citizens to serve their needs. Its actions are generally righteous.
• The state is just another giant corporation. Its actions generally advance its own interests. Sometimes these interests coincide with ours, sometimes they don’t.

You should read Isegoria's post as well.  Then think about the proposed $3.5T spending bill that is before congress.  Who will it help?  Who are we told that is is going to help, but won't?  To ask the questions is to answer them.

If you are not entirely cynical about everything that the government does, you're really not paying attention.  Take the Red Pill.  Or swallow the Blue one; the circus is entertaining, and the bread is free.

Hey, Canadians are nicer than us Yanks, amirite?

Canadian town bans marriage between non-vacinated couples.

And a quick note for you hosers from the Great White North: before yammering on about how awful our (private) healthcare system is, please explain the following:

Charlie Gard

Alfie Evans

Oliver Cameron

Ashya King

Nota bene: these cases are from Britain, the Mother Country.  The Canadian health system (whatever it is called) is explicitly modeled on Britains National Health System (NHS) which has assumed almost cult-like status in Britain.

Britain.  You know: the land where Great Britain used to be.

So all you Canuk Hosers can just shut right up about how awesome your "Health Care" system is..  Yeah, ours may still be swirling the drain, but yours was flushed long ago.  After all, we are all still Citizens of the Republic (for now), but you are Subjects of the Crown.

Except for Glen Filthie.  He's reloading and sharpening bayonets.  Glen, come on down to Florida.  The air still smells of Freedom.

This post has the tag "Statist Pricks" because, well, you know.

Today's must-read post

It's over at Claire's:

Many histories of the Revolution, IIRC, trace a steady growth of resistance from the Stamp Act through the Townshend Acts through the Boston Massacre through the Boston Tea Party through the Intolerable Acts to Lexington and Concord and on to the Declaration of Independence. Maybe so, but Breen positions the Intolerable Acts as the straw that broke the proverbial camel’s back. What Britain accurately but inadequately called the Coercive Acts turned ordinary, respectable farmers, lawyers, craftsmen, and housewives from angry — but loyal! — British colonists into an outraged force of active, uncompromising, and sometimes ruthless American insurgents.

One thing that struck me as I read was that both sides labored under delusions in the months leading up to the passage of the Acts in the spring of 1774. After the Boston Tea Party on December 16, 1773, American colonists, especially in Massachusetts, held their breath. They knew punishment would come, but not what form it would take. Because most information about British politics arrived in the form of imported and re-posted newspaper articles, colonists believed the British people were sympathetic to their cause and therefore that punishment would be limited and probably focused only on the guilty. 

That was their delusion. Or one of them. They also held a long-cherished a belief that they were the legal, intellectual, and moral equal of any Englishmen, and that their fellow Englishmen saw them in the same light as they saw themselves.

They didn’t realize how implacably — if ineptly — British power brokers were against them. They didn’t realize that much of the English public, and especially the elite, looked down on them as being barely steps above the “savages” they lived among.

She then uses this history lesson to compare to today's Cold Civil War.  She lays out today's delusions that both sides suffer under.  Yes, it's long - almost Borepatchian in length.  But this is a very, very important post, and I cannot encourage you too strongly to go and read it all.  

Celebrating the Old Republic

A Cold Civil War is here, one that seems to be flipping over to a hot Civil War.  The artists of our time will record the passions of the day for future generations, just like artists in the past recorded theirs.  For us.  The resistance has, I think, shifted from mocking to angry.  Those who think that their vision is a one way ratchet should think on what happens when a bolt is over tightened, or a pressure vessel sealed with no pressure escape.  Those, too, are one-way ratchets.

For a while.

Up until now, I've kept some psychological distance.  Humor has helped here, as has the old standby that we're all Americans at the end of the day.  Far be it for me to question someone's patriotism - after all, we all have that same common heritage.

But I'm not so sure now.  What an ugly realization.

Some of these people are bound and determined to turn this Republic into something I won't recognize, and don't agree with.  Some of them tell me that if I argue with them I'm a hater, a racist, a fascist.

Screw that noise.  I remember the saying back in the early part of the last decade about the anti-war protesters: they're not anti-war, they're just on the other side.  That may have been a slander, but I wonder where they are today with the continuing (and vastly accelerated) war by drone, the continuation of Guantanamo, the expansion of same to include American citizens arrested on American soil.

I suspect that I know: they're on the other side.  They don't care about any of this, they care about their side in this Cold Civil War.  They care about ultimate victory for their philosophy.  They care about remaking this Republic into something I won't recognize.

OK, then.  The lines are drawn.  The game, afoot.  If that's how it will be - with a political class (all three branches of Government) in disrepute, with the People believing that the Ruling Class lacks the consent of the governed, then so be it.

The Cold Civil War is arrived.  If it is time to line up on one side or the other - to choose the ever tightening ratchet or to choose the sudden break of that philosophy - then that's worth knowing.  For me, and for my house, this decision is easy.

Personally, I'd like this day to be one where we celebrate our common heritage.  But we seem to disagree on fundamental principles of what that means.  Sadly, I do question their patriotism, because if they win this Cold Civil War, I will question my own patriotism to their stunted vision of the Republic.  I wish it were not so, but a man must recognize reality.  If that's how it must be, then OK.  So be it.  I choose.

Bid us and our posterity bow the knee, supplicate the friendship and plough, and sow, and reap, to glut the avarice of the men who have let loose on us the dogs of war to riot in our blood and hunt us from the face of the earth? If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude than the animated contest of freedom, go from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen!

- Samuel Adams

Me and my House, we will serve the Old Republic. 

I originally posted this 9 years ago, and it seems even worse today than it was then.  But enjoy your fireworks and cookouts.

Michael Bublé - I'll Be Home For Christmas

This was written in 1943, as we had 15 million men overseas staring down the Nazi and Japanese super races.  It's sadly newly fresh again, as Governors from sea to shining sea tell us not to go see our families for the Holidays - under threat of force of law.

 Somehow I suspect I know how those 15 million men would have taken the orders from Govs Cuomo, Newsom, and Whitmer ...

The real point of the Election Fraud

What is striking about the fraud is the blatant clumsiness on display: the Democrats aren't even trying to hide the fact that they are manufacturing ballots in industrial quantities.  This is really, really interesting, and suggests that their motive is not simply to install their preferred candidate in 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.  It suggests that the motivation is deeper, and darker.

Theodore Dalrymple studied Soviet era propaganda - the propaganda targeting not a western audience, but instead the populations of the Warsaw Pact.  He was struck by how crude it was:

In my study of communist societies, I came to the conclusion that the purpose of communist propaganda was not to persuade or convince, not to inform, but to humiliate; and therefore, the less it corresponded to reality the better. When people are forced to remain silent when they are being told the most obvious lies, or even worse when they are forced to repeat the lies themselves, they lose once and for all their sense of probity. To assent to obvious lies is in some small way to become evil oneself. One's standing to resist anything is thus eroded, and even destroyed. A society of emasculated liars is easy to control.

I think that this is what they're after - showing the country that they can steal an election and there's nothing that we can do about it.  It comes from the same source that causes cities to remove statues of George Washington.  It's showing who's up and who's down.

The crudeness of it all isn't a bug - it's the primary point to these people, who believe that they have a fundamental right to rule.

So farmers are too dumb to understand hi tech?

Michael Bloomberg says farmers don't have the "grey matter" that's needed to understand technology.  (Hat tip to commenter Libertyman via email for the link)

The Queen Of The World tells a story about a new sales rep being taken around his region by his sales manager.  They end up out in the sticks, and pull into a diner for lunch.  A bunch of farmers are at a nearby table, dressed in overalls and John Deere hats.

The new sales manager sniffs at the spectacle.  "Man, they they sure look like a bunch of dumb hicks," he said.

His boss smiles.  "You see that field across the road?"

The young guy says he does.  "How much fertilizer do you think that would need for a corn crop?"  The young man doesn't know.

"If you wanted to plant soybeans, how many plants per acre would give you the best yield?"  Again, the young man doesn't know.

"When should you plant to minimize the risk of late frost while maximizing the growing season?"  Again, nothing.

"Well, if you go over and ask those 'dumb hicks', every one of them can give you the answer."

And if you go to your local County Fair, you can see all the computer monitors in the tractors and combines.  Oh, and the latest GPS farming tech.  Just sayin'.

Little Mike showed once again that the intelligence of the political class can be pretty stupid.  The Re-Elect Trump 2020 Campaign thanks him for his support.

Education, n. That which discloses to the wise and disguises from the foolish their lack of understanding.

- Ambrose Bierce

Mitt Romney is a jerk

He says he'll vote to convict Trump.  What a small, petty man.

Of course, we've known he's like that for a long, long time.

Update from ASM826: I had to go back to my old blog to find it, but here's what I thought of Mittens in October of 2012.

If Romney Needs My Vote, He’s Screwed

I got slammed in the comments, told I couldn't be reasoned with. I still like this post, still think we were better off without him.

Why the Global Elite cannot provide good governance

Short answer: they don't want to.

What people generally want from their government is reliable services at not too high a tax burden, and to be left to live their lives in peace.  This is what has traditionally been considered to be "good governance".  History is filled with examples of failures to do this, either partial or complete.  A partial failure is fascist Italy in the 1930s.  Mussolini did make the trains run on time (and remember, this was the Italian railroad) so "reliable service" seems covered.  Unfortunately the Fascist Party wasn't very interested in that whole "be left to live their lives in peace" thing.

Complete failure of governance is on display today in Venezuela and other places.

So why do I claim that the Global Elite don't want to provide good governance?  We have data, and it's fresh.  The elites just gathered in Davos, Switzerland to discuss all things governance related.  The World Economic Forum published their annual Global Risks Report.  It's available at the link, but here is the distilled Likeliness vs. Impact chart:

They are telling us here that they are entirely uninterested in good governance.  Take a look at the unimportant stuff in the lower left hand quadrant (low likelihood/low impact).  It's here that we find things like:

• Financial failure
• Unemployment
• Critical Infrastructure Failure
• Fiscal Crisis
• Unmanageable Inflation
• Terrorist Attack

In short, that quadrant contains what everybody considers to be the proper scope of government.  Preventing these is pretty close to the definition of good governance.

Now look at the most important quadrant, the upper right (high Likelihood/High Impact).  Let me blow this up for you:

Governments have absolutely no control over most of these - extreme weather, natural disasters, etc.  And those here that governments do have some control over (water crisis and biodiversity loss) are actually excellent examples of how governance is failing today.  Example: California Governor Jerry Brown cancelled water projects in the 1970s and 80s that has led directly to the current California water crisis.  The recent mass brushfires in Australia are directly attributable to government policies that prohibited the clearing of dead brush "in the interest of promoting biodiversity".  No doubt the wallabies are thankful for these policies burning their habitat to cinders.

But consider what the items here do allow - you can vastly expand the reach and power of government with "Climate Action" policies.  Where is power, wealth will naturally follow.  A promise to control the weather (stopping extreme weather events) can justify more taxes, more regulations, and a clamp down on resistance to the above.  I mean, you don't want your protest to cause tornados, amirite?

What is on display here is the Global Elites walking away from any semblance of good governance, in favor of graft and corruption.  Now admittedly, good governance is hard, or more people would do it.   But an elite that so likes to preen about their moral superiority might scruple to hide the naked power grab better.

So why should the rest of us give these jokers the time of day?

Toe Jah

I toe jah so.  Here's the New York Times (the loonie lefty's "Newspaper Of Record"):

Alarming calls online for a race war. The arrest of three suspected neo-Nazis. Memories of the explosive clashes in Charlottesville, Va., three years ago. 

A sense of crisis enveloped the capital of Virginia on Thursday, with the police on heightened alert and Richmond bracing for possible violence ahead of a gun rally next week that is expected to draw white supremacists and other anti-government extremists. 

Members of numerous armed militias and white power proponents vowed to converge on the city despite the state of emergencydeclared by Gov. Ralph Northam, who temporarily banned weapons from the grounds of the State Capitol. The potential for an armed confrontation prompted fears of a rerun of the 2017 far-right rally that left one person dead and some two dozen injured in Charlottesville, about an hour’s drive from Monday’s rally.

Nice job, blowhards.  How long is it going to take the rest of us to dig ourselves out of this hole?  I can't wait to see your next genius move.

I got an interesting comment to one of yesterday's posts:

damn I thought you were one of us. 

Well, just which "us" are you talking about?  I see a bunch of different groups descending on Richmond next week:

Antifa.  As if.

White Supremacists.  Oh, hell no.

The "It's Boogaloo Time" types.  I posted about this ten years ago, and have had no reason to change my mind since.  As I said, I will not walk that road with you.  It doesn't lead to salvation and redemption, but to the abyss.

BUT MUH SECOND AMENDMENT types.  I'm actually sympathetic to this group, except they're being so damn stupid.  It's not your passion for your freedom I object to, it's your judgement.  Your despair at the situation is letting the Powers That Be play you like a fiddle.  If you're in this group you should read the link immediately above, particularly the part about despair.  Not only is despair a sin, but it makes you stupid.

What's funny is that Castle Borepatch is only a couple hours from Richmond.  I could go to this.  Not going to happen.  This has had Charlie Foxtrot written all over it for weeks but folks seem determined to push start the damn thing down the hill even though the steering and brakes are wonky.  I'm taking Remus' advice and staying away from crowds.

Because when the dust settles, the fight will go on.  We'll all be in a worse position because the New York Times will gleefully be painting us as Nazis and violent nuts, so thanks for that.  But the fight will go on.  Next time, hopefully we'll be smarter.  That sure as shootin' can't be very hard.

Remember, the first rule of Internet Security applies here, too: sometimes it's easier not to be stupid than it is to be smart.

Note: this isn't a post-mortem, it's a pre-mortem.  But next Monday's outcome is as scripted as a Kabuki play.

100 years ago

Prohibition became the law of the land.  That sure worked well, didn't it?  But the Black Market and gangster wars that it spawned led to the National Firearms Act of 1934.  They've been taking more slices from our cake ever since.

In other news of Statist Pricks that became famous today, we have the following:

In 27 B.C., Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus became - by an act of the Roman Senate - Caesar Augustus.  While it's probably not true that his great-grandson Caligula appointed his favorite race horse Incitatus to the Senate, he should have.  After all, the Divine Augustus was the poster child for Statist Pricks to this very day.

In 1547, Ivan the Terrible became the very first Czar of Muscovy.  Not to be confused with your current Czar of Muscovy who - while an Autocrat in the Old School - isn't a Statist Prick like Ivan.

In 1556 (things were busy back then), Philip II became King of Spain.  Philip was the King of the Spanish Armada, not to mention half of Europe.  Good Queen Bess fought the Statist Prick off.

In 1786, the State of Virginia enacted Thomas Jefferson's Statute of Religious Freedom, a very non-Statist-Prick statute.  Maybe the current Governor Blackface could learn a bit from this, amirite?

In 1920, the League Of Nations held it first meeting.  Because it was in Paris rather than in New York City, they could have a legal drink.

In 1969, Czech student Jan Palach burns himself to death to protest the Soviet occupation of Prague the previous year.  The Soviets were the biggest Statist Pricks since Caesar Augustus, even beating out Ivan the Terrible for biggest Statist Pricks, Russian division.

In 2020, the Impeachment Trial of Donal Trump opened.  The House Democrats have shown themselves to be the biggest set of Statist Pricks since at least the League of Nations.  They're certainly as effective.

Hat tip to The Queen Of The World who knew posting about Prohibition would make be a little ornery.

Virginia's Children's Crusade

Everyone has heard about the Great Crusade, preached by Pope Urban in 1095.  It had captured the Holy Land from the surprised saracen inhabitants and had set up crusader kingdoms there.  But it started going down hill pretty quickly, with Saladin re-taking Jerusalem in 1186. Christendom felt a sense of siege, and people wanted to do something about it.

Enter Nicholas of Cologne, a charismatic shepherd from Germany.  in 1212, he preached a "Children's Crusade" where God would cause the sea to part before them and muslims would peacefully convert to Christianity.  The chronicles say that thousands of young people followed him.  The sea didn't part before them, but many ships offered them passage.  Of course, it was passage to the slave markets of Tunisia.  None made it to the Holy Land.

It was a disaster, one bred of over confidence and a, well, childishness sense that the world was other than it actually was.

We're seeing a Children's Crusade in Virginia unfolding before our eyes.  The Virginia Citizen's Defense League is preaching that the sea of Antifa blocking their path will part by some sort of miracle, and that the Democratic state assembly will see the light and be peacefully converted to MUH SECOND AMENDMENT.  That really looks like the plan.

Instead, the world is the way that the world is, rather than the way that the VCDL would like it to be.  How much blood will be shed is unclear, as is how many agents provocateur will bring Nazi and Confederate flags.  The police may or may not herd the VCDL crowd through the Antifa throng as occurred in Charlottesville and at the Trump rally in Chicago.  The Media may not go out of their way to show them in the worst possible light, and might not broadcast this from coast to coast for days on end.

Maybe.  But the VCDL is putting a lot of trust in their opponents to act with restraint.  It's touching.  Kind of sweet, really.  Just like the Children's Crusade.

Of course, the rest of us will suffer collateral damage.  If it blows up like it looks like it will, other States will be emboldened to take similar draconian measures.  Trust in the Supreme Court seems equally child like - as the saying goes, the Supreme Court reads the election returns.  If the great undecided middle buys into the propaganda that will follow the Children's Crusade ("ZOMG!  Nazis and White Supremacists!") then gun rights will take a bullet in Maryland, the Northeast, Florida, and other places.

Thanks for thinking this through, guys.  Real mature of you.

And so it comes

The Virginia Legislature is a bunch of busy bees:

Senate Bill 35 will destroy Virginia’s firearm preemption laws by allowing localities to create new “gun-free zones” in and around public buildings and parks. Criminals will ignore these restrictions, leaving law-abiding citizens unable to defend themselves and their loved ones.

Senate Bill 69, commonly referred to as “one-gun-a-month,” would impose an arbitrary one gun limit on an individual’s right to lawfully purchase a handgun within 30 days.

Senate Bill 70 would ban many sales and transfers between private individuals without first paying fees and obtaining government permission. Firearm sales between friends, neighbors, or fellow hunters, would not be exempted. Transfers between family members are also likely to be banned based on the vague wording of the proposed legislation. This proposal would have no impact on crime and is completely unenforceable.

Senate Bill 240 looks to create so-called “Red Flag” gun confiscation orders. This bill will take your constitutionally-guaranteed rights and throw them out the window with insufficient due process in place.

It looks like they can't agree on wording for an Assault Rifle ban, but they're still working on it.

The Calm

It's the end of the year, and at least at Castle Borepatch it's very quiet and peaceful.  Calm.  Looking at the state of the Republic, perhaps it's the calm before the storm.

Democrats seem to be in a big hurry in the Old Dominion state.  Certainly the citizens of that state think so - almost 100 counties have declared themselves Second Amendment sanctuaries.  Senior Democrat politicians are openly musing about calling out the National Guard to confiscate firearms.  I guess we'll see just how serious they are.

Me, I think that the Re-Elect Trump 2020 campaign thanks them for their support.  This seems to be the fastest way on earth to turn a purple state red, if it doesn't start the Electric Boogaloo first.

Meanwhile, impeachment has turned out to be a big Nothingburger farce.  The Senate is waiting impatiently for the Articles of Impeachment, to see if they contain High Crimes and Misdemeanors.  We know what the Senate is ...

SENATE, n. A body of elderly gentlemen charged with high duties and misdemeanors.

- Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary

But for now, everything is calm.  Except for the polls, where Trump seems to be surging against each Democratic challenger.  Given what the Democrats have done up until now (when they thought they could bump Trump off the perch) it will be interesting to see what they do around March or so when their front runner begins to emerge and everyone begins to realize that Trump is going to roll to a 35 state landslide.  That will be a new situation for the Republic - an impeached President winning big in the next election.

We've been told for 3 years now that Trump is destroying the norms of our civilized political institutions, but strangely it's the Progressives who just can't seem to accept the results of elections.  It's the Progressives that are forcing unpopular laws on large minority populations (Republicans are a minority in Virginia, for example, but they are 49% of the electorate).  The population is seeing the imposition of unpopular ideas by Democrats who have a thin majority: impeachment, gun confiscation in Virginia, Bake That Cake, men in women's rest rooms, the corruption of the FBI.

But for the moment, it's delightfully calm, at least here at Castle Borepatch.  The Queen Of The World and I are going for long walks with Wolfgang - after all, he has new frisbees to break in.  It's nice.  Peaceful.

And unlikely to last.

Tab clearing

Lots going on and so I don't have time to flesh these out much, but still worth your time:

German farmers block roads in Germany protesting environmental laws.

Everywhere it seems that the public is rebelling against the Greens, who seemingly cannot regulate their demands to the "moderately sane" level and appear determined to ruin everyone's lives.  Protests in Chile and in the UK and The Netherlands are really an inversion of 1970s and 1980s radicalism - now it's the "revolutionaries" that have triggered mass, spontaneous protests.  File this under "Environmentalists are stupid and everyone hates them now."

Hilarious retro computer goofs.

A simple typing mistake led to an IBM S/370 mainframe getting wiped out, and IBM coding a check to prevent this from happening again.  That story reminded me of how Back In The Day we took our security scanner to a Big Government Agency to test it.  The scanner excelled at guessing usernames and passwords (this was back in the day before the operating system stopped you from trying eleventy million passwords).  There was a big row of Unix servers in the data center; some Einstein had wanted to be able to remotely shut them down without having to walk all the way to the room and so had set up accounts with a username of "SHUTDOWN" a password of "SHUTDOWN" and which executed the login shell /sbin/shutdown.  As the consoles all started flashing the message "THE SYSTEM IS GOING DOWN IMMEDIATELY", one after another, the wide-eyed Admin said something along the lines of "Make it stop! Make it stop!"  Good times, good times.

It's been ten years since ClimateGate and climate science is worse now than it was then:

Scientists on the ‘warm’ side of the spectrum think that IPCC is old hat and too conservative/cautious (see esp Naomi Oreskes’ new book); in short, insufficiently alarming.  The ‘alarmed’ scientists are focused on attributing extreme weather to AGW (heeding Steve Schneider’s ‘wisdom’), and also in generating implausible scenarios of huge amounts of sea level rise. As a result, consensus of the 97% is less frequently invoked.

Such alarmism by the climate scientists has spawned doomsterism, to the dismay of these same climate scientists – things are so bad that we are all doomed, so why should we bother.

This is kind of depressing and is really a eulogy for Science in today's society.

Today is the 154th anniversary of Lincoln's Gettysburg Address.  I covered that here.  Propaganda isn't just a recent phenomenon.  It was par for the course with "Honest Abe", which is why he is undoubtably the worst President in this Republic's history.  Of course, the history of that war as it's taught today is retarded.

And after all this (mostly) bad news, here's a palate sweetener courtesy of Gorges: