Southwest Florida Blogshoot - call for final nose count

The (first) Southwest Florida Blogshoot (catered by The Queen Of The World) is hard up upon us, and it looks like we will have enough people that I might be able to reserve the 200 yard private rifle and pistol range at the gun club.  I need to call them to reserve it on Thursday, so I need a final nose count from everyone.

What I need from you: Leave a comment saying that (a) you are coming and (b) the total number coming with you (some of you have said that you were going to bring your better half or a friend).

This is the Venue:

When: Saturday, November 14 at 12:30 PM

Where: Manatee Gun and Archery Club, 1805 Logue Rd, Myakka City, FL 34251

The Cost: The range will charge $20 for a half day's shooting on the public range, but it will be $15 for the private range if we get 15 people (and thus the request for the nose count).  The public ranges have 100, 200, and 300 yard ranges, plus a 25 yard pistol range.  The private range has 25 to 200 yard rifle/pistol lanes.  All Ranges are covered, but it looks like Tropical Storm Eta might (hopefully) be gone by then.  Please check the gun club web site for range rules - footwear, eye and ear protection, (for the ladies) nothing low cut, etc.*

The Queen Of The World is planning to bring lunch.  Charlie Foxtrot, thanks for the offer of the crock pot of beans, but I don't think that there's electricity.  In any case, The Queen Of The World is a Force of Nature when she is planning an event, and she is planning this is full force.  

The following people have said they are coming:

MiguelGFZ

Derek Ward

Ratus

Big Country Expat 

Dixie Dennis

David L

Kevin Creighton (Ammoman)

Frederick

Divemedic

BigCountryExpat

Charlie Foxtrot

Please confirm with a headcount and I will reserve the range. 

* Unless you plan on dong the Hot Brass Dance, of course.

Trump's plan to win?

 This is really interesting.  Don Surber speculates on what may be Trump's game plan:

1. Sue in States where there is clear fraud.  Ask the Supreme Court to invalidate that States electoral votes.

2. Without Pennsylvania and Michigan (invalidated by SCOTUS), Biden cannot get 270 Electoral Votes, so there is no winner.

3. Per the US Constitution, the House of Representatives votes to determine the winner.  Now this would seem to be an advantage for Biden since the Democrats have a majority in the House, but the Constitution specifies how the voting takes place: each State gets ONE vote.

4. Trump looks like he has a majority of States, and so he would be declared the victor.

It's VERY interesting.  Recommended.

About that vote counting software "glitch"

The Silicon Graybeard casts his experienced eye on the software "glitch" that counted Trump votes for Biden in Michigan.  Go, read.

Reminder: Southwest Florida Blogshoot - November 14

When: Saturday, November 14 at 12:30 PM

Where: Manatee Gun and Archery Club, Myakka City, FL

The date is far enough out to give folks tie to plan.  It also will be after the election and whatever post-election excitement we see (hopefully) but before Thanksgiving gets too close.

The range will charge $20 for a half day's shooting.  There are 100, 200, and 300 yard ranges, plus a 25 yard pistol range.  The Queen Of The World is planning to make some sandwiches.  If we get enough people (15) then we can reserve a private range at the club which has 25 - 200 yard ranges.

Leave a comment if you want to come.  TQOTW and some of her girlfriends are planning on coming, so bring your better half.

The following people have said they are coming:

MiguelGFZ

Derek Ward

Ratus

Big Country Expat

The following are maybes (would love it if you could confirm in the comments):

West, By God

Mr. Garibaldi

Tom Lindsay

Frederick

Great Scott

Sean Sorrentino

Divemedic

David L

James

Unidentified Victim

Patrick

If you're not on either of these lists but want to come, please leave a comment.

Tsgt Joe says he will be here January - March, so I'll organize another blogshoot in February.

Hank William Sr - Your Cheatin' Heart

So there was an election with cheating that they didn't even try to hide.  Okay, then.  There's a country music song for that.

This was Hank, Sr.'s last recorded song, and it became his biggest hit.  We wrote it while driving in the car with his fiancee, dictating it in just a few minutes.  Like the ballots in Philadelphia, it was manufactured in a hurry.  Unlike the ballots in Philadelphia it's loved across the country.

Everybody take a deep breath

 Wait 2 days.  Yes, emotions are running high.  But:

• Despite what the idiot lefties say, Donald Trump is the smartest guy in the room.  He has a long record of figuring out how to win - especially in situations where the old Republicans (*cough*Mitt Romney*cough*) would give up.  Trump is no quitter.
• The Democrats telegraphed their plans, with the "Election Integrity Project".  Without doubt Trump has factored this into his plans, targeting the weaknesses in the Democrat's plans.
• The Democrats haven't tried to finesse the cheating.  Without doubt Trump's plans will highlight this in various courts of law up to the Supremes.
• The Democrats have spent months trying to demoralize us.  This is just ploy #423 in that playbook.  The others didn't work;don't let this work.

Patience.  We've waited decades for someone like Trump; we can wait a couple more days to see him start to crush his opponents.  Do not discount Donald Trump - that's what his enemies do.

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.

The Counter-Revolution

What is most amusing about lefty intellectuals is the conceits they give themselves.  Typically they see themselves as avant guarde revolutionary leaders.  What they really are - at least in this day - are counter revolutionaries.  They're agents of Reaction, and these intellectuals would recognize the scorn that term implies.

The Revolution was Trump, a revolution against an  intrenched bureaucracy that was actively hostile to half the country.  We see the counter revolution in action in this election.  Rather than "count every vote" like they piously claim, the reality is that many states were called for Biden with a million votes left to count.  It's all smoke and mirrors.  The only saving grace for the left is that this is exactly what they promised they would do.

There is a refreshing clarity to politics now.  There is no common ground, no shared norms other than getting and keeping power.  Man, the Democrats are really going to hate it when their rules are applied to them.

For now, all is confusion.  Peter has an excellent analysis, and his conclusion is under stated but spot on:

Folks, it's a very uncertain time for all of us. Let's not lose too much sleep over it. Sooner or later, we'll know for sure who's won and who's lost. Until then, let's do our best to keep the peace, and exercise our democratic right to be watchful as the votes are counted.

And remember what's been done, and by whom.  From now on the only response to their "have you no shame" comments is rolling our eyes.  

The election is beyond the margin of fraud

Two and a half months ago I forecast a Trump landslide victory, 354 electoral votes to Biden's 184.  I lay out why for those of you who are interested.  I don't see a reason to change this prediction.

Sure, the Democrats will cheat. I don't think they can cheat this enough to change the result.  Certainly Pennsylvania is at risk for industrial scale cheating; maybe North Carolina as well.  But enthusiasm among Republicans is off the charts, so the amount of cheating that will be needed is higher.  Also, the "shy Trump" voter syndrome is real - people have been not just verbally abused but attacked and killed for being Trump supporters; no wonder some won't talk to pollsters, family and friends about their preferences.

That also increases the amount of cheating the Democrats will have to do.  I think that number is just too high for the Democrats to pull this off.  What they will do is expose industrial scale levels of cheating.  That will solidify voters' views of the Democratic Party for 2024 - it will be a bad moon rising for that election, too.

Frankiskos Leontaritis - Kyrie

 A lot of people are worried about the election.  They shouldn't be.  Donald Trump will easily win, and why I haven't bothered to think much about the Senate and House races, he will have coattails as Republican turnout breaks records.  So if you want Trump to win, relax - it's in the bag.  If you want Trump to lose, relax - it's coming, and even an Act Of God wouldn't stop it.

So here's some relaxing music.  Frankiskos Leontaritis was born this day in 1518 on the island of Crete.  Recently part of the Byzantine Roman Empire, it had been taken over by Venice.  Leontaritis had many connections in Venice, and ended up moving there, and later to Rome, where he was known as "Il Greco" (The Greek) - not to be confused with the Spanish painter of the same era, El Greco ("The Greek") who as it turns out was from the same city (Heraklion/Candia) in Crete.

He composed many masses and other choral works, and is considered the father of Greek classical music.  It is very relaxing, so enjoy.

Johnny Rivers - Secret Agent Man

Sean Connery is dead at 90.  He defined movie cool in the 1960s, and made the James Bond franchise into a huge success.  That franchise inspired a million copy cats including a British TV spy series called Danger Man.  CBS bought the US rights to the show which they were going to air as Secret Agent.  The opening riff is one of the most recognizable in music, and the lyrics included a salute to Connery as Bond: they're giving you a number and taking away you name.

"Iconic" doesn't begin to cover this.

Secret Agent Man (Songwriters: P.F. Sloan, Steve Barri)

There's a man who lives a life of danger
To everyone he meets, he stays a stranger
With every move he makes another chance he takes
Odds are he won't live to see tomorrow

Secret agent man, secret agent man
They've given you a number and taken away your name

Beware of pretty faces that you find
A pretty face can hide an evil mind
Oh, be careful what you say or you'll give yourself away
Odds are you won't live to see tomorrow

Secret agent man, secret agent man
They've given you a number and taken away your name

Secret agent man, secret agent man
They've given you a number and taken away your name

Swinging on the Riviera one day
And then layin' in the Bombay alley next day
Oh, no you let the wrong word slip while kissing persuasive lips
The odds are you won't live to see tomorrow

Secret agent man, secret agent man
They've given you a number and taken away your name
Secret agent man

But Connery was much more than just James Bond, and went on to many outstanding performances.  I particularly liked him in The Wind And The Lion:

I find it charming that, while married twice, he is survived by his wife of 45 years.  I wonder what she thought in 1999 (at their 24th anniversary) when People Magazine designated him the Sexiest Man of the Century.

Rest in Peace, Sir Sean (knighted in 2000).  Thanks for the grace, and style.  They broke the mold when you were born.

Relax. Ignore the polls

 It's time to relax for the weekend.  The Trumpslide approacheth, despite what you hear from the polls.  I was going to write about why the polls are jacked up (again) but Don Surber beat me to it.  I really don't have anything to add to his excellent analysis.

So relax.  Trust your lyin' eyes.  You see it spreading out before you, pretty much everywhere you look.

I wouldn't want to be at the FBI right now

Tucker Carlson's team had some documents that they were going to use in a story.  The documents went missing in transit - the package was opened and emptied.

Of course, Carlson's team has copies.

From a news perspective, this has been a big win for Carlson.  The original story was about Hunter Biden and the corruption in the Biden family.  That specific story would have died down in a day or two - after all (as the old saying goes) it's called a "Newspaper", not an "Oldspaper".

Now the story has longer legs.  It's now about the Deep State covering for one of its own.  It's about how the Fed.Gov has much deeper tentacles into American society than people thought.  It's about how the Patriot Act has been weaponized by the intelligence agencies against their domestic political opposition.  That's a big story, that will last at least a couple days.

And tomorrow when this enhanced story starts to die down we can expect the original documents to drop.  Now they will have extra credibility - I mean, somebody who is somebody tried to suppress them.  Now the story shifts back to Biden family corruption, with evidence that is stronger than it would have been without the document interception.  PLUS, the weaponization of the PATRIOT act will still be there.

The Sunday morning Talking Head shows will be LIT, or the story will be that the news media simply won't give their viewers any news.  There is no truth in Pravda, and no news in Isvestia.

And the election will follow two days later.  Interesting times.  When Trump wins re-election, I expect people will go to jail over this.  As they should.

Voting saved by paper backup

 Hackers install ransomeware on voter registration database; officials use registration cards to validate signatures:

The Oct. 7 attack on Hall County, in the northern part of the state, hit critical systems and interrupted phone services, the county said in a statement posted on its website. County spokeswoman Katie Crumley did not return multiple requests for comment from The Associated Press.

But according to a report in the Gainesville Times, the attack also disabled the county’s voter signature database. Crumley was also quoted in an online CNN story saying that the attack affected both the signature database and a voting precinct map.

Ransomware scrambles affected computer networks with encryption that can only be unlocked with keys provided once the victim has paid up. Deloitte analyst Srini Subramanian said ransoms local governments pay in such cases average about $400,000.

An update Thursday evening on the county website said “the voting process for citizens has not been impacted by the attack.” However, a county official quoted by the Times said signature verification was slowed because employees had to manually pull hard copies of voter registration cards in many cases.

Paper backups for the win.  There's a lesson here for electronic voting.

Good summary of why Trump is increasing his lead over Biden

The Czar of Muscovy has a typically insightful analysis of last week's debate, and particularly of Joe's comment that he would kill the oil industry.  Many people have pointed out that this will cost Biden Pennsylvania (at least), but the Czar says it goes much deeper and highlights why Joe is such a terrible candidate:

He announced that he would seek to end the oil industry. Trump wheeled around and asked him to repeat that. Biden did, and announced he would—as president—end America’s use of fossil fuels. Trump was handed gold, and he made sure Americans recognized this as big news, especially folks living in Texas, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Oklahoma.

Biden had a definite look of panic on his face as Trump named those states. Even he realized he just gave Trump 83 electoral votes, mumbling something about “on public lands” and “subsidies,” but Trump drowned out his babbling by reminding voters in those states what Biden just announced. There would be no walking that back, even with the media’s certain (and ultimately proven) covering for him on Friday. It was said, and at this point, if polls in other states stay where they are, those 83 votes will put Trump over.

Bear in mind, this doesn’t affect just four states. Shutting down oil and fossil fuels in this country will put nearly one million Americans out of their current jobs, in the form of drilling, mining, trucking, piping, distribution, distillation, manufacture, plasticization, and more. The Depression here will crush world markets that depend on us. Did Biden mean for all this? Probably not, but he reassured America that Biden, after 47 years in government, has literally no understanding of how the economy works.

My emphasis added.  This is the key point - after a half century in office, Joe is the one who is supposed to be "Presidential", to know "how to get things done".  Well, that's the marketing - and why Obama picked him as Vice President back in 2008 (to add some gravitas to people worried about a very new face).  And what we see put on display for the world is a confused old man babbling obvious nonsense about an enormously important topic.

The question in everyone's mind right now is what other enormously important topics will we get a bunch of nonsense babbled at us?  To ask that question two weeks before the election is to explain the entirety of Trump's juggernaught.  The group of voters who thought that Joe was the safe, bland choice are now breaking for Trump, choosing competence over marketing fluff.

And kudos to the moderator for asking the question.  Likely Biden would have answered very differently if it had been the first question rather than the last (he clearly was running down mentally by the end) - but this was also a very revealing moment.  After all, the presidency is a grueling job and it takes considerable stamina to hold up under the strain and to make good decisions under stress.  Joe showed that he entirely lacks that capacity.

Your moment of Zen - Beethoven's “Moonlight Sonata” for an old Elephant

 This is sweet, and shows that in this political silly season that there is a human decency that crosses species boundaries.  From the notes to the Youtube video:

Mongkol is a 61-year-old former logging elephant. His captive-held life was spent hauling trees in the Thai forest. His body shape is deformed through hard labor, he lost his right eye and tusk in this brutal logging practice. Mongkol was rescued and brought to Elephants World to spend the rest of his days relaxing peacefully in freedom by the River Kwai. I discovered Mongkol is an extremely gentle, sensitive elephant who enjoys music, especially this slow movement by Beethoven which I play to him occasionally in the day and night.

This video is awesome, and 100% non-political - which adds to its awesomeness.

There are more, like Debussy's Clair de Lune.  Maybe Mongkol likes moonlight.

Blake Shelton - Some Beach (Official Music Video)

One of the nice things about being in Florida is that The Queen Of The World and I can run out for a beach weekend.  We're at Sanibel Island which is pretty darn nice.  This is the view from the hotel balcony.

It's a nice escape and here in Florida it's not just a day dream.  An hour or two and you're in paradise.  Back up north, it would just be a dream.  Yeah, there's a country music song for that.

Some Beach (Songwriters: Rory Feek, Paul Overstreet)

Driving down the interstate
Running 30 minutes late
Singing 'Margaritaville' and minding my own
Some foreign car driving dude
With a road rage attitude
Pulled up beside me talking on his cell phone.

He started yelling at me
Like I did something wrong
He flipped me the bird
And then he was gone.

Some beach somewhere
There's a big umbrella
Casting shade over an empty chair
Palm trees are growing, warm breeze is blowing
I picture myself right there
On some beach, somewhere.
I circled the parking lot

Trying to find a spot
Just big enough
I could park my ol' truck
A man with a big cigar
Was getting into his car
I stopped and I waited for him to back up
But from out of nowhere a Mercedes Benz
Came cruising up, and whipped right in.

Some beach, somewhere
There's nowhere to go
When you've got all day to get there
There's cold Margaritas
And hot senoritas
Smiling with long dark hair
On some beach, somewhere.

Well, I sat in that waiting room
Seemed like all afternoon
The nurse finally said the doc's ready for you
You're not gonna feel a thing
We'll give you some novacaine
That tooth will be fine in a minute or two
But he stuck that needle down deep in my gum
And he started drilling before I was numb.

Some beach, somewhere
There a beautiful sunset burning up the atmosphere
There's music and dancing, lovers romancing
In the salty evening air
On some beach, somewhere.

On some beach, somewhere...

A weird thing about Florida, though - I've been flipped off a couple times already in only a few months.  That never happened up north.

The election is over

Stick a fork in Slow Joe - he's done

 

Sure, the polls show Joe ahead by 5000%, but let's look at the evidence.  It doesn't support poll results showing Joe winning; on the contrary:

• Republican enthusiasm is off the chart.  There are something like 2 Million volunteers knocking on doors and calling on the phone.  They've contacted 100 Million voters.  It doesn't look like there are any Democrats doing this.  By way of comparison, a little over 60M voted for Trump in 2016 - now there is a measurable fraction of that working for his campaign.
• Biden gives rallies to a dozen people.  Trump gives rallies to tens of thousands.  Even more importantly, a big fraction of the people in the audience are not Republicans, and a big fraction didn't vote last time.  Now they're standing in line to hear The Donald.
• We see "Trump Trains" all over the country - parades of thousands of cars flying Trump flags.  We see them in historically Democrat strongholds: 30,000 cars paraded in "deep blue" Miami.
• Trump's outreach to the black and hispanic communities has paid off.  His support is a lot higher than 4 years ago - maybe two or three times as high.
• Trump's job approval rating is over 50%.  I can't remember any president with a 50% approval rating losing reelection, ever.
• What I find most interesting is the Gallup poll showing that a majority of people expect Trump to be reelected.

If Joe really were ahead by 5000%, would we see any of this?  No - all of these signs would point in the opposite direction.  So who are you going to believe: a bunch of pollsters who blew it bigly last time, or your lyin' eyes.

Like I said, stick a fork in Joe, he's done.  Just get out and vote.

Is Texas really about to turn Blue (or Purple)?

Lawrence looks at the huge TV ad buys that Silicon valley billionaires are making for the Democratic Senate candidate - something like $28M in the last 2 weeks of the election.  He picks this apart and says that no, Texas is not turning blue.

It's an interesting read.  Recommended.

When civilization collapses

We may (or may not) be on the brink of civil war.  There are no external enemies who can take down this Republic, but history is clear that civil war is the fastest way to political, social, and civilizational collapse.  It almost always starts because the center becomes too strong, and so the rewards to seizing control in a winner-take-all situation become too enticing.

We saw this in ancient times, where the eastern and western halves of the Roman Empire fought each other at the Battle of the Frigidus River.  The eastern army under Theodosius the Great won, temporarily reuniting the empire.  However, Theodosius died four months later, leaving the empire to his young sons.  Both were hamstrung because so many soldiers had killed each other that the western empire never recovered, and the eastern portion just held on by a thread.

The rewards were too great for Theodosius to ignore, too great to even allow him to leave his empire in good shape when he shuffled off the mortal coil.  In the west, civilization fell apart so completely that it took a thousand years for it to recover.  Louis XV's well-quoted epigram from 1400 years later applies in spades: Après nous le déluge.  After us, collapse.

I don't know whether we are looking on that today, but it's possible in a way that seemed beyond belief five or ten years ago.  The stakes of our winner-take-all imperial government have been exposed as too enticing to ignore for the Left.  The stakes are too high for the rest of the country increasingly feeling hemmed in by the Left: you can't speak your mind, you can't worship as you please, you're forced to "social distance" in a way that the Left's pet street terrorists don't.

Maybe there's still a chance to turn this around.  If not, then it doesn't seem like there are alternatives to political, social, and civilizational collapse.  When Civilization collapses, it falls hard.  I posted before about the Fayum Mummy Portraits from the Roman Empire and how portrait painting was a thriving (and stunningly competent) part of their civilization.  Then that civilization fell and it took a millennium to recover.

I wrote back then:

My opinion is that this was the greatest portrait (that we know of) for 1500 years, faded by 1900 years.  It dates from around the reign of Emperor Claudius, or possibly Nero.

Then it was all gone, along with all the rest of that civilization.  Here is a very good video about these portraits and just how sophisticated the society that created them was.

In Egypt's sandy silence, all alone,
Stands a gigantic Leg, which far off throws
The only shadow that the Desert knows:—
"I am great OZYMANDIAS," saith the stone,
"The King of Kings; this mighty City shows
"The wonders of my hand."— The City's gone,—
Nought but the Leg remaining to disclose
The site of this forgotten Babylon.

We wonder,—and some Hunter may express
Wonder like ours, when thro' the wilderness
Where London stood, holding the Wolf in chace,
He meets some fragment huge, and stops to guess
What powerful but unrecorded race
Once dwelt in that annihilated place.

- Horace Smith, "Ozymandias"