Dad Joke XXI

Why is it a bad idea to have a wedding in the winter?

Someone might get cold feet. 

Vince Gill - One More Last Chance

The Party of Youth and New Ideas has appointed the ever youthful John Kerry to be Climate Czar.  His Czarness is introducing new ideas to address the challenges of our age, most notably his remark that the UK Climate Summit is the World's "last best chance".

We've heard this song before - actually over and over.  Remember Al Gore's warning that we have ten years to save ourselves from Global Warming?  That was in 2006.  Ah, but this is one more last chance.  There's a country music song about that.

Vince Gill needs no introduction to music lovers.  Front man to Pure Prairie League in the '70s, super star in the '80s and '90s he has 21 (!) Grammys to his name.  This video is just plain fun, with a cameo by George Jones riding a John Deere.

One More Last Chance (Songwriters: Vince Gill, Gary Nicholson)

She was standing at the front door
When I came home last night
A good book in her left hand
And a rollin' pin in the right
She said you've come home for the last time
With whiskey on your breath
If you don't listen to my preachin' boy
I'm goin' to have to beat you half to death

Give me just a one more last chance
Before you say we're through
I know I drive you crazy baby
It's the best that I can do
We're just some good ol' boys, a makin' noise
I ain't a runnin' 'round on you
Give me just a one more last chance
Before you say we're through

First she hid my glasses
'Cause she knows that I can't see
She said you ain't goin' nowhere boy
'Til you spend a little time with me
Then the boys called from the honky tonk
Said there's a party goin' on down here
Well she might've took my car keys
But she forgot about my old John Deere

So give me just a one more last chance
Before you say we're through
I know I drive you crazy baby
It's the best that I can do
We're just some good ol' boys, a makin' noise
I ain't a runnin' 'round on you
Give me just a one more last chance
Before you say we're through

7 Types of People At The Range

This is a few years old but I just ran across it.  I have to say I LOLed a couple times.

 

Although I must say that I've never been muzzled as horrifyingly as they show here. Yikes!

Dad Joke XX

 What's the best way to talk to giants?

Use big words.

The Paths to Secession

It looks like a national divorce will be very difficult to avoid.  On one side is the political establishment who look like they stole an election and who seem determined to dominate and impoverish the working class.  This attempt to dominate has been going on for decades, as American manufacturing has been off-shored and millions of illegal workers have flooded the labor market.  This combination of cheaper foreign and domestic labor has fattened corporate bottom lines but it has hollowed out entire regions (c.f. the "Rust Belt").

The Biden Administration looks to be dialing this up to 11, perhaps because they fear the 2022 elections when redistricting will eliminate a bunch of Democratic House seats.  Or maybe they think that after stealing an election they don't have to respect the traditions of unity and governing in the interests of all citizens.  But the agenda is radical indeed, not just banning oil drilling on federal lands but preventing oil drilling at all in the country.

Doubling the price of gasoline is a massively regressive tax.  Combined with the loss of millions of jobs, it's hard to see how those on the losing end would want to stay in a union with a party who they suspect did not legitimately win the election, and who they seeing as governing illegitimately.  And so to the "What comes next" part of the question.  What will come next will be very, very messy.  You see, we're not divided along "Red State/Blue State" lines, we're really all mixed together.

This is a map of the 2020 election returns by county.  The size of the circles represents the number of votes for Joe Biden (blue) or Donald Trump (red).  What you see are very few states that are almost all one color or another.  A few, yes, but not many.  And so to the breakup scenarios.

The Slovenian Option

On June 25, 1991 the province of Slovenia seceded from Yugoslavia.  The Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) invaded the province but were defeated in a shockingly short 10 day conflict.  Slovenian police blocked key road junctions and blockaded JNA barracks.  The JNA forces never were able to establish unit or territorial cohesion.  You could see something similar playing out in, say, West Virginia.  Even though it is only an hour or so from Washington D.C. most of the state is very rough terrain.  Local sheriffs would likely be able to block passage to unfriendly forces.  The Slovenian option is the cleanest option, but is also the most limited - a fairly cohesive population (almost all red, almost no blue) combined with difficult terrain make this unlikely for most of the country.

The Croatian Option

 Fighting in Croatia actually started before fighting broke out in Slovenia, when Serbs opposed to Croatian independence pre-emptively seceded from the province of Croatia.  Things escalated and by the summer of 1991 it was a full scale shooting war between the JNA and the Croatian forces.  This was no 10 day war; fighting continued into 1995 and much (perhaps most) of the ethnic Serb population became refugees.  We might be able to term this the "Texan Option", where multiple enclaves of Blue voters exist in a sea of Red voting neighbors.

The Sarajevo Option

The siege of Sarajevo lasted four years and destroyed much of that city.  It was famous for attacks on the civilian population, and indeed thousands of civilians were killed in the conflict by artillery and snipers, among other horsemen of the Apocalypse.  This is what Civil War would look like in Atlanta, Detroit, Pittsburg, and Denver.  The ugliness here will be proportional to just how hard the Democrats push the working class red state populations - and right now it looks like they want to push pretty hard.

The Mixed Option

Nothing says that these options are mutually exclusive.  Indeed, they would probably all be seen although in different locales.  But looking at the map it's hard to see a stable Blue government outside of New England/Mid-Atlantic and Pacific Coast.

In Yugoslavia something like 150,000 dead and 4M refugees were the result, from a starting Yugoslav population of 24M.  It's hard to extrapolate those losses into what we would see but it's hard to imagine that there would not be many millions - maybe tens of millions - of refugees and hundreds of thousands dead.  That's quite a butcher's bill for today's Progressive Left who seemingly will not just leave half the country alone.

A note about politeness on this blog

I know that lots of things are up in the air and that emotions are running high.  But please note the message at the top of the comment box: Remember your manners when you comment here.

That also applies to those of you who email me directly. 

Dad Joke XIX

I wasn't quite good enough to get admitted to the prestigious marionette school but I knew someone who could pull some strings for me. 

UPDATE 26 January 2021 18:14: Here's a bonus Dad Joke:

Q. Why can't dogs dance?

A. Because they have two left feet.

Amazing origami

What's even more amazing is that the artist is from Finland.  Check them out.

I wish this didn't look so plausible

Six years ago I posted The Inevitability of Secession which laid out how it seemed that the wheels were fixin' to come off the Republic.  Donald Trump - despite the insanity suffered by the left - gave a 4 year breather for this, by directly addressing the legitimate grievances of those most likely to leave the Union.  Now with the Democrats back in the White House and Congress - and the insanity not one whit less than before - it looks like we're maybe going to accelerate into a great national divorce.

As with all divorces, it will be very, very messy.  I have some thoughts on that for a later post but for now this looks pretty prescient.

(Originally posted 20 March 2015)

The inevitability of secession, part 1: Introduction

Chief Justice Salmon Chase was wrong.  In Texas v. White (1869), he wrote the majority opinion on secession:

The Union of the States never was a purely artificial and arbitrary relation. It began among the Colonies, and grew out of common origin, mutual sympathies, kindred principles, similar interests, and geographical relations. It was confirmed and strengthened by the necessities of war, and received definite form and character and sanction from the Articles of Confederation. By these, the Union was solemnly declared to 'be perpetual.' And when these Articles were found to be inadequate to the exigencies of the country, the Constitution was ordained 'to form a more perfect Union.' It is difficult to convey the idea of indissoluble unity more clearly than by these words. What can be indissoluble if a perpetual Union, made more perfect, is not?

Except the Republic did not date its governing principles to the Articles of Confederation, which were clearly a failure - a failure clear at the time, in fact.  Instead, it dated to the Constitution.  That was ratified by all original thirteen States, and it is clear that it would not have been ratified if the States hadn't thought that they couldn't leave if they had needed to.  Indeed, the ending of the Articles of Confederation were essentially an act of secession.

Chase was an interesting bird.  He founded the Free Soil movement - "Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men".  It was an unabashedly abolitionist party, and reflected what was very probably the real cause of the American War of Southern Independence (the "Civil War" to you Yankees).

And Chase wasn't just one of the chief proponents of the political position, he was Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court.  One of the charges leveled at the post war Nuremberg trials of Nazi war criminals was that it was "Victor's Justice"; America had an 80 year history of Victor's Justice, dating back to Texas v. White.

And so secession was ruled illegal.

The problem, of course, is that it was only illegal because "Honest Abe" Lincoln determined that it was better that 10% of the military age population be killed or wounded in battle than a set of States should choose to leave the Republic.  For a while, it worked.

For a while, the Fed.Gov demonstrated that it could deliver - more growth, more prosperity, freedom increasing through the 1960s.  In 1969, the Fed.Gov landed a man on the moon.  It was the high water mark of government legitimacy.

What we've seen since then is an intentional fracturing of the Republic, based on race, gender, and class.  Political careers have been made for those who have done this - Al Sharpton is a particularly loathsome example of this, but he is by no means alone.  Barack Obama may be the most successful of these, parlaying racial themes of guilt and offered redemption into two terms in the White House during which he has thoroughly politicized the Federal Agencies.  Eric Holder was the chield law enforcement official in the land but ran the Department of Justice along racial grievance lines.  If you have any doubts about this, read up on the New Black Panther Party, George Zimmerman, and Ferguson MO.

Obama reflected a small but well organized segment of society determined to fundamentally reshape society.  Unsurprisingly, this hasn't turned out to be popular with much of society who overwhelmingly voted Democrats out of House and Senate seats - historical defeats for Obama's Democratic Party.  The voters gave significant majorities to the Republican Party in both houses of Congress, because GOP candidates ran on a platform of overturning Obama's overreach on health care, immigration, and general weakening of the USA on the international stage.

So how's that working out for GOP voters?

Conservative talk show host Glenn Beck on Wednesday announced he is leaving the Republican Party.

“I’ve made my decision — I’m out,” Beck said Wednesday on “The Glenn Beck Program,” his broadcast on TheBlaze.com. “I’m out of the Republican Party. I am not a Republican. I will not give a dime to the Republican Party. I’m out.”

The host said Republicans lost him with their inaction on both ObamaCare and illegal immigration.

“All this stuff that they said and they ran and they said they were doing all of these great things and they were going to stand against ObamaCare and illegal immigration — they set us up,” Beck added. “They set us up. Enough is enough. They’re torpedoing the Constitution and they’re doing it knowingly.”

Can't really argue with any of that.  And he's not the only one:

Yes, Establishment GOP, you can teach us that you will always lie to us, stab us in the back, humiliate us and crush us; but if you teach us that, be aware we are learning another lesson, too. Not just that "The Establishment Will Always Crush You," but the lesson that There is no hope in any kind of conventional politics for those of us who want better than this Pile of Shit the two parties give us.

And the mutterings have been going on for years:

1. Many inner-circle strategists in the Republican Party machine basically believe the game is over demographics wise. They’ve believed this for a long time. Call them the “We Are Doomed” Machiavellians, trying to make a barely-palatable lemonade out of some very nasty lemons.
2. Privately, personally, they probably agree with everything Richwine and all the rest have ever said. But it doesn’t matter, because, on the strategic time scale, we’ve already crossed the Rubicon.
3. Tactically, short-to-medium term, you could follow the Sailer Strategy and, maybe, squeeze out a few Revanchist wins for Republicans, but it would be counterproductive. The Cathedral (they don’t call it that, of course) would make easy hay of “the hateful white party” in due time, and it would go the way of the Know-Nothings in Boston – permanent obsolescence.
4. So, the best you can do, if you care at all about the long-term survival of anything like even a fake opposition party in out decadent democracy, is to embrace the Latin American / Texan model, an increasingly Brazil-esque society, but one in which, in some places, at some times, you can still get some Hispanics to feel fondly about and vote for the Republicans.
5. To do this, you must absolutely, positively, and, most importantly, preemptively cave to everything you think the Democrats could possibly leverage against you. Which, in practice, means being the volunteer auxiliary PC-enforcer on your own side. It also helps when you’ve got big business on your side.

Salmon Chase had been a member of the Whig Party, which fractured under the strain of abolitionism.  The Republican Party looks like it's headed for the same crack up.

But it doesn't really matter: it's clear that the citizens of this Republic will not vote themselves out of this mess.  The Establishment is united - across both Parties - against the population which holds them in increasing contempt.

So if there's no way to vote in representatives who will represent the will of the People, what remains?  It's hard to see any alternative to the country splitting into two or more parts that will eliminate the Washington D.C. Establishment as something that can impose unpopular laws on them.

Not everyone believes this will happen:

Secession was tried before in the US and it failed. If part of the US tries to secede, the Protestant-Hippie-Communist-Jesus types get offended and their blood lust knows no bounds. They were fine with the death of hundreds of thousands to prevent secession. Then they took property, installed new governments and destroyed local economies for the better part of a century.

Secession in the US is only a long, drawn-out suicide. 

This time, it's hard to see a politician willing and able to sacrifice 10% of the military age population in a War of Secession.  And so Chief Justice Chase's decision is more or less irrelevant.  He had the legitimacy imposed by a victorious army at the point of the bayonet; the current Establishment doesn't have that and doesn't seem to be fixin' to get it anytime soon.

And so if reform is not possible, exit is the obvious result.  The Republic has large parts what are tired of having a left wing ideology rammed down their throats - and an ideology that enriches Wall Street and the big banks, at that.  These people have played the game the way it has been laid out, by the rules that were what everyone had been told were just - one man, one vote.  And that vote clearly is a waste of time.

Okay, then.  But things will not continue as they have.  

Dad Joke XVIII

Did you hear about the buffalo who lived 200 years?

He just celebrated his Bison-tennial. 

Dog Beach

We took Wolfgang and his niece Birdie to the Venice (Florida) dog beach yesterday.  It's a great facility - fenced so the dogs can run free in the waves, and they have hoses to wash the pups off when you leave.  Wolfgang even met one of his German Shepherd buddies from the dog park there.

Birdie liked to play bathing beauty in the pavilion.

Driving back, the pups had a nap - all worn out from playing in the surf.

If you are in the neighborhood with a four footed friend, the Venice Dog Beach is a really fun time.

So someone won the Billion dollar lotto

I think I know who it was.

 

Dad Joke XVII

What type of shorts do clouds wear?  Thunderwear. 

The thought for the day

You can define "privilege" as not suffering from consequences.  We have watched our "Elites" imposing restrictions on us for decades - shutting down whole towns to "save the Spotted Owl", driving oil prices higher by banning drilling (and the high paying jobs that go with that industry), and most especially opening the borders to drive down incomes - it's not just hourly workers suffering from this now, it's also computer programmers put out of work by H-1B visa holders.

We've listened for decades about how "free trade" grows the economy and that everyone will be better off in the long run if we just keep up these policies - all the while watching whole towns, counties, and states wither as jobs flee and the population sinks into poverty.

In 2016 the people who were sinking into poverty actually stirred themselves and voted Donald Trump into office.  It was finally consequences for the "Elite" class.

And we saw how they reacted - with disbelief, rage, contempt, and ultimately destroying the norms that had sustained this Republic by stealing an election.

Privilege in action, right there.

Tech that rats you out

ASM826 is doing a great job on how the authorities use your cell phone location data to track you.  E.M. Smith wrote about burner phones (among other things; go read if you already haven't).  Here are some other personal technologies that collect all sorts of data on you.

Cell Phone apps, particularly Facebook and Google apps.  These companies are notorious about accessing all sorts of data that they really have no business grabbing (like location data).  Apple just changed the rules about what apps have to disclose about this to you.  Interestingly, Google hasn't updated their apps to do this, even after a month.  

Alexa, Google Home, and other voice-activated devices.  Don't ever let any of these into your house.  I mean, stop and think about it: they have to send all your voice recordings to the cloud for analysis.  How else will they know that you said "Alexa, am I a lazy bum?"  You have no control over what they do with that data and there is evidence that they save this.

OnStar and other online car services.  Combine all the security nightmares of Alexa with all the security nightmares of your cell phone, and then add in the ability of the service to shut down your car.  What could possibly go wrong, amirite?

Ring doorbells (and competitors).  Miguel just posted about this so that I don't have to.  The local Po Po have access to all the video, for all time.

Internal cameras.  I mean, you're kidding me, right?  In the link above Miguel talks about a decent approach to cameras when you're away, but while you're there?

"Smart" TVs.  I've posted a bunch here about the sewer that is "Smart" TV security.  Don't turn this on.

I'll gather my thoughts and put together a Best Practice for personal privacy.

Anonymity, Privacy, Security

Maybe you don't have to pick two out of three.  E.M. Smith has a long and detailed post with a bunch of tips, and will be adding to this moving forward:

The Open Software Community has fought hard to maintain some degree of Privacy, Security (even against Government Agents and TLAs), and Anonymity. I’m still fighting that battle for myself, though at a low level as I’m mostly “out of the business” now. It is VERY hard to fight BOTH the Government TLAs and their laws (while complying with them), while also keeping the Black Hats out. Yet that is what we must do to have Anonymity, privacy, and security.

This is the first of many postings to come on this theme. I’m going to move, step by step, through a re-implementation of all of it (with the possible exception of the Mail Box and Pre-Paid card steps) with the intent of giving enough detail that a Noob can be relatively secure in things like buying a VPN, ordering a pizza, and maybe even leaving a conservative comment on a blog… without fear of a horrible reprisal.

 You should mosey on over and bookmark him.

After ten years, we're all TJIC

I don't think that any single post did more to attract attention to this blog than I Am TJIC, posted this day ten years ago.  TJIC had his guns seized by the People's Republic of Arlington (Mass) for posting about the Gabby Giffords shooting.  There was no better illustration of how vague gun control laws are applied in Blue states.  Now the Congress is promising more of the same* and even Florida has a bunch bad bills under consideration.  Ten years ago it looked like gun rights were ascendent, now it looks like we all may end up like TJIC.  My comment about Heller and MacDonald looks pretty naive right now, as the Republic slips into Banana Republic territory. 

* To answer Sarah Hoyt's question, molon labe is pronounced "moh LOHN la VEH".

(originally posted 19 January 2011)

I am TJIC

I've linked several times to posts over at the blog Dispatches from TJICistan.  TJIC is an outspoken (some might say extremely so) advocate of smaller government.  He's also a firearms owner in the People's Republic of Massachusetts.  While he owns guns, it appears that he's no longer allowed to possess any:

ARLINGTON (CBS) – A blog threatening members of Congress in the wake of the Tucson, Arizona shooting has prompted Arlington police to temporarily suspend the firearms license of an Arlington man.
It was the headline “1 down and 534 to go” that caught the attention. “One” refers to Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, who was shot in the head in the rampage, while 534 refers to the other members of the U.S. House and Senate.

Police are investigating the “suitability” of 39-year-old Travis Corcoran to have a firearms license

Let's ignore for the moment how many people were investigated for making similar comments about George W. Bush.  Let's look at the "logic" being exercised by the Arlington Po-Po, shall we?

They claim that Corcoran is so dangerous that, while he has done nothing more than put up a blog post, he must be restrained from possessing firearms.  However, it appears that it's not worth it for the police to follow him, or stake out his place, or arrest him.

Huh?

Look, guys, if you think that his speech rises to the level of an actual threat of specific harm to specific persons, he should be in jail.  If you're not sure, then do the leg work to establish whether it is or not.

So, what do we know about the Arlington Police Department?  We know that they're lazy - nobody assigned to watch over this "dangerous" suspect.  We know that they're biased - Arlington is a hotbed of George W. Bush hatred, and the last decade would offer a wealth of examples of similar or worse speech, none of which was investigated.

And we know that they're idiots.  It's not like there isn't a ton of case law on how the First Amendment applies to threats of political violence.  Arlington will lose this, if it ever gets to trial.  Post Heller and McDonald, they'll lose even worse.  Idiots.

But this is, as JayG points out, an attack not only on the First Amendment, but on the Second as well.  An attack of this sort - groundless in logic, and arguably mendacious in nature - is an attack on all.  And so I have to stand with TJIC.

I am TJIC.  So are you.  If you blog, you are hereby authorized to use this image (created by your humble host, using The Gimp, not that it took any skill).  Please link back to this post.

It would be one thing if the law were applied equally to all.  It's not, and it will be applied disproportionately to us, because we hold views considered by some in power to be Double Plus Ungood.  Lefties in particular, this is your moment.  You say that you stand for good governance.  Prove it.

It was not a famous Massachusetts citizen who said We must all hang together, or surely we will all hang separately.  Benjamin Franklin was more circumspect than the men from Massachusetts, such as Sam Adams, who said this:

Contemplate the mangled bodies of your countrymen, and then say 'what should be the reward of such sacrifices?' 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!

Eliminationist rhetoric right there.  Clearly, the Arlington Police would have seized his firearms.  What a sad, degraded state for a once proud Commonwealth.  It seems that I got out just in the nick of time.

Dad Jokes XIV - XVI

Yeah, I've been busy - my excuse it that it involve targets at 300 yards.  But I've missed a bunch of Dad Jokes.  Lucky you, they're all here for you now.

Dad Joke XIV:

Dad! Leave me alone!

Okay, how much do you want? [This one hits a little close to home] 

 Dad Joke XV:

I'm like the fabric version of King Midas.  Everything I tough becomes felt.

Dad Joke XVI:

Snowmen always get hurt when they play sports.  The never warm up before play.

Southwest Florida February Blogshoot - update

The private range is not available on February 20, but it is available on Saturday, February 27.  I have a verbal commitment to reserve it - there was a mix up last time but the range will be available this time around.  It will give us not only a 25 yard pistol range but a 200 yard rifle range as well.

Please leave a comment to confirm that you are planning to come on the 27th.

Also, if you are an NRA certified RSO can you please email me with your RSO cert which the gun club wants.

The Venue:

When: Saturday, February 27 at 10:00 AM (until 4:00 PM)

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

Facilities:  Some of our readers are bringing their betters halves (as am I) and the fairer sex will be relieved to know that there are proper, civilized facilities in the club house.  

Waiting

The Barbarian hopes — and that is the mark of him, that he can have his cake and eat it too.He will consume what civilization has slowly produced after generations of selection and effort, but he will not be at pains to replace such goods, nor indeed has he a comprehension of the virtue that has brought them into being. Discipline seems to him irrational, on which account he is ever marveling that civilization, should have offended him with priests and soldiers.... In a word, the Barbarian is discoverable everywhere in this, that he cannot make: that he can befog and destroy but that he cannot sustain; and of every Barbarian in the decline or peril of every civilization exactly that has been true.

We sit by and watch the barbarian. We tolerate him in the long stretches of peace, we are not afraid. We are tickled by his irreverence; his comic inversion of our old certitudes and our fixed creed refreshes us; we laugh. But as we laugh we are watched by large and awful faces from beyond, and on these faces there are no smiles.

- Hilaire Belloc

It's such a relief that we have the fiercely conservative Republican Party manning the battlements.