“Random chance seems to have operated in our favor.†– Star Trek (TOS)
My high school buddy moved to Chicago and told me it isn’t that violent. He’s a tailgunnner on a school bus.
Once or twice a year, I decide I’m going to relax with a post. Instead of the tightly-constructed gems of wit and wisdom, it’s just a list of things I’m thinking about.
- A fish wouldn’t understand what water is, no more than an American would understand what Western Civilization is. Only one of them tastes good with tartar sauce.
- Mark Twain knew that most people can’t tell a good event from a bad one. The best things in my life have come from events that, at the time, felt awful. Think about a baby just before birth – nice and warm and then twisting and constricting and exposure to cold and harsh light. How could the baby ever have beer unless it was born??   I’ve learned. I wait to see what happened before I judge if something is good or bad. This makes me look like some sort of Zen-master when I’m calm and everyone else is panicking.
- War in the twentieth century was built around maneuver and destruction of the enemy’s capability to fight. War in the twenty-first century will be built around information and the destruction of the economy before the fight can begin.
- The Boy and Pugsley went out to Wal-Mart® today to go shopping. They announced a weird and perplexing list of shortages. We may have moved into a scarcity economy. At least we have Netflix®, right?
- Western Civilization (i.e., freedom) has been under attack for over 100 years.
- Mandatory vaccinations were approved by a Supreme Court decision. That same Supreme Court ruled that you could have mandatory sterilization of mentally inferior people. Be careful what you cite.
- COVID-19 might be the seed for the final breakup of the United States. Just like the sniper said to his ex-girlfriend: “I won’t miss you!â€
- Why does the Left get bent out of shape about Russia? I think it’s because during an interview, Vladimir Putin was asked if a woman could become president of Russia. Putin responded, “No, because I am not a woman.â€
- Antifa® appears to be a group of middle-class kids with daddy-issues who can still afford tattoos, piercings, and black clothing. If they win, I’d love to see their faces as they learn during harvest season that potatoes don’t originate at Whole Foods®.
- 650,000 people moved out of California last year. Number moving to Modern Mayberry?  Good luck, Idaho!
- Would we even know that COVID-19® existed without the media?
- In the minds of most of the Center and Right, Black Lives Matter® is 100% tied to violence and looting.
- What if the role of 2020 is to play, “Think that’s cool, 2020? Hold my beer?†as everything rolls of the edge?  Don’t worry about that or prepare for it. It’ll be fine.
- The Redpill is a meme from The Matrix (1999). It means that you understand what reality actually is. Heck those LGBT+ folks won’t take a straight answer.
- Gingko Biloba is a plant that’s not really related to anything on Earth for the last 270,000,000 years. It’s almost as old as your mom.
- Cancel culture is hilarious, since right now it’s eating the Left. Remember what Napoleon said: “Never interrupt your enemy when they’re making a mistake.â€
- Free markets (within a nation) are still better than any alternative we’ve found. Free markets between nations is a neat goal – as long as the nations are free. But they’re not.
- Joe Biden may be the first politician who thinks they won an election against Ronald Reagan.
- I woke up this morning and my hip hurt, probably for something I did in one Thursday in 2013. Is my hip officially cancelled?
- The most consequential invention of the 2000’s is the iPhone®. It’s also the most destructive invention of my lifetime.
- During my lifetime, it was certain that the Soviets, Japanese, and Chinese would become the most powerful economic power on Earth. Now? The Soviets don’t exist, and the Japanese have become focused on anime and talking cats.
- Marriage that produces kids and lasts is good.
- The new definition of far-right extremist includes: a desire to be monogamous and marry and have kids, avoiding drugs and porn and alcohol, reading books and hiking.
- The undercover Rightwing political operation to completely discredit Leftists, codenamed: “Just Let Joe Biden Speak†is apparently working.
- Hierarchy is necessary for a civilized society to survive.
- The United States has 140 operational bombers. Not in a bomber wing or squadron. 140 bombers.  60 or so of them (B-52) entered service in 1955 and, although not quite as old as Joe Biden, are pretty old.
- Don’t let Russia determine the 2020 election! Demand Voter ID!
- If COVID-19 has killed more businesses than people, was a lockdown the right call?
- Ever notice that since the British gave up all of their guns, that now teenage kids in Great Britain can get put into jail for offensive jokes that teenage kids make?
- Imagine what seven billion people on the planet could do if they just left each other alone?
- The first rule of being in a gunfight? Have a gun. (Jeff Cooper)
- Long time readers would be surprised to know that I do have appreciation for some metric measures: 9mm, 7.62x39mm, and 5.56mm.
- What happens when rent is no longer deferred and the unemployment checks stop?
- If the aliens ever come? Don’t get on the ships. How to Serve Man is a cookbook.
“Western Civilization (i.e., freedom) has been under attack for over 100 years.”
When you look back at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, something seemingly insignificant changed. Along with European immigrants who shared most of our common values, we started to bring in people who are not a part of Western civilization and were often openly hostile to it. We began to rapidly expand the size and scope of the Federal government and get entangled in foreign wars. We are learning far too late the folly of importing people who hate you and expecting them to stop hating you.
Yes – importation of people who don’t like the system that created the place they want to come . . . ? Why did we want them?
I thought you were extracting the urine about the mayor of Chicago. I had to look it up to check. I apologise, you really meant it. I was even more surprised to find that the apirition is nominally female.
Yes. The Mayor of Chicago is Beetlejuice. (H/T Arthur)
The bomber thing is a big deal right now.
https://warontherocks.com/2020/05/discontinued-americas-continuous-bomber-presence/
The official DOD line now is that uncertainty over where the bombers are is a better deterrent than the certainty they are on Guam. In reality they are worried about ballistic and hypersonic missiles.
What’s interesting is that the B-2s are supposed to be retired in the 2030s and the B-52s are supposed to be retired in the 2050s.
https://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/articles/2018/9/10/engine-upgrades-digitization-to-keep-b-52s-flying-into-2050s
That Boeing…they really know how to build an airplane and keep it in the skies! Oh, wait….
I am not sure that traditional bombers are all that relevant anymore, who are we going to fight where we would have a need for a massive bombardment of conventional weapons? There is no way people would tolerate us carpet bombing Beijing. The Japanese probably thought they struck a major blow when they sank almost all of our battleships but it turned out the only reason we needed a battleship was as a place for Japan to surrender.
Carpet bombing was never as effective as the powers that be hoped.
“The United States Air Force dropped in Indochina, from 1964 to August 15, 1973, a total of 6,162,000 tons of bombs and other ordnance. U.S. Navy and Marine Corps aircraft expended another 1,500,000 tons in Southeast Asia. This tonnage far exceeded that expended in World War II and in the Korean War. The U.S. Air Force consumed 2,150,000 tons of munitions in World War II – 1,613,000 tons in the European Theater and 537,000 tons in the Pacific Theater – and 454,000 tons in the Korean War.”
Vietnam War bombing thus represented at least three times as much (by weight) as both European and Pacific theater World War II bombing combined, and about fifteen times total tonnage in the Korean War. Given the prewar Vietnamese population of approximately 32 million, U.S. bombing translates into hundreds of kilograms of explosives per capita during the conflict.
For another comparison, the atomic bombs dropped at Hiroshima and Nagasaki had the power of roughly 15,000 and 20,000 tons of TNT, respectively (Grolier 1995). Since general purpose bombs – by far the most common type of bomb used in Vietnam and in our dataset – are approximately 50% explosive material by weight, each atomic bomb translates into roughly 30,000 to 40,000 tons of such munitions. Measured this way, U.S. bombing in Indochina represents 100 times the combined impact of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombs.”
https://eml.berkeley.edu/~groland/pubs/vietnam-bombs_19oct05.pdf
All that, and we still did not subdue North Vietnam. Today, there’s more profit in making cruise missiles. And UAVs. Not to say that the B-21 will be cheap…
We weren’t carpet bombing Hanoi. We were bombing the jungle. Because the Air Force had to “stay relevant”.
Okay. Sounds like an open question – do we really need any bombers? Maybe if we’re playing the rookie squad, but not the pros?
I think Gerald Ford may have thought he defeated Reagan.
And Reagan and Trump have one big thing in common: both were Democrats before being selected as Republican presidents.
“Would we even know that COVID-19® existed without the media?”
Would we know about the recent riots, arson, violence, vandalism and rare genuine protest without looking at the internet? Do we need to know about it day by day, hour by hour? Does it improve our lives?
Maybe… it’s better to read books instead and perhaps outside of this blog and a couple others, the news does more harm than good.
And both hired Fauci to bollix up a medical crisis.
True! Gerald did. Forgot about that one. Just like Biden (rimshot).
“Would we even know that COVID-19® existed without the media?”
Would we know about the recent riots, arson, violence, vandalism and rare genuine protest without the media and especially the internet? Do we need to know about it day by day, hour by hour? Does it improve our lives?
Maybe… it’s better to read books instead and perhaps outside of this blog and a couple others, the hourly onslaught of news does more harm than good.
“Would we even know that COVID-19 existed without the media?” I knew that it was coming on Dec. 31 (according to my journal), because I read on the “H5N1 Blog” that the Chinese had reported a mysterious new pneumonia to the WHO. They said that it didn’t seem to spread person-to-person, but they were reporting it as per routine.
What would we know about anything without “the media”? But would you want to hear about a flood of zombies only when they’re within shooting range? It’d be a little late at that point to organize resistance. I’m happy to hear about bad things happening to other people, before they happen to people I know.
Seems to me this blog does a pretty job of raising awareness about zombie attacks. There are other blogs which I didn’t identify that also perform a great service searching and revealing zombie dens.
Some books do a great job looking at current events and analyzing likelihood of zombie mania.
Since I choose not to hang out in certain big cities, being on heightened hourly zombie alert isn’t necessarily productive or helpful for me.
Perhaps if I found myself in NYC, I would be on hourly zombie alert, but then of course, the right answer is to leave NYC as the odds do not favor success, not even for the police.
Exactly. And based on case rates in Modern Mayberry, we wouldn’t have any idea there was even a thing going on (COVID). The rest of it? We’d have no clue.
How many FBI agents does it take to close a garage door? Fifteen but only if they aren’t busy trying to overthrow a duly elected preezy of the steezy.
Did they try a gun free zone sign in Chicago? Maybe midnight basketball or free ice cream cones for the comrades in that MAGA country hellhole where no Jussie Smollet is safe.
Only one big screen and pair of Nike Air Colons per looter please so the other comrades can get some gibsmedat.
Feminized über alles full societies will go to the ash heap of history where they belong.
Spray some Febreze if you are headed to the latrine, I just took a big ol’ Barack.
(Some redactions/edits – JW – I will delete if you don’t like the redactions)
As a straight man, I always wondered how “Lesbian Bed Death” (search it, it’s a thing) could be possible.
I have seen Lori Lightfoot. Now I know.