09:30 – It was 59F (15C) when I took Colin out at 0645 this morning, gray and damp. We’re to have rain on and off over the next several days. Barbara is off to the gym and supermarket this morning and is volunteering this afternoon at the Friends of the Library bookstore.
Barbara and I were reading the local paper yesterday at lunch. I was scanning through the police/court reports section and noticed something horrifying. A 16-year-old girl had been arrested and is due to go to trial on 5 May for intentionally contaminating food or drink. She and two other teenage girls are believed to have put a drug in another teen’s drink which disabled the victim physically and mentally, presumably temporarily. I hope they throw the book at them. In fact, I suggested to Barbara that if it were up to me, I’d haul them all down to the public square, strip them to the waist, clamp them into the stocks, and give them 100 lashes each with a cat ‘o nine tails.
When I mentioned that, Barbara told me about another recent incident that was really, really horrifying. From what Barbara knew, about a dozen(!) teenage girls decided for thrills to murder a random woman by placing sleeping pills in her food or drink. They never carried out their plan because one of them chickened out and reported the scheme to the police.
These girls are irretrievably broken. They’re murderous psychopaths, and the best course would be to try them and, if they’re convicted, convene a public hanging.
I admit to being shocked when I heard this news. I expect stuff like that to happen in the cities, which is bad enough, but not in little Sparta. There are obviously good kids and bad kids, and always have been anywhere and anywhen. But up here I expected bad kids to do stuff like shoplifting or maybe stealing cars. The worst of them I might expect to commit armed robberies. But not something like this.
I got email yesterday from someone who’s very concerned about North Korea launching a nuclear attack on the US. He’s seen the news articles about the Japanese government evacuating the 70,000 Japanese citizens currently in South Korea, and about the Hawaii legislature revamping and restocking their fallout shelters, which had last been maintained in 1985.
Maybe they know something we don’t, but I think it’s extraordinarily unlikely that North Korea could launch a nuclear attack against even Hawaii let alone the continental US. Not that that little maniac dictator wouldn’t do it if he could, but I think doing so is well beyond their capabilities and is likely to remain so for many years. That’s not to say that North Korea couldn’t attack South Korea, of course, and that might rapidly escalate if China, Japan, Russia, the US, and other real powers got involved. But I think nuclear attack is very low on the list of things to worry about.
That said, prepping for such an eventuality isn’t much different from prepping for general serious emergencies. You’ll want water, food, medical supplies, etc. stored away. The one real difference is the radiation threat.
A nuclear detonation produces four types of harmful radiation. Neutrons are produced by the explosion, and are a threat only if you’re in the immediate vicinity. Gamma rays are penetrating, and are produced both by the explosion itself and by radionuclides that are deposited on vaporized soil and subsequently become part of fallout particles. Alpha and beta radiation are produced by radionuclides deposited on fallout particles, but neither of those types of radiation are strongly penetrating. Both are dangerous only if they are in direct contact with your skin or, worse, are ingested.
But fallout gamma radiation can be blocked only by putting a lot of mass between you and the radiation source. For typical gamma radiation, the tenth-value layer is about 2.2 inches of concrete (at ~150 pounds/ft^3) or 3.3 inches of dirt (at ~100 pounds/ft^3). That means that reducing radiation levels by a factor of 1,000 requires either about 22 inches of concrete, just under two feet, or 33 inches of dirt, or just under three feet.
If you’re concerned, the first thing you need to do is make a fallout shelter, which can be as simple as a trench in your yard, roofed with 4X4 supports and plywood or solid-core doors covered with a pile of dirt. For more information about formal or ad hoc shelters, I recommend Cresson Kearney’s book, Nuclear War Survival Skills. You can buy a printed copy on Amazon or simply download an electronic copy on the Internet. It’s out of copyright, so it’s even legal to grab a copy.
You may also want to stock either potassium iodide or potassium iodate, which we’ve discussed before, and perhaps a radiation survey meter like this one. Perhaps pick up a roll of Visqueen and some duct tape in case you need to seal your doors and windows. Again, I don’t think the threat is likely to materialize, but I certainly don’t take issue with anyone who decides to prepare for it anyway.
* * * * *
37 in Yakima. Getting ready for the conference breakfast. No WiFi. 🙁
A greater threat is smuggling of a bomb into a seaport, IMHO. I can think of several ways to do it that would be nearly undetectable, and I am sure those that wish us harm can do likewise. A 10KT surface blast in the harbor would be very unpleasant.
True, but it would also be localized, at least in terms of initial direct effects. The most significant damage would probably be to port operations and the follow-on effects from that, as well as casualties resulting from panic in most or all cities. A 10 or 20 KT surface burst, depending on terrain, would probably have direct effects (blast, overpressure, immediate radiation, etc.) mostly limited to a couple miles from ground zero, and relatively few deaths or serious casualties beyond a few miles from the detonation. As a ground burst, it would produce significant fallout. Much of that would be deposited relatively close to the detonation, but a plume would be carried by prevailing winds far downwind of the detonation.
Worldwide, the results would probably be horrendous. Everyone’s fingers would be on the trigger, and I’d expect to see North Korea, Iran, and perhaps Pakistan obliterated. The trick would be for the major powers to avoid a nuclear exchange, but things could devolve very fast.
North Korea, Iran, and perhaps Pakistan obliterated
I see nothing wrong with that.
Getting wierd connection errors from ttgnet today. This from FF:
“unused
The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was unable to complete your request.
Please contact the server administrator, webmaster@ttgnet.com and inform them of the time the error occurred, and anything you might have done that may have caused the error.
More information about this error may be available in the server error log.”
and Chrome fails to load the regular page 2 out of three attempts…
We have a relatively lot of ICBM and bomber dropped nukes left and most are about to age out (we have not been allowed to properly maintain them because it would not be fair). I would like Trump to dump a bunch of this about to expire stuff on Fat Kim’s military infrastructure and royal palaces. Then on to Iraq and Mecca. We would still have plenty left on our submarines. And the slightest movement by Russia or China should make them recipients of the few pieces of old stuff left. Yes, a big mess and a lot of cleanup, but let everybody else take care of themselves and we will take care of just the USofA.
Only the strong survive.
Edit/Add:
@Denis – no problems here, sounds like an ISP and/or DNS problem. Using a VPN?
@Denis
No problems here, either.
Working fine on the school network.
I don’t advocate dropping nuke warheads on anybody just yet. We’ve done quite enough bombing and strafing already, all over the world, and simply made more enemies in the hundreds of millions thereby. To what end? Profits, mainly, for the oil and bankster assholes, and power for the military and politicians.
Please do not mistake me as some kind of antiwar snowflake; I believe in just wars of self-defense and haven’t seen any recently, or for that matter, the entire history of this country. All of them could have been avoided. And we wouldn’t have so many flags waving over graves in our cemeteries here and around the world.
And of course I fervently believe in self-defense for individuals and communities. But putting such vast power in the hands of the criminally stupid and incompetent sons of bitches as we’ve had ruling us for so long devolves upon us a certain large measure of guilt for what they’ve done, too.
Close all the bases, bring the troops home, and stop messing in the affairs of other countries. I guess before we can do that, we need to remove the current rulers from power, and that won’t happen until we get a complete reboot, looks like. It certainly won’t come about through the usual parties, and elections and voting chicanery and theater, as we have seen. Oh wait–you think Donny Boy is gonna fix everything? Has what he’s done and said lately given you pause at all?
Let’s not murderize any more people until we figure out who’s actually an imminent lethal threat. And we won’t figure that out by listening to and watching the regime’s media.
Good news from weaponsman’s brother:
http://weaponsman.com/?p=40507
I may slide on down for that event, and continue on down or back up to visit family or something. Meatspace and brothers-in-arms.
There are at least several guys I know of who could take over the blog commentary on the technical aspects of war guns, but no one really to fill Kevin’s boots completely.
Wait, why am I blathering about war stuff here after that last post? You’ll have noted, most likely, that when these guys or I am discussing weapons and tactics, we’re probably implying that it’s for inside this country. Not worthless foreign adventures.
Does this mean I want another civil war? Of course not, but the way things have been going, and seeing just how violently both sides hate and loathe each other, I am finding it difficult to believe we can avoid it.
Nuke ’til they glow then shot ’em in the dark.
Actually I am much in line with OFD on some of the stuff. Bring everyone home, close the bases. If a country wants help send a bill with payment required in advance. As for those tin man despots that threaten the U.S., take them out by whatever means necessary. Any attack on the U.S. is met with ten-fold response. Kill a thousand U.S. citizens, ten thousand of the offending country are wiped from existence. Make it known that the U.S. will not tolerate anything that threatens the U.S. and our interests.
“But putting such vast power in the hands of the criminally stupid and incompetent sons of bitches as we’ve had ruling us for so long devolves upon us a certain large measure of guilt for what they’ve done, too.”
Speak for yourself, kemosabe. I’ve been an anarchist since I was in elementary school. I never gave my consent for any of what they’ve done. I bear zero guilt for their actions.
“Kill a thousand U.S. citizens, ten thousand of the offending country are wiped from existence.”
Same tactic employed by the imperial Romans and the German Gestapo and einsatzgruppen. We’d be doing some of these dick-tators a favor by killing off their civilian citizens. And it’s getting much harder to ID and locate the actual guilty parties when they’re “non-state actors.” And/or they’ve secreted themselves among innocent and terrified civilian populations. Like at Mai Lai, ferinstance.
“I never gave my consent for any of what they’ve done. I bear zero guilt for their actions.”
You gave implicit consent to be taxed, and IIRC, you just spent another horrible and intrusive time preparing them for the State. We all know where those taxes go, and short of violent resistance, because they are collected at virtual gunpoint, we’re stuck with paying them. And violent resistance would be met with even more violent punishment. So we all go on essentially consenting to their collection because the alternative has been made to suck really bad for us.
And what about “consenting” to the protection and defense of the country with our armed forces? And being taxed to support all that? Actually it’s the defense and furtherance of the objectives of the banksters and fossil energy and other corporations.
Not to get into a big long and probably pointless political theory discussion here, but if we’re all more or less content with riding along to the current system in this country, and believe me, there will always be some kind of system in effect; anarchy doesn’t have a prayer, except in localized forms; then we’re guilty to one degree or another for what that system does here and around the world. Don’t we hold the people of other countries to that standard? How come not for ourselves?
Oh no ! All post-scarcity societies cross into scarcity societies !
http://www.schlockmercenary.com/2017-04-21
Oh the horror ! Utopias never last.
“You gave implicit consent to be taxed, and IIRC, you just spent another horrible and intrusive time preparing them for the State. We all know where those taxes go, and short of violent resistance, because they are collected at virtual gunpoint, we’re stuck with paying them. And violent resistance would be met with even more violent punishment. So we all go on essentially consenting to their collection because the alternative has been made to suck really bad for us.”
If I’m mugged at gunpoint, I’m not voluntarily giving my money to the mugger.
Taxes are collected with the implicit threat of armed force being used against anyone who doesn’t “voluntarily” pay them. No reasonable person could attempt to make the victims implicit in their own robberies.
No reasonable person could attempt to make the victims implicit in their own robberies
Who says the IRS and congress are reasonable?
Final day of subbing this week. Three days for $180.00. Who says I am not stupid?
Anyway, the education system in this country is doomed. Based on what I remember when I was in school and what is being done today I figure another 40 years and they will be teaching basic math for the advanced math class for seniors. The rest of the time will be teaching how to be a wuss and environmental whacko stuff (coal is evil, nuclear is evil, eating animals is evil, etc.).
“…I figure another
40 yearsfour years and they will be teaching basic math for the advanced math class for seniors. The rest of the time will be teaching how to be a wuss and environmental whacko stuff…FIFY, no charge. You’re welcome!
FIFY, no charge
Not yet. There is still hope in some of the freshman.
I thought that, too, with the college and university freshmen I had a quarter-century ago as a TA in two graduate programs. Some of them questioned, laughingly, a lot of the PC bullshit they were hearing and seeing on those campuses back then!
But as teachers we rarely have any way of knowing how that sorta thang actually turns out or even what positive impact we had/have on our students.
I salute your optimism (and my own) that some kids turn out alright, despite the best efforts of the system to chew them up and spit them out as mindless and intellectually crippled little automatons and serfs.
Mr. and Mrs. RBT are also proof that optimism in this regard is wholly warranted.
At least my Twins are gonna pass Calc I with an A or B.
some kids turn out alright, despite the best efforts of the system to chew them up
There are a few seniors that are going to be OK. Sophomores and juniors are questionable and maybe they are just trying find their footing. A couple of the freshman whose parents I know will be OK.
There is one senior girl who had a baby about November. She is still in school and is determined to get her diploma. I had an issue one time where she was using her cell phone and I took the cell phone. She stormed out of the room without permission and complained to the vice principal about what I did. Said she needed to text the person that was taking care of her child about a problem. He stood behind me. She really hated me.
I had her in class today and told her that if she needed to text check with me first. I have rules I have to follow but can make exceptions for good reasons as long as I know first. She said OK. I then told her that I admired her for continuing to pursue her education and take care of a child. She smiled and perhaps that made her feel just a little better about everything.
I try to not be the ogre about the rules but if I violate the rules my butt is on the line. I need to have a good reason.
Did have an incident Wednesday in the gym class where I was subbing for the teacher. Apparently there was some inappropriate touching of which I did not see. I got called to the office and asked if I saw anything unusual. The gym has several entrance ways where people can hide. I patrol and check the entrances during class. Something must have happened. I asked the gym teacher today what went on and if I missed something. He basically said the accuser is just crazy and looking for attention and to not worry about it. Makes me reinforce my personal rule that I am never alone in a classroom with another student, male or female.
Mr. and Mrs. RBT are also proof that optimism in this regard is wholly warranted.
You an optimist? Who knew!
Checking in.
I posted a link to some dirty bomb response planning doctrine and tools a week or two ago. Practical effects at various distances, triage strategy, secondary effects, relaxed exposure rules for responders, etc.
Spent this am snorkeling. Pm select wandering downtown shopping. Turns out there are LOTS of jewelry and watch stores here. Who knew? Some very high end. Like 40 patek watches in one cabinet kind of high end. Holy Moly there must be some money flowing thru here.
Dinner now….
Nick
The warehouse guys just showed me a 30+ lb dead bobcat that they picked up on the FM 2759 road in front of the office. They are amazed at the animal life out here in the sticks. He ? looked something like this one with a five inch tail:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobcat
Makes me reinforce my personal rule that I am never alone in a classroom with another student, male or female.
That applies to everyone and everywhere nowadays. But the teacher – student thing is getting weird and wild here in Texas. Seems like we are getting some teacher up on charges every other week now.
Anyway, the education system in this country is doomed. Based on what I remember when I was in school and what is being done today I figure another 40 years and they will be teaching basic math for the advanced math class for seniors. The rest of the time will be teaching how to be a wuss and environmental whacko stuff (coal is evil, nuclear is evil, eating animals is evil, etc.).
We are well on our way to the movie “Idiocracy”:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idiocracy
We are well on our way to the movie “Idiocracy”:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idiocracy
Yep. Wrassler Prez, and on down.
” They are amazed at the animal life out here in the sticks.”
We once in a blue moon see a bobcat, usually disappearing fast into the brush. We also occasionally see moose, and the warning just went out from the DMV that ti’s the season now and watch out on the country roads. You don’t wanna hit one of these guys; peeps in the low-rider rice burners at night are most in danger; they don’t see the legs and the main body and head up above and when one of those guys lands on yer windshield, buh-bye. Bears once in a while, poking around where the human beans leave garbage cans out; we think the raccoons tip them off for the easy pickings. And we can hear coyotes at night probably less than a mile away over in them farm fields behind the marsh.
“We are well on our way to the movie “Idiocracy””
“I like money.”
Back a little while ago from the funeral home down in Richmond, VT. Less than an hour to get there during rush hour, about 41 miles, surprising. Long line of peeps waiting to get in; saw our boy Don, the former paratrooper in fucking Laos during the late 1950s. He was holding up OK there but said it was completely unexpected (death of his wife last Friday getting open heart surgery). Knowing how much stuff was wrong with her and how overweight she was (morbidly), I don’t see where the big surprise was, but whatever. Only 66. Don musta been robbing the cradle; he’s 78. Told him and his large son to call me if he needs anything. I’ll wait a week or two and see if he shows up for group, and if not, I’ll call from the road and see if he wants to go for lunch or coffee or whatever. He’s just down the road about 15 miles.
Other guys here have lost their wives and been left alone, except for kids, who have their own lives to live. Mine isn’t even here half the time, but if she goes before me, I’ll be a certified mess, at least for a good long while, if not forever. I bitch about her sometimes but I woulda been dead eight years ago w/o her. And she’s put up with a chit-ton of my chit, too, not so much lately but in the “ten years of hell.”
Gonna have coffee soon with a former co-worker from 30+ years ago.
Funny how we still clash on the same issues, don’t mesh well, but still it’s all about a certain level of trust and common concerns.
A bureaucracy is presumably not as bad as a war, but it comes close, believe me.
” They are amazed at the animal life out here in the sticks.”
There are lots of bear and wild cat and wild canine stories floating lately.
I think it’s more about destruction of the natives’ habitat than about their numbers actually increasing.
Llol! I just got the “double” full Monty with anal probe at the SEATAC TSA. Basically the same clothes and exact same backpack load I alway take. Went through preCheck line and got a beep throught the metal detector. Examine backpack and swab for boom-boom material. Got a beep. Full pat down plus remove belt and choos for swab. Another beep. All items back through x-ray twice. Then into the secluded room for more extensive pat down. Front hand rub, down the pants and all items out of back pack for swabbing. Still beeped. “OK, no more we can do, bye” Geez. Not even a bad look going through McCarran with the same load. Nice standards, TSA douche bags. Surprised if they don’t pull my check bags, too.
Surprised if they don’t pull my check bags, too
Probably did and stole anything of value. I had hand lotion, which was a gift for people in Germany, stolen. I have no doubt it was because of the detailed inspection I went through, much like yours except I had to strip to my underwear and had a crotch inspection. No alarms, they just said it was random.
Complaints about TSA: sound and fury, signifying nothing.
Living in NY and complaining about taxes, 2dA restrictions, signifying nothing.
“Please, God, Stop Chelsea Clinton from Whatever She Is Doing
The last thing the left needs is the third iteration of a failed political dynasty.”
http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/04/please-god-stop-chelsea-clinton-from-whatever-she-is-doing
How dare they speak bad about The Princess !
Now boyz…
…Be-have!
WRT Princess Chelsea; word has it pretty well spread even from supporters that she’s a complete fucking cretin and also tyrannically arrogant and mean to subordinates, the latter characteristic no doubt coming down from Field Marshal Rodham.
Over many decades I’ve noticed that a lot of lefties are like that; they love humanity, or claim to, in the aggregate, but are rotten to individuals, especially subordinate staff.
Gee, I wonder why it’s called “Beserkeley:”
http://conservative-headlines.org/berkeley-mayor-jesse-arreguin-publicly-supports-violent-left-wing-antifa-group/
Probably easier giving “conservative” speeches in Havana or Caracas these days.
On the way back from the funeral home today I saw an SUV passing me (I was doing 75 and they hadda be doing 90) with a BLACK LIVES MATTER sticker on the rear window next to a VPR sticker. Commies.
Up here they tend to congregate in the “cities” like Burlap and Rut-Vegas, and the college towns, forex Bennington and Middlebury. Or hippie-lefty lawyer havens like the state capital, Montpeculiar, where the local peeps strive mightily to be DIFFERENT in as many ways as can be imagined. From the usual gay-tranny stuff to the nude bicycle run every year for some charity or other; these people have deviant sex on the brain 7×24 and if you’re not into it like they are, they write you off as a repressive fascist. Face metal, purple hair, guys in dresses, lefty bumper stickers galore and an army of lawyers and lobbyists. Very unfriendly and arrogant bunch of assholes there; we served a fifteen-year sentence in that place. May remind other peeps here of Seattle and Portland.
http://conservative-headlines.org/berkeley-mayor-jesse-arreguin-publicly-supports-violent-left-wing-antifa-group/
“Every conservative is a white supremacist/fascist according to Felarca…”
My great-grandfather Samuel McGuire would be so proud of me ! He named his last son Nathan Bedford Forrest McGuire (my great-uncle Forrest). Just in case you wondered which way he felt about things. He was a farmer and a preacher at the Hagerman Baptist Church.
What’s bloody interesting is how these people define “conservatives.” The Left has gotten away with for a long time routinely describing various opponents as “arch-conservatives,” “ultra-conservatives,” “reactionaries,” and “fascists.”
Tell me: have you ever heard of or seen “arch-liberal,” “ultra-liberal,” etc., even a 100th as much over the decades?
And anyone to the right of the Castro brothers or Lenin is a “conservative.” So neocons are conservatives, despite their lineage from Trotsky and routine obeisance for anything Israel wants done.
It’s beyond ridicule now: any white male is automatically persona non grata, and we sit still for this shit when we’re in the VAST majority on this continent. Throw in Christian, hetero, and/or veteran and we’re Beyond the Pale. And we sit still for that, too.
I won’t anymore, not that I have done so very much anyway over the years, and I’ve gotten in trouble for it more than once, too.
Wife was all excited about being in NM and El Paso because “you don’t have to apologize for being a Roman Catholic here.” I said I don’t anyway, but we also don’t go beating people over the head with it here in the Northeast. We agreed that if we could have the people from there in a countryside and climate like here it would be Paradise.
No clergy in my family; just myself as a verger and church school teacher in my ECUSA years, and my paternal aunt was a church secretary, also ECUSA. Wife’s young cousin Matt, though, is on track to become a Roman Catholic priest, after a mind-bending experience, he says, traveling in Israel. His brother is an Army lieutenant who could get called back for another tour in South Korea. We figure Father Matt will be doing some christenings eventually, but first up will be a bunch of funerals, including our own.
Wife was all excited about being in NM and El Paso because “you don’t have to apologize for being a Roman Catholic here.”
What ? Texas is about 45% Roman Catholic and 45% Protestant. The other 10% are some mix of Jewish, Hindu, and muslim. And those numbers are very SWAGgie because I did not even factor in Agnostics, Atheists, and Deists. Nobody apologizes in Texas for being RC.
And El Paso is probably 80% RC. Way more SWAG !
She said the cops told her that Juarez has gotten slowly better in the last four years, although it still looks like a nightmarish version of Beirut; they trained 50 first responders to help out when the anti-pope Francis Bergoglio went there after being in the failed state of Mexico. They also told her that by far most of the illegals coming across the border through Mexico were/are coming from countries further south. Wife said they’d been through hellish situations; I didn’t bother going into how that’s not our fucking responsibility and by the way, how many more tens of millions are we supposed to take in, when they don’t even make any pretense at wanting to assimilate? Like with the vets group, it’s just not worth it to get into political and religious discussions; a certain portion of that political and religious spectrum goes ballistic when you disagree with them.
Next time she goes, I’ll be looking for any traditionalist Latin mass RC parishes, and I do my rosary in Latin (yeah, I know, medieval Latin and medieval Italian, really). (my unfinished MA thesis was on Dante, who wrote in both of those, plus classical Latin).
Incidentally, not having a map of TX in front of me, I asked wife the distance from El Paso to Sugarland and she said about 600 miles; I was thinking of dropping by and inspecting various AO situations there, but hell, that’s a 10-12-hour drive, or maybe just five if you go like a bat out of hell. Maybe there are flights?
Oh crap, it’s 3AM here now; I should pop out and try to spot the meteor shower in the east…
Pax vobiscum
Yah, largely. Except that I’m stuck here for family reasons, namely that my wife refuses to leave and I do not wish to leave my kid.
Fun fact: if my I were to pick up and leave the state with my minor child, such as to take a job elsewhere, I’d be facing a bunch of felony charges. If my wife were to do the same, crickets; in theory the same charges, in practice of course not.* I’ve looked into it. That’s aside from the fact that Precious Princess Peewee loves her mother and I’m not trying to interfere with that, of course.
* Though I’ve made sure she understands that if she takes my child, legal issues would be the least of her concerns. Some years ago she was talking about taking the kid to the PRC to live regardless of what I wanted. I told her that if she did, I’d go and get the kid back, killing everyone who got in my way. The key to saying something like that is to not be bluffing.
Re conservatives, as viewed from the left: it’s amazing how alt-right = conservative = white supremacist = …
I figure this is ignorance on the part of most progs, because they have the view “anyone who disagrees with me is obviously evil”. For the MSM, I think they deliberately encourage this, to keep the public turned against conservative views, as they desperately combat the awakening of the red states.
But the progs are so much smarter than we normals are that we should all just acquiesce in the decisions they make in our best interests.
The real problem is that Normals are civilized, polite people, while progs are complete psychopathic barbarians. I’ll believe the so-called red states are awakening when snipers routinely start taking out prog organizers, activists, politicians, and bureaucrats. I think that day is still quite a ways off.
Though I’ve made sure she understands that if she takes my child, legal issues would be the least of her concerns.
Yeah, there’s that. We probably all have the thought now and then: “Why the XXXX did I get married?”
and
The Smug Style in American Liberalism
It’s on Vox, which is a strike against it, and it’s written by a shithead prog, which is a strike against it, and he does blather on, which is a third strike. Regardless, you should read the first few paragraphs.
Yikes, I can see why you said to read just the first few paras; what a long-winded and tedious stream-of-consciousness diatribe, ostensibly to advise his cohorts to be nicer to us Normals, who he obviously really does think are ‘dumbass hicks’ and ‘motherfuckers.’
Here’s what he was up to not too long ago:
“n June 2016, Vox, which employed Rensin as an editor and occasional feature writer, suspended him for a series of tweets calling for anti-Trump riots, including one on June 3 that urged, “If Trump comes to your town, start a riot.” The tweets drew attention because violent anti-Trump protests took place in San Jose, California on the day of Rensin’s tweet.[9][10][11][12]”
What a sweetheart.
@SteveF: Thanks for the link to that article. I stopped reading after a while, only because…has the author never heard of the precept “omit needless words”? He could have said the same things, more effectively, in 1/10 of the length.
It’s not only smugness, though the author probably doesn’t dare state it any more directly. It’s the certainty they they are right; therefore we are wrong. Arrogance. Inability to understand that other points of view are even possible.
What are the chances that anyone on the prog side of things will understand? Likely they’ll feel a fleeting moment of sympathy for poor, unenlightened flyover country. But they’ll shake it off, grab a Kale smoothie from their IoT juicer, and go back to life as normal.
“Inability to understand that other points of view are even possible.”
Plus willful disregard of actual facts and truth demonstrated for them. In the academic humanities departments at colleges and universities, this was seized upon with great glee and fanfare from the 1970s to the present day, captured in the old phrase "It's all relative." And the very concept of "truth" is an outdated relic of the repressive old Eurocentric and/or Anglo-American patriarchies and racists.
Those of us who, for example, still subscribe to scientific truths and reason and the realities of the world and universe we live in with other creatures, are apparently to be written off as "dumbass hicks" and "motherfuckers." Yeah, well, if it weren't for the latter, none of the smartypants libtards and egghead lefties and antifa warriors would be around today at all.
Incidentally, not having a map of TX in front of me, I asked wife the distance from El Paso to Sugarland and she said about 600 miles; I was thinking of dropping by and inspecting various AO situations there, but hell, that’s a 10-12-hour drive, or maybe just five if you go like a bat out of hell. Maybe there are flights?
El Paso to Sugar Land is an 18 hour drive down I-10 for about 740 miles. Just going through the 30 miles of San Antonio is 2+ hours on a good day. I-10 is 75 or 85 mph speed limit outside of the cities. I-10 is in horrible shape and mostly just two lanes with potholes as much as a foot deep. There are bad traffic backups in the middle of the state in the middle of nowhere as people are taking days off and going over to New Braunfels for the river tubing. The Texas population is over 28 million now and growing at a million people per year.
BTW, I nailed a buzzard one day west of Junction with my 2005 Expedition at 85 mph. Luckily he went underneath my truck instead of through the windshield. Feathers were coming out of the engine compartment for days. The trucker next to me was laughing his ass off.
“El Paso to Sugar Land is an 18 hour drive down I-10 for about 740 miles.”
I’d either take a flight and rent a cah or head in the other direction entirely, like wife has been doing, into Nuevo Mexico.
OTOH…“The Texas population is over 28 million now and growing at a million people per year.”
Yikes. Bigger than a lotta countries. And that increase is like roughly double the population of Vermont every year. I think there’s TMFP up here now already.
Had a near-miss with a buzzard in Texas during our drive from Katy to Utah. Them’s big birds!
We have turkey buzzards up here, plus bald eagles and golden eagles. And Great Blue Herons. All pretty big. Only bird I ever hit while driving was a few years ago on an off-ramp in Montpeculiar, no way to avoid it, a crow, I think, bounced off the windshield and dropped in the road behind me, crippled. I felt bad because there was no way to save it, not with traffic right behind me.
We have several avian rescue nonprofits in the state.
I don’t know anyone who wants to rescue a buzzard. And especially not a turkey buzzard. They are horribly nasty birds.
The avian rescue peeps up here mainly save much smaller birds and pet birds, too, of course.
What’s odd is we never see turkey buzzards cleaning up roadkill; that’s usually done by members of the corvid families, and mainly just crows. Smart birds, too, and trainable. Told wife not to leave any of her jewelry out in the open, lol.
Just going through the 30 miles of San Antonio is 2+ hours on a good day.
Interesting. SA must be wider than it is tall. To get to the Valley I take 281 and it’s maybe an hour from the north side of Bulverde (traffic hell that it has become) to the south side of SA.
I hit a buzzard once. He was chowing on a squirrel and decided that “right now” was a good time to take off. No damage to the car… the bird bounced off. Stayed there for a couple of months until the county mowed the grass. Maybe the ants ate it. Buzzards didn’t. I never smelled it.
Lynn wrote:
“BTW, I nailed a buzzard one day west of Junction with my 2005 Expedition at 85 mph. Luckily he went underneath my truck instead of through the windshield. Feathers were coming out of the engine compartment for days. The trucker next to me was laughing his ass off.”
Be thankful you don’t have wombats and kangaroos there. Wombats are small and hard and if one gets under your wheels you’ll most likely flip. At 85 mph. Hitting a kangaroo at that speed is not likely to be good for the ‘roo, your car or you. (I came very close 30 years ago, its tail clipped the front right of the car. The perspex turn indicator cover was damaged, that’s it. I was lucky.)
Shorter version of Miles_Teg’s anecdote: years ago, he got him some ’roo tail.
Leave out ‘roo.
Long day today. But, three three year old emu have their usable parts in the freezer.
Gonna be a lot of jerky making…..
“Gonna be a lot of jerking…”
Too much information Paul.