Plagiarizing Your Way To A Pulitzer - Ukraine

 Today, my hometown paper, the Denver Post (Ved Nanda), and the Times of London, (Max Hastings) are both running similar articles rehashing the old arguments in favor of buying off aggressive tyrants to somehow buy peace. Shades of Neville Chamberlin. Let the Germans Russians have the Sudetenland Donbas regions, and forestall the possibility of an a actual shooting war. Peace In Our Time!

I bet I know how that will turn out.

Both the abovementioned articles are behind paywalls, but you can get the general gist of both by searching for Chamberlins agreement with Hitler which he waved for the press on his return from negotiations.

Uvalde Shooting - Same Story, Different Venue

 As the story unfolds, with the speed of continental drift, It seems the shooter was standing in front of the school, popping off rounds for 12 minutes before going inside. I guess he wanted to make sure it was safe.

Which means that one of the front office administrative staff would have had time to remove a Remington 870 from the school gun safe, load it with #4 buck, stick it out a window, and drop the shooter before any cops of any sort could have arrived.

As usual, it's not that there was a man with a gun, it's that there was ONLY ONE man with a gun.

Women Don't Exist! - ACLU

 Just when you think the world can't get any crazier, the world steps up, says "Hold me beer" and proceeds to shatter your delusions of sanity.

ACLU Files Motion Denying Existence of Women

Money quote:

Denying sexual dimorphism is up there with a motion claiming that the earth is flat.

But the ACLU motion went on “to deny the allegation that ‘human beings’ are ‘sexually dimorphic, divided into males and females each with reproductive systems, hormones, and chromosomes that result in significant differences between men[] and women[.]’”

Biology 101 is now an “allegation” to be denied in court.

Maybe the ACLU’s next motion will deny the “allegation” that the earth revolves around the sun.

Watching History Rhyme

Interesting watching history repeat itself. First a proxy war featuring US v China, and to a lesser extent, Russia in Viet Nam, followed by Russia v US in Afghanistan, followed by US v Russia in Afghanistan now morphing into Russia and to a lesser extent, China v US and Europe in Ukraine.

The Vietnamese ran the French and Americans out of their country and quickly discovered that they couldn’t run a successful country. They are now croney capitalists.

The Afghanistanis ran both the Russians and the Americans out and are discovering the same thing.

Ukraine: Same thing coming down but with a likely alignment with the EU.

Kinda sucks to be the proxy though.

Basis for a Dilbert Strip

 Here's a headline 

Apple Machine Learning Director Said to Quit Over Tech Giant’s Return-to-Work Policy

Which made me think that some clever code monkey at Apple had written an AI that did all the functions of a director, and pulled down the salary to the code monkey, without ever having any human contact at all. Great scam, if you can get it.

Problem being is that now Apple wants its people back at work, and someone was bound to notice the absence of a warm body in the directors chair. 

Apple might well leverage this by writing AIs that formulate meaningless memos in high-level bureaucratese and send them to a designated mailing list. The obvious use would be to replace about half the executive branch of the government with these things. CGIs could be constructed to convince the public that real people were somehow involved, and the whole country could run on autopilot.

Taxes And Regulations Work! Here's Proof

 

None of these happened, and that proves that there is no problem that can't be quickly solved with a generous dose of taxation and the creation or expansion of a government agency.

Prove me worng!

NICS Checks for April

 Again, we seem to have gotten back to what passes for normal with a "normal" drop in checks:

Everyone got their tax refunds in March, and bought their new guns with the windfall I guess. Barring a revival of Antifa or BLM, I'm not seeing a big uptick for the summer although if Slo Joe lets Title 42 go by and a big increase in illegals follows, this could drive the numbers upward. Facing the mid terms, though, opening the southern border to all comers does not seem like a winning move.

Arabic Language Lesson

 Earlier in this blog I published a helpful item giving the definitions of some Arabic words in common use giving somewhat more complete descriptions of the meanings which seem to be different depending on whom the definition is being presented to. 

Here's another, courtesy of FrontPageMag: Kuffir, or Kuffar, or any of several varients in spelling. This word is presented to the non-muslim as referring to non-muslims in a very neutral way, but wait: The Koran uses it with rather different overtones:

Thus the Koran refers to kuffar as inherently “guilty” and “unjust” (10:17, 45:31, 68:35); terror is to be cast into their hearts (3:151); they are the “vilest of beasts” (8:55, 98:6), comparable to “cattle,” and “devoid of understanding” (47:12, 8:65); they are natural born “enemies” to Muslims (4:101), “disliked” and “accursed” by Allah (2:89, 3:32, 33:64), who further declares himself their implacable “enemy” (2:98).

Something to keep in mind if the word pops up in a discussion with a Muslim. 

Epstein Syndrome?

 Now there's a name for it, oligarchs committing suicide and frequently taking all nearby witnesses with them.

Epstein Syndrome, no less!

The DNC: What Next?

 Not a rant about their latest power grab, but a question about the future makeup and direction of the party itself. Pundits across the board are predicting a disaster for the DNC this year only rivaled by the Chicxulub meteor impact that marked the end of the Cretaceous and the extinction of the dinosaurs.

So lets imagine the Dems bomb biblically in November. Then what? The DNC is a big organization, like a huge vehicle with a committee in the drivers seat. Post election, some of the drivers committee are going to either jump out the doors, or be tossed. But which ones? The moderates will find it easy enough to reinvent themselves as independents, and who knows, perhaps alter their voting practices. The hard core will be happy to see them go, and will move to make sure they don't come back. Ownership of the party is profitable, and the fewer "unproductive units" there are, the more swag the remainder gets.

This could work the other way of course, with the extremists getting the boot and the moderates taking over, making sure that the now exiled Bolsheviks find it very difficult to get back on the bus, and certainly not into the drivers seat. 

The DNC is a large, heavy vehicle, and no loss will be great enough to completely destroy it. At least I don't think so. Remember the Whigs?

Lockdown In Shanghai - Stressful And Unpopular

How unpopular, you ask? Here's a link to a Twitter feed with a video showing just how unpopular some are finding it.

WARNING: NOT FOR THE SQUEAMISH!    

Here

NICS Checks - Back To Normal?

 Thru March we're back to following the traditional curve. It's possible that the nation has calmed down a bit with 3 more states adopting constitutional carry, or it may be that monies formerly spent on guns and ammo nor are being diverted to non-perishable foodstuffs. Anyway:

What If The Virus WAS The Vaccine?

 Found this on Bijou who found it elsewhere so it's now 3rd hand, but it's an interesting bit of medical technology, creating a virus that leaves behind proteins that trigger an immune response to another virus.

What could go wrong?

Usually Reliable Sources - Technology Theft

Today it is being reported by usually reliable sources that the Chinese government has successfully stolen American technology used by the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture to manufacture American Process Cheese. 

As is widely known, APC is a by-product of refined petroleum and is produced in large quantities by every refinery in the U.S. The final product is then sold to cheese users like Kraft to make their world famous Mac and Cheese food product in addition to thrifty citizens to help make fake meat burgers palatable. Excess production then goes into the National Strategic Cheese Reserve located in a large complex of refrigerated warehouses in Wisconsin. 

The Chinese have pilfered this technology, and are using it to produce cheese, under the name of Chinese Process Cheese, which will be used to alleviate impending food shortages being brought on by the Russian war in Ukraine which is expected to severely impact the global production of wheat and fertilizer.

Allowing the Chinese to build up a large Cheese Gap in this underhanded manner in unconscionable on President Bidens part and we all need to write him and our elected representatives in Washington and demand that the National Cheese Reserves be opened to alleviate hunger in the United States. Do it now! For the children!

Attention Writers, Film Makers!

Plot line anyway. I don't know anyone who normally writes this sort of thing but todays Coffee with Scott Adams included a tongue-in-cheek proposal from Scott that Hollywood might make a Bond movie based on a finding that Hunter was involved in creating the Covid virus in a Ukrainian lab, but had also developed a perfect antidote, the details of which were sent to Hunter at some point, and stored on one of the 6 or 8 laptops he lost as he traveled the world, visiting various dens on iniquity and hives of scum and villainy. 

Bonds assignment would be to find these places, visit them, kill anyone needing it, and retrieve the laptops. Sounds like a great idea. A G-rated version might be made of Harry Potter and the Seven Veils. Another version might closely resemble "Dude! Where's My Car?"

I thought the idea had possibilities. Any writers out there?