New Debate Format

 I hereby propose the "Kindergarten Format for future presidential debates:

Put plexiglass shields around the candidates podiums, big enough to allow hand waving. candidate mics are normally off. Tell the candidates this is for COVID reasons. Give the moderator 2 big buttons which turn each candidate mic on for, say, 2 minutes. Candidate podiums will have 2 lights, one green and one yellow. Moderator asks a question, and presses the appropriate button. Candidate green light goes on and mic goes live. After 90 seconds, the light goes yellow. After 2 minutes, light goes out and mic goes off. The podium shielding will muffle any overtime shouting and the debate takes on an aura of adult participation. If this seems draconian, have the first debate as usual, with the threat that if it degenerates, the next 2 will happen under the "kindergarten rules".

I Live In The Nicest Neighborhood

 

My neighborhood in Littleton has to be one of the nicest in Colorado. Everyone is friendly and when you see them outside walking dogs or whatever, they always smile and wave back at you as you pass. This being an election year I happy to see the high level of involvement and enthusiasm with yard signs everywhere which of itself is good even though I have my doubts about the amount of thinking that went into some of the opinions, I'm sure I'm not alone in this.

As we all know, throwing poo is stereotypical primate behavior, and as we are all primates, a certain amount of this is to be expected. Among the higher primates, one expects this behavior to be more figurative than actual, but I suppose evolution is a slow process and manifests itself more in some than in others. Happily, even with exceptions involving throwing actual poo, the poo tossed at my yard signs is commendably not only tied shut in plastic “doggy bags” it is also obviously produced by a rather small dog, so thanks to whomever is doing it for making your point in a way that is easy and relatively sanitary to clean up.

Have a nice day!

SCOTUS Seats

 The current situation presents some interesting opportunities all around. It is widely believed that Trumps nominee for RBGs seat will be Amy Barrett. The advantage here is that Mrs Barrett has already been through the Senate confirmation process and her only drawback is that she is a practicing Catholic. This being the case, if the Republicans had half the instinct for a power grab that the Dems have, Trump could nominate Mrs. Barrett on Monday, tomorrow, McConnell could call for a vote on Wednesday, and Mrs Barrett could be warming Ruth's seat on Friday. Also on Friday, we'd have live TV footage of Dem Heads exploding and on Saturday, of several major cities in flames. 

On the other side, the news media would be able to ask Slow Joe who his 2 picks for additional Supreme court seats will be should he win and take office. 

Memory Care

 Someone posted on Nextdoor here about needing a memory care facility in my general part of town. Horrible of me I know, as my mother went that way, but all I could think was that Joe Biden was making a campaign stop in Colorado and they needed a place to put him up for a day or two.

Trumps SCOTUS Shortlist

 Trump has added a few more names to his SCOTUS short list. Swell. At this point there are only 2 justices looking at shuffling off the mortal coil in the next 4 years, and I'm pretty sure Trump already has in mind exactly who will be the suggested replacements.

If you listen carefully, you can hear the clanking of chains being yanked.

Summer Blizzard?

 OK here's the MWS prediction for the daily high temps this coming week:

Accompanying the slight cooling off will be a predicted 5.8" of snow. Note that no local trees have shed any leaves. Also lots of fruit and veggies in peoples gardens are going to take a beating. Low temps are forecast to be down to 29 degrees although only for a couple hours and with everything buried under all that snow, maybe we won't lose ALL of our home grown food.

So tons of broken limbs, damaged cars and houses, and probably power outages. Who had Early Ice Age in the disaster pool?

August NICS Checks - Another Record, But Getting Back To Normal?

 August continues the unusually high gun sales rate although the curve looks like it's returning to the traditional shape of modest summer sales.

Of course it's also possible that sales are tapering off because the vendors have run out of guns which has happened in some places. Sales could remain high as the election approaches if people give Biden any chance of winning. My favorite vendor is completely out of primers of any sort at all but if the trend is toward moderation, they should come back into stock this month or next. One hopes.

I Got Assaulted

 

Not a huge deal, but it accentuated several things I and my cohorts are doing wrong. Complacent, we have become, what with living in one of the less disrupted areas for sure. The 3 or 4 of us are wont to have breakfast once a week where we discuss the state of the world and observe the terrible decline/humor of the situation. In light of the Kung Flu, and with the onset of summer, we moved our venue from a local restaurant to a local park which featured covered benches and an open rest room.

The problem here is the rest room. Since it's open, the vagrant population finds it attractive as well. Yes, it looks about like you'd expect, but it is open.

So we're sitting at a bench, doing our thing when one of the vagrants walks by, earnestly talking to the clouds, the ducks, and anyone who might be listening. He seems to have a problem with other people as he berates us as he walks by, but he does keep walking. We pay no attention to him. He continues all around the park, and eventually circles back past us. His path takes him around behind me and he mutters about telling us once, twice, and three times about something, and as he passes behind me he sucker punches me up side the head, open handed, hard enough to knock my hearing aid out of my ear and about 10 feet away.

My initial reaction is to jump up and present a likely counter attack which seems to work as he offered to join a fight if I was willing to start it. Facing him, several things become apparent: First is that living rough leaves a person in a wiry sort of fit condition. He's about 30, I'm 73. I'm in good shape for 73, but not that good. Noting that, I look for an equalizer. Additional note: Both myself and one of the other 2 of my party have CCWs. Naturally neither one of us was actually carrying that day. Of all the stuff on the table, the best option was my thermos which, being plastic, would probably not make much of an impression on a deranged attacker. It brings to mind this:

Sean O’Leary was walking through a dim passageway when someone spoke to him.

"Good evenin’, O’Leary," said the muffled figure. "Don’t ye be knowin’ your old pal Reilly any more?"

Sean stared at Reilly, whose face was a patchwork of bandages and adhesive plasters. One arm was in a cast and he was leaning on a crutch.

"Saints!" cried O’Leary. "Was ye hit by a train, Reilly, or did ye merely jump from the trestle?"

"It could have been both," said Reilly, "considerin’ the feel of it. But the truth is, I was in bed with McClatchy’s wife and McClatchy himself comes in with a mammoth huge shillelagh in his hand and the inconsiderate creature beat the livin’ bejazus outa me."

"He did indeed," said O’Leary. "But couldn’t ye defend y’rself, Reilly, me boy? Hadn’t ye nothin’ in your own hand?"

"Only Mrs. McClatchy’s ass," said Reilly. "Tis a thing of beauty in itself, but not worth a damn in a fight."

I now know exactly how Reilly felt when McClatchy burst in. Well, OK there was 3 of us and one of him although I believe our average age was somewhere in the upper 60s. Seeing nothing useful on the table, I look to my partners, remembering the days of my wasted youth when an attack on one of our motorcycle club was an attack on the whole club. There they sit, like 2 deer in the headlights. At this point I put on my best Cohen the Barbarian and face my attacker. He sees me ready to fight but not attacking, so he takes that as a win, dares us to call the cops, turns, and walks off. So I call the cops, 3 of whom dutifully arrive and begin to search all the wrong ends of the park. Eventually we get them straightened out and they interview both of us, at opposite ends of the park. There was also a second, independent witness, so good. They ask if I wish to press charges, and I agree. When they leave, the attacker is no where to be seen so I suspect he left with one of the cops. Fine.

Lessons learned:

1, I went to all the trouble and expense to get the permit, I need to be carrying ALL THE TIME. As Churchill allegedly said “A gentleman seldom needs a gun, but when he does, he needs it very badly.”

2. My breakfast buddy is in the same boat here.

3. My breakfast buddies are not the same people I used to ride motorcycles with. They are much more respectable than that. Much like Mrs. McClatchy's ass. Only older.

4. I'm the only one of our group who doesn't have a smart phone. If you have one, you need to develop a reflex to turn on the video record mode at the first sign of trouble lest the aliens have you probed, implanted, and returned leaving no evidence.

A court appearance will happen at some point. I am inquiring as to what that will entail. More on that later I guess.

Who's In Charge Here?

 Found at Breitbart, this story about Clear Channel, the billboard division, who sold a billboard to Urban CURE, a group that promotes self help. Click the link to see the board.

Useful stuff, no? I suppose if I was a hard-core Karen, I could complain that it was cultural appropriation, with U.C. encouraging blacks to appropriate culture from whites, and maybe that's what's going on here.

Parker said the Milwaukee chapter of Black Lives Matter “didn’t like it” and “went after our boards,” alleging they were racist and sexist.

“They told Clear Channel Outdoor,” the company that approved and posted the billboards, “that they will control messaging, that they will control narrative,” she alleged.

Now when someone buys a billboard, who's in charge of the message? Would that be the buyer of the board, the seller of the board space, or any hobo walking down the street that disapproves of the message? I suppose it depends. If Al-Quaida bought one that said "Kill All Jews" there would be grounds to object coming from several sources. If the Republicans bought one that said "Vote For Trump" would a democrat have grounds to demand it be taken down? If this idea is taken to its last logical extreme, no billboard would exist anywhere. 

Superficially this is a good idea as it reduces visual clutter, OTOH a working capitalist economy demands that products be bought and sold, and advertising greases the skids. Conversely, silencing your opponents reduces the competition which goes against the 1st amendment.

Clear Channel Outdoor told the news station that the ad “did not receive proper approvals” and “lacked appropriate attribution.”

Which sounds like Clear Channel is turning an editorial function over to an outside 3rd party, BLM in this case.

 

 

The 2 Parties

 Found this screen shot on Insty with 250 comments attached:

Things you can count on: When the Evil party does something stupid, the Stupid party will just stand there in slack-jawed approval.

What Governments Are For

 Governments are formed by people primarily to do jobs that need to be done, but which have no deliverable product that can be readily sold to show a profit*. National defense for example, paving and maintaining roads, and police work. One has an expectation , in that last example, that the police will, if not eliminate crime, at least minimize it by their presence. Lately we've been getting a dose of what happens in their absence as municipal governments, for one reason or another, refuse to act to stop increasingly violent rioting and looting.

Now in Kenosha, they may have gotten what they wanted in the form of a scapegoat. Not for the looting, which they still seem to approve of, but someone to punish for acting where the government has refused. 

It's still early and the fog of war is still quite thick, but when rioters run amok and the municipal government refuses to stop them, why should anyone be surprised when the citizens step in to deal with the problem? 

*This is probably why government work is so notoriously shoddy. If you deliver a mediocre product, what would the people do, farm the work out to an adjacent government? True, the obvious solution is to vote the incompetent bums out, but how often does that happen? Governments are quite good at only one thing, and that is self-perpetuation.

Voting By Mail

 How it's done varies by state. You have to be careful in most states lest you get caught being overly flexible with the rules:

From Peter Grants page.

In Colorado the rule is that you're allowed to deposit up to 10 ballots at a time into the drop boxes, then you have to go back to your car for the next 10. Please remove the rubber band from the bundle before depositing. Finding 20-30 rubber banded bundles in a drop box raises eyebrows when they are counted as the signatures seem to be all in the same handwriting.

News Of The day - Kim Jong Un

 Again the rumors are circulating of the death of Lil Kim, the fat one, and the imminent takeover of the country by his sister. Speculation also abounded when Generalissimo Francisco Franco died with conflicting reports coming out of Spain about as fast as they could be written. This inspired Don Henley:

Can we film the operation? Is the head dead yet?
You know the boys in the newsroom got a running bet
Get the widow on the set, we need dirty laundry

So who knows. Until we see the citizens of NK out in the streets, trying to mourn convincingly at the urging of armed police, who knows. Fat Lims sister is crtainly better looking that he is but reputedly is even nastier.

QOTD - Acceptance Speech

 Best QOTD so far from Slow Joe ending his acceptance speech:

“There’s never been anything we’ve been able to accomplish when we’ve done it together”.

Frankly I admit to being surprised that he's still the nominee. I had expected that he would have been quietly shuffled off the ticket in one of the online-only votes limited to anonymous, highly placed members of the DNC Illuminati. 

DNC - Divide-N-Conquer

QOTD - Gun Law - 9th Circuit

 From the 9th circuits ruling in Duncan et al v Becerra at Joe Huffmans place:

The very purpose of a Bill of Rights was to withdraw certain subjects from the vicissitudes of political controversy, to place them beyond the reach of majorities and officials and to establish them as legal principles to be applied by the courts. One’s right to life, liberty, and property, to free speech, a free press . . . and other fundamental rights may not be submitted to vote; they depend on the outcome of no elections.

Striking down Cali's ban on standard capacity magazines. What it means is that no law can be justified by citing itself. If there is a law restricting some part of an amendment, that in and of itself does not justify further infringement and may well be unconstitutional as well.