The Morning Report — 5/ 27 /25

Good morning kids. Hope you all had an enjoyable Memorial Day weekend. While it is certainly with sadness and gratitude that we pause to honor and remember all of those who gave their lives in our wars to preserve our freedom. They were, are, and will be the very best that this nation has to offer.

I bookend that thought by noting the passing of one of the worst examples of humanity whose adult life can only be described as a stain and a desecration of everything that every decent American holds dear. With that we bid a sigh of relief as the soul of former congressman Charles Rangel descends to the infernal reaches towards eternal damnation. He leaves behind a slimy trail of decades of venality, corruption, racism and hatred for America and its greatness, and support for its enemies; tyrants and thugs both foreign and domestic who sought and continue to seek our destruction, he being a shining example of the latter, as his long and horrendous dossier at Discover the Networks denotes in scrupulous detail.

If I am breaking with the unwritten rule or convention of not spitting on the grave of a political enemy at the time of their passing, then so be it. Charlie Rangel and his ilk are as culpable in the life and death of the monster they created, George Floyd, and the subsequent wave of domestic terrorism that left dozens of cities in ashes and ruins 5 years ago this weekend to say nothing of the previous decades of racial violence and strife that they and their party fomented all in the name of seizing absolute power and control. All in the name ironically of supposedly attempting to redress the original sin of Slavery and Jim Crow that they themselves were responsible for in the first place. The Democrat/Left is quick on the draw with the "G" word — Genocide. Whether accusing Israel of committing it against the Dark Age barbarians who roast their children alive in front of their parents or the constant drumbeat of the blood libel of institutional white supremacy that has destroyed black America. The only thing that has destroyed black America is institutional Democrat/Leftist supremacy and its destructive policies going back 60 years to LBJ's so-called "war On Poverty" and "Great Society," Of which Charlie Rangel was a Kapo and Enforcer for decades.

SO RIP Rangel. Roast in Piss, and take your whole damned party and movement with you. The sooner the better.

As a palate cleanser, and in stark contrast:

Memorial Day 2025 – Remember Those Who Gave All in Benghazi and Protecting Our Border Glen Doherty. Sean Smith. Tyrone Woods. Brian Terry.

Amazing isn't it how this nation can produce such diametric opposites as these fine men, and at the same time give rise to the aforementioned human excrement Rangel.

Basta cosi. While there are signs of an American revival, culturally and otherwise with the coming of the MAGA movement, The anti-Americans have precious few options except for violence, as we have witnessed everywhere from college campuses, to pregnancy centers, to Christian schools to, GOP offices and Tesla dealerships and everywhere in between.

When all you have to offer is hatred, misery and death, then that's what we'll get. And yet here they are pissing and moaning not understanding why their party is sinking. Here's a clue: It's not the messengers it's the message itself. But to admit that is to bring about an existential crisis, and the Democrats will never allow that.

Rahm Emanuel, an ex-Obama White House chief of staff and former Chicago mayor, said in a Wall Street Journal interview published Monday that the Democratic Party’s brand is “weak and woke.”

Emanuel also told the WSJ that he believes the Democratic Party’s brand is “toxic.” The interview comes amid increasing speculation that Emanuel could be a potential candidate in the party’s 2028 presidential primary, which is likely to be crowded. “I’m tired of sitting in the back seat when somebody’s gunning it at 90 miles an hour for a cliff,” Emanuel told the WSJ.

“If you want the country to give you the keys to the car, somebody’s got to be articulating an agenda that’s fighting for America, not just fighting Trump,” Emanuel told the outlet. “The American dream has become unaffordable. It’s inaccessible. And that has to be unacceptable to us.” (RELATED: ‘Insulted President Biden,’ ‘Insulted President Obama,’ And ‘Fully Embraced Trump’: Rahm Emanuel Blames Netanyahu For Making Israel A ‘Partisan Issue’

Totally clueless. If you claim your "Brand" is toxic, well then genius, define the brand? It's not how you articulate a policy, or more accurately how you lie about what your policy is, it's the policy itself. Shouting NAZI from center stage at a Nuremberg rally while pointing at the smoldering synagogue your supporters just torched is just not going to cut it anymore, chum. More and more people are seeing you and yours as the insane, criminal, destructive perverts that you are and they are repulsed.

Also we have this analysis of the Democrats from the NY Times and they aren't sanguine about the Democrat brand either. Although they too will never admit the real reasons but instead will just make the usual excuses and insult those who are abandoning the party.

And lastly, a quick shout-out and thank you for your continued support in hitting our tip jar. It truly is appreciated more than you can know.

Have a great day.

ABOVE THE FOLD, BREAKING, NOTEWORTHY
• What 153 years of uninterrupted Democrat control can do.
  New Orleans Prison Break: A Product of Progressivism
  
• Michael Walsh: What makes the problems of the Ukraine and Taiwan even thornier is that neither has a valid pretense to administrative independence. Instead, both real or prospective conflicts are among the last sortings-out of two civil wars
  THE COLUMN: Minding Our Own Business

Posted by: J.J. Sefton at 07:10 AM | Comments (284) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Daily Tech News 27 May 2025

Top Story

• Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang blasted US limits on the export of advanced AI chips to China, complaining that the rules are bad because they work. (Hot Hardware)
  
  Unlike Nvidia's consumer graphics cards.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 04:35 AM | Comments (83) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Monday Overnight Open Thread - May 26, 2025 [Doof]

Gold Star Memorial - Aberdeen Proving Ground, MD

Welcome to the Memorial Day ONT. Please join in as we "salute the ones who died, the ones who gave their lives, so we don't have to sacrifice all the things we love."

Posted by: Open Blogger at 10:00 PM | Comments (307) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Memorial Day Cafe

"Three Soldiers," part of the Vietnam War Memorial

Driving with your best friend.

Little dog has the instincts of a lifeguard.

When you have a friend who's too dumb to come in from the rain.

This dog's got charisma.

First day with the new trunk.

Did I do thaaat?

Beluga bestie.

Posted by: Ace at 07:26 PM | Comments (199) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Ice Cream Man Open Thread

Posted by: Ace at 06:20 PM | Comments (134) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Big Guns Open Thread

If you want to skip to the good part -- here's a golfball fired by a giant punt gun into a ballistic-gel model of the head.

Posted by: Ace at 05:09 PM | Comments (84) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Dueling Pianos Open Thread

Posted by: Ace at 04:06 PM | Comments (120) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Memorial Day Weekend Memories

11 years ago this weekend, Anthony Weiner's twitter was "#Hacked" by someone still unidentified.

I think the #Hack occurred Friday night as the #Hacker posted a picture of Anthony Weiner's erect penis (in his underwear) to one of his online admirers.

How Anthony Weiner's #Hacker got a picture of Weiner in his underwear is a question that will haunt us forever.

Posted by: Ace at 02:53 PM | Comments (195) | Trackbacks (Suck)

French President Macron Slapped by His Mother/Wife

How is your Memorial Day going?

Posted by: Ace at 01:33 PM | Comments (296) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Act Blue Officals Refuse to Testify Before Congress About Illegal Overseas Fundraising and Fraud; House Committee Leaders Threaten Compusory Subpoeanas to Testify

Make them plead the Fifth.

And then prosecute them.

The chairmen of three powerful House committees on Thursday threatened to issue subpoenas after several current and former top officials of the Democrat online fund-raising platform ActBlue declined to testify in a probe into possible foreign and fraudulent political donations, according to correspondence obtained by Just the News.

House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, House Oversight Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., and House Administration Chairman Bryan Steil, R-Wis., revealed in the letters that several of the witnesses initially agreed to voluntary, transcribed interviews, then pulled back through their lawyer earlier this month after President Donald Trump signed an order instructing the Justice Department to probe the platform.

"As we have explained, the Committees are examining allegations that ActBlue, a leading political fundraising organization, allowed bad actors, including foreign actors, to exploit the company's online platform to make fraudulent political donations," the chairmen wrote in letters to the witnesses, which were sent to a lawyer representing them, Danny Onorato.

"Fraudulent political donations corrupt American elections could amount to interstate criminal conduct," the letters also state.

The letters laid out the testimony flip-flops for each of the witnesses, including ActBlue's former chief revenue officer, Peter Slutsky.

"On April 21, Mr. Onorato indicated that you had agreed to appear for a voluntary transcribed interview and began the process of scheduling your appearance. However, on May 7, Mr. Onorato notified the Committee that you had changed course and now would not appear for a voluntary transcribed interview," the chairmen stated.

"He cited a reported Executive Branch investigation into 'the unlawful use of online fundraising platforms to make 'straw' or 'dummy' contributions or foreign contributions to political candidates and committees' as the basis for your refusal to cooperate voluntarily with the Committees," the letter to Slutsky and Onorato also states.

...

The letters demanded each witness schedule their interview by no later than May 29 or risk facing a subpoena.

"The Committees are prepared to resort to compulsory process, if necessary, to obtain compliance with our requests," the lawmakers warned.

Unrelated: Elon Musk announces he's stepping back from politics.

He did an awful lot. He spent $43 billion just to stop Twitter from banning right-leaning accounts like Babylon Bee and LibsofTikTok. I know he's rich, but no one easily parts with $43 billion.

And then he committed himself to spending tens of millions to get Trump elected. And then he absorbed tens of billions of dollars in reputational and business damage inflicted on him by leftwing terrorists.

I'm sad the left gets this "win," but I can't fault Musk for deciding that he's done enough for now and deserves a little rest and relaxation.

Posted by: Ace at 12:08 PM | Comments (181) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Humanity Amidst the Horror of the Civil War – The Pickets of Chattanooga Creek

[“Pickets Trading Between the Lines” – Edwin Forbes – Courtesy of the Library of Congress]

On this Memorial Day, like all before it, we honor the sacrifice and valor of those who paid the ultimate price in service to our country. As we learned in our school days, this sacred day started out as “Decoration Day” shortly after the Civil War, for the purpose of decorating the graves of those killed in the war. As we beseech God to ever bless our fallen brothers and sisters from all wars, I’d also like to take this moment to share a special moment of humanity that occurred during our great national strife 162 years ago.

When I moved to Chattanooga a few years ago, its Civil War history became a passion of mine. Whenever friends and family are in town, I like to give them a tour of the famous sites and battlefields, along with the backstory of the events, famous Generals, casualties, etc.

There is one stop on my tour that always has the biggest impact. It’s not the stunning view from the Lookout Mountain battle site, nor is it the ghosts or monuments of the bloody Chickamauga battlefield, nor the somber drive along the crest of Missionary Ridge. Instead, it’s a simple weed-strewn lot at the end of a dead-end road along Chattanooga Creek, just south of downtown. What makes this spot so special isn’t the fighting and killing that occurred here, but just the opposite, the humanity and American brotherhood that played out here.

In the Fall of 1863, Chattanooga Creek served as the boundary between the Union troops under siege in Chattanooga and the Confederate troops that had them boxed in. The main armies were set back a distance, with a small number of advance troops, called “pickets,” serving in front of their main armies. The pickets’ purpose was not to engage in combat, rather it was to serve as sentries, lookouts, and tripwires. But due to their shared language and close proximity, the pickets from both sides of the battle often engaged in a unique American fellowship.

The Civil War marker at this spot (35°01'22.0"N 85°19'11.6"W) reads as follows:

During Confederate Gen. Braxton Bragg's siege of Chattanooga, part of his line followed the bends of Chattanooga Creek in the narrow valley that separated Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge. On this line both armies deployed advanced guards or pickets to warn of enemy attacks. These soldiers dug rifle pits to make their positions safe from enemy fire. Shortly after the siege began, however, a short truce was declared to let a train of Union ambulances retrieve wounded soldiers from the Chickamauga battlefield. The pickets, tired of the constant sniping that occurred between the lines, decided to continue the truce unofficially and on their own terms. As Sgt. Joseph T. Gibson of the 78th Pennsylvania Infantry put it, "The pickets of the two armies along Chattanooga Creek were not more than seventy-five to one hundred feet apart, and they were on the best of terms, and conversed frequently on various subjects." Gibson added: "The Confederate pickets had the impression that we were pretty hard up for rations, but, ...they always found the pickets on the Union line ready to fling a cracker across the little stream that separated them.” Throughout the remainder of the siege, the soldiers on picket duty could be seen chatting with each other across the creek and on occasion soldiers from the Union and Confederate army could be seen playing cards together or trading tobacco and coffee. Officers deplored these "soldiers' truces" but could do little to stop them.

I can tell you all about the famous Generals who converged on Chattanooga – Grant, Bragg, Sherman, Rosecrans, Thomas, etc. I can also tell you about the strategies, supply chains, battle sites, and the awful casualty counts.

But I’ve found that the most evocative part of my tour is a non-descript site where the death count was zero. It was here along Chattanooga Creek that long-forgotten combatants engaged in American brotherhood rather than in battle.

*****

I have a Memorial Day piece up at The Blaze today, The helicopter went down in Gia Dinh. The grief never left.

My childhood best friend’s uncle died in Vietnam. 25 years after Uncle Jack’s death, I went on a beach vacation that included Uncle Jack’s still-grieving parents.

Each night at supper, Grandfather bowed his head and thanked God for the years they had with Jack. He prayed that Jack would remain in God’s care until the family could one day be reunited in heaven.

It’s behind a paywall, but if you’re a Blaze subscriber, I’d be honored if you’d give it a read.

My Memorial Day piece at The Blaze.

"A Marine died in Vietnam. Twenty-five years later, his parents still told stories, still set a place for him in their hearts, and still waited to reunite in heaven." https://t.co/XVpXy5LRj3

— Buck Throckmorton (@BuckThrockmort) May 26, 2025

Blessings to all of you who are grieving the death of someone who gave his or her life in service to our country. They are honored, and I bow my head in humble gratitude to them and to you.

[buck.throckmorton at protonmail dot com]

Posted by: Buck Throckmorton at 11:00 AM | Comments (138) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Mid-Morning Art Thread

Interior with Painter, Woman Reading and Maid Sweeping
Pieter Jansenns Alinga

Posted by: CBD at 09:30 AM | Comments (141) | Trackbacks (Suck)

The Morning Report — 5/ 26 /25

Good morning kids. Hope you all had an enjoyable start to the long three-day weekend holiday, but today is Memorial Day, so please take a moment to think about and say a prayer for those who gave their lives in service. I know I will, as I remember my uncle for whom I am named.

The following video is just as appropriate for Veterans Day, yet the emotion that Eugene Sledge feels for his fallen friends and no doubt the incredible guilt he had for making it home alive when so many others did not, is indeed a fitting tribute for all who made the ultimate sacrifice. God bless their memory.

For those who do not know, Sledge's book With the Old Breed at Pelelieu and Okinawa is considered the greatest first person account of frontline combat ever written, and it was the basis for the series "The Pacific."

Unfortunately, today marks the fifth anniversary that a low-life career criminal, whose wasted life was brought to an end when he resisted arrest for passing counterfeit money and because rather than risk being returned to prison for a very long stretch decided it was a good idea to ingest his stash of narcotics. Meanwhile, the police officer, Derek Chauvin was railroaded on a murder charge and so the Left had yet another "martyr" to mythological white supremacist police brutality with which they could continue their goal of societal destruction in the cause of seizing absolute power and turning our society and nation inside out.

The anniversary of Floyd’s overdose death on May 25th, 2020 led to an outpouring of political
commemorations of his death and musings about the need for yet more ‘racial justice’, none of which accounted for the 2,000 more black people killed in 2020 than in 2019.

The Floyd reckoning killed more black people than Hurricane Katrina did. The real legacy of the BLM race riots were 2,000 dead black people. The real legacy of the fists and kneelings were entire cemeteries filled with dead black bodies over the course of only one single year.

And coffins being placed in cemeteries across the country, planted there by the ‘reckoning’.

More Americans died in the BLM wars than were killed in the Afghanistan and Iraq wars combined. Or at Pearl Harbor. To find a conflict that was more lethal to Americans, you would have to go back to Vietnam. Far more were killed by the BLM crime wave than perished in Hurricane Katrina, not to mention Sandy, Harvey, Maria, Ike and the California wildfires.

George Floyd’s death was the single deadliest non-drug or disease event of any war or natural disaster in the United States in the last 40 years.

I am glad my poor uncle and all the other men and women who were killed in service are not around to see exactly what they died for. Horrible as this is, let's hope and pray that the cultural/political tide is turning and that America will return to a saner age, for the sake of those who gave their lives for it and certainly for the sake of future generations.

With all that said, I maintain that the greatest threat we face is from the aforementioned Democrat Left that have spent the better part of the past 200 years to tear us apart, regardless of the cost in blood, treasure and the waste of human potential their venality, and lust for power their words and deeds have cost.

The gunning down in cold blood of two Israelis last week in front to the Israeli embassy was carried out by an avowed communist, cheered on by those who cheered on and participated in the incineration of several dozen urban areas five years ago among other acts of domestic terrorisim in the ensuing years and years before that by their mentors and antecedents.

Monsters like Elias Rodriguez don’t suddenly emerge from under a rock. Their anti-American and anti-Israel hatreds are honed over time by a revolutionary ecosystem composed of different organisms. Years before he shot in cold blood a couple that worked at the Israeli Embassy in the prime of their lives, Rodriguez was taught to loathe the West.

Given the parlous state to which we have mindlessly allowed our universities to descend, Rodriguez may have imbibed some of this anti-Western dogma at the University of Illinois, Chicago, from which he graduated with an English degree in 2018.

But we know for sure that concurrently with his “education,” Rodriguez was associated with two leading institutions of the revolutionary ecosystem, the Party for Socialism and Liberation, and one of its front groups, the ANSWER Coalition, an acronym for Act Now to Stop War and End Racism.

He attended several marches coordinated by both groups in 2018, and was identified as a member of the PSL. Now that Rodriguez has been caught committing a heinous crime, however, both groups are distancing themselves from him.

Black Lives Matter Chicago also admitted that Rodriguez was a supporter and took part in several marches. BLM Chicago was one of the groups that cruelly posted pictures of paragliders with Palestinian flags after the terrorist group Hamas massacred over 1,200 Israelis on Oct. 7, 2023, the New York Post reported at the time. Rodriguez shouted “Free Palestine,” moments before his arrest. . .

. . .“The People’s Forum, IPA, and ANSWER Coalition serve as the conduit through which CCP-affiliated entities have effectively co-opted pro-Palestinian activism in the U.S., advancing a broader anti-American, anti-democratic, and anti-capitalist agenda,” said NCRI.

Moreover, NCRI added that these three far-left groups “are part of a network linked by close financial, interpersonal, and ideological ties to Neville Roy Singham and his wife Jodie Evans, a power couple within the global far-left movement with close ties to the CCP”

Evans is the co-founder of CodePink, a group that organizes street mayhem. Evans announced on X two days after Rodriguez’s murderous rampage that she was “fasting for Gaza.”

Singham, a multi-millionaire, lives in Shanghai, China, “where he shares premises with Shanghai Maku Cultural Communications Ltd., a Chinese propaganda firm focused on presenting a positive image of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to the global south.”

According to a 2023 report by the New York Times, one of the rare instances when the legacy media has reported on this network, Singham’s “ties to the propaganda machine date back at least to 2019, when, corporate documents show, he started a consulting business with Chinese partners. Those partners are active in the propaganda apparatus.”

China and the old Soviet Union have funded and backed subversive groups for decades. OF course groups like the Black Panthers, Earth Liberation Front, the Weathermen, La Raza, Mecha and others have substantial backing from monies raised right here at home. I was hoping Kash Patel and Pam Bondi would make the dismantling of the domestic threats to our country a top priority. It's a fair assumption that if you follow the money much of it leads right back to the Democrat Party as well as to sources within our government itself which no doubt DOGE, if given the chance will reveal in all its ugly detail,

And lastly, a quick shout-out and thank you for your continued support in hitting our tip jar. It truly is appreciated more than you can know.

Have a great day.

ABOVE THE FOLD, BREAKING, NOTEWORTHY
• The convict with the long rap sheet became a patron saint for a leftist movement preaching chaos in an election-year power grab.
  Five Years After The Fires, The Myth Of George Floyd Remains
  
• Daniel Greenfield: Forget George Floyd, remember the 14,000.
  Remembering the 14,000 People Killed by BLM

• A dual U.S.-German citizen allegedly intended to bomb the U.S. embassy in Tel Aviv, Israel, and he faces years behind bars and a hefty fine if convicted, authorities said Sunday.
  American Charged With Attempted Firebombing Of Tel Aviv U.S. Embassy

Posted by: J.J. Sefton at 07:20 AM | Comments (190) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Daily Tech News 26 May 2025

Top Story

• Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince says rampant blocking of "illegal" football streams in Europe will kill people and he's probably right. (TorrentFreak)
  
  Cloudflare is used as a proxy server by more than 24 million websites - a huge and growing chunk of the internet. And the people trying to stamp out "illegal" football streams in Europe simply get court orders to ban the IP addresses of offending servers.
  
  Except the IP addresses often don't belong to the offending servers at all, but to a proxy server sitting in front of the actual server, and handling traffic to thousands of other websites, which can be anything from random blogs to essential services.
  
  They don't check first, and they don't care. They get the court order, the IP addresses get banned, and all those websites go offline at once.

  "A huge percentage of the Internet sits behind us, including small businesses and emergency resources in Spain," Prince explained.
  
  "The strategy of blocking broadly through ISPs based on IPs is bonkers because so much content, including emergency services content, can be behind any IP. The collateral damage is vast and is hurting Spanish citizens from accessing critical resources," he added.

  Your call could not be connected because someone in another country wanted to watch soccer.
  

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 04:37 AM | Comments (109) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Sunday Overnight Open Thread - May 25, 2025 [Doof]

Savannah, Georgia

Howdy Hordelings! Hope your Sunday has been good. Many thanks to The Doggo for playing chaperone to you all tonight while I galivant around The Glitter Gulch.

Please don't forget to take a moment to honor the men and women who paid the ultimate price in defense of our freedom. Tomorrow is about them. "Time Will Not Dim the Glory of Their Deeds"

Posted by: Open Blogger at 10:00 PM | Comments (428) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Gun Thread: Lack O' Content Week 2 Edition!

Howdy, Y'all! Welcome to the wondrously fabulous Gun Thread! As always, I want to thank all of our regulars for being here week in and week out, and also offer a bigly Gun Thread welcome to any newcomers who may be joining us tonight. Howdy and thank you for stopping by! I hope you find our wacky conversation on the subject of guns 'n shooting both enjoyable and informative. You are always welcome to lurk in the shadows of shame, but I'd like to invite you to jump into the conversation, say howdy, and tell us what kind of shooting you like to do!

As promised last week, here is more lack o' content!

With that, step into the dojo and let's get to the lame-o content below, shall we?

Posted by: Weasel at 07:00 PM | Comments (260) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Food Thread: More Pig, And Big Salt Too

[clickable for larger graphic]

I live in a neighborhood filled with food shops of all kinds. From wonderful butchers (there are three of them!) to excellent vegetable stands, three wine stores within 3,093 .45ACPs (100 meters), an olive oil store, a honey store, and even a weird one entirely devoted to canned fish. The quality of the food is uniformly excellent...even in the small supermarket there is some superb meat and vegetables.

It's also pretty upscale (Yeah, they didn't realize who they were renting to), so the prices can be painful. Produce is inexpensive, but meat is quite pricey. Those prices are less painful because of the excellent quality of the stuff. The pork is spectacular, the lamb is the best I have ever had, and the veal is great.

Interestingly, the beef, while quite good, cannot match American corn-finished beef. The French seem to prefer grass-fed, which is fine, but no (or perhaps less) finishing, so marbling is not a part of their evaluation. They do have aged beef readily available, and at various stages. Nothing strange like six-month-aged, and the flavor is good, with a subtle funk. But...give me Midwestern corn-finished beef any day!

The butchers also pack meat into Sous Vide bags, which I found fascinating. My standard technique is to season before I Sous Vide anything, because the cooking process distributes the seasoning quite well throughout the meat. Maybe it is also for storage purposes? Sous Vide bags are great for freezing! But I have seen Rosemary sprigs in Sous-Vide-sealed lamb legs, so clearly it is at least sometimes for dropping straight into the water.

Posted by: CBD at 04:00 PM | Comments (226) | Trackbacks (Suck)

First World Problems...

Friends, Morons, countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come to bury United Airlines, not to praise it.

-- with apologies to Bill S.

The current business plan of United Airlines seems to be: "Sh*t on most of our customers while maximizing revenue and doubling down on Woke idiocy."

Luckily I have been able to avoid their short-haul flights and have been on their higher visibility routes, where they do pay some attention to customer service.

Sadly though, United isn't the only bad actor in the current state of affairs in air travel; the customers are often awful: Rude to the employees and their fellow travelers, ignorant or dismissive of basic rules of social interaction, and some percentage of them apparently do not know basic hygiene.

Please, thank you, a smile, and some basic courtesy go a long way. For instance, when a five-foot tall older woman is trying to put her bag in the overhead bin, offer help, especially if you are a six-foot tall 30-something. Don't put your bag in the overhead, taking up all of the space, and close it when there are very obviously other people who are going to use it. And don't plunk down in your seat and spread out so your foot is in the aisle.

No, I didn't do what I wanted to do, which was confront him and bop him in the nose for being an incredible asshole.

The flight attendant obviously saw this turd's rudeness and my trivial assistance to the older lady, and made it a point to attend to me, including that monstrous glass of bourbon. Unseen are the three glasses of champagne and the couple of pleasant chats! Sadly, she could do nothing about the breakfast, which may have been the worst example of scrambled eggs in the sordid history of aviation.

My parents taught me to say please and thank you and help people who need it. They taught me to treat those in service with respect...their position as waiter or flight attendant or garbage man is not a reflection of their position in society. We are not a country with a caste system, or royalty, or even rigid social classes. We are the ultimate egalitarian country, and our success relative to those with rigid social structures is a testament to the correctness of that.

So...what is the 1st World Problem?

That's a lot of bourbon, and I wasn't about to waste it, so I woke up with a bit of a thick (thicker?) head!

Posted by: CBD at 02:00 PM | Comments (275) | Trackbacks (Suck)

The Correct Minimum Wage Is $0/hr, And Anything Else Distorts The Labor Market
Apparently The Los Angeles City Council Never Studied Economics!

Obviously that is a theoretical minimum wage. Nobody who isn't a toddler is going to work for less than some wage well above $0, but that number is far below the legal minimum wage that the socialist lunatics of Los Angeles are getting ready to mandate for hotel and airport workers.

Los Angeles City Council approves a $30 minimum wage for hotel and airport workers by 2028

Hotel operators, business groups and airport concessionaires reportedly said the phased wage increase will add to damage already inflicted by the Trump Administration's trade war, which has contributed to a 61% decline in tourism in Los Angeles. Several countries that typically send many tourists to LA have issued travel advisories about visiting the United States.

Los Angeles restaurants have also been hit by the lingering impact of wildfires in January, and a film industry slowdown following entertainment industry labor strikes that have sent production elsewhere.

I would argue against the Trump administration having anything to do with the years-long decay of Los Angeles as a tourist mecca, but I guess tossing that stupidity into the article pleases the editors. But it doesn't matter why tourism is down, it is the undeniable reality. Increasing costs for the sectors that service the ailing tourism industry is simply bad government.

On the other hand, the pro-insane-minimum-wage folks have a famous economist on their side!

Sonia Ceron, a dishwasher for in-flight catering company Flying Food Group, for example, said in a statement that the wage increase will change her life, and that of her daughter.

"As a single mother, I will no longer be forced to choose between paying the bills or buying her healthy food," Ceron said. "I'll be able to save for college. This Olympic wage will be good for working families, like mine, the city and our overall economy."

Obviously professor Ceron's analysis relied on some new and groundbreaking economic research that shows how an increase in labor costs without an accompanying improvement in productivity is good for the economy. You heard it here first folks: Ceron is a shoe-in for the Nobel Prize in economics.*

Entry-level jobs are a wonderful mechanism for teenagers and others just entering the work force to learn the skills necessary to succeed: Getting to work on time, following instructions, communicating at a basic level. The increasing dependence on entry-level jobs as some sort of career path is a direct result of the Immigration Act of 1965, which shifted immigrants from countries with basic education standards to the third world, most of which required absolutely nothing of its citizens. So we have a huge and growing population of people who can barely read and write or speak English, and are functionally incapable of rising in the work force. That is why the minimum wage is so important to the left... it buys the votes of the illiterates they have been importing for 60 years.

Hopefully Los Angeles will crash and burn and finally learn its lesson; that doctrinaire Stalinists are incapable of running a city[I wrote that without laughing!]. Well, one of those things is sure to happen.

Realistically, we can expect a mess in Los Angeles during the 2028 Olympics. Sure, they will clean up the bums, slap some paint on the most decrepit buildings, but traffic and lodging and food will be a huge problem for the visitors, and since the city council is doubling down on stupid, don't expect it to get any better in the next two years! People will probably have to find lodging far outside the city and have to tolerate the misery of the Los Angeles highway system, pay obscene prices for meals, and wait for hours for the strained public transportation system to move them to the athletic venues.

Ignoring the stupidity of the Olympics as a financial positive for any city, the timing of this increase is simply incredible. It further exposes how pathetically stupid our career politicians are, and it exposes the dangers of the one-party system that predominates in our blue cities.

But it would take a heart of stone not to laugh at what is coming for Los Angeles!

*Which is actually a fake Nobel Prize. It is officially the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, and has only been around since 1969.

Posted by: CBD at 12:00 PM | Comments (329) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Sunday Morning Book Thread - 5-25-2025 ["Perfessor" Squirrel]

Welcome to the prestigious, internationally acclaimed, stately, and illustrious Sunday Morning Book Thread! The place where all readers are welcome, regardless of whatever guilty pleasure we feel like reading. Here is where we can discuss, argue, bicker, quibble, consider, debate, confabulate, converse, and jaw about our latest fancy in reading material. As always, pants are required, unless you are wearing these pants...

So relax, find yourself a warm kitty (or warm puppy--I won't judge) to curl up in your lap, and dive into a new book. What are YOU reading this fine morning?

Posted by: Open Blogger at 09:00 AM | Comments (295) | Trackbacks (Suck)