Bridges don't always make sense

This is the most remarkable human achievement ever, 1600 feet of high speed rail after 9 years and 11 billion dollars
It takes about 5 minutes to walk 1600 feet so a high speed rail for that is a really big deal
California is so competent

The Fresno River Viaduct in Madera County is one of the first completed high-speed rail structures. At nearly 1,600 feet long, high-speed trains will travel over the riverbed and will run parallel with the BNSF Railroad.

Meanwhile, a little south of this remarkable achievement, the most notable feature of this project to me was the amount of massive diesel machinery scattered about the landscape. Oh, and torn-up landscape.

On a recent trip to Fresno, we were considerably delayed on the trip up, but on the trip back the delay was so great that we turned around and backtracked until we could reach side roads to find our way home. Apparently, some parts of the (temporary, I hope) roadway built to accommodate the rail construction had collapsed due to water saturation.

Maybe they miscalculated the parts of the roadway which they should elevate above ground level. Despite the engineering reports of soil saturation, etc. that preceded construction.

* * * * *

Saving Hamas

The Biden Administration: Building Bridges of Understanding

The Barbieland Intifada on our university campuses is just a distraction. But one that may have gotten out of control of the Ruling Class to some extent. Why doesn't the Barbieland Intifada appreciate that plan to build a floating bridge to deliver food to Hamas?

Tough piece by Lee Smith in Tablet: The Palestinian terror organization refuses to release hostages while clinging to its last stronghold in Rafah. So why is the Biden administration throwing the full weight of the U.S. government at Israel to prevent it from routing Hamas?

Reports are circulating that the Israelis are planning an operation in Rafah to eliminate the last Hamas stronghold in Gaza. . . Bizarrely, the White House's statements and actions show that Hamas' survival is more important than the security of a traditional American partner, Israel; more crucial to American interests than the preservation of the U.S.-led order of the Middle East; more precious than the dozens of American lives that Hamas ended on Oct. 7; more valuable than however many Americans and Israelis are still alive in the terror army's tunnels.
Why? As the money and prestige that the U.S. has invested month after month in protecting Hamas demonstrate, the Biden administration sees the terror group as a valuable asset.
A day after the massacre, before Israel's campaign against Hamas even began, Secretary of State Antony Blinken wrote that he was encouraging the Turkish government's "advocacy for a cease-fire." It makes no difference that the tweet has since been deleted, since the White House has produced no shortage of evidence since that its top priority is to deter Israel from defeating Hamas, by increasing Israel's vulnerabilities at every turn, and conditioning aid on Israel adopting a purely defensive posture. . .

The president abdicated America's historical role of vetoing anti-Israel activity at the U.N. Instead, the U.S. delegation abstained from a key Security Council resolution in March demanding an immediate cease-fire--thereby putting America's diplomatic weight behind Hamas' demand that it should be allowed to keep its hostages and continue ruling Gaza. The White House then sanctioned Israeli civilians on the West Bank for crimes dreamed up by left-wing pro-Palestinian organizations, while ignoring a Palestinian terror wave aimed at murdering Jewish civilians who were guilty of crimes like stopping at a red light, buying gas, and herding sheep. Much of the false reporting supporting the pro-Hamas offensive is channeled through U.S. Army Gen. Michael Fenzel. The U.S. Security Coordinator for Israel and the Palestinian Authority are spending taxpayer resources to build a Palestinian terror army on the West Bank that may soon be repurposed for Gaza, too.
By compelling Jerusalem to "surge" food aid and energy to Gaza, the White House broke Israel's siege, and demanded an ally resupply its adversary at wartime. Whenever Israel goes on the offensive, Biden and aides publicly threaten to stop resupplying arms. . .

Hmmmm . . .

So many countries refuse to take Palestinian refugees:

It's useful to remember that what distinguishes the Palestinians from other ethno-national groups born of the breakup of the multiethnic empires of Europe and the Levant after World War I is that their claim on the world's attention issues largely from their willingness to hire themselves out as terrorist mercenaries.

On whose behalf were the Palestinians acting when they destabilized the region with their gruesome Oct. 7 attack? Iran--but also the Biden administration. The two share an interest in collapsing the traditional U.S.-led order of the Middle East that Donald Trump had restored, after Barack Obama began the process of dismantling it.
Up until Obama, the pillars of America's security architecture were the Persian Gulf's oil-rich Arab states, led by Saudi Arabia, and, in the eastern Mediterranean, Israel and Egypt. Early in his first term Obama signaled he intended to undo that order when he gave a speech in Cairo and invited officials from the Muslim Brotherhood, existential enemies of the military regime then led by Hosni Mubarak. Within two years, the White House withdrew its support for Mubarak during the Arab Spring revolutions and ushered in a Muslim Brotherhood government. Egypt became the first pillar of the old U.S. security order to fall.
Obama's aides made it clear that his second term would be devoted to securing a nuclear deal with Iran.

Okay, this piece leaves out a lot of information that might soften views toward the role of the USA, but if you read the whole thing, I think the "Saving Hamas" thesis hangs together pretty well.

You may ask, "If the Biden administration is so hostile to Israel, why do the pro-Palestinian protesters on campus still call Biden a murderer"?

Well, they were primed. From an earlier post:

Helen Dale provides a droll introduction to Lorenzo Warby's analysis of Franz Fanon's The Wretched of the Earth in Our postcolonial trash needs taking out.

After Hamazis gleefully killed a stack of Jews - - one of the largest terrorist killings ever; per capita, the most murderous terror killing ever; the largest slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust - - within hours, various academics told us how it exemplified decolonisation.
When you look into the history, this turns out to be literally true.
The "lesson" of decolonisation was that if you terrorise settlers - - if you kill entire families - - they leave. . .

Except for the Jews in Israel. The point is that "decolonization" = "terrorism".

Another large reason, however, is an outgrowth of Postcolonial Theory, which classes Israeli Jews as "settlers": they cannot be refugee populations. And at this point, the circle closes. Frantz Fanon's The Wretched of the Earth is the ur-text of Postcolonial Theory. The book was written while Fanon was resident in Algeria during the Algerian Revolution. He was an avid supporter.
That The Wretched of the Earth is the ur-text of Postcolonial Theory says very bad things about both Postcolonial Theory and academe. The Wretched of the Earth is mostly an angry rant that mistakes Theory for evidence and treats historical events as a pick 'n' mix to feed its narrative. . .

Sounds something like what Bruce Gilley and Mary Grabar said about Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States in 2020.

Grabar, a resident fellow at The Alexander Hamilton Institute for the Study of Western Civilization, said her critique of Zinn was that "he misrepresents history."
"What I've tried to do is just look at what he says and provide a factual rebuttal," Grabar said. "I was quite surprised by the extent to which Howard Zinn distorted history, deliberately lied." For instance, she noted, Zinn wrote that internment camps for Japanese Americans during World War II were kept secret. "Not until after the war did the story of the Japanese-Americans begin to be known to the general public," he wrote in Chapter 16. In fact, numerous newspapers and magazines wrote about the camps at the time, quite a few editorializing in favor of them.
"It's amazing what you'll find in that book when you start digging and it's really shocking that historians have not raised a ruckus and demanded the book be withdrawn," Grabar said. "He really has harmed traditional scholarship and the kinds of conversations that we should be having - having a balanced and honest look at our history, the good points and the bad points."
Grabar's talk will include what Gilley calls a "Save the Children from Howard Zinn" book drive: He's encouraging attendees to buy copies of Grabar's book to donate to local libraries and schools.
"What if everyone had a 'Debunking Howard Zinn' alongside their 'People's History'? Well, that'd be a pretty great education," Gilley said.

Wonder if Portland State wishes that Bruce Gilley and Peter Boghossian were still its big problems?

* * * * *

Another Book Review

I'm sure that "Perfessor" Squirrel has some great reading materials lined up for discussion in tomorrow's Book Thread. I'm usually not around on Sunday mornings, but I have run into something interesting:

Theodore Dalrymple reviews a new book: Orwell's Arresting Ambiguities

D. J. Taylor judiciously steers a course between hagiography and debunking.

George Orwell said that Charles Dickens was an author well worth stealing, which is to say, attaching to one's cause whatever it might be. If you can say "Dickens would have thought likewise," you are claiming the approval not only of a genius, but of a man of deeply generous and humane nature (never mind any squalid revelations about his actual biography).
George Orwell has suffered something of the same fate: thanks to a kind of secular beatification, everyone wants to claim him. He is, so to speak, the voice of unvarnished truth in a world of prevailing untruth. Like George Washington, he could not tell a lie.
The problem with such beatification is that it easily provokes an equal and opposite effort at debunking, which is as unrealistic as the process of beatification itself. . .

A brief book, not overly academic, which Dalrymple thinks is the best summation of Orwell's life and work.

But:

Occasionally Taylor, whose own judgment is pretty good, misses something important. For example, he describes the effect that Orwell's time in Spain had on him:

Spain, it is safe to say, politicised Orwell in a way that his exposure to homegrown socialism in the previous five years had not. To begin with, it offered him a vision of how an alternative world, founded on the principles of freedom and equality, might work.
Orwell told the general litterateur, Cyril Connolly, who had been with him at Eton, that he had seen "wonderful things" in Barcelona, then a revolutionary city in the control of the Trotskyist POUM. Taylor continues:

It was, he declared, "the first time that I had ever been in a town where the working class was in the saddle." Churches were being systematically demolished by gangs of workmen. Shops and cafes bore inscriptions saying that they had been collectivised. Tipping was forbidden by law, all private motor cars had been commandeered, and all the trams and taxis had been painted in the anarchist colours of red and black. "In outward appearance it was a town in which the wealthy classes had practically ceased to exist."
Everyone dressed the same too, in drab overalls, Maoist avant la lettre.
Barcelona, then, was a Catalonian Pyongyang: and it is important to recall that Orwell approved of it. At this stage of his development, he was an enthusiastic totalitarian, and the shallowness of his belief that such uniformity was a triumph for freedom and equality is rather startling in a man who, a very few years later, was to be the greatest literary scourge of totalitarianism in the world. It was all to the credit of Orwell that he changed his opinion of totalitarianism so diametrically, but had he died just after the publication of Homage to Catalonia, not living long enough to write his anti-totalitarian masterpieces, he would have been remembered, if he was remembered at all, as a literary forerunner and praise-singer of some of the worst features of communist regimes. It had to be remembered too that his underlying objection to Stalin's policy in Spain was that it was not revolutionary enough, that he promoted the Popular Front, albeit as a mere tactic, rather than the immediate revolution, à la Barcelona, as Orwell would have liked.

Fortunately, Orwell's views changed.

Orwell did not have fifty years to live, let alone seventy. Perhaps for the good of his subsequent reputation, he died at the very acme of his career, having just completed an undoubted masterpiece that, notwithstanding the implosion of the Soviet Union, remains, alas, of strong current resonance.
I recommend this book unreservedly. It deals most sensitively with Orwell's multiple ambiguities without trying to fit them into a Procrustean bed. It informs, enlightens, and entertains. It restores one's faith in the value of criticism.

Reviewed
Who Is Big Brother?
by D. J. Taylor

Theodore Dalrymple was the perfect person to write this review.

Quote

"Kids." Many of these protestors are undergrads, many are law and PhD students. All of them are adults. A huge segment of this country faces the full brunt of reality at 18 but if you attend grad school at the richest universites on earth you get to be a kid until your 27th birthday.
Rob Henderson

�Kids.� Many of these protestors are undergrads, many are law and PhD students. All of them are adults. A huge segment of this country faces the full brunt of reality at 18 but if you attend grad school at the richest universites on earth you get to be a kid until your 27th� https://t.co/Eb5AL49cSM
— Rob Henderson (@robkhenderson) May 2, 2024

* * * * *

Music

Basin Street Blues

* * * * *

Hope you have something nice planned for this weekend.

This is the Thread before the Gardening Thread.

Serving your mid-day open thread needs

* * * * *

Last week's thread, April 27, May the power be with you

Comments are closed so you won't ban yourself by trying to comment on a week-old thread. But don't try it anyway.

Posted by: K.T. at 11:15 AM

Comments

(Jump to bottom of comments)

1 Whoa

Posted by: Clyde Shelton at May 04, 2024 11:16 AM (P5BPp)

2 I think I remember Matt Damon pushing the works of Howard Zinn in the movie "Good Will Hunting" and in his interviews later as his celebrity rose.

Posted by: Clyde Shelton at May 04, 2024 11:23 AM (P5BPp)

3 Caught a comment on the earlier thread requesting a link to the Eurovision votiing so people could vote for Israel.
Here it is:
https://eurovisionworld.com/esc/eurovision-2024-poll

Posted by: sharon(willow's apprentice) at May 04, 2024 11:24 AM (t/2Uw)

4 So much material for a Saturday morning, and four special appearances by Mitch McConnell to boot!

It's no wonder the HQ is known as America's Content Provider.

Posted by: Cicero (@cicero43) at May 04, 2024 11:25 AM (bo7UB)

5 Bridges are great. Government does not make sense.

Posted by: Aetius451AD at May 04, 2024 11:25 AM (di6C2)

6 hiya

Posted by: JT at May 04, 2024 11:27 AM (T4tVD)

7 People vote for a Eurovision song, right? Best Song?

Or is that not how it works?

Posted by: Taq, Rickrolled by Jesus at May 04, 2024 11:28 AM (/QIWP)

8 Chris Hayes looks like a shaved panda.

Posted by: Pug Mahon, Live from Missoula at May 04, 2024 11:28 AM (gPzkP)

9 One of the things that sets the Palestinian situation apart from other conflicts is that Israel has never been permitted to fight the war to its completion. Every single conflict was snuffed at the point where the Israelis would be in a position of dominance and able to dictate peace terms.

So I can get why the Israelis want to see this one go the full nine innings.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at May 04, 2024 11:31 AM (llXky)

10 I wonder how much the people who own that property right next to the "high speed rail bridge" got.

Or were they just screwed...

*going with screwed*

Posted by: Martini Farmer at May 04, 2024 11:31 AM (Q4IgG)

11 Oh, and this would have been willowed, but here it is: It's fine if you don't believe in God, or like people of faith, etc., but do you have to share that insight with us on the Prayer Thread?

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at May 04, 2024 11:33 AM (llXky)

12 Posted by: Martini Farmer at May 04, 2024 11:31 AM

I would love to see some enterprising blogger or YouTuber go there and get an interview with the owner.

Posted by: Taq, Rickrolled by Jesus at May 04, 2024 11:34 AM (/QIWP)

13 I wonder if that bridge will ever carry a train
hell, I wonder if the track will be laid down at all

Posted by: Don Black at May 04, 2024 11:35 AM (/7KEl)

14 "Kids." Many of these protestors are undergrads, many are law and PhD students. All of them are adults.

The infantilization of young adults over the past 10-20 years has always grated on me. They do it in sports all the time. College sports and even professional sports. Calling everyone "kids". Young adults in their early 20s are called "kids". The whole "let the kids play" movement in MLB.

Of course the Marxist left does not do it for everything. In terms of sexualizing actual children, they "adultify" them. Same thing for the movement to lower the voting age to 16. And for decisions on abortion and "gender transition".

The sad thing is that a teenager today is much less mature than a teenager 50, 75, 100 years ago. We live in such prosperity and luxury that people are allowed to continue a child mindset through their teen years and early 20s. Whereas in generations past, teenagers were working and practically living as responsible adults.

Posted by: Clyde Shelton at May 04, 2024 11:35 AM (P5BPp)

15 Looks like a good bicycle track.

Posted by: Braenyard at May 04, 2024 11:35 AM (lCWOD)

16 What made Eric Blair so good was the fact that he embraced totalitarianism at a young age but turned his back on it later, letting totalitarianism have it with both barrels with Animal Farm and 1984, precisely because he knew and understood how they worked.

Posted by: Catch Thirty-Thr33 at May 04, 2024 11:35 AM (LwmLF)

17 I'm glad to see you included "Barbieland Intifada". I first saw that on Insty last night and thought this is going to achieve widespread usage.

Posted by: Archimedes at May 04, 2024 11:36 AM (CsUN+)

18 I'm glad we didn't waste money on a wall, because that might have detracted from the effort to build high speed rail viaducts.

Posted by: Archimedes at May 04, 2024 11:37 AM (CsUN+)

19 Whereas in generations past, teenagers were working and practically living as responsible adults.
Posted by: Clyde Shelton at May 04, 2024 11:35 AM (P5BPp)
---
In generations past, the age of majority was 21.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at May 04, 2024 11:37 AM (llXky)

20 The infantilization of young adults over the past 10-20 years has always grated on me. They do it in sports all the time. College sports and even professional sports. Calling everyone "kids". Young adults in their early 20s are called "kids". The whole "let the kids play" movement in MLB.

Which is especially rich given all the "kids" who go into the military at 18.

Posted by: Archimedes at May 04, 2024 11:38 AM (CsUN+)

21 Whenever I see people cheering for HSR in other forums online, I remind them of the CA debacle, and the fact , places like Germany have HSR (that damned “Other Countries do it and we need to be like Other Countries!!!” Argument) but as most of their tracks are not equipped to deal with them, the high speed trains so fawned over just manage 137 kmph. For those who like quarter pounders with cheese at McDonald’s, that 85 mph or thereabout.

Posted by: Catch Thirty-Thr33 at May 04, 2024 11:39 AM (LwmLF)

22 I remember hearing talk about the bullet train in California way back in the 90s when I lived there. So they never built it? Not surprising…. Dems have been fully in charge in CA since Pete Wilson retired and their competence is questionable in all things except craziness

Posted by: LinusVanPelt at May 04, 2024 11:39 AM (xT8gx)

23 Over the years I have wondered why the leaders we have screwed over haven't struck back?

Posted by: Diogenes at May 04, 2024 11:39 AM (W/lyH)

24 why a duck?

Posted by: Don Black at May 04, 2024 11:40 AM (/7KEl)

25 Eyepatch John McCain Crenshaw just old his buddy, Neil Ballon Head Cavuto, that anyone who wants to secure the border and stop funding Ukraine is the "real uniparty". So there you go.

Posted by: Vengeance at May 04, 2024 11:40 AM (CJqj6)

26 I think I remember Matt Damon pushing the works of Howard Zinn in the movie "Good Will Hunting" and in his interviews later as his celebrity rose.
Posted by: Clyde Shelton at May 04, 2024 11:23 AM (P5BPp)

I read that as "as his celebrity nose"

Posted by: JT at May 04, 2024 11:40 AM (T4tVD)

27 exceedingly dated reference

Posted by: Don Black at May 04, 2024 11:40 AM (/7KEl)

28 One can't appreciate Homage to Catalonia without understanding the background. It seemed really obscure in my first reading, but when I revisited it while writing Long Live Death, I got a lot more out of it.

Another good book on the what happened to volunteers is Comrades and Commissars by Cecil Eby. It's about the Lincoln Battalion and pulls no punches.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at May 04, 2024 11:40 AM (llXky)

29 I wonder if that bridge will ever carry a train
hell, I wonder if the track will be laid down at all
Posted by: Don Black

Depends when Navin Gruesome invites over the CCP Corps of Engineers.

Posted by: weft Carnac at May 04, 2024 11:40 AM (IG4Id)

30 1944: 18 year olds storm Omaha Beach and pilot bombers over Hamburg

2024: 25 year olds whine about the inadequate food, drink and toilets provided to them during their "occupation".

Posted by: Archimedes at May 04, 2024 11:41 AM (CsUN+)

31 The sad thing is that a teenager today is much less mature than a teenager 50, 75, 100 years ago. We live in such prosperity and luxury that people are allowed to continue a child mindset through their teen years and early 20s. Whereas in generations past, teenagers were working and practically living as responsible adults.
Posted by: Clyde Shelton at May 04, 2024 11:35 AM (P5BPp)

When I was 14, I didn’t leave home but home left me. (Long story.) only years later did I figure out how important that was. Kids these days just don’t know.

Posted by: Catch Thirty-Thr33 at May 04, 2024 11:41 AM (LwmLF)

32 Chris Hayes looks like a shaved panda.

Posted by: Pug Mahon, Live from Missoula at May 04, 2024 11:28 AM (gPzkP)

Now that you mention it....

Posted by: BignJames at May 04, 2024 11:42 AM (AwYPR)

33 Watching the Black Bloc in Portland continue to destroy businesses and the city is cheap, high quality entertainment.

Posted by: Not trying to be mean but... at May 04, 2024 11:42 AM (7V8BR)

34 There's just something about Chris Hayes' physiognomy that makes me want to hit him in the face with a flounder (dead or alive, whichever is available).

Posted by: Paco at May 04, 2024 11:43 AM (njExo)

35 The thing is that all history is, or at least ought to be, debate. There is no such thing as an historian who doesn't distort. Now, that doesn't mean Zinn isn't dishonest; he is.

But far too many people - and I mean my allies - take uncritically the history they've heard.

Posted by: Eeyore at May 04, 2024 11:43 AM (1bNHn)

36 Chris Hayes looks like a shaved panda.

Which end?

Posted by: Archimedes at May 04, 2024 11:43 AM (CsUN+)

37 Thanks for this Thread, K.T. !

Posted by: JT at May 04, 2024 11:43 AM (T4tVD)

38 Florida has high speed rail between Miami and Orlando. Another example of Florida showing what is possible if you really want to get something done.

Posted by: Florida Putting Up the Ws at May 04, 2024 11:43 AM (0Gsdq)

39 Eyepatch John McCain Crenshaw just old his buddy, Neil Ballon Head Cavuto, that anyone who wants to secure the border and stop funding Ukraine is the "real uniparty". So there you go.
Posted by: Vengeance at May 04, 2024 11:40 AM (CJqj6)
---
It is strange but true that physical courage is not the same as moral courage. We like to think that brave people are brave about everything, but in reality, the same person who calmly ignores rifle fire might be abjectly terrified of social ostracism.

Indeed, I think that some of the physical courage comes from the fear of dishonor, which exceeds the fear of harm of even death.

Thus we find people who showed a reckless disregard for physical harm who will only take what they consider to be the safest political positions.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at May 04, 2024 11:44 AM (llXky)

40 38 Florida has high speed rail between Miami and Orlando. Another example of Florida showing what is possible if you really want to get something done.
Posted by: Florida Putting Up the Ws at May 04, 2024 11:43 AM (0Gsdq)

IIRC privately funded.

Posted by: Catch Thirty-Thr33 at May 04, 2024 11:44 AM (LwmLF)

41 Calling everyone "kids". Young adults in their early 20s are called "kids".

Really. Know any field grade combat officers? It's pretty common for senior CO's to call their command "kids." In the infantry, the name of the branch even translates to that.

Posted by: Way, Way Downriver at May 04, 2024 11:44 AM (zdLoL)

42 OK that pic at top doesn't look anything like the RR building scenes from movies-

where's the tent city with the opium dens and the prostitutes?
where are all the Chinamen?

where are the rustlers, cutthroats, murderers, bounty hunters, desperados, mugs, pugs, thugs, nitwits, halfwits, dimwits, vipers, snipers, con men, Indian agents, Mexican bandits, muggers, buggerers, bushwhackers, hornswogglers, horse thieves, bull dykes, train robbers, bank robbers, ass-kickers, shit-kickers, and Methodists?

Posted by: Don Black at May 04, 2024 11:44 AM (/7KEl)

43 There's just something about Chris Hayes' physiognomy that makes me want to hit him in the face with a flounder (dead or alive, whichever is available).

He occupies the uncanny valley between male and female.

Posted by: Archimedes at May 04, 2024 11:44 AM (CsUN+)

44 Damon said Zinn was his neighbor and his mom taught with him or some such shit. Who knows? The lies these assholes spew never ends.

Posted by: Mr Aspirin Factory, red heifer owner at May 04, 2024 11:45 AM (R4t5M)

45 Is it just me, or is there a connection between the silliness happening around the world, and the fact that people with names like Amjad work for the CIA?

Posted by: BurtTC at May 04, 2024 11:45 AM (98dBG)

46 But far too many people - and I mean my allies - take uncritically the history they've heard.
Posted by: Eeyore at May 04, 2024 11:43 AM (1bNHn)
---
Not me! Can I interest you on something about Span or China?

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at May 04, 2024 11:45 AM (llXky)

47 It is strange but true that physical courage is not the same as moral courage. We like to think that brave people are brave about everything, but in reality, the same person who calmly ignores rifle fire might be abjectly terrified of social ostracism.

Not really. The rifle bullet might kill you so it will be over. Social ostracism is a living death. So absolutely, physical courage can easily be greater than moral courage.

Posted by: Catch Thirty-Thr33 at May 04, 2024 11:46 AM (LwmLF)

48 where are the rustlers, cutthroats, murderers, bounty hunters, desperados, mugs, pugs, thugs, nitwits, halfwits, dimwits, vipers, snipers, con men, Indian agents, Mexican bandits, muggers, buggerers, bushwhackers, hornswogglers, horse thieves, bull dykes, train robbers, bank robbers, ass-kickers, shit-kickers, and Methodists?
Posted by: Don Black at May 04, 2024 11:44 AM (/7KEl)

*raises hand*

Posted by: Bushwhacker (in a good way) at May 04, 2024 11:46 AM (iODuv)

49 where are the rustlers, cutthroats, murderers, bounty hunters, desperados, mugs, pugs, thugs, nitwits, halfwits, dimwits, vipers, snipers, con men, Indian agents, Mexican bandits, muggers, buggerers, bushwhackers, hornswogglers, horse thieves, bull dykes, train robbers, bank robbers, ass-kickers, shit-kickers, and Methodists?
Posted by: Don Black at May 04, 2024 11:44 AM (/7KEl)
---
The Methodists are now bull dykes. Made it official last week.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at May 04, 2024 11:47 AM (llXky)

50 where are the rustlers, cutthroats, murderers, bounty hunters, desperados, mugs, pugs, thugs, nitwits, halfwits, dimwits, vipers, snipers, con men, Indian agents, Mexican bandits, muggers, buggerers, bushwhackers, hornswogglers, horse thieves, bull dykes, train robbers, bank robbers, ass-kickers, shit-kickers, and Methodists?
Posted by: Don Black at May 04, 2024 11:44 AM (/7KEl)

That, or the friendly trains with faces, trying to please a man named Sir Toppem Hat.

Posted by: BurtTC at May 04, 2024 11:47 AM (98dBG)

51 Chris Hayes looks like he got beat up a lot in school. Those glasses do not help his cause.

Posted by: Catch Thirty-Thr33 at May 04, 2024 11:47 AM (LwmLF)

52 I spent the summer of my 18th birthday doing things like PT at 0400 in 80% humidity, rucking 12 miles in miserable conditions and loving every second of it. Those are the things which build confidence in your life. Not having mommy and daddy wiping your nose and holding your hand every day.

Posted by: Marcus T at May 04, 2024 11:47 AM (n4fLp)

53 Not really. The rifle bullet might kill you so it will be over. Social ostracism is a living death. So absolutely, physical courage can easily be greater than moral courage.
Posted by: Catch Thirty-Thr33 at May 04, 2024 11:46 AM (LwmLF)
---
Yep, and guys who did patrols in Iraq or Afghanistan all shut the hell up over the vaxx mandate. Gotta save the pension.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at May 04, 2024 11:48 AM (llXky)

54 CA will be broke, its economy in ruins, Leftists cheerfully ruling over the ashes, but hey, it will have a REALLY NICE HSR!!! Unlike those hicks in TX!!,

Posted by: Catch Thirty-Thr33 at May 04, 2024 11:49 AM (LwmLF)

55 But far too many people - and I mean my allies - take uncritically the history they've heard.

Posted by: Eeyore at May 04, 2024 11:43 AM

Just look at all the lies that have been pushed by "historians" and "journalists" and politicians and "teachers" and "professors" just in our lifetime. Now expand that out over thousands of years and who knows how many things have been distorted and changed and lied about through the years by who knows how many people for who knows what power gain.

In 50-100 years, what will be the historical account of the Plandemic? Will the actual facts be passed down through history or will all the lies be passed down. Time will tell. But I have thought about this a lot over the past 4 years, how much we cannot trust "experts" on anything anymore. And who knows how far that should go back in history.

Posted by: Clyde Shelton at May 04, 2024 11:50 AM (P5BPp)

56 CA HSR will never be completed.

Posted by: Mr Aspirin Factory, red heifer owner at May 04, 2024 11:50 AM (R4t5M)

57 It'll be a life-sized toy train

they have light rail here- it cut neighborhoods in half-
when I'm stopped at a light rail Xing and the train goes by, it is mostly empty

but I'm sure all the right people got paid during construction

Posted by: Don Black at May 04, 2024 11:51 AM (/7KEl)

58 And when you were 18, there were constipated grizzled old shits sitting on their asses talking about how you were not worth a damn. Some things do not change; we all just have to wait our turn.

Posted by: Way, Way Downriver at May 04, 2024 11:51 AM (zdLoL)

59 Posted by: Don Black

They were all elected so they are in Sacramento.

Posted by: AZ deplorable moron at May 04, 2024 11:52 AM (psNWM)

60 But I have thought about this a lot over the past 4 years, how much we cannot trust "experts" on anything anymore. And who knows how far that should go back in history.
Posted by: Clyde Shelton at May 04, 2024 11:50 AM (P5BPp)

Further back than most of the public is aware of.

Posted by: Mr Aspirin Factory, red heifer owner at May 04, 2024 11:52 AM (R4t5M)

61 The thing is that all history is, or at least ought to be, debate. There is no such thing as an historian who doesn't distort. Now, that doesn't mean Zinn isn't dishonest; he is.

But far too many people - and I mean my allies - take uncritically the history they've heard.
Posted by: Eeyore at May 04, 2024 11:43 AM (1bNHn)

That's an uncomfortable topic, including here at the ol' AoSHQ. Lots of people have their minds made up about things, including the past, and whenever something gets introduced that might contradict the running narratives in their heads, they get real mad.

Posted by: BurtTC at May 04, 2024 11:52 AM (Mrjew)

62 they have light rail here- it cut neighborhoods in half-

Posted by: Don Black at May 04, 2024 11:51 AM (/7KEl)

sounds....rayciss

Posted by: BignJames at May 04, 2024 11:53 AM (AwYPR)

63 Is it just me, or is there a connection between the silliness happening around the world, and the fact that people with names like Amjad work for the CIA?
Posted by: BurtTC at May 04, 2024 11:45 AM (98dBG)

Ahmedinijihad im the original Orkish. Got shortened at Ellis Island.

Posted by: Alberta Oil Peon at May 04, 2024 11:53 AM (8zz6B)

64 ***that plan to build a floating bridge to deliver food to Hamas?***
----------------

It may have a Nord Stream axe-a-dent

Posted by: Braenyard at May 04, 2024 11:53 AM (lCWOD)

65 >That's an uncomfortable topic, including here at the ol' AoSHQ. Lots of people have their minds made up about things, including the past, and whenever something gets introduced that might contradict the running narratives in their heads, they get real mad.
---

examples:
the Civil War (even what to call it)
the atomic bombings of 1945
JFK/Dallas

Posted by: Don Black at May 04, 2024 11:55 AM (/7KEl)

66 >>>Reports are circulating that the Israelis are planning an operation in Rafah to eliminate the last Hamas stronghold in Gaza.
----------------

That's an understatement. Bibi said, you've got a week then we blow it up.

Posted by: Braenyard at May 04, 2024 11:56 AM (lCWOD)

67 In 50-100 years, what will be the historical account of the Plandemic? Will the actual facts be passed down through history or will all the lies be passed down. Time will tell. But I have thought about this a lot over the past 4 years, how much we cannot trust "experts" on anything anymore. And who knows how far that should go back in history.
Posted by: Clyde Shelton at May 04, 2024 11:50 AM (P5BPp)
---
I'm going to say the 1990s. The World War II generation was much more serious than the Boomers and it was still acceptable at that time to challenge the government and publicly express skepticism of experts. Colleges hosted vigorous debates and academia had not yet been completely corrupted. There were still a bunch of curmudgeonly profs who reveled in pissing off feminists.

When the HR people started to take control of the faculty and the Boomers brought their situational ethics into government, things started to slide.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at May 04, 2024 11:56 AM (llXky)

68 But I have thought about this a lot over the past 4 years, how much we cannot trust "experts" on anything anymore. And who knows how far that should go back in history.
Posted by: Clyde Shelton at May 04, 2024 11:50 AM (P5BPp)

Further back than most of the public is aware of.
Posted by: Mr Aspirin Factory, red heifer owner at May 04, 2024 11:52 AM (R4t5M)

I haven't yet found anything I've looked into, from the near or distant past, that isn't distorted, in terms of the running narrative.

So if you take a statement like "the civil war was about slavery," it ought to be possible to realize on its face it can't be as simple as that. But if you start throwing out other facts that might contradict that statement, people get angry. Real angry.

Or try starting with "we had to drop those bombs on Japan" and then offer some other views, watch what happens.

Posted by: BurtTC at May 04, 2024 11:57 AM (Mrjew)

69 I mentioned this earlier; the pro-Islamic "kids" playing occupier at school are a dead end generation. The teenagers coming up right behind them will run roughshod over them in about 5 years. They'll never know what hit them as they lay bitching and moaning in the road at their latest protest.

The generation coming up just behind these infantile little shits smells blood. Kids can be ruthless little fuckers when they want to.

Posted by: Martini Farmer at May 04, 2024 11:58 AM (Q4IgG)

70 >sounds....rayciss

Posted by: BignJames

Imagine your town's street plan laid out in a nice E W N S grid-
you can get from Here to There so many different ways-

now cut it in half, east to west

Posted by: Don Black at May 04, 2024 11:58 AM (/7KEl)

71 The infantilization of young adults over the past 10-20 years has always grated on me. They do it in sports all the time. College sports and even professional sports. Calling everyone "kids". Young adults in their early 20s are called "kids". The whole "let the kids play" movement in MLB.

It's all easy to understand if you think of it that "Marxism" or whatever label is a selling tool, and the political movements using it are funded by the upper class. The goal is to depower and neuter those of classes below then so their own children face little competition for the positions of power. Steer all the other children into dysfunction and incompetence.

Posted by: Azjaeger at May 04, 2024 11:58 AM (q7BoT)

72 Israeli official denies Hamas claims: Israel will not agree to end Gaza war as part of hostage deal, IDF will go into Rafah to demolish Hamas battalions in city. via @N12News
Quote
Israel Radar
@IsraelRadar_com
·
8h
Senior Hamas source tells @N12News group agrees to advance to 1st stage of hostage deal; source says US pledges to ensure full IDF withdrawal from Gaza after deal is completed (in 124 days), end of war, no Rafah operation. No confirmation from Israel so far.

Posted by: sharon(willow's apprentice) at May 04, 2024 11:59 AM (t/2Uw)

73 That's an uncomfortable topic, including here at the ol' AoSHQ. Lots of people have their minds made up about things, including the past, and whenever something gets introduced that might contradict the running narratives in their heads, they get real mad.
Posted by: BurtTC at May 04, 2024 11:52 AM (Mrjew)
---
It depends on what's being looked at and whether the people are out to convince or shut down.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at May 04, 2024 11:59 AM (llXky)

74 Stop trying to make everyone happy.
You're not tequila.

Posted by: Quarter Twenty at May 04, 2024 11:59 AM (dg+HA)

75 US pledges to ensure....

Posted by: sharon(willow's apprentice) at May 04, 2024 12:00 PM (t/2Uw)

76 Is it just me, or is there a connection between the silliness happening around the world, and the fact that people with names like Amjad work for the CIA?
Posted by: BurtTC at May 04, 2024 11:45 AM (98dBG)

Ahmedinijihad im the original Orkish. Got shortened at Ellis Island.
Posted by: Alberta Oil Peon at May 04, 2024 11:53 AM (8zz6B)

Heh, very possible. The guy's full name is Arab or Persian, or one of those swarthy ethnicities.

Posted by: BurtTC at May 04, 2024 12:00 PM (Mrjew)

77 >The infantilization of young adults over the past 10-20 years has always grated on me.
---

Hallowe'en

Posted by: Don Black at May 04, 2024 12:00 PM (/7KEl)

78 That's an uncomfortable topic, including here at the ol' AoSHQ. Lots of people have their minds made up about things, including the past, and whenever something gets introduced that might contradict the running narratives in their heads, they get real mad.
---

examples:
the Civil War (even what to call it)
the atomic bombings of 1945
JFK/Dallas

Longbows

Posted by: Archimedes at May 04, 2024 12:00 PM (CsUN+)

79 The best quote from Orwell which I always remember.

"Every intelligent boy of sixteen is a Socialist. At that age one does not see the hook sticking out of the rather stodgy bait."

Stodgy. Bait. I did not know George had met Hillary Clinton.

Anything "Phree" which dumbasses run to grab, then the hook, right up the crack of their asses.

Posted by: Hairyback Guy at May 04, 2024 12:01 PM (R/m4+)

80 77 Thirty year old guy at the comic book store.

Posted by: bill in arkansas, not gonna comply with nuttin, waiting for the 0300 knock on the door at May 04, 2024 12:01 PM (V5eKu)

81 examples:
the Civil War (even what to call it)
the atomic bombings of 1945
JFK/Dallas
Posted by: Don Black at May 04, 2024 11:55 AM (/7KEl)

So if you take a statement like "the civil war was about slavery," it ought to be possible to realize on its face it can't be as simple as that. But if you start throwing out other facts that might contradict that statement, people get angry. Real angry.

Or try starting with "we had to drop those bombs on Japan" and then offer some other views, watch what happens.
Posted by: BurtTC at May 04, 2024 11:57 AM (Mrjew)

GET OUT OF MY HEAD.

Posted by: BurtTC at May 04, 2024 12:01 PM (Mrjew)

82 Hello all, good post K.T. Despite the fact that Communist in Spain put a death sentence on Orwell and he wrote about it in An Homage to Catalonia he could never walk away from being a Social Democrat. That's at best communism lite. He couldn't bring himself to say that Communism is just fascism but with dogma

Posted by: Smell the Glove at May 04, 2024 12:02 PM (5S+sK)

83 It depends on what's being looked at and whether the people are out to convince or shut down.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at May 04, 2024 11:59 AM (llXky)

Sure, but what's very obvious is there are some things that will get attacked, no matter what the intent of the commenter.

Posted by: BurtTC at May 04, 2024 12:03 PM (Mrjew)

84 So if you take a statement like "the civil war was about slavery," it ought to be possible to realize on its face it can't be as simple as that. But if you start throwing out other facts that might contradict that statement, people get angry. Real angry.

Or try starting with "we had to drop those bombs on Japan" and then offer some other views, watch what happens.
Posted by: BurtTC at May 04, 2024 11:57 AM (Mrjew)
---
The problem with the ACW is that people weight the issues different morally. A lot of folks consider slavery something of a show-stopper. Part of a reasoned discussion is accepting that this is a moral, not a factual thing, and therefore not subject to argumentation.

With the A-bomb, the difficulty is that everyone has their own favorite counterfactual, which may or may not be based on the facts at the time. There's also the same moral abhorrence of the bomb itself, which closes off any discussion.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at May 04, 2024 12:03 PM (llXky)

85 I was happy the US dropped the atomic bombs on those dirty Jap bastids.

Burp....

Posted by: Godzilla, Jap Eater and Egg Fertilizer at May 04, 2024 12:05 PM (R/m4+)

86 I may have even stated one such debate right here

I can see the first few curls of smoke...

Posted by: Don Black at May 04, 2024 12:05 PM (/7KEl)

87 Dems have been fully in charge in CA since Pete Wilson retired...

Well tekkkknically...

Posted by: Ahnuld at May 04, 2024 12:05 PM (l2YDv)

88 @56

>>CA HSR will never be completed.

The Forever Project is a cousin of Forever War, there nerver meant to deliver anything other then endless stream of taxpayer lucre to the well connected.

Posted by: Thomas Bender at May 04, 2024 12:06 PM (XV/Pl)

89 Why no chicken?

Posted by: Cicero (@cicero43) at May 04, 2024 12:06 PM (bo7UB)

90 74 Stop trying to make everyone happy.
You're not tequila.
Posted by: Quarter Twenty

Or a taco.

Posted by: nurse ratched at May 04, 2024 12:06 PM (t1jwT)

91 Hello all, good post K.T. Despite the fact that Communist in Spain put a death sentence on Orwell and he wrote about it in An Homage to Catalonia he could never walk away from being a Social Democrat. That's at best communism lite. He couldn't bring himself to say that Communism is just fascism but with dogma
Posted by: Smell the Glove at May 04, 2024 12:02 PM (5S+sK)
---
A lot of leftist find the notion of social justice so compelling that they have convinced themselves that there is some intermediate point where one can just stop and go no further. We're actually find the same with classical liberaliism.

Lots of paths lead to tyranny.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at May 04, 2024 12:07 PM (llXky)

92 40 38 Florida has high speed rail between Miami and Orlando. Another example of Florida showing what is possible if you really want to get something done.
Posted by: Florida Putting Up the Ws at May 04, 2024 11:43 AM (0Gsdq)

IIRC privately funded.
Posted by: Catch Thirty-Thr33

Even better!

Posted by: Ron Desanctimonius for the W at May 04, 2024 12:08 PM (Eqssc)

93 where are the rustlers, cutthroats, murderers, bounty hunters, desperados, mugs, pugs, thugs, nitwits, halfwits, dimwits, vipers, snipers, con men, Indian agents, Mexican bandits, muggers, buggerers, bushwhackers, hornswogglers, horse thieves, bull dykes, train robbers, bank robbers, ass-kickers, shit-kickers, and Methodists?
Posted by: Don Black

Oh - most of them I knew settled into Echo Co., 2BN, 7th Marines.

Posted by: Tonypete at May 04, 2024 12:08 PM (WXNFJ)

94 examples:
the Civil War (even what to call it)
the atomic bombings of 1945
JFK/Dallas

Longbows
Posted by: Archimedes at May 04, 2024 12:00 PM (CsUN+)

Maryann or Ginger.

Posted by: Gilligan at May 04, 2024 12:09 PM (iODuv)

95 The literatti are over analyzing the Israeli / terrorist conflict.

If one comes across a clump of feces in his yard he need not analyze it, make determinations how or why it got there or the effects of the sun upon it or anything else. It is a pile of sh*t and it is to be disposed of. That is all.

Posted by: Braenyard at May 04, 2024 12:09 PM (lCWOD)

96 My take away from my reading in Nehemiah this morning was "build and battle". Of course this is referring to rebuilding the wall of Jerusalem. It is difficult to do both, it would be easier to focus on either one separately.

In times of peace and prosperity there is a lot of building going on, but if we aren't battling at the same time, we end up where we are now in the US, with abundance of materials and shortage of wisdom.

We weren't vigilant in the battle for God's Truth, we didn't "battle" for it, and as a country we have mostly lost it.

Moral of the story: building and battling are constantly needed in life.

Posted by: AmericanKestrel at May 04, 2024 12:10 PM (S5+ge)

97 Sure, but what's very obvious is there are some things that will get attacked, no matter what the intent of the commenter.
Posted by: BurtTC at May 04, 2024 12:03 PM (Mrjew)
---
A friend of mine is something of a Confederate apologist, and we had a discussion via email about it. It wasn't a debate, because we are both set in our opinions, mostly just a statement of position, and we tested each other a bit, but we didn't let things get out of hand.

I think something that most people ignore is the road untraveled, that would have made the South's case much stronger: South Carolina could have requested an Article 5 convention of the states to address a process for secession. How that would have worked out, I'm not sure, but I personally would be more sympathetic to the South if that attempt had been made.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at May 04, 2024 12:10 PM (llXky)

98 Ahem. The War Between The States.

Posted by: There was nothing civil about it at May 04, 2024 12:11 PM (dg+HA)

99 Ahem. The War Between The States.

----------

The Current Unpleasantness

Posted by: Cicero (@cicero43) at May 04, 2024 12:11 PM (bo7UB)

100 That's a bridge of size!

Posted by: Robin Troweller at May 04, 2024 12:12 PM (63Dwl)

101

Have a bunch of smelly men grab your daughters.

Smash you daughter's teeth out with rifle butts, so they can't bite down.

Three hole gang rape them.

When everyone is done and satisfied, found me through the vagina into the floor.

Free Palestine!

Posted by: Hamas is Great! at May 04, 2024 12:12 PM (Zp/r5)

102 The Forever Project is a cousin of Forever War, there nerver meant to deliver anything other then endless stream of taxpayer lucre to the well connected.
Posted by: Thomas Bender at May 04, 2024 12:06 PM (XV/Pl)
---
Cathedrals are like this, but at least you get something beautiful (and usually without tax dollars).

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at May 04, 2024 12:12 PM (llXky)

103 I listened the other day to Tucker's interview with the fella they call "Pootin's brain." Well, half listened.

Some takeaways: I think the guy was soft-pedaling his views there, and Tucker set it up to allow him to by saying they wouldn't talk about politics.

Second, it sure does say something meaningful, not about him but about us, when you can't find his books for sale in this country.

And C: There is something intriguing about his theory that liberal democracies always become corrupt, devolve into fascist states (my term, not his), ruled by elites.

But I'm sure there's something he's said at some point that can be tightened up into a neat narrative, to justify condemning him and keep us rubes from having access to his actual words.

Posted by: BurtTC at May 04, 2024 12:12 PM (fdD2n)

104 I can dress up, but Ginger can't cook.

Posted by: Mary Ann at May 04, 2024 12:12 PM (dg+HA)

105 The War Of Southern Intransigence

?

Posted by: Don Black at May 04, 2024 12:13 PM (/7KEl)

106 As my mother used to refer to it; "the infamous war of northern aggression."

Posted by: Martini Farmer at May 04, 2024 12:14 PM (Q4IgG)

107 And C: There is something intriguing about his theory that liberal democracies always become corrupt, devolve into fascist states (my term, not his), ruled by elites.

But I'm sure there's something he's said at some point that can be tightened up into a neat narrative, to justify condemning him and keep us rubes from having access to his actual words.
Posted by: BurtTC at May 04, 2024 12:12 PM (fdD2n)
---
The idea that republics degenerate into democracies and then tyranny is pretty old - and well proven.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at May 04, 2024 12:14 PM (llXky)

108 I can dress up, but Ginger can't cook.
Posted by: Mary Ann at May 04, 2024 12:12 PM (dg+HA)

She's a pretty good cook, sittin' on her groceries. (Joni Mitchell)

Posted by: Alberta Oil Peon at May 04, 2024 12:15 PM (8zz6B)

109 The Forever Project is a cousin of Forever War, there nerver meant to deliver anything other then endless stream of taxpayer lucre to the well connected.
Posted by: Thomas Bender at May 04, 2024 12:06 PM (XV/Pl)

"Solving the homeless problem" enters the chat.

Quickly followed by the stream of strapping young lads crossing the southern border.

Posted by: BurtTC at May 04, 2024 12:15 PM (fdD2n)

110 I can dress up, but Ginger can't cook.
Posted by: Mary Ann at May 04, 2024 12:12 PM (dg+HA)

I'll learn to cook.

Posted by: Gilligan at May 04, 2024 12:16 PM (iODuv)

111 Tacos and tequila, sounds like an excellent lunch idea.

Posted by: AmericanKestrel at May 04, 2024 12:16 PM (S5+ge)

112
Well tekkkknically...
Posted by: Ahnuld

No.
He was raised in Europe ergo he was and is a socialist.
It doesn't matter how he represented himself.

Posted by: AZ deplorable moron at May 04, 2024 12:16 PM (psNWM)

113 109 The Forever Project is a cousin of Forever War, there nerver meant to deliver anything other then endless stream of taxpayer lucre to the well connected.
Posted by: Thomas Bender at May 04, 2024 12:06 PM (XV/Pl)

----------

The cynicism I see here is concerning.

Posted by: Cicero (@cicero43) at May 04, 2024 12:17 PM (bo7UB)

114 Moral of the story: building and battling are constantly needed in life.
Posted by: AmericanKestrel at May 04, 2024 12:10 PM (S5+ge)

Thanks AK. Nehemiah is one of my favorite figures in the Bible. He was a doer and didn’t put up with nonsense

Posted by: LinusVanPelt at May 04, 2024 12:17 PM (+r3lU)

115 Ahem. The War Between The States.
Posted by: There was nothing civil about it at May 04, 2024 12:11 PM (dg+HA)

Ahem !

The war AMONG the States !

Posted by: JT at May 04, 2024 12:18 PM (T4tVD)

116 As my mother used to refer to it; "the infamous war of northern aggression."
Posted by: Martini Farmer at May 04, 2024 12:14 PM (Q4IgG)
---
One of my ancestors was very proud of his Southern sympathies, and claimed to have been personally robbed by Benjamin Butler during the occupation of New Orleans.

He was also Jewish, which really throws a wrench into the conventional "the Confederacy was all bigots" narrative.

Well, that and Judah P. Benjamin's existance.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at May 04, 2024 12:19 PM (llXky)

117
'The troubles'

Posted by: Don Black at May 04, 2024 12:19 PM (/7KEl)

118
OT
Back from the urgent care doctor. Tested negative for flu, strep, and covid. Doc says it's either a nasty rhinovirus, or acute sinusitis. I'm prone to sinus infections, with three major surgeries up there, Smash amd Junior-ette are not unwell.

Yeah. Sinusitis. Antibiotics should begin kicking in this evening.

BP was great at the clinic. 132/86 pulse rate was 82, oxygen saturation was 99%.

Stooopid Bewalski sinus genes.

Thank you all for any prayers last night.

Posted by: BifBewalski at May 04, 2024 12:21 PM (MsrgL)

119 I think something that most people ignore is the road untraveled, that would have made the South's case much stronger: South Carolina could have requested an Article 5 convention of the states to address a process for secession. How that would have worked out, I'm not sure, but I personally would be more sympathetic to the South if that attempt had been made.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at May 04, 2024 12:10 PM (llXky)

I tend to start with the premise that people are gonna do what they're gonna do, so I don't much care for the whole process of looking for alternate histories.

So what I end up doing, when I take the time, and don't just jump to my own biased conclusions, is pay attention to "both sides" of arguments, and end up believing most people involved were genuinely of the belief they were in the right. Not just right, because they wouldn't do it, but in the right, in the sense that their position is morally superior.

You can even do that as a mental exercise with the worst of the worst in history, but as soon as you do, you touch a "third rail" for people, so you have to be careful.

Posted by: BurtTC at May 04, 2024 12:22 PM (JgqvA)

120 I gave Israel's Eurovision song 2 stars. Enter a good song and I'll give it 5.

Azerbaijan got 5 from me, as did France. Most got 2. A couple got 1.

So far only made it to Israel's on the alphabetical list.

Posted by: Taq, Rickrolled by Jesus at May 04, 2024 12:22 PM (/QIWP)

121 They said mob rule is the way you gotta be,
so they rigged up the votes for liberal democracy.
- J. Klampetski

Posted by: Eromero at May 04, 2024 12:22 PM (o2ZRX)

122 What made Eric Blair so good was the fact that he embraced totalitarianism at a young age but turned his back on it later, letting totalitarianism have it with both barrels with Animal Farm and 1984, precisely because he knew and understood how they worked.
Posted by: Catch Thirty-Thr33 at May 04, 2024 11:35 AM (LwmLF)
-----------
He was only 46 when he died. I have often wondered if he would have turned his back on socialism had he lived longer.

Posted by: Captain Obvious, Laird o' the Sea, Radioactive Knight at May 04, 2024 12:22 PM (Be/+i)

123 far too many people - and I mean my allies - take uncritically the history they've heard.

First hand sources are good, even then, one will need to be aware of the author's bias.

Trust has been so eroded now, that I could be shown "proof" against my understanding of history and I would question the source and validity of the "proof".

Posted by: AmericanKestrel at May 04, 2024 12:23 PM (S5+ge)

124 Most of the Eurovision songs so far are unlistenable blackified rave techno music garbage.

Posted by: Taq, Rickrolled by Jesus at May 04, 2024 12:24 PM (/QIWP)

125 The idea that republics degenerate into democracies and then tyranny is pretty old - and well proven.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at May 04, 2024 12:14 PM (llXky)

Obviously there's more to it than that, and what I'm saying is, I'd like to hear more about his theory, rather than that one line summary. But we're not allowed to hear more, because he's bad, and Pootin's brain, and a monster and a crook and a liar and cheats at golf.

Posted by: BurtTC at May 04, 2024 12:25 PM (JgqvA)

126 I don’t mind hearing positions I disagree with, as long as it’s not beyond the pale. I’m not gonna listen to some yahoo tell me how actually Hitler was a good guy and the Holocaust is a myth…. But I’ve seen cogent arguments here about how Abe Lincoln was a bit of a tyrant (suspended habeas corpus etc)… I learned stuff, but in the end I still think Lincoln was a great man and indispensable to our history. Did he make mistakes? Of course…. But considering who he was dealing with on the other side, I don’t know what he was supposed to do: just let the southern states walk away? I don’t think our subsequent history would’ve been very good if he’d done that

Posted by: LinusVanPelt at May 04, 2024 12:25 PM (+r3lU)

127 Zinn wrote that internment camps for Japanese Americans during World War II were kept secret. "Not until after the war did the story of the Japanese-Americans begin to be known to the general public," he wrote in Chapter 16. In fact, numerous newspapers and magazines wrote about the camps at the time, quite a few editorializing in favor of them.

-
My mother lived near a Japanese internment camp near Lamar, Colorado. She told me camp's high school sports teams competed with the surrounding area high school sports teams and the camp would hold festivals to which the townspeople were invited. So it was just like Auschwitz.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, I've Been Through the Desert On a Horse With No Shame at May 04, 2024 12:26 PM (L/fGl)

128
***All In with Chris Hayes***

It's all theater. The protests and the police confrontation is all theater. At UCLA, from 10AM in the morning 'students' began
assembling their barricades. No cops were there only news crews. By dark the fortifications were complete and the festivities behind them began and cops began gathering on the lawn.

This party on one side and gathering of cops on the other continued until 3:30AM when the cops were ordered to stop it.
Theater. Cops could have gone in at 10AM, torn down the flimsy and arrested them all. There would have been no mass event.

Both sides wanted a mass event.

Posted by: Braenyard at May 04, 2024 12:26 PM (lCWOD)

129 Thanks for the conversations.

I must away.

Peace

Posted by: AmericanKestrel at May 04, 2024 12:28 PM (S5+ge)

130 *Both sides wanted a mass event.*

We need the ratings.

Posted by: Media suits at May 04, 2024 12:29 PM (dg+HA)

131 History will always be 'debatable' in some ways

there's the record of what actually happened- the who what when where why how-

and then there are all the little details around the edges

Posted by: Don Black at May 04, 2024 12:29 PM (/7KEl)

132 >>Damon said Zinn was his neighbor and his mom taught with him or some such shit. Who knows? The lies these assholes spew never ends.

Damon gave Zinn a shout out in Good Will Hunting. He and Affleck are both textbood Cambridge leftists.

They know everything and everything they know is wrong.

Posted by: JackStraw at May 04, 2024 12:29 PM (LkLld)

133 I suspect that the purpose of that High Speed Railway was to put much of that 11 billion dollars in the appropriate pockets of Inner Party members, rather than mass transit.

Posted by: Retired Buckeye Cop is now an engineer at May 04, 2024 12:29 PM (pJWtt)

134 Damon gave Zinn a shout out in Good Will Hunting. He and Affleck are both textbood Cambridge leftists.
------------
Well, you could use it as an example of uncritical autodidacticism.

Posted by: Captain Obvious, Laird o' the Sea, Radioactive Knight at May 04, 2024 12:30 PM (Be/+i)

135 my boy is wicked smaht

Posted by: Don Black at May 04, 2024 12:31 PM (/7KEl)

136 First hand sources are good, even then, one will need to be aware of the author's bias.

Trust has been so eroded now, that I could be shown "proof" against my understanding of history and I would question the source and validity of the "proof".
Posted by: AmericanKestrel at May 04, 2024 12:23 PM (S5+ge)

Longstreet famously wrote an unreadable autobio on his experiences during the war.

When he got to Gettysburg (in the story, I mean, not physically got there), he was well aware of how much he was being blamed for it, so what he wrote is a very technical play by play of what was happening. I suspect it was about as accurate as anything anyone has written on the subject, but... unreadable.

So the narrative goes on. Longstreet F'd up at Gettysburg.

Even if he didn't.

Posted by: BurtTC at May 04, 2024 12:31 PM (9b7L5)

137 Theater. Cops could have gone in at 10AM, torn down the flimsy and arrested them all. There would have been no mass event.

Both sides wanted a mass event.
Posted by: Braenyard at May 04, 2024 12:26 PM

Agreed. Anonymous Conservative suggested this morning that this is all just a script to explain Biden losing. Hence all the stories about how the Democrats are panicking because of all the backlash against these protests among the normal people.

Posted by: Taq, Rickrolled by Jesus at May 04, 2024 12:32 PM (/QIWP)

138 As my mother used to refer to it; "the infamous war of northern aggression."
Posted by: Martini Farmer
------
Col. John Henry Thomas: [Thomas has just learned that the war ended several days before] Major, I've just received word that Lee surrendered to Grant three days ago.
Maj. Sanders, CSA:Yes, sir.
Col. John Henry Thomas: You knew it?
Maj. Sanders, CSA: We received the news yesterday.
Col. John Henry Thomas:I don't think you understand, Major, the war is over.
Maj. Sanders, CSA: NO, sir.
Col. John Henry Thomas: Are you telling me that you intend to keep fighting?
Maj. Sanders, CSA: Haven't we just proven it, sir?
Col. John Henry Thomas: But why?
Maj. Sanders, CSA:
Because this is our land, and you're on it.
Col. John Henry Thomas: We're all Americans.
Maj. Sanders, CSA: Yes, sir... that's always been the saddest part of it.
Col. John Henry Thomas: Good day, sir.
Maj. Sanders, CSA: Colonel, thank you for your courtesy.

Posted by: BifBewalski at May 04, 2024 12:32 PM (MsrgL)

139 Longstreet famously wrote an unreadable autobio on his experiences during the war.
-----------
Huh. His articles in "Battles and Leaders" are very readable.

Posted by: Captain Obvious, Laird o' the Sea, Radioactive Knight at May 04, 2024 12:33 PM (Be/+i)

140 Taq, The Eurovision thing is being held in Malmo Sweden, close to a nogo zone due to Muslim migration. The Israeli singer requires a security detail, told not to leave her hotel room and Israelis have been warned to stay away. The idea was to vote for Israel in support and not because it was the best song. I really don;t care what song wins. I just don't want the antisemitic assholes to getaway with impacting the situation.

Posted by: sharon(willow's apprentice) at May 04, 2024 12:33 PM (t/2Uw)

141 The war is coming from inside the house!

Posted by: Bertram Cabot, Jr. at May 04, 2024 12:33 PM (63Dwl)

142 >So the narrative goes on. Longstreet F'd up at Gettysburg.

Even if he didn't.
---

whose idea was it to walk up that hill, right into the Union artillery?

Posted by: Don Black at May 04, 2024 12:33 PM (/7KEl)

143 My mother lived near a Japanese internment camp near Lamar, Colorado. She told me camp's high school sports teams competed with the surrounding area high school sports teams and the camp would hold festivals to which the townspeople were invited. So it was just like Auschwitz.
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, I've Been Through the Desert On a Horse With No Shame at May 04, 2024 12:26 PM (L/fGl)

I've been to Lamar. That's got to be the most interesting thing I've ever heard about Lamar.

Lamar might not be the most boring place in the country, but it's on the spectrum.

Posted by: BurtTC at May 04, 2024 12:35 PM (9b7L5)

144 To be frank I’m tired of the talking and attempts to take reasonable actions against unreasonable people. These mentally defective fascists are proving the saying that capitalists will sell you the rope to hang them with.

Allowing partisan NYC party DAs to prosecute a person being blackmailed instead of the blackmailer is surreal and much more in that it’s a former President.

Protests in support of torturers and rapist terrorists goes beyond anything that should be allowed . It’s not free speech to chant death to America . It’s a threat to every American loving citizen. It’s one of the few Constitutional responsibilities of the government is to defend America not to protect those that look to destroy it.

Posted by: polynikes at May 04, 2024 12:35 PM (MNhXM)

145 Well, Sharon, I hope you get your wish. My 2 stars was only an opinion poll, not the voting itself, and was for the quality of the music, not for the politics.

Posted by: Taq, Rickrolled by Jesus at May 04, 2024 12:35 PM (/QIWP)

146 ... Zinn wrote that internment camps for Japanese Americans during World War II were kept secret. "Not until after the war did the story of the Japanese-Americans begin to be known to the general public," he wrote in Chapter 16. In fact, numerous newspapers and magazines wrote about the camps at the time, quite a few editorializing in favor of them.
========================

Was in Hawaii during VoJ 50th... (1995)
They had a lot of WWII generation still alive and a lot of articles about life as a Japanese-American during WWII.
As much as some people like to pick on FDR for the internment it is much simplier than simple racism - Do to Japanese cultural and legal practices (in Japan) they are really the first notable group to go out of their way for duel-citizenship. They had consulates to register their grandchildren as Japanese citizens.
IOW they were Japanese citizens living in the US during a war, or minor children not yet registered accompanied their parents.
Internment camps were initial set up for those that failed to leave exclusion zones (rather than putting them all in POW camps like Japan did to their Anglos). They could leave and actually had job boards (Ansel Adams)*

Posted by: Itinerant Alley Butcher at May 04, 2024 12:36 PM (cOq4q)

147 Uncritical Autodidacticism opened to great fanfare on Broadway but was quickly panned by critics for it's uninspired plot, mediocre talent, shabby sets and flaccid score. It closed in two weeks.

Posted by: Snooty New York reporter at May 04, 2024 12:36 PM (dg+HA)

148 Lana Trump's cover of Tom Petty was also garbage. I don't care who she is, that was a horrible cover, and I'm not about to pretend otherwise because I'm supposed to support the good MAGA people.

Posted by: Taq, Rickrolled by Jesus at May 04, 2024 12:37 PM (/QIWP)

149
Anonymous Conservative suggested this morning that this is all just a script to explain Biden losing. Hence all the stories about how the Democrats are panicking because of all the backlash against these protests among the normal people.
Posted by: Taq, Rickrolled by Jesus

There are still six months to go. Lots of time for Many Manufactured Miracles.

Posted by: Bertram Cabot, Jr. at May 04, 2024 12:37 PM (63Dwl)

150 Posted by: BifBewalski at May 04, 2024 12:32 PM (MsrgL)
That’s it right there, brother.

Posted by: Eromero at May 04, 2024 12:37 PM (o2ZRX)

151 One of the ten mental defects common in all Leftists is the total inability to make logical comparisons.

Posted by: polynikes at May 04, 2024 12:37 PM (MNhXM)

152 examples:
the Civil War (even what to call it)
the atomic bombings of 1945
JFK/Dallas

Longbows
Posted by: Archimedes at May 04, 2024 12:00 PM (CsUN+)

Maryann or Ginger.
Posted by: Gilligan

Betty or Veronica.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, I've Been Through the Desert On a Horse With No Shame at May 04, 2024 12:37 PM (L/fGl)

153 Uncritical Autodidacticism opened to great fanfare on Broadway but was quickly panned by critics for it's uninspired plot, mediocre talent, shabby sets and flaccid score. It closed in two weeks.
Posted by: Snooty New York reporter at May 04, 2024 12:36 PM (dg+HA)
----------
As one would expect.

Posted by: Captain Obvious, Laird o' the Sea, Radioactive Knight at May 04, 2024 12:38 PM (Be/+i)

154 Feel better, Bif! I have sinus problems but have it kinda under control with 3 bottles of saline solution up my nose 2X per day mixed with a couple of compound meds, one sinus surgery so far, ear tubes, and decongestants and Tylenol to assist with 3X or so weekly sinus headaches. Sinus infections each time I visit my ENT which once triggered a cough that led to a spot on my lung that in turn led to a full body pet scan to make sure I didn't have cancer.

Anyway, sorry to complain, I have a wonderful life, but just wanted to let a fellow moron know I hear you loud and clear. Well, not real loud and clear cause sinus stuff impacts that too, but hope you feel better soon!

Posted by: RM at May 04, 2024 12:38 PM (urbih)

155 Longstreet famously wrote an unreadable autobio on his experiences during the war.
-----------
Huh. His articles in "Battles and Leaders" are very readable.
Posted by: Captain Obvious, Laird o' the Sea, Radioactive Knight at May 04, 2024 12:33 PM (Be/+i)

Yes, he's a talented writer, but by the time he got around to writing his play by play, he was under attack. He was very much being blamed, almost entirely, for the South's loss in the entire war. By those in the South, of course.

So he wrote in exquisite detail, every damn thing that happened on the ground, and there's a lot of technical jargon used, how this unit was here, that one was there, and they moved this way, and the other one was doing that, while this one was doing this.

I'm sure it's quite accurate. But try following what he's saying in your head. You can't. I can't, that's for sure. I don't really believe anyone can.

Posted by: BurtTC at May 04, 2024 12:39 PM (9b7L5)

156 Lana Trump's cover of Tom Petty was also garbage.
----------
Which song?

Posted by: Captain Obvious, Laird o' the Sea, Radioactive Knight at May 04, 2024 12:39 PM (Be/+i)

157 when in doubt, go with the brunette

Posted by: Don Black at May 04, 2024 12:40 PM (/7KEl)

158 Posted by: Itinerant Alley Butcher at May 04, 2024 12:36 PM (cOq4q)

What people still don’t know is that a lot of Germans living on the east coast were also interned .

Posted by: polynikes at May 04, 2024 12:40 PM (MNhXM)

159 >>>I think something that most people ignore is the road untraveled, that would have made the South's case much stronger: South Carolina could have requested an Article 5 convention of the states to address a process for secession. How that would have worked out, I'm not sure, but I personally would be more sympathetic to the South if that attempt had been made.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd
---------------------------------

I missed the part about the Civil War in K.T.'s presentation.
But it was brought up and distracted from her work.
Trying to allay the disruption a commenter once said, 'If the South's politicians were as good as its generals there would have been no war'. However, it did not calm the waters, it became another point of contention and smart assery.

Posted by: Braenyard at May 04, 2024 12:40 PM (lCWOD)

160 whose idea was it to walk up that hill, right into the Union artillery?
Posted by: Don Black at May 04, 2024 12:33 PM (/7KEl)

It was mine, dammit! Alright??

It was me, I did it, I ordered the Code Red.

I'm not out of order, YOU'RE out of order!!

Posted by: BurtTC at May 04, 2024 12:41 PM (9b7L5)

161 Wonder if Portland State wishes that Bruce Gilley and Peter Boghossian were still its big problems?

The recently-occupied Portland State University library is closed until fall - the "occupiers" disabled all the fire protection systems in the library so they could smoke, among other things. They also stole tens of thousands of dollars in rare books and comics.

Not to worry, the craven president of PSU is still going ahead with the "Boeing Forum", which will determine if Boeing is moral enough to be able to continue to contribute a considerable amount of money for scholarships at the school (really).

If Boeing is judged not worthy, I assume that PSU will deny reimbursement for faculty and staff for any travel on Boeing aircraft.

After all, flying on a Boeing aircraft is being complicit in genocide.

Posted by: Droolin' Joe Biden! at May 04, 2024 12:41 PM (uxCna)

162 Betty or Veronica.
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, I've Been Through the Desert On a Horse With No Shame at May 04, 2024 12:37 PM (L/fGl)

BOTH!! In the shower.

Posted by: Archie at May 04, 2024 12:41 PM (iODuv)

163 Posted by: BifBewalski at May 04, 2024 12:32 PM (MsrgL)
That’s it right there, brother.

Posted by: Eromero

Thank you, Sir. Not that great of a movie, but that scene and those lines have stuck with me since i saw it the drive in, in Natchitoches, LA.

Posted by: BifBewalski at May 04, 2024 12:42 PM (MsrgL)

164 156 Lana Trump's cover of Tom Petty was also garbage.
----------
Which song?
Posted by: Captain Obvious, Laird o' the Sea

It was an autotuned country-fied cover of "Won't Back Down".

TGP and all the usual diehards praised it as amazing, of course. We're supposed to pretend. Like putting a child's painting up on the fridge.

Posted by: Taq, Rickrolled by Jesus at May 04, 2024 12:42 PM (/QIWP)

165 * But there was one or two internment camps for those Japanese-Americans who renounced US citizenship, or affirmatively supported Jpaan. They could not leave...
And Hawaii was under martial law until the last month or two of the war. The did catch spies who were simply taken into military custody and sent to the mainland. This is why "no Japanese-American was ever convicted of espionage in WWII".
Sabatours, admittedly very few, were simply killed in the act.

Italains and Germans on the east coast had some issues and relocations too. But they didn't maintain motherland citiczenship.

Posted by: Itinerant Alley Butcher at May 04, 2024 12:42 PM (cOq4q)

166 146 A good friend I served with in Vietnam was Japanese American (Sansei?). His Dad worked for Ford at "the Rouge" when I visited in the early 70s. The family was interned during the war, but he went to a job every day outside the gates as a draftsman. At the time, probably contributing to the war effort. And not being paid in funny money like some in Europe.

Posted by: bill in arkansas, not gonna comply with nuttin, waiting for the 0300 knock on the door at May 04, 2024 12:43 PM (V5eKu)

167 157 when in doubt, go with the brunette
Posted by: Don Black at May 04, 2024 12:40 PM (/7KEl)

This is a man of class and taste.

Posted by: Catch Thirty-Thr33 at May 04, 2024 12:43 PM (Ds3Rc)

168 They know everything and everything they know is wrong.
Posted by: JackStraw at May 04, 2024 12:29 PM (LkLld)

The trouble with our liberal friends is not that they’re ignorant; it’s just that they know so much that isn’t so. —-RR

Posted by: polynikes at May 04, 2024 12:44 PM (MNhXM)

169 Posted by: RM

Thank you! Prayers up for light duty and any future ailmemts as easy to get past.

Posted by: BifBewalski at May 04, 2024 12:45 PM (MsrgL)

170 Before I go a nd try to find something to do on this rainy day..
I a a Blues fan. I listened to the Louis Armstrong post and realized that I am a Blues fan when it is guitars. Although I appreciated the piece, it just did not have the smooth rhythem I associate with the Blues.

https://tinyurl.com/mw8t7a7u

BB King

Posted by: sharon(willow's apprentice) at May 04, 2024 12:45 PM (t/2Uw)

171 It was an autotuned country-fied cover of "Won't Back Down".
-----------
Yuch.

Posted by: Captain Obvious, Laird o' the Sea, Radioactive Knight at May 04, 2024 12:45 PM (Be/+i)

172 There are still six months to go. Lots of time for Many Manufactured Miracles.
Posted by: Bertram Cabot, Jr. at May 04, 2024 12:37 PM (63Dwl)

Weather's warming up, time for the "mostly peaceful" space to destroy festivals.

All we need is a two first name black dude to get killed, so we can get it on.

Posted by: BurtTC at May 04, 2024 12:46 PM (9b7L5)

173 Hey California, how's all those new cases of TB working out for ya?

Posted by: Diogenes at May 04, 2024 12:46 PM (W/lyH)

174 when in doubt, go with the brunette
Posted by: Don Black at May 04, 2024 12:40 PM (/7KEl)

My exception to that rule. Heather Graham.

Posted by: polynikes at May 04, 2024 12:47 PM (MNhXM)

175 When he got to Gettysburg . . .

-
I saw a very interesting bio on Michael Shaara, author of The Killer Angels upon which the movie Gettysburg was based. Rather a tragedy, he had a bitter falling out with his son Jeff. They never reconciled. He also divorced his wife although their relationship continued as before. In fairness, he had suffered a severe head injury.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, I've Been Through the Desert On a Horse With No Shame at May 04, 2024 12:48 PM (L/fGl)

176 Good afternoon everyone
Trying to reach a good quitting point here

Posted by: Skip at May 04, 2024 12:49 PM (3xsh4)

177 >>What people still don’t know is that a lot of Germans living on the east coast were also interned .

My town was basically a Navy base in WWII complete with a German POW camp. The park I take Elvis to walk in was used to gaurd the west passage of the bay and the other side had both gun emplacements and sub catchers to gaurd the east side.

One of the last German sub sunk in WWII and the last sunk in US waters is off the coast of RI. There was reason to take precautions against enemy infiltrators.

Posted by: JackStraw at May 04, 2024 12:49 PM (LkLld)

178 CA HSR will never be completed.

The Forever Project is a cousin of Forever War, there nerver meant to deliver anything other then endless stream of taxpayer lucre to the well connected.

Posted by: Thomas Bender at May 04, 2024 12:06 PM

We like to mock California for the failure of these projects, but it's actually very depressing. Considering places like China and Japan have accomplished their own high speed rail systems in *much* tougher environments and terrain making the engineering that much more challenging.

The United States used to be the world leader in this sort of technological advancement. The fact that places like California cannot achieve these things anymore is a prime example of how far the USA has fallen. It's nothing something to be mocked, but rather something of which to be ashamed.

And I wonder if our nation going forward will have the technological skill in the population to lead the world in this stuff again in our lifetimes or if political corruption and indoctrination of DEI and "climate change" policies has ruined us going forward.

Posted by: Clyde Shelton at May 04, 2024 12:49 PM (P5BPp)

179 45 Is it just me, or is there a connection between the silliness happening around the world, and the fact that people with names like Amjad work for the CIA?
Posted by: BurtTC at May 04, 2024 11:45 AM (98dBG)

Hey!
That's Agent XXX Amjad to you, mister!

Posted by: Diogenes at May 04, 2024 12:49 PM (W/lyH)

180 But I’ve seen cogent arguments here about how Abe Lincoln was a bit of a tyrant (suspended habeas corpus etc)… I learned stuff, but in the end I still think Lincoln was a great man and indispensable to our history. Did he make mistakes? Of course…. But considering who he was dealing with on the other side, I don’t know what he was supposed to do: just let the southern states walk away? I don’t think our subsequent history would’ve been very good if he’d done that
Posted by: LinusVanPelt at May 04, 2024 12:25 PM (+r3lU)

The #1 reason I cut Lincoln some slack is exactly that: what was he supposed to do, face secession and just say “oh, ok”? History would have seen him as a complete wuss. Of course, he was out to keep the Union cohesive and some are still pissed at him. He couldn’t win, really.

Posted by: Catch Thirty-Thr33 at May 04, 2024 12:50 PM (Ds3Rc)

181 And I wonder if our nation going forward will have the technological skill in the population to lead the world in this stuff again in our lifetimes or if political corruption and indoctrination of DEI and "climate change" policies has ruined us going forward.
Posted by: Clyde Shelton at May 04, 2024 12:49 PM (P5BPp)

Or being hired based on who you know instead of silliness like WHAT you know.

Posted by: Catch Thirty-Thr33 at May 04, 2024 12:51 PM (Ds3Rc)

182 What people still don’t know is that a lot of Germans living on the east coast were also interned .
Posted by: polynikes

That guy that (tried to) shoot up the National Holocaust Museum in DC (about twenty years ago)?

Even then they were desperate to find a WASP engaged in terrorism and only (initially) published that he was a white WWII vet.
When seeing that my first guess was that he was an old Bund member that was sent to the Pacific war.

Later the details came out he was German-American and served in the Pacifc.

US was more sensible then - Generall they didn't darft young men and send them into combat against the 'motherland'. Cousin against cousin can be taxing, and with the CW being recent enough.

Posted by: Itinerant Alley Butcher at May 04, 2024 12:51 PM (cOq4q)

183 But I’ve seen cogent arguments here about how Abe Lincoln was a bit of a tyrant (suspended habeas corpus etc)… I learned stuff, but in the end I still think Lincoln was a great man and indispensable to our history. Did he make mistakes? Of course…. But considering who he was dealing with on the other side, I don’t know what he was supposed to do: just let the southern states walk away? I don’t think our subsequent history would’ve been very good if he’d done that
Posted by: LinusVanPelt at May 04, 2024 12:25 PM (+r3lU)

The #1 reason I cut Lincoln some slack is exactly that: what was he supposed to do, face secession and just say “oh, ok”? History would have seen him as a complete wuss. Of course, he was out to keep the Union cohesive and some are still pissed at him. He couldn’t win, really.
Posted by: Catch Thirty-Thr33 at May 04, 2024 12:50 PM (Ds3Rc)

Sadly many Lincoln critics on the Right fall into the Presentism trap.

Posted by: polynikes at May 04, 2024 12:52 PM (MNhXM)

184 I saw a very interesting bio on Michael Shaara, author of The Killer Angels upon which the movie Gettysburg was based. Rather a tragedy, he had a bitter falling out with his son Jeff. They never reconciled. He also divorced his wife although their relationship continued as before. In fairness, he had suffered a severe head injury.
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, I've Been Through the Desert On a Horse With No Shame at May 04, 2024 12:48 PM (L/fGl)

You know why they don't generally make movies about writers?

Same reason leading men in romcoms are not fat, middle aged dudes.

Posted by: BurtTC at May 04, 2024 12:52 PM (9b7L5)

185 $6,785,000 a foot

Posted by: Skip at May 04, 2024 12:53 PM (3xsh4)

186 You know why they don't generally make movies about writers?

Same reason leading men in romcoms are not fat, middle aged dudes.
Posted by: BurtTC at May 04, 2024 12:52 PM (9b7L5)
--------
"Finding Forrester" is one of the few that leap to mind.

And they got Sean Freaking Connery for that one.

Posted by: Captain Obvious, Laird o' the Sea, Radioactive Knight at May 04, 2024 12:55 PM (Be/+i)

187 Protests in support of torturers and rapist terrorists goes beyond anything that should be allowed . It’s not free speech to chant death to America . It’s a threat to every American loving citizen. It’s one of the few Constitutional responsibilities of the government is to defend America not to protect those that look to destroy it.

Posted by: polynikes at May 04, 2024 12:35 PM (MNhXM)

There is something to be said for people willing to pull their own pants down and show you exactly who they are. They’re shouting Death to America? Give them a megaphone and a spotlight so you know who not to engage in business with.

Posted by: Catch Thirty-Thr33 at May 04, 2024 12:55 PM (Ds3Rc)

188 Is it just me, or is there a connection between the silliness happening around the world, and the fact that people with names like Amjad work for the CIA?
Posted by: BurtTC at May 04, 2024 11:45 AM (98dBG)

Hey!
That's Agent XXX Amjad to you, mister!
Posted by: Diogenes at May 04, 2024 12:49 PM (W/lyH)

Oddly enough, I saw a supposedly objective statement recently, that hemmed and hawed on the subject of whether John Brennan converted to Islam.

I don't know why that came to mind.

Posted by: BurtTC at May 04, 2024 12:55 PM (9b7L5)

189 one mistake people make when talking about history, is they judge people of the past by the standards and ideas of the present

if this is what you mean by presentism

Like Hiroshima
today, many people rightly fear the use of nuclear weapons-
but in August 1945, to the people who had to decide, it made sense

Posted by: Don Black at May 04, 2024 12:56 PM (/7KEl)

190 177 My Dad was an interrogator interpreter in the Finnish language during WW2, one of the Ritchie boys that never went to the old country, Finland having the "mutual combatant status". His principal duty was asking the rando Finn that came in (sunk merchant ship crewman, maybe Kriegsmarine) if they wanted to go see the cacti in AZ or get a cash paying job chopping lumber in the PNW. There's probably more than a few families out there that got started by Dad signing the travel orders.

Posted by: bill in arkansas, not gonna comply with nuttin, waiting for the 0300 knock on the door at May 04, 2024 12:57 PM (V5eKu)

191 but in August 1945, to the people who had to decide, it made sense
Posted by: Don Black at May 04, 2024 12:56 PM (/7KEl)
-----------
End the war in a blow? With a weapon no one else has? Hell, yes.

Posted by: Captain Obvious, Laird o' the Sea, Radioactive Knight at May 04, 2024 12:57 PM (Be/+i)

192 Howard Zinn was a communist. How in the name of everything holy in fuckdom did we ever allow a communist to become the author of one of the most widely used history textbooks in our education system?

Oh, I remember. It's because Jimmy Fucking Carter (Piss be Upon Him) established the Department of Education thus allowing the fucking communist worms in the government woodwork to brainwash our young.

Posted by: Chairborne!...Desk From Above! at May 04, 2024 12:57 PM (W6d+C)

193
https://tinyurl.com/mw8t7a7u
BB King
Posted by: sharon

Thank you.

Posted by: AZ deplorable moron at May 04, 2024 12:57 PM (psNWM)

194 if they wanted to go see the cacti in AZ or get a cash paying job chopping lumber in the PNW. There's probably more than a few families out there that got started by Dad signing the travel orders.
Posted by: bill in arkansas, not gonna comply with nuttin, waiting for the 0300 knock on the door at May 04, 2024 12:57 PM (V5eKu)
-----------
There's certainly a Finnish presence in Astoria.

Posted by: Captain Obvious, Laird o' the Sea, Radioactive Knight at May 04, 2024 12:58 PM (Be/+i)

195 "Finding Forrester" is one of the few that leap to mind.

And they got Sean Freaking Connery for that one.
Posted by: Captain Obvious, Laird o' the Sea, Radioactive Knight at May 04, 2024 12:55 PM (Be/+i)

Never heard of it. A fiction, I see.

I was falling asleep just reading the description.

Posted by: BurtTC at May 04, 2024 12:59 PM (9b7L5)

196 Posted by: Don Black at May 04, 2024 12:56 PM (/7KEl)

Yes that’s the definition of Presentism.

Posted by: polynikes at May 04, 2024 12:59 PM (MNhXM)

197 US was more sensible then - Generall they didn't darft young men and send them into combat against the 'motherland'. Cousin against cousin can be taxing, and with the CW being recent enough.
Posted by: Itinerant Alley Butcher at May 04, 2024 12:51 PM (cOq4q)

But this was exactly why Italy saw going to war against the U.S. as being highly undesirable. It was one thing to fight other countries. But the Italians knew how many of their citizens had relatives in the U.S.

Posted by: Catch Thirty-Thr33 at May 04, 2024 01:00 PM (Ds3Rc)

198 well I'm out
I'm not allowed to comment on the next three threads

c ya

Posted by: Don Black at May 04, 2024 01:01 PM (/7KEl)

199 Like Hiroshima
today, many people rightly fear the use of nuclear weapons-
but in August 1945, to the people who had to decide, it made sense
Posted by: Don Black at May 04, 2024 12:56 PM (/7KEl)

People were awfully critical of Tucker, for the way he worded his statement about dropping nooks, but to do so, to focus on that, is to miss the bigger point, which of course is that we are currently led by politicians around the globe, and oligarchs who control those politicians, who don't seem to mind the idea of dropping nooks.

Posted by: BurtTC at May 04, 2024 01:01 PM (9b7L5)

200 And the declared Marxists students in the USA of today have no idea that Mussolini was a radical Marxist as was Goebbels . Goebbels only joined the Nazis because of his Jew hate.

Posted by: polynikes at May 04, 2024 01:04 PM (MNhXM)

201 173 Hey California, how's all those new cases of TB working out for ya?
Posted by: Diogenes at May 04, 2024 12:46 PM (W/lyH)

No TB here. And this is the happiest state in America with an economy larger than the rest of the country put together. CA is perfect in every way.

Posted by: Gov Newsom at May 04, 2024 01:04 PM (Ds3Rc)

202 Not a shock. CalTrans is one of the most corrupt and incompetent organizations in existence.

I live in Commiefornia for work (as soon as I retire I'm gone).

Over the last 10 years, they've been 'building' an overpass a bit south of me. 10 freaking years later, it's still 'under construction'. Because they get paid by the hour.

This is the kind of crap that made Trump take over the ice rink project in NY. After YEARS and who knows how much graft and uncounted millions in 'cost overruns', and it still wasn't ready. Then Trump took it over, and because he actually wanted to build it, did it in less than a year and under budget.

These corrupt union 'building' projects are a complete and absolute joke, and everybody knows it.

Posted by: DudeAbiding at May 04, 2024 01:04 PM (setIA)

203 Foreign Nationals were required to register with the FBI.

Those on the east coast and interior were required to have any radio capable of receiving short wave signals have the bands disabled by a licensed radio repair shop.

In a nation with gas rationing - a 35 mph speed limit - you couldn’t even buy a tube of toothpaste without turning in the old one.

There’s NO WAY the government would have instituted mass lockups for anything so petty as racism against Japanese.

No, they were WORRIED. They weren’t taking any chances. Remember, the war was going on for years and the Allies were getting their ass handed to them up until 1942/1943

Posted by: Common Tater at May 04, 2024 01:05 PM (DPe6y)

204 , who don't seem to mind the idea of dropping nooks.
Posted by: BurtTC at May 04, 2024 01:01 PM (9b7L5)

Yet It Hasn’t Happened.

Some people just can’t learn that Talk Is Cheap.

Posted by: Catch Thirty-Thr33 at May 04, 2024 01:06 PM (Ds3Rc)

205 194 Heh. Had a friend, now gone. Third or fourth generation Mexican American that worked the boat yards in Astoria. He said he was constantly asked about Finnish ancestry due to his name, Savala. Not enough Vs or Ls.

Posted by: bill in arkansas, not gonna comply with nuttin, waiting for the 0300 knock on the door at May 04, 2024 01:06 PM (V5eKu)

206 Posted by: Common Tater at May 04, 2024 01:05 PM (DPe6y)

And the main catalyst for Japanese internment was the sneak attack which was aided by spies on the island.

Posted by: polynikes at May 04, 2024 01:07 PM (MNhXM)

207 That's an uncomfortable topic, including here at the ol' AoSHQ. Lots of people have their minds made up about things, including the past, and whenever something gets introduced that might contradict the running narratives in their heads, they get real mad.
Posted by: BurtTC at May 04, 2024 11:52 AM (Mrjew)
===

*sticks fingers in ears, runs in circles*

Posted by: Cognitive Dissonance at May 04, 2024 01:08 PM (RIvkX)

208 Chrissie Mayr doing a Drew Barrymore impersonation on Friday Night Tights:

https://tinyurl.com/5b4zuyw8

Definitely NSFW.

Posted by: BurtTC at May 04, 2024 01:10 PM (y29sO)

209 Foreign Nationals were required to register with the FBI.
-----------
My grandfather and grandmother were foreign nationals (from Great Britain). I do not know if they were require to register.

Grandpa was an air-raid warden, though. As I child I remember seeing the old WWI-style helmet. white-painted with the CD insignia in front.

Posted by: Captain Obvious, Laird o' the Sea, Radioactive Knight at May 04, 2024 01:10 PM (Be/+i)

210 Yet It Hasn’t Happened.

Some people just can’t learn that Talk Is Cheap.
Posted by: Catch Thirty-Thr33 at May 04, 2024 01:06 PM (Ds3Rc)

Be quiet, the adults are talking.

Posted by: BurtTC at May 04, 2024 01:10 PM (y29sO)

211 There are still six months to go. Lots of time for Many Manufactured Miracles.

Posted by: Bertram Cabot, Jr. at May 04, 2024 12:37 PM

Weather's warming up, time for the "mostly peaceful" space to destroy festivals.

All we need is a two first name black dude to get killed, so we can get it on.

Posted by: BurtTC at May 04, 2024 12:46 PM

Just heard this morning about one in Ohio that they will likely push into a national story once the Hamazi protests are off the front page. Or the media may push this in order to get the Hamazi protests off the front page. I actually heard about it for the first time on the replay of the Drew Lane Show this morning on Detroit Classic Rock station.

Body-cam footage shows police left an Ohio man handcuffed and facedown on a bar floor before he died

https://bit.ly/4aZIuo3

Posted by: Clyde Shelton at May 04, 2024 01:13 PM (P5BPp)

212 Goebbels only joined the Nazis because of his Jew hate.
Posted by: polynikes at May 04, 2024 01:04 PM (MNhXM)
===

He was part of the Drexler/Strasser faction of the party which was certainly Marxist in orientation. Goebbels also wrote in his diary that he was very persuaded by Hitler's personality.

Posted by: San Franpsycho at May 04, 2024 01:13 PM (RIvkX)

213
Florida has high speed rail between Miami and Orlando. Another example of Florida showing what is possible if you really want to get something done.
Posted by: Florida Putting Up the Ws at May 04, 2024 11:43 AM (0Gsdq)

IIRC privately funded.
Posted by: Catch Thirty-Thr33

================

San Diego got a cute red choo-choo from San Ysidro to downtown back when Pete Wilson was mayor. He resolutely didn't take a dime from the feds and got it done during his term as mayor. That train is now expanded up to La Jolla and the medical plants beyond. It ought to be named after him.

Posted by: Blonde Morticia at May 04, 2024 01:13 PM (lCaJd)

214 There's probably more than a few families out there that got started by Dad signing the travel orders.
Posted by: bill in arkansas, not gonna comply with nuttin, waiting for the 0300 knock on the door at May 04, 2024 12:57 PM (V5eKu)

The Army MI Corps had a Ritchie Boys Reunion back...something like 15 years ago. Did your dad get to go?

Posted by: Diogenes at May 04, 2024 01:13 PM (W/lyH)

215 I live in Commiefornia for work (as soon as I retire I'm gone).

Over the last 10 years, they've been 'building' an overpass a bit south of me. 10 freaking years later, it's still 'under construction'. Because they get paid by the hour.

This is the kind of crap that made Trump take over the ice rink project in NY. After YEARS and who knows how much graft and uncounted millions in 'cost overruns', and it still wasn't ready. Then Trump took it over, and because he actually wanted to build it, did it in less than a year and under budget.

These corrupt union 'building' projects are a complete and absolute joke, and everybody knows it.
Posted by: DudeAbiding at May 04, 2024 01:04 PM (setIA)

Kinda like Milton Friedman observing a Brazilian road building project where the crew was using only hand tools. The foreman explained to Friedman that this was so they didn’t finish the road too quickly and found themselves out of work again. Friedman asked “So why aren’t they using spoons?”

Posted by: Catch Thirty-Thr33 at May 04, 2024 01:14 PM (Ds3Rc)

216 My mother lived near a Japanese internment camp near Lamar, Colorado. She told me camp's high school sports teams competed with the surrounding area high school sports teams and the camp would hold festivals to which the townspeople were invited. So it was just like Auschwitz.
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, I've Been Through the Desert On a Horse With No Shame at May 04, 2024 12:26 PM (L/fGl)

Oh! You want me to tell you where Hollywood is! Well, shoot, that's easy. Hollywood is...Oh, no, you don't. You thought you was gonna get me to show you where Hollywood was, didn't ya? Tried to sneak up on us, like ya did at Pearl Harbor! Bet you're gonna bomb John Wayne's house, ain't ya?

Posted by: Hollis P. Wood at May 04, 2024 01:16 PM (R/m4+)

217 I believe only Italian and German nationals had to register as enemy aliens.

Posted by: San Franpsycho at May 04, 2024 01:16 PM (RIvkX)

218 He was part of the Drexler/Strasser faction of the party which was certainly Marxist in orientation.

If I had known this I probably wouldn’t have high tailed it to Scandinavia. Coulda kept my original name, even.

Posted by: Willy Brandt at May 04, 2024 01:16 PM (Ds3Rc)

219 It is because people view history wrong. They think that the way it turned out is the only way it could go. They will say that America had already won the war and shouldn't have drpped the atomic bomb on Japan. They ignore the fact that Okinawans were committing suicide in advance of invasion and there was every reason to believe invading Japan would cost a lot of lives. And the atomic bomb was just another weapon.

Posted by: Notsothoreau at May 04, 2024 01:17 PM (yeEu9)

220 Grand parents on mom's side stopped speaking German during WWII. My mom never spoke it to us.

Posted by: AZ deplorable moron at May 04, 2024 01:17 PM (psNWM)

221 Oh! You want me to tell you where Hollywood is! Well, shoot, that's easy. Hollywood is...Oh, no, you don't. You thought you was gonna get me to show you where Hollywood was, didn't ya? Tried to sneak up on us, like ya did at Pearl Harbor! Bet you're gonna bomb John Wayne's house, ain't ya?
Posted by: Hollis P. Wood at May 04, 2024 01:16 PM (R/m4+)
-----------
Horrywoooood!!!

Posted by: Highly Enthusiastic Japanese Junior Officer at May 04, 2024 01:17 PM (Be/+i)

222 Howard Zinn was a communist. How in the name of everything holy in fuckdom did we ever allow a communist to become the author of one of the most widely used history textbooks in our education system?
-

Let's see... Hmm.. Ah yes, here it is:

Communist Goals
Congressional Record--Appendix, pp. A34-A35 January 10, 1963

"17. Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for socialism and current Communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers' associations. Put the party line in textbooks."

Also maybe

"31. Belittle all forms of American culture and discourage the teaching of American history on the ground that it was only a minor part of the "big picture." Give more emphasis to Russian history since the Communists took over."

https://tinyurl.com/2o8d5xhv

Posted by: Moron Robbie - Little girls dreamt of being moms, women told them not to follow their dreams at May 04, 2024 01:17 PM (YsjiM)

223 Body-cam footage shows police left an Ohio man handcuffed and facedown on a bar floor before he died

-

"Frank Tyson was released from state prison on April 6 after serving 24 years on a kidnapping and theft case and was almost immediately declared a post-release control supervision violator for failing to report to a parole officer, according to the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction."

Quick, cause $2B worth of damage nationwide!

Posted by: Moron Robbie - Little girls dreamt of being moms, women told them not to follow their dreams at May 04, 2024 01:21 PM (YsjiM)

224 17 I'm glad to see you included "Barbieland Intifada". I first saw that on Insty last night and thought this is going to achieve widespread usage.

Posted by: Archimedes at May 04, 2024 11:36 AM (CsUN+)

The folks they're supporting was Klaus Barbieland...

Posted by: jim (in Kalifornia) at May 04, 2024 01:21 PM (ynpvh)

225 was = want. damn fingers.

Posted by: jim (in Kalifornia) at May 04, 2024 01:21 PM (ynpvh)

226 Most of the Eurovision songs so far are unlistenable blackified rave techno music garbage.

Try Norway. Guitars, bass, drums, violin, and a girl singing.

Posted by: Ian S. at May 04, 2024 01:21 PM (FD5dr)

227 I grew up in San Jose — before it was Silicon Valley. And that high speed rail segment reminded me of the 280/101 interchange that was begun and ran out of money, so it sat like a giant art installation for years and years. Boondoggles are a large part of California’s rich history.

Posted by: red speck at May 04, 2024 01:22 PM (0Id0S)

228
Be quiet, the adults are talking.
Posted by: BurtTC at May 04, 2024 01:10 PM (y29sO)

Adults present counter-arguments. You spend endless time here shrieking about how a bunch of people TALKING about dropping nukes means nuclear war is IMMINENT, and when someone points out that for all the ceaseless TALK and BULLSHIT about dropping nukes - evidenced by the fact that for all the TALK it has NOT happened - you say “adults are talking”. Because you are incapable of providing a counter-argument.

Now get on out of here, go dig a bimb shelter, clutch pearls while watching Atomic Cafe, and finish up by flying to the UK and chaining yourself to the fence at RAF Greenham Common. All because you never read The Little Boy WHO Cried Wolf as a kid like the rest of us real adults.

Posted by: Catch thirty-Thr33 at May 04, 2024 01:22 PM (Ds3Rc)

229 Posted by: Moron Robbie - Little girls dreamt of being moms, women told them not to follow their dreams at May 04, 2024 01:17 PM (YsjiM)

Yup.

Posted by: Chairborne!...Desk From Above! at May 04, 2024 01:22 PM (W6d+C)

230 >>>They’re shouting Death to America? Give them a ...
-------------------------

bullet to the head?
a noose?
a free ride to Islamabad?

Anything less is unjust. If one says that he's going to kill you, defense is justified.

Posted by: Braenyard at May 04, 2024 01:22 PM (lCWOD)

231 This is the most remarkable human achievement ever, 1600 feet of high speed rail after 9 years and 11 billion dollars

Indeed it is; it's a monument to graft in Kalifornia.

Posted by: jim (in Kalifornia) at May 04, 2024 01:22 PM (ynpvh)

232 Off highly enthusiastic sock.

Posted by: Captain Obvious, Laird o' the Sea, Radioactive Knight at May 04, 2024 01:24 PM (Be/+i)

233 Did you click through the Barbieland link and see the attempt to make the frat guys look like they were giving Nazi salutes?

https://tinyurl.com/25skjkzq

Posted by: Moron Robbie - Little girls dreamt of being moms, women told them not to follow their dreams at May 04, 2024 01:24 PM (YsjiM)

234 Most of the Eurovision songs so far are unlistenable blackified rave techno music garbage.

Try Norway. Guitars, bass, drums, violin, and a girl singing.
Posted by: Ian S. at May 04, 2024 01:21 PM (FD5dr)

Miss us yet?

Last night I heard my momma singing this song
Ooh wee chirpy chirpy cheep cheep
Woke up this morning and my momma was gone
Ooh wee chirpy chirpy cheep cheep
Chirpy chirpy cheep cheep chirp...

Posted by: Middle Of The Road at May 04, 2024 01:25 PM (R/m4+)

235 So many countries refuse to take Palestinian refugees:

Well, I look at it like this:
US: "Hey, want some fireants? They sting and bite and swarm, and are easily riled up, but are mostly peaceful"
Other Countries: "No, we have enough, uh, 'fireants' here."

Posted by: jim (in Kalifornia) at May 04, 2024 01:26 PM (ynpvh)

236 If I had known this I probably wouldn’t have high tailed it to Scandinavia. Coulda kept my original name, even.
Posted by: Willy Brandt at May 04, 2024 01:16 PM (Ds3Rc)
===
Volksgemeinschaft vor Grier

Posted by: San Franpsycho at May 04, 2024 01:26 PM (RIvkX)

237 234 Most of the Eurovision songs so far are unlistenable blackified rave techno music garbage.

Try Norway. Guitars, bass, drums, violin, and a girl singing.
Posted by: Ian S. at May 04, 2024 01:21 PM (FD5dr)

Miss us yet?

Last night I heard my momma singing this song
Ooh wee chirpy chirpy cheep cheep
Woke up this morning and my momma was gone
Ooh wee chirpy chirpy cheep cheep
Chirpy chirpy cheep cheep chirp...

Posted by: Middle Of The Road at May 04, 2024 01:25 PM (R/m4+)

Redheads in kilts playing bagpipes?

Posted by: jim (in Kalifornia) at May 04, 2024 01:26 PM (ynpvh)

238 NOOD Gardening

Posted by: jim (in Kalifornia) at May 04, 2024 01:28 PM (ynpvh)

239 Say what you will about Gavin.Newsom, he's not a fascist. I know because he can't make the trains run on time.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, I've Been Through the Desert On a Horse With No Shame at May 04, 2024 01:29 PM (L/fGl)

240 239 Say what you will about Gavin.Newsom, he's not a fascist. I know because he can't make the trains run on time.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, I've Been Through the Desert On a Horse With No Shame at May 04, 2024 01:29 PM (L/fGl)

LOL, no he's just an INEPT Fascist. LOL

Posted by: jim (in Kalifornia) at May 04, 2024 01:29 PM (ynpvh)

241 Redheads in kilts playing bagpipes?
Posted by: jim (in Kalifornia) at May 04, 2024 01:26 PM (ynpvh)

Hot blonde and three droogs...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSNSTerj2Kc

If I remember right, she dated the lead singer from The Sweet.

Lucky bastard.

Posted by: Hairyback Guy at May 04, 2024 01:30 PM (R/m4+)

242 233 Did you click through the Barbieland link and see the attempt to make the frat guys look like they were giving Nazi salutes?

https://tinyurl.com/25skjkzq

Posted by: Moron Robbie - Little girls dreamt of being moms, women told them not to follow their dreams at May 04, 2024 01:24 PM (YsjiM)

That little twitter pali-fag doesn't know that the pali's want his little gay ass dead. Talk about useful idiots.

Posted by: jim (in Kalifornia) at May 04, 2024 01:31 PM (ynpvh)

243 >>> Well, I look at it like this:
US: "Hey, want some fireants? They sting and bite and swarm, and are easily riled up, but are mostly peaceful"
Other Countries: "No, we have enough, uh, 'fireants' here."
Posted by: jim (in Kalifornia)
---------------------------

We have had presidents who could explain to other heads of state why it would be to their benefit to take in the Gazans and an they would understand.

Posted by: Braenyard at May 04, 2024 01:31 PM (lCWOD)

244 243 >>> Well, I look at it like this:
US: "Hey, want some fireants? They sting and bite and swarm, and are easily riled up, but are mostly peaceful"
Other Countries: "No, we have enough, uh, 'fireants' here."
Posted by: jim (in Kalifornia)
---------------------------

We have had presidents who could explain to other heads of state why it would be to their benefit to take in the Gazans and an they would understand.

Posted by: Braenyard at May 04, 2024 01:31 PM (lCWOD)

Lawyer in Hell joke punchline: "We were recruiting"...

Posted by: jim (in Kalifornia) at May 04, 2024 01:36 PM (ynpvh)

245 A Progressive acquaintance once said to me, 'I learned all that I need to know about American history from Howard Zinn'.

I'm still trying to resolve the fact that reasonably intelligent people can be stupid.

Posted by: Mike Hammer, etc., etc. at May 04, 2024 01:38 PM (XeU6L)

246 My favorite Thrill version:

https://tinyurl.com/mw8t7a7u

Posted by: SonnyD at May 04, 2024 01:40 PM (aA6YN)

247 Don't worry, though. Everything you've been taught about Lincoln and the Civil War has been untouched by their influence.

Posted by: Moron Robbie - Little girls dreamt of being moms, women told them not to follow their dreams at May 04, 2024 01:46 PM (YsjiM)

248 @223

>>Quick, cause $2B worth of damage nationwide!

I take it Frank is not a Person of Palor?

Posted by: Thomas Bender at May 04, 2024 02:10 PM (XV/Pl)

249 Michael Burry Stock Tracker
@burrytracker

CA High-Speed rail celebrates spending $10 Billion and 16 years on the "completion" of a 1,600 foot long concrete section

Meanwhile, China in the same span of time is featured on the right:

https://bit.ly/4a1Kjzf

Posted by: Clyde Shelton at May 04, 2024 02:39 PM (P5BPp)

250 Newsweek:

Donald Trump Demands Jack Smith Be Arrested After Document Revelation

Posted by: SMOD at May 04, 2024 02:50 PM (RovqD)

251 Newsweek:

Donald Trump Demands Jack Smith Be Arrested After Document Revelation
Posted by: SMOD

Welp, it does seem that the Biden Junta did physically fabricate a crime to frame Trump with, stopping as low on the totem pole as Jack Smith seems a little inadaquate.

Posted by: Itinerant Alley Butcher at May 04, 2024 03:06 PM (cOq4q)

252 In a stunning admission, Special Counsel Jack Smith’s team is admitting that key evidence in former President Donald Trump’s classified documents criminal case was altered or manipulated since it was seized by the FBI, and that prosecutors misled the court about it for a period of time.

Legal experts told Just the News the revelation could prove to be a serious problem for prosecutors and a violation of court rules to preserve evidence in the state it was seized.

In a new filing Friday, Smith’s team said that the order of documents in some of the boxes of memos that were seized by the FBI from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate was altered or jumbled, leaving two different chronologies: one that was digitally scanned and another the physical order in the boxes.

Posted by: Neo at May 04, 2024 04:09 PM (RovqD)

253 My favorite Thrill version:

https://tinyurl.com/mw8t7a7u

Sonny D, great minds think alike because that was the version I posted.
There is a great set he did with Eric Clapton Riding with the King.

Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at May 04, 2024 04:33 PM (t/2Uw)

254 "1600 feet of high speed rail after 9 years and 11 billion dollars." They should be able to do that much in a month or two if they were competent.
Graft and Red tape, either way, people should be going to prison.

Posted by: Sixiron at May 04, 2024 07:32 PM (c4Wfm)

255 I got this site fгom mу friend who told me аboᥙt this website and at thе moment this time І
am visiting this web site and rеading very informative content at this time.

Posted by: stefan at May 12, 2024 01:09 PM (/RWzq)

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