Lawdog - a grumpy deputy encounters a grumpier doctor

 

Some of you may recall Lawdog's first encounter with pericarditis, and the follow-up, and its recurrence a few months later.  Well, our favorite deputy is still at it.  This comes not from his blog, but from other social media.

So, there I am, thinking I ought to talk to a professional.

"Cardiac center, may I help you?"

"Yes, this is Lawdog, is doc in?"

"Oh, hi! Just a second!"

I wait a couple of seconds.

"How's my favourite grouchy patient?"

"Hey, doc, figured I ought to ask you if I should get the booster for the Pfizer shot."

There's a long pause. Hmm. I clear my throat, gently.

"Doc, you there?"

"I don't remember discussing vaccines with you. I particularly don't remember discussing mRNA vaccines with a patient who has had multiple episodes of pericarditis and endocarditis in his past."

Uh-oh. In the back of my head, a little Star Trek red alert siren starts going off.

"Yes. If my patient, who had one of the worst cases of pericarditis I've seen during my entire career as a cardiologist." his voice gains in volume, "Because he ignored it for OVER A YEAR because he DIDN'T THINK IT WAS A BIG DEAL ..."

He pauses for a moment, takes a deep breath, then continues at a conversational level, "... If that patient had asked me about the vaccine, I would have counseled him to get the Johnson and Johnson vaccine."

I can't resist, "So, I'm guessing that's a 'no' on the booster?"

"NO. And if there are any issues or odd ... wait, I forgot who I was talking to."

There's a scraping noise over the receiver, like maybe the phone is being held against his shoulder. His voice is distant and muffled, "Sherry! Schedule Deputy Lawdog for cardiac baseline. And when he bitches, yes, he needs it; he's a little overdue anyway. Don't let him wiggle out of it!"

The scraping goes away.

"Ouch, doc."

"Shut it. I'm transferring you to Sherry. See you in a bit."

Looks like I'm about to stress-test the new insurance. 😃

So far, so good!

Peter

Learning situational awareness - the experts teach us

 

I've written often in these pages about the need for situational awareness - to be aware of one's surroundings, the people in them, potential threats, potential avenues of escape, and so on.  It's something that becomes second nature to those who've learned - whether through instruction, or the hard way - the need to be constantly aware of what's going on around us.  However, for those who haven't been exposed to that sort of conditioning, it's not so easy.

Here are three short videos that encapsulate the main lessons of situational awareness.  Yes, it'll take time for you to watch them;  but I think you'll learn a lot more from the visual environment than you will by reading words on their own.  If you need such training, these videos are a very good place to start.  (I'd say, if you live in any urban area these days, you need situational awareness all day, every day, because the threats are there all the time!)

These videos are from a "tactical" perspective, because they're aimed at security professionals and civilians who understand their need for self-defense.  They may appear a bit over-the-top to those who've never thought much about the subject, but believe me, they're not.  Ask anyone who's been attacked by criminals, and how their attitudes changed afterwards.  If you're ever unfortunate enough to experience that, yours will too!

Let's start with an on-the-street introduction to situational awareness by Tim Kennedy of Sheepdog Response.

Next, here's a two-video series by John Lovell of Warrior Poet Society.

There's lots more that can be said, but the videos above will give you most of the fundamentals.  You can do your own Internet and YouTube searches for "situational awareness" to find more materials.

Peter

The gender insanity of the progressive left

 

Earlier this month Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, notorious for her birdbrained pronouncements, went particularly avian over the issue of who can menstruate, with this tweet.

In a subsequent article, Yahoo News pontificated:

Ocasio-Cortez isn't the only public face fighting for more trans- and nonbinary-inclusive language. In 2019, the brand Always removed the female symbol on its products to be more inclusive to non-female-identifying customers. Similarly, several trans-affirming period brands have increased their visibility online to raise awareness for non-cisgender menstruators.

But as companies and public servants have debates around ideology and terminologies, folks like A.J. Lowik, a nonbinary activist and researcher at the University of British Columbia, says the erasure of trans and nonbinary folks from the period discussion is having real-life impacts.

“We are dealing with erasure at the level of information,” Lowik (who uses they/them pronouns) tells Yahoo Life. “We know very little about trans and nonbinary people’s menstrual health and menstrual health care needs.”

. . .

Canela López, an activist and journalist who covers trans health for Insider, agrees, adding that because menstruation is viewed only as a “cis woman’s issue,” access to adequate health care is compromised by major health agencies and is left “unaddressed.”

“For somebody who's been on testosterone, menstruation is maybe going to look a little bit different,” López (who uses he/them pronouns) tells Yahoo Life. “Somebody who is looking to get off HRT [hormone replacement therapy] to get pregnant, that's going to look a little bit different than somebody who hasn't been on HRT before. Those are really specific questions that can really only be answered by a doctor, but because there isn't research there, it's really difficult for a lot of trans people who are looking to either get pregnant or just get very basic care.”

There's more at the link.

My response to all that drivel is to restrain myself from throwing my screen at the wall.  Instead, may I suggest a very straightforward, very direct, accurate and scientifically irrefutable solution?  It's this:

In human beings, only a woman can have a uterus, and only someone with a uterus can menstruate.  Therefore, anyone needing any medical care regarding their uterus, or menstruation, or anything else to do with that organ, should be treated as a woman.  Anything else ignores medical and biological reality.

There you go.  Short, sweet and simple.  End of controversy, end of worry, end of problem.

To pander to someone's mental delusion, or politically correct pontificating, or psychiatrically disordered imagining, that they have a uterus when they don't, or don't have a uterus when they do, is utterly absurd.  As for "Somebody who is looking to get off HRT to get pregnant" . . . verily, the mind doth boggle.  They want to stop living their warped, twisted fantasy in order to start reliving their biological reality - and then expect to go back to their fantasy afterwards???  And they expect us to help pay for this, through taxes that fund health care systems?  Oh, hell, no!

I'll gladly help any medical need based on reality.  If it's based on fantasy, lies and disordered, distorted, warped imagination . . . no.  Not out of my taxes, and not out of my wallet!

Peter

Vaccine Consent Checklist from Britain's National Health Service

 

This is a lulu!  A member of Gab, "LadyWarAnon", writes:

Earlier this week, the NHS sent this form out to a majority of Primary and secondary schools (this is from my brother's) in the country for vaccination and tried to retract it minutes later, after they realized an Anti-Vaxx insider at the NHS had dumped a ton of redpills on the consent form. Imagine how much fewer people would take it given everything you read here. (I'm sure their still will be some who mindlessly sign.) But God Bless the insider at NHS who attempted there to at least warn people of the true changes of this thing.

And here's the form (clickit to biggit):

How anyone can read the very clear, distinct warnings in that form, yet go ahead and get their child (or themselves!) vaccinated, is utterly beyond me.  Thanks and congratulations to whoever designed and approved that form.  It's factual, rational and tells people exactly what they need to know.

Now, let's see if we can get a similar form in circulation here!

Peter

(EDITED TO ADD:  OK, I'm informed that several news sites have said this isn't real.  I haven't seen them for myself, but take the report above with a large pinch of salt, just in case.)

"Titanic's unsinkable stoker"

 

That's the title of a 2012 BBC article that I came across while researching information for a book I'm writing.  John Priest was either the unluckiest stoker afloat, or the luckiest - I'm not sure which!  Here's an excerpt.

Priest was one of the lucky few to find a job on Titanic as it prepared for its maiden voyage across the Atlantic [in 1912]. He was perhaps fortunate to have already served on Titanic's sister ship Olympic and was a fireman on board when it was holed below the waterline in a collision with the Royal Navy cruiser HMS Hawke in 1911.

The Olympic crash wasn't Priest's first brush with disaster. He had previously worked aboard a ship called the Asturias that was badly damaged in a collision on its maiden voyage.

. . .

When Titanic hit an iceberg just before midnight on Sunday 14 April 1912, many of the passengers and crew were unaware that anything was amiss until the engines stopped. In the very bowels of the ship, Priest was off duty and resting between shifts.

The odds against his survival were steep, due to his both his physical and social position within the ship. The route to the deck took him and other members of the black gang up through a maze of gangways and corridors before they could reach the deck. By the time they emerged into the freezing night air, most of the lifeboats had already gone.

Those firemen who survived - 44 in all - swam for their lives through water just marginally warmer than freezing, wearing only the shorts and vests they worked in. Small wonder that Priest suffered frostbite.

. . .

[In World War I] Priest was among those who went to war, serving aboard the armed merchant vessel Alcantara. In February 1916, Alcantara intercepted the German raider Grief, which was disguised a Norwegian ship. As Alcantara approached, Grief opened fire. There was a short, ferocious, close-range battle, at the end of which both ships were sunk.

More than 70 of Priest's shipmates were killed and he only narrowly escaped, with shrapnel wounds.

When he returned to work, it was aboard Britannic, Titanic's other - even bigger - sister, which was serving as a hospital ship ferrying wounded soldiers back to Britain through the Mediterranean ... On 21 November 1916, the great ship struck a mine and sank near the Greek island of Kea. Once again, he emerged from the very depths of a foundering ship alive.

Indeed, the majority of the ship's crew were evacuated safely, but two of the lifeboats were lowered into the sea too early and were sucked into the ship's still turning propellers, killing 30 men. Among those pulled into the blades was Archie, who somehow survived.

. . .

After Britannic, Priest would achieve one final escape from a sinking ship. On 17 April 1917, he was a fireman aboard the hospital ship Donegal when it was torpedoed and sunk in the English Channel. He suffered a head injury and would not serve again during World War One.

. . .

Priest's is an amazing story of human endurance. He worked his entire life in extraordinary conditions in the belly of the ship, where fires and explosions were common. He was often at the very worst part of a vessel from which to escape and yet he survived an astonishing litany of torpedoes, mines, icebergs and collisions to live out his days spinning tales in the pubs of Southampton.

There's more at the link.

Priest claimed later that "men refused to sail with him because he brought bad luck".  With a track record like that, I can't blame them!  None of it was his fault, of course, but when a sailor gets a reputation as a "Jonah" slung around his neck, it's almost impossible to shake it off - even today.  It's like a military pilot who earns the nickname "Magnet Ass" because his aircraft gets hit so often by anti-aircraft fire:  once he gets that reputation, there are those who'll do anything to avoid flying with him.

Peter

“The Devils and the Bastards. I think we’ll get along just fine.”

 

There's a lengthy article over at Task & Purpose describing how "Task Force Bastard" from the 1st Combined Arms Battalion of the 194th Armor Regiment, a National Guard unit, helped secure Kabul airport, prepare it for sustained evacuation operations, and protected those operations last month.  Here are just a few paragraphs to whet your appetite.

When we received the order sending us to Kabul, years of training and a heightened readiness kicked into full action. Within six hours over 400 task force Soldiers were ready to load onto flights. We knew that when we arrived we would be tasked with securing vital sectors of Hamid Karzai International Airport and assisting with the evacuation of U.S. citizens, families, and allies under constant threat from both the Taliban and ISIS-K.

We met Lt. Col. Helgestad’s intent. No one had to wait on us.

The Minnesota National Guard did this alongside some of the most storied active-duty units in the military: the 82nd Airborne Division, 10th Mountain Division, Special Purpose Marine Air-Ground Task Force, and a Marine Expeditionary Unit. Some in the 82nd couldn’t believe it. One captain I met from their brigade intelligence section told me he was under the impression that a senator had pulled some strings and got us deployed from Minnesota. When I told him about our task force and that we were already in the Middle East, postured for such a crisis event, he was speechless. Initially, there was an air of distrust, but we proved ourselves worthy partners, dispelling the myth about the perceived capability gap between the active duty and guard/reserve components. 

. . .

“You single-handedly changed my opinion of the National Guard,” commented the command sergeant major of the 1/82 Airborne Brigade. The only ones not surprised by our abilities were, well…us.

Leaving Ali al Salem airbase, we found ourselves packed like sardines aboard Air Force C-17 Globemaster planes. All of us were drenched with sweat from the heat and humidity. We chugged water, uncomfortably shifting or dozing off on the hard metal floors, many of us thinking about our families back home who had no idea what we were about to do. About 45 minutes from final descent into HKIA the infrared lights came on inside the hold. Magazines went into weapons. We clipped our night vision goggles onto our helmets, and none of us knew what to expect when the ramp went down.

A short time later we cleared and occupied several open hangars on aprons of north HKIA that we would call home. These hangars, located in Pad 8, had previously housed aircraft and maintenance from the Department of State that had been abandoned days earlier as U.S. Embassy personnel scrambled to depart. Exhausted, we laid on the concrete and slept for a couple hours to the sound of gunfire and aircraft.

We’d made it to Kabul because we were ready. Meanwhile, elements of the 82nd and 10th Mountain wouldn’t. They were still stuck in Kuwait.

The following morning we met with Col. Theodore Kleisner, the brigade commander for 1/82 Airborne, Call Sign: Devil 6. He gave us the lowdown on the current tenuous situation and the importance and gravity of the moment. He looked at Lt. Col. Helgestad and asked us who we were. “Task Force Bastard, sir.” We briefly explained the history of our unit and our name. A smile came across Col. Kleisner’s face as he said, “The Devils and the Bastards. I think we’ll get along just fine.”

There's much more at the link.  Very interesting reading from a "boots on the ground" and "I was there" perspective.

It's good to know that, despite the feckless mismanagement of the Afghanistan debacle by top military commanders and political leaders, our troops on the ground did the best they could under almost impossible conditions, and saved many thousands of people.  The failures in so many other areas can't be laid at their feet.

Peter

"Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake"

 

That's a quotation attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte.  One wonders if the US Department of Defense has ever bothered to read his works . . . because it's just made a very serious error of judgment, IMHO.

Lieutenant-Colonel Stuart Scheller, USMC, who famously resigned in protest over the lack of leadership and accountability over the Afghanistan debacle, has been arrested and jailed.  I understand it's because he disobeyed an order to stop posting on social media, but that's basically a convenient pretext.  We all understand that he's hated and loathed by the progressives who are trying to make the US military "knuckle under" to their authority.  I'm sure they'll punish LtCol. Scheller in accordance with the laws and regulations governing the military . . . but they appear to have lost sight of a very important reality.

LtCol. Scheller speaks for a great many Americans, and a great many military service personnel, in his anger at and rejection of a military leadership that's corrupt, inefficient and refuses to take responsibility for the consequences of its actions.  His jailing is bound to be seized upon as a cause célèbre, something around which to rally resistance to the entire corrupt military establishment.  That's already happening, as this meme I found on social media yesterday evening illustrates.

I'd say, if LtCol. Scheller wants a career in public office under a different administration, his open resistance to political correctness, and his willingness to go to jail for his beliefs, is going to stand him in very good stead.  Can you imagine the fun he'd have as a future Secretary of the Army, or Secretary of Defense?  I'm sure the powers that be can, if they apply their minds.

This is just about the dumbest thing they could possibly have done to handle the problem he represents.  If they had any sense, they'd let him fade away without further publicity.  Now?  They've just guaranteed that he won't fade away, but instead will be a stinging gadfly on their posteriors for years to come.  Tactically, he's won a major victory;  and strategically, he's positioned himself very well for the years to come.

One suspects Chesty Puller would approve.

Peter

Are you interested in a "collected works" Bayou Renaissance Man book?

 

Several readers, over the years, have suggested that I should put together a "greatest hits" sort of book based on this blog:  a collection of the articles that have attracted the greatest interest (based on the number of times each has been directly accessed), or which I think are the most important, or that are particularly requested by readers.  Such queries seem to have increased lately.

I can do this, of course;  it's not complicated to put together - but I'm honestly not sure whether the demand for it would be sufficient to justify it.  I mean, the archives of the blog are online, and it's not as if anyone interested can't just search through them to find what he or she is looking for.  I don't want to do all the work to put together a collection, only to find that nobody wants it!  On the other hand, there are those requests.  Clearly, there are some who do want it.  Specific articles they've mentioned include some about South Africa ("Remembering Mike", "Remembering Inyati", "The Night Christmas Became Real", thoughts on Nelson Mandela's death, etc.), or about terrorism ("My Heroes", "Paris And The Pain Of Being Human", etc.), or other personal recollections.

Therefore, I'll be grateful for your input.  Would you be interested in such a book (or books) if I put them together?  I'd make them short enough to be readable, and publish them as e-books and in print, at an affordable price.  If you're interested, please leave a comment to this post letting me know that, or e-mail me if you prefer (my address is in my profile in the sidebar).  If you'd like to suggest any particular article(s) for inclusion, please do that too.  Based on the overall response, I'll consider whether or not to proceed.

Thanks, friends.

Peter

If the federal government ignores the constitution, can states enforce it?

 

The catastrophe on the Texas border with Mexico is becoming worse by the day, and the Biden administration is turning a blind eye to it.

Take all of the imagery you have seen of the over 14,000 Haitian migrants camped under an international bridge in the small Texas border town of Del Rio and add the complications of disease, public excrement, unbearable heat, and heightened frustrations. It has led to violence that has injured Border Patrol officers.

Now close your eyes and imagine it is 100 times worse.

Because that's what it is, said Texas Rep. Tony Gonzales, the freshman Republican who represents 42% of the border. The overwhelmed city of Del Rio had been in a rapidly deteriorating crisis situation when illegal immigrants first began surging into the community in January, but Gonzales now says the situation here is a “Category 5” and that the environment is unlike anything he has ever seen before.

“I arrived here today to pure chaos,” he said. “I've never seen it in this environment. There literally is no border left.”

Gonzales said Del Rio is in dire straits. “There's no doubt there's COVID here, there's measles, tuberculosis, all kinds of diseases," he said. "You’ve got kids running around in nothing but diapers. A handful of port-a-potties — my God, the stench is terrible. This is not good for the migrants. It is not good for the residents. It's not good for wherever our government is sending them in the interior of the country."

. . .

Del Rio residents have seen their lives turned upside down. The international bridge has been closed — a lifeline bringing tens of millions of dollars to the local economy. If you're a small-business owner and your business has somehow survived COVID-19, something like this could easily wipe you out.

Everybody has been sucked into this chaos.

“The worst thing is that we are not even talking about the other places where this is happening,” Gonzales said. “Today, we're talking about Del Rio, but tomorrow, it'll be Laredo or Brownsville or Eagle Pass or El Paso. This problem is not going away.”

There's more at the link.

The reason for the Biden administration's indifference and lack of action is obvious.  They see the border as nothing more than an obstacle to their "Great Replacement" ideology.  Keeping out illegal alien invaders - and invaders is what they are, let's face it - would fly in the face of that ideology.  They don't care whether border communities are overrun and destroyed in the process.  As far as they're concerned, they're simply eggs to be broken in making the USA into the omelette they desire.

Article 4, Section 4, Clause 2 of the US constitution specifically provides that the federal government shall "protect each of them [the States] against Invasion".  The progressive left will doubtless argue that "refugees" (most of whom are, of course, nothing more than economic migrants) don't qualify as "invaders".  I daresay the people of Del Rio, Texas, would disagree with that.  I certainly do - but nobody's asking me.

If the federal government has effectively abdicated its responsibility under Article 4, Section 4, Clause 2, then isn't it time the border states acted on their own initiative to do the job?  I think an application to the Supreme Court, arguing that the federal government has failed to exercise its responsibilities and that therefore the states were justified in doing so on the federal government's behalf, might have some grounds for success.  Of course, the Biden administration would fight it tooth and nail - but we'd be no worse off than we are at present.  Another legal approach might be that, in failing to control the border, the Biden administration is undermining its own policies concerning the COVID-19 pandemic.  It's not testing or vaccinating illegal aliens, which is effectively discrimination against its own citizens for not allowing them the same freedoms - and also puts legal residents and citizens at greater risk of infection.

Whatever approach is used, this situation cannot be allowed to continue.  If it does, our entire culture and our constitutional republic will be undermined and destroyed.  If state governments don't step up to the plate, I'm afraid individual citizens and groups of citizens may do so - and they probably won't be much concerned about human, let alone constitutional, rights.  They'll act to stop the invasion, and they'll do so with whatever means they have at their disposal, legal or otherwise.  That'll bring in the federal government to stop them . . . and then we're right on the brink of civil war.

All I know for sure is, this cannot go on:  and, as economist Herbert Stein famously said, "If something cannot go on forever, it will stop".  Sooner or later, this will stop.  Our only choice - which won't be available forever - is whether it's stopped legally, with minimal bloodshed, or otherwise.

Peter

The progressive push to subvert the US armed forces

 

In case you were wondering why President Trump's appointees to US service academy boards were asked to resign (and fired if they didn't resign) by President Biden a few weeks ago, it's now becoming clear.  It seems that, with their influence removed, the service academies are to be transformed into ideological-indoctrination sausage machines.

... it seems that the “woke revolution” has infiltrated the War College with the latest issue of Parameters that features an article entitled “The Alt-Right Movement and U.S. National Security,” by Matthew Valasik, associate professor of sociology at Louisiana State University, and Dr. Shannon Reid, associate professor of criminal justice and criminology at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.

Their article examines what the authors call “the disconcerting connection between the US military and the White power movement,” ... The authors allege that “there is an overrepresentation of military veterans affiliated with far-right groups and the broader White power movement.” Military veterans, they write, have a “greater willingness to join far-right groups than the average civilian.”

. . .

To combat the White power movement, the authors recommend that the military “suppress the far-right activities of both active-duty and retired service members.” They seem to believe that the Uniform Code of Military Justice would permit the monitoring of all digital communications of active-duty service members and veterans, though they acknowledge that the ethics and legality of such monitoring would be “problematic.” ... The authors ... suggest, couched in sociological terminology ... reprogramming or re-educating our soldiers, sailors, and airmen as they leave the services. There is a need, they explain, to identify those who are “susceptible to White power . . . groups.” Someone —perhaps the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs — would institute policies to assess whether the former soldier is “vulnerable to extremism,” and following such an assessment, the soldier would be “required to participate in the prosocial support groups or one-on-one therapy or risk losing benefits.” In other words, they will be required to submit to struggle sessions where they would have to confess to their White power viewpoints or risk losing benefits they earned defending their country.

As for active-duty soldiers, if they support White power groups, they should be criminally prosecuted instead of simply disciplined, according to the authors. The Army needs to prevent “casual engagement with White power viewpoints” and ferret out the far-right extremists, labeling them as villains who “seek to undermine and corrupt American democracy.” Penalizing “viewpoints” is as Orwellian as it gets.

There's more at the link.

Note that until the Biden administration, nobody saw the US military as a hotbed of white power propaganda or beliefs.  It's a shibboleth of the progressive left, designed to provide an ideological fig-leaf under which to change the US military into yet another arm of the hydra of power of the "nanny State".  I wouldn't be surprised if right now, there weren't serious discussions about how to use the US armed forces against the US people if necessary, to destroy any attempt to restore the democracy that the far left has stolen from us.

This is yet another development of the anti-military propaganda war that the progressive left has been waging for decades, in the military academies as well as wider society.  Spenser Rapone didn't emerge in a vacuum, and the professors who aided and abetted his radicalism didn't arrive at West Point with him - they were already in place.

This is the November 2020 election playing out.  Having stolen power, the Biden administration is stealing anything and everything it can to maintain its illegitimate power.  If that includes co-opting the US armed forces to buttress their power, to keep them in office despite the will of the people, they're OK with that.

Speaking as a combat veteran, and with 18 years under my belt of living in or near a combat zone, I suspect the powers that be haven't thought this through - or are viewing it through ideological spectacles.  I don't think they bothered to ask the US armed forces what they thought about it.  I suspect they may find out in due course.

Peter

More than 75 years old, but it still packed a punch

 

It seems that some Dutch explosive ordnance disposal specialists were called in to remove a World War II-era Panzerfaust rocket.  It was designed as a single-shot, disposable anti-tank weapon, similar to (but reportedly much more effective than) the US Bazooka or the British PIAT.  The image below, courtesy of Wikipedia, shows a Panzerfaust being prepared for firing.

The EOD guys decided to see whether the old, rusted-up rocket would still be effective;  so they propped it up against the turret of an obsolete 1950's vintage M48 Patton tank that was being used as a target on a military artillery range.  Note that the M48's armor (as with most 1950's tanks) was still basically the same type as that used during World War II, although perhaps a little thicker and better sloped.  Here's how the salvaged rocket looked prior to its detonation.

You'll find a slow-motion video of the explosion at Reddit.  Here's a screen capture of how it looked.

And here's a photograph of how the shaped charge of the rocket burned through the solid armor of the turret.

It doesn't take much imagination to figure out what would have happened to the crew inside, had there been one.  All that molten metal and spall flying around inside would have reduced them to charred hamburger.  More than 75 years after it was made, that rocket was still as lethal as ever.

Of course, any tank of that era was under-armored compared to the much more modern anti-tank weapons of later generations.  For example, here's a Soviet T-54/T-55 series tank, of similar vintage to the M-48, that met up with a first-generation South African ZT3 missile in Angola in the 1980's.  There's not much left of it.

I saw that particular wreck in person.  Needless to say, nobody got out of it alive.

Peter

About the Maricopa County election audit in Arizona...

 

... the quickest and simplest vignette of the results is provided by A Nod To The Gods.

I have no problem with the audit's findings that its final vote totals closely matched those reported immediately after the election.  However, that's not the point.  All the mainstream media and progressive-left pontificating about how this "proves" that the election results were valid is so much hooey.

Karl Denninger points out:

... what's been discovered thus far and proved (and for which the evidence is now in the public domain) shows that:

1. The election in Maricopa County for federal offices, including President, was not conducted in accordance with Federal Law.

2. The results, based solely on the count of duplicated ballot envelopes (people who voted more than once), which exceeds the margin of victory for the Presidential Office, are not able to be confirmed since once duplicate ballots are removed from the envelopes it is impossible to identify them.  Maricopa county claimed no such duplicates exist.  We now know more than 17,000 in fact do exist and the envelopes still exist.  What we cannot prove one way or another is whether the ballots inside those envelopes were counted and, if only one was counted, which one was counted.  We thus have no way to know who won.

3. The persons running the election have made materially false statements on an intentional basis about the equipment never being connected to the Internet.

4. The persons running the election both deliberately destroyed data related to the election in direct violation of Federal Law and, as a separate and distinct offense, attempted to cover up that destruction and identification of the person who did so.  This act, standing alone, demonstrates intent to tamper with the election results.

5. The vast majority of said deliberately destroyed data was not recoverable and likely is not recoverable.

By forensic evidence, not presented and unrebutted, the outcome of the election in Arizona was falsely certified.

What's the remedy for this?

That's a separate debate -- but that this one county alone did in fact corrupt their election, did so intentionally, and did so in such a fashion that at this time it not possible to know what the result actually was is not subject to reasonable dispute.

Finally, not only was their forensic computer person credible he displayed exactly the process that I, as a person skilled in the art and who has performed computer forensics, would utilize.  I found no fault in his procedures, his process and analysis.  Not did I find him to make a single unproved assertion of fact.  This is exactly what a professional is supposed to do in this field.

There's more at the link.

To put it as simply as possible, it's irrelevant that the audit's vote totals closely match those reported after the election, because we cannot prove or disprove that those vote totals are measuring valid ballots, validly cast and validly counted.

If an election result cannot be guaranteed to be accurate, the election itself is called into question.  When the questionable ballots total more than five times the margin of victory for a candidate in that state, it's even worse, because there can be no certainty that the winning candidate did, indeed, triumph in the polls.

The only valid, honest, truly democratic solution to the election imbroglio in Maricopa County, AZ, is to:

1. Declare that the November 2020 election results were ineligibly and invalidly certified as correct;
2. Nullify the certification of those results;
3. Re-run the election, this time making certain that all the irregularities identified in the previous election are addressed and prevented from happening again;
4. Re-calculating the results of the November 2020 elections using the new and certifiably valid results from Maricopa County;
5. Declaring winners and losers for state and federal office based on the new, valid vote count.

Anything less is nothing more or less than "papering over the cracks":  admitting that, despite obvious, provable, verifiable deficiencies that make the November 2020 election results unknowable and unable to be validly certified, we're simply going to "go with the flow" and not question them.

Now, let's find out how many of those "errors" occurred in other swing states and cities, and do the same thing there - and not just there.  Similar problems have already been discovered in, for example, Colorado.

Mesa County, Colorado Clerk and Recorder Tina M. Peters has submitted a forensic examination report to the Mesa County commissioners. The report shows that a massive amount of election data was deleted and “destroyed” by the office of the Democrat Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold and Dominion Voting Systems, which performed a supposed system upgrade on the voting equipment in May. Luckily, Peters had the data backed up before it was destroyed, hopefully keeping alive the prospect of performing a full forensic audit of the 2020 election.

If more of the same shenanigans are found, across multiple states, I'd say the results of the November 2020 elections across the entire nation will be in so much doubt that it should basically be written off and done over.  After all, what other fair, honest solution is there?  If you can think of one, I'd love to hear it.

Makes you think, doesn't it?

Peter

EDITED TO ADD:  Larry Correia, who's a forensic auditor himself and had so much to say about electoral fraud immediately after the November 2020 elections, takes a look at the Maricopa County audit.  Bold, underlined text is my emphasis.

Basically the headlines are all coming off of the executive summary, section 2. And note, they’re only taking the very first part, and then quit reporting ... To break this down, the first part, the recount/canvass matches what was there before, and the only differences are statistically insignificant. News media goes Yay! Biden won by even more votes! Cope! Cope! Cope!

Except, the second part they aren’t talking about is… are those votes all actual legal votes? And the answer is possibly not (why possibly? I’ll get to that). Then see all those bullet points of problems, weirdness, and fuckery. Which comes down to there being about five times as many questionable votes as Biden’s margin of victory (for the state, in this one county).

This is where it gets sticky ... Section 4 is the tally results. That’s what the media is talking about. Section 5 is the problems. That’s what they are studiously avoiding talking about.

They are divided into 13 types of problems, ranging from critical to inconsequential. Statistically, it’s the first few that are the big ones, and each of those gets their own breakdown in 5.3 and 5.4. Go read through those.

On some of these types you’ll be thinking, why didn’t the auditors take these problematic ballots and track them back even further to see if the signatures match the actual human being who supposedly cast the vote? Sorry. I believe the democrats blocked them from doing that in court. (which is totally not suspicious at all from people who have absolutely nothing to hide!)

. . .

The rest of the report is about the systems and controls, and how they should be improved. This part is really telling. Basically the Arizona election system is easily manipulated trash, with crap controls, and if any private company I ever worked at got caught with this many holes in it, they’d fire all the accountants and half the managers.

Now, for the idiot brigade that is crowing about how this proves whatever they want it to prove about the election and how everybody else should shut up forever, here’s some stuff that’s not in this report to think about.

This was the audit of one county, in one of the questionable states. Back in the aftermath of the election, I found Arizona to be the least interesting of those questionable states. Other counties had way more fuckery afoot. Atlanta and Detroit were way crazier than Phoenix on election night. No audits there.

And even in Arizona, this is one county. I don’t know the area that well so I’m just going off of what friends of mine who live there say, but Maricopa is usually the red county. Pima (2nd biggest) is the blue county. And they still found 5x the margin of victory in questionable votes in the red county. I’m sure next door was totally clean.

There's more at the link.

Funny how the mainstream media are avoiding like the plague the "big picture" revealed by the audit, isn't it?

*Sigh*

Memes that made me laugh 77

 

Gathered over the past week.  Click any image for a larger view.

(For those too young to remember the 2003 invasion of Iraq - 

behold!  The best of Baghdad Bob!)

More next week.

Peter