Memes that made me laugh 268

 

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

Sunday morning music

 

Some musicians and music groups trouble me, because while they may produce excellent music, they also appear to be actively anti-Christian in some of their themes, lyrics and personal lives.  There are many examples:  Led Zeppelin's Jimmy Page, Nightwish's Tuomas Holopainen, groups with names such as Judas Priest or Black Sabbath . . . too many to list.  I generally avoid listening to them out of those qualms of conscience.  On the other hand, I have to concede that some of them produce outstanding music.

A group that I have to classify as "borderline" over such concerns is Disturbed.  Some aspects of their work light up big red warning lamps in my brain, such as artistic effects like the logo for their second album, Believe, which incorporates both the Star of David and devil's horns, and their participation in festivals such as Hellfest.  On the other hand, their cover of The Sounds Of Silence is possibly the best version of the song ever recorded, surpassing even the original from Simon and Garfunkel, and they've crafted a number of rock/power ballads that are world-class.  Let's just say that I won't listen to some of their work, because I'm unabashedly Christian in my world-view.  If you can say the same, caution is indicated.

Nevertheless, this track from their latest album, "Divisive", appeals to me.  It's a dark power ballad about relationships.  See what you think.

Here's a half-hour interview with their lead singer, David Draiman, in which he discusses the group's background and development.

An interesting group, despite my reservations about some aspects of their work.

Peter

Independence Day 2025

 

Here's wishing everyone a happy, relaxed, upbeat Fourth of July celebration this year.  When I think back to how things were last year, there's a vast difference, isn't there?  We have a President who may not suit everyone, but is doing his job the best way he knows how, and a Congress and Senate that are - however shakily - working together to move forward his agenda.  I think that beats stalemate, and I think most of the Founding Fathers would have approved.

May our Republic grow stronger every year, and become a land whose citizens may live in liberty and prosperity under the grace of God.

Peter

A travel tip I wouldn't have considered

 

I've never thought that wrapping up my vehicle might be a worthwhile precaution before hiking a trail, but it turns out that in parts of this country, it's not a bad idea.

From the awe-inspiring views of the Grand Canyon to the geysers of Yellowstone, millions of people travel to national parks across the United States every year. The parks are home to countless animals, including one mountain-dwelling critter that can ruin a day in the great outdoors.

Marmots will pillage backpacks left unattended in search for a snack, and at Sequoia National Park's Mineral King trail, the rodents have been known to chew on tubes and wiring on the underside of vehicles.

To prevent damage in such a remote location, officials recommend hikers wrap their vehicles in a large tarp, which looks unusual, but deters marmots from chomping on a radiator hose or a brake line.

. . .

In the past, hikers used to surround their vehicles with chicken wire, but over time, the marmots learned how to evade the wire and reach the vehicles.

"On several occasions, marmots have not escaped the engine compartment quickly enough and unsuspecting drivers have given them rides to other parts of the parks; several have ridden as far as Southern California," the NPS explained.

There's more at the link.

I'm not familiar with US marmots, but I've had lots of encounters with the very similar species that South Africans familiarly refer to as dassies (actually a species of hyrax).  They're endemic on Table Mountain in Cape Town, and have "colonized" the area around the upper cable car station.  They unashamedly beg food from patrons at the restaurant there, so much so that they're typically so rotund and corpulent that they can't move in a hurry.  That provides the local eagles with a plentiful meat diet, but there are so many dassies waiting their turn at the tourist buffet that the numbers never seem to drop.

No need to tarp your vehicles there - for a start, they're 3,000 feet below, parked on the road leading past the lower cable car station, and besides, the dassies are so well fed by tourists that they'd turn up their noses at engine cables and wires.

Be that as it may, I suppose marmots, hyrax and similar critters have developed all over the world to fill a specific ecological niche.  We're simply supplementing their diet by parking nearby.  Does that mean that tarping one's car to keep them out is interfering with natural selection?

Peter

An amazing, interesting and sometimes amusing history lesson

 

Did you know that Noah's Ark had a Mesopotamian counterpart?  Not only were the Ark narratives very similar between the two cultures, but a replica of the Mesopotamian "ark" - in reality a very large coracle-type design - was actually built and launched.

The project was the brainchild of Irving Finkel.  He describes it in the video below.  I highly recommend making time to watch it if you have any interest in history, sacred writings, or early ships.  It's a fascinating story, and Finkel is a very absorbing lecturer.

Prof. Finkel wrote a book about the project titled "The Ark Before Noah".  After viewing the video above, it's on my must-read list.

Fascinating!

Peter

The ambulance chasers lose at last

 

I was pleased to read that a manifestly unjust court verdict has finally been overturned by the Texas Supreme Court.

The Texas Supreme Court has ruled in favor of Werner Enterprises, reversing a $100 million jury verdict against the motor carrier upheld by an appellate court in a 2014 fatal crash in which a pickup truck lost control on a slick interstate, traveled across the highway median and collided with a Werner tractor traveling on the opposite stretch of road.

. . .

“This awful accident happened because an out-of-control vehicle suddenly skidded across a wide median and struck the defendant’s truck, before he had time to react, as he drove below the speed limit in his proper lane of traffic,” the court wrote. “That singular and robustly explanatory fact fully explains why the accident happened and who is responsible for the resulting injuries. Because no further explanation is reasonably necessary to substantially explain the origins of this accident or to assign responsibility for the plaintiffs’ injuries, the rule of ‘proximate causation’ does not permit a fact finder to search for other, subordinate actors in the causal chain and assign liability to them.”

The high court said that nothing the Werner driver, Shiraz Ali, did or didn’t do contributed to the pickup truck hitting ice, losing control, veering into the median and entering oncoming traffic on an interstate highway.

However Ali was driving, the presence of his 18-wheeler in its proper lane of traffic on the other side of Interstate 20 at the precise moment the pickup truck lost control is just the kind of “happenstance of place and time” that cannot reasonably be considered a substantial factor in causing injuries to the plaintiffs.

There's more at the link.

I've long been angered by the "sue-at-all-costs" approach by so-called "ambulance-chasers":  lawyers who'll hunt down anyone who might conceivably have any case of any kind against another after an accident, then sue on their behalf for often ridiculous sums in damages, hoping that the defendant will settle rather than go to the trouble and expense of an often long-drawn-out trial.  They're an entire sub-culture in the legal "industry".  During our recent travels, both my wife and I commented on the huge number of billboards in economically depressed areas through which we traveled, advertising the services of lawyers to sue anybody whom they could persuade you had "wronged" or "harmed" or "damaged" you.  It appeared to be the major economic activity in those areas, if one judged only by the billboards alongside the roads.

This case is a classic example.  The truck was doing everything legally, traveling in its lane at a lawful speed, and nowhere near traffic coming the other way:  yet the ambulance-chasers tried (and, at first, succeeded) to paint it, its driver and its owner as guilty parties, responsible for the accident and subsequent injuries and expenses.  That they succeeded in a lower court is a black mark against that court, which really should have known better.  Fortunately, in this case, a higher court was able to put a stop to that nonsense:  but how many times does that happen?  How many times can the defendant not afford to take the case to an appeal, and is therefore forced to bear the costs of a settlement?

Shakespeare's prescription for lawyers might have been in jest, but it sometimes seems more than appropriate in the light of how they conduct themselves . . .

Peter

"The nature of the enemy"

 

HMS Defiant warns us that our fundamentalist enemies in the Middle East and elsewhere are very likely to take advantage of public celebrations to attack those attending.

The deranged lunatics who make up the foot soldiers of the enemy invasion do not need to turn to guns and mass shootings in order to slaughter thousands of innocent people who are out enjoying the 4th of July, they merely have to get behind the wheel of a big SUV or a truck and drive endlessly through an unwary and completely unprotected crowd so this year, protect yourselves and your families.

If you line a parade route as I did for so many years, make sure the barricades preventing vehicle access are meaningful and placed with care and attention to detail by a man who KNOWS that they are the only thing that will stop a maniac from driving into a peaceful crowd looking the wrong way.*

Make sure that you have a safe haven selected for you and your family and that you can get to it safely when the entire crowd bursts into panic and flight. Be ready to deal with avoiding trampling and keeping safe from the panicked crowd.

Know that the enemy we have in the middle east is one that really and truly does like to strike back on days that are already memorialized in one way or another and they will take days like the 4th of July in a heartbeat over even attacking on 9/11 or Christmas or New Years and take note that none of them are holidays in their religion. 

Evil doesn't take holidays.

There's more at the link.

He's absolutely right, of course.  We've all seen such attacks in Europe, and a few that came close in our own country (although, thanks be to God, most of what we've seen here has been smaller-scale and/or less motivated).  There are a lot of raw, humiliated, angry people in the fundamentalist Islamic community right now, furious that Israel has destroyed their compatriots in Gaza, Lebanon and Iran, and outraged that the USA has supported Israel in its efforts.  As far as they're concerned, we all share the guilt for such actions, and they're entitled to seek revenge against us.

Bear in mind, too, that a firearm is often far from the most useful response.  Sometimes it can help defend one's life and loved ones, but if a wannabe terrorist martyr is barreling towards a crowd in a heavy truck, gunfire is unlikely to stop him before he runs right over you.  By all means carry a gun - I do, almost all the time - but having a head on a swivel, constantly evaluating the situation around you, looking for potential choke points and escape routes, and watching for suspicious behavior, will do more to save you in most situations than pulling out a gun and starting shooting.  That's even more true when you consider that, if such a situation goes down, the authorities - and many other armed civilians such as yourself - are highly likely to regard anyone waving a gun around as part of the problem, not the solution.  They may start shooting at you on general principles (i.e. the modified Golden Rule:  "Do unto others before they have a chance to do unto you, only do it first").  There are seldom happy endings to that.

Fair warning, folks.

Peter

Was the Idaho shooter just another victim of trans derangement syndrome?

 

All his social media accounts have been "mysteriously" wiped clean by a person or persons unknown . . . but not before someone retrieved and saved his Instagram account.  Example:

There have been so many of these . . . somebody gets a trans bee in their bonnet, and proceeds to turn homicidal.  Was the Idaho shooter just another one of them?  You be the judge - because the official line is, at this point, deafening silence.

Peter

The fun - and pain - of fact-checking and research

 

During our recent perambulations around parts of the Civil War South, my wife and I enjoyed new scenery, new restaurants (hey, gotta sample the local cuisine to get the local "flavor"!), and new people.  We also were reminded - forcibly - that our bodies are older than they were when we last did this sort of thing, and quite a bit more decrepit.  I hadn't expected it to be so painful to spend so much time on foot.  If this goes on, I'll be exploring in a mobility scooter!

Savannah, Georgia was a pleasant surprise in many ways, the first being the weather.  Inland, Georgia was hot and muggy, very unpleasantly so, but on the coast it was a lot cooler and more pleasant.  The Savannah River runs through town, just off the old business and now tourist district, which adds to the cooling.  There are lots of old buildings, some almost as old as the American Revolution and many dating back to the Civil War period.  They've been done up as shops, restaurants and artsy touristy places, leaving the exteriors unchanged but updating the interiors.  Many of the streets are still cobbled rather than tarred, some of them very uncomfortable even in a modern SUV, forcing one to drive at little more than walking pace;  and the traffic through the tourist areas is very heavy, again slowing one down a lot.  On the other hand, the tourist zone is probably no more than a mile or two square, so everything is reasonably accessible.  Those who have land available for parking are doing a land-office business, with everything being run by text messaging or QR codes and visitors' cellphones, so the overhead is minimal.

I was very glad to be able to see the Civil War side of Savannah for myself.  It's all very well to read about what it was like, but to actually see the steps leading up from the river, and the buildings that housed ship chandleries and shops and warehouses dating back that far, and old Civil War forts and jetty pilings, and see old pictures of sailing ships lining the river bank to load and unload . . . it makes it much more real in my mind, and hence I can write about it much more realistically.  It was a very worthwhile visit from that perspective.

The Interstates and regional roads were in pretty decent condition, but traffic was very heavy at times east of the Mississippi River.  I didn't enjoy driving through it, particularly when traffic backed up near cities like Atlanta or Chattanooga.  It confirmed me in my belief that we needed to live west of the Mississippi, where there's room to breathe and space to maneuver.  We acted on that belief when we moved to Texas in 2016, and we were very happy to get back here when the journeying was done.  How all those people will cope - let alone move - if a really bad disaster hits, such as struck North Carolina last year, I hate to think.  (We wanted to visit North Carolina this trip, to see our friends at Killer Bees Honey, but so many of the roads, hotels, etc. in that area are still closed or heavily restricted due to hurricane damage that we gave up on that idea.)

Our cats, of course, were ecstatic to greet us . . . for about ten seconds.  Then the guilt trip started.  "You went away!  Without us!  Where were you?  Why did you abandon us?"  And so on, and so forth, ad nauseam - all while demanding, and getting, treats, petting and attention.  Cats are very good like that.  They forgave us in time to cuddle up with us that night, purring at us to reassure us that even though we didn't deserve it, they still love us.  Sound familiar?

Now we settle back into our normal routine.  I'll be preparing for surgery in a few weeks (of which more later), and must transcribe notes and observations from the trip into a usable format for writing.  My wife went back to work today, and found plenty waiting for her.  She has to get a root canal treatment do-over tomorrow, so she's not real happy about that - and who can blame her!  Me, I'll try to get some more blogging done after I take her in and bring her home.

Thanks to everyone who prayed for traveling safety for us.  Your prayers came in handy a couple of times, I can tell you - and they worked!

Peter

"The Ford moves in mysterious ways"

 

That was the observation of a commenter at Zero Hedge, playing on the Biblical phrase "The Lord moves in mysterious ways", following the news that a deacon had run over a wannabe church shooter with his Ford F-150 pickup.  A volunteer security guard then emptied his handgun into the shooter, killing him.  Station WXYZ Detroit reports:

Deacon Richard Pryor is the first one who came into contact with the shooter, hitting the shooter with his truck.

Pryor opened up for the first time about making the split-second decision to run over the gunman with his pickup truck.

“Soon as he got out, I saw the fatigues and gun on his hip. He pulled his weapon out of the vehicle," Pryor said.

But, he said his first memory of an attempted mass shooting on Sunday is of an eerie conversation he had with the shooter before the gunman started firing.

“I verbally pulled up and said, 'Are you OK?' He doesn’t respond. Just kind of looked at me," Pryor said.

Seconds later, with no prior police or military training, Pryor said he felt a calling to jump into action. He hit the gas and ran over the shooter, who would eventually fire numerous rounds on Sunday.

“Do you recall feeling, if you didn’t intervene, people would die?" I asked.

"I knew but I didn’t know," he said.

That action temporarily stopped the shooter, who responded by shooting into Pryor's truck. Moments later, the shooter was killed by a security guard.

“I’ve realized how much damage he came to do. Especially after the fact. Generations of families were in this church," Pryor said.

Although another guard was wounded, Pryor said he's thankful more people weren't hurt, or worse yet, killed.

“I’m not a hero. That’s the security staff, Jay, John and others that eliminated this man," Pryor said.

As a result of the violent scene, Pryor's truck was destroyed, a vehicle he used to deliver bread for a day job. Thankfully, a GoFundMe has surpassed $25,000 to help him get a replacement.

There's more at the link, including video interviews with Pryor and other security personnel and witnesses to the shooting.  They make interesting viewing.

One can only thank God that the church was alert to the possibility of trouble from whatever source, and had instituted an armed and trained security team to deal with such problems when they arose.  Many churches have still not done so, and remain at high risk.

I'm pleased to add that the fund-raiser has so far raised more than $47,000 to buy Mr. Pryor a new truck.  Heck, after valuable publicity like that - a Ford truck stopped a mass killing - I'm surprised Ford hasn't offered him a new truck free of charge!

Well done, that man.

Peter

Memes that made me laugh 267

 

Gathered from around the Internet over the past couple of weeks, as and when I could take time from book research.  Click any image for a larger view.

Sunday morning music

 

We're safely home again, and regular blogging will recommence from today.

While we were away, we learned the sad news that world-famous classical pianist Alfred Brendel had died at the age of 94.  He was particularly well-known for his interpretation of Beethoven, Schubert and Liszt, and made many recordings of their works, including some of my personal favorite renditions of several pieces.

One of them was this 1977 recording of Beethoven's Choral Fantasia, with the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Bernard Haitink.  I owned a copy on vinyl way back when, and upgraded to a CD edition later.  I was delighted to find it on YouTube as well, so I hope you enjoy it as much as I still do.

Mr. Brendel's genius will be missed.  Let this piece be his epitaph here.  I hope he and Beethoven are sharing a glass of the good stuff somewhere as they discuss it!

Peter

Progress report

 

Our time in Savannah, Georgia is drawing to a close.  We'll be heading out tomorrow on a winding path back to Texas, taking in a couple more writing research places on the way.

Savannah's a nice town:  very touristy, with prices to match, but a lot of genuine history buried among the neon signs and glitter.  Many old buildings (or their exteriors, at least) have been preserved, and are a reminder of not just the Civil War era but of the entire colonial period in North America.  There are some good restaurants, plenty of bars, and lots of art galleries and other "arty" things.  We've enjoyed ourselves, even though we weren't here primarily as tourists.

I found a lot of information and background for my Civil War trilogy.  This morning we took a boat tour of the harbor all the way down to Fort Jackson, and then up the river to the container area, which is apparently one of the busiest in the USA (our tour guide said it was, in fact, the biggest in terms of number of TEU's handled).  The old fort was a massive chunk of masonry erected on what was, at the time, swampy marshland - an amazing piece of engineering in those days.  Sherman's "March To The Sea" forces captured it in late 1864, using improvised boats and pontoon bridges to cross intervening rivers and swamps to reach it.  The other major fortification near the city is Fort Pulaski:  I've set one of the incidents in my trilogy in close proximity to it.

I thought we'd find it difficult to cope with the humidity in this area, but near the sea it's been far less humid than I feared - certainly a lot better than inland Georgia on the way down.  The heat's been pretty bad, but that's the case almost everywhere on the east coast and in the Gulf at this time of year.  We've taken care to drink plenty of water and keep our electrolytes up, so we've been OK.

We're not sure precisely which route we'll follow back to Texas, because much will depend on places we'd like to visit for research purposes on the way.  Traffic will be a big factor.  I'd love to visit several places in Atlanta, but the roads getting there are usually jammed, and riding around the city's not much fun either.  We'll probably take a more southerly route through Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana before reaching Texas.  We'll take at least two days over it, and more likely three, because neither my wife nor myself can handle ten- or twelve-hour days on the road as well as we used to.  Age takes its toll.

Once again, prayers for traveling safety will be greatly appreciated.  Thanks in advance!

Peter

We picked a bad week for travel...

 

... as CNN warns:

A potent heat dome is building over the US, sending temperatures into the triple digits

Looks like our perambulations this week are going to be right under the dome.  Air-conditioning, don't fail us now!

Peter

So far, so good

 

We left home at about 8.30am last Wednesday, and picked up a friend in Wichita Falls, then hit the road.  The first day's travel was relatively peaceful, and the traffic wasn't too bad.  We reached Forrest City in Arkansas by 6 pm, and overnighted there.  We were fortunate to discover Iguanas Mexican Restaurant, where we decided to have supper.  The food had interesting twists on the standard Tex-Mex themes, and was also surprisingly affordable.  We enjoyed it.  If you're passing by, it's worth a visit;  we'll probably eat there again on the way back.

On Thursday we headed out at about the same time, making for Chattanooga, Tennessee and the Libertycon convention.  Traffic was heavier than the previous day, but by taking the 840 loop around Nashville we avoided the worst of it.  The final hour or so was, as always, a trial:  the traffic heading to Chattanooga from both Nashville and Atlanta, GA is pretty heavy, but the Interstates are only two-lane (probably thanks to the very steep hills and mountains of the region, which don't lend themselves to wider roads without a lot of very expensive excavation and blasting).  It's one of my least favorite stretches of Interstate.  Nevertheless, we made it through the morass of semi-trucks and impatient cars without suffering any fender-benders, and arrived shortly after 3pm.  Another wait among throngs of Libertycon attendees, all trying to check in at once, and we were able to flop down on the beds in our room and catch our breath once more.

The convention kicked off yesterday, and has gone pretty well.  My wife and I led a discussion panel on the state of self-publishing within the wider publishing industry, as we have almost every year since 2013.  There was lots to share this year, including the glut of self-published books of low quality flooding the market, the impact of AI-generated scripts and -research (most not very well done at all) that's bedeviling conventional publishers as well as self-published authors, and a number of other issues.  We had an interesting and lively discussion.

We'll be leaving for Savannah in Georgia tomorrow.  It, and the coastline to north and south of it, are heavily featured in the Union Navy trilogy I'm writing about the American Civil War, so I'm going to be doing a lot of research.  We'll also take some time to explore one of the more historic cities in America;  there's a lot to see.

As presently planned (but subject to change), we'll be headed back to Nashville later next week to visit with friends, and then head for home again (via Beachaven Winery in Clarksville, TN, which makes some very tasty and affordable wines;  we plan to stock up for the next year or so).  We should get home by or on Sunday, June 29th.

Thanks to everyone who's been praying for traveling safety for us.  As always, your prayers are much appreciated.

Peter

On the road again

 

My wife and I are on the way to LibertyCon in Chattanooga.  It's our "home" convention, bringing together authors, publishers and fans for a fun weekend every year.  After that, we'll be spending a few days in Georgia, researching a new book.

Blogging will be light and intermittent for the next week and a half.  Sadly, that includes my regular meme posts, as I won't have time to browse the Web to find new material.  As and when I can, I'll put up a post or two.  Regular blogging will recommence on July 1st.

Meanwhile, please check in now and again to find anything I've been able to post;  and spend a bit of time with the bloggers listed in my sidebar.  They write good, too!

Prayers for a safe journey and a peaceful return will, as always, be greatly appreciated.

Thanks, friends.

Peter

Are some "researchers" just perverts with official titles?

 

I was horrified to read comments by Defense Secretary Hegseth last week about some of the "research" being funded by his department in recent years.

President Donald Trump’s Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, testified before the Senate that the Department of Defense was spending tens of millions of dollars on tests that involved sticking “marbles in the rear ends of cats.”

Hegseth brought up the cruel and wasteful animal research during his testimony before the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense on Wednesday.

The exchange began as Democrat Sen. Dick Durbin grilled Hegseth about his administration ending many wasteful research grants.

“Give me an example of a ‘boondoggle’ in medical research and defense health,” Sen. Durbin said, likely unprepared for the response.

“I mean, we’re talking about some stuff I shouldn’t say in public, you know, marbles in the rear ends of cats, tens of millions of dollars,” Hegseth said while pantomiming inserting a marble in a cat’s rectum. “Things that don’t have a connection to what you’re talking about ... the Defense Department has been a place where organizations, entities, and companies know they can get money almost unchecked to whether or not it actually applies to things that happen on the battlefield.”

. . .

Through Freedom of Information Act requests, WCW uncovered a $10 million DoD contract funded through the Navy’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) for grotesque experiments on cats at the University of Pittsburgh. These sick tests involved inserting marbles and balloons into the rectums of cats and subjecting them to electroshock treatments to study constipation and erectile dysfunction.

WCW provided The Gateway Pundit with photos from the experiments.

There's more at the link, including the photographs mentioned above (which I'm not going to reproduce here, because I find them disgusting and cruel).

I can't even begin to understand how inserting marbles into cats' rectums (recta???) can possibly assist studies into "constipation and erectile dysfunction".  I can't even figure out how cats' erections have anything to do with human erections, apart from the usual inflationary causes, so to speak.  As far as their human owners are concerned, cats might even be described as anti-erectionary . . . there's a reason why one of our feline companions pets masters is known as "cattus interruptus"!

All jokes aside, though, how was such "research" ever even envisaged, let alone authorized and funded?  Was/is there any genuine benefit to be derived from it?  It looks to me as if some perverted, animal-hating, cruel SOB devised this "research" purely for the kicks he/she could get out of it, and then persuaded some equally perverted SOB to shell out taxpayer dollars to pay for it.  I can see no other reason for this at all.

I'm delighted that Secretary Hegseth has put a stop to this.  Now, how about referring all concerned for criminal investigation on the grounds of cruelty to animals?  I submit that an appropriate punishment might be to use them as research subjects in the same way as the cats - perhaps using bowling balls instead of marbles, to ensure a more appropriate fit.  While we're at it, how about freezing the bowling balls before use, so we can claim to be studying frigidity?

Peter

"What Do I Do When Someone is Shooting At Me?"

 

That's the title of a lengthy article by Marc MacYoung, a well-known self-defense and street-smarts instructor.  He offers ways to analyze a situation and assess the real risks it entails, rather than merely react in a knee-jerk fashion to events you don't understand.  Here's an excerpt.

I came up with a list of the six most common results when someone IS trying to kill you. They are:

1) You die

2) You spend a long time in the hospital

3) Someone runs away (usually you)

4) You shoot back (often prompting the other person to retreat)

5) You retaliate with such ferocity the other person is injured, killed or runs away

6) Someone else intervenes resulting in some combination of 1-5. 

If those weren't the results, then the person WASN'T trying to kill you -- no matter WHAT you want to believe or tell others.

In a similar vein, just because someone is waving a gun, that isn't the same as them shooting. And– in a bit you'll see why this is important– just because you're in an area where someone is shooting doesn't necessarily mean they're shooting at you specifically.

If there's a gun spitting lead, it's safe to assume the person is trying to kill. The question is "Who?" If not you then someone else. People intending to kill you usually don't stop until 

a) they've succeeded, 

b) they believe they have succeeded or 

c) the danger to them becomes too great to continue. 

The importance of that is simple: People who are trying to kill someone else don't really care about you unless you get in their way. Someone who is trying to kill you specifically will be more dedicated to that task than someone intent on killing someone else or anybody in the area. This strongly effects what your options are.

That is why you must look at what happens before it becomes physical -- even with weapons. Because what is going on before the weapon is drawn and what occurs while the weapon is displayed is critical for assessing what is the best course of action for you.

There's much more at the link.  Highly recommended reading.

Mr. MacYoung is well qualified to talk about the overall environment of crime and violence "on the street", as opposed to in textbooks.  He goes well beyond the "how to use a gun to defend yourself" perspective, and discusses whether or not you should use a gun at all, and how using one may get you into more trouble than refraining.  He also points out that if you don't understand the situation, you're much more likely to make a mistake that lands you in trouble with the law rather than your adversaries.  Best of all, of course, is not to be in an area where you're exposed to trouble of that sort.

As another well-known instructor, John Farnam, has said (and we've repeatedly quoted in these pages):

The best way to handle any potentially injurious encounter is: Don’t be there. Arrange to be somewhere else. Don’t go to stupid places. Don’t associate with stupid people. Don’t do stupid things. This is the advice I give to all students of defensive firearms. Winning a gunfight, or any other potentially injurious encounter, is financially and emotionally burdensome. The aftermath will become your full-time job for weeks or months afterward, and you will quickly grow weary of writing checks to lawyer(s). It is, of course, better than being dead or suffering a permanently disfiguring or disabling injury, but the “penalty” for successfully fighting for your life is still formidable.

Crowds of any kind, particularly those with an agenda, such as political rallies, demonstrations, picket lines, etc are good examples of “stupid places.” Any crowd with a high collective energy level harbors potential catastrophe. To a lesser degree, bank buildings, hospital emergency rooms, airports, government buildings, and bars (particularly crowded ones) fall into the same category. All should be avoided. When they can’t be avoided, we should make it a practice to spend only the minimum time necessary there and then quickly get out.

“A superior gunman is best defined as one who uses his superior judgment in order to keep himself out of situations that would require the use of his superior skills.”

Wise words, particularly in our cities where demonstrations and riots are becoming a daily event.  An unarmed, apparently non-violent protester has already been shot dead through being in the wrong place at the wrong time.  Let's not follow his tragic example.

Peter

Two great images

 

I found both these images while scrolling through photographs on social media.  One was just amazing:  the other made me laugh out loud.

The first is a fantastic ultra-close-up shot of a dragonfly covered in water droplets.  The sheer artistry of nature can be breathtaking.

The second is just too funny.  Babies' expressions are often that way!

Captures the moment perfectly, doesn't it?

When I have a couple of minutes to spare, I enjoy browsing through photographs like these.  They can really brighten my day.  I hope these two brightened yours.

Peter

Memes that made me laugh 266

 

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

Sunday morning music

 

Dances composed for full orchestra have long been a staple of Central and Eastern Europe.  Well-known examples include Brahms' Hungarian Dances and Dvorak's Slavonic Dances, which still form part of the modern classical music repertoire.  There are also less well-known collections, including the Moravian Dances collection by Czech composer Leoš Janáček, dating from 1888.  I thought you might enjoy hearing them.

If you enjoyed that, try his Lachian Dances, based on themes from the Moravian Wallachian region.

There are lots of orchestrated folk songs and dances in the classical world.  They repay exploration.

Peter

Israel strikes Iran, and the "little people" pay the price

 

I'm not going to get into finger-pointing over who did what, with which, to whom, and who did it first.  The facts appear to be that Iran had refused to give up its uranium enrichment program.  According to Israel, Iran had, in fact, gathered enough enriched nuclear material to make up to 15 nuclear weapons, and was in the process of trying to assemble them over the past week or so.  Israel felt it had no choice but to interrupt the process.  As a result, the bombs and missiles (so far, thank God, non-nuclear) are flying again.

The problem with a nuclear weapon is that it changes the dynamic permanently if, and only if, it's used.  Israel has had nuclear weapons since the 1960's, if rumor is correct, and (based on the Vela incident in 1979, of which I had more than passing knowledge) probably upgraded much of its nuclear arsenal to thermonuclear weapons in the 1980's and beyond.  However, because it's never admitted to having them, and has never been proved to have detonated one, it's been able to stop further nuclear proliferation in the Middle East.  Let that "plausible deniability" curtain be torn down, even by a nuclear test, and every nation in that part of the world will have nukes before you can say boo to a camel.  Let a nuclear weapon be used against an enemy, and that'll happen even faster.  (For example, I understand Saudi Arabia has bankrolled part of the Pakistani nuclear program, and Saudi has Chinese ballistic missiles that can carry such weapons.  I think it'd take only as long as transport aircraft would need to fly from Pakistan to Saudi Arabia for the latter country to have its own nuclear arsenal.)

So far, Israel's strikes against Iran have used only conventional weapons.  One hopes that'll continue . . . because if one of those strikes should (God forbid) actually set off one of Iran's nukes, or blow up a reactor causing massive radiation pollution of the area and everything (and every country) downwind, then hell's come to breakfast.  If Israel uses a nuclear weapon against Iran, hell will be there for lunch and supper too.

The real tragedy of these strikes, and any Iranian retaliation, is that the "little people" nearby - the ordinary citizens who live close to the targets - are going to suffer very severely.  Bombs don't care if you're innocent or guilty;  they'll kill you anyway.  There may be thousands killed and wounded in these strikes, on both sides.  Nobody is thinking about them, and they'll get precious little help from the authorities, who are preoccupied with preserving their weapons and related programs, and with hitting back.

I have all too intimate personal knowledge of the victims of violence, those caught in the crossfire between two enemies.  I've tried to stop the bleeding from their shattered limbs, and held them in my arms as their lives fled their tortured, tormented bodies.  I've picked up the pieces of their corpses (and yes, I mean that literally).  They are not responsible for the evils being done around them, but they pay the greatest price for them.  Nobody cares about them.  Those giving the orders and wreaking the havoc are focused on "bigger" problems.  The innocent who are caught up in the violence are just "collateral damage".

That may sound OK to those killing them, but it's very cold comfort indeed to those doing the dying.  Try telling a shrieking, wailing two-year-old whose mother has just been decapitated by a burst of fire from a machine-gun that "everything's going to be OK".  It's not.  She may not be able to reason at all, at her age, but she knows that the face that's looked down with love at her all her little life is now unrecognizable raw red blood and brains and fragments of bone splattered against a wall.  She knows - but cannot understand why - the arms that have always cradled her when she needed comfort are now limp and lifeless.  A strange man she's never seen before is trying to take her away from her mother to whom she's desperately clinging, whose love and reassurance she desperately needs but will never know again.  How do you tell that child that she's just "collateral damage", and that she should suck it up and get on with life?

Those are the people I'm thinking about this morning.  Once you've seen their suffering, you can't forget it.

May Almighty God have mercy on them all . . . because nobody else is going to.

Peter

I like this sheriff

 

As most readers know by now, Saturday, June 14th is being called "No Kings" day, with pro-illegal-immigrant, pro-socialist, pro-progressive left-wing demonstrations being organized across the country.

Around here, our cops aren't worrying too much about it.  Their biggest problem, if such demonstrations arise (I doubt they will), is going to be to stop enthusiastic locals dealing with the problem before the police can arrive to protect the demonstrators.  This part of Texas ain't friendly to rioters.

I think the best law enforcement approach was exemplified by Sheriff Wayne Ivey of Brevard County, Florida, yesterday.  Here's the centerpiece of his address, set up to start and end at the right points.

Nicely put, Sheriff!

Peter

Just another brick in the (political) wall?

 

EDITED TO ADD:  Last night, when I wrote this post, I found several versions of this news article on different social media platforms.  However, this morning, most of them have vanished.  I'm therefore treating it as unconfirmed rumor rather than hard news, and have deleted the content until it can be properly confirmed or denied.

Peter

Some very thought-provoking essays

 

I subscribe to a few Substack authors that pique my interest and make me think outside my usual box.  This morning I'd like to mention a few articles that have hit the mark over the past few days.  I highly recommend that you read them.  Individually and in aggregate, they try to forecast where our society is going - and with it, our future.

First, Ted Gioia says that "a huge change is coming".

Would you believe me if I told you that the biggest news story of our century is happening right now—but is never mentioned in the press?

That sounds crazy, doesn’t it?

But that is often the case when a bold new worldview appears.

• How long did it take before the Renaissance got mentioned in the town square?
• When did newspapers start covering the Enlightenment?
• Or the collapse in mercantilism?
• Or the rise of globalism?
• Or the birth of Christianity or Islam or some other earthshaking creed?

The biggest changes often happen long before they even get a name. By the time the scribes notice, the world is already reborn.

. . .

There’s a general rule here—the bigger the shift, the easier it is to miss.

We are living through a situation like that right now. We are experiencing a total shift—like the magnetic poles reversing. But it doesn’t even have a name—not yet.

So let’s give it one.

Let’s call it: The Collapse of the Knowledge System.

It's a valuable examination of why our "common knowledge" is becoming uncommon, to the detriment of our society and those who are (and will be) growing up in it.  Very important, IMHO.

Next, El Gato Malo (who eschews capital letters, but will doubtless forgive me for using them) points out that the political playbook of the progressive left is nothing new.

why is so much of the modern left constantly in alliance with the worst possible people and trends?

why do they champion only anti-social anti-heros?

why do they attack virtue, resilience, and any sort of rugged individualism?

why do they seek to break any sort of successful structure, high trust system, cultural or individual confidence, exceptionalism and function?

it’s a playbook.

they do it because they need to.

and nothing about this strategy has changed since 1919.

. . .

only in the first phase is marxist-leftism about lawlessness.

that's the precursor to set up the conquest.

it's ultimately authoritarian subjugation by boot and bayonet.

the disruption serves to destroy your culture and set the stage for the demand for another one, a strongman to step in and make the streets safe and put food on the table and stop the chaos.

the goal is destruction. they want wreckage and dissolution, amorality and failure.

they want fear and dependence. that’s the only soil in which such an odious weed of tyranny can take root.

this is why marxist revolutions always commence by wrecking everything high function about the societies they seek to subsume.

they seem like the enemy of success and sanity, of flourishing and fecundity because they are.

they can only win by wiping such things out, destroying them utterly.

Last but by no means least, Rod Dreher sees in the Los Angeles riots a portent of a new civil war, one that might easily spread to Europe and engulf the entire Western world in a new "civilizational collapse".

Waking up this morning in deepest Gascony ... I can’t help wondering if what’s happening in L.A. — and that spread overnight in some ways to other US cities, I’m just seeing — is a foretaste of Europe’s future. Except things are far, far worse in Europe. If they try mass deportations here, what’s happening in L.A. will look like a schoolyard fight.

. . .

Are we at the point of Submission Or War? If Trump’s decision to enforce American law — think about that: enforce American law! — is an autocratic casus belli (as the California governor says), then … where are we, exactly? Put another way, if the only way to avoid this conflict is for Trump to say that borders don’t matter, then isn’t that a choice to surrender the country?

. . .

Yesterday in Camus’s vast living room, we listened to him discourse on how cultural knowledge has already collapsed in France. Camus is not a politician or a political polemicist, though that role has been forced on him. He became a polemicist because he is a deeply cultured man who has lived through the ruin of the things he values most. As he makes clear in his Great Replacement writings, the barbarians from abroad were aided and abetted by the native barbarians — chiefly his former comrades on the Left — who demolished cultural knowledge and authority for the sake of “justice”. This grand leveling has dispossessed the French in their own land (and has happened throughout the West). I pointed out too that technology has more recently played a role, with professors back in the US telling me that their students now can scarcely read. It’s not that they are illiterate, in the sense of not understanding what words mean; it’s that they lack the attention span to process a lengthy text, and don’t see why they should have to make the effort. AI is going to “remember” it all for them, right?

It’s civilizational collapse all right. Camus said to us yesterday that it’s imperative that people today who want to survive this intellectually and culturally form retreats where the knowledge of what it meant to be a civilized human can stay alive. He likened this to the Benedict Option. This elderly gay agnostic French writer, who has retreated to his own small rural castle, full of books and music, has taken his own version, and says we all have to find ways to do the same.

Three very important articles, IMHO.  All three reinforce each other in identifying the collapse of education and "common knowledge" into a society more ignorant of reality, and deprived of wisdom, than any in the past century or two.  I recommend them all . . . and I'm grateful that I won't be alive long enough to see their forecasts come true, if the authors are correct.

Peter

Another blogger gets it

 

I've written often about inflation and its dangers in these pages, possibly so much that some readers have wandered off to read something more entertaining.  Oh, well . . . can't please everybody.

Now Francis Porretto does some calculations, and comes up with an interesting answer.

... the inflation rate from 1997 to 2025, if compounding occurs annually, was approximately 7.27%.

That's 7.27% every year on average over the past 28 years.  Click over to his place to read how he calculated that inflation rate.  Based on my own back-of-the-envelope calculations, and input from experts in the field, I'm pretty sure he's in the ballpark on that one.

If that rate of inflation, annually over almost three decades, doesn't scare the crap out of you, you clearly don't understand the situation.  It's why things cost so much today, and why we're running a deficit that's well on its way to hit $40 trillion before long.

Furthermore, that sort of inflation and its consequences are unsustainable.  They cannot go on.  Sooner or later (and I'm betting on sooner rather than later), things are going to cave in . . . and then we're all likely to find out what life during the (previous) Great Depression was like.

Peter

Heh

 

Found on X.com:

As my buddy Lawdog would say:  Gigglesnort!

Peter

No blogging today

 

I have to devote my attention (such as it is) to a number of issues that have been neglected for too long, so I'm afraid I won't have time to blog.  Back to normal tomorrow (hopefully).

Peter

A potential solution to the riots in Los Angeles?

 

Israel provides the example.

I know exactly how many knees I’ve hit, says Eden, who completed his service in the Israel Defense Forces as a sniper in its Golani infantry brigade six months ago. For much of the time, he was stationed along the border with the Gaza Strip. His assignment: to repel Palestinian demonstrators who approached the fence.

“I kept the casing of every round I fired,” he says. “I have them in my room. So I don’t have to make an estimate – I know: 52 definite hits.” 

But there are also “non-definite” hits, right?

“There were incidents when the bullet didn’t stop and also hit the knee of someone behind [the one I aimed at]. Those are mistakes that happen.” 

Is 52 a lot?

“I haven’t really thought about it. It’s not hundreds of liquidations like in the movie ‘American Sniper’: We’re talking about knees. I’m not making light of it, I shot a human being, but still ...” 

. . .

Shedding light on this very recent slice of history entails talking to snipers: After all, they were the dominant and most significant force in suppressing the demonstrations at the fence. Their targets ranged from young Palestinians who were trying to infiltrate into Israel or who threw Molotov cocktails at soldiers, to prominent, unarmed protesters who were considered to be major inciters. Both categories drew the same response: Live ammunition fired at the legs.

There's more at the link.

Looking at the violent demonstrations on TV, I suspect a few perforated kneecaps could be classified as a relatively mild response.  If the demonstrators complain that it hurts, we could always suggest that they put an ICE pack on it . . .

Peter

Memes that made me laugh 265

 

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

Sunday morning music

 

I've been enjoying the songs made famous by Elaine Paige (and which, not coincidentally, made her famous as well).  She's dominated British musical theater for decades, and has richly earned all the plaudits that have come her way.  Most of us know them:  "Don't cry for me, Argentina";  "I know him so well";  and, perhaps the most famous of all, this one, which she performed at Andrew Lloyd Webber's 50th birthday celebration.

Wikipedia says of her music:

In addition to being nominated for five Laurence Olivier Awards, Paige has won many other awards for her theatre roles and has been called the First Lady of British Musical Theatre due to her skill and longevity. She has released 22 solo albums, of which eight were consecutively certified gold and another four multi-platinum. Paige is also featured on seven cast albums and has sung in concerts across the world. Since 2004 she has hosted her own show on BBC Radio 2 called Elaine Paige on Sunday.

In 2014, Paige celebrated her 50 years in show business.

A remarkable performer, and a remarkable voice.

Peter

Remembering the Greatest Invasion

 

Back in 2014, the 70th anniversary of the D-Day invasion of France, Jean-Christophe Rosé produced this 90-minute documentary for France Télévisions.  It uses archival footage that was remastered and colorized, and is probably one of the best sources to understand what the run-up to D-Day involved (with training and other preparations) and the reality of combat on that day.

I'll also mention my father, who was not part of D-Day itself, but served in the Royal Air Force throughout World War II, and shouldered his share of the burden.

Finally, may all those who died on D-Day, on all sides, rest in peace.  There's no enmity beyond the grave.

(Oh - and for those wondering about the headline:  the D-Day invasion, known at the time as Operation Neptune, was the largest in history so far, in terms of numbers of people [on land, at sea and in the air], numbers of ships and aircraft, etc.  The largest invasions of the Pacific War were Operation Musketeer (the invasion of the Philippines), Operation Detachment (the invasion of Iwo Jima) and Operation Iceberg (the invasion of Okinawa), but none of them were as large as Operation Neptune in Normandy.  The planned invasion of Japan in Operations Olympic and Coronet would have been larger, by a significant degree, but those invasions never took place, thanks to the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.)

Peter