Streaming video is a curse if you don't want to stream

 

It used to be easy to watch a video or TV series without paying for cable or a streaming video subscription.  All one had to do was wait until the DVD series came out, then buy a copy.  However, in the past couple of years that's become almost impossible.  Streaming video services are commissioning their own series, then making it impossible to buy a copy or view them anywhere else.

Trouble is, I refuse to pay for most streaming video services due to ethical and moral considerations.  Pay Disney after what that studio has done to trash so many sterling properties in the name of "woke", not least Star Wars?  I won't give them a cent of my money.  Netflix, after its child pornography fetish as exhibited in several made-for-TV movies and series?  My gorge rises at the thought.

The problem is made worse when these morally and ethically bankrupt companies buy other, perfectly good outlets and fold them into their streaming video umbrellas.  I'd love to watch the FX remake of "Shogun":  all reports are that it's outstanding, and the few clips I've watched on YouTube confirm that - but I can't subscribe to FX without giving money to its owner, Disney.  If I'm to remain true to what I believe in, in moral terms, I can't (and won't) do that.  I know that if I bought a DVD series of "Shogun", some money would still go to Disney;  but I wouldn't be throwing money at them month after month for the rest of their dreck.  I could forgive myself for a one-off purchase, but not for a subscription - but since FX (and/or Disney) hasn't released the series on DVD, that's not an option anyway.

How about you, readers?  Do any of you find yourselves in the same situation, unwilling to support a questionable outlet by paying a monthly subscription, but frustrated because you can no longer buy a DVD series of something you'd really like to watch?  Let us know in Comments.

Peter

Memes that made me laugh 255

 

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

Makes you think, doesn't it?

 

Courtesy of Larry Lambert at Virtual Mirage, we find this graphic illustration of the Gross Domestic Product of the USA, divided 50/50.

Click over to Larry's place for a larger version, if you wish.

That's a pretty sobering image, isn't it?  Couple it with a visual representation of which areas vote for which political parties, and it becomes even more sobering.  We're growing less united as a nation, not more.

Peter

Once again, the Babylon Bee gets to the heart of the matter

 

I have to admit, there are times when I think the Babylon Bee's irreverent, satirical take on the news of the day is divinely inspired.  They can strike exactly the right note.  For example:

That's almost as good as their earlier headline, "Democrats Say Fire At Tesla Facility Likely Caused By Climate Change".

Peter

Palestinians emigrating to Indonesia???

 

I was mind-boggled to read this news.

Roughly 100 Palestinians from Gaza will travel to Indonesia for construction work under a new Israeli pilot program, according to Channel 12 News, which reported the initiative as the first stage of a larger plan to facilitate voluntary migration from the Hamas-run enclave.

. . .

If successful, the program will be transferred to Israel’s newly established Migration Directorate, a unit created within the Defense Ministry by Defense Minister Israel Katz and approved by Israel’s Security Cabinet just days earlier. The Directorate is tasked with organizing “safe and controlled passage” for Gazans seeking to relocate abroad, including logistics for land, air, and sea departures.

According to the report, the 100 workers headed to Indonesia — a Muslim-majority nation with no formal diplomatic ties to Israel — will be employed in the construction sector. Despite the diplomatic gap, cooperation was reached to facilitate the pilot program, marking a quiet milestone in Israel’s regional outreach efforts.

The long-term goal is to enable thousands more Gazans to take advantage of similar employment-based migration opportunities, provided host countries are willing to participate. While international law allows for return migration, Israeli officials have emphasized the aim is to support permanent resettlement elsewhere, alleviating the pressure of Gaza’s humanitarian and security crisis.

There's more at the link.

A few questions come to mind:

1. Is Indonesia aware that almost no Arab nation will accept Gaza Palestinians, due to their (well-earned) reputation for being surly, disruptive and just plain difficult?
2. Are Gaza Palestinians aware that Islam, as practiced in Indonesia, is a rather different variety of the faith to what they're used to in the Middle East?
3. If any Hamas members are part of the Gaza contingent, are they aware that the Indonesian security forces - who've had their own problems with Islamic terrorism - are likely to give them even shorter shrift than they received from Israel?

I have a feeling that the old proverb, "There's many a slip twixt the cup and the lip" is about to be demonstrated afresh in Indonesia.  Nice idea (?), but in practice . . .

Peter

"Zombie" agencies in government, and what they cost us

 

RealClearInvestigations has been taking a look at the shadowy world - or should that be underworld? - of agencies and programs that were authorized in the past, but whose authorizations expired years (sometimes decades) ago.  However, Congress has rubber-stamped their budget allocations even though technically they were no longer legally authorized to receive them.

At a time when the Trump administration is moving aggressively to scale back government, including eliminating the entire Education Department, it’s sobering to note that 1,503 agencies or programs live on despite expired authorizations, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Another 155 will expire on Sept. 30. The Zombies, nearly half of which have been officially dead for more than a decade, persist in a budgetary netherworld. In a deep dive last year, CBO analysts were able to find dollar amounts for 491 of the programs, with total expenditures of $516 billion. They don’t know how much funding the other programs received.

The total federal budget in 2024 was $6.8 trillion, meaning expired Zombie programs take up at least 8% of the budget, and likely much more.

. . .

Many Zombie programs now soak up far more funding than lawmakers originally envisioned. The Federal Election Commission, for example, was expected to spend $9.4 million per year before its authorization expired in 1981. Yet the agency continued to receive funding and spent $95 million in 2024, auditors at government watchdog Open The Books found. The Federal Communications Commission was originally allocated $339.6 million per year. Its funding authorization expired in 2020, yet it spent $28.4 billion last year.

Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency hasn’t addressed the Zombies that are prowling the federal spreadsheets. Given DOGE’s headlong push to first root out alleged waste, fraud, and abuse and ask questions later, experts say, Zombies may offer a ripe target. 

There's more at the link.

It'll take months, if not years, to investigate all of those authorization-expired 1,503 agencies and programs.  Therefore, why not do it the easy way?  Simply tell Treasury that they may no longer allocate funds or make any payments to, or on behalf of, any program or agency that is not currently authorized to exist and/or operate.  Kill the lot of them stone dead in budgetary terms . . . then see who screams that their pork barrel isn't being refilled.  If it's an important function, then Congress must do its job and reauthorize it.  If it turns out to be a minor function without which the business of government can continue unimpeded, let its corpse be buried in the bureaucratic graveyard.

There will undoubtedly be some important programs and agencies that need to be funded:  but I have a sneaking suspicion that many others will be non-essential to the functioning of government.  They may well have become just "jobs-for-the-boys" slush-fund-disbursing hollow shells.  If so, it's long gone time they were shuttered.

As Tom Kratman said about USAID:

The moral of the story is that, when a governmental agency has done the job it was created to do, or failed after a lengthy and expensive effort to do the job it was created to do, kill it before it gains sentience and discovers a survival instinct.

Let's make sure we do the same to "zombie" agencies and programs.

Peter

Is the left-wing politicization of our military a threat to our country?

 

Shortly after President Obama took office, word began to circulate among veterans and those of us with current service contacts that our military was being deliberately politicized.  Those with combat experience were being sidelined for promotions, those with conservative viewpoints were eased out of the ladder for promotion, and specialized units like Special Forces received particularly close attention, almost amounting to the appointment of political commissars to ensure that they were "purged" of any disloyalty to the progressive left then in power.

That appears to have had a lasting effect.  Cynical Publius warned about it yesterday.

There is an enormous problem in our nation’s military, one that I have not seen discussed in depth elsewhere.

I have heard from multiple sources that many active duty officers openly and deeply despise the Trump Administration, and they are not at all shy about expressing their opinion both in and out of uniform. One active duty major I know estimates that it’s 1 in 4 who have this problem. (Those of you who follow me probably know who that major is, but I’d rather keep that major out of this for his/her own protection.)

This is an astonishingly bad problem. Putting aside for the moment that this is a clear violation of Article 88 of the UCMJ, this is how military coups take place.

I guess I should not be surprised given Mark Milley’s traitorous actions towards his Commander-in-Chief, but the fact that this has permeated to lower levels of the officer corps surprises me and causes me great worry.

For reference, in my 22 years of commissioned service (starting in the late ‘80s), it was virtually impossible to know the political leanings of ANY officer unless they were an extremely close friend. Many officers purposely had no political preferences of any kind. In fact, I knew many officers who refused to even vote because it suggested that they were somehow partisan. This was an ethos that said “We serve under the Constitutional will of the American People; whomever the People select as the Commander-in-Chief is someone to whom I have a duty of absolute loyalty.”

This was a sacred bond, and still is supposed to be.

Apparently it no longer is.

This phenomenon suggests a complete breakdown in good order and discipline across our entire military, and throughout world history has been a precursor to rule by military junta. I am not exaggerating this threat. We cannot allow our military’s officer corps to continue down this path unchecked.

There needs to be a complete reversal of this trend before it’s too late. Pete Hegseth and his team need to get on top of this. But here’s the hard part—it’s not enough to just get these officers to shut their mouths. They need to also re-train their brains and their hearts to deeply understand and accept that they have a duty of loyalty both to the Constitution and the lawful orders of the chain of command the People elect under that Constitution, and that their current thoughts and actions are wholly incompatible with that duty.

I served under Bill Clinton. I know it’s possible because I’ve done it. If these officers cannot do this, they need to be separated from service. It’s better to have vacant officer positions than have them filled with people who are disloyal to their Constitutional duties.

Military officers have a solemn duty to the nation. Too many are ignoring this duty. This must change before it is too late.

I guess it goes without saying that the progressive left would welcome a military coup against the Trump administration.  To them it would be "saving the nation" from his malign influence - regardless of the fact that the majority of Americans voted for him.  He won both the Electoral College and the popular vote, making his constitutional and democratic legitimacy unshakeable . . . but they don't see it that way.

I blame President Obama for deliberately politicizing our military (and President Biden for continuing to do so).  Obama, above all others, pushed to strip right-wing and conservative opinions out of senior officer ranks, and made it possible for the Milleys of this world to reach high rank.  Too many of their deadwood remains in senior ranks, which is doubtless why Secretary of Defense Hegseth is looking into purging a great many Flag and General ranks and billets, and promoting new blood.  I hope he plans to promote as many combat veterans as possible, because it's only "up the sharp end" that one develops a keen awareness of what a military force really needs.  A bureaucratic or support-function soldier simply lacks that understanding.

Have any of you, dear readers, heard or seen anything similar to what Cynical Publius is reporting?  If so (or if not) please tell us about it in Comments.

Peter

The structure behind Lawfare and politicized judges

 

James Howard Kunstler has written two articles that provide a great deal of background information about the struggle between the Trump administration and seemingly out-of-control federal judges.

In the first, titled "Judgepocalypse Now", he explains the background.

If you want to know one paramount reason for institutional failure in our country, look to the evil enterprise that calls itself “Lawfare.” It originated as a blog launched on September 1, 2010, founded by three key figures: Benjamin Wittes, Jack Goldsmith, and Robert Chesney. Over time it evolved into an activist operation, The Lawfare Institute, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit dedicated to (cough cough) “Hard National Security Choices,” and run under the shady umbrella of the Brookings Institution.

The point of Lawfare is self-evident in its name: it is an instrument of warfare against a perceived enemy which, for the past decade, has been the political faction led by Mr. Trump, the once-and-current chief executive of the federal government. Mr. Trump is a danger to the bureaucratic arm of the federal government because he has defined it as a racketeering operation and moved decisively to end its depredations. Lawfare is the praetorian guard of the permanent DC bureaucracy, including especially its rogue intel actors, who function as enforcers for the Democratic party that largely staffs the bureaucracy.

Norm Eisen, a Brookings senior fellow, is the chief operational strategist for the Lawfare enterprise ... [He] leverages a network of nonprofits (ACLU, Public Citizen, etc.) and left-leaning judges to file hundreds of new lawsuits to thwart the MAGA clean-up effort under Elon Musk’s DOGE. Tax filings show that CREW’s funding, in part, comes from George Soros’s Open Society Foundations. Item: during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, CREW received $432,000 in Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans from Newtek Small Business, which evolved into a financial holding company after acquiring National Bank of New York City in January 2023, rebranded as Newtek Bank.

The money-laundering through multitudinous foundations, NGOs, and “non-profits” is the essence of the Democratic Party’s racketeering mode in league with federal bureaucracies such as USAID that dispensed billions of dollars to a vast network of activist recipients. Translation: it provides salaries (often six-figures) to party foot-soldiers whose only duties are to move the money through the organizational layers and to be available for such party tasks as ballot harvesting, vote-counting, and organizing riots.

This is the mischief that Mr. Trump seeks to put an end to, and so he must be thwarted at all costs by those whose lifeblood depends on the ongoing rackets.

There's more at the link.

In his second article, titled "The Last Resort", Mr. Kunstler shows how the Trump administration is developing countermeasures to deal with Lawfare.

The enabling device for that monstrous power seeking of the Democratic Party was the colossal racketeering operation they implanted in every corner of the federal government ... perfectly illustrated in the DOGE’s recent deconstruction of USAID. That agency worked as a gigantic money laundering matrix to pay Democratic Party activists for the sole purpose of maintaining and expanding the party’s power — its ability to push American citizens around, control our lives, tell us how to live, how to think, and, ultimately, in the Covid-19 scam, telling us to take our shots, get lost, and die. Pitifully, a lot of those vaxx victims were the Democratic Party’s own rank and file, which shows you how psychotically suicidal the Democratic Party became.

. . .

Mr. Trump was played masterfully in the initial 2020 Covid roll-out by the likes of Dr. Fauci, Deborah Birx, and the faithless Veep Mike Pence who directed the Coronavirus Task Force (and whoever was behind it). The president could not bring himself to oppose or cast doubt on their diktats and to this day he must remain embarrassed about how that all worked out. But he also probably learned to not be fooled again.

And so, after the fishy 2020 election, and during the disastrous “Biden” years, Mr. Trump had time to lay careful and comprehensive plans for ending the massive racketeering and for restructuring the federal apparatus into a leaner, more efficient, and more lawful enterprise for managing the civil society known as the USA. Which brings us to the present.

. . .

Also, thus, the Democratic Party’s last resort: the federal judiciary ... They are the Dems’ only remaining lever of power. And they can only be activated by lawyers filing suits against Mr. Trump — hundreds having been filed in the past eight weeks. And these, as you learned in the Friday post here, are directed by attorney lawfare field marshal Norm Eisen, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, using the many well-paid lawfare lawyers at his disposal.

In politics, momentous things often happen on weekends. This past Saturday, Mr. Trump released a White House memorandum directing the Attorney General and the Director of Homeland Security “to seek sanctions against attorneys and law firms who engage in frivolous, unreasonable, and vexatious litigation against the United States or in matters before executive departments and agencies of the United States.”

More specifically, the president’s memo asserts:

Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 11 prohibits attorneys from engaging in certain unethical conduct in Federal courts. Attorneys must not present legal filings “for improper purpose[s],” including “to harass, cause unnecessary delay, or needlessly increase the cost of litigation.” FRCP 11(b)(1). Attorneys must ensure that legal arguments are “warranted by existing law or by a nonfrivolous argument for extending, modifying, or reversing existing law or for establishing new law.”

This is the first time that legal discipline has been leveled directly at the lawfare lawyers themselves. (Election-rigging maestro Marc Elias is mentioned by name in the memo.) It means that after eight years of this noxious gamesmanship, they are going to have to start answering for their actions, they will have to lawyer-up on their own account, and they are going to discover (the old saying goes) how the process is the punishment.

Again, more at the link.

The Trump administration will, of course, continue to appeal against the restraints imposed upon it by activist judges;  and I hope and trust the Supreme Court will rein in district court judges who seem to think they can impose injunctions affecting the entire country, rather than their small corner of it.  Nevertheless, the Lawfare structure has been built up, reinforced and lavishly funded for many years.  It's not going to go away unless and until it's defeated and broken up . . . and that's going to take years.  It probably won't be completed during President Trump's term of office, and will have to be continued into his successor's first term (assuming this country elects the right sort of successor, of course).

Peter

As if you needed reminding - your safety cannot be left in police hands

 

Yesterday saw this report from Miami, Florida.

The security footage shows a gang of angry bicyclists going berserk — beating on the motorist, breaking his windshield, jumping on and stomping on his car’s roof and hood, and using a bike to punctuate the beatdown.

Meanwhile, a Miami Police officer sat in her car with a front-row seat to the mayhem.

There's more at the link, including the video.  Click over there to watch it.

Yes, there are conscientious officers out there who will do their best to help any member of the public who needs it . . . and then there are those like the officer in the video, who just sat there and watched an assault going on right in front of her and did nothing about it.

Yes, there are police departments that will do their best to respond quickly to calls for assistance . . . and then there are those that are so short-staffed and politically hamstrung (thanks to their city governments) that they take far too long to reach the scene after a call to 911.  In some large cities, the average response time to a 911 call is now 12-15 minutes, sometimes even longer.  In that time, an attacker (or multiple attackers) can do an awful lot of damage - assault, rape, kidnapping, murder, and more - and then get clean away, with good odds of never being convicted of their crimes.  Look up the average 911 response times in your own location (and if you can't find them, ask yourself why not - is it because the police and/or city government find them embarrassing?).

Friends, as if you needed reminding:  your safety and security are primarily your own responsibility.  Train for that, prepare for that, equip yourself for that.  If you don't, you're nothing more than a victim in waiting.

What's more, tell your family and friends to do the same.  If they quibble, show them the video linked above, and refer them to crime videos on social media (there are untold thousands of them out there).

No matter where we live in America today, we are within reach of criminals who want what we've got.  They travel to find it, too.  We had a situation a few weeks ago in our nearby big city where criminals from the DFW metroplex, a couple of hours away, drove up to raid gun stores.  Thanks to their ineptness they set off the alarm at the first and had to flee, but tried again at another store a couple of miles away.  The cops caught them there.  They said they'd come up to our part of the world because security here wasn't as tight as in the "big city", and they figured they could "score" more easily.

Finally, as I've said many times before, if you live in a larger city, try to find a way to leave it.  Now.  Don't delay, because things are going to get worse, particularly with extremist political violence increasing almost daily.  If you stay put, understand the risks involved in doing so, and protect yourself against them as best you can.

Peter

EDITED TO ADD:  Go read Lawdog's advice on training, legal representation, etc.  I endorse every word.

Verily, the mind doth boggle...

 

... at the lunacy, stupidity and sheer bubble-headedness of some of the federal programs being uncovered - and summarily terminated - by the Trump administration.  Take one minute to watch this video excerpt.

"Food justice for queer and transgender farmers"?  How could their sexuality possibly lead to food injustice?  "Studying the menstrual cycles of transgender men"?  Men can't menstruate, by definition, so how the hell can their menstrual cycles be studied?  Who are the imbeciles who thought that such spending was a good idea in the first place - and why have they not been publicly fired yet?

Ye Gods and little fishes . . .

Peter

A tragedy leads to a safety recommendation

 

I heard some terrible news yesterday.  A friend and his wife had a daughter in her late teens or early 20's, I don't recall exactly which.  She was severely asthmatic, and had been so from an early age.  They were driving through Arizona and New Mexico, heading for Texas, when they encountered a very heavy dust storm, which reduced visibility so much that they had to stop on the roadside.  Unfortunately there was also a brush fire in the area, driven by the fierce winds of the dust storm.  To make matters worse, their vehicle's ventilation system malfunctioned, letting in the smoke and dust.  The combination caused their daughter to suffer an asthma attack.  They tried to call for help, but the poor visibility and road conditions prevented any from reaching them before their daughter went into cardiac arrest.

My friend is understandably distraught after that experience, as is his wife.  However, he's trying to make it count for something positive by passing the word to everyone he knows that such conditions - or combinations of conditions - can be extremely dangerous to an asthmatic, or indeed anyone with any sort of breathing difficulties such as COPD, etc.  Since both my wife and I have breathing-related issues, he made sure to call me and tell me the sad news.

No sooner had I ended the call than I drove to the nearest Harbor Freight branch and bought four of these Gerson P95 disposable respirators, two in Medium size (to fit my wife) and two Large (to fit me).

One of each size will go into our vehicle emergency kits, to travel with us wherever we go.  They're disposable, so they're not very high-tech, but they'll do for the sort of incident my friend and his family encountered;  and they're low-cost enough that we can afford to replace them every year, to make sure they're still functional.

There are other respirators out there, some a lot more capable - and more expensive - but they're probably overkill for use as emergency travel aids.  Shop around.  However, I don't think the simple paper or cloth masks we used during the COVID imbroglio, or even the stiffer painting-style masks, will be as effective as this design, with its close-fitting face mask and external filters.  I'd rather spend a bit extra for better protection.

In the hope that my friend's tragic loss may help others besides his friends and acquaintances, I share the news with you, and the solution I've adopted.  If any of you suffer from, or have family and/or friends who suffer from, breathing-related issues, I strongly recommend that you do something similar to make your travels a little safer.

Peter

Remember the Antifa/BLM riots? Looks like they may soon be back...

 

Senator Bernie Sanders said of his Denver, CO rally with AOC last weekend:

The video speaks for itself.

34,000 people out in Denver. Largest political rally there since 2008.

The message is clear:

NO to authoritarianism. NO to oligarchy. NO to Trumpism.

We are ready to fight back.

Now it’s on to Tucson.

Unfortunately, he was being economical with the truth - and didn't say anything about where his audience came from.  Tony Seruga ran the numbers, including a GPS and cellphone analysis, and came up with this very interesting information.

GPS—Here we go again, there were 20,189 devices. Still a large crowd but not even close to the 30,000 quoted in Denver newspapers nor the 34,000 quoted by Bernie Sanders and AOC.

84% of the devices present had attended 9 or more Kamala Harris rallies, antifa/blm, pro-Hamas, pro-Palestinian protests, 31% had attended over 20. 

For more insight into what data we also look at in addition to GPS location data would be demographic and psychographic data using over 6,000 different databases, i.e., like the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), Pew Research Center, market research firms like YouGov, Experian, specialized tools like ESRI's Tapestry Segmentation, consumer surveys, social media platforms like 𝕏, Facebook, Linkedin.

Demographic data includes basic characteristics like age, gender, income, education level, occupation, marital status, family size, ethnicity, and where people live (e.g., city, state).

Psychographic data dives deeper into people's lifestyles, values, attitudes, interests, personality traits, social class, activities, and how they make purchasing decisions. For example, it might show if someone values sustainability, enjoys outdoor activities, participates in community activism.

While demographic data is straightforward, psychographic data can reveal sensitive personal details, like beliefs even life goals.

Additionally, by cross pollinating each device with other devices regularly within close proximity to the target device we are able to build a detailed profile for each target.

90% of those in the above 84% were likely working with one of these five groups and is the reason for their presence. 

Once again, this is based a very sophisticated algorithm that looks at the behavioral metrics for each device, including the physical 1:1 proximity to leaders and paymasters from these groups in the past. 

Disruption Project, Rise & Resist, Indivisible Project, Troublemakers and the Democratic Socialists of America.

Each receives money from ActBlue and at least three, via USAID. 

Disruption Project: Legal status is unclear, likely operating illegally.

Rise & Resist: 501c4 non-profit

Indivisible Project: 501c4 non-profit

Troublemakers: Legal status is for profit.

Democratic Socialists of America: 501c4 non-profit

Of course, he wasn't able to determine just how many of the attendees had been paid to be there;  but judging by past Democratic Party tactics, I'm willing to bet many of them were, just as many of those in the Antifa/BLM protests of past years had been.  As we saw in this morning's memes post:

From a personal security point of view, with all this paid agitation going on (including organized efforts to burn down Tesla dealerships, key or otherwise damage Tesla vehicles, and so on), we can expect urban unrest (up to and including urban terrorism) to increase.  The more success President Trump and Elon Musk have in breaking down progressive-left funding avenues and misappropriation of federal funds, the more stridently the latter will protest against them, and the more violent their resistance is likely to become.

This means we should all be considering our personal security arrangements, and those for our families and loved ones, and for our homes.  I've written enough in these pages about firearms and security that I don't proposed to repeat it all over again.  Look in the archives, particularly the sidebar, for more information.

One thing I will emphasize, though, is that if we're out and about, our weapons should be concealed and inconspicuous.  The radicals are very likely to take even the sight of a firearm as intolerable provocation, and may try to rush us and take it away from us, or scream loudly and make a fuss that we're "vigilantes" and "racists" and "troublemakers", or simply open fire on us with their own weapons and then claim we posed a threat to them.  This is not a security environment in which open carry is a good idea.

Similarly, if we carry a long gun with us, it should be one that can be easily concealed or disguised so that it can't be readily identified for what it is.  In an urban environment, a folding pistol-caliber carbine (PCC) is a particularly useful option for such a scenario.  It can be folded and concealed in a gym bag or even a large briefcase, making it easy to carry through a hotel lobby or across the street without looking threatening, but it's nevertheless immediately available if needed.  It can be unfolded, a round chambered, and put into action in only a few seconds, with practice.  If you don't have one, I highly recommend that you look into getting one.

(Until recently I only had a 9mm. PCC - a Ruger - but Smith & Wesson has just launched their new M&P FPC (Folding Pistol Carbine) series in 10mm, a much more powerful cartridge.  I handled one of the first, and found it much better balanced overall than other weapons in its class that I've tried.  I'll be doing a full test on one soon, and I'll let you know how I find it.  It may be the best implementation of the late, great Jeff Cooper's "Thumper" carbine concept that we've yet seen, given that Cooper said on one occasion that the 10mm. round was suitable for that application.)

Peter

If your genetic data is on file anywhere, heed this warning...

 

... from California's attorney general.

California’s attorney general has urgently warned customers of 23andMe to purge their genetic data from the company’s databases over uncertainty where it may end up if the firm goes bankrupt.

“Given 23andMe’s reported financial distress, I remind Californians to consider invoking their rights and directing 23andMe to delete their data and destroy any samples of genetic material held by the company,” AG Rob Bonta said in a statement Friday.

. . .

The bottom dropped out for the one-time Silicon Valley darling as its share price has cratered, and the firm is now in danger of collapsing ... Now thorny questions are being raised about the fate of millions of customers’ most sensitive data if the business goes belly-up ... Under California’s Genetic Information Privacy Act, companies must obtain explicit consent for the collection, use and disclosure of any genetic data. The 2022 law also guarantees consumers the right to access or delete their data at will.

Bonta said customers can permanently delete their 23andMe data by logging into their account, accessing the “settings” menu and navigating to the data section.

Clicking “view” will give users access to the “delete data” section, where the option to “permanently delete data” will appear.

Going through this process will auto-generate an email from the company confirming the request — which users must click to verify before the data will be deleted, Bonta noted in his statement.

There's more at the link.

I know that procedure is valid for California customers of 23andMe, but I'm not sure whether it also applies to customers in the other 49 states, or abroad.  I hope it does, because 23andMe is registered in California and so presumably applies California law to its entire customer base, but one never knows.

If the company goes bankrupt and its assets are bought by anybody else, those assets are likely to include its depository of DNA information about every customer it's ever had.  That can be misused by criminals in all sorts of ways, from blackmail ("You wouldn't want your kid to find out he/she was conceived in adultery, would you?") to health care issues later in life ("I'm sorry, but you're listed on a public database as having this pre-existing health condition, therefore we can't offer you health insurance to cover it").

I know millions of people have used such DNA testing services.  I've always refused to do so for precisely the reasons given above.  I hope and pray customers won't suffer for it . . . and I hope they're able to permanently delete their data from their service provider in this or similar ways.

Peter

Memes that made me laugh 254

 

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

Sunday morning music

 

The late Bert Jansch was one of the founders of the British folk music revival, both as a solo composer and performer and as a member of Pentangle, one of the leading folk groups in the 1960's and 1970's.  He's acknowledged by many of the top guitarists of the second half of the 20th century as a major influence upon their careers and music.

I've picked out four pieces by him for this morning's post:  one instrumental, and three with vocals as well.  His voice is very distinctive, as is his playing style.  Let's start with an early composition, "Angie" (later used by Paul Simon on his album "The Sound of Silence").

Next, an early vocal piece, "Downunder".

Here's Bert's arrangement and voice on "The Lily of the West", performed with a later incarnation of Pentangle in the 1990's.

Finally, another early vocal piece, "The River Bank".

There's a rich trove of Jansch's and Pentangle's material on YouTube.

Peter

A fundraiser I'm supporting

 

Courtesy of author and friend Michael Z. Williamson, I learned of a fundraiser by Keith DeCandido and Shoshana Edwards to help pay for some really nasty medical bills.  They write:

Shoshana Edwards, the author of the Harper's Landing series (Easy as Pie, Madness of Trees, Death Lives in the Water, Deathly Waters, The Secrets of Water), as well as a veteran of the Society for Creative Anachronism and a superlative quilter, is struggling at the moment. She has many medical bills and a business deal that would have enabled her to sell books has fallen through, leaving her with a big pile of science fiction & fantasy books taking up a great deal of space. Unfortunately, doctors don't take books for payment....

Therefore Shoshana -- who is one of the nicest, sweetest, most generous people you'd ever want to meet -- is asking for help, not just to help pay the bills, but also to clear out all these dang books. When you make your donation, if you take a screenshot of it and send it to shoshana at whysper dot net, along with your mailing address, you may find yourself with a book!

There's more at the link.

Friends, I know how crushing medical bills can be.  Last year I underwent no less than four surgical procedures to try to deal with kidney issues.  They didn't work, unfortunately, and my kidney will have to be removed later this year.  However, even though the procedures didn't work, my wife and I still had to pay for our share of their cost, and that was a real problem - until a very generous reader, unasked, offered us a donation that helped pay them off.  We'll be forever grateful for his help.  Now another writer needs the same sort of help, and we think it's a sort of "paying it forward" to ask for you to help her in her turn.  We've already made our donation.

If you feel so inclined, particularly if you've had to face medical bills that threaten to submerge you (financially speaking), please click over to the fundraiser and offer what you can.  Also, whether you can help or not, how about mentioning the fundraiser on your social media accounts, to spread the word?  What goes around, comes around, and we all may need such help one day.  My wife and I have learned the hard way, on far too many occasions to count them, that if we help others, we will be helped in our turn, as the Good Book promises.  It's a spiritually and mentally healthy way to live, IMHO.

Thanks in advance.

Peter

Why does this not surprise me?

 

It looks like fraudsters and con artists are out in full force in Los Angeles after the fires there a couple of months ago.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has received 270,000 applications from purported homeowners in the recent L.A. fires — though only abut 13,000 homes were destroyed.

A FEMA official gave the staggering figure — more than twenty times the number of eligible applicants — as concerns about fraudulent applications continue to plague the agency, more than two months after the fire.

As Breitbart News has reported, many displaced residents had tried applying for FEMA relief, only to find that someone else had already applied in their name and with their address, locking them out of the system.

FEMA attempts to make relief funds easy to apply for, but the downside is that fraudsters can more easily take advantage of the system. A FEMA official said that problem was a major reason for closing applications at the end of the month, instead of extending them for a full year, as Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA) requested.

There's more at the link.

I'm not surprised that a bunch of con artists are trying to profit from others' troubles.  It happens almost every time there's a disaster of any kind.  However, I am surprised that so many applications have been made.  Twenty-plus applicants for every premises damaged or destroyed?  That's chutzpah of a very high order . . .

Full marks to FEMA for catching so many of the applications before they were processed.  Unfortunately, sorting out legitimate applications from the fraudulent ones is likely to take months, if not a year or more;  and while FEMA is doing that, it can't make funds available to those who really need them to clear their land and begin the process of rebuilding.

Perhaps we could arrange for all those filing fraudulent applications to be sentenced to a few years working on wildfire crews, under the supervision of California's corrections department?  Alternatively, we could put them to work on homeless encampment clearance projects and landscape rehabilitation.  Make the punishment fit the crime!

Peter

Phil from Bustednuckles could use your prayers and support, please

 

Phil's going into surgery tomorrow, Friday, for what sounds like an awfully complicated condition.  Here's what he says in his latest post about it.

The original plan was to have them ram a tunnel across my lower belly, thread an artificial artery through from one side to the other and splice the right side upper femoral artery to below the blockage they couldn’t get out on the left side and then ram another tunnel from the left side under the new splice down my thigh and reconnect to the Femoral artery just above the knee. The Untrasounds revealed a new narrowing in the artery just below the left knee so now plans have changed. I am going in this Friday at 7:00 for check in and they added another surgeon. They are going to do some Angioplasty on this newly discovered narrowing and put a stent in just below the knee so when they splice in from above there will be better blood flow down to my lower left leg which is the whole purpose of this surgery in the first place. They figure 6 hours even with 2 surgeons and probably 2 months to recuperate. Myself, I think it’s going to be longer because I m still not 100% healed up from the surgery last December.

There's more at the link, and in this earlier blog post.  Read both for more information.

I'm sure I don't need to emphasize that this is serious stuff.  Messing around with blood vessels can lead to nasty complications (ask me how I know this!), and it sounds as if Phil is going to have a hard time with rehab after the cutting's done.  Please keep him in your thoughts and prayers.  He's good people.

Peter

Economics in the next life...

 

... appear to be as hard to swallow as they are in this life!  Click the image to be taken to a larger view at the "Pearls Before Swine" Web page.

I wish I knew how cartoonist Stephan Pastis does it.  His ability to draw humor out of so many situations, so apposite to our current issues, is uncanny.  Long may he continue to entertain us!

Peter

Learning from the enemy: personal and property security

 

DiveMedic has posted an excellent article about the current internal terrorism threat in the United States.  Go read it before you continue here.  I'll wait.

Among other things, he links to a Web site catering to those internal terrorists, advising them how to avoid or evade surveillance, police investigations, etc.  You'll find it here.  As one with more than a few years of anti-terrorist and civil defense experience, in one of the more dangerous parts of the world, I highly recommend that all law-abiding citizens, particularly those planning to defend their families and homes against domestic terrorism, click over there and read through it.  You'll learn a surprising amount about how our enemies plan to avoid being held responsible for their actions . . . and that, in turn, can inform how you plan and train to defend yourself against them.  It might even aid you if you have to act against them, and don't want to be targeted for doing so (by the authorities or anyone else).

For example, I've written in the past about the problem of defending ourselves in a non-permissive environment, where the authorities may not be entirely on the side of law and order.  Here's one example of my articles - again, it's worth reading if you haven't already done so.  In it, I talked about gait recognition and gait analysis;  the study of how we move, and how our movements can help to identify us if they're caught on camera, even if our faces can't be seen.  That's become a common investigative tool for law enforcement, and also for better-informed agitators and activists, who've learned to use video cameras and analyze the film just as the police do.  The Web site in question has an entire article about it.  If we read that in order to understand what they're doing, and why, we can turn that knowledge against them by making it more difficult - even impossible - to identify us through gait analysis.  There are many methods of doing so;  faking a limp (including putting a stone in one shoe), using a cane or crutches, adopting a rolling gait as if we were unsteady on our feet (like a sailor who's just set foot ashore after two or three weeks at sea), and so on.  We might even use roller skates or skateboards for a complete change of pace (you should pardon the expression).

I'm sure the enemies of our society thought they were being very clever by setting up a Web site to teach their hangers-on how to avoid the consequences of their actions.  They failed to realize that the same Web site can teach us exactly the same thing, and also how to recognize their presence by their actions, so we can plan our own actions to defend against them.

A very useful tool for our purposes, and highly recommended.

Peter

It took years for us to get into this mess. It'll take us years to recover from it.

 

I'm seeing and hearing more and more frustration on social media and in other venues concerning the lack of arrests, trials and convictions of those most of us blame for our country's present woes.  Be they politicians, activists, liberal-progressive judges, or whatever, we know the damage they've done, and we want them to be held accountable for that.  More and more people appear to be getting angry with President Trump, Elon Musk, D.O.G.E., etc. for not doing enough, quickly enough.

The problem is, such anger and frustration is misplaced.  It took literally years - in some cases, decades - to dig the hole in which we, as a nation, find ourselves.  It's going to take more years to carve a path around and up the sides, so we can climb out of it, and then refill the hole behind us to make sure we don't fall back into it.  President Trump and his team are accomplishing almost miraculous results already, but they've been in office for only about two months.  They're dealing with almost two decades of political poison, incompetence, ineptitude and deliberate malice against what America had traditionally represented.  It'll take more than just months to get there.

Another issue is the courts.  I understand that there have been almost three lawsuits launched against the President and his policies for every day that he's been in office.  Every one of those lawsuits - often filed by "venue-shopping" to ensure that sympathetic judges hear them - has to be answered, argued against, appealed when necessary (which is most of the time), and so on.  Many of the courts' rulings have been blatantly and self-evidently unconstitutional, with judges acting in defiance of clear, black-letter constitutional law.  I agree, those judges need to be slapped down, and hard - but it's got to be done in accordance with the law.  If we start to act outside the law, we render our entire constitutional foundation moot.  Anything goes, and anything will go - even violence, even civil war.

I'm one of the few people in America who has actually witnessed a violent, bloody civil war "on the ground", up close and personal.  It's ghastly beyond my ability to describe.  I never want to see it again, and particularly not in the country that I've adopted as my own, and come to love.  Nobody in his right mind wants that.

The President is doing his best, and his enemies are doing their best to frustrate him at every turn.  It's going to be a long haul to get to the finish line, and there's no way to hasten it right now - not unless the Democratic Party representatives and senators have a "road-to-Damascus" conversion and start cooperating in restoring constitutional government to our nation.  That would be a miracle indeed!  I happen to believe in miracles - I'm a man of faith, after all - but I'll be astounded if that particular miracle occurs.

Meanwhile, friends, let's give our President and his people space and time to do their jobs.  Let's try to understand the enormous obstacles they're facing, and support their efforts to remove such obstructions from their path.  Let's try to calm down those who are frothing at the mouth and demanding arrests, trials, prison sentences and even executions yesterday, if not sooner.

As German chancellor Otto von Bismarck famously said:

"Politics is the art of the possible, the attainable — the art of the next best."

That's what President Trump is trying to achieve.  If we insist that he reach for the impossible, the unattainable, the very best . . . we'll render all his efforts futile.

For our country's sake, let's not do that.

Peter

I want one!

 

Ever heard of "magic money computers"?  It seems the US government has.

Sitting down with Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) for his podcast that was recorded at the White House, Cruz said: "One of the things you told me about is what you called, 'Magic Money Computers.' So tell us about it, 'cause I never heard of that 'til you brought it up."

Musk: "Okay, so, you may think like the government computers all talk to each other, they synchronize, they add up what funds are going somewhere. And, that they're coherent ... And that the numbers that you're presented as a Senator are actually the real numbers."

Cruz: "One would think!"

Musk: "One would think - they're not ... I mean they're not totally wrong, but they're probably off by five percent or 10 percent in some cases. So, I call it 'Magic Money Computer': any computer that can make money out of thin air. That's magic money."

Cruz: "So how does that work?"

Musk: "It just issues payments."

Cruz: "And you said there's something like 11 of these computers at Treasury that are sending out trillions in payments?"

Musk replied that they're mostly at the Department of Treasury, and others are at the Department of Health and Human Services as well as the Department of Defense.

Musk: "We've found now 14 'Magic Money Computers. They just send money out of nothing."

There's more at the link.

Apparently these computers "initiate outgoing payments that have no 'maker/checker' authentication protocols".  They don't bother to check:

• whether funds are available;
• whether the amount they're issuing is authorized, and if so by whom;
• whether the service(s) for which payment is being made has/have actually been rendered;  and
• whether they're being asked to make a duplicate payment, after the amount in question has already been paid by another department or agency.

They just print a check or transfer the funds on demand.

Can anyone tell me where I can get my hands on a computer like that?  It would make my budgeting and expenditure so much simpler - not to mention my retirement!

Despite the "magic money computers", Musk concluded:  "I'm reasonably confident that we'll be able to get a trillion dollars of waste and fraud out, meaning that it will have, we'll have a net savings of FY26 of a trillion dollars, provided we're allowed to continue and our progress is not impeded."  A consummation devoutly to be wished!

Peter

Not a very comforting statistic

 

Wirepoints, an organization we've met in these pages several times before, has published a list of homicide rates in American cities for last year.  One list is sorted by total homicides, the other by homicides per capita.  Click the graphic below for a larger, more readable view.

Wirepoints comments:

The data compiled by Wirepoints is based on 2024 homicide totals for the nation’s 75 biggest cities, assembled via year-end city police compstat reports, various news articles and other sources. (When possible Wirepoints counted only criminal homicides, excluding cases of justifiable self-defense.)

. . .

The nation’s list of top five most-murderous cities has changed over time, with cities like Los Angeles, Detroit, Philadelphia, Houston, New York, and Baltimore falling on and off depending on the year.

The one constant for more than a decade has been Chicago. The Windy City has always taken the top spot, often by a large margin.

. . .

Chicago’s murder rate of 21.5 per 100,000 population was 3 times that of Los Angeles and nearly 5 times higher than New York’s.  That’s a staggering difference. 

Chicago would have had just 122 homicides last year if it had the same murder rate as the Big Apple. Conversely, New York City would have suffered 1,775 murders if it had Chicago’s homicide rate (compared to the 377 it had).

Also of interest, this note at the end of the report:

Note: The following cities of the nation’s 75 most-populous were excluded from this report as no reliable 2024 homicide data was found: Raleigh city, NC, Miami, FL, Bakersfield, CA, Wichita, KS, Anaheim, CA, Irvine, CA, Santa Ana, CA, Anchorage, AK, North Las Vegas, NV, Chula Vista, CA, Lubbock, TX, St. Petersburg, FL, Irving, TX, Chesapeake, VA. The next-most populous cities with available homicide data were included in their place.

There's more at the link.

I'll leave readers to do their own research to establish the answers to the following questions:

1. What political party rules in each of the cities in the table above - Republican or Democrat?
2. What is the proportion of the races in each of the cities listed above - caucasian, hispanic, asian and black?

The answers are, as you might expect, rather illuminating - and politically incorrect.

Peter

A nice boondoggle, if you can get it

 

It looks like Medicaid is a prime target for federal government savings, if it can stop shenanigans like this from states like California.

Under current law, states are required to pay Medicaid providers the same amount as taxes raised.

The federal government then matches those payments by 60% in an effort to help states recoup some Medicaid costs.

"Medicaid spending is supposed to be jointly financed by the federal government and states. However, states are increasingly designing Medicaid money laundering schemes that result in massive federal expenditures without any state financial obligation," the paper said. 

"The state of California, colluding with insurance companies who cover Medicaid beneficiaries, has created one of the most outrageous ones yet, a money laundering scheme that results in California obtaining more than $19 billion in federal money without any state contribution over the period from April 2023 through December 2026."

The paper continued that those funds were "used to implement major expansions in the Medicaid program to fund illegal immigrants and long-term care (LTC) for the wealthy."

"This scheme enriches insurers, attracts illegal immigrants to the United States, and adds mountains to the federal debt, all at the expense of working Americans," it said.

Winfree said closing a loophole that allows states like California to significantly raise the provider tax could save up to $630 billion, adding it was something Republicans are looking at as they seek as much as $2 trillion in savings or more in the budget reconciliation process.

There's more at the link, and also in this report from Zero Hedge, which provides further details of how the scheme works.

One has to hand it to "blue state" governments.  They appear to have figured out myriad ways to get their hands on federal tax dollars, while giving back far less than they should be contributing.  I don't know if "red state" governments are doing likewise, but I wouldn't be surprised.  Our constitution doesn't provide sufficient safeguards to prevent these shenanigans.  That might be something to consider, once the primary task of slashing federal government expenditure is done.

Meanwhile, our tax dollars continue to be stolen from under our nose . . .

Peter

Memes that made me laugh 253

 

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

Sunday morning music

 

Yesterday, March 15th, was the fifteenth anniversary of my marriage to my dear lady wife.

I never expected to marry, and she had given up much thought of it.  We were both struggling with the debilitating long-term effects of serious injury.  When a mutual friend, Oleg Volk, introduced us to each other via e-mail, we had no thought of anything except, "Oh, a new person.  Sounds interesting."  However, within days, we were phoning each other and exchanging longer and longer e-mails.  I think both of us realized, in less than a week, even though we'd never met each other, that this had the potential to be something very special.

I flew up to Alaska to meet her for the first time a month later.  I took with me an engagement ring, about which we'd consulted and jointly selected on a Web site.  When I left to come home, two days later, she was wearing it.  (I think we blew Oleg's mind at the speed with which everything happened . . . not at all what he'd been expecting!)

Fifteen years into our marriage, and we're still very much in love.

I wanted to select a piece of music that expressed our bond, and thought about my parents.  They met when my father fell on top of my mother in a Birmingham bus during an air raid in 1940 - not your average romantic meetup at all!  He walked her home, very apologetic, and allegedly proposed to her at her front door.  She indignantly refused, but did agree to go out with him for supper that evening.  They had more supper dates as and when he could get leave from the Royal Air Force, and he kept proposing, and she kept refusing . . . until one evening he told her that he was being posted overseas, so if she said "No" again, he wouldn't bother her any more.  She said "Yes".

Almost as soon as they were wed, Dad shipped out in a convoy to Singapore in mid-1941.  He was taken off his ship in Durban, South Africa, to help the South African Air Force solve a couple of engineering problems.  The rest of his draft landed in Singapore - just in time to be taken prisoner by Japanese forces in early 1942.  Very few of them survived their prison camps to come home again.  He went on to be posted to the Western Desert campaign, then the Dodecanese campaign, then back to England.  He was reunited with my mother more than three years after saying goodbye to her.  Despite problems, and realizing that wartime pressures might have led to a marriage they otherwise would not have made, they stuck it out, and were married for 64 years until she died in the early noughties.  He followed her a few years later.

I'd like my wife and I to echo their fidelity and commitment to each other;  so, to celebrate our own anniversary, here's a commemoration from the World War II years.  Vera Lynn recorded the "Anniversary Waltz" in 1941.  I'll embed it here in memory of my parents (may God rest their souls), and for my own wife.

Soppy and sentimental, by modern standards?  Perhaps . . . but just as real for all that.

Peter

I don't normally post on Saturdays, but...

 

... two articles in my regular blog/Substack daily roundup caught my eye this morning.  Both are full of interesting information and insight, and I want to recommend them both to your attention.

Jeff Childers, writing at Coffee & Covid, tells us about "2025’s surreality motif, Trump’s political alchemy, Biden’s fake presidency, Autopen orders, Trump’s Supreme Court battle, and a Trump-Putin negotiation masterclass".  An excellent article with some very interesting insights.

El Gato Malo, writing (without capital letters) at Bad Cattitude, discusses our universities, saying:  "education and research in america constitute a gordian knot situation and such situations need lateral thinking to resolve. they cannot be fixed within the construct that made the mess. a new frame is required."  He proceeds to offer just such a framework.

Both articles are excellent, and I highly recommend them.

Peter

I fear he's not wrong...

 

As usual, Stephan Pastis does a bang-up job (you should pardon the expression) of describing American society in this day and (troubled) age.  Click the image to be taken to a larger version of the cartoon at the "Pearls Before Swine" Web page.

I've heard from a number of contacts in the firearms industry that before last year's elections, most of their customers were conservatives or libertarians.  Since President Trump took office, they report many more liberal and progressive Democrats coming in to arm themselves.  That's not what I'd call a very optimistic forecast for social discourse in America . . .

Peter