A new book from Cedar Sanderson

Miss D.'s and my friend in meatspace and cyberspace, Cedar Sanderson (whom you've met in these pages several times before), has just published a new paranormal/crime/whodunnit novel.  This one's called "Possum Creek Massacre".

This is the second novel in the "Witchward" series.  We met paranormal detective Amaya Lombard previously in the novella "Snow In Her Eyes" (which I also highly recommend).

The blurb for "Possum Creek Massacre" reads:

Renowned for her witch hunting skills, Detective Amaya Lombard knew that being summoned from the coastal rainforest of Oregon to the backwoods hollers of Kentucky meant the case was something special. From the moment she arrived at the magic soaked scene in an abandoned farmhouse she knew how bad it was going to be. She had no idea just how complicated it was going to get, professionally and personally. Now she must catch a killer before they catch her. The roots of evil plunge deeply into the past, and the blood soaked history of Kentucky’s witch warded houses and barns may hold the key to keeping her alive in the present.

If you'd like to read snippets from the book, Cedar has published two on her blog, here and here.

Cedar writes about this area from personal experience, living close to it as she does, and having traveled there with (and to visit) family.  She makes it come alive.  I'm looking forward to reading her latest book, and I'm sure you'll enjoy it too.  She's one of the few authors whose books I'll buy sight unseen, because I know they're sure to entertain and intrigue me.

Peter

Another approach to the illegal alien problem

Karl Denninger offers his solution to the problem of how to get rid of illegal aliens.

It's really quite simple.

To obtain any social benefit at a state or federal level -- including free public schooling, Medicaid, Section 8, EITC, EBT of any sort (including WIC and Food Stamps) -- the following criteria must be met for all persons living in the household.  A person is "living in the household" if their personal effects are in the abode or they sleep there:

• Said person(s) are US Citizens OR
• Said person(s) are lawful permanent residents who have been lawful permanent residents for at least ten (10) years OR
• Said person(s) are lawfully present in the United States, having been admitted through a legal immigration or migration program and they have a US Citizen or 10+ year Permanent resident as a formal, voluntary sponsor who is remitting, on a monthly basis, the ratable portion of all social benefits and costs incurred by them or their direct offspring to the US Treasury and State Treasuries, respectively.

Violation of these terms results in the immediate termination of all such benefits in which federal funds are implicated including free public schooling, free lunches, EBT, EITC, Medicaid and similar for all persons in the household.

. . .

Further, a person reporting such a household, which is found to be harboring illegal invaders, is entitled to 10% of the social benefits that would have otherwise been spent in said household on social benefits for the next 12 months as a "finders fee."

Second, shut off the coyote revenue with the following:

No person may transfer funds out of the United States to a second person not in the United States via any means, including "money transmitters" such as Western Union, Moneygram or the purchase of prepaid accounts valid outside the US unless they provide positive identification as either a US Permanent Resident or Citizen and same is recorded by the transmitter and is both retained and details of same are reported to Treasury when in any calendar year the aggregate amount exceeds the 1099 reporting requirement for any single person ($600.)

. . .

This instantly detonates the means by which the "coyotes" can collect from migrants who have no money and promise to pay once they get to the United States and start obtaining "freebies" from the US and State governments or via illegal employment.

There's more at the link.

Seems pretty reasonable and straightforward to me;  but the bleeding hearts will jump all over it as "discriminatory" or "unreasonable" or "inhumane".  They completely ignore the damage that illegal aliens are doing to our economy just by being here - the undue demands placed on our welfare network, the cost of providing health care for them (usually via EMTALA - where the hospital has no recourse for payment, so it ends up on our backs - or by state [i.e. taxpayer] subsidy), and the additional costs of tracing and getting rid of them.

Sadly, Mr. Denninger's suggestions can't be implemented without the active cooperation of Congress and the Senate;  but they've been bought and paid for by Big Business lobbyists who support uncontrolled illegal immigration.  President Trump can do a lot, but he's still hamstrung on the big issues, absent legislation to support and fund what he's doing.

Perhaps we should require our lawmakers to spend a month each year actively policing our out-of-control borders, riding along with the Border Patrol and other agencies.  Half of their time could be spent riding along with law enforcement personnel in our cities, where they're trying to control the flood of illegal narcotics, gang crime and other plagues that illegal aliens have brought with them.  That might give them a more accurate perspective on the realities of the situation.




Peter

It's about time!

For some time, the US military has been investigating medals awarded for valor in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan.  It's been postulated that some actions should have been recognized at a considerably higher level than the medals that were actually awarded.  Military.com tells us that several Medals of Honor may be conferred as a result.

Four Medals of Honor. Thirty Service Crosses. Twenty-three Silver Stars. After a three-year review of medals for military heroism in conflicts following Sept. 11, 2001, the Pentagon has upgraded 57 awards for valor -- and so far, sailors are the biggest beneficiaries.

Officials told Military.com that the review, which was launched in 2016 and will formally conclude on Dec. 31, assessed roughly 1,400 awards in all, presented by the four Defense Department services. Some four Army awards have yet to be announced -- officials would not characterize these awards, however, and whether, as some suspect, more Medals of Honor could be forthcoming.

There's more at the link.

It's just been revealed that one of those Army awards is, indeed, to be upgraded from a Silver Star to a Medal of Honor.

A former Army staff sergeant who took on enemy fighters at close range, first with an M249 light machine gun and then with a knife, will be the first living veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom to receive the Medal of Honor, Military.com has learned.

David S. Bellavia, 43, of Batavia, New York, will have his Silver Star upgraded to the highest military award for valor in a June 25 ceremony at the White House, a source close to Bellavia confirmed to Military.com. The news of the award was first posted at the American Legion's Burn Pit blog Thursday and then confirmed by Army Times. The White House is expected to announce the award next week.

Bellavia's Silver Star citation, for heroism on Nov. 10, 2004, in Fallujah, Iraq, reads like the script of an action movie.

Again, more at the link.

I've read SSgt Bellavia's book, "House to House".  It's an extraordinary chronicle of combat, right up there with many of the best combat memoirs from earlier wars.

What I still don't understand is why it's taken so long to review some of these awards, and make the decision to upgrade them.  It's bureaucratic process gone mad!  This should have happened within, at most, a year or two.  Back in World War II, the decision to award a Medal of Honor was frequently taken within weeks of the incident concerned.  Why is it so much more difficult to do so today?

Unfortunately, for the highest awards, it was much the same in South Africa.  During my service, that country's highest award for valor in action, equivalent to the US Medal of Honor, was the Honoris Crux Diamond.  Sadly, despite several incidents that popular opinion in the SA Defense Force considered fully worthy of the HCD, that medal was never awarded - a travesty of justice, in my opinion.  There were never any reasons given, except that no individual act was considered (by the military bureaucracy) to rise to the level necessary for its award.  It was generally thought among the troops that one would have to actually be killed during a display of valor to get the HCD.  That's what the bureaucrats seemed to think was a necessary part of the award, anyway.  That thought probably devalued or degraded the award in the eyes of those for whom it was intended - the men in uniform.  Surely they knew best what constituted valor and deserved appropriate recognition, rather than rear-echelon military bureaucrats?

I wonder whether some sort of political correctness played a part in the delay in recognizing such extraordinary feats of valor?  Is it, perhaps, the case, in these benighted modern times, that honoring someone for acts of extreme violence, even if self-sacrificial in nature, is no longer considered appropriate?  I can't help but think that delays of well over a decade must surely be caused by something other than mere routine processing of the awards.  What say you, military readers and veterans?

Peter

Sunday morning music

The saxophone isn't usually considered a classical music instrument.  It's encountered far more often in jazz, blues and some modern pop music (the latter probably most famously - and allegedly almost by accident - in Gerry Rafferty's "Baker Street").  Nevertheless, some composers in the classical tradition have written for the saxophone.

Today I thought I'd turn to a US composer who's probably unknown to many of my readers (and was to me, until I moved to this country).  I'll let Wikipedia introduce him.

Paul Creston (born Giuseppe Guttoveggio; October 10, 1906 – August 24, 1985) was an Italian American composer of classical music.

Born in New York City to Sicilian immigrants, Creston was self-taught as a composer. He was an honorary member of Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia music fraternity, initiated into the national honorary Alpha Alpha chapter. His work tends to be fairly conservative in style, with a strong rhythmic element. His pieces include six symphonies, a number of concertos, including two for violin, one for marimba and orchestra (premiered by Ruth Stuber), one for one piano, one for two pianos, one for accordion and one for alto saxophone (the latter dedicated to Cecil Leeson), a fantasia for trombone and orchestra (composed for and premiered by Robert Marsteller), and a Rapsodie again for alto saxophone - written for Jean-Marie Londeix. He also wrote a suite (1935) and a sonata (op. 19, 1939) for alto saxophone and piano (both dedicated to Cecil Leeson), as well as a suite for organ, Op. 70. Several of his works were inspired by the poetry of Walt Whitman. He died in Poway, California, a suburb of San Diego.

Creston was one of the most performed American composers of the 1940s and 1950s. Several of his works have become staples of the wind band repertoire. Zanoni, Prelude and Dance and the Celebration Overture have been and still are on several state lists for contests across the USA.

Creston was also a notable teacher, with the composers Irwin Swack, John Corigliano, Elliott Schwartz, Frank Felice, and Charles Roland Berry, accordionist/composer William Schimmel and the jazz musicians Rusty Dedrick and Charlie Queener among his pupils. He wrote the theoretical books Principles of Rhythm (1964) and Rational Metric Notation (1979). He taught at Central Washington State College from 1968-1975.

There's more at the link.

Creston wrote a number of works for saxophone.  Here are two of them.  Let's start with his Sonata for alto saxophone and piano, Op. 19, composed in 1939.

Next, for a more orchestral experience (heavily flavored by blues and jazz rhythms), here's his Concerto for alto saxophone, Op. 26, written in 1944.

An interesting variation on orchestral themes, with some foot-tapping sections that probably infuriated the "old school" of classical musicians at the time it was first performed.

Peter

Bollywood meets car chases, #6

To close out our week of Bollywood car chases, here's a short clip from the 2011 movie "Singham".  It's not so much a car chase as a car interception.  Acrobatic?  Yes.  Impossible?  Heck, yes!

The entire movie is so over-the-top it's ridiculous.  As a bonus for your weekend viewing pleasure, here's the big fight scene.  When did Superman emigrate to India, anyway?

Oh, well.  Impossible or not, that's Bollywood!

Peter

"Write us, as we are, were, and shall be, not your assumptions"

Writing at Mad Genius Club, reflecting on Memorial Day, Jonathan LaForce (whom I'm pleased to call my friend) examined the way writers (and, by extension, other entertainment content creators) portray military service personnel and veterans.  Like myself, he finds many such portrayals to be lacking.  Here's an excerpt.

I grew up listening to the stories of the men who went ashore at Omaha and Utah.  I wondered how they could summon the very wherewithal to commit such acts of heroism.  I had those, the stories of those American boys drafted in Korea; my first Cub Scout Master was a brown water sailor named Rusty Gill with a bullfrog voice, tattoos on either arm, and the calm confidence of a man who had been there and done that times beyond counting.  Chief Gill taught me how to tie hooks when fishing, how to cast a line and how to patiently reel in a fish when hooked so it would stay.

“You sure this won’t break sir?”

“Son, I caught fish off the back end of destroyers like this.  It’ll hold.”

“Yes sir.”

I remember going in uniform to the local cemetery, Memorial Day in 1999 with his wife to place flags on the headstones of service members buried there.  I remember it because Chief Gill wasn’t there and I asked her why.

“Papa has a lot of friends who never came home from Vietnam.  Some things are just too hard for him to handle.”

I wondered about her statement, until the day came when I learned the value of a brother’s life, and what it means to me.  I understand now why Chief Gill felt that way. If he were still alive, I suspect that I’d spend Memorial Day driving to his house so we could sit and drink our way through a couple sixers of something cold.

My generation is split.  There are the millennials who ... form the basis for a whole lot of caricatures about modern adults.  I saw them in high school learning of Marx and praising his “brilliance”. I despised most of them, and they despised me in turn.

Time has not changed that disdain.  They went off to study Marxism and how it will lead us to Utopia (hello Venezuela), I graduated from St. Chesty Puller’s Academy for Recalcitrant Boys.  Others from my graduating year (2005) went off to the Fort Benning School for Boys, the Fort Bragg School of Hard Chargers. They wear maroon and tan berets, Manchu buckles, Cav spurs, Tridents, the caduceus of Corpsmen, even the Eagle, Globe and Anchor of my Marine Corps.  We saw 9/11 occur, and determined in our minds that such should never again occur on American soil, that we would not carry signs at protests - we would carry rifles.

There's more at the link.  Highly recommended reading for all military veterans, and those who love them.

My military service was on another continent, many decades ago now, in a different uniform:  but the realities of military service, and of combat, were the same there as they are all over the world.  I could identify with everything Jonathan wrote, even though I've never been a member of Uncle Sam's Misguided Children.  I've been part of units that I respectfully believe were just as rough, tough and nasty as the USMC when the chips were down.  It changes you.  Forever.

That's why I was so angry with much of the US mainstream media over the past week's celebration of the 75th anniversary of D-Day.  They didn't care one whit about the sacrifice of so many of our servicemen's lives.  It was just another opportunity to bash a President they loathe, and poke snide remarks at those who weren't intelligent enough to avoid military service.

They had no idea what they were talking about.

If you'd like to understand more of what motivates those wearing uniform, you could do worse than start with Jonathan's essay.  It's a good one.  He's a generation younger than I, in terms of military service, but he carries the torch well that old farts like us handed him.  I daresay his children, and those like them, will do the same.

Thanks, buddy.

Peter

Bollywood meets car chases, #5

This scene from the 2009 comedy movie "All The Best: Fun Begins" isn't a car chase, but a car race.  Nevertheless, the improbable stunts and impossible accidents make it a fun ride, and worthy of inclusion in this series about how Bollywood can go over the top with almost anything.  Enjoy!

Love the car standing for an extended period on its nose, before being demolished by a direct hit amidships from another vehicle.  Even with today's non-chassis vehicles, I found that a bit of a stretch . . . but, hey - it's Bollywood!  Anything can, and usually does, happen!

Peter

Clearly, this wasn't designed by a cat owner

It seems that Charmin is developing an outsize toilet paper roll, so that users won't have to change it for up to a month.

However, as any cat owner will tell you, the feline species appears to take delight in unwinding a toilet paper roll.

I should think cats will find that monster roll absolutely irresistible.  Their owners might have to spend the next couple of days in a hotel room, while a cleanup service de-TP's their entire home!

I suspect this is going to have unintended consequences . . .

Peter

Central America's "failed states" can't control illegal alien migration

Wikipedia defines the term "failed state" as follows:

A failed state is a political body that has disintegrated to a point where basic conditions and responsibilities of a sovereign government no longer function properly ... A state can also fail if the government loses its legitimacy even if it is performing its functions properly. For a stable state it is necessary for the government to enjoy both effectiveness and legitimacy. Likewise, when a nation weakens and its standard of living declines, it introduces the possibility of total governmental collapse. The Fund for Peace characterizes a failed state as having the following characteristics:

• Loss of control of its territory, or of the monopoly on the legitimate use of physical force therein
• Erosion of legitimate authority to make collective decisions
• Inability to provide public services
• Inability to interact with other states as a full member of the international community

Common characteristics of a failing state include a central government so weak or ineffective that it has an inability to raise taxes or other support, and has little practical control over much of its territory and hence there is a non-provision of public services. When this happens, widespread corruption and criminality, the intervention of state and non-state actors, the appearance of refugees and the involuntary movement of populations, sharp economic decline, and foreign military intervention can occur.

More and more, that definition fits Mexico and other Central American nations almost exactly.

Larry Lambert offers this chart, provided by a federal government source, of the controlling influence of crime and the drug cartels inside Mexico.  The heading reads "Organized crime controls 60% of the country; another 20 percent, in dispute". Click the image for a larger view.

Larry, who knows the country well from years of working with the authorities there, observes:

I'm not suggesting that it's a deliberate fabrication but whoever made the map has never been on the ground in Mexico. The map does not extend cartel coverage of bribes to public officials from the very top to the bottom. It doesn't include the many billions of dollars in loans from cartels to businesses at lower than market rates and the influence that generates nationwide. Far more loans are underwritten by cartels than banks in Mexico.

In short, the analysis is impossibly optimistic.

There's more at the link.  The comments below Larry's blog post are worth reading, too, along with his responses.

The cartels are now engaged in human trafficking.  They're making money hand over fist by conveying illegal aliens from South America through Mexico to the US border.  They're quite blatant about it.  In the process, they're also exposing other "failed states" in South America, particularly Guatemala.

Although the polleros charge $3,500 to $13,000 per person to take migrants on what is often a harrowing journey on bus and foot through jungle and desert routes often used by drug gangs, the demand for their services has never been more intense, said Gilberto Escobar, a local reporter who has covered migrants.

“Coyotes live in the local communities, and they don’t need to advertise because people seek them out,” he said. “Everyone knows who they are.”

Last week, the US Department of Homeland Security announced a host of initiatives to help the Guatemalan government address migration and people-smuggling ... Both governments said they would also step up border security in Guatemala to stop the flow of migration that has overwhelmed US Customs and Border Protection agents on the US southern border with thousands of people streaming in from Central America every week.

. . .

Guatemalans generally distrust their politicians. And with good reason.

A UN-backed panel found massive corruption at every level of government in the country, including the judiciary. The country’s president, Jimmy Morales, expelled the UN investigators this year, when his family became the subject of the probe.

Again, more at the link.

What this means is that Central American government promises to control illegal migration to, and into, the USA are worthless.  Even if they wanted to, they can't possibly fulfil those promises, because those governments are not in control of their own nations.  They're playing at being governments.  The real power - the power of life or death, the power to allow someone to make a living or force them to starve - comes from the proceeds of crime.  When criminals are able to enforce their will, and intimidate or even kill the police and other authorities who try to intervene, that's real power.  It's power the local populace can hear, and see, and feel, and experience every day.  If some government minister in his nice gated community in a distant capital decrees otherwise, where is his power to actually implement his decrees?  In practice, it doesn't exist.

The power of narco criminals such as the Mexican cartels, and the reason for their influence, can be summed up in one word:  money.  According to Global Financial Integrity, drug trafficking generates revenues of between $426 billion and $652 billion annually.  That's half a trillion dollars, plus-or-minus.  Contrast that with the annual gross domestic product (as reported by the International Monetary Fund) of Mexico ($1.223 trillion), Guatemala ($79 billion), or Honduras ($23 billion).  Where it matters, on the ground, the drug trafficking industry in those countries has far more disposable income than the authorities, whose budgets are eaten up by many needs, commitments and projects that have little direct effect on their populations (not to mention corruption in government that siphons off much of the national budget).  If the people need something, they go to those who can afford to pay for it.  Increasingly, that's the narcos, not the state.

Those same narco criminals are facilitating the passage through Mexico of illegal aliens from other South American nations.  Since a single illegal alien can pay as much as $5,000 to $12,000 for his journey from South America to the USA, that's a lot of revenue the cartels can skim off.  They run on money.  It's their life blood.  If they can make a couple of thousand per illegal alien passing through their territories, and they can smuggle a million of them to the US border every year, that's a revenue stream of two billion dollars per year - and it has effectively no legal consequences in Mexico.  Why wouldn't they go for it?  As a purely business decision, it's irresistible, and a very nice supplement to the money they make from the drug trade.  What's more, they've already set up the infrastructure for the latter. It can easily be applied to the human trade as well.

Therefore, I don't expect government-to-government contacts by the USA to have any appreciable effect on the number of illegal aliens entering this country.  In Central America, those are all too often failed governments in failed states.  They are no longer in control of their own countries.  Those in control are those who can pay.  Money talks;  and all the money is on the side of those sending ever more illegal aliens our way.  I think the only way to stop them is with a hard, physical barrier that keeps them out.  Nothing less will work.

I don't blame President Trump for the lack of a border wall.  That's down to the spineless Republicans in Congress and the Senate, who didn't fund it while they were in control of those bodies;  and now, it's down to the Democrats who refuse to fund a wall because they reckon illegal aliens will vote for them (legally or not) in the future.  The President does not have the "power of the purse".  Budgets are voted for in Congress, and unless they are willing to spend the money, he's left relatively impotent.  He can find bits and pieces here and there, but not enough to do the job properly.

Nevertheless, a physical barrier becomes more and more inescapable as the only practical solution to the problem.  The situation there now amounts to "a full-blown emergency".  It's pointless to look to the failed states of Central and South America to solve that problem.

Peter

Friendship and the battle of the sexes

Received from three readers over the past couple of days, original source unknown:

The last two guys said he was still there, but they couldn't call him to the phone, because they left him to sleep late while they went out shopping.  Sorry, and all that sort of thing.




Peter

Bollywood meets car chases, #4

Here's a rather low-speed vehicle chase, along with some truly awful fight scenes - but hey, that's Bollywood all over!  It's from the 1995 movie "Alluda Majaka".

I've never seen bare-metal-framework tractor wheels like that before.  Do they serve a particular purpose?  If anyone knows, please tell us in Comments.

Peter

Why the concentration of wealth is so big a concern

A lot of people don't seem to understand why the concentration of wealth in fewer and fewer hands is a major economic concern.  I've heard several readers and/or commentators maintain that since a capitalist system "grows the pie", anyone can make more money by being inventive or creative, or working hard;  therefore, since we're not dealing with a finite pie size, it doesn't matter if the rich become richer, because anyone else can, too.

That's a fundamental misunderstanding of the situation.

Regardless of the size of the economic pie at any moment in time, there are several primary functions of money.  One of them is as a measure or unit of account, making it possible to express market value in a common frame of reference.  That doesn't concern us here.  A second is as a medium of exchange - a tool to buy and sell products.  A third is as a store of value - to maintain or increase wealth according to the value of the assets money can buy.  The trouble is, the more money that gets drained from the buy-and-sell economy in order to invest in assets (i.e. it's diverted from being a medium of exchange to being a store of value), the less money is available to exchange.  The money is effectively "locked up" in assets, rather than being free to "move" and thereby keep the economy going (and growing).

This means that less money is available for consumers to buy products, and less is available to corporations and other producers to provide products for them to buy (and to pay salaries to the workers who make those products, which in turn affects their ability to buy products).  That, in turn, leads to pressure to "print money" by extending credit or printing currency without any economic value backing it (a feature of so-called "fiat currency", where its value is whatever a government says it is, and/or the value the market assigns to it).  The generation of more units of currency in that way (because a loan can be spent in the same way as if it were money being printed, thereby increasing the effective money supply even if no more actual cash has been manufactured) has an inflationary effect, which in turn affects the values of assets denominated in that currency (i.e. their "store of value" becomes more valuable in terms of rising prices of assets overall, but less valuable in terms of stability, because asset values are now subject to currency fluctuation).

Thus, headlines such as "The richest 10% of households now represent 70% of all U.S. wealth" are a real and major concern.  Bold, underlined text in the excerpt below is my emphasis.

Deutsche Bank’s Torsten Sløk says that the distribution of household wealth in America has become even more disproportionate over the past decade, with the richest 10% of U.S. households representing 70% of all U.S. wealth in 2018, compared with 60% in 1989, according to a recent study by researchers at the Federal Reserve.

The study finds that the share of wealth among the richest 1% increased to 32% from 23% over the same period.

To make a finer point, Fed researchers say the increase in wealth among the top 10% is largely a result of that cohort obtaining a larger concentration of assets: “The share of assets held by the top 10% of the wealth distribution rose from 55% to 64% since 1989, with asset shares increasing the most for the top 1% of households. These increases were mirrored by decreases for households in the 50-90th percentiles of the wealth distribution,” Fed researchers said.

Sløk said the financial crisis has played a significant part in this growing gap, which resulted in the Federal Reserve stepping in to stem a massive ripple of losses through the global financial system as the housing market imploded.

As a result, the Fed lowered interest rates, which had the knock-on effect of pushing easy money into the hands of the already-wealthy.

. . .

“In sum, this meant that stock prices and home prices have increased but ownership has shrunk to fewer hands and as a result we now have more inequality than ever before,” he explained.

Inequality has partly given rise to Democratic-Socialist Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who has proposed leveling massive taxes on the superrich. Her mention in early January of a radical 70% tax on the wealthy has proven divisive in Washington.

The wealth divide has also intensified the debate about the merits of capitalism: the beating heart of the U.S.’s financial system.

Billionaire Ray Dalio said capitalism is no longer working for most Americans, adding that the expanding wealth gap is creating a volatile environment with disturbing parallels to the economic and social upheaval of the 1930s, he said in a blog on LinkedIn last month.

There's more at the link.

The breeding-ground for socialism and its advocates is thus directly related to the concentration of wealth in fewer hands.  When that gets out of balance (as it is today), the reaction (calls for an imposed, legislated redistribution of wealth - i.e. socialism) becomes stronger.  However, those who've benefited from the concentration of wealth usually have no intention of sharing their good fortune with anyone else.  They've got theirs.  They don't care whether we can get ours under the present system.

Food for thought . . . and for real concern.

Peter

The greatest amphibious invasion in history, 75 years ago today

On June 6, 1944, Allied forces landed in Normandy, France.  It was the beginning of the end of Nazi Germany's occupation of Western Europe.  Together with the far larger and more deadly battles on the Eastern Front at the same time, it signaled the impending doom of that most evil of empires.

My parents both went through World War II, my father in uniform, my mother on the so-called Home Front.  The experience changed them forever.  It was one of the truly pivotal conflicts in the history of humankind, and still resonates to this day.  Here are some video clips that say, better than I can, why that is so, and why the commemoration of D-Day is so important.  I'll let them speak to the occasion.

May all who died on D-Day rest in peace, and may their sins be forgiven them;  and may the same grace be given to its survivors, those who have died since and those who are still alive.  May we never forget their sacrifice.

Peter

Bollywood meets car chases, #3

Continuing our week of looking at how Bollywood films car chases, here's one combining cars, roller blades, anchors, explosions and acrobatics.

You really have to suspend belief to make that one work . . . but hey, it's fun!




Peter

The Catholic Church's institutional rotten core

Let me reiterate that I'm not opposed to the Catholic faith as such.  I was born and raised in that faith, I became a priest, and I worked hard to be faithful to its teachings.  However, the clergy sex abuse scandal, and in particular the way bishops expected their priests to deliberately mislead and lie to the faithful over what was happening, drove me away.  I've written about the reasons for that on numerous occasions.  There has been no improvement whatsoever in that situation, apart from a few faithful bishops who are setting a personal, individual example.  The institution itself is still ducking and covering, trying to protect itself and its "institution men" rather than truly deal with the issue.

If you doubt that, please consider the following recent headlines.

• ‘Revolution’ in Poland as nation confronts priestly abuse ("Poland’s bishops acknowledged this week they face a crisis and made a rare admission that they have failed to protect the young.")
• Raid on Dallas Diocese inspires Catholics to close ranks or lose faith: 'Enough is enough' ("What angers me more than the evil of it is the lying and the cover-up. That's even more vile than the actual act.")
• US Catholic Church reports big rise in sex-abuse allegations  ("in its latest 12-month reporting period [the Church's] spending on victim compensation and child protection surged above $300 million.")
• Should California force priests to report child-molestation confessions? Church leaders say it violates religious freedom  ("... more recent revelations like a bombshell Pennsylvania investigation in August that found widespread child sex abuse and cover-ups over decades in six dioceses has sparked fresh outrage. California Attorney General Xavier Becerra is now investigating the Golden State’s dioceses.)

Those are only a small selection of many that I could have posted.  I think they make the point clear.  The Catholic Church has failed, and is still failing, to put in place any genuinely effective measures to combat clergy child sex abuse.  This is true on a local, national and international level.  No country is exempt from that condemnation, and no prelate who has failed to provide true, effective leadership according to Biblical and orthodox principles of the faith can be exempted from blame.  Through its inaction, refusal to address the issue, and attempts to dodge the blame that is rightfully its due, the church has literally destroyed the faith of millions of its own adherents, and damaged the faith of millions more.  It's a self-inflicted injury, and can't be blamed on the world, the flesh or the devil, as many Catholics still try to do.

Pentecostal evangelist Bob Mumford once defined secular humanism as "what happens when the world evangelizes the church".  This is a brilliant analogy of what's happened to the Catholic Church.  In its attempts to be "all things to all men", to accommodate conflicting views and be seen as open to everybody, it long ago ceased to preach gospel moral values and became more worldly.  The results are plainly to be seen.  When last, in a "normal" Catholic parish, did you hear sermons condemning abortion or sex outside marriage, or defending marriage and family life?  Instead, bishops seeking to increase the overall number of Catholics in the church actively promote unrestricted immigration, legal or otherwise, as a way to achieve that, and have pastoral letters to that effect read in their churches.  (They'll never admit that's the real reason, of course.  Instead, they'll spout pious platitudes about human rights and the like.  Believe me, having listened to some conversations as an insider, I know better.)

Even when a Bishop does, in fact, preach traditional morality, as in Rhode Island last week, some of his own priests will try to undermine his message, and secular and media reaction and condemnation may force him to apologize and make excuses.  Bishop Tobin's original tweet was nothing more or less than the truth as Catholic morality sees it.  No apology should have been necessary.

As for the sanctity of the confessional being violated by secular law, again, the Catholic Church has only itself to blame.  It's brought this crisis upon itself.  Its tepid, timid, ineffectual reforms have utterly failed to address the root of the problem.  They were, and are, no more than pious window-dressing.  The thorough, top-to-bottom house-cleaning that was desperately needed has not happened, and is not going to happen, because there are too many bishops and clergy who see their job as being to protect the institution of the Church, rather than its members.  They're too busy trying to bar the doors against secular invaders to consider that their own actions (and/or the lack thereof) are what has caused the invasion in the first place.

I wrote last year:

I can identify very strongly with Mary Magdalene.

Now the first day of the week Mary Magdalene went to the tomb early, while it was still dark, and saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb.  Then she ran and came to Simon Peter, and to the other disciple, whom Jesus loved, and said to them, “They have taken away the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid Him.”

The Bishops, and Archbishops, and Cardinals, in their collective hierarchy, have taken away my Church . . . and I do not know where they have laid her.  That is absolutely heart-breaking.

I have, as yet, seen nothing to make me reconsider that perspective.  I wonder whether I ever will?

Peter

Ebola, rampaging superstition, and a complete ignorance of fact

I've pointed out in the past that the reason the Ebola epidemic continues to spread in Congo is largely due to the primitive, superstitious tribal culture in that part of the world.  Unfortunately, many First World readers have no conception of just how primitive and superstitious that culture really is.  It's so far removed from our reality that it's inconceivable to many of us.

Now comes a report on child soldiers in the Congo that may help some readers understand the problem better.

The potion was powerful stuff: the grown-up rebels who had given it to the boys, smearing it on their beanpole bodies every day for a week, had promised it would make them invincible.

Still, the first time he went into battle Jean-Paul wanted to be sure. Stripping off his clothes, he fought the enemy naked.

The magic seemed to work.

Not only has he lived to see his 13th birthday, but he has emerged more or less unscathed from repeated engagements with the Congolese army over a period of nearly two years.

“I knew that as long as I remained naked, I could be sure that the charms worked,” he told the Telegraph last week.

His friend Phillipe, a year older and wiser, also holds with the magic. And why not? Unlike Jean-Paul who went into battle with a mere hunting rifle, he was been given far more powerful weapons: three eggs and a calabash gourd.

“When I threw the eggs they turned into bombs and the enemy was killed by the fire,” he said. “I killed many people that way.”

Alive today, there was, and remains, no reason for him to question it all.

. . .

Commanders wasted no time in wielding the sorcery to their advantage. On the battlefield they deployed girls as young as seven in matching red frocks to the front line.

Swishing their magic dresses to scoop up the army’s bullets, they protected not only the boys standing behind them with their hunting rifles, eggs and pieces of wood that turned into AK-47s but also the men, armed with proper weapons, who brought up the rear.

The child soldiers – known as the “Baby Police”– were killed in their thousands, but total numbers were not evident to individuals. And anyway, with magic there is always an explanation.

Jean-Paul said he believed the children who died met their fate because they had not followed the rules. Perhaps they had eaten meat, or had sex, or had worn underwear while fighting, he explained.

. . .

Going from village to village, they set up baptism sites, known as tshiota, to indoctrinate child recruits.

At these, children were given bitter potions made from the powder of bark from three trees, often mixed with human blood and ground-up bones. The remainder, made into a paste, was brushed onto their bodies with the promise it would give them superhuman powers.

Sometimes, as in Jean-Paul’s case, they swallowed three live red ants before marching round a fire and chanting the words “In the name of the Kamuina Nsapu” [the 'magical' name of the tribal militia], an incantation they would intone repeatedly in battle.

They may have been outgunned, but even the army’s elite Republican Guard seemed to fear the magic. Sometimes they did mow down the girls in their red dresses and the egg-throwing boys. But often they turned and fled.

There's much more at the link.

This is the sort of superstition that aid organizations and health care workers are dealing with in north-western Congo.  It's a level of ignorance that makes it easy to persuade locals that the aid organizations are actually spreading Ebola, a "white man's disease";  that they're killing people in their hospitals, rather than trying to treat them;  and that their medicines and health care measures are designed to bewitch and/or enslave people rather than help them.  It's no wonder that attacks on aid agencies and workers are so frequent, and sometimes deadly;  and it's no wonder that the Ebola epidemic in the Congo is now out of control.

There is literally no reasoning with such people, because they're not capable of reasoning in any logical, rational sense of the word.  Their lives - their entire world view - is/are bound up in, and encompassed by, and permeated with superstition and witchcraft.  If their shaman, or witch-doctor, or whatever, says to them that they must or must not do something, they'll obey their spiritual leader rather than health care authorities, because it's patently obvious to them that the former knows so much more than the latter.

That's why this outbreak of Ebola scares me so much.  It's perilously close to breaking out of its geographic boundaries, despite months of intensive efforts to contain it.  The reason is precisely what I've said above.  Local people don't believe in Western medicine;  in fact, they'd rather flee from it.  In doing so, they're going to spread Ebola into Uganda (which has "10,000 [border] crossings each day" to and from the Congo - and that's just the ones who go across legally, rather than walk through the bush).  South Sudan, Rwanda and Burundi are also threatened.  From there, it's a hop, a skip and a jump to Kenya, with its international airport at Nairobi and its many flights per day to Europe and the Far East.  From there to the USA is no distance at all in terms of air travel.

Be afraid, people.  If you're not, you don't understand the situation.  This could turn very nasty, very quickly, and there's almost nothing effective we can do to stop it if it does.  Even an international travel ban would have only limited effect, given how easily African refugees, particularly Congolese, can cross (and are already crossing) our borders illegally.

Peter

Bollywood meets car chases, #2

I hope yesterday's instalment whetted your appetite for more of how Bollywood treats car chases.

Today, we see a car chase from the 1978 film Don.  The vehicles in this movie were typical of what was on Indian roads at the time:  early post-war British cars that had continued in production in the sub-continent, despite advances made elsewhere with newer models.  It's quite nostalgic for those of us with memories of those old hunks of ironmongery!

I can't show the clip directly, because embedding has been disabled.  However, you can watch it on YouTube.  The car chase action ends at about 4m. 35s., after which the plot continues with the death of the villain.  For more details, see the movie's Wikipedia entry.

Peter

Feral urban youth, and your safety and security

Events in Baltimore a few days ago highlight, yet again, the danger in many urban centers of so-called "flash mobs" and/or uncontrolled youth violence.  It's happened on the "Magnificent Mile" in Chicago, repeatedly (note how the video clips linked in that article have been removed, presumably because they showed a racial reality that's not politically correct).  It's happened at the county fairgrounds near Milwaukee, WI.  It's happened in Louisville, KY.  It's happened in Miami Beach, FL.  Last week, it came to Baltimore.

I've written often in the past about this danger to your security, if you live in any of those cities, or anywhere where feral urban youth are present in large numbers (whether or not they're in or near to your neighborhood).  Follow these links if you'd like to learn more.

• The changing urban self-defense environment
• How would you deal with a 20,000-strong 'flash mob'?
• A criminal 'flash mob' at work
• Flash mobs strike again
• Criminal 'flash mobs' - a growing peril to your safety

Increasingly, this sort of thing is a reality in modern US cities.  If you live in or near that sort of urban environment, you need to take this into account in your emergency preparations and personal security precautions.  To summarize John Farnam's famous advice:

• Don’t go to stupid places.
• Don’t associate with stupid people.
• Don’t do stupid things.

If you go near any place that flash mob activity may break out, at times or seasons when it's likely, you're doing all of the above.  Stop it!  Even if it means adjusting your routine, denying yourself attendance at what might otherwise be fun and entertaining, or deliberately choosing your leisure time activities on the basis of safety and security rather than your interests, do that.  If you don't . . . you may regret the consequences.  What's more, don't think that carrying a gun will save you.  Under such conditions, it may have the opposite effect after the shooting stops.

What's the solution to these crimes (because, let's face it, they are crimes, not just bored youth working off their frustrations)?  I certainly don't think it's more money for education or job programs.  These kids aren't learning because they don't want to learn.  The majority of them come from single-parent homes, where they have few (if any) positive adult role models.  One can't even say that strict discipline, up to and including corporal punishment, would work any more.  Nowadays, that would be regarded as abuse.  I have no easy answers for dealing with feral youth.  Instead, I offer suggestions for your safety and security.  That's about the best any of us can do under such circumstances.

(If corporal punishment is abuse then, believe you me, by modern standards both of my parents would have been locked up for child abuse, given the way they raised their children!  On the other hand, their kids didn't turn into feral youths.  Cause and effect, perhaps?)

Peter

I have a dream . . .

Now and again, some new item of clothing makes me do a double-take.  (No, I am not a fan or a follower of fashion!)  The most recent example are these.

Yes, they're lace shorts.  For men.  (Or, rather, for what are allegedly men.)  A news report says:

The lacey shorts ... are available in five pastel colors including green, pink, blue, purple and yellow...

Lace shorts first hit the runway at Gucci's Spring/Summer 2016 collection and would appeal to fashion-forward men who are looking to make a statement. The prominence of gender ambiguity in fashion design allows for clothing pieces to be reflective of a generation who wish to challenge traditional notion of masculinity and femininity.

There's more at the link.

And my dream?  My dream is to see the Drill Instructors at Parris Island or MCRD San Diego standing by to receive the new intake of Marine Corps recruits.  They do their usual thing of getting them off the bus, harassing demoralizing unnerving conditioning them, and then tell them to take off their civilian clothing, all of it, and put on what the Corps has just issued to them.  Can you imagine the D.I.'s faces when one or more of their recruits drops trousers to reveal . . . these?

The mental picture of the cardiac emergency unit at the local hospital, as dozens of D.I.'s are admitted, twitching, writhing and foaming at the mouth, all yelling at the tops of their lungs, in unexpurgated Marine Corps vernacular, about how the Old Corps has finally gone to the dogs, is just too delicious.




Peter

My heart's on fire, but it ain't for Elvira

How many of you remember this song?  Here's a 15-second excerpt.

Turns out that a heart can literally be on fire . . . but Elvira had nothing to do with this one.

... the patient, a 60-year-old man, was in surgery last year for the repair of a tear in the inner layer of the aorta wall in the chest, according to the European Society of Anaesthesiology.

But the patient’s chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, known as COPD, meant he had air-filled blisters, which doctors punctured, leading to a leak.

Doctors worried that the man would suffer a respiratory attack, and decided to give him more anesthesia, which resulted in his receiving 100 percent oxygen.

The increased oxygen, however, proved to be a recipe for disaster after doctors used a surgical tool that uses heat to cut through tissue and stop vessels from bleeding. It sparked, igniting a dry surgical pack that had been placed near the man’s chest cavity and that led to a flash fire.

The doctors quickly extinguished the fire, and in what some published reports hail as a miracle, the man suffered no harm.

The doctors conducted a search for other, similar such incidents and found there have been at least six chest cavity fires in operating rooms. In all of them, dry surgical packs, elevated oxygen levels, the heat-producing surgical tool and a patient with a lung condition all played a role.

There's more at the link.

That's pretty scary!  I'm very glad the patient was uninjured, but I bet there was consternation and monkeyhouse in that operating theater for a while.

Peter

Bollywood meets car chases, #1

Last week I posted a video of a rather strange car chase, from a very B-grade movie from the mid-1970's.  Thinking about weird car chases, I suddenly thought about Bollywood.  I've posted several Indian cinematic fight scenes here that were so over-the-top, they were actually funny.  I wondered . . . has Bollywood done the same thing to cinematic car chases?

Oh, yes.  Yes, they have.

Here's the first instalment in a week of Bollywood car chases.

Just where the hell did all those explosions come from???  And how did the action morph from city streets, to the waterfront, to a shopping mall, to the streets again?  And how many cops and police vehicles can pursue one man?  It looked like half the Indian Army to me!

EDITED TO ADD:  I replaced the original clip, which turns out to be abbreviated, with a slightly longer one that shows the end.  It's still ridiculously over the top, but you get a better idea of why the protagonist was so eager to escape.




Peter

For once, just for once, I agree with Ann Coulter

I generally don't sit well with Ann Coulter's strident, almost harpy-like commentary on this country and its politics.  She may be right about many things, but her way of presenting her views is off-putting in the extreme.  Nevertheless, I'll give credit where credit is due;  and I think her recent column about immigration and its implications is spot-on. (Bold, underlined text is my emphasis.)

Can we have a quick reality check and acknowledge that what is happening to America is a million times worse than what's happening in Europe and is of much greater consequence?

Conservatives regularly point to the mass migration afflicting Europe as if it's the Ghost of Christmas Future for America. Since waves of Third World migrants began sweeping into the European Union, we've seen terrorism, knifings, rape gangs and riots popping up all over the birthplace of Western civilization. Sweden has gone from a country where rape was essentially nonexistent to the Rape Capital of the World.

It's sweet of Americans to be so concerned about Europe, but maybe they should look at their own country. On account of a mass immigration policy imposed on us by our government, the United States has undergone a transformation unprecedented in all of world history.

. . .

This isn't about race -- though it might be of some concern to the rapidly diminishing white population that our cultural overlords are so tormented by "whiteness" ... This stunning demographic replacement matters because American culture is the envy of the world. Not only was this wonderful culture created by white Western Europeans, but merely asking immigrants to assimilate to it is generally considered a hate crime.

If everyone assimilated to our culture, who cares what race they are? But given sufficient numbers, they don't. They don't need to, and we certainly aren’t asking them to. The reason we successfully assimilated not-so-different European cultures was that we controlled the numbers -- essentially stopping immigration for 50 years while we forged an American character.

. . .

Whatever the causes of the fall of the Roman Empire, one thing is for damn sure: There were not vast bands of powerful Romans prattling about "Roman privilege," demanding that the Huns be given preference over Romans and writing articles with titles like "Abolish the Romans!"

That is the driving impulse of one of our two major political parties. The other party can't bestir itself to care about anything other than tax cuts, abortion and moving our embassy to Jerusalem.

There's more at the link.

I totally agree with Ms. Coulter on the importance of assimilation, and I agree that the reason immigration - both legal and illegal - is a major crisis in America right now is that immigrants are neither expected nor required to assimilate to American culture.  I believe that's a grave mistake.  As I wrote when I became a U.S. citizen, just a few short weeks ago:

I think that perhaps one can be a more dedicated citizen of the USA if one comes to it from outside, as it were:  jumping through all the legal and administrative hoops, having to earn the right to be assimilated into a new country and a new culture, rather than born to it.  I've tried hard to assimilate already.  I don't want to hold on to past loyalties and be what Theodore Roosevelt would have called a "hyphenated American".  In a speech to the Knights of Columbus in New York on October 12, 1915, he said:

There is no room in this country for hyphenated Americanism. When I refer to hyphenated Americans, I do not refer to naturalized Americans. Some of the very best Americans I have ever known were naturalized Americans, Americans born abroad. But a hyphenated American is not an American at all. This is just as true of the man who puts “native” before the hyphen as of the man who puts German or Irish or English or French before the hyphen. Americanism is a matter of the spirit and of the soul. Our allegiance must be purely to the United States. We must unsparingly condemn any man who holds any other allegiance. But if he is heartily and singly loyal to this Republic, then no matter where he was born, he is just as good an American as any one else.

The one absolutely certain way of bringing this nation to ruin, of preventing all possibility of its continuing to be a nation at all, would be to permit it to become a tangle of squabbling nationalities, an intricate knot of German-Americans, Irish-Americans, English-Americans, French-Americans, Scandinavian-Americans or Italian-Americans, each preserving its separate nationality, each at heart feeling more sympathy with Europeans of that nationality, than with the other citizens of the American Republic. The men who do not become Americans and nothing else are hyphenated Americans; and there ought to be no room for them in this country. The man who calls himself an American citizen and who yet shows by his actions that he is primarily the citizen of a foreign land, plays a thoroughly mischievous part in the life of our body politic. He has no place here; and the sooner he returns to the land to which he feels his real heart-allegiance, the better it will be for every good American. There is no such thing as a hyphenated American who is a good American. The only man who is a good American is the man who is an American and nothing else.

That's the kind of American I shall strive to be.

So, for once, I won't argue with Ann Coulter.  Instead, I recommend her article to all concerned about this subject.

Peter

Ebola: still no good news, but plenty of bad news

Those who've been following my previous articles about the Ebola virus outbreak in the Congo will understand how very dangerous this is for the rest of the world.  If you were in any doubt over how easily it could spread, consider this report just yesterday.  What if one of those people were a carrier?

Aesop has written a long and very informative summary of the present situation.  I can't improve on it (or on his usual acerbic, informative and authoritative style), so click over there and read the whole thing.  It's so important a topic that I urge you to do so.  Here's an excerpt to whet your appetite.

The Good

They've vaccinated nearly 125K people, with an experimental vaccine that appears to confer >99% effectiveness against Ebola. (For the 1K or less people who contracted it anyways, don't worry, most of them are dead now.)

The Bad

1) Despite vaccinations, progressing at some 1000 per day, for a non-zero number of cases (currently it's something like 5% of all new cases), they have no effing clue where a given case originated, and thus no wild idea whom to vaccinate, or how to throw up a suitable containment ring around them, or how the virus got past them.

2) They are tracing contacts in 17 health zones. The problem with that is there are 22 health zones (think of counties) with active Ebola cases in the last couple of weeks. Imagine being missed by 17 out of 22 cars as you cross in a crosswalk, and you begin to appreciate why this is a problem.

In the five other zones (23%) where there is zero contact tracing, they have no idea what the disease is doing.

The Ugly

In this current outbreak, in 50% of cases, fever as a presenting sign is completely absent.

(Fever, we remind you, is how grade-school dropout customs screeners in 126 countries check people at the airports for Ebola before letting them in. Including our TSA wizards here in the U.S. It's really the only thing they can check that can be mastered by 80 IQ government employees worldwide. Sleep tight.)

There's much more at the link.  Go read it all.

Aesop is also right about the uselessness of most simple, practical health preventive measures that individuals or families can take against Ebola.  If this breaks loose, self-quarantine will be the only option offering any hope for those caught in a local epicenter of the disease.  If you had to lock the doors of your home and the gates to your property, and keep out the rest of the world for a few weeks, could you and your family survive that long on the food and other essentials you currently have in your pantry and emergency stocks?  Could you enforce the no-visitors ban (a.k.a. "repel boarders") if "borrowing neighbors" come a-calling?

If the answer is "No", you need to do something about it.  NOW.

Peter

Sunday morning music

A couple of weeks ago, I put up a classical guitar video.  It seems to have been favorably received, so I thought I'd combine two loves - baroque music, and medieval/Renaissance stringed instruments - and devote a Sunday morning music post to them. Here are four pieces that caught my fancy.

First, using a replica of a baroque guitar with 9 strings made by Peter Biffin of Australia, here's Miguel Rincón playing "Fandangos", a piece by Santiago de Murcia from his Codice Salvidar.

Here's the same artist playing two pieces, both titled "Passacaglia", on a medieval lute.  The first is by Robert de Visée;  the second is by Giovanni Girolamo Kapsperger.

Next, here's Jordi Savall, renowned for his revival of the medieval viol, an ancestor of modern stringed instruments such as the cello and double bass.  He teams with lute player Rolf Lislevand to play a medieval version of, and variations on, "Greensleeves".

Finally, to end on an upbeat note, here's part of the L'Arpeggiata ensemble performing "Tarantella Napoletana" by Athanasius Kircher, a polymath who in his day was compared to Leonardo da Vinci for the depth, range and scope of his interests.

Lovely pieces, aren't they?

Peter

I've heard of spaghetti Westerns, but a spaghetti car chase???

This rather baffling car chase comes from a movie titled, in English, "Strange Shadows in an Empty Room".  In Britain it was re-titled "Blazing Magnum", and in Italy, "Una magnum special per Tony Saitta".  It wasn't well received.  According to Wikipedia:

In a retrospective review, AllMovie stated that the film has "plenty of slick visuals and action but makes little sense: The script is a chaotic jumble of half-baked mystery" and that it is "never convincing or believable for a second and is further hurt by a lack of sympathetic characters". The review concluded that "Strange Shadows in an Empty Room can only be recommended to hardcore Eurotrash buffs."

The car chase certainly seems to fit that description.  (It's from the Italian version of the movie, hence the dialog.)  I've never seen cars so badly damaged continue to run for so long!  I wonder how many were used up while filming it?

Oh, well.  That's entertainment, I guess!

Peter

Mexico's president meets reality, and doesn't like it

Mexican President Lopez Obrador is apparently peeved with US President Trump over the latter's economic retaliation against Mexico for not stemming the tide of illegal alien border-jumpers.

In a pointed letter released Thursday, López Obrador lashed out at Trump for what he described as the U.S. president's "turning the United States, overnight, from a country of brotherly love for immigrants from around the world, to a bolted space, where there's stigmatizing, mistreatment, abuse, persecution, and a denial of the right to justice to those who seek -- with sacrifice and hard work -- to live free from misery."

López Obrador said that “social problems are not solved with duties or coercive measures,” and alluded to the United States’ history as a nation of immigrants: “The Statue of Liberty is not an empty symbol.”

He added in the letter, which he provided a link to on his Twitter account, that in contrast to Trump's approach, Mexico is doing its part to avoid migration through its territory as much as possible, without violating human rights.

“People don’t leave their homelands for pleasure but out of necessity," the Mexican leader said.

There's more at the link.

That's a fine note of righteous indignation, to be sure.  Unfortunately, it doesn't square with Lopez Obrador's far-left-wing credentials and previous pronouncements.  For example:

• “Soon, very soon, after the victory of our movement, we will defend migrants all over the American continent and the migrants of the world who, by necessity, must abandon their towns to find life in the United States,” Lopez Obrador said during a rally in the Mexican city of Culiacán ... “It’s a human right we will defend,” he added.
• Lopez Obrador said on Thursday tackling illegal immigration is an issue chiefly for the United States and Central America to address ... Mexico would help to check the flow of migrants heading north, but that his country was no longer the main driver of the phenomenon ... "That is, this is a problem of the United States, or it's a problem of the Central American countries. It's not up to us Mexicans, no ... I just emphasize that migration flows of Mexicans to the United States are very low, a lot lower," he said. "The Mexican is no longer seeking work in the United States. The majority are inhabitants of our fellow Central American countries."

That doesn't sound like a man seriously trying to address the issue, does it?

American Thinker pointed out last year:

To be sure, AMLO is only saying out loud what every other Mexican president believed in his heart: that America is Mexico's "social safety net" and that it's up to the U.S. taxpayer to take care of Mexico's unemployable, destitute millions.

Unsaid by AMLO is the implication of a mass migration of Mexicans to the U.S.  The not so secret dream of every Mexican government is that illegals flooding into America will eventually allow for a "return" of California and much of the American southwest to Mexico.

What makes this socialist different, however, is his novel argument that entering the U.S. illegally is actually a "human right."  That's an opinion we could have a lot of fun with.  One would assume that if it were a "human right" to illegally enter the U.S., it would then be a human right to enter Mexico – or any other country, for that matter.

Again, more at the link.

If the United States allowed unfettered, unrestricted access to aliens intent on crossing Canada's southern border, Canada would rightly protest as strongly as possible, and probably take the US to international courts, the United Nations, and any other avenue of action it could think of, to stem the tide.  If the US were to do the same to Mexico (assuming sufficient numbers of the insane could be found that are willing to enter that criminal-violence-plagued nation), Mexico would protest equally strongly.  Why, then is Lopez Obrador surprised to find a similar reaction from the US?

The stability of Mexico is dependent on one single thing:  its access to the US market.  That includes both production in Mexico that's exported north, and money sent home by its citizens in America (most of them here illegally), which amounts to a staggering $25-billion-plus (yes, that's "Billion" with a "B") every year.  Without that access and that cash flow, the Mexican economy would collapse.  That's the plain and simple truth - and that's what President Trump is now using as leverage.

If tariffs on Mexican imports don't work, President Trump can turn to the remittances sent to that country by people in the USA.  That would hurt even more than tariffs. He can't tax them without a new law passed by Congress, which isn't going to happen while Democrats control the House.  However, he can stop the flow altogether on national security grounds (for which, I submit, a mass invasion by illegal aliens, such as is now going on, could be more than sufficient grounds).  That would mess up Mexico's economy almost overnight.

I hope, for the sake of his country, that Lopez Obrador gets the picture, straightens up and flies right.  If he doesn't, Mexico is about to get squeezed . . . and I don't see any reason why it shouldn't.  If our positions were reversed, I'm sure it would try to do the same thing.

Peter