Joe Biden defines both political extremes at once

Joe Biden yesterday defined much of current American politics in the simplest possible way.

"We choose truth over facts".  Sounds utterly daft, because by definition, truth is fact, whereas "facts" that are not true aren't facts, but fiction.  Nevertheless, it fits the extremist mindset perfectly.  What is "true" is what conforms to how they think the world should be - whether or not the world really is that way.  If it's not the way they want the world to be then, even if it's factually true, it's not "the truth" - which, of course, only they possess.

You can see that right now in the clamor for more gun control in the wake of the three mass shootings last week.  Factual discussion of whether or not their proposals will actually work is neither here nor there - in fact, it's a waste of time.  The extremists on both sides - those who want more gun control, and those who insist that not one more gun law is acceptable - all want it their way, and they want it now, and they refuse to even consider any alternative.

The moonbats on the left are as guilty of this as the wingnuts on the right.  The neocons and ultra-nationalists on the right are just as ideologically hidebound and narrow-minded as the socialists and communists on the left.  (And, of course, all extremists, of whatever ilk, are fundamentally untrustworthy.  If someone can't even try to see the world through another person's eyes, or walk a mile in their shoes, they're unlikely to come up with solutions that work across the human, political, social and economic spectra.)

"We choose truth over facts."  Sheesh!




Peter

Personal safety during a mass shooting

I've seen a lot of comment among more gung-ho denizens of the Internet after the three mass shooting incidents last week.  It can be summed up as "Always carry your gun, and if someone starts shooting, shoot back!"

Shooting back is not always a good idea.  It may be one's only option, if worse comes to worst;  but that still doesn't necessarily make it a good one.

Let's start by examining a scenario like the Walmart shooting in El Paso.  Around where I live, I can be pretty sure that there will be several persons in our local Walmart branches who have concealed weapons permits, and are armed.  I'll be one of them, of course.  Now, Joe Scumbag walks in the front door and starts shooting.  We're scattered throughout the store, so most of us won't know exactly who's shooting and from what position.  We also don't know each other.  We can hear the shots, we can hear people screaming in panic, we can see them running . . . but where's the shooter?

Let's assume that I, nearest the shooter, see what's going on, draw my weapon, and neutralize him.  At the same time, other concealed weapons holders are drawing their weapons and moving towards the threat.  They come around the ends of shelving racks, or down the aisle, or whatever, and they see me pointing a gun at a man on the ground - perhaps still shooting at him.  They can't necessarily see his gun, and they don't know he's the bad guy.  All they see is a man with a gun - me.  What's their reaction likely to be?  You guessed it.  At least some of them may light me up without waiting to ask questions.

I'm not saying you shouldn't stop a threat if it materializes.  That may be a plain and simple necessity, to save your life or the lives of others near you.  However, if you take action, you may be seen - by people nearby, and by responding cops - as part of the problem, simply because you have a gun in your hand.  You'd better plan on putting it down at once, as soon as the threat is past, and standing very still, with your hands in plain view, until responding officers have secured the scene and your firearm.  Obey every order they give, and don't try to explain until they give you time to do so.  If you don't, you may end up as yet another victim.

(EDITED TO ADD:  Precisely that happened to Emantic Fitzgerald “EJ” Bradford Jr. at a shopping mall in Alabama in 2017.  Go read the details for yourself.  He was shot and killed by a police officer as he turned back to aid a victim of a shooting, with his legally carried personal firearm in his hand.)

If you're not in the immediate vicinity of the shooter, and you have your family with you, then as a private citizen, your primary responsibility is to them, not to public safety.  You should be heading for the nearest exit with them - or, if that would take you closer to the danger area, head the other way, looking for an emergency exit, or better cover, or a place where you can put yourself between them and danger and cover any avenue(s) of approach for the bad guy.  If you try to play the hero, even if you succeed, the odds of you becoming a casualty are not small - particularly if you have a small, concealable handgun against the shooter's semi-auto rifle or shotgun.  What will your family think of your heroics then?

It's always a good idea to maintain situational awareness.  Do you know where the emergency exits, loading dock, and rear doors are to the supermarket(s) where you most frequently shop?  If not, why not?  Learn their location now, and keep it in mind.  In the stress and panic of an emergency situation, you won't have time to look for them.  If trouble strikes, head for them right away, herding your family ahead of you, where you can see them and make sure they don't stray.  Don't trust them to follow you.  In a situation like that, it's too easy to get separated.

If you have small children with you, that's going to make it very difficult to deploy a handgun.  They'll scream, and cling, and demand attention, just at the moment when you can't afford to give it to them.  It'll almost always be better to get them out of danger, and concentrate on that mission, rather than try to fight around, or over, or through them.

However, don't let those factors deter you from carrying a gun.  I almost never leave the house without a gun on my person, and following last weekend's events, I've resolved to cut out the "almost never".  I want to be armed whenever and wherever I go, except where legally forbidden, so that if Joe Scumbag decides to look for targets there, I can give him an incentive to stop.  Fortunately, I live in a state and a city where that's entirely legal, and where many of my fellow residents do likewise.  If it's legally possible for you to do the same, I most strongly recommend it to you.  If it's not legal where you live . . . well, I can't encourage you to break the law.  I can only remind you of the old saying, "It's better to be judged by twelve than carried by six".

Finally, I repeat the sage advice of John Farnam, which we've seen in these pages on several occasions.  It's as true today as it ever was.

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

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

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

I couldn't agree more.  As for supermarkets and the like, see the last line of the second paragraph cited.  "Spend only the minimum time necessary there and then quickly get out."  That could save your life.

Peter

This is so cute it's ridiculous!

Over at Daily Timewaster, I found a GIF image that had me laughing out loud.  A little searching located the video clip from which it was taken.  Behold a really hungry baby beagle!

The poor critter's trying to wag his backside off, and eat all the food, and not fall off the couch - all at the same time!  Talk about a doggie dilemma . . .




Peter

"Red Flag" laws: between a rock and a hard place

I think the growing outcry to pass a national "Red Flag Law", allowing authorities to temporarily confiscate the firearms of those suspected of intending to use them illegally, is fraught with peril.  It's a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation.

Those who are Constitutional strict constructionists (including yours truly) argue that such laws ignore due process, and frequently convict someone of being a risk to society before they have an opportunity to respond.  Others, who regard the Constitution as more of a "living document" (and therefore malleable), maintain that the safety of society is more important than strict legal niceties, and therefore a temporary infringement on an individual's rights is preferable to the danger of "gun violence" (a meaningless term;  violence is violence, whether a gun is used or not - but it makes for a useful TV sound bite, so they use it).

The trouble is, I can see both sides here.  Neither side is entirely right, and neither is entirely wrong.

I certainly agree that an individual's rights, as guaranteed by the Fourth Amendment, are, indeed, fundamental to what it means to be an American.  Any organ of government violating those rights risks undermining, if not overturning, the entire Constitution, which is "an aggregate of fundamental principles or established precedents that constitute the legal basis of a polity, organisation or other type of entity, and commonly determine how that entity is to be governed".  If those fundamental principles are ignored, the polity (our nation) no longer has a firm legal basis.  It's as important as that.

Any attempt to take away rights guaranteed to the citizen is therefore, at its root, inimical to the basic principles of our Republic.  However, the fact remains that our Founding Fathers recognized that it might be necessary to do so, for the good of the people.  That's why they included in the Constitution a means to do so, if it became necessary.  If they'd been absolutists, dead set against ever allowing that, they would not have included such a means.  That's basic logic.  Instead, they hedged around that necessity with significant and serious qualifications, designed to prevent rights being taken away except in truly justifiable circumstances.

Sadly, in recent decades the means they provided in the Fourth Amendment - "no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized" - have increasingly been honored in the breach as much as in the observance.  For example:

• Blank warrants have been signed by judges who are too close to law enforcement agencies, departments and individuals.  Some have been issued verbally, even over the phone, without sufficient evidence that they are, in fact, justified and necessary.  (See here for one recent example.)
• Police have misled judges by supplying incomplete or false information to obtain a warrant.  (Example here.)
• Informants have conveyed false information, for reward or to avoid punishment, that has been used to obtain warrants - in some cases, leading to the deaths of innocent people.  (Example here.)
• Many warrants have been later overturned in court for being unacceptably broad or vague, allowing investigating officers to get away with confiscating anything or arresting anyone, rather than sufficiently precise to identify exactly who or what was subject to the warrant.  (Example here.)

Therefore, the Fourth Amendment has already been undermined to a great extent.  It's no longer the "gold standard" against which law enforcement conduct is universally measured.

That easing of enforcement of Fourth Amendment standards contributes to why a Red Flag Law is so tricky.  Like a search or arrest warrant, it'll rely on the honesty and good faith of those laying the complaint or charge.  If they aren't honest, or aren't acting in good faith, what immediate recourse does the victim have?  We've all heard of cases where one or both individuals in a divorce case allege that the other party has threatened them, or is violent towards them, and request (a) protective order(s).  It's often no more than a legal tactic, designed to make their case look stronger in court.  I've had to deal with several such situations as a pastor, and they're poisonous, to put it mildly.  Nevertheless, they happen . . . and there's nothing to stop them happening under Red Flag laws, too.  A false or malicious complaint still results in the victim losing his or her firearms, unless and/or until he/she can persuade the court to return them.  If they should happen to need them in the interim, that's just too bad for them.

The element of malice is all too real in interactions with law enforcement.  I'm sure my readers are aware of what's known as "swatting" - making a false report to the police of violent or threatening behavior, so that a SWAT team is sent to arrest the alleged perpetrator.  An innocent man was killed that way not too long ago.  I'm certain that those with a grudge against someone will use Red Flag laws against them, possibly in conjunction with allegations of violent threats or behavior, in order to get their victims into as much trouble as possible.

The way to avoid such issues is to implement strict observance and (original) Fourth Amendment standards in the issuing of search and/or confiscation warrants, including under Red Flag laws.  However, we've already seen evidence that such strict observance is no longer always applied.  Sure, the victim of confiscation can establish that after the fact, and get his/her guns back, and seek restitution and/or recompense;  but in the meantime, he/she is S.O.L.  They have no immediate recourse.  Their constitutional rights will have been violated.  To strict constructionists, that's absolutely unacceptable - and I agree.

On the other hand, I can see the point of view of those who say that if there are clear warning signs, it's better to protect innocent life by confiscating weapons as a precaution, rather than allow a potential murder to happen.  However, the questions that raises are significant.

• What are "clear warning signs"?  Who defines them?  Who says they're warning signs?  On what evidence?  On what authority?  Legally, it takes a medical professional to diagnose mental instability or disease.  Can the word of non-qualified observers be given equivalent weight in law?  What if family members report that someone is "mumbling to himself" while cleaning his gun?  That may be completely innocent behavior - no threat at all.  Can - should - a judge or magistrate act on such information?
• Where and when do Red Flag laws apply?  If someone's sitting on the porch of their home, cradling a loaded firearm in their hands, threatening to shoot the next person who comes down the sidewalk, I don't think anyone would argue that's not a "clear warning sign"!  On the other hand, one doesn't need a Red Flag law to intervene in that situation.  Existing criminal law will suffice.  In what "gray area" would Red Flag laws intervene before criminal laws are broken?
• What evidence of a potential threat would be considered a sufficient threshold to invoke the provisions of a Red Flag law?  The Fourth Amendment sets a high barrier.  Should Red Flag laws be written to that standard, or a looser one?
• What about the rights of the gun-owner?  Are they to be negated because he may have ignorant or paranoid family members?
• What's to stop criminals from using Red Flag laws against their intended victims?  If they persuade someone to complain that Joe Richman has sworn at them, and waved a gun in their direction, and they're in fear of their lives, the Red Flag law will be implemented, and Joe Richman will lose his guns.  While he's going to court to get them back, the criminals can target his home without fear of being shot, because he no longer has the tools to defend himself.  You think that won't happen?  If so, I have this bridge in Brooklyn, NYC to sell you.  Cash only, please, and in small bills.

This is where Constitutional rights, norms and protections run headlong into the very real threat to public safety posed by unstable individuals.  In an ideal world, the latter would not override the former;  but we don't live in an ideal world.  We live in a world where mass shootings appear to be getting more frequent, and people are more and more afraid of being caught up in one.  One can insist on legal and Constitutional rights all one likes;  but when the answer is to direct our attention to the broken, bleeding bodies in Gilroy, and El Paso, and Dayton . . . that's a very, very powerful argument to many (perhaps most) Americans.  Anyone who thinks it's not, doesn't understand the reality of the present situation.  As far as many of our fellow citizens are concerned, the bodies and the blood on the ground have trumped Constitutional theory.  Feelings have trumped legal principles.  We may believe that's wrong (and I do) . . . but it's also a reality we ignore at our peril.

There's another factor.  I believe firmly that the Second Amendment to the US constitution, guaranteeing the right to keep and bear arms, is sacrosanct.  Indeed, the Amendment does not convey that right - it recognizes a pre-existing right, which it merely codifies.  However, I guarantee you one thing.  If no Red Flag laws are passed on a national level, and soon, their absence will become yet another weapon in the arsenal of those who want to abolish the Second Amendment entirely.  That doesn't make it right, of course;  but it's nevertheless a real threat.

It's even more of a threat because Red Flag laws are often used to assuage the feelings of those who demand that government "do something" to keep them safe.  (The fact that no government measure can keep everybody safe, all the time, is neither here nor there.)  If those feelings are not assuaged, in today's climate, more and more Americans may become willing to sacrifice the Second Amendment on the altar of expediency.  I confidently predict that'll become an ever more constant theme in the publicity barrage from those opposed to private firearms ownership.

We have to admit that those who want a way to remove firearms from those who are potentially threatening to society, or mentally unstable, have a point.  Recent events make that terrifyingly clear.  However, there's the equal and opposite reality that each of us has rights, ratified in the Constitution, that are legally protected.  We weaken those protections at our peril.

Irresistible force, meet immovable object.  Feelings, meet facts.  Who's going to win?  Your guess is as good as mine . . . but right now, feelings are dominant in the public forum.

Peter

In case you hadn't heard, Lawdog is blogging again

Friend, fellow blogger and fellow writer Lawdog has started blogging again after a long hiatus.  He's got several articles up recently, and is trying to post several times every week.

If you've missed his (frequently pungent and often hilarious) blogging, you don't have to go on missing it any longer.  Click over there and enjoy!

Peter

Why government can't solve the mass shooting problem

Time and again, in normal life or extreme difficulties, we see how outside assistance can be unwelcome, or abused, or lead to all sorts of complications (the famous law of unintended consequences).  We've spoken of some of them in these pages before, most recently the result of local governments subsidizing homelessness.

We're seeing it again now, in the reaction of politicians and community leaders to the mass shootings in Gilroy, CA;  El Paso, TX;  and Dayton, OH.  Almost without exception, they're calling for more laws, rules and regulations to be passed.  The fact that we already have myriad laws, rules and regulations, and that the shooters broke dozens of existing laws without being deterred or stopped by them, is never mentioned.  That's an inconvenient reality that they'd rather ignore.  What's more, many of our fellow citizens adopt that approach, too.  They want their politicians to "do something" - even though everything they've already done has proved to be ineffective.

The simple truth is that the solution to mass shootings of this sort does not lie in government hands, or even in law enforcement hands.  Government and cops can't be everywhere, all the time - but we are.  It's up to us to be aware of our surroundings, and equipped to deal with any threat that may arise.  How many of us, after the shooting at a Walmart supermarket in El Paso, decided to get our concealed carry permit, and from now onward go armed, to defend ourselves and those with us when we do our grocery shopping?  If you didn't, you're effectively consenting to be a victim in such an environment - because there is something practical you can do about it, but you've chosen, by your inaction, not to do anything.  Don't blame the government if you find yourself caught up in a similar situation.  They didn't send the shooter.

That's a hard, painful lesson to learn . . . but isn't it the exact and literal truth?

When governments try to "help" by passing laws, they frequently miss the mark, because their "help" is, by definition, one-size-fits-all.  They can't tailor it to a specific place, or population, or situation.  They operate on an overall scale that fits the whole country.  What might be worthwhile in a major urban center might not fit a small farming community, and vice versa.  What works in the inner city might fail in suburbia.  There are too many differences for a "one-size-fits-all" solution to be universally effective.  What's more, some legislatively mandated solutions in one area - e.g. psychotropic drugs to treat perceived mental problems - can cause problems in another.  Did you know that almost every mass shooter in the past couple of decades had been legally prescribed, and was using, psychotropic medication?  It's true.  Correlation, or causation?  I'm willing to bet on the latter.

That applies in other areas, too.  Jeffrey Tucker points out that "Sometimes Helping People Is the Worst Thing You Can Do".

Economist James Buchanan coined the phrase “Samaritan’s dilemma.” It comes from the Biblical parable in which the generous merchant helped the man beaten and lying on the road. He pays the medical bills and gets him back on his feet. Good man.

But let’s imagine a part two. The word gets out. Next time the Samaritan travels the same road, there are three, four, and five people in need of money, medical attention, and a safe place to spend the night. He helps them. They multiply tenfold on the next trip. Pretty soon, the problem becomes obvious. In order to re-adjust incentives, the Samaritan has to say no. He has to withdraw the aid. To help, he needs to stop helping.

This is a very difficult decision. Aid cannot be without limit, and it cannot be expected else it becomes abuse of the giver and contrary to the interests of the recipient.

. . .

There is no hard-and-fast rule on how much help is too much help, no precise point at which you have gone too far and caused more of the very problem you are trying to fix.

Still, it is utterly foolish not to admit that the Samaritan's dilemma is real. It is part of life as we know it, and it appears everywhere. It’s the great problem faced by anyone who seeks to do good.

There's more at the link.

The Samaritan's Dilemma applies to every government action, financial or otherwise.  Laws may help to resolve an issue . . . or they may make it worse.  (See psychotropic medications, mentioned above.)  If we expect government to give us the solution to all the problems of human nature, we're doomed to disappointment.  Humans are individuals, and individuals differ.  Treat everyone as a broad mass of humanity, without individuality, and your program, your solution, your law, will soon break down.

Besides, if you give government that sort of power, you leave yourself open to a greater danger.  As the late President Ford pointed out, "A government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take from you everything you have".  I'm willing to bet that a legislated solution to mass shootings will end up by confiscating all legal firearms, without exception - because without guns, there can be no shootings, right?  The fact that only the law-abiding will hand in their guns, leaving millions out there in the hands of those who don't abide by any laws anyway . . . well, that's just an inconvenient reality that we'll have to gloss over, won't we?  (Mexico, with draconian restrictions on legal firearms ownership and just one gun shop in the entire nation, is a good example of how such laws work out in practice, as Karl Denninger explains.)  Universal, legislated disarmament merely makes us all victims, at the mercy of criminals and other predators who will not disarm.

You can't legislate behavior or morality, because there will always be those who behave as they please, and concoct their own "morality" in which whatever they want to do is right, and all the rest of us (and our laws) are wrong.

Peter

Not approved by special snowflakes

A bear killed a deer, because it was hungry.  Normal behavior, of course;  that's what bears do.  The difference, in this case, is that it did so in someone's back yard - right in the middle of Colorado Springs suburbia.

WARNING:  The video is VERY graphic, both visually and audibly.  Don't play this near small kids or those who are squeamish.

What's astonished me about that video is not the fact that it happened so close to human habitation - it's the response from the special snowflake brigade.  I've seen comments in some quarters about how cruel the bear was, and how the bear should have been shot to save the deer, and how evil it is that a living being should have to be food for another, and so on and so on.  (Miss D. tells of an adult acquaintance who had an absolute full-on hysterical meltdown in the middle of a supermarket after being informed that yes, beef does come from what she still, as an adult, called "moo-cows"!)

What is wrong with us, that we don't bring up our kids to realize that this is NORMAL?  Our nice, soft, fluffy domestic cats kill small animals and birds like this day in, day out.  Deer become prey at least several thousand times every day in this country, to predators that include ourselves (using vehicles and/or guns).  We nice, civilized humans don't often kill our meat ourselves - we outsource the tasks to slaughterhouses and butcheries, where it's done in a "sanitized" manner;  but it's killing nonetheless.  In Africa, where I was born and raised, humans all too often end up on the menu of something bigger, stronger and faster than they are - lions, leopards, crocodiles, hippo and the like.  The tiny mosquito probably kills more people every year than all other animals and insects put together - and it does so by feeding on us, just as that bear fed on that deer!

Now and again nature slaps us in the face with the reminder that it really is "red in tooth and claw", and most living things, plant or animal, will end up as food for something else.  That's the natural order of things.  Animals don't retire on pension at the end of a long and happy life, to die peacefully in their beds!  Almost all of them will die of disease, or starvation, or by being killed and eaten.  It's always been that way, and it always will.

The sooner we start reminding the special snowflakes among us of that reality, the better.  As it is, they're not grounded in reality at all, be it in connection with food and drink, or the way the world works in general.  They think the world is unicorn farts and rainbows.  That's why they keep hurting themselves when they run headlong into reality.  The problem is, when that happens, they try to pass laws that proclaim the world really is unicorn farts and rainbows - or it will be, if the rest of us will just do as they say.  When that doesn't work, they don't blame the world.  They blame us, for not trying hard enough, and pass more laws to try to force us to remake the world as they want it to be.

Ain't gonna happen.  Reality doesn't work that way.

Peter

Doofus Of The Day #1,050

Today's award goes to basketball player D. J. Cooper, an American competing in Europe.

Cooper had to undergo a doping control to potentially join the Bosnian national team as a naturalized player. The test results on the urine that Cooper provided as his own, revealed that he’s… pregnant. More precisely, the presence of “gHC”, a hormone the placenta produces after impregnation, was detected in the urine sample.

FIBA immediately suspended the player for fraud. Cooper’s punishment will keep him out of courts until June 20, 2020.

There's more at the link.

It seems Mr. Cooper "borrowed" his girlfriend's urine for the sample he had to provide.  Neither of them was apparently aware (at the time) of the little bundle of joy on its way to them.

Could his suspension be termed a "pregnant pause" in Mr. Cooper's career?




Peter

A snappy answer to a stupid question

In the wake of last weekend's mass shootings, Bette Midler tweeted:

Brian Cates promptly replied:

Says it all, doesn't it?  The perfect answer to a demented leftist's refusal to face reality.  Sadly, comparing the likes/reposts/etc. of the two tweets shows the dominance of left-wing thought on that particular channel.  It's no wonder so many conservative and right-wing voices are being banned from it.  Its denizens simply don't want to be challenged by any view different from their own.  They want their own insular echo chamber, nothing more.

Speaking of refusal to face reality, astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson ran into that when he tweeted last weekend:

That's a perfectly valid point, truthful and unarguable - unless you're a leftist wanting to use the twin tragedies in El Paso and Dayton as propaganda fodder.  He was pilloried in the mainstream media and progressive commentaries, because he wasn't "getting with their program" and blaming those they want to demonize.  Instead, he pointed out the sober reality of the matter.  For that, he has my thanks, and my respect for being willing to take a stand for the truth.

What's the old saying?  "There are none so blind as those who will not see."  Looking at all the progressives trying to make hay out of last weekend's mass shootings, it's eerily descriptive of them, isn't it?

Peter

Happy book news - and another new book is out!

Last night was celebration time for Miss D. and myself.  "Taghri's Prize", my latest novel, has been on sale for just nine days.  As of the time of writing, it's hit #1 on Amazon's Hot New Releases list for Historical Fantasy!

It's also at #13 on Amazon's Hot New Releases list for Epic Fantasy, and #11 on the Hot New Releases list for Sword & Sorcery Fantasy (both, again, at the time of writing).

That's the first time I've reached the top of any Amazon book ranking list. Color me happy! Thank you very much to all of my readers.  Your support made this possible.

Of course, the book won't stay that highly ranked.  The Hot New Releases lists change almost by the hour, so by the time you read this, "Taghri's Prize" may be ranked differently.  Nevertheless, I'm very happy with progress so far.  I'd feared I might face an uphill battle to re-establish my readership, after a year-long layoff due to ill health.  Fortunately, it looks like most of my readers have stayed with me, and are still willing to buy my books.  Believe me, I'm grateful!

I'd like to ask a special favor, please.  If you've read "Taghri's Prize" (or any of my books), would you please leave an honest review of it at the book's page on Amazon?  Potential customers rely on reviews to guide their buying decisions.  The more there are, the better understanding they'll have of whether the book will appeal to them or not.  The new book has ten reviews, but it's sold hundreds of copies.  I'd love to see all those readers leave reviews!  Thanks.

Today (August 6th) sees the launch of a new anthology set in Tom Kratman's Carreraverse.  It's titled "Terra Nova:  The Wars of Liberation", published by Baen Books.  I'm one of the contributors.

The blurb reads:

New stories set in Tom Kratman's hard-hitting Carrera military sf
series.

"Send us your tired, your poor," says the inscription at the base of the great statue, "your huddled masses yearning to be free."

But the future of the colony planet, Terra Nova, and its relations with Old Earth is far more a case of boot out your tired, your poor, your dissidents and troublemakers. Use us for a dumping ground for all your problems. Go ahead and abandon these here. This may have been fine, too, but for the UN and its corrupt bureaucracy insisting on maintaining control and milking the new world and its settlers, willing and unwilling both, bone dry.

Contained herein are tales of the history of Mankind's future first colony, from the first failed attempt at colonization, to the rise in crime, to the rise in terrorism, to its descent into widespread civil war and rebellion...and ultimately liberation. As with most of human history, this history is messy, with good men and women turning bad, bad men and women inadvertently doing good, and blood flowing in the streets.

Stories set in Tom Kratman’s Carrera series by
     Kasey Ezell
     Mike Massa
     Rob Hampson
     Chris Smith
     Peter Grant
     Chris Nuttall
     Justin Watson
     Monalisa Foster
     Alex Macris
     Lawrence Railey
     and Tom Kratman

I had a lot of fun writing my contribution to the anthology.  I hope you enjoy it.  It's a different twist on what can drive men to fight . . . and how the defense of freedom is a constant, anywhere, at any time.

The third volume in the Ames Archives series of Western novels, "Gold on the Hoof", will be published later this month.  I'm hard at work on the third and final volume of the Laredo War trilogy, titled "Knife to the Hilt";  the sixth volume of the Maxwell Saga, "Venom Strike", is about four-tenths complete;  and I'm preparing an omnibus volume of the first three books in the latter series.  I'm also working with Tom Kratman on a joint novel that should come to fruition, God willing, by next year.  To cap it all, I'm preparing print editions of "Taghri's Prize", the Cochrane's Company trilogy, and the new Western.  All I need now is time to eat and sleep!

Peter

The best comment I've yet seen on the El Paso and Dayton shootings

A tip o' the hat to Stilton Jarlsberg (obviously, a pseudonym) for his insightful comments on last weekend's mass shootings.  Here's an excerpt.

These gruesome murders are not about, nor caused by, politics. Rather, they are the unavoidable and perhaps unstoppable product of a deeply diseased culture. A culture which has become the perfect growth medium for psychopathy.

. . .

After all, who's going to notice or care about garden variety insanity in a world which routinely describes everyone as murderous: baby killers on one side, Earth-destroying Nazis on the other. The stakes are absolute, the "other" is the enemy, and words are just words . . . until they become actions.

The social mechanisms which formerly prevented these massacres have crumbled. The bonds of family, friendship, and faith. A shared sense of community. Optimism about the future. Moral certainty and personal responsibility.

Instead, we now live in a crowded world of communal loners, all staring at their phones instead of the world and people around them. Politicians and media figures preach an unsubtle and dangerously divisive message of absolutes: you are either on this side or that, either all good or all evil. There is no middle ground - only calls for action. Calls that the wrong people are hearing.

There's more at the link.

I highly recommend clicking over to Stilton's place to read the whole thing.  It's worth it.

Peter

Doofus Of The Day #1,049

Today's award goes to a particularly dense Canadian politician wannabe.  A tip o' the hat to Small Dead Animals for finding her tweet.

Take a closer look at the last photograph. Click the image below for a larger view.

She's wearing high heeled boots on slippery rocks, and there's no fishing line on either the reel or the rod!  Can you say "political poser"?  I thought you could . . . and proven to be one by her own tweet!  I daresay her opponent(s) are printing poster-size copies of that photograph right now, and rubbing their hands in glee at the drubbing they're about to give her.

(Click over to that Small Dead Animals article and read the comments there.  Some of them are merciless!)

Peter

Acid tests for any proposed solution to mass shootings

In the wake of the El Paso and Dayton shootings over the past weekend, politicians and pundits are already bloviating about the need for more gun control, and all the yadda-yadda-yadda we've become accustomed to hearing from them.  Mostly, they're dancing in the blood of the victims, seeking to build their own support on the back of their suffering, and offering "solutions" that are nothing of the sort.

Of course, almost all the "solutions" being advanced are not "solutions" at all, because they focus on tools rather than individuals.  As I wrote back in 2009, after the Winnenden school shooting in Germany:  "Again and again and again, the instrument is not the cause of the problem; the instrument is not guilty of the problem; and banning the instrument won't solve the problem!"  Go read that article for a more comprehensive treatment of the subject.

Here's a very simple series of questions to ask about any proposal to "solve" the problem of mass shootings through gun control.

1. Would the proposed solution have stopped the shooters in either of these incidents from obtaining a weapon and/or ammunition?  If so, how?  Be specific and practical in your answer.  If the proposed solution would only prevent the legal purchase of a firearm, but the perpetrator would still have been able to obtain one illegally (such as in the Sandy Hook school shooting, where the perpetrator stole the gun he used), then it will only be a minor inconvenience to him.  It won't stop him.
   
   
2. Would the perpetrators have been able to obtain a different weapon, in some other way, that would still have allowed them to wreak havoc?  If not a gun, what about gasoline to commit arson (as in the Happy Land attack), or knives to attack crowds (as, for example, in the 2017 London Bridge terrorist incident), or renting a heavy vehicle to ram it into a crowd (as in the Barcelona attacks of the same year)?  If the proposed solution doesn't address those issues, then at best it answers only a small part of the problem.
   
   
3. Would the proposed solution have prevented the shooters reaching their selected targets?  If so, how?  Be specific and practical in your answer.
   
   
4. Would the proposed solution have stopped the perpetrators firing on their victims?  If so, how?
   
   
5. If half or more of the above questions cannot be answered affirmatively, then why should we take the proposed solution seriously?

There are going to be lots of politicians arguing that we have to do something about the problem of mass shootings.  Mostly, they're posturing.  What they should be saying is that we need to do something effective about the problem of mass shootings . . . and that's a whole lot harder than merely pontificating.  If all they can do is bloviate and offer insincere, insubstantial, vague proposals that won't actually solve the problem, they're not worth your vote - or anyone else's.  In fact, I'd take that as a good sign that they need to be turfed out of office as quickly as possible, and replaced by someone more honest and objective.

Talk is cheap.  Workable solutions are very, very hard, and may be impossible.  That's reality.  Anyone who ignores that reality for political gain is pretty much a worthless human being, IMHO.

Peter

Sunday mourning music

No, that's not a spelling error in the title of this post.  With two mass shootings in the last 24 hours - at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, and at a bar in Dayton, Ohio - resulting in at least 29 innocent victims dead and dozens more injured, it's hard to be light-hearted and entertaining this morning.

For all those who died or were injured, and all those who mourn loss or try to help their family members recover, and all of their families and friends, and for all those who, out of simple humanity, mourn our shared loss, here's the Introit and Kyrie from Gabriel Fauré's Requiem in D Minor, Op. 48.

May the sins of all those who died be forgiven, and may they find eternal rest;  and may their families and loved ones find what comfort they may in so tragic a situation.

May all those who were wounded make as full a recovery as possible, and may their families receive all the assistance and support they need to cover all of the costs involved.

May this country not tear itself apart once more in an effort to pin blame on who- or whatever any commenter hates or dislikes, but instead unite in an effort to bridge and overcome the divisions and rising extremism that threaten all of us.

As for the perpetrators . . . I leave them to God's mercy, if that can apply to such as they.  If their actions were anything but deranged, insane outbursts, I don't know how much of that there can be for them.

For the rest of us, John Donne has the most appropriate words.

No man is an island, entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manor of thine own or of thine friend's were.
Each man's death diminishes me, for I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know for whom the bell tolls.
It tolls for thee.

Peter

Hunting the feral pizza!

Friend, fellow author and blogger Alma Boykin has written a very funny short story on her blog about hunting feral pizza.

Gina found the spot and set the box down. She shifted it until the shadow dapples broke up the straight lines of the trap’s edges. The brown blended into the soil, so she didn’t bother with the camouflage drape. Gina opened the fresh tub of bait, a fragrant blend of ranch dressing and bits of crust, and set it in the back of the box by the hinge. Then she triple checked the tranquilizer tips on the stabilizer mounted to the trap’s lid. When it dropped, the four darts hit the pizza in a soft area, injecting the calming blend into the tomato stream, while the stabilizer held the pizza down so it couldn’t flap up and hurt itself against the lid. No one paid decent money for lid-bruised pizzas, and it they’d shed some of their toppings? Gina sighed a little, remembering the month they’d run out of stabilizers. She’d almost starved.

Last of all Gina set the trap. She reeled a tiny wire, fine as a hair, out from the trigger and spool. A thin strip of clear plastic back by the hinge held the trap open, and she ran the end of the wire through a hole in the strip, then attached the break-away. When she pulled the trigger, the pressure on the break-away made it fail just after the hold-open slid out of its dents, letting her pull the wire out as the lid dropped. Gina found her watch spot, took up most of the slack in the wire, and sat down to wait.

Anyone could hunt pizzas, but trapping required patience most people lacked. Gina’s brothers still hunted for themselves, but she’d decided she preferred selling pizzas for breeding stock. She’d apprenticed with Lui and started from the bottom, folding traps and cleaning up the grease catchers, then worked her way up to assistant trapper. She watched, listening.

A breadstick slithered past, sniffing at the trap before moving on. Gina relaxed. Breadsticks in this area tended to avoid ranch bait, but marinara? She hid a shiver as she remembered finding Toni’s remains. He’d been using marinara, trying to catch an extra-large carnivore’s delight, when a big calzone showed up instead. He’d beaten it off, but the marinara spill brought what must have been hundreds of breadsticks out of hiding. Toni’d set his trap over an underground nest, poor bastard. Gina’d had nightmares for a week, and still didn’t like working with marinara unless she had backup. The harpoon gun she carried wouldn’t help in a breadstick swarm.

There's more at the link.

The story is wonderfully thought out, and wickedly amusing.  Go read the whole thing.  Just be warned . . . it might leave you hungry for more - pizza, that is!

Peter

"Refugees" as a weapon of international blackmail

It seems Turkey is again wielding the "weapon" of unleashing Middle Eastern "refugees" against Europe if it doesn't get what it wants.

Turkey has threatened to re-open the floodgates of mass migration to Europe unless Turkish nationals are granted visa-free travel to the European Union. The EU agreed to visa liberalization in a March 2016 EU-Turkey migrant deal in which Ankara pledged to stem the flow of migrants to Europe.

European officials insist that while Turkey has reduced the flow of migrants, it has not yet met all of the requirements for visa liberalization. Moreover, EU foreign ministers on July 15 decided to halt high-level talks with Ankara as part of sanctions over Turkish oil and gas drilling off the coast of Cyprus.

. . .

Turkish Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu accused European countries of leaving Turkey alone to deal with the migration issue. In comments published by the state news agency Anadolu Agency, he warned:

"We are facing the biggest wave of migration in history. If we open the floodgates, no European government will be able to survive for more than six months. We advise them not to try our patience."

The migration deal, which entered into force on June 1, 2016, was hastily negotiated by European leaders desperate to gain control over a crisis in which more than one million migrants poured into Europe in 2015.

Under the agreement, the EU pledged to pay Turkey €6 billion ($6.7 billion), grant visa-free travel to Europe for Turkey's 82 million citizens, and restart accession talks for Turkey to join the EU. In exchange, Turkey agreed to stop the flow of migrants to Europe as well as to take back all migrants and refugees who illegally reach Greece from Turkey.

Turkey currently hosts an estimated 3.5 million migrants and refugees — mainly Syrians, Iraqis and Afghans. Many of these people presumably would migrate to Europe if given the opportunity to do so.

There's more at the link.

Yep.  Turkey basically has Western Europe over a barrel on this issue.  Just look at the chaos and political upheaval caused by a mere million or so "refugees" streaming into that area in 2015/16, during the first wave of this crisis.  If Turkey unleashes two to three times that many this time around, several Western European governments are very unlikely to survive.

What's more, the citizens of Western Europe are likely to take matters into their own hands.  Already there are enough of them who are frankly disgusted with their governments' spineless caving in to so-called "refugees" (many of whom are not so much refugees as economic migrants).  As Tamara memorably put it a few years ago:

Euros have a proven zero-to-jackboots time lower than just about anybody on the planet. Get Gunter or Pierre all backed into a corner and feeling existentially threatened and you'll be wishing you hadn't, faster than you can say "Arbeit Macht Frei".

The present Turkish government is pro-terrorist (just look at what it's doing in Syria and Libya for evidence of that, particularly the latter country in the light of its colonial heritage there).  It's pro-fundamentalist Islam, anti-democratic (again, look what the Turkish president is doing to his internal opponents), and thoroughly untrustworthy.  It'll use any leverage it can get to achieve what it wants;  and if that means deploying refugees as political weapons in Europe, irrespective of the human suffering that may cause to said refugees, it'll do it in a heartbeat.

Western Europe has no such determination or singleness of purpose.  It's filled with waffling politicians who'll angst in public about their "dilemma", but won't defend their borders or their people from being overrun.  If that reminds you of some US politicians . . . it should.  They're cut from the same cloth.




Peter

It's time for the NRA leadership to face facts - and resign

The situation at the top of the National Rifle Association gets worse and worse.  After all the shenanigans revealed during the last annual meeting, the organization is effectively being run by a cabal consisting of Wayne LaPierre and his loyalists.  They're blocking anyone else from investigating the situation as it deserves, and closing ranks to keep their power and position, no matter what.

What's worse is that the LaPierre crew have apparently ignored due process, due diligence and the rule of law.  That last is looking more and more likely to bite them in the posterior, because New York State's Attorney-General is on the case, and apparently isn't about to let go.  There's at least circumstantial evidence suggesting that the NRA's Board of Directors ignored or neglected its fiduciary duties.  That has just led to the resignation of three directors, frustrated that their attempts to investigate the facts of the matter have been thwarted at every turn.

Tom Gresham put it in a nutshell in a newsletter a couple of weeks ago.  I think his views are so apposite, and so important, that I'm going to reproduce the whole thing here.

It’s time for Wayne LaPierre to retire.

I have put this off for a while as I waited to see how events would develop. The leaders at the NRA and I’m talking about YOU, the board of directors, as well as the hired help, have spent years … decades … setting up a system which gives key people massive financial rewards. In my view, it’s at least malfeasance, and it might even be corruption. Monster salaries, private jets, slush funds, insane budgets spent on TV shows, as well as PR and advertising campaigns designed to do nothing more than generate more funds which can be siphoned off for dubious programs, putting millions into the pockets of vendors (and maybe staffers and directors and even family members of Wayne must gokey staffers), have eroded the confidence of members and gun owners to the point where we now see a campaign of “no money until Wayne is gone.”

Whether he directed it, was part of it, or just didn’t see what was happening, this all metastasized under the watch of Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre. The buck stops there.

It has greatly jeopardized what most members believe should be the NRA’s core mission – protecting the Second Amendment and our gun rights. In fact, it looks as though the leadership has subverted the core mission into just making themselves rich.

In the world of corporate leadership, when the CEO has failed at this level it’s time for a new leader.

We need a strong NRA as we enter the 2020 election season. Yes, the NY AG office will continue its investigation, but we can’t realistically expect those who led this organization into the sorry state we now see to be the ones to fix it.

LaPierre now is a symbol of this financial meltdown. In short, no matter what is done, if he remains in this post (or has any role at the NRA), it is utterly impossible to restore the trust of the membership.

Wayne, if you care about the movement … if you care about the fight for gun rights -- recognize that you now constitute an impediment. Take your millions and retire. Staying on to fight the good fight won’t do.

Do the right thing.

I endorse Mr. Gresham's call.  It's time for Wayne LaPierre to resign, along with every loyalist who's enriched themselves at members' expense, or received any sort of perks or compensation, in cash or in kind, for enabling the high-level malfeasance of office that's been uncovered.

David Codrea goes even further.

Tom [Gresham] was always nicer than I am about such matters, more willing to give the benefit of the doubt. I’ll state flat-out NRA needs to fire LaPierre and turn its legal team loose on finding ways the executive vice president has breached his fiduciary duties in order to “revisit” contractual pension obligations “owed” him if he does bail. Because thanks to his “leadership,” they’re going to need the money.

Mr. Codrea also has a snippet of information that, if true, is likely to be damning.

Enough is enough.  Mr. LaPierre, you've got to go.  If you don't, then all your oft-expressed concern for the Second Amendment will be revealed as nothing more than a political ploy to enrich yourself at gun-owners' expense . . . and we're fed up with that.  We won't stand for any more of it.  One way or another, you're going to go.  Why not do it as gracefully, and as peacefully, as possible, before it's forced on you?

Peter

Vegans tackle cowboys - and lose

It seems cowboys, or gauchos as they're known there, are still common in parts of Argentina, and they enjoy a rodeo as much as their American counterparts.  Therefore, when vegan protesters tried to shut down a rodeo in that country, the gauchos were not amused - and showed it with whips and spurs!

The next time moonbat protesters try to shut down a freeway or an Interstate highway in this country, I think we should hire those gauchos to deal with them - preferably broadcasting it live on TV for (almost) everyone's viewing pleasure!




Peter

Extremism in America; over-hyped hobgoblin, or a real threat?

I find myself in a quandary writing this blog post.  On the one hand, I have to agree with H. L. Mencken's famous caution:

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

I don't want to discuss or propagate imaginary hobgoblins on this blog.  On the other hand, I've been discussing the current political turmoil in this country with several friends, some born here, others, like myself, immigrants who've seen and experienced a lot beyond America's borders.  It worries me that what the first group largely regard as "political hobgoblins" are taken much more seriously by those of us who've had wider experience.

Almost uniformly, those born here, particularly those who've never worked or served abroad, believe that extremist views on both the left and the right of US politics are just that - views.  They'll never become reality, because Americans will never allow that.  On the other hand, those of us born and raised abroad - particularly those who've experienced violent revolution, particularly of the Communist variety - think differently.  In most of the countries we knew, locals would have thought and said the same as those Americans . . . until the unimaginable happened, and the extremists gained power.  Once they had, that was all she wrote.  They imposed their will with fire and sword (or the modern equivalent, machetes) - and with guns, too.

There also seems to be widespread misunderstanding about Nazism and Fascism on the one hand, and Communism in its various incarnations - Leninism, Stalinism, Trotskyism, Maoism, etc. - on the other.  These ideologies have far more in common with each other than not.  All are extremist;  all are at root collectivist;  all are at root socialist.  (I'm always baffled by Americans who insist that Nazis were somehow right-wingers.  The very name of their organization is the National Socialist Party!  One would think that would be enough of a clue, but no, it's not . . .)

When you see people and groups whose aims include some or most of the aims of the ideologies mentioned in the previous paragraph, you may be sure that the implementation of those aims will - I repeat, will - involve the same measures those ideologies and their adherents have used in the past, including violence, mass incarceration, torture, genocide, democide, and crimes against humanity.  The number of examples from the 20th century is legion.  To name just a few:

• The Soviet Red Terror;
• The Soviet Holodomor;
• The Soviet Gulags;
• The Nazi Holocaust;
• The Chinese Campaign to Suppress Counter-Revolutionaries;
• The Great Chinese Famine;
• The Chinese Cultural Revolution;
• The Cambodian Genocide;
• The Ethiopian Red Terror;
• Socialist death squads in Venezuela (from this week's headlines);
• and far too many more to list here (see this list as one example, or here's another one).

Those "major" atrocities were accompanied by countless "minor" ones, in Africa, in Europe, and elsewhere.  I can remember novelist Sarah Hoyt and I sitting in a restaurant in Colorado some years ago, nodding in shared sorrow and horror at our memories of some of the excesses of the Carnation Revolution in Portugal (which she experienced) and its effects on Portuguese colonies in Africa (which I saw at first hand).  I fear our respective spouses thought we were both rather boring, reliving the past . . . but to us, that past was - and still is - measured in blood.  It's not a laughing matter.  The legacy of such atrocities is their influence upon today's politicians and revolutionaries, who are just as aggressive as their forebears.  Want an example?  Here's Julius Malema, an extremist South African politician, telling his followers (and others) the facts of life from an African Communist perspective.

His historical "facts" are wrong, as are his current motives, but you'll never persuade him of that, of course.

What I'm leading up to, in all this discussion, is that we need to be aware of how badly extremism overseas, particularly Communist extremism, has turned out for those upon whom it was imposed.  We have, in the USA, people who prattle on about "democratic socialism" and "anti-fascism" and the like.  Most of them are, at root, hardline extremists who want to impose Communism (by whatever name they prefer to call it) on this country and its people.  If you doubt that, consider American revolutionaries of the 1960's and their aims.

For a more recent interview with Mr. Grathwohl, see here.  It's eye-opening.

Today's American extremists are the ideological descendants of those 1960's activists.  Indeed, many of the latter are today college professors, who've used their positions to radicalize a whole new generation of students.  They're also what's produced Antifa and other such organizations.

What happens when such ideological extremists take over?  There's plenty of evidence in history.  The following six articles are themselves "extremist" in the sense that they're written from a right-wing perspective, on a site I don't trust in general, and to which I wouldn't normally link.  Nevertheless, the facts they offer about left-wing extremism are historically correct.  They should serve as a warning to us that no country is immune from such threats.  By all means, understand that they're unlikely;  but "unlikely" does not mean "impossible".  There are, today, individuals and organizations in these United States who want to bring such atrocities to this country as well.  They are actively working to expand their reach in this country, cloaking their intentions beneath political slogans.

WARNING:  The following links contain factual discussion (including photographs) of atrocities committed by extremists around the world.  They are very disturbing, and definitely not for children or the squeamish.  If you wish to follow the links, do so with this in mind.

The links are:

1. What the Progressive Socialist Liberals have in store for Conservatives, Part 1.
2. Ditto, Part 2.
3. Ditto, Part 3.
4. Ditto, Part 4.
5. Ditto, Part 5.
6. Ditto, Part 6.

There are probably those who'll think I've gone off the deep end by providing those links, and dismiss me as just another nut-case who's jumping at shadows.  Sadly, I'm not.  As those of you who've read this blog for some years will understand, I've seen this at first hand, on far too many occasions.  It was real in Africa;  it was real in the killing fields of Cambodia;  it was real in the Gulags, or the concentration camps, or the Great Leap Forward;  and there are those who want to make it real in the United States, too.  If you doubt that, you're living in cloud cuckoo land.  Those of us who've seen the reality of extremism overseas live under no such delusions.

When we see many policies advocated by the left-wing, progressive element in US politics, we see these ideologies writ large.  For example, we see tactics such as encouraging unrestricted illegal alien invasion, rejection of voter identification, etc. as recipes for voter fraud, designed to ensure that those with such views can come to power irrespective of the true will of the American people . . . and we fear for our nation's future if they're allowed to succeed - because, once they succeed, they will make sure they entrench their position so strongly that it may take a revolution to remove them from power.

I don't say it's likely to happen here, but there are those who want it to happen here.  We need to be aware of that, and aware of the reality underlying their honeyed explanations of pseudo-socialism that they bandy about so freely.  We also need to be aware that they're using our traditions of free speech and free association to actively build organizations that will take away those traditions and rights, given half a chance.  The current censorship and "deplatforming" efforts by the progressive left against all who don't share their opinions are a good example of how this begins.  At present, it's largely pressure exerted through social media organizations.  If those people came to power, how long do you think it would be before that pressure became law, and was implemented throughout everyday life?

Food for thought, isn't it?

Peter

So much for Beyond Meat!

The Babylon Bee hits another one out of the park.

Look out, Beyond Meat -- a new competitor has emerged in the market of turning vegetables into a food that tastes just like meat. But while companies like Beyond Meat use laboratories to turn vegetables into something tasty, this new process uses a much more natural method: feeding the vegetables to a cow.

The startup, which goes by the much simpler brand name of “Meat,” came upon this process after using hundreds of millions of venture capital dollars to research how to turn vegetable products into something delicious that could be used as a burger. “Vegetables are ugly and horrible, and no one likes them,” said Meat researcher Winston Sullivan. “We tried everything to make them edible, but nothing worked -- except maybe covering them in ranch dressing. But then we saw this creature, a cow, was eating the vegetables -- because it was so dumb and didn’t know any better or something -- and somehow afterward it became filled with tasty meat. It was amazing.”

There's more at the link.

I do like a little satire to season my day.  The Babylon Bee provides a regular dose.  I note, too, that its humor appears to be lost on the dictatorial culture commissars of the left . . . Snopes is trying to label the Babylon Bee as "fake news", apparently because its satire is frequently directed against progressive sacred cows (although it just as often lampoons right-wing holy bovines too).  As far as I'm concerned, that's an even greater incentive to read the Bee!

Peter

Corruption in Afghanistan costs US taxpayers - again

The Afghan Air Force has had to acquire be given (at US expense) four used Lockheed Hercules transports - because the planes it was originally given (also at US expense), while more suitable for its needs, were sidelined by rampant corruption within its ranks, and among Afghan politicians.

In 2012 Afghanistan announced that it would cancel the contract to buy and use 20 C-27A transports. The official reason was the inability of the Italian maintenance firm to keep the aircraft operational. The unofficial reason was the unwillingness of the Italians to pay as much in bribes as the Afghan officials were demanding. Over half a billion dollars was being spent on buying and operating the C-27s and all the money was coming from the United States. Afghan government and air force officials were determined to grab as much of that cash as possible. That meant there was not enough money for the spare parts and tools needed to keep the C-27As flying.

The Afghans can be self-destructive in so many ways, and letting these transports get away because not enough could be stolen from the contracts was another example.

. . .

In an effort to get past the epic and durable culture of corruption in Afghanistan the U.S., which supplies all the money for the Afghan security forces, obtained a different kind of maintenance contract for the four Afghan C-130Hs, Details of this deal were worked out by 2019. What makes this deal work is that Afghans have nothing to do with handling the maintenance money. There was also tighter controls over Afghan access to stocks of valuable spare parts (which, if stolen, will fetch a price on the black market). This deal costs about $10 million a year for each of the C-130Hs.

There's more at the link.

It sticks in my craw that the USA is pouring good money after bad into the sinkhole of corruption that is Afghanistan.  Even worse, we're pouring the lives of our service personnel down the same hole!  Of what strategic or geopolitical importance is Afghanistan to us, to justify the expenditure of one more US taxpayer dollar or one more American life?

Unless a serious, meaningful answer to that question can be given - and I haven't heard it yet - I think there's no longer any justification for keeping US forces in that country.

Some claim that the Taliban would take over again as soon as we left.  So what?  Let them run that hellhole of a country for themselves, and see how they like it - particularly without the cornucopia of US aid to subsidize them!  Others argue that Afghanistan would simply become a center for international fundamentalist Islam, ripe for ISIS or Al Qaeda or another group to set up their base there and export terrorism worldwide.  Yes, I suppose that's a risk . . . but the present situation doesn't appear to have stopped such terrorist organizations from functioning, does it?  Would the world be any worse off if they were shunted off the beaten track into Afghanistan?  I can't see how.

I've been saying for years, along with many others, that no military solution is possible in Afghanistan.  Any serious student of history will agree.  As far as I'm concerned, this is yet another reason why President Trump should cut the Gordian knot and bring our forces home from Afghanistan.  Enough is enough.

Peter

The "California Tax" on all US motorists

Eric Peters points out the effect of California's ecological dictates about vehicles on the rest of the country - particularly our wallets.

California regulators have acquired de facto control over the cars you’re allowed to buy – even if you don’t live in California – by decreeing their own California-specific mileage and emissions standards. These end up having the force of national standards because the car industry – which wants to sell cars in California – can’t afford to build cars for just California and then another set of cars for the rest of the country.

So they build all their cars to meet California’s standards – which are even more corseting then federal (national) standards.

The cost of complying with them amounts to a “California Tax” levied on everyone – including those who don’t live in California.

It is literally taxation without representation – as well as legitimate justification.

And the state just raised taxes – again.

By issuing a fatwa that all new cars sold in California must average at least 50 miles-per-gallon by 2026. Several major car companies – including Ford, Honda, VW and BMW have already bent knee.

. . .

There will be fewer vehicles available nationally that don’t meet California’s MPG fatwa because it be harder for the car companies to internally justify building them when they’re not able to sell them (without repercussions) in one of the country’s biggest markets.

But the rest of the country isn’t California – and can’t vote in California. Why should the rest of the country be subject to what California decrees?

. . .

California has thus acquired de facto regulatory control over the entire country – and, effectively the power to tax American drivers in every state to pay for what the state of California decrees.

This taxation without representation is about to increase ... California’s fatwa that all cars sold in the state average 50 miles-per-gallon by 2026 will effectively mean that cars sold in every state must also average 50 miles-per-gallon, because the car companies will have to build them that way if they want to sell cars in California – which they do – and because they can’t afford to build them just for California (and the other states that have adopted California’s standards) and then another batch for everywhere else.

So we will all get California cars – and California costs.

Without having asked for them. Without having been given the chance to say yes – or no – to them.

So much for the consent of the governed.

There's more at the link.

This is just the latest attempt by California to undermine and nullify the Trump administration's attempts to ease stringent environmental standards in many areas.

California's sweeping deal with four major automakers last week to boost gas mileage standards and cut tailpipe emissions wasn't the first time the Golden State has outmaneuvered the Trump administration, which has been planning instead to loosen pollution rules for car companies nationwide.

Rather than a one-time tactic, the agreement … is the latest in a growing list of ways that California has blunted, blocked or shut down entirely nearly all of the Trump administration's major efforts to rewrite environmental policies in California from the moment he took office.

Yet more than halfway through his term, experts say, the president has had almost no lasting impact on California's major environmental rules despite making broad promises and appointing former industry officials into top jobs. The reason: California, a quasi-country with 40 million people and the world's fifth-largest economy, has been aggressively passing its own state laws, filing lawsuits against the federal government and cutting deals with other states and countries to go around the Trump White House.

Again, more at the link.

I think there's a simple solution to this problem.  If California insists that manufacturers and others must adhere to its over-the-top environmental standards, then the state of California must pay them for the added costs involved in meeting those standards - in other words, the difference between what it costs (or would cost) to build a widget for the rest of the country, and building that widget for California.  It must pay those costs for all widgets made to California standards, whether or not they're sold in that state;  and those costs must be borne by California taxpayers, not the rest of us.  If California can't or won't pay those costs, then manufacturers must be allowed to sell their non-complying products in California without penalty or hindrance.

Sounds fair to me!

Peter