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Peter

A great new anthology on PTSD, its causes and effects

 

Friend and fellow author and blogger Cedar Sanderson has compiled an outstanding anthology of stories about post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and its effects on people.  They're in the form of fiction, but very much based on fact.  You'll know some of the authors, particularly Lawdog and Old NFO (J. L. Curtis), whom you've seen mentioned in these pages on several occasions.  (We live very near to each other, and see each other several times a week.)

The anthology is titled "Can't Go Home Again".  It's already reached #1 New Release in its category on Amazon.com.

The blurb reads:

Men and women who lay their life on the line never escape unscathed, and when the time comes to return home, they find a wall between them, and loved ones. These tales follow those who gather the hope to begin healing, and tearing down the walls that have sprung up between them, and their loved ones. No one ever said it would be easy...

As a combat veteran, allow me to assure you that it was a very uncomfortable experience to read some of the stories in the anthology - but a valuable one.  I've had my share of post-combat stress, as I'm sure many of my readers can also say.  This is a powerful book, and a great tool to help us air out some of those old compartments in our minds that we've long since locked and thrown away the key.

My wife has an interesting perspective on the anthology.  I'll quote from her blog review:

Look, I'm still not comfortable applying the PTS label to myself. But the first step to understanding even better what makes Calmer Half tick, much less most of the men and no few of the women in my life, was also the extremely uncomfortable first step to realizing why I do certain things. Or don't do certain things. Or have so much avoidance of doing certain things that it was plain as day to the people around me, and they figured I was perfectly well aware and just didn't want to talk about it. 

I'm working on it. 

It's led to more than a few raw, but cathartic conversations, as friends have taken my own struggle to bare their own emotional wounds in turn. This adult version of "You show me yours and I'll show you mine" sucks, you know? But better than not talking about it, and far better than suffering alone and in the silence behind the facade of everything's under control. 

And given the number of friends who are authors, when we bare our wounds to each other, and finally let it out, we bleed fiction. Stories are, after all, a way of talking about pieces of the truths you can't say out loud with the actual names and dates, re-arranged for places that never were and people who are creations of a mind trying to process far more than our surface consciousness is aware of. 

. . .

After we both read Arsenal of Hope, Cedar Sanderson and I had long conversations about PTS from sources other than combat, which while it doesn't manifest in exactly the same way, it certainly rhymes. And so, too, does the process of healing. Including the suck of dealing with the demons in your head, that you can't cut off or leave behind like twelve inches of hair or the exes in another state.

And somewhere along the way, one or the other of us groused about the lack of honest representation in fiction of what PTSD's actually like... and of fiction that showed moving forward, and getting better.

There's more at the link.  You should also read her earlier discussion about PTSD, two more extremely valuable books on the subject, and our conversations about it.

I was invited to contribute to this anthology, but couldn't come up with a suitably "happy ending" story for it.  My experiences tended to be on the rather less happy end of the spectrum, as were those of too many of my comrades in arms (for example, Gavin).

Nevertheless, I'm very grateful to Cedar for having nurtured this anthology to publication.  I think it's an important book, one that will not only entertain, but also help many people.  Highly recommended.

Peter

The mainstream media continues to refuse to report the truth about COVID-19 deaths and treatment

 

As often noted in these pages, the mainstream media has abandoned all pretense at objectivity and factual reporting.  Instead, they're ideologically motivated by and in lockstep with the talking points approved by the Deep State and the progressive left.  They are never, under any circumstances, to be trusted unless and until their reports are confirmed by independent, reliable sources.

Their reporting on the COVID-19 pandemic is a classic example of this.  They continue to publicly denigrate Ivermectin as a "horse dewormer", ignoring the fact that its developers won the Nobel Prize for Medicine for their work on it.  It's proved spectacularly successful in treating COVID-19 in several countries - but you'd never know that from reading US news reports.  Instead, it's "talked down" and sidelined in favor of vaccinations that are causing more and more deaths and life-threatening medical complications (of which more later).  The same happened to hydroxychloroquine, a drug that's been in worldwide use for decades longer than Ivermectin, and has also proved very effective against COVID-19.  They've both been cast out into the health care wilderness, and I think I know why.  Follow the money.

In Japan, where despite massive vaccination programs the number of infections and the death toll were again rising steadily, a sea change took place last August.  The Tokyo Medical Association announced publicly that Ivermectin had proved to be a worthwhile treatment for COVID-19, and that henceforth it would be recommended for use without restriction.  (Note that so-called "fact-checkers" immediately tried to pretend that the announcement didn't matter, because official Japanese government policy hadn't changed.  Talk about being in lock-step with official propaganda!)  Well, guess what happened to Japan's infection rate after that?  (Click any image for a larger view.)

India and Japan have both relied on Ivermectin to treat their COVID-19 outbreaks.  Austria has not - in fact, after encouraging voluntary vaccination for months, that nation has just made it compulsory.  Talk about doubling down on failure!  Just look at the comparative infection rates in all three countries.

Have you seen anything about that in the mainstream media?  No?  Neither have I.  Have you seen the same emphasis on "vaccination, vaccination, vaccination!" found in Austria and Germany and Australia and New Zealand from the US government and its health care spokespersons?  Yes, we have - and it's as doomed to failure here as it's been everywhere else.

Something else the media are refusing to speculate about is the sudden and alarming increase in the general death rate in countries where vaccination is widespread.  I suppose they'd parrot the old line about "correlation is not causation" - but nobody's checking to find out whether the cause correlates with vaccination or not.  It's a taboo topic.  Medical research into the subject is verboten, and doctors who raise the issue risk losing their jobs.

A few sample headlines:

• Alarm grows as mortuaries fill with thousands of extra non-Covid deaths
• The spike protein of SARS-CoV-2 (what the mRNA vaccines cause our cells to produce) may be responsible for some of Covid’s worst symptoms
• How a false hydroxychloroquine narrative was created, and more
• Vaccine scientist: ‘We’ve made a big mistake’
• If you like heart problems, you'll love the Pfizer and Moderna Covid vaccines
• Vaccinated English adults under 60 are dying at twice the rate of unvaccinated people the same age - and have been for six months
• Lethal Injection; Frontline E.R. Doctor Gives Chilling Account of Unusual Vaccine-Induced Illness

There are even those who claim that the push to inoculate everybody with COVID-19 vaccines is a sinister depopulation agenda, designed to kill off "excess" human beings.  I find that almost impossible to believe, but those making the claim point to evidence that's hard to refute.  You'll have to make up your own mind.

You'll look in vain for coverage of these issues in almost all the mainstream media.  The silence is so deafening that it's suspicious in itself.  It's clear that the silence-in-lockstep is being organized and directed.  It couldn't be so universal in its effect unless it was.  You'll find coverage only in "fringe" media and blogs like this one - sources that the mainstream media are quick to label as unreliable, or biased, or even deranged and unhinged.  Again, you'll have to make up your own mind about that.

Archbishop Viganò is one person who needs no convincing.  See for yourself:

• Abp. Viganò warns US bishops about COVID jab: The Great Reset wants ‘billions of chronically ill people’
• Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò Calls on People of Faith to Unite in a Worldwide Anti-Globalist Alliance to Free Humanity from the Totalitarian Regime

I find his arguments persuasive and convincing, as I do the other evidence I've linked above.  Decide for yourself.

Peter

Watch Big Brother's propaganda machine at work in Waukesha

 

Sundance points out that the Department of Justice's Community Relations Service is moving in to take control of the portrayal of the domestic terrorist attack on the parade in Waukesha.  They're trying to dictate the message, to take attention away from the reality of the situation.

The mass killing of white people in Wisconsin motivated by a black suspect -retaliating based on a false information created by federal officials, politicians and national corporate media- is the apex of predictable outcome from a national program of cultural Marxism.  They need this story to go away FAST.

The DOJ-CRS is our American social fabric abuser.  In this Wisconsin scenario, the progressive CRS has a major role to play in shaping the perspectives of victims away from the consequences of their activity.

Every resulting action is under the CRS control, and every word follows their script. Everything, including the excuses, justifications, tone and requests from the officials under the guidance of CRS, is purposeful propaganda.  The CRS assigns the public face of local response (it will likely be Daniel Thompson), and the CRS hands out the script that all local, state and media allies are required to follow.

The emergency response scripts are pre-written talking points for generic use when needed.   The emergency scripts are managed by officials within the Dept of Justice Community Relations Service and generally do not change over time.   Those initial talking points are deployed quickly once the attack occurs.  That initial emergency response took place last night and into this morning.  However, now the CRS will get down to the business of granular control with people on the ground in Waukesha, Wisconsin.

What I have just described sounds like something weird and conspiratorial, but it’s not.  It is really just another manifestation of what we witness from many of our political and justice institutions.

. . .

The CRS primarily focuses on clouding, obfuscating and hiding motives from violent race-based attacks.  They will take a small innocuous possibility and expand it into the larger talking points if that helps to deflect attention away from the real racial motive of a violent attack.  Remember, the CRS primarily activates when the controlled minority group attacks the majority group.

The CRS stands aside when national media and politicians push a false narrative that benefits their objectives.  When a NASCAR garage pull down rope is falsely promoted as a noose, the CRS just watch and do not refute the claim.  When Kyle Rittenhouse is wrongfully accused of being a white supremacist the CRS do not get involved, they just watch and do not refute the claim.  These examples advance the objective of the cultural Marxists and are therefore not impeded.

However, when a supported minority group attack the majority group with a motive based on race, the CRS quickly jump into action.  That is the specificity of what they do, and the CRS have broad power and authority to carry out their operations because they are aligned with one side of the political continuum.

There's more at the link.

This is essential reading to understand how the "Deep State" is trying to manipulate public opinion and media reporting, seeking to impose a "politically correct" perspective on and outcome to the Waukesha incident.  Notice that none of the mainstream media are reporting on what's happening there.  You can see how the media rules for coverage of the Waukesha legal process are already in place, carefully choreographing the media circus to achieve the desired political objective.

Therefore, as I've said before, don't trust anything you hear, see or read in the mainstream media unless and until you've confirmed it for yourself from trustworthy sources.  The media is a willing ally and ideological fellow traveler to the Deep State and its Communist-inspired progressive manipulators.  They have abdicated the role of a free press, and are instead mere tools in the hand of Big Brother.  Don't be taken in.

Peter

I feel that way sometimes, too...

 

There are very few cartoonists who can capture the human dilemma so consistently and so accurately as Stephan Pastis.  Click the image to be taken to a larger view at the "Pearls Before Swine" Web page.

It's like the well-known wail of complaint allegedly uttered by many trainee computer programmers (of whom I was one, way back when):  "Why won't it do what I want it to do, instead of what I tell it to do?"  I've often felt like asking life the same question...

Peter

"Rittenhouse Derangement Syndrome" now rivals "Trump Derangement Syndrome"

 

I'm sure the very last thing Kyle Rittenhouse wanted was to become a living meme, but sadly that's what's happened to him.  America is as divided over his case as it has been over President Trump - so much so that it's not far-fetched to call it "Rittenhouse Derangement Syndrome", after the similarly weird and wacky "Trump Derangement Syndrome".  To cite just a few examples over the weekend:

• The star of "The Mandalorian" TV series, Pedro Pascal, tweeted:  "Joseph Rosenbaum, 36, and Anthony Huber, 27, murdered August 25th, 2020. Rest In Peace."  This, despite abundant evidence (including video and audio recordings) presented at Rittenhouse's trial that proved they were the instigators and aggressors in the conflict, not its victims.  It's as if the evidence didn't even enter into Mr. Pascal's consciousness.  He must have had very selective sight and hearing to miss it.  They were not murdered:  they were shot in self-defense, and the court verdict confirmed that.
• Mark Ruffalo, another actor, tweeted:  "We come together to mourn the lives lost to the same racist system that devalues Black lives and devalued the lives of Anthony and JoJo. #ReimagineKenosha".  Sorry, Mr. Ruffalo, but 'Anthony' and 'JoJo' were convicted felons who were actively engaged in felonious conduct.  Their race had nothing to do with their actions.  They paid the price for their crime (assault, rioting) when they were shot by the person they were assaulting.  Again, video and audio evidence makes that undeniable and beyond doubt.  To ignore it is to ignore reality.
• A social media director for the Democratic Party in an Illinois county posted a series of tweets in response to last night's attack on a Christmas parade in Kenosha.  Referring to the attacker, she said:  "Living in Wisconsin, he probably felt threatened ... I’m sure he didn’t want to hurt anyone ... He came to help people."  Later she added, "The blood of Kyle Rittenhouse’s victims is on the hands of Wisconsin citizens, even the children ... It’s sad people died, but when you open the door to vigilante justice, everyone seems threatening ... Wisconsin put that bad energy out there.  It came back real fast."  Again, she appears to be in denial of the reality so clearly spelled out during Rittenhouse's trial.  It's as if she didn't bother to watch any of the evidence, and isn't interested in what it proved.  Her ideologically warped and twisted perspective isn't even nudged by the facts.  Instead, she finds amusement, even perhaps a diabolical pleasure, in the murder of children last night for what appear to be politically motivated reasons.  I'm very, very glad that I haven't been infected by her brand of mental derangement.
• A great many anti-Rittenhouse tweets and posts have described those he shot as black, and claimed that the outcome of his trial is evidence that the judicial system is biased and unfair.  In fact, as we all know (at least, all those of us who bothered to read the evidence and watch the video clips ourselves), none of them were black.  They were all Caucasian.  A white man with a gun shot three white protesters who were attacking him.  Where's the racism in that?
• Amber Ruffin, speaking on her show on NBC, said:  "It's not okay for a man to grab a rifle, travel across state lines and shoot three people and then walk free.  It's not okay for the judicial system to be blatantly and obviously stacked against people of color.  It's not okay for there to be an entirely different set of rules for white people.  But I don't care about Kyle Rittenhouse.  I don't care about that racist judge.  And I don't care about how f***ed up that jury must be.  White people have been getting away with murder since time began.  I don't care about that ... Every time one of these verdicts come out, it's easy to feel like you don't, but I'm here to tell you that you do, you matter.  You matter so much that the second you start to get a sense that you do, a man will grab a gun that he shouldn't have in the first place, and travel all the way to another state just to quiet you."  To me, that entire diatribe is so far from reality, so devoid of facts, that I have to question whether Ms. Ruffin and I inhabit the same planet.  She obviously believes in, and feels strongly about, what she said - but I look at the evidence-based reality of our situation, and I can't recognize where she's coming from.  The Rittenhouse case dealt with only one race, and it wasn't black.  It had nothing to do with her racially tinged outlook on life, but she can't see that.  She's incapable of seeing that... and that bodes very ill indeed for the future of America, given how many people watch her show and clearly agree with her sentiments.

Perhaps Jed Babbin is right:

For liberals there are only two acceptable explanations for the acquittal of Kyle Rittenhouse: racism and (or) the lack of gun controls depriving private citizens of their Second Amendment rights.

. . .

Racism? Kyle Rittenhouse is white. The two men he shot and killed — and the one he wounded — were all white. Yet President Biden and too many other nitwits in Hollywood, the media, professional sports, and among the hoi polloi Democrats insist that Rittenhouse is a white supremacist despite the lack of a scintilla of evidence that he is or was.

The liberals’ insistence that the law, the trial, and its outcome are tainted by racism is risible. But, to them, it has to be true because they have only two frames of reference, racism, and gun control.

There's more at the link.

On the other side of the equation, there are some very strong reactions as well.  I'll mention only two here.  First, the brother of one of the victims of the late and unlamented Joseph Rosenbaum writes on Reddit:

So sick of people praising my brothers rapist

I'm not going to talk about the Rittenhouse Case verdict or my opinion on it, but instead I wanna reflect on the insane amount of people praising Rosenbaum, including celebrities.

In the Early 2000s, my younger brother was sexually abused with I think about a dozen other kids by Rosenbaum. The court cases are sealed because they/we were minors so I won't be providing the names of any of them or the exact charges. He and every other victim deserves privacy. We already had batshit crazy conservatives try to unseal the case so they could tout around the victims stories as a "gotcha" moment.

Anyways, the f***er plead out of like 11 counts of child rape (there were more accusations, they just never made it to court) and only got like 10 years (ended up only being 8). My brother and I are late 20s/Early 30s now and he has mostly moved on but up until he was 14 he would cry almost every night and ask to sleep In the same bed as me or my sister or mom. I can only imagine what the other victims are going through.

Now, somehow he made his way to Kenosha and was shot dead. Whatever. Couldn't care less. Also couldn't care less about the trial or the verdict of Kyle.

What gets me is all these f***ing celebrities calling him cutesy f***ing nicknames and talking like him like he was such a great human being. "RIP Joseph" "Such a kind soul" "He didn't deserve this" Pedro Pascal is a good actor but somehow saw fit to call this POS a Hero.

What finally made me lose it was Mark Ruffalo's "RIP JoJo" What the whole f***? Literally petnaming him. I'm so f***ing angry. This man was a terror who deserved hell 20 years ago and major celebrities are making him to be a Martyr.

My brother is acting like he's ok through this whole thing and he has been on a media blackout. I on the other hand have been listening since day one and am so sick of people defending a pedophile. I'm so goddamned disappointed in our politicians and celebrities and athletes who all have acted like he was a hero.

Larry Correia embarks on one of his well-known rants, fisking an idiot who lies through his teeth while completely misrepresenting the legal situation surrounding Kyle Rittenhouse's actions.  Here's a short excerpt.  Text in italics is from the idiot;  normal text is Larry's response.

Legally, if you are in the process of a commission of a crime, it negates your ability to claim self defense if you kill someone. As in, it can’t even be entered as your official defense in court.

– except this trial needed to determine if KR was in fact in the commission of a crime or not. Related, and I’m surprised this guy didn’t bring it up is the claim that the judge was “biased” because he wouldn’t let the rioters be called “victims.” Well duh, that’s because the purpose of a case like this is for the jury to decide if they are victims or assailants.

On that note, since I’m shooting down all the other stupid talking points, here’s a common one. Whenever some prog says the judge was biased, ask how, and then watch them choke. If they respond, it’ll be the “victims” bit, or it’ll be that the judge yelled at the prosecutors for saying that invoking your 5th Amendment rights makes you guilty, or when they got caught not giving the defense the right evidence. But none of that was bias. That was embarrassing levels of prosecutorial misconduct. They didn’t deserve to be yelled at, they deserve to be disbarred, and then sent to jail.

It is similar to getting rear-ended at a red light through zero fault of your own, but you were driving without a license or insurance. It automatically makes you at fault because you weren’t even legally allowed to be driving.

– as you will see, this guy loves to torture analogies. Too bad they don’t actually apply to this case.

That 17 year old in Kenosha had committed two crimes and was not even legally allowed to open carry the rifle he used to shoot three people. This means that he legally cannot claim self defense.

– Demonstrably false. He was legally allowed to be carrying that rifle in Wisconsin. So that whole opening argument was moot. The weapons charge was dropped because the Wisconsin law did in fact allow KR to carry that gun, in that way, in that place.

I’m glad he didn’t bring up the whole hE cRoSsEd sTaTe lInEs!! talking point though, because that’s just stupid. He drove in from the suburbs to a place where he works and a bunch of his close family live.

Another key discussion is the Castle Doctrine

– thus begins a super long digression into a law which doesn’t really have anything to do with the KR case in an attempt to sound smart to low information types.

Some of you may be vaguely familiar with it,

-More than this jackass, obviously.

Again, more at the link.  Recommended reading.

I want you to notice two things about the last two excerpts posted above.  They're solidly based on facts and the law.  There's no speculation, no jumping to conclusions, no second-guessing the court or the verdict.  They're grounded in reality - something that's far from evident in the anti-Rittenhouse comments quoted earlier.

That's what I look for in deciding whether someone is worth listening to, or just another idiot living in cloud cuckoo land (whether they're on the left or the right of the political spectrum).  I don't want feelings:  I want objective, verifiable, undeniable facts.  To quote the late, great Robert A. Heinlein:

What are the facts? Again and again and again – what are the facts? Shun wishful thinking, ignore divine revelation, forget what “the stars foretell,” avoid opinion, care not what the neighbors think, never mind the unguessable “verdict of history” – what are the facts, and to how many decimal places? You pilot always into an unknown future; facts are your single clue. Get the facts!

It's not just the "loony left" that ignore the facts.  The right has more than enough of its own loonies to deal with.  When you hear someone rant about "niggers" or "the Joos", or posting anti-semitic or anti-black cartoons, or assigning blame for any crime or wrongdoing or tragedy to a particular racial or ethnic group, you should have learned the hard way by now that they're always wrong.  It's never one race or ethnic group behind anything like that.  It's our fallen, sinful human nature - and if you believe our nature isn't that way, you know nothing about life at all.  Even if you reject any belief in God, if you deny the existence of objective evil, and the capacity of any human being to act in an evil way when there's sufficient pressure or provocation... you don't know what you're talking about.  The most ordinary of people can become monsters, and frequently have.  I've seen far too much of that reality, as regular readers of this blog will know (and, yes, it applies to me, too;  it applies to each and every one of us).  We saw it in World War II, on all sides of the fighting.  It cannot be denied.

Furthermore, one can't blame an entire race or group or whatever for the actions of individuals.  There may be (no, there certainly are) criminals and evil people in every race and ethnicity and skin color - but there are also good people, even saints, in those same communities.  To tar everybody with the same brush is to ignore reality yet again.  If anyone blames a group for the evils they see around them, without acknowledging that reality, you may be sure that they haven't thought things through, and their perspective on reality is fatally flawed.

What's more, responding to evil by doing evil oneself is to make yourself as guilty as the original perpetrator(s).  There's legitimate self-defense, and then there's murder.  Both may involve the same actions, but both are not morally or ethically or legally equal, as the Rittenhouse verdict shows yet again.  It's a tired old saw that "two wrongs don't make one right" - yet many of us seem incapable of applying it.  We'd rather blame Rittenhouse for objectifying all that we see as wrong with "the system", even if he had nothing whatsoever to do with those wrongs.

So, when we see these extremist reactions to current events, let's take a step back and a deep breath, and look for the facts.  They are our only reliable guide.  It's not about our interpretation of the facts, or the spin we put upon them - it's what they actually tell us about reality.  Far too many people won't do that... and the polarization we currently see all around us is the result.

Peter

Memes that made me laugh 85

 

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

Sunday morning music

 

In all my previous classical music selections, I've tried to choose works or pieces that were relatively short, so they fit into the limited attention spans of most of us on the Internet - generally not seen as a medium for long, uninterrupted listening to music.  However, some musical works demand a visual as well as an auditory experience to be fully appreciated;  and they're seldom short.

In that category I include one of my favorite ballets, Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake.  I've loved it ever since I heard an orchestral suite from it in my youth, and I've seen it half a dozen times over the years, most memorably in London, England a long time ago.

Here's the whole thing, as performed by the Kirov Ballet in Leningrad, Russia (that was its Soviet-era name, by which it's still called, but it's since been officially renamed the Mariinsky Ballet).  It's been in existence for almost 300 years, giving it a priceless tradition and an enormously rich musical and balletic heritage.  I hope you have (or can make) time to watch and listen to the entire performance.  It's worth it.

Musical artistry in motion.

Peter

Saturday Snippet: The Dreamers versus the Doers

 

In the aftermath of the Kyle Rittenhouse trial, I've been thinking about the radically different attitudes displayed by those who've been sheltered from the harsh realities of existence, versus those who've experienced those realities and have adjusted their outlook accordingly.

Those who've never "been there and done that" can sometimes have the most ridiculously naive perceptions of reality.  They blind themselves to observable, demonstrable reality and insist that their pet theoretical, ideological approaches are superior to things learned the hard way.  A case in point:  the second person shot by Rittenhouse after his attacker swung a skateboard at him.  "But it was only a skateboard - not a deadly weapon!"  Like hell it wasn't a deadly weapon!  A long, heavy piece of plywood can break bones with little difficulty, and the steel wheels and supports are pretty dangerous in themselves.  If you doubt that, consider the case, a few years ago, of a man killed by a skateboard in California.  To say that Rittenhouse should not have defended himself against such an attack, by any and all means at his disposal, is nonsensical - but that's what a lot of people who don't know any better still maintain.

On the other hand, those of us who've "been there and done that" have seen the reality of violence and crime.  I've personally seen people killed with knives, clubs, a well-thrown brick, and repeated kicks by boot-shod feet.  Once a man's been knocked silly or senseless by a well-placed blow, he can no longer defend himself against anything his enemies wish to do to him.  Those of us who've seen that are in no doubt about the real danger of such situations, and won't hesitate to defend ourselves - yet we can expect to be criticized and/or prosecuted for doing so, by those who've never been exposed to it and have no idea what they're talking about.

Rudyard Kipling ran into this difference in approach between the "dreamers" and the "doers", and wrote about it.  I thought his perspective might be very appropriate this morning.

The Three Young Men

London in the Fog

“Curiouser and curiouser,” as Alice in Wonderland said when she found her neck beginning to grow. Each day under the smoke brings me new and generally unpleasant discoveries. The latest are most on my mind. I hasten to transfer them to yours.

At first, and several times afterwards, I very greatly desired to talk to a thirteen-two subaltern—not because he or I would have anything valuable to say to each other, but just because he was a subaltern. I wanted to know all about that evergreen polo-pony that “can turn on a sixpence,” and the second-hand charger that, by a series of perfectly unprecedented misfortunes, just failed to win the Calcutta Derby. Then, too, I wished to hear of many old friends across the sea, and who had got his company, and why and where the new Generals were going next cold weather, and how the Commander-in-Chief had been enlivening the Simla season. So I looked east and west, and north and south, but never a thirteen-two subaltern broke through the fog; except once—and he had grown a fifteen-one cot down, and wore a tall hat and frock coat, and was begging for coppers from the Horse-Guards. By the way, if you stand long enough between the mounted sentries—the men who look like reflectors stolen from Christmas trees —you will presently meet every human being you ever knew in India. When I am not happy—that is to say, once a day—I run off and play on the pavement in front of the Horse-Guards, and watch the expressions on the gentlemen’s faces as they come out. But this is a digression.

After some days—I grew lonelier and lonelier every hour—I went away to the other end of the town, and catching a friend, said: “Lend me a man—a young man—to play with. I don’t feel happy. I want rousing. I have liver.” And the friend said: “Ah, yes, of course. What you want is congenial society, something that will stir you up—a fellow-mind. Now let me introduce you to a thoroughly nice young man. He’s by way of being an ardent Neo-Alexandrine, and has written some charming papers on the ‘Ethics of the Wood Pavement.’” Concealing my almost visible rapture, I murmured “Oh, bliss!” as they used to say at the Gaiety, and extended the hand of friendship to a young gentleman attired after the fashion of the Neo-Alexandrines, who appear to be a subcaste of social priests. His hand was a limp hand, his face was very smooth because he had not yet had time to grow any hair, and he wore a cloak like a policeman’s cloak, but much more so. On his finger was a cameo-ring about three inches wide, and round his neck, the weather being warm, was a fawn, olive and dead-leaf comforter of soft silk—the sort of thing any right-minded man would give to his mother or his sister without being asked.

We looked at each other cautiously for some minutes. Then he said: “What do you think of the result of the Brighton election?” “Beautiful, beautiful,” I said, watching his eye, which saddened, “One of the worst—that is, entirely the most absurd reductio ad absurdum of the principle of the narrow and narrow-minded majority imposing a will which is necessarily incult on a minority animated by …” I forget exactly what he said they were animated by, but it was something very fine.

“When I was at Oxford,” he said, “Haward of Exeter”—he spoke as one speaks of Smith of Asia—“always inculcated at the Union—— By the way, you do not know, I suppose, anything of the life at Oxford?” “No,” I said, anxious to propitiate, “but I remember some boys once who seduced an ekka and a pony into a Major’s tent at a camp of exercise, laced up the door, and let the Major fight it out with the horse.” I told that little incident in my best style, and was three parts through it before I discovered that he was looking pained and shocked.

“That—ah—was not the side of Oxford that I had in mind when I was saying that Haward of Exeter——” And he explained all about Mr. Haward, who appeared to be a young gentleman, rising twenty-three, of wonderful mental attainments, and as pernicious a prig as I ever dreamed about. Mr. Haward had schemes for the better management of creation; my friend told me them all—social, political and economical.

Then, just as I was feeling faint and very much in need of a drink, he launched without warning upon the boundless seas of literature. He wished to know whether I had read the works of Messrs. Guy de Maupassant, Paul Bourget and Pierre Loti. This in the tone of a teacher of Euclid. I replied that all my French was confined to the Vie Parisienne and translations of Zola’s novels with illustrations. Here we parted. London is very large, and I do not think we shall meet any more.

I thanked our Mutual Friend for his kindness, and asked for another young man to play with. This gentleman was even younger than the last, but quite as cocksure. He told me in the course of half a cigar that only men of mediocre calibre went into the army, which was a brutalising profession; that he suffered from nerves, and “an uncontrollable desire to walk up and down the room and sob” (that was too many cigarettes), and that he had never set foot out of England, but knew all about the world from his own theories. Thought Dickens coarse; Scott jingling and meretricious; and had not by any chance read the novels of Messrs. Guy de Maupassant, Paul Bourget and Pierre Loti.

Him I left quickly, but sorry that he could not do a six weeks’ training with a Middlesex militia regiment, where he would really get something to sob for. The novel business interested me. I perceived that it was a fashion, like his tie and his collars, and I wanted to work it to the fountain-head. To this end I procured the whole Shibboleth from Guy de Maupassant even unto Pierre Loti by way of Bourget. Unwholesome was a mild term for these interesting books, which the young men assured me that they read for style. When a fat Major makes that remark in an Indian Club, everybody hoots and laughs. But you must not laugh overseas, especially at young gentlemen who have been to Oxford and listened to Mr. Haward of Exeter.

Then I was introduced to another young man who said he belonged to a movement called Toynbee Hall, where, I gathered, young gentlemen took an indecent interest in the affairs of another caste, whom, with rare tact, they called “the poor,” and told them generally how to order their lives. Such was the manner and general aggressiveness of this third young gentleman, that if he had told me that coats were generally worn and good for the protection of the body, I should have paraded Bond Street in my shirt. What the poor thought of him I could not tell, but there is no room for it in this letter. He said that there was going to be an upheaval of the classes—the English are very funny about their castes. They don’t know how to handle them one little bit, and never allow them to draw water or build huts in peace—and the entire social fabric was about to be remodeled on his recommendations, and the world would be generally altered past recognition. No, he had never seen anything of the world, but close acquaintance with authorities had enabled him to form dispassionate judgments on the subjects, and had I, by any chance, read the novels of Guy de Maupassant, Pierre Loti and Paul Bourget?

It was a mean thing to do, but I couldn’t help it. I had read ’em. I put him on, so to speak, far back in Paul Bourget, who is a genial sort of writer. I pinned him to one book. He could not escape from Paul Bourget. He was fed with it till he confessed—and he had been quite ready to point out its beauties—that we could not take much interest in the theories put forward in that particular book. Then I said: “Get a dictionary and read him,” which severed our budding friendship.

Thereafter I sought our Mutual Friend and walked up and down his room sobbing, or words to that effect. “Good gracious!” said my friend. “Is that what’s troubling you? Now, I hold the ravaging rights over half a dozen fields and a bit of a wood. You can pot rabbits there in the evenings sometimes, and anyway you get exercise. Come along.”

So I went. I have not yet killed anything, but it seems wasteful to drive good powder and shot after poor little bunnies when there are so many other things in the world that would be better for an ounce and a half of number five at sixty yards—not enough to disable, but just sufficient to sting, and be pricked out with a penknife.

I should like to wield that penknife.

Looking at the loony left's reaction to Kyle Rittenhouse's acquittal, I, too, can think of a useful application for No. 5 birdshot and a penknife...

Peter

Let's hear it for Rittenhouse Patrols!

 

Congratulations to Kyle Rittenhouse for his thoroughly deserved acquittal on all charges in Kenosha today.  Any objective analysis of the evidence could lead to no other decision.  I hope he becomes a very rich young man through suing all the news media that slandered and libeled him before and during the trial.  He deserves it.

(Predictably, the moonbats are outraged.  Sucks to be them, I guess.)

Now, let's build on his example.  I suggest that men and women of sound common sense, in every locality threatened by potentially violent riots, should get together and form one or more Rittenhouse Patrols.  For small locations, it could be the size of a fire team, or a squad of two or three fire teams.  For larger ones, a platoon-size patrol would be useful.  For a really big area (say, an entire suburb or a small to medium-size town), a Rittenhouse Company might be appropriate.

The Rittenhouse Patrols would help with neighborhood clean-up and securing their own areas, just as their namesake did.  If a mob comes to visit, they'll continue their neighborhood clean-up in a rather more kinetic sense.  If every member does their best, we might see multiple Kenosha Hat Tricks every night!  I can't think of anything better calculated to make an otherwise violent, predatory, criminal mob decide it would be better to pursue their objectives... elsewhere.

(Oh - and if we can get the local pedophiles to follow the example of the late, unlamented, convicted pedophile Joseph D. Rosenbaum, so much the better.  That'll really clean up the neighborhood!)

I feel rather happier with life this afternoon.  It's nice to see a verdict so thoroughly deserved be reached despite so much politically correct, extremist pressure.  I think I'll hoist a glass in the general direction of Mr. Rittenhouse tonight... and I'll make sure I have spare, loaded magazines to lend to friends who might need them.  I don't think we'll have any trouble around here, but in the not-too-distant Big City, they might have a use for them.  I call such tools an investment in a brighter future.

Peter

Deliberate, criminal election fraud in Pennsylvania - and it's on camera!

 

If this doesn't blow the top off election fraud in Pennsylvania last November, I don't know what will.  Remember, President Trump was leading the vote in that state until Delaware County submitted its votes - and now we know those votes were, to put it mildly, corrupt as hell.  The Gateway Pundit reports:

An election whistleblower in Delaware County, Pennsylvania released video evidence of the destruction of election data, documents, and equipment by election officials in the 2020 presidential election on Wednesday night.

The videos show election officials admitting to each other that their actions were illegal, even “a felony.” But the officials decided to destroy the election evidence anyway.

In one video James Allen, the Director of Elections Operations is seen in a backroom telling officials to destroy evidence knowing it was a felony.

in another video, Tom Gallager, a lawyer for Delaware County, is seen destroying election tapes — a felony.

There's more at the link.  The Pundit report also quotes Brian Cates on the incident:

So right after a legal Right to Know request was filed, these Delaware County election employees marched straight to where they were hiding these election records and equipment and destroyed it all. And somebody got it all on camera. WHAT DOES THAT TELL YOU???!!!

. . .

SOMEBODY SET THEM UP. SOMEBODY BAITED THEM WITH THE RIGHT TO KNOW FILING AND THEN CAUGHT THEM ALL ON CAMERA WHEN THEY DESTROYED THE ELECTION RECORDS AND EQUIPMENT. Can you people see where this is going?

This isn’t just about the destruction of the November 2020 election records; these corrupt county officials then engaged in a criminal conspiracy to create fake election records to hide what they did.

The Delaware District Attorney, state Attorney General Shapiro and the Department of Justice all failed to act. Whoops. Now they’re trapped.

I'd love to see how the Biden administration and its surrogates in Pennsylvania will try to spin this one.  If this doesn't result in criminal convictions, the overturning of the election result in Delaware County, and imprisonment for those involved, then I think we can accept that the rule of law is effectively dead there.  If that's the case, well, to paraphrase President Bush the Second, instead of bringing the guilty to justice, we'll just have to bring justice to them.

Peter

Another factor in food production: giant corporate control

 

I've been reading extensively about factors affecting the food supply pipeline in particular, ever since this became an issue during the COVID-19 pandemic.  I came across a very interesting article from 2011, examining the meat-packing industry and the problems it's causing for ranchers and farmers.  It's ten years old, but from what I've been able to confirm, the situation has only grown worse since then.

It's a very long article, but worth reading in full.  I've chosen one excerpt to whet your appetite.  (Remember, the statistics date from ten years ago.)

The price a rancher gets for beef, adjusted for inflation, dropped from $1.97 to 93 cents per pound between 1980 and 2009 ... The number of U.S. cattle producers has plummeted from 1.6 million in 1980 to 950,000 today ... Four giant companies — Tyson, Cargill, Brazil-based JBS, and National Beef — now control about 80 percent of the U.S. beef market.

. . .

The meatpackers’ power derives from the industry’s structure, which resembles a pyramid. At the bottom are the “cow-calf” producers — mostly hundreds of thousands of mom-and-pop operations. They’re the ranchers who cope with feeding and calving in the depths of winter, graze their cows on private pasture and public lands in the summer, and then round them up for sale, either to a feedlot or to a “backgrounder” who fattens them up for resale to a feedlot. The feedlots typically keep the cows for only a few weeks of a get-fat-quick diet and then sell them to the meatpackers. There’s just a brief window of time when the cattle can be sold at their prime — and that gives the meatpackers leverage.

Randy Stevenson, who owns Double S Livestock LLC, a 6,000-cow-capacity backgrounding operation in Wheatland, Wyo., says he’s felt the packers’ power. From 1985 until a few years ago, he ran a feedlot, but his meatpacker troubles led him to switch to backgrounding, where he can sell to feedlots instead of packers. “I got educated on this out of necessity,” says Stevenson, who attended the Fort Collins workshop.

Beginning in the 1990s, Stevenson explains, the number of cattle buyers coming to his feedlot dropped to the point where he’d have just one stopping by once a week. That made it impossible for him to bargain among buyers and get the best price for his cattle. One time a few years ago, a lone “field buyer” stopped by and offered $1.03 per pound for the four truckloads of cattle on Stevenson’s lot. Stevenson says he tried to negotiate by offering to throw in five more truckloads if the buyer could offer $1.04. The buyer went back to his office to call his boss and ask if he could bid higher for the larger quantity. Then he called Stevenson to relay a counteroffer. “The field buyer was kind of grumbling,” Stevenson recalls. “I said, ‘Well, what’d (the boss) say?'”

“‘Tell him to go to hell,'” said the buyer. “‘It’s two and a half if they want to do anything.'” The boss had gotten so angry at Stevenson for trying to negotiate a better price that he dropped his offer a half cent per pound — just to teach the feedlot owner a lesson in who really controlled the deal, Stevenson says. And since Stevenson’s cattle were ready, and he had no one else to sell to, that was the price he ended up taking.

“This situation is what I call economic waterboarding,” says Stevenson. It happens when sellers are limited in who they can sell to — one meatpacker instead of 20. The impacts are obvious: 30,000 small feedlots have closed shop in the past 15 years, says R-CALF’s Bullard.

Cattlemen have another word for what’s happening: “chickenization.”

More than 90 percent of all poultry in the U.S. is now raised by growers who don’t own the birds or negotiate basic terms like price per pound. Over the past 50 years, chicken packers (known as integrators) like Tyson, Perdue, and Pilgrim’s Pride have talked chicken farmers into signing contracts that lock them into a relationship, rather than selling and buying birds on the open market. At first, farmers were pleased, because it gave them a guaranteed sale and a price they could count on. But over time, as the big poultry packers gained control of the majority of chickens raised in the U.S., the terms of the contracts deteriorated.

Many chicken farmers these days are forced, contractually, to invest hundreds of thousands of dollars in chicken houses that meet ever-changing packer specifications for feeding systems. Farmers often start off with five-year contracts and invest based on the assumption they’ll be in the business long term. After the initial contract period, though, poultry packers sometimes shorten contracts to a year or even a few months, putting more pressure on the farmers to cooperate. Meanwhile, nearly all chicken farmers get their chicks from the poultry packers. Sometimes the chicks are puny because they come from either very young birds or very old ones that tend to lay small eggs. The poultry packers constantly experiment with different breeds to find chickens that gain weight more rapidly, but it’s just the luck of the draw as to which chicks a farmer gets. Since farmers are paid by how well their chickens convert feed to weight, any farmer with a puny flock will do worse than other farmers. About the only way a farmer can get ahead is by investing in pricey technology that may give him a bit of an edge over his neighbor.

It’s a perfect system from the poultry packers’ perspective: The chicken farmers take on the risk and the capital investment, and the packers can cancel their contracts at almost any time. Many chicken farmers complain about take-it-or-leave-it contracts and financial promises that never come true. But if they protest or look for a different buyer, retaliation may follow in the form of contract termination — leaving the farmer deeply in debt, surrounded by piles of chicken manure, a pollution liability, and with no alternate buyer to turn to, since there is frequently only one buyer in a region.

In Fort Collins, Vilsack said that during an Alabama hearing on competition in the poultry industry last May, many farmers complained about their contracts being shortened to 90 days — which he called “flock-to-flock contracts” — and “we heard many stories of people who were reluctant to speak because of fear they’d be retaliated against.”

That’s what it means to be chickenized. And hog farmers have experienced the same.

There's much more at the link.

Perhaps the farmers among our readers could tell us in Comments whether they still find this same problem, or whether it's gotten worse or better.  Sources I've consulted say it's the same or worse (usually the latter).

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to the rise in popularity of an alternative for farmers and ranchers.  People are becoming "locavores", buying produce locally from farmers they know, usually paying higher than supermarket prices, but getting fresher, higher-quality produce.  For example, there are several small ranchers in our area who sell quarter-, half- or full cows directly to consumers.  The price works out (at present) to about $6 per pound, hanging weight, which sounds expensive until you realize that's across the entire selection of cuts.  Your ground beef costs $6 per pound, which is high;  but so does your filet mignon or sirloin steak or standing rib roast, which is very reasonable indeed.  I guess it averages out about right.  You can also specify (within reason) how you want your half-cow cut up, roasts or steaks or ground beef.  (You'll need enough freezer space for everything, of course.  Half a cow is a lot of meat!)

If large food processors and distributors are going to be hamstrung by the supply chain logjam, we might all do well to start establishing contact with local suppliers and getting on their customer lists.  It won't do to wait until there's nothing else available, only to be told that your neighbors have got in ahead of you and there's nothing left.

Peter

Remember those warnings about the food supply?

 

I've reported several times on the supply chain logjam affecting distributors and retail stores in this country.  I've also mentioned the need to increase our emergency and reserve supplies, and the steps I've taken to do that for my own family.  I've mentioned Michael Yon's warnings about the need to stockpile food and essential supplies, most recently just last week:

I’ve loudly warning since January 2020 of PanFaWar. I’ve said a thousand times in the past 22 months to STOCK UP on items you need. First real of Prep Club is there is no Prep Club. I would not breathe a word of my preparations if it were not my responsibility to take a leadership roll at a time like this.

Prices will go up up up as shortages ripple across the earth. Actual shortages will coincide with devaluation of our money. One curve up, the other curve down. Crime will explode. One of the greatest dangers will be neighbors. Ask your cop friends.

In that same article, I mentioned a critical warning from the CEO of a Norwegian fertilizer company:

"I want to say this loud and clear right now, that we risk a very low crop in the next harvest," said Svein Tore Holsether, the CEO and president of the Oslo-based company. "I’m afraid we’re going to have a food crisis."

I hate to say this, but it looks as if both warnings may be coming true - and rather faster than we would like.

First, fertilizers.  Bold, underlined text is my emphasis.

October saw much-needed recovery in the U.S. from the impacts of Hurricane Ida in August as U.S. Gulf production facilities continue to return online and the worst of the logistical woes appear behind us. However, sharp price increases on fertilizers abroad have motivated bull runs on nitrogen prices, including ammonia surpassing $1,100 per ton in the Midwest and urea barge prices surpassing both DAP and potash.

. . .

October saw enduring downtime for ammonia production as several U.S. Gulf nitrogen plants remained offline from Hurricane Ida ... Ammonia prices have skyrocketed in the Midwest ... [European] ammonia producers have curtailed operations as they combat high gas costs ... Urea price firmed significantly in October near month's end as the closure of the Upper Mississippi River to barges and surging prices overseas both helped to sustain the urea bull market which began in September ... October urea plant outages in the northern U.S., including plants at Port Neal (CF Industries) and Beulah (Dakota Gasification) and with chatter on reduced production at Wever (OCI), supported higher price in the upper Midwest.

There's much more at the link.  It's largely technical supply-and-demand listings, but it illustrates the truth of that Norwegian CEO's warning.  The fertilizer market is currently incapable of supplying enough product to meet demand - and that may affect next season's harvest quite appreciably, not just in the USA, but worldwide.

Next, the food supply chain.  Here's a very interesting Twitter thread from someone claiming to be in a position to know what's going on in poultry plants.  I can't verify that claim, but what he says sounds pretty authoritative.  Make up your own mind.  I've used a summary from Threadreader to make the thread easier to read.

THREAD - Food Supply Collapse

My family are currently in positions of plant manager and quality assurance manager in poultry plants. I can say for certain that the current situation is more dire than most people think- and we may see a near total collapse of the food supply. 

Covid has thrown a wrench in every industry- especially food processing. Ranging from plant closures due to outbreaks and now government overreach with vaccine mandates. 

The vaccine mandates in processing plants are not discussed at all, most likely due to the contempt our ruling class has for rural, working-class Americans. 

The current situation with mandates is from multiple fronts: USDA inspectors and the factory workers. For context, USDA inspectors are federal employees that are paid for by processing plants and necessary for operation- without them these plants cannot run due to federal law. 

Currently, there is a large shortage of inspectors. There are roughly 6,500 inspectors nationwide across all meat processing industries, with a roughly 500-700 inspector shortage. My family has been running into issues with these inspectors being stretched thin already. 

The inspector at this Midwest plant is responsible for 3 total plants normally, but currently he is inspecting 9 total plants at the same time. This is dangerous for both the wellbeing of the inspector, but most importantly the quality of the food produced. 

On top of that, the USDA is covering up their shortage. On their jobs page, they list a measly 57 openings for inspectors. They cover this up by only listing their positions for a week or two at a time to prevent people from realizing this dire shortage. 

These inspectors have received a memo stating that they have until Friday, Nov. 19 to get vaccinated (despite the actual deadline being Dec. 4). The problem is that a sizable plurality of inspectors refuse to be bend to government vaccine mandates (roughly 25-35%). 

If upwards of 35% of inspectors are fired come Dec. 4, we are looking at roughly 2,200 inspectors nationwide disappearing. This will be catastrophic. To be clear, I stand with those refusing and will fight with them. 

Likewise, if a plant is stretched thin on quality assurance personnel to protect the quality of meat, that will lead to a complete shutdown of these plants until they can be fully staffed. We are looking at this being compounded with the inspector shortage. 

If this happens, many plants will not be able to run. Meaning, no meat in the store and no food for children in public schools. Some of the biggest customers of the plant my family works at are public schools and prisons, as well as national chains. 

This could result in children becoming malnourished at schools, as well as families having a very hard time putting food on the table. Now, how bad is the current situation, pre-mandate? 

Managers at this plant have already had to jump on the line and help produce chicken due to lack of employees. This isn’t due to low pay or benefits- they stand as a beacon of hope and stability in the community. They value their workers but are on the verge of losing it all. 

Likewise, corporate is already discussing sending corporate managers, including the CEO, to help relieve the already damaging constraints by working on the line with everyone else. 

Only 25% of the plant is vaccinated, meaning the company will be forced to give weekly testing for all their locations, which will cost hundreds of thousands per year, or fire their hard-working employees. 

If this plant, like hundreds of others across rural America, shut down it will be the final nail in the coffin of these towns and a total collapse of the food supply. 

This is exacerbated by the fact that these employees oftentimes have no other skills besides working in food processing. Without this job, they won’t be able to feed their families and the towns they live in will die. 

We are looking at a multi-dimensional planned disaster: people losing their jobs, food processing being destroyed and risking famine, and the total decimation of rural communities who rely on these jobs to support their families. It is completely avoidable, but they want this. 

It doesn’t stop there: we are looking at a fertilizer shortage, with prices increasing 200% on ammonia. This spells disaster for family farms.

While this isn’t meant to serve as a doomsday prediction, I urge people to be prepared for potential supply chain collapse- especially regarding food. Please, protect yourself and your loved ones. They are trying to purposely destroy our food supply. 

As stated above, most people do not hear about food processing plants (except regarding cyberattacks earlier this year). This is a huge blindside to the American consumer who may soon not be able to get any meat at all, let alone hyper-inflated priced meat. 

We are facing a total disaster. If the mandate goes into effect, we are looking at hundreds of thousands of families losing their livelihoods and millions of people becoming malnourished. And its all planned.

As I said, I have no idea whether or not the author of the above thread is what he claims to be:  but what he says dovetails very strongly with warnings from elsewhere.  You'll have to decide for yourself whether or not to trust him.

I don't know whether the court order mandating that OSHA suspend the implementation of the Biden administration's COVID-19 vaccine mandate will affect the availability of staff or inspectors mentioned above.  I would assume it should;  but that depends on whether the Biden administration adheres to the court order, or simply ignores it.  Given its predilection to ride roughshod over opposition in other areas, I'm not convinced it'll obey the court.  I guess we'll see.

I certainly second the author's warning that "They are trying to purposely destroy our food supply ... its all planned."  When I look at the damage the Biden administration has done to this country in less than a year, it's heartbreaking - and it's very obviously deliberate.  An enemy, seeking to dismantle the economy of the United States, would find it hard to cause more harm to our essential industries than our own politicians have done in 2021.

Cast your mind back to this time in 2020, even with all the disruption and confusion caused by the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, and things were infinitely better than they are now.  Prices were lower, availability of necessities was much better, and our economy was running without too many glitches.  Now?  Normal operations are the exception rather than the rule - and it's all on the Biden administration, which is screwing up so comprehensively that I can't believe it's not deliberately planned.  Nobody could do this much harm by accident or incompetence!

I reckon we're seeing the implementation of the Cloward-Piven strategy on a national scale.  If the powers that be can disrupt the supply of essentials, forcing people to become more dependent on government to supply (and ration out to favored groups) what the markets cannot, then a centralized socialist economy will be created almost overnight, whether we like it or not - or so the moonbats think.  The rest of us might have something to say about that, of course...

Batten down the hatches, folks.  I think this is going to be a wild ride.

Peter

EDITED TO ADD:  It's not just the food sector that appears to be encountering deliberate, planned failure.  Eaton Rapids Joe reports on the nursing home where his mother is living:

I must admit that when people first started suggesting that our leaders were designing policies designed to make people fail, I thought they were wearing tin-foil hats.

I need to reconsider that position.

The manpower situation in the nursing home is dire. They are GUTTED for people. Toilets are backed up and not being fixed. And this is one of the three most highly rated nursing homes in a metro-area of 400k.

They are likely to lose another 30% of staff over the BS that fully vaccinated will soon mean three shots or four shots.

The Federal agencies are "remedying" the situation by adding levels of documentation and administrative overhead.

They are either engineering systems to implode or are pathologically stupid. Maybe both.

Makes you think, doesn't it?

"He Has Seen War"

 

That's the title of a documentary by HBO, "featuring surviving veterans of 101st Airborne Division and the 1st Marine Division, whose stories are told in 'Band of Brothers' and 'The Pacific'. From their initial steps at reintegrating into civilian life to the lasting impact the war had on each of their lives, the film features veterans and their families relaying their own unique stories."

It's a remarkable visual documentary, particularly from the perspective of any and all combat veterans.  The post-combat experiences of those World War II veterans is something more recent combat veterans will understand without the need for words.  In particular, the post-combat stress and psychological problems they experienced will be familiar to those who've grown up to talk about such problems, where our fathers and grandfathers were taught to bottle them up.

I can't recommend this documentary too highly.  It's an hour of your time that'll be well spent.

Peter

"They simply don’t care about [Rittenhouse's] actual innocence. He is guilty of being who he is, and that’s enough."

 

That's the conclusion of a very trenchant article at Legal Insurrection.  I'm going to publish a lengthy excerpt from it, because I think it sums up what we've seen coming out of that Kenosha courtroom for a couple of weeks - and the mainstream media's coverage of it.

The left wants power to be invested in the state and the state only, and they intend to be the ones in control of the state – and by “state” I don’t just mean an individual state such as Wisconsin. Their preferred repository of power is the federal government, and they want that power strengthened. That means that the right to bear arms and the right to self-defense must be quashed or at least greatly weakened and that only certain people will be allowed to have that right.

The message is that someone such as Kyle Rittenhouse – a young white man of conservative leanings – is not allowed to have that right. But this trial isn’t primarily about Rittenhouse himself nor is it really about the situation in which he found himself that August night in 2020 in Kenosha. That’s just the pretext. The fact that there is an enormous amount of evidence that would overwhelmingly support his claim of self-defense is just a small obstacle easily brushed aside with a combination of media lies, prosecution lies, and threats to destroy the city if Rittenhouse is acquitted.

To the left, Rittenhouse the person is just a vehicle for delivering the message, which goes like this:

(1) Rioters in causes that the left deems righteous are allowed to destroy cities, and ordinary citizens must lay low and take it. They may not defend property or even their lives.

(2) The most they can do if attacked is take a beating and hope to not be killed, throwing themselves on the tender mercies of the mob screaming for their destruction.

(3) The prosecution of those who would defend themselves goes hand in hand with the lack of prosecution, for the most part, of the rioters. This has the intended result of emboldening rioters.

(4) The MSM and the left will mount a defamatory campaign against their designated enemies (in this case Rittenhouse, but it could be anyone who meets their criteria). That will attempt to taint jury pools so badly that a lack of evidence to bolster the prosecution’s case won’t matter. This is especially true if the goal isn’t necessarily conviction (although that’s desired), because a hung jury will do for the purpose. The principle is that the process is the punishment, and the state will not relent in its pursuit of its quarry – multiple trials if necessary in the case of a hung jury.

There's more at the link.

That's also why, if Rittenhouse is not convicted under Wisconsin law, I expect the Department of Justice to bring civil rights charges against him.  The powers that be dare not allow him to get away with armed self-defense.  It's as simple as that.  No matter how justified his conduct under existing law, it must be discouraged, lest others do the same thing.  In so many words, the laws are less important than politically correct policies, and must be interpreted and applied only in the light of those policies.

Notice, too, that such charges are only likely to be brought in jurisdictions that are already controlled and/or heavily influenced by the politically correct.  The thought of a North Texas jury finding Rittenhouse guilty, in the light of the evidence presented in the case, is laughable (as is the notion that charges would have been brought against him under Texas law in the first place!).  The jury would withdraw just long enough to have a cup of coffee and a good laugh, then return to issue a resounding, unanimous "Not Guilty" verdict - because people around here are used to being self-reliant, and understand that when a bad guy has to be stopped, sometimes he must be stopped the hard way.  It's not unusual for that to happen in these parts.  In Wisconsin . . . not so much.

We're seeing enormous, immense pressure being placed on our judicial system to conform to ideology in the cases it prosecutes and the verdicts it obtains.  The actual black-letter law is irrelevant, because the powers that be will interpret what they think that law should mean, irrespective of what it says or what juridical precedent shows.  Rittenhouse, and others like him, must be sacrificed on the altar of political correctness in order to intimidate some, and encourage others.

I warned about this, of course.  See these two articles from last year:

Self-defense under a justice system

that's no longer on your side

No, I wasn't being alarmist -

rather, I wasn't alarmist enough

In the Rittenhouse trial, and particularly in the egregious misconduct of the prosecutors, you can clearly see the reality of which I warned in those articles.

I can only conclude by pointing out that if you know you're going to be targeted for defending yourself, you have two choices:

1. Submit to being terrorized, possibly injured, even perhaps killed by those favored under the politically correct dispensation:
2. Stop them regardless.  After all, if you know you'll be charged with a felony for defending yourself, then every felony after the first one is effectively "free".  They can only punish you so much - so why hold back?

If all of us chose the second option, I have a feeling that pretty soon they'd run out of cops to chase us, courts to try us, and prosecutors who were prepared to take the risk of offending the vast majority of right-thinking Americans.  Certainly, if any official, elected or appointed, demands that I passively permit others to victimize me, my response is going to be... vigorous.  And that's putting it mildly.

This also shows the importance of the Second Amendment.  A disarmed society cannot defend itself.  Let's make sure we never allow ourselves to be disarmed - and treat those who try like we will the criminals to whom they want to give a free hand.

Peter

How long can your emergency supplies be safely stored?

 

E. M. Smith, blogging at "Musings from the Chiefio", is using up his cache of emergency supplies prior to a big move. He brings us a long list of emergency supplies that he'd accumulated, and how well they performed after extended storage.  It's a very useful "reality check".  Here are a few examples.

Gasoline

The gas I’d stored about 1.75 years ago start of the plandemic was smelling just a tiny bit funky, but not “varnish” yet. Started the 1 kW Honda generator and ran one whole evening on it (nominal run time 8 hours, I got about 7 as I had it partially choked to stay running). Figure “one fill per night” if running a TV some lights and a bit more.

White Gas / Coleman Fuel

My “Dual Fuel” single burner stove and dual mantle lantern have been fired up. The stove has been my primary cooking appliance for about a week now ... The lantern was found to have a full tank already. I’d guess about 2 to 3 years ago was the last time I fired it up. It smelled fine and worked fine ... The cooking has taken about 1 cup / day. Maybe a bit less ... I’d plan on about 2 gallons / month for cooking. More if you have a bigger tribe.

Wax / Candles

Wax just keeps forever. It just does. Only thing that can go wrong that I’ve run into in about 40 years of using it as an emergency light source is that candles will melt in the trunk of your car in the heat of summer.

Food

What’s gone first?  Fresh milk, butter, yogurt, fresh meats & fish, fresh eggs, cheeses, fresh vegetables & fruits. (Followed more rapidly than expected by canned fruit… something about that syrup ;-) Also cans of “meals in a can” like ravioli and stews. Ritz Crackers, cookies, snacks like jerky and trail mix, and chips all disappear rapidly too.  Knorr Sides (in those foils packages for about $1 each) and canned milk get used rapidly too ... In between was the canned meats.

Other

For fuels, what stores easiest, is easiest to use and with fewest issues is Propane, followed by the little Butane cans for the “Asian Stove”. Camping Iso-Butane stoves come next but are harder to cook on, have less control and pots want to fall off, and the fuel costs more ... Alcohol Stoves work well, and easy ... Gasoline / White Gas work well, but storage is more problematic. Not just the flammability issues if it is open or spilled in pouring; but for Gasoline, you get a year, 2 max, and need to rotate it before it goes all varnish on you ... I’m very much of the opinion that a Survivalist Generator of about the size of the Honda 1 kW, but running on Diesel OR Kerosene, would sell to a LOT of folks around the world. I’d pay double the going rate of a gasoline version.

There's much more at the link.  Very interesting information, particularly when so many of us are preparing for the hard times that so clearly lie ahead.  Highly recommended reading.

Peter