My fasting diet is going reasonably well, producing measurable improvements in my health, for which I'm very grateful.
However, I'm NOT grateful to Eaton Rapids Joe for pointing out that "the adjective that best describes my physique is 'sculpted' ".
Dammit, Joe! You're not helping!
Peter
Neil Oliver points out that the so-called "green" revolution is all about money for its promoters, and nothing else.
As always: follow the money. Look at who most benefits from every green initiative. For example, as Twitter user Arwenstar points out: "When climate alarmist Al Gore ran for US president in 2000 he was apparently worth $1.7M. After decades of travelling the world in private jets to frighten the wits out of the proles he has amassed an estimated $313M." I'm sure he finds that a very congenial change in his financial climate!
Peter
Gathered from around the Internet over the past week. Click any image for a larger view.
Here's something different for your Sunday morning enjoyment.
Nini describes herself as a "musical shape shifter". Her Web site notes:
Nini grew up in Taiwan and has played and studied Chinese Traditional Folk instruments for over 20 years. She has toured Europe, the USA, Canada, China, Japan, and all of her home island playing in orchestral as well as rock settings. Nini is now on a journey to create her own unique sounds with the use of her traditional instruments and share them with the world. Nini's music blends the sound of her instruments the San Xian, Ruan, and Liuqin with the contemporary sounds of rock, metal, and EDM.
She has several albums out, plus music for video games, where she's been fairly successful. I've chosen four tracks from her YouTube channel this morning, three offering what I suppose are Far Eastern or "ethnic" reinterpretations of Western rock classics, the other being her variation on a Taiwanese folk tune.
Let's start with her rendition of the Rolling Stones' classic "Paint It Black".
Next, here's her version of Metallica's "Nothing Else Matters".
This traditional Taiwanese tune, "Longma", gets her "folk metal" treatment.
And finally, here's a rousing rendition of AC/DC's "Thunderstruck".
You'll find more of her music on her YouTube channel, and at her Web site.
Peter
That's just one of the many, many maxims in a new collection from Richard Wabrek.
The "deplorable" part of the title refers to Hillary Clinton's classification of so many of us as a "basket of deplorables" during the 2016 election campaign. Richard proudly adopts that classification, as do I.
Richard and I have been members of the same e-mail list for many years, which is how I came to know him online (I've sadly not had the opportunity to meet him in meatspace - yet). He's also been a professor, shooter, and down-to-earth practical philosopher. I'll let him describe how his book developed.
This book had its origins over 30 years ago when I taught engineering at the University of Wisconsin–Platteville. UWP was a small university in the (then) 26-institution University of Wisconsin System. Platteville itself was a small town (population 5,000) in rural, southwest Wisconsin, and most UWP students were the children of rural, middle-class families. UWP was certainly one of the more conservative campuses in the politically-correct UW System. That said, at the time, the UW System itself was probably the closest thing to a Soviet-style bureaucracy in the western hemisphere, Cuba excepted. Out-of-class conversations with students suggested my colleagues in the liberal arts college were doing their best to inculcate my engineering students with attitudes that would have been quite at home at UW-Madison, “the Berkley of the Midwest.” The practice of engineering requires sound, logical thinking so I found these attitudes debilitating.
At this point I had been teaching part or full time for about seven years. I had become reasonably successful at imparting basic engineering knowledge, but realized I was not addressing an equally important aspect of my students’ education. I was not imparting any wisdom. It was then that I resolved to do my part to expose my students to sound judgment. Given the UW System environment, I had to approach this with some caution. An untenured faculty member can’t afford to make enemies. UW System faculty members are free to embrace all manner of crazy ideas, provided they aren’t conservative ideas.
By 1987, I had been collecting maxims (as Mark Twain put it: “A maxim is the maximum of sense in the minimum of words.”) for my own pleasure for several years. The collection seemed to be the ideal vehicle for transmitting some common sense. My subversive plan was to pause from lecture about half-way through class and read a maxim or two. Inasmuch as 25 minutes of an engineering lecture is about all that any mere mortal can tolerate without a change of pace, this amounted to sound pedagogy as well. To prevent any complaints of bias (which on any University of Wisconsin campus were a concern), I would always solicit a maxim or two from the class. As it came to pass, there never were any complaints (back then), and there were frequent student contributions. My maxim breaks proved to be quite popular.
When my exile in the Wisconsin Gulag concluded, and I took a position at Idaho State University; I brought my maxim practice with me ... I occasionally received negative comments about my conservative maxims in the anonymous, end-of-semester, student evaluations. But overall, for nearly three decades, my students seemed to appreciate the maxims.
. . .
My maxim procedure evolved over the years. In the early 90s, I started awarding a prize to any student who brought in a maxim that earned a place in my collection. The prize in question was a properly aged, hand-rolled cigar from my personal humidor. Many ISU students are of the Latter-Day-Saint faith (Mormons), and smoking is forbidden to the Saints. So, while my students were generally receptive to the maxims, I had, on occasion, received complaints that I was encouraging an improper behavior. I responded that non-smokers were free to have their prizes bronzed.
Rather than try to cherry-pick the maxims I most enjoy (difficult, given that the book contains literally thousands of them!), I'm simply going to publish the first few pages of his collection, and let the maxims (and their authors) speak for themselves. Richard cautions:
I recommend that this book be enjoyed in small bits as an antidote for the misinformation and outright lies that characterize pronouncements from the government, media and so-called experts in the 21st Century. Most books of maxims are overwhelming, like “drinking from a fire hose.” As such, my collection is not grouped into broad categories or in any particular order. Read until a maxim stimulates some thought or recollection, pause, and reflect. Turn the maxim over in your mind; learn what it has to offer. You may even want to learn more about the author and the circumstances of the quote.
That said, here goes!
Pournelle’s Law — “If you don’t really know what you’re doing, deal only with people who do.”
One of several. The late Dr. Jerry Pournelle was a scientist, an award-winning, science-fiction author and an early personal-computer guru. I suspect that this latter career is the source of this maxim.Connery’s Law (Sean) — “Always tell the truth. When you do, it becomes the other fellow’s problem.”
Think: “Bond, James Bond.”“When people are free to do as they please, they usually imitate each other.” — Eric Hoffer, American philosopher, author of ten books, recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom (1902-1983).
Eric Hoffer was a longshoreman and published philosopher. I can recommend The True Believer (1951).“If you are going to criticize a mule, be sure you do it to his face.” — Anonymous
“No experience is so conductive to steady and accurate shooting as the knowledge of an impossibility to escape by speed.” — Sir Samuel Baker, English explorer, officer, naturalist, big game hunter, engineer, writer and abolitionist (1821-1893).
Baker explored and hunted in Africa when those activities were dangerous adventures.“Fanatic — Someone who, once he has lost sight of his goals, redoubles his efforts.” — George Santayana, Spanish born, American philosopher, essayist, poet, and novelist (1863–1952).
“Experience comes from making a large number of non-fatal errors.” — Anonymous
“Character‒the way you act when nobody’s looking.” — Anonymous
“Equality may perhaps be a right, but no power on earth can ever turn it into a fact.”— Honore’ de Balzac, French novelist and playwright (1799–1850).
“The end of the human race will be that it will eventually die of civilization.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson, American author, lecturer, philosopher, abolitionist, and poet (1803–1882).
“Nature has given woman so much power that the law cannot afford to give her more.” — Dr. Samuel Johnson, author of Dictionary of the English Language and more (1709–1784).
“Virtue has never been as respectable as money.” — Mark Twain, American author and humorist (1835–1910).
“Peace – n. In international affairs, a period of cheating between two periods of fighting.” — Ambrose Bierce, American short story writer, journalist, poet, American Civil War veteran, and author of The Devil’s Dictionary, which contains more definitions like the previous (1842–1914).
Another. “Politeness – n. The most acceptable hypocrisy.” — Ambrose Bierce.
“Where every man does what’s right in his own eyes, there is the least of real freedom.” — Henry M. Robert, of Robert’s Rules of Order fame.
“The people are to be taken in very small doses.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson, American author, lecturer, philosopher, abolitionist, and poet (1803–1882).
“Government is not eloquence. It is not reason. It is a force. Like fire, a dangerous servant and a fearful master.” — falsely attributed to George Washington.
“Tis more worthy to rate B+ in ten different areas of endeavor than A+ in just one.” — LTC Jeff Cooper, Lt. Colonel of Marines and the father of modern practical shooting (1920–2006).
Colonel Cooper was probably the finest teacher I have encountered in my life. His prose, like his thinking, is a model of clarity and efficiency. Here’s another.“Personal weapons are what raised mankind out of the mud, and the rifle is the queen of personal weapons...Pick up a rifle–a really good rifle–and if you know how to use it well, you change instantly from a mouse to a man, from a peon to a caballero, and― most significantly―from a subject to a citizen.” — Jeff Cooper.
“It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctively native American criminal class except congress.” — Mark Twain, American writer, humorist, entrepreneur, publisher, and lecturer (1835–1910).
“Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts.” — Richard Feynman, American, Nobel-Prize-winning, theoretical physicist (1918–1988).
“Just because it’s a well beaten road is no sign that it’s the right one.” — Anonymous.
“Brevity may be the soul of wit, but repetition is the soul of instruction.” — General George S. Patton, commander of the 7th US Army in World War II, and the 3rd US Army in France and Germany after the Allied invasion of Normandy (1885–1945).
A general is responsible for instructing as well as leading his men.“Knowing others is wisdom, knowing yourself is enlightenment.” — Lao Tsu, Taoist philosopher (circa 570–490 BC).
“Life enfolds on a great sheet called Time, and once finished it is gone forever.” — Chinese adage.
“A man who has attained mastery of an art reveals it in his every action.” — Koichi Tohei, Aikido Master.
“Power of mind is infinite while brawn is limited.” — Koichi Tohei, Aikido Master.
“Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. When change is absolute, there remains no being to improve and no direction is set for possible improvement; and when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” — George Santayana in Reasons in Common Sense, Life of Reasons.
This is the longer version of the common quote that consists of the last sentence.“Two wrongs are only the beginning.” — Anonymous.
“To step on a Persian carpet and a mullah are only to increase their value.” — Persian Maxim.
Collectors tell me that wear can make a carpet more valuable.“No good deed goes unpunished.” — Clare Boothe Luce, American playwright and journalist (1903–1987).
Good’s Bureaucratic Rule: “When the remedies don’t cure the problem, government modifies the problem, not the remedies.” — Anonymous
“Basic research is what I am doing when I don’t know what I am doing.” — Wernher von Braun, German-American aerospace engineer and space architect, member of the Nazi Party during WWII, primary figure in the development of rocket technology in Nazi Germany, later a pioneer in US rocket and space technology (1912–1977).
There you are. If those first couple of pages don't give you food for thought, dive into the book and look for more. There are enough to keep you busy for months. I highly recommend Richard's collection - so much so that I've bought multiple copies in all three formats (e-book, hardcover and paperback). I plan to lend them to those whom I think will benefit from them.
Oh, yes - the maxim in the headline of this article. From Richard's introduction:
Few bits of wisdom are more important than those which keep you alive. As a consequence, survival rules are well represented. One of my favorites is:
“Never get into any vehicle with a Kennedy.” — Anonymous.
If you know the history of the Kennedy political family, and what's happened to so many of their passengers, that kinda speaks for itself!
Peter
Those three elements all go together, according to The Good Citizen. Here's an excerpt.
Engineering the destruction of the middle class:
- Money printing and reckless spending create massive inflation driving up the costs of everything
- Import millions of illegals and housing demand will eventually exceed supply, even in highly desirable areas
- Export manufacturing jobs by the tens of millions through globalization
- Import millions of third-world tech workers with H1B1 Visas to undermine the American worker
- This is also how the California invasion of other western states was engineered: A couple sells their two-bedroom ranch shit box in Reseda they inherited from her parents for $2 million and can buy whatever they want in Idaho, Oregon, Nevada, Washington, Montana, and so on and still have a million left over
- Wages and income never keep pace with inflation while debt is encouraged by parasitic usury-pimping banksters at every turn; homes, cars, college, appliances, furniture, big-ticket electronics, vacations, amazon shopping, hell everything can be bought in installments now with companies like Affirm charging 15% APR
- Nobody ever gets ahead. Each generation falls further behind the last one.
. . .
It’s not that Americans’ homes that they bought for $500,000 five years ago are now “worth” a million bucks, it’s that a million bucks doesn’t buy much anymore and the **** it does buy, is mostly, pure ****.
. . .
The dollars used to purchase homes are rapidly decreasing in value, whether they come from Blackrock or a mortgage for a first time buyer.
Once double-digit inflation kicks in for two consecutive years the path to hyperinflation is not far away. And worse still, because inflation is compounding year after year we’ve just experienced 30% inflation since 2022.
Historically any nation that has crossed the 50% inflation mark in a single year did so in a matter of days. And the jump from 50% to 150% followed soon after also in a matter of days. From there it can jump to thousands of percent and it’s game over for any holders of that currency.
It doesn’t matter if a home sells for a trillion dollars on Flip or Flop or any of those other idiotic shows where miserable husbands and wives reveal that nothing will ever make them happy, not even white marble countertops or double vanities to go with triple ignorance and quadruple stupidity. The purchasing power of a trillion worthless dollars is nothing.
There's more at the link.
I highly recommend clicking on the link above and reading the whole article. The Good Citizen has some very cogent arguments, and some scary comparisons between what you can buy for half a million dollars in California versus Scandinavia. They'll make you think - and it's hard to argue with his conclusions.
Peter
Two recent articles highlight the very real danger caused by prolonged use of masks against COVID-19.
First, City Journal discusses "The Harm Caused by Masks".
Evidence continues to mount that mask mandates were perhaps the worst public-health intervention in modern American history. While concluding that wearing masks “probably makes little or no difference” in preventing the spread of viruses, a recent Cochrane review also emphasized that “more attention should be paid to describing and quantifying the harms” that may come from wearing masks. A new study from Germany does just that, and it suggests that the excess carbon dioxide breathed in by mask-wearers may have substantial ill-effects on their health—and, in the case of pregnant women, their unborn children’s.
Mask-wearers breathe in greater amounts of air that should have been expelled from their bodies and released out into the open. “[A] significant rise in carbon dioxide occurring while wearing a mask is scientifically proven in many studies,” write the German authors. “Fresh air has around 0.04% CO2,” they observe, while chronic exposure at CO2 levels of 0.3 percent is “toxic.” How much CO2 do mask-wearers breathe in? The authors write that “masks bear a possible chronic exposure to low level carbon dioxide of 1.41–3.2% CO2 of the inhaled air in reliable human experiments.”
In other words, while eight times the normal level of carbon dioxide is toxic, research suggests that mask-wearers (specifically those who wear masks for more than 5 minutes at a time) are breathing in 35 to 80 times normal levels.
There's more at the link.
Next, we learn that "Study Shows MOST People Now Have Microplastics — Found in Disposable Masks — in Their Lungs".
Researchers in the United Kingdom looked at lung tissue obtained from study participants and found microplastics in all regions of the lungs, including the deeper section. According to the study, this is the first time microplastics have been found in human lung tissue samples using ÎĽFTIR spectroscopy ... Though the researchers did not confirm the source of the microplastic contamination, the plastic fibers found in the lungs are commonly used in surgical masks.
. . .
In 2020, the amount of disposable face masks littered into the environment increased by a staggering 9000 percent. Billions of people strapped polypropylene masks to their faces every day for two years and sucked their air through plastic fibers for 8 hours or more. To not have discovered plastic in lungs would have been surprising.
The confirmation of microplastics in the lungs also backs up a study conducted in 2020 which predicted a microplastic inhalation risk posed by wearing masks.
. . .
Dr. Osita Onugha, thoracic surgeon and assistant professor of thoracic surgery at Saint John’s Cancer Institute at Providence Saint John’s Health Center in Santa Monica, California told Medical News Today that the implications for microplastics in the lungs are unknown given our current knowledge on this type of contamination but it can't be good.
Again, more at the link.
And yet, despite this and other evidence (there's more every day from multiple sources in multiple countries), you still have some states mandating that kids at school must wear masks every day, and businesses such as some doctors' offices, hospitals, clinics, etc. demanding that anyone coming in must put on a mask and keep it on until they leave.
I'm beginning to think that in terms of demonstrating one's overall intelligence, likelihood to survive a crisis, and overall value to society, the wearing of a surgical mask to "protect" against COVID-19 is like the "mark of the beast" in the Book of Revelation. If you're wearing one for that reason, you're marked. If not, you're not. Guess which camp my wife and I fall into? Furthermore, any authority trying to compel us to wear masks marks itself with the same stigma. We obey them at our peril.
*Sigh*
Peter
Sorry about the headline, but it was the only appropriate one that came to mind after I read this report from Sussex, England.
Locals have revealed that pot holes have finally been filled in by a council - after penises were mysteriously spray-painted around them. Workers turned up on the site in East Sussex where locals were fed up with dodging massive crumbling pits - but only after someone took direct action.
Now it has been confirmed that the holes in question have been filled in. Resident Helen Carr took the pictures and explained that instead of starting to repair the road initially road sweepers were sent to clear away the drawings.
Sussex Council said it had brought forward work which has been planned - but moaned it has put ‘additional pressure on our pothole repair crews’.
. . .
... comments included “Drawn by the College’s A level art class? Still life.”
There's more at the link, including some rather phallic photographs.
Sussex Council appears to have no sense of humor - but then, bureaucrats seldom do. They've been sitting in their office chairs for so long that the iron has entered their souls (if they possess the latter, that is . . . some would argue that bureaucrats had to sell theirs to the devil to get their positions in the first place). As evidence, just look at recent events in Cornwall, another English county.
Highways chiefs are searching for a mystery motorist who poured concrete into a huge pothole that had forced the closure of a road for weeks.
The unknown pothole filler patched up the crater in Lostwithiel, Cornwall, on a road that had been shut since the beginning of April.
Cornwall Highways said the work had been done “by persons unknown, without consent” and urged the local community to share any information that could identify the person responsible, CornwallLive reported.
. . .
Colin Martin, Cornwall councillor for Lostwithiel and Lanreath, described the Lostwithiel pothole as “a perfect metaphor for the way that the entire public sector is crumbling due to underinvestment”.
“The latest is that the road has been closed again and will remain closed until it is 'properly' repaired by Cormac, but they say this could be weeks away as all available teams have been diverted to filling smaller potholes on roads which are still open,” he told Cornwall Live.
Again, more at the link.
We have similar problems in this country, of course, as any big-city-dweller will tell you. It's amusing to see we also have public activism to fix them, as demonstrated recently by Arnold Schwarzenegger in California - although he filled in a utility trench rather than a pothole. Still, the same principle applies. Well done, sir!
Peter
I've lost count of the number of times I've been told that software such as ProtonMail, or Signal, or Telegram, are protected from "snooping", and that anything posted there is private and won't be revealed to anyone, even law enforcement.
On May 10, Stephan Walder, a public prosecutor and head of the Cybercrime Competence Center in Switzerland’s Canton of Zurich, had a presentation on cybercrime at an event. Martin Steiger, a Swiss lawyer who had been live-tweeting from the event, claims Walder incidentally mentioned ProtonMail as a service provider that voluntarily offers assistance to law enforcement for real-time surveillance, without requiring an order from a federal court.
Steiger has published a blog post on ProtonMail’s alleged practices — the blog post is available in both German and English — and summarized the obligations of such service providers for cooperating with authorities under Swiss laws.
While ProtonMail provides end-to-end encryption, which prevents the company from reading the actual content of emails, it does have access to metadata. Citing the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA), Steiger pointed out that metadata can be highly valuable to law enforcement and intelligence agencies.
Steiger has highlighted that while ProtonMail uses the fact that it’s based in Switzerland as a marketing advantage, citing strict Swiss privacy laws, the company is actually subject to local surveillance laws, and while it’s not subject to more extensive surveillance obligations, it does voluntarily help law enforcement surveillance operations, based on what Walder allegedly said.
Steiger has pointed to ProtonMail’s transparency report, where the company mentions one case where it conducted real-time surveillance of a user at the request of authorities.
“Every user of ProtonMail (or ProtonVPN) must decide for himself whether the email service is trustworthy,” Steiger said. “The difference between advertising and reality at least speaks against too much trust for ProtonMail.”
There's more at the link.
ProtonMail has (of course) denied the allegations. (What else would one expect?) However, I believe them. I don't think the Swiss authorities would allow ProtonMail to continue operating unless it cooperated with their security needs and concerns. I don't think any national government would do so. They're too paranoid, too obsessed with being able to gain access to whatever information they decide they need - and to hell with individual privacy, legislated or otherwise. While ProtonMail may claim that they have no access to the contents of our e-mails, I'm willing to bet a large sum of money that more than one government has figured out back-door ways to examine those contents anytime they wish. That's the way they operate.
The same goes double for US government security agencies, of course. They're not just paranoid, they're manic. As Sundance has pointed out several times, the "national security state" (what he calls the Fourth Branch of Government) is the true "Deep State", and they won't tolerate anything that impedes their snooping.
Former Obama era intelligence officials, those who helped construct, organize and assemble the public-private partnership between intelligence data networks and supported social media companies, have written a letter to congress warning that any effort to break up Big Tech (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Google, Microsoft, etc.) would be catastrophic for the national security system they have created.
Citing the information control mechanisms they assembled, vis-a-vis the ability of social media networks to control and approve what is available for the public to read and review, the intelligence officials declare that any effort to break up the private side of the intel/tech partnership will only result in less ability of the intelligence apparatus to control public opinion.
They willfully admit that open and uncensored information is adverse to the interests of the intelligence state and therefore too dangerous to permit. They specifically argue, if the modern system created by the partnership between the U.S. government and Big Tech is not retained, the national security of the United States is compromised.
. . .
Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and even Google itself, are financially and operationally dependent on the scale of the data processing system that is run by the U.S. government. The capacity of each of the big social media companies to exist, operate and be financially viable, is dependent on the backbone of interconnected data networking, and massive data processing.
The scale of simultaneous user data-processing is not financially viable without the U.S government subsidizing it. That’s the free coffee that cannot be duplicated in the private sector by any competing social media company. That’s the cost and scale system behind the partnership that permits Big Tech to operate. Ultimately, this is what the intelligence apparatus needs to keep hidden from the American (and global) public.
. . .
Essentially, the U.S. government is in control of our social media networking.
Again, more at the link.
There is no privacy on the Internet. Period. That's the way it is. Big Brother is watching us, and won't permit or tolerate any attempt by anybody to get around that. If you don't believe that, try encoding or encrypting the text in a normal e-mail sent via any service you wish, and see whether it gets through or not. I've heard more than a few reports, from people who've tried it, that the recipients didn't receive it, or it arrived "garbled" and unreadable, or that a critical attachment was missing. Same goes for images you send. Steganography is well-known, and there are filters that specifically examine images to see whether anything about them suggests that it's being used. If those filters are tripped, you can bet your bottom dollar that your image will be copied and sent to people and agencies with no sense of humor at all, and you'll come under some pretty intensive scrutiny.
Every single electron or pixel that goes from our computers to others, or arrives on our computers, has been and is being scanned multiple times as it passes through various intermediate servers. We have no electronic privacy whatsoever, whether we like it or not. If you want to keep something private, talk about it or communicate through non-electronic media: and even then, unless your communication is hand-carried from source to destination, don't assume it'll remain private. Why else do you think the US Postal Service copies the address of every single item of post it handles, and keeps that information on hand? There's no good operational reason to do so, except to snoop on what people are sending to whom.
Our government and its security services operate in a permanent persecution complex fueled by distrust and paranoia. Any attempt to avoid or evade their scrutiny is, from their perspective, anomalous and therefore suspicious conduct. That's the bottom line. The only solution I can see comes, again, from Sundance:
The United States federal police force, the FBI, is politically weaponized against American citizens.
The United States intelligence community is politically weaponized against American citizens.
The United States justice department, the DOJ, is politically weaponized against American citizens.
We need to take down the four pillars that support the Fourth Branch of Government. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI), the Dept of Homeland Security (DHS), the Dept of Justice National Security Division (DOJ-NSD), and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), all need to be dissolved.
After those four pillars are removed, the Patriot Act needs to be abolished and the FBI placed under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Marshals service.
Peter
I'd never heard of an ultra-marathon race known as The Speed Project until I read an article about it at the BBC a couple of days ago.
The Speed Project (TSP) [is] an unsanctioned, unsupported 350-mile race from Los Angeles to Las Vegas via Death Valley.
It has no website, no "register here" button, no rules, no official route, no spectators and, until a week before, no official start date.
It's a "Fight Club" of the running world created in the mould of its founder. Before he found marathon running after moving to Los Angeles in the mid-2000s, Arend organised a rave night in a borrowed brothel in Hamburg's red-light district.
Despite the race's underground status, the start line is filled with some of the world's fastest athletes, and the biggest brands.
How do they get there? Well, that's a long story, shrouded in secrecy.
There's much more at the link.
Intrigued, I looked for more information, and found this video on YouTube. It's twelve minutes of very interesting viewing, if human extreme performance interests you.
I've never even remotely felt the need to challenge Mother Nature and/or myself in that way, and I guess by now I'm too old and decrepit to even think about it: but for some people, it's a way of life. Kudos to them for their determination and drive.
Peter
So, at long last, Durham has released his report on the Trump-Russia probe and found it was fundamentally, intrinsically flawed (not to mention illegal, but he doesn't use that word) and should never have begun.
Big, fat, hairy deal.
The question is, WHAT IS GOING TO BE DONE ABOUT IT? Where are the charges of criminal conspiracy? That's something so obvious that a blind man should have seen it right from the beginning of the whole "Russia! Russia! Russia!" imbroglio. Where are the charges against the Clinton campaign, which basically made up the whole thing for political advantage? Where are the dismissals from federal agencies that made up and/or went along with the whole pack of lies?
Crickets.
The Good Citizen sums it up.
Let’s get this straight then, the CIA, FBI, and justice department with help from the NSA and FISA court basically took the muck and propaganda of one campaign (the one holding power), and attempted to orchestrate and manufacture a coup d’etat against their political opponents with help from 99% of media outlets and even the establishment of the same party as Trump (McCain, Graham, et al)?
And yet the media is still pushing the “collusion” narrative despite facts proving otherwise and congressional memos showing it was in fact the other party and prior executive office holder who are guilty of everything they’re accusing Trump of?
a) seeking slime on a political opponent (the Trump Jr./Russian lawyer meeting) = bad, so we’re told for the past year
b) Adam Schiff attempts to dig up slime offered by prankster Russian disc jockeys, is recorded on the phone asking for it, and has his emails released showing he followed up on it = not bad, according to the media
This is some serious oligarchy/deep state/swampy-shit soap opera.
I’m curious, where doth democracy exist in the world today?
It makes some banana republics look tame by comparison. This was some crazy Stasi-level Orwellian ignorance-is-truth manipulation of the masses to orchestrate a soft coup with endless 24/7 CIA-planted media lies about Russia collusion when there was absolutely nothing there. Nada.
They manipulated dates ie the Trump transition team calls to the Russian ambassador happened as President-elect, pure rudimentary stuff. First contact to smooth the transition to power. The media omitted all that. Lies by omission. The trump jr. email about Podesta’s emails came two weeks after Assange had already released them to the world. The media lies and says Jr had access to the emails before the world did, or omitted the dates on purpose. Got that abc swamp reporter suspended.
The DNC server data was not hacked but taken from the source by USB drive. Then the Seth Rich “Robbery” assassination. No phone or wallet was taken. Interesting “robbery.”
On and on for a year, then another, and now the Obama/Clinton soft coup rolls into year two. “Special prosecutor” to catch people perjuring themselves and “Russian bots” organizing both pro-trump and anti trump rallies. Bizarro to bring indictments against foreign nationals simply making Facebook groups.
Something more sinister is going on here. Is War with Russia in the cards soon? The US was basically at war with Russia in Syria through proxies. They seem to really want war with Russia. Do these lunatics have any idea what that would entail?
But where’s the grand jury to investigate FBI, justice dept. collusion to surveil political opponents and use a Clinton-fabricated dossier to justify endless wiretapping?
It’s sickening. Totally sickening. No headlines in the Bezos-CIA Amazon post. No story by that decrepit whore the grey lady. All the swamp stenographers refuse to admit this whole Potemkin charade. Operation Mockingbird is still in strong effect 40 years later. They probably get morning memos from Langely.
If they can manipulate these braindead zombie Americans, of both sides, to believe one stinkin’ rottin’ word of this Russia psyop, what else could they be capable of completely fabricating out of thin air with help from the media?
There's more at the link.
The short answer: nothing is going to be done about it, because too few of us, the American voting public, are willing to take a stand and demand that something should be done. Most of us just don't care . . . and that's why we can't have honest elections anymore.
Peter
I had to smile at Stephan Pastis' cartoon yesterday. Click the image to be taken to a larger version at the "Pearls Before Swine" Web page.
It's easy to get lost in all the doom-and-gloom news that surrounds us. I'm guilty of that too, from time to time. It's good to remind ourselves that there's still a lot of good in the world, even though it may take effort to find it.
Peter
I was reminded of this classic tongue-in-cheek martial arts video by a recent MeWe post. I laughed when I first watched it, years ago, and it remains as funny as ever.
I wouldn't advise those moves against anyone who really knows what he's doing, of course. He might die laughing, while you die screaming!
Peter
This country's in a pretty parlous state right now, with an administration that ignores the law and lawmakers too busy scoring political points off one another to care about doing something about that.
Under the circumstances, it's up to us as individuals, as well as groups of like-minded people, to "do what we can, with what we have, where we are", to paraphrase President Theodore Roosevelt. To emphasize that reality, here are some very pertinent thoughts from other bloggers over the past week or so. I very strongly recommend that you read each article carefully, and perhaps re-read it frequently.
- My Thoughts
- Skills
- Be Realistic
- Cut Right Back
- Come To Jesus Time
When our government can't, or won't, do its job, it's up to us to protect ourselves against their neglect as best we can, and to safeguard our families and communities against the consequences of their malfeasance in office. Nobody else is going to do that for us . . . so what are we going to do about it?
Peter
What do you call it when a national government expressly ignores the constitution of that country, and takes actions that defy that fundamental law? It may not be treason in the sense of the explicit, specific definition of that term, but it's darn close.
The Biden administration is doing just that in abandoning its constitutional responsibility to protect this country against invasion. Just The News points out:
With just two words, the top uniformed officer in the Customs and Border Protection agency sent shockwaves across official Washington two months ago when asked whether his agency has operational control of the southern U.S. border.
"No, sir," Border Patrol Chief Raul Ortiz told Congress in a shocking admission that exposed just how badly border security has deteriorated under President Joe Biden.
At the time, illegal crossings at the border in March were averaging 5,000 a day, far more than the historical average of 2,000 daily at the end of the Trump administration.
By last week, those crossing had exploded to a record 10,000 a day as the pandemic-related Title 42 order allowing migrants to be turned away expired.
Border officials says illegal crossings will soon shoot up to 11,000 to 16,000 daily. With each increase under Biden, more border patrol agents are being torn from their security roles and moved to process migrants and release them into the country.
When the total hits 16,000 daily, only 10% of available border agents will be on patrol and the drug cartels will have full control, says Brandon Judd, a border patrol agent and the president of the National Border Patrol Council, the union representing border agent.
Judd says the crisis point will emerge in a few weeks when media attention to the end of Title 42 subsides and the cartels take full advantage.
"As the talk starts to die down, as you start to see the media go away from the border, that's when we're going to see the numbers start to shoot right back up,” Judd told the John Solomon Reports podcast on Friday. "So we can expect post-Title 42, we can expect that our numbers are going to go up anywhere between 13,000 to 16,000 apprehensions per day."
Judd provided unprecedented detail on how border secutity patrols decrease as illegal migrants rise.
"When we're apprehending 3,000 people, we're pulling resources out of the field," he explained. "We don't have as many Border Patrol agents patrolling the border. When we're apprehending 5,000 people a day – now we only have 50% of our border patrol agents patrolling the border. When we hit 10,000 apprehensions a day, that means we're only deploying 30% of our border patrol agents to patrol the border.
"And when that happens, the cartels are able to gain ground on the vast majority of our border, as they start controlling the vast majority of our border. Once those numbers go up to 13,000 to 16,000, we're only going to have 10% of our border patrol agents actively patrolling the border, and the cartels will own every inch of the border.”
There's more at the link.
Indeed, the Biden administration is making a mockery of the legal requirements imposed on illegal aliens to appear for hearings on whether or not they can stay. It's pushing the dates of those hearings so far into the future that they're essentially meaningless.
Migrants processed into the US as asylum seekers are being given immigration court dates more than a decade away.
In Brownsville, migrants who arrived in the US Thursday showed The Post their paperwork with designated court dates set as late as 2032 and 2035 in Chicago and Florida.
Now they have been admitted to the county and given a court date, the migrants can receive a work permit and legally live and work in the US until their case comes up.
. . .
Backlogs at immigration courts currently stand at 2.1 million cases waiting to be heard.
There are around 600 immigration court judges deciding asylum cases, and in the last financial year, they closed approximately 312,000 cases.
According to data from the Justice Department, 2022 saw the highest number of asylum applications on record, with almost 700,000 filed.
That record could be broken this year, with projections based on first-quarter figures to be almost 740,000 applications filed.
In the run-up to the end of Title 42, US Customs and Border Protection has apprehended more than 10,000 migrants each day since Sunday — the highest numbers in the agency’s recorded history.
Again, more at the link.
So, an illegal alien can arrive here and be given a hearing date up to a dozen years in the future. During that period they'll be able to work and earn a living, at the expense of Americans who might need that job; and any children born to them will be American citizens by birth, and able to stay here even if the illegal alien is later deported.
Basically, the Biden administration is showing its utter contempt for ordinary Americans, and for the constitution and laws of this country. It's not so much disobeying them as disregarding them altogether.
Peter
Gathered from around the Internet over the past week. Click any image for a larger view.
I'm emphatically not into rap, hip-hop or associated musical (?) genres in any way. However, out of that background has come some truly interesting "urban music" or "high-energy music" that defies classification, and brings new perspectives to those prepared to listen.
One such perspective is provided by Stomp. The group describes itself on their Web site:
Matchboxes, brooms, garbage cans, Zippo lighters, and more fill the stage with energizing beats at STOMP: the inventive and invigorating stage show that’s dance, music, and theatrical performance blended together in one electrifying rhythm.
It's certainly different. Here's a 45-minute HBO special on the group. I enjoyed it.
Not my normal musical fare at all, but nevertheless interesting, I think.
Peter
I've been so busy with other things (including writing my own books), and so distracted by trying to do too many things at once, that I haven't had time to put up a Saturday Snippet extract this morning. Sorry about that. Life gets in the way sometimes.
Please amuse yourselves with the bloggers listed in the sidebar.
Peter
Courtesy of a heads-up from an anonymous reader, we learn that not all butt-plugs are what they seem to be. Twitter user Dread Pirate Bradius informs us:
(Click either image for a larger view.)
Who on earth wears - or inserts; I don't think they're "wearable" - one of those things while walking around, let alone to a medical appointment? What happened to normality? Am I missing something here?
Sheesh . . .
Peter
