Leslie Fish's Blog, page 12

LIMITS TO THE BIG LIE TACTIC

It’s been a lively couple of weeks in for the mainstream news.  First, the second debate of the Democratic presidential hopefuls revealed some amazing planned policies.  Second, a teenaged lunatic shot up the Gilroy Garlic Festival, killing three people plus himself.  Third, a vicious young punk shot up a packed Walmart in El Paso, Texas, killing 22 people before he surrendered.  Fourth, the next day, another vicious young punk shot up a shopping mall and bar in Dayton, Ohio.  Fifth, during those same two days 47 people were shot in Chicago, by different shooters and at different specific locations.  Sixth, a vicious gang-banger killed four people during a two-hour stabbing spree in Los Angeles.  Seventh, the Democrat hopefuls, and their allies, responded to the tragedies with even more amazing accusations and threatened policies.
To start with the end, various Democrat pundits pulled out their usual boilerplate about gun control, demanding:  1)      “universal background checks” – which already exist.  Federal law requires all licensed gun-dealers, whether in their shops or at a “gun show”, to check potential buyers’ ID against the NCIS database to see if said buyers have criminal records or have been adjudicated “mentally incompetent”.  Private sellers – say, a neighbor selling his spare shotgun to another neighbor, or a grandfather giving a basic .22 bolt-action rifle to his grandson – are not allowed to perform background checks, even if they want to, because (thanks to a law passed by the dear old ACLU) they’re legally forbidden to access the NCIS database.  All that’s needed to make “background checks” truly “universal” is to abolish that stupid law and let private citizens us the NCIS database.2)      “red flag laws” – which have been judged unconstitutional.  Allowing police to confiscate people’s property (in this case firearms) without due process of law, purely on the complaint of anybody (such as an ex with a grudge) that so-and-so is “crazy and dangerous” is a wide-open  invitation for abuse.  3)      Ban the sale of “military-style assault weapons” and “extended magazines”, which are definitions so vague as to be unenforceable.…and these are the more reasonable demands.  Others include banning all semi-automatic firearms, house-to-house searches to collect them, and declaring all Republican voters “mentally unfit” to buy guns.       And it gets crazier.  Of course one could expect Democrats to blame every tragedy on Trump and his “divisive rhetoric”, but singer John Legend claims that the president’s “racist venom” and “bigoted policies” directly “inspire killers”;  this is ironic, considering that Legend himself has publicly called on people to harass Trump officials, and do anything to throw “flaming racist…piece of shit” Trump out of office. 
Never mind Maxine Waters’ exhortations of the past year for civilians to go out and harass Trump voters everywhere in public – “in restaurants, in department stores, and in gas stations” -- which many Democrat voters have faithfully gone and done.  She has never been charged with “incitement to public violence”. 
And more: Reza Aslan, former CNN executive went on TV to claim “The President is a white nationalist terror leader.  His supporters – ALL OF THEM – are by definition white nationalist terror supporters.  The MAGA hat is a KKK hood.  And this evil racist scourge must be eradicated from society.”  Considering that some 40 million citizens voted for Trump, this could be considered “divisive rhetoric”. 
Wilder yet, MSNBC’s national security analyst Malcolm Nance claimed on the program “Hardball” that mass shootings in the US are fueled by “far-right white supremacist ideology by shooters who want to eliminate liberalism.”  He insisted that “these people feel that…Donald Trump is giving them subliminal orders in their head.” 
And more yet; Beto O’Rourke said of Trump’s “rhetoric”: “the only modern western democracy that I can think of that said anything close to this is the Third Reich, Nazi Germany”, and it’s issuing “an invitation to violence.”  And MSNBC’s Mika Brzezinski claims that in “inciting hatred, inciting violence, inciting racism…this is a president who seems to want these things to happen.”  Nicolle Wallace, likewise on MSNBC, goes her one better, claiming “You now have a president…talking about exterminating Latinos.” Princeton professor Edward Glaube, on “Meet the Press”, said that simply using the phrase “illegal immigrant” somehow “set the stage for people who are…on the extreme to act violently”.  Weirder still is former FBI agent Frank Figliuzzi’s statement that Trump ordering the flags that had been lowered to half mast raised again was a secret Nazi signal, because he happened to order it on the 8th of August – and August is the 8thmonth;  since the 8th letter of the alphabet is H, “the numbers 88 together stand for ‘Heil Hitler’.”  It couldn’t possibly be, say, a commemoration of Nagasaki Day, could it?  That is, if he thought of it at all.
The general theme of these claims is that Trump is a white-nationalist/white-supremacist/neo-nazi and so are his voters – all 40+ million of them.  Right. 
Now I’ll be the first to admit that Trump is a boorish lout with all the subtlety of a bull in a china-shop, that he’s very likely the reincarnation of P. T. Barnum – part businessman, part showman and part con-man – though a much worse speaker, and he’s probably the worst public speaker I’ve ever seen in public life, but where’s the proof of real racism?  He’s quite fond of his Jewish daughter and son-in-law, boasts of his black friends, and – actions speaking louder than words – has done more economically, educationally and socially for People of Color than his predecessors.  According to several federally-commissioned Pew studies, this year both Black and Hispanic unemployment hit record historic lows.  Also Black and Hispanic rates of college graduation reached record highs.  So did numbers of Black and Hispanic independent businesses.  And never mind the educational, economic and social gains by American Asians.  It’s an odd racism that has given such real advantages to “non-whites”.
So the usual claimed evidence for “racism” is Trump’s “divisive rhetoric” and the idea that the mass-shooters of the past two weeks are all neo-nazis who adore Trump.
To deal with the first, all of his claimed “divisive rhetoric” lambasts illegal immigrants, particularly the ugly M-13 gangster cartel, and certain Muslim-majority countries which have – according to the FBI and Interpol – nasty histories of funding, training, and supplying the majority of the world’s Jihadist terrorists;  gangsters and terrorists are not nice people, and not the sort you want to welcome into your country, state, or town.  There’s nothing “racist” about that fact.  To restate the obvious, “Mexican” is not a race, and neither is “Muslim”.  More, words are not actions;  rude or thoughtless words are not the equivalent of physical attacks.  In fact, professionally-offended Democrats – particularly Democrat Socialists – have used far more “divisive rhetoric” than Trump and all his working associates put together.  The proof of that is the “intersectional” politics that have plagued our educational institutes for the past three years and more.
Now as for the second charge, the more the police learn about those incidents, the more complicated the story grows. 
First, the Gilroy Garlic Festival shooter – Santino William Legan, 19 – drove to the park with a shotgun, an AR-15, a clown mask, a passport and several other odd items in his car.  He cut a hole in the fence to sneak in, then ran through the park shooting people at random until the police came after him, whereupon he shot himself fatally in the head.  Also found among his belongings was a “hit list” of widely different targets: religious institutions, political groups of both parties, federal buildings and courthouses.  According to FBI agent John Bennett there was no manifesto but Legan was “exploring violent, competing ideologies” and “there was nothing that was all one-sided or the other.”  He was not a “white supremacist” but a chaotic lunatic.
Then there’s the El Paso shooter, whom the media have obsessed upon for days, claiming he had left a “white nationalist manifesto” on the Internet.  The manifesto was quickly taken down, but enough sites copied it to keep it available – such as here: https://pulpitandpen.org/2019/08/05/heres-the-el-paso-shooters-full-manifesto-read-it-before-you-believe-the-news/ 
The commentaries on the site are also well worth reading.  But the point is, Patrick Crusius was not a proper “white supremacist”;  he hated unchecked immigration, but his screed is also full of Left-wing tropes about “corporate elites” and overpopulation.  He also mentioned that he didn’t like Trump.  It’s understandable why the Internet platforms censored his manifesto;  it doesn’t neatly fit the stereotype the Democrat politicians and their media allies wanted to spread.
Worse is the conclusion, by FBI agent Steve Hooper, on the Mike Broomhead TV show, that Crusius’ “triggering event” for the shooting was, if you please, an incident during the Democratic candidate debates. MSNBC personality Savannah Guthrie asked this question:  “This is a show of hands question and hold them up so people can see. Raise your hand if your government plan would provide coverage for undocumented immigrants,” Guthrie said to the candidates Thursday night. Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, Kamala Harris, Andrew Yang, Pete Buttigieg, Kirsten Gillibrand, Michael Bennet, Marianne Williamson, John Hickenlooper, and Eric Swalwell all raised their hand.  Hooper claims:  “When the most recent debate when they all said free healthcare, they all raised their hands. That’s what pushed him over the edge. He felt he was justified. He felt he ran out of alternatives.”
Less thoroughly mentioned in the media, interestingly enough, is the case of the Dayton, Ohio shooter, Connor Betts, whose schoolmates described him as a Leftist bully who hated women.  On his own Internet sites he described himself as a Satanist, and an Antifa member, who wanted to kill ICE agents and Republican voters, and signed his posts with “Kill every fascist”.  He attended an Antifa rally last May, wearing the usual face-mask and sunglasses, with a semi-auto pistol exactly like the one he used in his shooting spree. The first person he killed in his rampage was his own sister, and there’s no evidence that it was a random shot.  Note the accounts at: https://lauraloomer.us/2019/08/05/dayton-shooter-satanist-member-of-antifa-despised-ice-interacted-with-left-wing-media-outlets/#.XUmQUJNKhBwAll this, likewise, does not fit the stereotype the Democrats are trying so hard to push.
Other exceptions to the scenario include 47 people shot, 8 of them killed in Chicago, over the same two days as the El Paso and Dayton shootings, which the media avoided mentioning – possibly because Chicago has had a Democrat government for nearly a century, and has had fiercely strict gun-control laws nearly as long, and the perpetrators in all those cases were Black.  So were most of the victims.
Another exception to the Democrat story was the mass-stabbing and robbery spree done by gang-banger Zachary Castenada, across Garden Grove and Santa Ana, California, in a scant two hours just last Wednesday, which left four dead and two wounded.  The police who caught him claimed that he gave no motive for the killings, though he had a long record of violent and drug crimes.  Castenada is Hispanic, as were four of his victims.  This case too has received only brief and local media coverage, possibly because he used only knives, although he had a handgun in his possession.
More carefully ignored facts:
1)      the vast majority of mass-shootings happen in carefully-chosen “gun-free zones” --  https://spectator.org/mass-shootings-in-gun-free-zones/?utm_source=American%20Spectator%20Emails&utm_campaign=df0dac76f6-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2019_08_07_11_41&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_797a38d487-df0dac76f6-1042543892)      The majority of mass-shooters in 2019 so far have been Black –  https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/274538/51-mass-shooters-2019-were-black-only-29-were-daniel-greenfield3)      The USis not the world’s worst country for mass shootings, including civilian mass shootings --https://pjmedia.com/trending/no-the-united-states-doesnt-lead-the-world-in-mass-shootings/
So, no – it’s not Trump’s fault, there is no “surge of white supremacism”, the majority of voters are not neo-nazis, and the picture which the Democrats and their allied media have been crafting – and blatting on the airwaves for 20 hours per day for the last two weeks is false. 
The Big Lie tactic was not invented by Hitler’s minions, but only made famous by them, and it can be defeated.  I don’t mean just by repeating the verifiable truth by every available outlet, like little drops of water slowly wearing away the Grand Canyon;  I mean a weakness which is built into the tactic itself. 
That weakness is the tendency to overplay your hand – to make sure that everybody hears the same story, with the same carefully-crafted words, spoken by the same carefully-groomed Talking Heads, accompanied by the same carefully-chosen weeping sympathetic victims, on every available media outlet, 20 hours out of every 24 for as many days as possible.  For one thing, the audience tends to become bored.  For another, once calmed down a bit, the audience tends to think about the story and notice the details that don’t quite fit, and then begin to thinkabout other possibilities.  Worst of all, with enough repetition, fear wears out. 
I repeat: fear wears out -- and this is the doom of all tyrants, from wherever, physically or politically, they may hail.
This is why the Democrats are pushing to pass more gun-control laws – fast, fast, before the voters have time to calm down and think.  This is also why wiser heads among the DNC are leaning on the fringey-er members of Congress to tone down their “rhetoric”, lest they cause a “backlash” that will throw the election to Trump. 
Scariest of all is the possibility that the propaganda-jaded voters just may grow tired enough of the partisan squawking to turn on both of the Big Two parties and agree:A plague on both their houses: vote Libertarian!  To misquote Shakespeare even further, “’Tis a consummation greatly to be wished.”
--Leslie <;)))>< 

On Exile

Given the state of education in America these days, it’s likely that precious few students today have ever read the once-classic story, “The Man Without A Country” – therefore most people today would be surprised to learn that “exile” was once a serious part of American law.  The assumption was, “If you can’t live with our society, live without it”.  The early American colonists relied on “banishment” as a legal punishment for civil or religious infractions.  For example, Roger Williams was banished from the Massachusetts Baycolony in 1635 for complaining about the colonists’ practice of stealing land from the local Indians.  Cast out, Williams went to the Indians and took care to buy land from them, on which he founded the colony of Rhode Island.  
As I recall, the laws concerning application of that particular sentence are still on the books, and I think it’s time we considered them again.
At present, only non-citizens can be deported from the US.  Citizens can be exiled only for engaging in war or espionage against the US – in other words, treason.  Technically, “engaging in private diplomacy” may get you exiled and stripped of US citizenship, though that has never been invoked.  Exile or “banishment” from a state is a little more complicated.  Sixteen states have constitutional provisions prohibiting banishment, and others have banned the practice through appeals courts decisions, on the grounds that citizens have a right to live where they choose.  It remains on the books in a handful of states, and Marylandprescribes it as punishment for “corruption”, but such sentences are usually overturned on appeal. 
Still, a lot of prosecutors are arguing for a restoration of the practice – among other things, noting that federal courts already have a form of voluntary exile as part of the plea-agreement system.  In effect, the crook is given a suspended sentence so long as s/he stays out of the country for a particular number of years – but if s/he returns before then, the axe drops.  It’s generally assumed that banishment can’t be open-ended but must have a term-limit – generally the same length of time that the convicted would otherwise spend in prison.         Whether or not people have a right to live wherever they want to – and whole countries, as well as states and cities might argue with that – not even the ACLU can claim that banishment/exile is either unusual or more cruel than locking people up in prison.  The legal justification for incarceration, besides keeping proven criminals away from the rest of society, is to “rehabilitate” them.  This is why prisons in the US offer all sorts of educational programs to inmates, not to mention the reliable chaplains.  This hasn’t proved nearly as useful as the legal theorists hoped;  all too often prisoners pick up criminal tactics and contacts in prison – not to mention a taste for Jihadist terrorism – which they put to bad use when they’re released.  And never mind the sheer cost of keeping such a large portion of our population in prison.  It would be cheaper, as well as more merciful, to banish/deport/exile our convicted felons – citizens or not – to whatever other country will have them, and let them work out their own rehabilitation on their own time and at their own expense. 
Who knows?  The exiles might actually do a decent job of it.  Historically, gangs of exiles, thrown out on their own resources, have founded not only successful colonies – like Rhode Island – but successful whole countries, such as the USA, Australia, and ancient Rome.  When considering mass rehabilitation, one could do a lot worse.
So yes, it’s time to seriously consider widening the laws on exile – under any name.
--Leslie <;)))>< 

Tales From The Border

--Leslie <;)))><  )O(


There’s a tale that Rasty’s been telling for the past week or so, about a time some ten years ago that he stopped at a border-town restaurant, where the border patrol troops tended also tended to show up.  While he ate lunch he overheard a group of them bragging about the illegal border-crossers they’d arrested in the past few days.  They got into one case in particular, and he realized they were talking about having gang-raped a 12-year-old Mexican girl.  They seemed to think that this was one of the perks of the job.  He got out of there soon, and never afterward would trust an ICE-man.
What’s particularly interesting about this is a tale that I heard at nearly the same time.  ‘Twas about ten or twelve years ago, when I was in southern Cal for a large Sci-Fi convention (I think it was a LosCon, but don’t quote me).  One of the filk-fans took me out for dinner at what he called “an authentic Mexican restaurant;  you can tell by the amount of sea-food”.  We got seats, ordered some authentic Mexican sea-food, and had settled into eating it when we noticed a bunch of authentic Mexicans seated at a table in the corner near us, who were having a lively conversation over dinner and pitchers of Sangria and beer.  My dinner companion was listening, and his expression was growing grim.  Finally he leaned over the table and quietly asked me: “How fast can you finish?”  I replied, “As soon as we can get a doggy-bag”.  He signaled for the waitress, we got the doggy-bag and packed up, he paid, and we quietly got out of there.  Once we were several yards from the door, I asked him what that was all about, and he explained that despite his Anglo looks, he spoke and understood fluent Spanish, and he’d overheard what those jolly fellows were talking about.
It seems they were successful Coyotes, who were celebrating having escorted a couple of large convoys across the border, for considerable money. The one whom the others were admiring was bragging about his favorite technique;  he’d bought a 12-year-old girl in Guadalajara, “cleaned her up”, bought her some sexy clothes, trained her carefully – and when he got her to the border, he’d handed her over to “maybe half a dozen” ICE-men to keep them distracted while he sneaked the rest of the convoy past them.  He simply dumped the girl, left her with the border troops, when his convoy was safely past.  As he finished his tale, his fellow Coyotes began talking about the price of children of different ages in particular Mexican towns.  At that point my dinner companion decided to get the hell out of that restaurant. On hearing that tale, I decided that Coyotes were the scum of the Earth.
Another tale I heard from an old friend who’s been dead for some half a dozen years now.  He’d been living with the Tohono O’Odam tribesfolk down near the Arizona-Mexico border, and they’d asked him to help them with their tribal border-watch problem.  It seems that the border of the tribal lands extends a few miles into Mexicoproper, and the Coyotes had taken it into their heads that this would be an easier place to cross than further west, at the federal border.  As they scampered across the Indian lands, the Coyotes would also help themselves to whatever they found on the way: houses and their contents, livestock, unlucky women they encountered, and the occasional tribal policemen.  The US border patrol couldn’t legally work this far south of the USborder, but the tribal militia could.  Therefore a rotating crew of tribal ranchers went out and patrolled the tribal border themselves, on horseback, with dogs and CB radios. 
They caught illegal crossers every week, at least.  Among them were a disturbing number of men who didn’t speak Spanish, had very long beards, and carried pages from the Koran in their pockets.  When stopped, the “migrants” seemed oddly fearful of the tribesmen, as if they’d never met real Indians before.  Those who threatened to fight were shot, usually in the leg, unless they tried to fight further.  Those who tried to run had the dogs set on them until they stopped running.  The rest were cuffed with zip-ties and then marched across the Tohono O’odam lands to the USborder, where the patrol would call the local ICE office and then wait for the troops to come pick up the illegals.  This tended to be frustrating, since the ICE-men would usually keep the migrants for a few days and then let them loose – on the Mexican side of the border, from which they would soon enough come back again.  Just what the Indians did with their frustration my friend never said, but I did note a few years later that the majority of “migrant” convoys – and drug-smugglers – had stopped trying to cross through the Tohono O’odam lands.
Nonetheless, an average of half a million “migrants” have been coming across our border every year, for the past 20 years and more.      
For the past year, I’ve been hearing different tales from all along the border – usually second-hand, via the Internet, and contradictory.  What you can find from the Internet is that a group called Pueblos Sin Fronteras organized, funded, guided and supported the “migrant caravan” starting in Guatemala, marching and driving through Honduras, El Salvador, and finally Mexico, intending to push into the USon the “asylum” excuse.  A bit more searching shows that Pueblos Sin Fronteras gets its considerable funding from rich Democrats, particularly George Soros, all of whom support the Globalist policy.  It’s obvious that the purpose of this campaign is to flood the USborder patrol, overwhelm the immigration system, and eventually get open borders all through North America.  The migrants in the first caravan were offered jobs and housing in Mexico, but didn’t take the offer.  They made it clear that their purpose was not to get away from drug-cartels but to get into Goody-land and make money – bigger money than they could get in Mexico.  So they got up to the US border, started their “asylum” claims, and also stole across the border every chance they could get.  Of course it did overwhelm the immigration system, which meant the processing of migrants slowed to a crawl. 
Part of the problem was that the “migrants” had brought a lot of children with them, and existing law forbids putting children in adult jails, with adult prisoners.  So, where were the kids supposed to go?  They’re sent to Department of Health and Human Services centers, and from there to the state Child Protective Services, which don’t have anywhere near the resources to care for thousands of kids.  As for handing the children back to their relatives, the problem there is finding the relatives – and making certain that they really are relatives.  Once turned away, a lot of those adult migrants tend to disappear.  Where do they go?  A few of them have decided, on second thought, to take Mexico’s offer – without the children.  Still others sneak across the USborder, likewise without the children.  This leaves the kids stuck in whatever housing the overwhelmed HHS or local CPS can find for them.  As of June 15, there were roughly 12,000 kids spread among 100 HHS detention centers in 14 states, and there’s no available record of how many have been placed through CPS offices with sponsors or foster-families.  The kids go first through the central processing center in McAllen, Texas, where they can stay for no more than three days before being sent to another federal detention center or to a state holding center.
Democrat Congresscritters looking for dirt on Trump went first to the McAllencenter, which was built during the Obama administration as cheaply as possible.  https://www.npr.org/2018/06/19/621065383/what-we-know-family-separation-and-zero-tolerance-at-the-border   The Associated Press first labeled the chain-link cells as “cages”, and Democrat “investigators” have embellished the term.  The cells do indeed have concrete floors, and the furniture is minimal: foam mattress-pads for beds, cheap sleeping-bags or plastic thermal blankets for bedding, cheap folding tables and chairs.  The children usually get only one or two showers and clothes-launderings per stay, because they’re legally moved to another center within 72 hours.  These are facts well known – and published – by the DHHS.  https://www.factcheck.org/2018/06/qa-on-border-detention-of-children/ 
It’s when politicians and media “activists” get into the act that facts get muddled and stories get contradictory.  Various members of Congress, most noisily Alexandria Occasional-Cortex, made visits to the federal detention centers in Florida, Texas and Arizona, made several exciting claims of abuse, had some photos made of herself, yelled curses at the detention officials, and held a press conference denouncing Trump.  A group of Hispanic pastors, questioning her statements, went to the detention center themselves and came up with some different stories. https://www.unitedamericanews.com/articles/hispanic-pastors-visit-the-border-tell-a-very-different-story-than-aoc/ 
Most recently, Trump promised a round-up of illegal residents in the US, and about a dozen mayors and governors promised to obstruct any such efforts, which will be an interesting sight to see.  Trump’s easiest response would be to cut off all federal funds earmarked for those cities and states, which the federal-executive bureaucracy could easily do.  Also, the various federal police certainly know, already, with no help from the local police, where the particular illegals they want to pick up are located.  His actually doing that would be a show of muscle to the Democrats.  But in any case, the current state of immigration can’t go on.  The USAnow has the third largest population in the world – behind Chinaand India, but ahead of everyone else – including some 20 million “non citizens”. Our physical, social and economic resources are straining at the seams, and we simply can’t take in any more population, especially ‘migrants” with no loyalty to our laws or culture or the people here already.  Despite the insistence of the Progressive-wing Democrats, unlimited immigration is not a blessing;  just ask any – heh! – Native American.  We have to close the border, declare a ten-year moratorium on all immigration, re-route those “asylum” seekers to Argentina, or Chile, which are willing to take them in, and start seriously deporting the “undocumented” migrants here already.  It’s either that or face social and economic collapse, and the Progressive/Liberal Democrats will never accept it.
What worries me most is the lengths the US’s political Left will go to in order to support their policy, their agenda, and their vision of what the country is really like.  In my years’ experience working for a labor union newspaper, I learned a bit about Photographic Analysis.  I also saw plenty of examples of “Reichstag”, “False Flag” and “Potemkin village” political campaigns, and I’ve been seeing a lot more of them in the media lately.
For example, consider these photos:  https://www.google.com/search?rlz=1C1AVNG_enUS658US658&q=migrant+father+and+daughter+drowned+photo&tbm=isch&source=univ&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiPhIDm2K7jAhW8Ap0JHTiMBUYQsAR6BAgGEAE&biw=1014&bih=600
Look carefully at allof them, including on the previous and following pages.  Note the details.
Also remember two facts about the Rio Grande:  it flows from west to east, and for most of its slow and narrow and meandering length it’s no more than three feet deep. West of Texas, migrants don’t swim or raft across the river, but wade.  Since the border patrol is stretched thin, illegal migrants have a very good chance of getting into the US without being noticed – and processed, and registered, at all. Why cross at Texas, then?  Because that’s the quickest way to the central processing center at McAllen and a good chance of acceptance into the US.  The drawback is the 50% possibility of being rejected and sent back to Mexico.  For videos of Texascrossings, Google “video crossing the rio grande”.     
According to CNN, the family tried to cross at Brownsville, Texas, because they were tired of waiting in Mexicoto be processed.  Had they bothered to go a hundred miles west, they could have walkedsafely across the river.
Note the details in the pictures.  The tops of the heads of the man and child are at the same level, but the child’s feet are down by the man’s hip;  is that really a 23-month-old child, or closer to thee or even four years old?  Note the angle of the sunlight and the angle of the shadows on the water and estimate the time of day that those pictures were taken.  Note the height of the reeds and branches sticking out of the water, and calculate just how deep the water is.  Note the thickness of the reeds and the solidity of the riverbank where the migrants’ heads are pointed;  that’s solid ground, as confirmed by the number of beer-cans lying in the reeds.  Look at pictures taken from different angles and compare them.  Note the size and direction of the wavelets on the surface of the water and calculate how strong the current of the water is.  Is that current strong enough to sweep a grown man off his feet?  Note the blue “floaty-noodle” and the wooden branch under the bodies, that were used as a small raft to float them.  Notice the small rowboat nearby, visible only at a particular angle.  Note that in two of the pictures the boat and the nearby reeds have changed position.  Especially note the one photo which shows the heads of the pair turned so that their right ears are visible.  That means that, in that photo at least, their faces are not in the water.              
Judging from what we see in the photos we have to ask, are those bodies really dead?  If so, did they die where we see them lying or were they moved into that spot?  Could they possibly have been floated there by the current, or did someone tow them into position and arrange the bodies for maximum effect?  What was that small boat doing there? Note which of those photos was chosen by the media (CNN first) to be sent around the Internet to rake in pity and even win a comment from the Pope?  Well, it didn’t show right ears or the boat. 
What, do I think that respectable news companies or compassionate political activists would actually lie about the drowning of a poor father and child, or stage photos, or manipulate bodies for dramatic effect?
Well, it’s not as if we haven’t seen this sort of thing done before, is it?
--Leslie <;)))><         

The Attack of the Righteous

Everybody really needs to see this one -- which is really rather short -- before I go on to my account of the Seven Stupid States and the Abortion Controversy.

https://theihs.org/blog/the-psychology-of-moral-grandstanding/?utm_source=Devo-Monthly&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=development-communications&utm_term=grandstanding&utm_content=image-link

In the latest piece for the Big Think and Institute for Humane Studies video series, Brandon Warmke, an assistant professor at Bowling Green State University, explains what moral grandstanding is, and the consequences that come from it.“Grandstanding is the use of moral talk for self-promotion,” says Warmke. “Grandstanders are moral show boaters who use public discourse as a vanity project. They aren’t really concerned about helping people or contributing to a conversation. They want to be seen as having spectacular super human insight to what is just.”Grandstanding can take many forms. First, it can come in the form of “piling on.” This is when people join in on a shame fest for someone who’s misspoken or engaged in a small infraction. These people want to signal to their group that they have a heightened sense of justice, so they pile on in cases of public shaming and blaming.Another form grandstanding can take is “ramping up.” This involves people trying to out-do each other in public discourse.Warmke notes: “What happens in conversation, is once people reveal their positions about how much they care about or how affected they are by some problem, you can now look like you don’t care enough. In order to beat someone else in the moral race, you have to out-do them. This often results in people taking more extreme stands than they might otherwise do on reflection, because when the world is watching, you must show that you care more.”Warmke argues that grandstanding has bad consequences. It contributes to political polarization, it increases levels of cynicism about moral talk and its value in public life, and it causes outrage exhaustion. Grandstanding is also disrespectful and reveals bad character.“Imagine a group of acquaintances who are, on the one hand, discussing a world-historic injustice, and on the other, fighting or arguing about who’s most offended by it. In our view, this is just not how a virtuous person would engage in discourse.”This video is one in an extended series about civil discourse. To view additional videos from the series, visit the Institute for Humane Studies  blog .

Jews and Native Americans: 7 Fascinating Facts -- by Dr. Yvette Alt Miller

(I don't usually copy other people's articles, but this one is just too fascinating to resist.)

Herman Bendell, Superintendent of Indian AffairsWould a Jewish Superintendent of Indian Affairs try to convert Native Americans to Judaism? Some feared that Dr. Herman Bendell, a New York doctor whom President Ulysses Grant appointed to be the Arizona Territory’s point man on Indian Affairs, would do just that. The newspaper The Boston Pilot fretted that Dr. Bendell would “undo” the work of Christian missionaries and start spreading Judaism among Arizona’s Native Americans.In reality, Dr. Bendell’s Judaism was one of the reasons President Grant appointed him; he wanted to include someone who would not prioritize missionary work.Dr. Bendell quickly emerged as a champion of Native rights within the government, writing, “I feel it is a duty I owe to the people of the Country and the Indians under my charge to do something to relieve the pressures that surround them.” But after two years, intense opposition to Dr. Bendell’s religious faith made his job impossible. He resigned, returned to Albany, married his childhood sweetheart Wilhelmine Lewi, and practiced medicine.When he died in 1932, few people realized that Dr. Bendell, longtime New York state ophthalmologist, had once worked to secure Indian rights in pre-state Arizona.“Curly-Haired White Chief Who Speaks with One Tongue”Julius Meyer was born in Prussia and moved to Omaha as a teenager in 1866, the year before Omaha was incorporated as a city and Nebraska was admitted to the Union as a State. He joined his older brothers Max, Moritz and Adolph who had founded a cigar store and a jewelry/music store.Young Julius carved out his own business niche, trading his cigars and jewelry from his brothers’ stores with Native American tribes. He’d travel on horseback deep into Indian-controlled territory, living for weeks with Native American tribes and traders.Julius mastered several Native American tongues, setting him apart from many European traders. He also treated Native Americans fairly, earning him the sobriquet “Box-Ka-Re-Sha-Hash-Ta-Ka”, meaning “Curly Haired White Chief Who Speaks with One Tongue,” a reference to his curly hair and also his straight, honest way of doing business.Living with Native Americans for weeks at a time, Julius was also famed for another peculiarity: sticking to Jewish dietary rules. When he was invited to feasts with tribesmen, his hosts knew to serve him hard boiled eggs instead of the non-kosher meat that everyone else enjoyed.Back in Omaha, Julius set up a popular “Indian Wigwam” store, selling Indian-made items. He died in Omaha’s Hanscom Park in 1909 at the age of 60 in highly mysterious circumstances. Ostensibly a suicide, it was reported at the time that he shot himself first in the temple, then in the chest, with his left hand, although Julius was right-handed. No alternative theory was ever put forward, and he was mourned throughout the American West as a tragic case of suicide.Jewish Indian ChiefIn 1869, Solomon Bibo, a teenager from Prussia, arrived in the tiny New Mexican town of Ceboletta to join two of his older brothers who’d come to the United States some years before. Like most Jews in the American West, the Bibo brothers worked as traders, but they were far from ordinary. Unlike many Europeans at the time, they quickly garnered a reputation for fairness and honesty when dealing with Native Americans.Solomon Bibo quickly learned Queresan, the language of the local Acoma tribe, and immersed himself in their concerns, championing Acoma rights against Mexican and American ranchers, and against the U.S. Government, which Bibo and the Acoma accused of trying to cheat the Acoma out of their rightfully-owned lands.This 1885 photo is listed as "Solomon Bibo governor of Acoma & his officers 1885 – 1886". Solomon is marked as #15.In 1877, the U.S. Government offered the Acoma a treaty guaranteeing the tribe 94,000 acres of land, far less they felt they deserved. Determined to protect their remaining lands, in 1884, the Acoma leased their land to Bibo for 30 years, in exchange for an annual payment of $12,000 and assurances that Bibo would protect the land from squatters, ensure that coal on the tribe’s land was mined, and that the tribe would receive the proceeds.Learning of the agreement, an Indian agent from Santa Fe, Pedro Sanchez, wrote to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, complaining about Bibo, “the rico Israelito” (rich Jew), and tried to get the lease invalidated on the grounds that the tribe as a whole had not agreed to the arrangement. Bibo found himself facing not only the loss of the Acoma lease, but the loss of his trader’s license as well. The Acoma nation quickly mobilized itself, providing a petition with a hundred signatures to the Bureau of Indian Affairs asserting they had confidence in Bibo.In 1885, Solomon Bibo married Juana Valle, the granddaughter of Martin Valle, the Acoma Chief. He later became Chief of the nation himself, pushing for educational and infrastructure reforms. Juana began to adopt a Jewish lifestyle.In 1898, Solomon and Jana moved to San Franciso in order to provide their six children with a Jewish education. Solomon died in 1934 and Juana in 1941. Their children said Kaddish for them in San Franciso.Wolf Kalisher: Ally of Native AmericansWolf Kalisher was born in Poland in 1826 and moved to Los Angeles, becoming a United States citizen in 1855. After the Civil War, Kalisher partnered with Henry Wartenberg in a tannery, one of the city’s first factories.Kalisher quickly became an ally of Native Americans, going out of his way to hire Native American workers and championing Native American rights. He also became a pillar the developing LA Jewish community. He and his wife Louise raised their four children in the city, and helped establish one of the city’s first synagogues.He became particularly close with Manuel Olegario, a leader of the local Temecula tribe, advising and assisting the Chief as he campaigned to protect his tribe’s land in San Diego County. Kalisher Street in Los Angeles memorializes Wolf Kalisher and his efforts on behalf of Native Americans to this day.Jewish Genetic LinkIsraeli cancer scientists have made an unexpected discovery: a group of Native Americans living the in Mesa Verde area of Colorado seem to have some genetic Jewish roots dating to the Jewish expulsion from Spain in 1492.Researchers at the Sheba medical center near Tel Aviv studied various populations worldwide to identify carriers of the BRCA1 mutation, a genetic mutation that predisposes carriers to breast and ovarian cancer and is found in disproportionately in Jews of Ashkenazi origin. (Approximately 1.5% of Ashkenazi Jews carry the mutation.)Noting that a group of Native American Colorado families who were descended from immigrants from Mexico carried the mutation, researchers conducted additional genetic testing, and identified a common ancestor: a Jew who came to South America from Europe about 600 years ago, about the time that Jews were forced out of Spain and Christopher Columbus discovered the New World. The mutation among the Native American population is identical to that found among Ashkenazi Jews, offering solid proof of a long-ago Jewish ancestor who came to present-day Mexico and intermarried with Native American tribes.Supporting the Jewish StateSantos Hawk’s Blood Suarez, an Apache activist in New Jersey, brings fellow Native Americans to pro-Israel events and insists there are strong parallels between Native Americans and Jews. Both groups have lived in exile; Jews show that it is possible for a native people to return to their native land and revive their ancestral language, even after thousands of years. “I admire the people who” take a stand, Suarez explains: “That’s why I admire the people of Israel: They’re people who stand up to defend their homeland.”Chief Anne Richardson is the first female Chief of the Rappahannock Tribe in Virginia since 1705. She’s also a strong supporter of the Jewish state. In 2013, she and another female Chief, Kathy Cummings-Dickinson of the Lumbee Tribes in North Carolina, visited Israel. Wearing their ceremonial robes, the Chiefs met with an Israeli Government Minister. “We are here to deliver a message to the residents of Israel,” the chiefs explained. “Stand firm and united against the threats and pressure… We want to encourage Israel not to give in to those who try to pressure them to give up parts of the homeland. Surrender to this pressure is not a recipe for peace, but rather war. We stand beside you.”Celebrating Israeli Independence Day in LouisianaWatching coverage of Israel’s 60th Independence Day festivities in May 2008 was a revelation for David Sickey, the Vice-Chairman of the Governing Council of the Sovereign Nation of the Coushatta Tribe of Louisiana. After learning more about the Jewish State, he realized there were some incredible parallels between Israel and his own nation.When Sickey presented his idea of fostering relations between the Coushatta nation and Israel, his co-nationalists were enthusiastic: “They took an interest because the Coushatta value sovereignty and nationhood much like the Jewish people, and autonomy is something to be embraced.”David Sickey, right, visiting Zion Oil & GasThe Tribe reached out to then Israeli Consul of Houston, Asher Yarden. Consul Yarden visited the tribe for an official ceremony to establish formal ties. “My visit to the Coushatta for the affirmation event was very emotional, and I would even call it a life-changing experience. It was a highlight, if not the highlight, of my 25-year career with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs,” he explained.The Coushatta adopted May 14, Israeli Independence Day, as a holiday called “Stakayoop Yanihta Yisrael”, meaning “The Day to Honor Israel”.A Coushatta delegation visited Israel in 2009 to foster economic ties. The tribe is currently the American distributor of Aya Natural, an Israeli Druze-owned company that produces olive oil-based cosmetics in the north of Israel. Israeli engineers are also aiding Coushatta fish farmers in importing high-tech Israeli fish-farming technology. Sickey said, “Israel is a very dynamic nation, and it makes sense for the tribe to partner with a very robust nation and the only democracy in the region.”(What tickles me about this is the quandary it'll put the Limousine Latte/Social Justice Warrior/BDS crowd into.  Wheeee!  Real Indigenous People side with the Israelis against the "Palestinians"!  Who do they denounce now?)--Leslie <;)))><  

A Different Left/Right Problem

A random comment by some news pundit on TV reminded me of something that happened 'way back when I was still living in California.  My godson Darshan knew a couple of runaway kids who were desperately looking for a safe place to stay, so I took them in while I hunted around for any safe resources for them.  It took me all summer to get reliable help for them, which says something about the real social services in supposedly-Liberal California. The boy's problem was that his family had singled him out to be the clan scapegoat, and everybody took turns beating him.  The girl, remakably pretty at 14, was getting unwelcome attention from her stepfather, and simply couldn't convince her mother of that.  Yes, they both had good reason for running away.

Anyway, the two kids -- a boy and a girl -- also had a problem with dyslexia.  The could both read, but had trouble with their eyes, and attention, tracking left to right. 

The boy could read an average book for about five minutes, and then his eyes would start wandering and the letters would slip and slide all over the page.  I found a simple fix for him: a clear-plastic magnifying ruler, which kept the letters lined up for him.  Using that ruler, he could read for as much as ten minutes at a time.  Unfortunately, his parents -- who had decided that his rebellion was caused by drugs-drugs -- sent him off to a "treatment center" which took the ruler away from him because "it could be used as a weapon".  He eventually got out of there, reached legal age and left the state, so I don't know if he ever got a replacement for that ruler, or any other treatment for his dyslexia. 

The girl's problem was a little different;  letters and whole words would flip from right to left and back, and she had trouble telling the two apart.  I guessed that she needed to get a solid "feel" for left and right, so her eyes could track left-to-right automatically.  So I made a habit of taking her into the back room every evening, where she would pull her shirt off, and I'd take a hairbrush and brush it slowly from her left hand, up her arm, across her shoulders and then down her right arm, while chanting "left...to right, left...to right".  After a month of this, I gave her four pretty -- and heavy -- costume rings to wear on all the fingers of her left hand, so she could always feel the difference between left and right.  Eventually she made peace with her mother, moved in with a sympathetic aunt, and went back to school.  Last I heard, she was planning to go to community college after she got out of high school, or passed the GED, so I guess she managed to read adequately. 

Soon after that I moved down to Arizona and lost track of the kids.  They're certainly adults now, and I hope they survived well. 

What always puzzled me about the case of those kids was what poor resources there were for them, in supposedly-Progressive California.  It took me weeks to find a law firm that would provide pro-bono legal services for children, and none of the schools or rehabs we could find provided any treatment for their dyslexia.  Why not, when I could do as much with my own small means?  I wonder if, in the years since, anything has changed. 

--Leslie <;)))><     

The Phantom Nazi Menace

Understand that, as an old peace-marcher and radical-labor activist, I have no love for the FBI.  I despise their bigotry, their corruption, their incompetence, and particularly their ironclad political loyalty to the Democratic Party Uber Alles.  (The bureau gained its present political power under Woodrow Wilson, who did it in order to sick federal agents on the then-dangerous Labor Movement -- particularly the Industrial Workers of the World.  Likewise, I despise the CIA for its similar sins -- and its blind loyalty to the Republican Party.)  Nonetheless, to give the devil his due, I must admit that it's the closest thing to a reliable source of accurate information on crime in the US.  It's absolutely more accurate than the Southern Poverty Law Center, or the Anti-Defamation League, or the National Crime Victimization Survey -- all of which are private organizations, far more pro-Democrat/Liberal/Progressive/Socialist in attitude, and far less bound by govt. oversight.

Therefore, when the FBI admits to the Bureau of Justice Statistics that it can't confirm any great "surge" in "White supremacist" groups, membership, or violent crime -- despite its best efforts --https://www.lawfareblog.com/search-data-white-supremacist-violent-crime, you can be pretty sure that no such "surge" exists, regardless of what all the Democrat presidential candidates and their media cronies may tell you.

The reasons for inventing such a "surge" are politically obvious (https://spectator.org/the-mythical-rise-in-white-supremacist-violence/) here in the US.  The Democrats have totally hated Trump, plotted to impeach him since the day after election day, and shown themselves willing to use any tactic available, including hoaxes (https://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/crime/item/28066-new-phenomenon-of-fake-hate-crimes-creates-perplexing-problems-for-law-enforcement). 

The theory they're pushing through the media is that Trump Is A Nazi And So Are All His Voters;  therefore, anything he says in any of his sloppy speeches or comments (admittedly, Trump is a very bad public speaker) is a "dog-whistle" urging violence to neo-Nazis everywhere.  His every word is a secret code that only White Supremacists (and, of course, properly "woke" Democrats) can understand, that's meant to Incite Racial Violence Here And Abroad.  That's how his "divisive rhetoric" is somehow responsible for a mosque shooting in New Zealand and Muslim attacks on Christians in Sri Lanka, not to mention a synagogue shooting in Calilfornia.  It's all Trump's fault!

Never mind that prominent Democrats like Maxine Waters have been openly inciting attacks on Trump voters everywhere in the US, and those attacks have provably happened.  No, that's different!  Never mind that the New Zealand shooter mentioned in his manifesto and live video (ferociously censored by the NZ govt.) that he hated Trump ("As a leader?  God, no!") and deliberately shot up the two mosques (he was stopped at the second one by a worshiper with a rifle) in order to make the NZ govt. ban semi-auto rifles -- which it promptly did (which suggest the question, was the NZ govt. working for the murderer, or was he working for them?).  No, that's irrelevant.  Never mind that Jihadist terrorists took the credit for slaughtering those hundreds of Christians in Sri Lanka.  No, they must have been "provoked" by "anti-Muslim hate-crimes" and, of course, Trump's "rhetoric".  Never mind that the California synagogue shooter (who was driven away by an off-duty border patrol agent with a gun) referred to Trump as a "Zionist, Jew-loving, anti-White, traitorous c*cksucker".  No, no comment from the media about that.  No, it's all Trump's fault for creating a "surge in White supremacy groups".  Uhuh.

This scenario makes it easy to ignore the real rise in Jihadist-encouraged religious violence, in the US and the rest of the world.  For years the media have been ignoring the FBI's reports that the single group most often victimized by hate-crimes is Jews -- in the US.  In the rest of the world it's Christians.  The perpetrators are overwhelmingly Jihadist Muslims, which no one seems to want to admit.  Neither have the media noted that, according to the FBI, fully half of all claimed/reported "anti-Muslim" hate-crimes are hoaxes, and the other half are committed by other Muslims. (https://quillette.com/2019/02/22/hate-crime-hoaxes-are-more-common-than-you-think/)  This policy of deliberately not looking does more than just allow blaming Trump And The Nazis for much of the world's violence;  it also hides or excuses Jihadist violence to everybody else. 

The hate/blame/get Trump motivation of the American political Left is understandable, but it doesn't explain the almost-frantic defense of the Jihadists, not just in the US but elsewhere.  We really have to wonder why so many political pundits would rather raise an illusion of phantom Nazis than deal  with the real political threats on their doorstep.  Really, they have to know that ignoring the problem -- or blaming Trump And The Nazis for it -- will not make it go away. 

--Leslie <;)))><             

"Is Paris Burning?"

Understand that I have never been a fire-fighter, nor dealt with anything bigger than a campfire.  Nonetheless, I know that a fire doesn't start spontaneously in two spots within 100 feet of each other at the same time.  That, according to the early investigators' reports, is what happened in the Cathedral of Notre Dame: one fire at the far end of the nave, up high under the roof, and the other in the north bell tower.

Another oddity: the church closed for the day at 6:00 PM and visitors and staff began filing out, but at 6:20 the staff heard a fire-alarm going off.  They searched for the fire but couldn't find any sign of one.  Local firemen arrived, and couldn't find anything either.  23 minutes later, when everyone had left the building, a second fire-alarm went off -- and this time the fire under the roof had well started.  That's when the firefighters arrived in serious numbers and began fighting the blaze with all the equipment they could bring in.  It took 9 hours to put the devastating fire out.

Everyone saw the live news-feeds of Notre Dame burning, and various officials commenting on it.  The commentators took exquisite care to avoid even hinting at the word "arson";  the closest they would come was to say that the cause of the blaze might have been "accidental", possibly as a result of the actions of the team doing repairs on the structure.  In fact, some officials actually claimed that the fire was "accidental" before the blaze was out, well before any investigators could have gone in and studied it.

There was not a whisper of the "ethnic" makeup of the workmen on those repair teams.  There was not a hint of the fact that, while grieving Parisians outside sang "Salve Regina" and cried as the cathedral's spire fell, further back were crowds of "migrants" laughing and cheering as the cathedral burned.

Nobody mentioned that, just the week before, the church of Sainte Surplice -- the second-biggest church in Paris -- was also burned, and the police had no problem admitting that the cause was arson.  Neither did the news-feeds mention that churches have been burned and vandalized all over France at the rate of at least one per week for the past year and more.  The well-trained media of France haven't mentioned that one of the complaints of the Yellow-Vest protesters is that the working-class of France is being taxed to death to pay for roughly a million "migrants" sitting about on Welfare.  And none of the news-media outside of France mention the "migrant" riots that plague Paris almost monthly -- usually notable for mass tossing of Molotov cocktails.  So far, none of the Jihadist groups have actually taken credit for the burning of Notre Dame, though ISIS-linked groups have called it "retribution" and "punishment" (for what?), and issued threats and warnings of more burnings to come.  Nobody will mention aloud what everyone is thinking.

Only CNN even hinted at the possibility that Jihadists set the fire, and that was a masterpiece of subtlety.  Its news programs showed, repeatedly, the Notre Dame spire falling in flames -- juxtaposed with images of the Twin Towers falling on 9/11/01 -- and let the viewers draw their own conclusions.

The question now is how much do the French police, government and media know, and how much are they only guessing.  Seeing how much they've been concealing for the past year and more, I suspect that they're not guessing.

So why the widespread secrecy?

The comparison with 9/11 is useful.  If it becomes widely known that the Jihadist "migrants" burned Notre Dame -- let alone Sainte Surplice and all the rest -- the French populace won't stand for it, any more than Americans put up with the 9/11 massacre.  The Yellow Vest protests would more than double;  they 'd paralyze the country, demanding that the French government stop supporting or welcoming the "migrants", but turn around and Throw The Bums Out.  They might even demand that the French government join the US in making war on the Jihadists overseas.  In any case, they'd make a point of hunting down and throwing out the Jihadist "migrant" groups, no matter how their apologists whine about "Islamophobia".

In fact, if it becomes clear that the Jihadists burned Notre Dame, "Islamophobia" may become a public virtue instead of a knee-jerk insult.  Very few politicians want that!  It would hasten the inevitable coming war between the Jihadists and the rest of the world.

--Leslie <;)))>< 


   

 

Searching for a Parable

For the past few days I've been distracted with chasing down a parable that I heard many years ago.  I recall that it was written by one of the classic Anarchist theoreticians, and for a long time I thought that was Max Stirner -- it sounded like his kind of wacky humor -- but I haven't been able to find it under his name.  Possibly I've got the title wrong, but what I recall was "The Parable of the Highwayman".  If anybody can help me hunt it down, I'll be grateful.

The tale, as best I remember, goes like this;  the excuse govts. give for themselves is that they protect us from robbers of various sorts -- "enemies foreign and domestic", as US law puts it.  In exchange, the govt. asks for...  well, everything that govts. ask for. 

So how much much worse can the robbers be?

Consider the "Highwayman", says the parable.  He attacks you on the road, he takes your money, and then, having gotten what he wants, he goes away.  He does not accompany you on down the road, telling you how important he is and how lucky you are to have him with you.  He does not tell you how to conduct your life to the smallest detail.  He does not keep on robbing you at regular intervals.  He goes away. 

In this way, the Highwayman is more endurable than the govt. 

Well, the author of the parable didn't take into account modern slave-dealers or drug-cartels, but for the most part his parable still holds up.  He could also have added persistent deceit, and poorly enough to be insulting. 

For example of the latter, I give you Senator Cory Booker --  yet another reason that my childhood state of New Jersey is a good place to be from.  He's not content with pandering to the Black vote by pushing the old idiocy about Reparations For Slavery, which has made even other Black Democrats call him out for patronizing and insulting the voters.  No, he's also jumped on the anti-gun bandwagon with shameless exploitation of victims and flat-out lying, disguised under some weasel-wording so thin that it insults the people he's trying to fool.  At a "presidential(!) town hall" in North Carolina a few days ago, he brought in a weepy self-described stay-at-home mother who felt "traumatized" by learning that her daughter was taught an "active shooter drill" in kindergarten, and asked Booker the perfect set-up question of what he intended to do about "all this gun-violence".  He neatly avoided giving any real concrete solutions, but complained mightily that in the US we have "in the aggregate, a mass shooting every day". 

Now think about that.  "In the aggregate": what country is "TheAggregate"?  I've never heard of it.  Have you?  It sounds like a good place to stay away from.  In the United States, on the other hand (FBI stats), we do not have a mass shooting every day, or every week, or every month, or even every year -- not unless you define "mass shooting" as a single incident in which at least two people are shot": not killed, just shot.  The FBI defines it a little differently: as a single incident in which at least four people are shot dead.  Now an average of 30,000 Americans die every year of gunshots -- but a little over 20,000 of those deaths are suicides, another 1100 are "justifiable homicides" (i.e., crooks shot in the act by police or armed citizens), and about 500 are accidents.  That leaves about 8400 real gun-murders per year.  Now the figures fluctuate considerably from year to year, but generally about 3/4ths of all those real murders are singletons: that's about 6300 per year, which leaves the other 2100 as real honest-to-whatever "mass shootings" -- depending on the math.  Divide 2100 by 365, and you get... a little over 5 per day.  (Your mathematics may vary;  I'm terrible with arithmetic.)  But at least now we're getting close to what the FBI defines as a "mass shooting".  Considering that the majority of FBI-defined mass shootings are gang-fights in just 8 of our largest cities, and those gang-fights usually involve more than 5 participants, I think we can compress the numbers a little further.

At least now we can guess where Booker got his "aggregate" from -- and it's a cheat.  Fool me once, shame on you;  fool me twice, shame on me -- but try to fool me with insultingly stupid cheats, and you deserve to be met in a deserted ally with an old traditional Newark, New Jersey tool: a half-brick in the toe of a sturdy tube-sock.  Guess.

In any case, the average highwayman -- or street-thug -- would be better to deal with than a politician like this.  He makes Trump look downright honorable by comparison, and that takes some doing. 

--Leslie <;)))><          

Ignorance, Hypocrisy, and Fracking

No sooner was Rep. Alldyslexia Occasional-Cortex's infamous Green New Deal voted away (47 to 0) than the House Democrats came up with a new, somewhat watered-down version which, no doubt, they'll be trying to sell to the voters over the next few weeks at least.  The details haven't been published yet, but what little information has leaked out includes the wonderfully Green commitment to abolishing all use of "fossil fuels" -- including coal, petroleum, and natural gas.    Of course there's a commitment to ending the practice of "fracking".

Now I certainly would agree that we've got to stop burning coal and petroleum;  they're much too valuable to burn!  Coal and petroleum are much more useful in chemical reactions than for burning up and turning into air pollution.  Besides, once those fossil deposits are used up, there won't be any more of them.  Yes, it's possible to create, in a fashion, coal and petroleum -- by vacuum-baking wood into charcoal and squeezing oil out of jojoba nuts -- but we'll never make enough that way to make them economically viable as fuel.  Better to make internal-combustion engine fuel out of ethanol -- which can be made, by half a dozen different processes, from cellulose.  Also better to make diesel oil from algae, which a lot of companies along the west coast are doing right now.  In fact, the US Navy has established two fuel depositories -- one on the east coast and one on the west -- containing algae-sourced biodiesel fuel: enough to supply whole fleets of ships.  Yes, it is possible to replace coal and petroleum with "renewable" fuel.

For that matter, it's possible to replace standard Uranium and Plutonium-based nuclear power-plants with much safer and cheaper Thorium-salts reactors, which produce enough heat to boil water to make steam to turn generators, without ever getting close to being fissionable.  For some reason the Green Deal pushing Reps. don't mention any funding for research and development of Thorium reactors, although the govt. of India has already done so. 

But what particularly floors me is their inclusion of "natural gas" among the fuels they want banned.  "Natural gas" is nothing more than methane, which is produced by natural processes, such as the farts (more accurately, belches) from all those cows that AOC wants banned.  It's created in nature by microbes breaking down organic compounds -- particularly in swamps, which is where "swamp gas" comes from.  It's entirely a renewable fuel;  there are countless books on homesteading which tell how to build methane generators that process compost into methane and fertilizer.  So why is methane ranked among the Greens' devils? 

For one thing, because oil companies have recently made a habit of bringing up methane deposits deep in the ground by "fracking", and fracking -- by anybody's definition -- is seriously bad news.  It consists of pumping raw sewage deep into levels of fractured bedrock so as to force the methane to the surface.  This pollutes the water-table and causes earthquakes, as well as uncontrolled methane upwellings.  Fracking is an environmental disaster, and far be it from me to oppose putting an end to the wretched practice.  Especially when its so easy to create methane, and under far safer conditions.

For another thing, because methane is considered a "greenhouse gas" that traps the sun's heat near the earth and contributes to global warming -- ooops, excuse me: "climate change".  But there are also natural processes which have been breaking down methane for ages, particularly lightning, which strikes somewhere on earth at least 200 times per second -- and where lightning passes through methane, it quickly burns/oxydizes the gas into carbon dioxide and water.  Carbon dioxide is another natural compound which nature has dealt with likewise for ages, primarily through plants.  Plants -- all of them -- inhale carbon dioxide and exhale oxygen.  Animals inhale the oxygen and produce carbon dioxide.  This exchange has been going on as long as there has been life on earth, and shows no signs of slowing down.  The solution to carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is to plant more plants, especially trees, which inhale a lot more of the stuff than smaller plants, and for much longer time.

So, to anyone who passed junior high school biology, the solution to global warming -- ooops, "climate change" -- is to plant a lot of trees, thereby reforesting the continent, and... encouraging lightning.  That is, if lightning needs to be encouraged.  We could also put up electric arc-generators near every swamp and cow-pasture a helluva lot cheaper than doing without cars, trains, or airplanes, especially if we get serious about developing Thorium nuclear generators. 

Now, anybody who has really bothered to study ecology, or biology, or simple chemistry, let alone "atmospheric sciences" would know this.  So are the "green wave" Democrats ignorant, or just hypocritical?  Why, after the firm defeat of the disastrous Green New Deal are they still pushing any incarnation of that mess? 

--Leslie <;)))><