The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

People Never Ask Me for Advice

Posted on | December 21, 2022 | 1 Comment

My brother Kirby and I had just finished eating lunch at Primanti Brothers and were enjoying a post-prandial smoke when, for no apparent reason, he brought up the subject of the New England Patriots. But why bring it up? This is obviously a painful topic for me to think about, especially after The Dumbest Play in NFL History.

Anyway, so Kirby was sermonizing on the subject of what Patriots owner Robert Kraft should do — i.e., give Bill Belichick an ultimatum to get rid of Matt Patricia, who is hated by New England fans like God hates sin — until finally I interrupted: “You know why I don’t think in terms of what people should do? Because nobody ever asks for my advice.”

In writing about politics, I try to avoid being one of those dime-a-dozen pundit types who presumes to offer election strategy or policy guidance. If politicians want my advice, they can pay me for it, and as no Republican has offered to hire me to be the right-wing James Carville, it’s safe to assume that any advice I offered — unsolicited, as a voluntary contribution — would be ignored. So what’s the point?

And it’s the same thing with the Patriots. Every sports talk-radio personality in New England is calling for Matt Patricia’s scalp, so what’s the point of adding my voice to this deafening chorus? Like, last night I was watching Greg Bedard and Nick Cattles discussing this disaster, and Nick is talking about a situation where the Patriots had the ball first-and-goal at the Raiders one-yard-line, saying that there were six-year-old children shouting at their TVs: “Give the ball to Rhamondre!”

Exactly — everybody can see what’s wrong with the Patriots, and they’re shouting it from the rooftops, with no apparent impact on the situation.

Politics is the same way. Like, WTF, Mitch McConnell?

Helping Ukraine is our Number One priority? Are you kidding me with this? As much as I want Ukraine to defeat the Russian invaders, that’s probably not even a Top Five issue for me, in the grand scheme of what the Republican Party needs to prioritize. And I can’t believe the voters of Kentucky — you know, the people who actually elected Mitch McConnell to the Senate — share his sense of priorities. But again, what’s the point of complaining? Ace of Spades, who has a lot more readers than me, has been hammering Mitch McConnell five days a week, and is running out of new ways to say the same basic thing: “Mitch, you bitch.”

The more you care about politics, the harder it becomes to escape feelings of helpless despair, a sense of futility caused by your inability to influence events, because nobody seems to be listening. You understand what Ecclesiates is getting at: “Vanity of vanities! All is vanity!”

It’s not just politics and football that cause wise men to decry the carnival of folly to which we bear unwilling witness. Every day, people are ruining their own lives by doing foolish things, which is why I feel compelled to offer my kids advice like, “Heroin is a bad drug. Stay away from heroin.” Or, “Don’t send people pictures of your penis.” Stuff like this should be obvious, and yet there are apparently people who didn’t get the memo, so I feel an obligation to warn my kids against such behavior.

If the world was organized on a basis of what I think people should do (and not do), we certainly wouldn’t be in the mess we’re in. Last night, Tucker Carlson interviewed a woman named Camille Keifel who has filed a lawsuit against the people who inflicted a double mastectomy on her as “treatment” for her “gender” problem. And I turned it off because it was too painful to watch, like the last play of the Patriots game.

Young women experiencing “gender” issues don’t solicit my advice on their problems, of course, but just imagine if they did.

“What do you think, Mr. McCain? Should I start injecting myself with testosterone and get my breasts amputated?”

ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME WITH THIS?

Nevertheless, there are licensed medical professionals who think this kind of “treatment” is a splendid solution to “gender” problems, and who are getting paid to butcher confused young people like this, and if you question the wisdom of such procedures, they’ll accuse you of hate.

Thousands of people are being chemically altered and surgically mutilated the way Camille Keifel was, and this is even being done with taxpayer money in some cases, but no one can be allowed to object — Libs of TikTok got banned — because criticizing “gender treatment” is considered dangerous hate speech. But of course, I don’t hate people or wish harm to befall them. Except maybe Matt Patricia, but even in his case, if he got murdered by an enraged Patriots fan, I’d consider that to be . . . unfortunate. Certainly I would never advocate or endorse criminal violence against Matt Patricia, and if a gang of deranged season-ticket holders were to kidnap him, murder him with a chainsaw and grind up his dismembered corpse in a wood chipper, then feed the remains to a pack of hungry pitbulls . . . Well, as I say, this would be unfortunate.

However, the world is not organized according to my preferences, and nobody ever listens to my advice, or else on first-and-goal, Matt Patricia would have called Rhamondre left, and if that didn’t work, he’d have called Rhamondre right on second down, followed by Rhamondre up the middle on third down. If they end up settling for a field goal on fourth down, OK, but I completely agree with that six-year-old kid shouting at his TV: “Give the ball to Rhamondre!”

They don’t ask for my advice, so we’ll keep spending billions on Ukraine, women will keep getting mutilated as “gender treatment,” and the Patriots will keep losing football games until, inevitably, Matt Patricia gets kidnapped by a gang of chainsaw-wielding season-ticket holders.

It’s just so . . . unfortunate.



 

Category: Football, Mitch McConnell, The Transgender Cult

In The Mailbox: 12.20.22

Posted on | December 20, 2022 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 12.20.22

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Silicon Valley delenda est.

OVER THE TRANSOM
357 Magnum: Sadly, This Is Not Babylon Bee Or The Onion
EBL: Harvey Weinstein found guilty regarding one victim in California criminal trial, It’s A Wonderful Life, and The Murder Turtle Sells Out the GOP Base (again)
Twitchy: Man With WW1 Explosive Lodged In Rectum – Jokes Write Themselves, Twitter Files #8 Reveal How Twitter Helped The Pentagon Run Covert Online PsyOps, and Tranny At Center Of Wi Spa Protests Arrested For Indecent Exposure After Going On The Run
Louder With Crowder: Feds paid Twitter MILLIONS to suppress news, and Elon Musk claims they aren’t the only ones
Vox Popoli: Gammacaust on Gab, On Thought Leadership, Debt Bubble Close to Popping, and The Chinese Listened
Stoic Observations: When I Look At The World

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
American Conservative: Canadian Lives Unworthy Of Canadian Life, also, See, Here Is Water
American Greatness: ‘Buckle Up America’: Kari Lake’s Election Challenge Will Go to Trial, also, Appeals Court Blocks Biden Vaccine Mandate for Federal Contractors
American Thinker: Why Did the FBI Want Joe Biden to Become President?, also, Reflections of a Baby-Boomer
Animal Magnetism: Animal’s Daily Party Flipping News
Babalu Blog: DHS tips off the Castro dictatorship on Cuban refugees in the U.S. claiming persecution and torture, Cuban activist living in Bolivia expelled from that country for criticizing the Castro dictatorship, and Pro-dictatorship agricultural lobbyists meet with diplomats at Cuban embassy in Washington, D. C.
Baldilocks: I Am The Door
BattleSwarm: What If Russia’s Partial Mobilization Is Actually A General Mobilization?, also, Another Cold Blast Heading To Texas
Behind The Black: InSight fails to respond during scheduled communications session, Russians preparing replacement Soyuz for launch to ISS, Rocket Lab reschedules first Wallops launch to January, and Pushback: Blacklisting Virginia Tech soccer coach loses effort to get lawsuit dismissed
Cafe Hayek: David Henderson on “The Abject Failure of Central Planning During Covid”
CDR Salamander: Japan Rising
Chicago Boyz: Nuclear News
Da Tech Guy: I Have No Idea What Musk is Doing, Off-label use of diabetes drug as a weight loss tool, Under the Fedora, and Pittsburgh: Is downtown at a crossroads?
Don Surber: Biden prescribes transgender surgery, also, NYT attacks the Supreme Court
First Street Journal: Killadelphia
Gates Of Vienna: Excess Mortality in Germany, Part One, My Kingdom for Horse-Paste!, It’s Nobody’s Business But The Turks‘, and Is the Pope Catholic?
The Geller Report: TWITTER FILES 7: Treasonous FBI Was Directly Working As An Asset For The Biden Crime Family, Analysis of RNC Spending Since 2017 Shows Millions Were Spent on Private Jets, Limousines, Luxury Retreats, Broadway Shows, The Nazis Over at NY Times Publishes Swastika Shaped Puzzle on First Day of Chanukkah, and South Dakota Gov. Noem Proposes Legislation to Restrict Chinese Purchase of US Farmland
Hogewash: A Crater on Mercury, Follow the Money, and Ho Hum, Another Possible Government Shutdown
Hollywood In Toto: Tim Robbins: ‘Orwellian’ COVID Rules Based on Politics, Not Science, Elf Beats Woke Empire of Light (and Other Hollywood Horror Stories), and Hollywood Must Learn from Tom Cruise … or Else
The Lid: White House Struggles to Define ‘Border Czar’ Harris’ Role in Immigration Policy
Legal Insurrection: Energy Groups Suing Biden Administration for Failing to Hold Mandated Gas and Oil Lease Sales, Arizona Judge Allows Two of Kari Lake’s Election Challenge Claims to go to Trial, Holy Names University in Oakland Closing After Spring 2023 Semester, and U.S. Postal Service to Spend Almost $10 Billion for Electric Vehicles and Infrastructure
Nebraska Energy Observer: Steam Airplane Drivers and American Guys, also, No politics today…too much
Outkick: Eagles QB Gardner Minshew Skips Practice To Deliver Heartfelt Tribute At Mike Leach Memorial, 4 Penn State Players Get Teslas As Part Of NIL Deal, Pittsburgh’s Pat Narduzzi Hears North Carolina QB Drake Maye Was Offered $5 Million To Leave But Doesn’t Name School, Booger McFarland Drank ‘A Little Whiskey’ To Stay Warm During NFL Games, and A Grand Total Of 20 People Showed Up To A Brittney Griner ‘Homecoming’ Celebration In Waco, ESPN Doesn’t Seem Happy About It
Power Line: Welcome to Stanford Kindergarten, Sorry About Those Jobs, and The Post on the Twitter Files
Protein Wisdom Reborn:
Shark Tank: DeSantis Takes Aim At Teachers’ Union Dues, also, Is Anthony Sabatini The Real “Enemy Of The American People”?
Shot In The Dark: NPR’s War On Things That Just Work, also, Twitter – Not The Only Fed Sock Puppet
The Political Hat: 12 Posts of Christmas, 2022 (Day 8)
This Ain’t Hell: Keeps his job, even promoted, Tuesday with the Libs of Tik Tok, and The Marines are sexist!
Victory Girls: Marjorie Taylor-Greene & Lauren Boebert – Stoopid Mean Girls, also, Sam Bankman-Fried Gets Extradition Deal And More Details
Volokh Conspiracy: Congress Moves Forward on Electoral Count Act Reform
Watts Up With That: Attention Poor People, Step Away from The Fuel. It’s Not for You. And Stop Using It Anyway. Thank You, also, Space Based Solar Power: Like Terrestrial Solar, but More Expensive
Weasel Zippers: House GOP Leader Calls For Investigation Into Past FBI, CIA Abuses, Supreme Court Blocks Biden Admin From Lifting Title 42, and Proud To Be An American? Stanford Says That’s Offensive
The Federalist: Latest ‘Twitter Files’ Bombshell Shows FBI Neck-Deep In Russian Disinformation Lie To Kill Hunter Biden Laptop Story, Top Lessons Investors Should Take Away From The Collapse Of FTX, For Falsely Accusing Bakery Of Racism, Oberlin College Finally Coughs Up $36M Settlement But No Apology, House Republicans Threaten Legislative Gridlock For Senate Colleagues Who Support Reckless Omnibus Bill, and King Charles Can’t Refute Meghan’s ‘Racism’ Charges Because He Is A Self-Flagellating Globalist
Mark Steyn: Rolling in Doha, I’ll Be Holmes for Christmas, Room at the Inn…for Migrants, and Fowl Play

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Category: Linkagery

Why Was the Department of Justice Spying on Republican Congressional Staff?

Posted on | December 20, 2022 | Comments Off on Why Was the Department of Justice Spying on Republican Congressional Staff?

Something for Jim Jordan’s committee to investigate:

In an extraordinary intrusion on congressional oversight, the Justice Department used grand jury subpoenas to secretly obtain the personal email and phone data of at least two top House Intelligence Committee investigators back in November 2017 just as they and their boss, then-Chairman Devin Nunes, were assembling bombshell evidence of FBI abuses in the Russia collusion probe, Just the News has learned.
The subpoenas, obtained by Just the News, show the DOJ demanded that Google turn over personal email and phone data from the two senior staffers on Nov. 20, 2017 and that responsive materials were to be returned to DOJ by Dec. 5, 2017.
The subpoenas were delivered during a critical time frame in the committee’s effort to expose the Donald Trump-Russia collusion investigation as having been driven by an uncorroborated political opposition dossier funded by Hillary Clinton. Nunes’ committee was locked at the time in a bitter struggle to force the FBI and DOJ to turn over records to the committee.
The DOJ subpoenas came to light in the last few days when the former committee staffers were informed by Google that their records had been taken, consistent with the Big Tech company’s policy of alerting customers five years after law enforcement takes such actions.
One of the subpoenaed staffers, former Intelligence Committee senior counsel Kash Patel, told Just the News that the DOJ’s subpoenas were an extraordinary intrusion on congressional oversight and raised serious concerns about the separation of executive and legislative branch powers guaranteed in the Constitution. . . .

And they told me “The Deep State” was a myth . . .



 

Category: Congress

In The Mailbox: 12.19.22

Posted on | December 20, 2022 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 12.19.22

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Silicon Valley delenda est.

Public education.

OVER THE TRANSOM
357 Magnum: Hollywood Getting Woke & Becoming Irrelevant
EBL:  Black Adam, Musk Done At Twitter? and So how is the Avatar sequel doing at the box office?
Twitchy: Here’s the reason liberal women walk with such swag & confidence
Louder With Crowder: Taylor Lorenz got herself suspended by Twitter. No one knows why and we’re all laughing too hard to care, Jeffrey Epstein victim claims to have sex tapes he made of certain  friends with underage girls, and James Cameron doesn’t understand why there isn’t an empowering female warrior who is six months pregnant
Vox Popoli: A Ticket-Taker’s Holiday, The Economics of Clown World, 2-2 (4-2), and Black Magick War

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
American Conservative: Is This Winning?, also, Why You Should Go To Church This Christmas Sunday
American Greatness: 10 Steps to Save America, Only Ron DeSantis Can Win in 2024, and The EV Zero Emissions Scam
American Thinker: Why Are Communists Determined to Destroy the US?, Deep State Suspicions, and It’s ‘Trump Will Never Be President’ All Over Again
Animal Magnetism: Goodbye, Blue Monday
Babalu Blog: Cuba went from the world’s tallest Christmas tree in 1957 to banning Christmas a decade later, With Cuba’s labor force decimated by mass exodus, dictatorship looks to enforce ‘anti-laziness law’, Despite food and medicine shortages, Cuba’s dictatorship keeps building more apartheid hotels, and Lifestyles of the Rich and Communist: Wife of Cuba’s sock puppet president wears $6,300 Cartier watch
Baldilocks: Who Runs Things?
BattleSwarm: Peru’s New President Is On Team Riot, also, Two Juicy EU Scandals Bubble Up
Behind The Black: SpaceX completes third launch in less than two days, L3Harris to buy Aerojet Rocketdyne for $4.7 billion, Could the Apollo 11 lunar module still be orbiting the Moon?, and Today’s blacklisted American: Law firm fires lawyer of 44 years for expressing the wrong opinion
Cafe Hayek: History “Disprivileges” This Person’s Understanding, Vernon Smith on the Fall of Nature, Getting Adam Smith Right, and Vernon Smith on Adam Smith (and on Adam Smith’s Interpreters)
CDR Salamander: Cyber Lessons of the Russo-Ukrainian War with Shashank Josi – on Midrats, also, “Support You and Your Family” – Really?
Chicago Boyz: Monastic Technology, 2022, also, Christmas Story
Da Tech Guy: Virginia finally bans TikTok, Very Quick Under the Fedora Thoughts, I’m going to reserve judgement on the Vatican’s Move on Fr, Pavone for now, and Hope for the future: Lightfoot badly trails in first poll of 2023 Chicago mayoral race
Don Surber: The Dummy Who Invented The Artificial Heart, We are letting weirdos run things, Praising Garland for ignoring a law Biden co-wrote, I paused Google Ads, and Germans screwing up NATO
First Street Journal: Kara Alaimo exercised her #FreedomOfSpeech and CNN’s #FreedomOfThePress to decry conservatives’ Freedom of Speech and of the Press, Philadelphian Amanda Marcotte is very, very upset that 35 transgender people have been murdered this year, but doesn’t care about 496 killings in her home town, and Killadelphia: the city is tied for third place all time in murders, with 13 days left in the year
Gates Of Vienna: Buyer’s Remorse About the Vax, A Nation of Snitches, Enricher vs. Enricher in Montpellier, and Germans Must Prepare to Shiver in the Dark
The Geller Report: FDA Now Says Pfizer’s COVID-19 VACCINE Linked to Blood Clotting, Arizona Judge Approves Kari Lake Request to Examine Ballots, Freed J6 Political Prisoner, Former West Virginia Delegate Denounces Kevin McCarthy, and FBI Had 80 Agents Monitor Joke and Satire Accounts To Silence Conservatives
Hogewash: Dihydrogen Monoxide in Space, M47, Team Kimberlin Post of the Day, and I’m Not Making This Up, You Know
Hollywood In Toto: Barbie Woke Propaganda Push Already Under Way?, The 20 Best TV Shows of 2022, and Here’s What You Missed About the Overrated Bodies Bodies Bodies
The Lid: Differences Between Christmas And Hanukkah (With Tongue Firmly In Cheek), also, Biden Making U.S. Citizenship Test Easier so Dumber Foreigners Can Feel Included
Legal Insurrection: Some Democrats Resisting Party’s Plan to Hold South Carolina Primary First, Europe Cools Toward ESG in Light of Energy Realities, University of Richmond Receives $625K Grant to Advance Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, Washington U. Med School Lecturer Warns Students Not to Debate Her on CRT or ‘Systemic Oppression’, and Ethnic Fraudster Sen. Elizabeth Warren Pressures Elon Musk Over Twitter By Bullying Tesla Board
Nebraska Energy Observer: Change is good, also, Advent IV: Love
Outkick: Topless Argentina World Cup Flashers Are Alive & Not In Jail!, Patriots Lose Game On One Of The Most Boneheaded Plays Of All-Time By Jakobi Meyers, Brittany Mahomes Calls Out NFL After Husband Gets Rocked On Violent Sack, Roger Goodell Causes Widespread Confusion By Showing Up At HBCU National Championship To Support Nephew, and College Football Playoff Game Played In Snowy Weather So Cold It Caused Beer To Explode
Power Line: Sunday morning coming down, Notes on the Twitter Files, cont’d, and Earth to Joe Biden
Protein Wisdom Reborn: The Noxious Racism Of “Disparate Impact”, also, I Am Woman, Hear Me Giggle & Scree
Shark Tank: Rep. Scott Franklin (R-FL15) Explains GOP Opposition To Puerto Rico Status Act
Shot In The Dark: Mission Creepy, also, Vibrant! Vibraaaant! VIBRAAAAAAAANT!
STUMP: Geeking Out: What Does COVID Vaccination Status Have to Do With Motor Vehicle Accident Risk?
The Political Hat: 12 Posts of Christmas, 2022 (Day 5), (Day6), and (Day7)
This Ain’t Hell: Is this heaven? No, it’s Iowa….bbrrrrrrttt, Potential changes to Arlington National Cemetery burial eligibility could disqualify most, Russian soldier describes the Ukraine War as “destruction of the Russian people”, Map and compass. Wha…?, and Uncle Frank Biden’s Purple Heart
Transterrestrial Musings: Anthropology, also, Leftist Journalists
Victory Girls: Sam Brinton Is In Your Schools, Vatican Defrocks Pro Life Priest Frank Pavone, and “Defeated” Border Patrol Braces For Next Wave, SCOTUS Issues Reprieve
Volokh Conspiracy: Happy Saturnalia!
Watts Up With That: Germany’s Gas Reserves “Emptying at Record Speed” As Country Struggles to Keep Warm, Lights On, How Michelin Covered Up Industrial Deforestation by its Indonesian Partner in “Eco-Friendly” Rubber Venture, and No evidence for BBC claim that Churchill is simply getting too warm for polar bears
Weasel Zippers: Biden Says After He Was Elected VP (In 2008) He Awarded Uncle (Who Died In 1999) A Purple Heart, Top Biden Advisor Can’t Explain Why Biden Refuses To Visit Southern Border, Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH): “I Don’t Hear A Lot About Immigration Except From People On The Far Right”, and Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) Threatens Big Tech Unless They Censor More Content
The Federalist: The LGBT Alphabet Lobby Has Come For Its Own Women, AOC’s Climate Change Movie Bombs At Box Office, Want Proof Our Government Is A Cash-Gobbling Ball Of Incompetence? Look No Further Than The Post Office, David French: Yes, The Dispatch Takes Money To Help Leftists Keep The Internet Conservatism-Free, and With Russia Hoaxer Jim Baker On The Inside, The FBI Primed Twitter To Kill Hunter Biden Story Long Before It Broke
Mark Steyn: Go Where the Journeyman Leads: Steve McQueen and Nevada Smith, A Child’s Christmas in Wales, Blue Christmas, and The Mark Steyn Show – live Monday to Thursday!

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Category: Linkagery

The Dumbest Play in NFL History

Posted on | December 19, 2022 | 1 Comment

As unexpected disasters go, Sunday’s game was for New England Patriots fans what the Hindenburg crash was for the zeppelin industry. The Patriots, at 7-6, were clear contenders for a Wild Card playoff berth coming into the game against the 5-8 Las Vegas Raiders. With a win, they would have solidified their status as contenders going into the final three games against the defending AFC champion Cincinnati Bengals, AFC East rivals the Miami Dolphins and the division-leading Buffalo Bills.

New England fell behind 17-3 at halftime, but struck back in the second half, with Kyle Duggar scoring a pick-six touchdown on an interception, followed by two field goals and then finally a three-play touchdown drive that featured a 39-yard pass from Patriots QB Mac Jones to Jakobi Meyers and a 34-yard TD run by Rhamondre Stevenson. With a two-point conversion pass, New England had a 24-17 lead with less than four minutes to play. The Raiders rallied in the final two minutes, with Las Vegas QB Derek Carr hitting Keelan Cole for a 30-yard pass that was ruled a touchdown, even though Patriots fans will forever insist Cole was out of bounds. Now the game was tied 24-24 with 32 seconds remaining, and it looked like it was destined for overtime, unless New England could move the ball quickly into field-goal range. Using their two remaining timeouts, the Patriots were able to get to their own 45 with 14 seconds left. Two passes went incomplete and then, on third down with three seconds on the clock, New England ran a draw play, handing the ball to Stevenson, who rambled to the Las Vegas 32 as time ran out, but instead of just letting it go to overtime, Stevenson decided to try to keep the play alive, pitching the ball back to Meyers, who then ran around a bit before throwing a cross-field lateral in the general vicinity of Mac Jones. But the ball went directly into the hands of Las Vegas defensive end Chandler Jones at the New England 48. Mac Jones made a feeble attempt to tackle the Raider, but was stiff-armed aside as Chandler Jones romped all the way for the winning touchdown. The football world was stunned.

There is still, from a purely statistical standpoint, a hypothetical chance that New England could make the playoffs, but realistically? No, they’re done. A team that could blunder away a game in such spectacular fashion cannot be expected to beat the Bengals, the Dolphins or the Bills. The Patriots are probably heading toward a 7-10 finish, and even if they luck out and win a game or two in this final three-game stretch, they are ultimately doomed, like the Hindenburg at Lakehurst.



 

Category: Football

A Book Post For Hanukkah

Posted on | December 19, 2022 | Comments Off on A Book Post For Hanukkah

— by Wombat-socho


You know it’s been too long since the last book post when you have to go back and look at the archives to see when you did the last one and what you covered. I’ll try to do better next year, if I can pry myself away from the damn video games…

“He’s the type of person Commissars are supposed to shoot.”

Let’s lead off with something that is simultaneously hilarious and depressing: Kurt Schlichter’s Inferno, the seventh of the Kelly Turnbull action novels set in a post-national divorce America. It’s really too bad that Bruce Willis is past his prime, because he’d be a perfect Kelly Turnbull in the movies – anyway, this book is equal parts Road Warrior and eerie echo of the Roman Republic, in which it looks like Red America’s commanding general in California looks like he’s about to march on Texas with a whole collection of misfit auxiliary troops who are loyal to him and not the government in Austin. Plus, there’s a stray nuclear weapon and an apocalyptic cult to deal with in the debatable lands that used to be Oregon. If you liked the previous six Turnbull books, this one won’t disappoint; Schlichter is good at writing both action and political intrigue, and does a good job of segueing from one to the other.

More on the comedy side is the latest Commissar Cain omnibus from Sandy Mitchell: Ciaphas Cain, Saviour Of The Imperium. Unlike most of the other Warhammer 40k novels I’ve read, which tend to be turgid, prolix, and slightly more grimdark than The GULAG Archipelago, the Ciaphas Cain novels are light-hearted and humorous, despite the formula of Cain being sent to deal with a problem only to stumble on something EVEN WORSE. TVTropes insists that Cain is a synthesis of Captain Blackadder and Harry Flashman, but they’ve only got it half right – the Blackadder part. Cain is far too considerate of his troops and his ladies* to be the selfish cad Flashman was, and in fact more closely resembles Dand McNeil from Fraser’s The General Danced At Dawn, particularly because of Private McAuslan, who is obviously (somehow) the ancestor of Gunner Jurgen. Anyhow, three novels and some short stories about the commissar’s misadventures in the dark future where there is only war.** Recommended despite the extortionate price – and I should note here that all three of the Cain omnibus collections are finally available on the Kindle.

I am willing to bet money that if he lives to be 100 and writes as many books, Marko Kloos will not write anything as good as the Frontlines series, which concluded this fall with the eighth book in the series, Centers of Gravity. The saga of humanity’s war against the alien Lankies has been quite a tale, and Kloos ends it on an upbeat note with Andrew Grayson and (most) of his compatriots escaping from what looks like certain death, hundreds of light-years from Earth. As much as I would like to see more books in the series, leading up to the ultimate triumph of humanity over the Lankies (or at least a negotiated peace) I can see why Kloos decided to end it here. Worth your time, especially if you read the first seven.

* He can’t afford not to, since one of his ladies is an Inquisitor.
** And a few wry chuckles, guffaws, and belly laughs.


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Category: Books

Rule 5 Sunday: Mrs. Santa

Posted on | December 19, 2022 | 2 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Cosplay by u/MarieWithDDs on Reddit.
Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley esse delendam.

NINETY MILES FROM TYRANNY: Hot Pick of the Late Night, The 90 Miles Mystery Box Episode #1932, Morning Mistress, and Girls With Guns. 

ANIMAL MAGNETISM: Rule 5 Climate Cult Friday, and the Saturday Gingermageddon.

EBL: MAGA – Trading Trump, Vintage Christmas, Berlin Aquarium Disaster, Santa Claus Is Coming To Town, The Banshees Of Inisherin, Seal Team, The Bad Guy, Fusion Breakthrough, and December 11, 1620

A VIEW FROM THE BEACH: Vinessa Vidotto, What Christmas Means to Me, Fish Pic Friday – Candice Mishler, Please Come Home for Christmas, Is That a Striper or a ‘Wiper?’, Thursday Tanlines, Run, Run Rudolf, The Wednesday Wetness, Gasoline, Can Crabs Save the World?, The Monday Morning Stimulus and Palm Sunday

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Category: Rule 5

Secondhand ‘Stolen Valor’? Lying Joe Invents Purple Heart Story About Uncle

Posted on | December 18, 2022 | 2 Comments

Very early in the 2020 presidential campaign season, I called attention to Joe Biden’s habit of saying that he gave “my word as a Biden” in vouching for the truth of whatever he was saying. It seems Joe believes (or at least wishes his audience to believe) that not only is he trustworthy, but that the Biden family in general has a well-established reputation for honesty.

Of course, Joe Biden is an infamous bullsh*t artist, a braggart who habitually exaggerates his own accomplishments or just makes up “facts” that turn out to be false, as was the case Friday:

But I want to tell you, it is — it is — it doesn’t go noticed enough, how many of you who fought in Iraq and Afghanistan and all through these last wars we’ve had — how many mothers and wives and sons and daughters sat at that empty birthday — saw that — an empty chair at the birthday party.
And the difference is a lot of you of my — my generation, on — after — on December 7th that we celebrated the bravery of all the — those who showed up. On the Finnegan side of the family, four brothers. Every single one volunteered the very next day, on Monday, to join. My uncle, Frank Biden, joined. My father was working in the shipyards.
The fact of the matter is that, you know, it wasn’t a second thought. They just showed up. And there’s a generation, represented by you, Ray, that doesn’t look for accolades.
You know, I — my dad, when I got elected Vice President, he said, “Joey, Uncle Frank fought in the Battle of the Bulge.” He was not feeling very well now — not because of the Battle of the Bulge. But he said, “And he won the Purple Heart. And he never received it. He never — he never got it. Do you think you could help him get it? We’ll surprise him.”
So we got him the Purple Heart. He had won it in the Battle of the Bulge. And I remember he came over to the house, and I came out, and he said, “Present it to him, okay?” We had the family there.
I said, “Uncle Frank, you won this. And I want to…” He said, “I don’t want the damn thing.” (Laughter.) No, I’m serious. He said, “I don’t want it.” I said, “What’s the matter, Uncle Frank? You earned it.” He said, “Yeah, but the others died. The others died. I lived. I don’t want it.”

Is any part of this story about Uncle Frank true? Some of it is certainly false, as the New York Post reported:

Biden’s father, Joseph R. Biden Sr., died in September 2002 — more than six years before his son was elected vice president. Frank Biden, Joe Sr.’s brother, died in 1999.

We know for a fact, then, that this claim that Joe helped his uncle receive the Purple Heart after he became vice president is false.  There was no presentation to Uncle Frank where “we had the family there,” no request from his father, etc., at least not during Biden’s vice-presidency, by which time both Biden’s father and uncle were dead. What we don’t know is whether the story about Uncle Frank being wounded (during the Battle of the Bulge or any other time) is true. Frank Biden indeed served as a sergeant in the Army during World War II, but the Post could find no record of him being awarded the Purple Heart, nor is there any record of Joe Biden telling this story about his Uncle Frank before.

And by the way, to say somebody “won the Purple Heart” is just wrong, because being wounded in combat is no one’s definition of “winning.”



 

Category: Joe Biden
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