The Other McCain

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

In The Mailbox: 07.06.22

Posted on | July 6, 2022 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 07.06.22

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Silicon Valley delenda est.

OVER THE TRANSOM
EBL: Savannah Daisley Accused of Rape of 14 Year Old Boy, also, Jerone Davidson (R-AZ4) for Congress – Make Rifles Great Again
Twitchy: Rep. Lauren Boebert informs Rep. Eric Swalwell that no, he can’t date her, also, Fauxcahontas on the warpath against Massachusetts crisis pregnancy centers
Louder With Crowder: Tom Hanks Speaks Out on Disney Recasting Tim Allen’s Buzz Lightyear, also, Elon Musk – ‘They’re Going Way Too Far’
Vox Popoli: The USA’s Last War, Lugansk is Liberated, and The Sins of the Debtors

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
Adam Piggott: Greasy Pole #21 – The Babies for Moloch episode
American Conservative: Biden’s Immigration Policies Are Killing People, also, Biden and Universities Launch Sneak Attack on Free Speech
American Greatness: Several Texas Counties Declare Border Crisis to be an ‘Invasion’, also, Infamous Georgia Guidestones Damaged in Early Morning Explosion; Remaining Structure Demolished ‘For Safety Reasons’
American Thinker: Much More than Murder in Highland Park
Animal Magnetism: Animal’s Hump Day News
Babalu Blog: One year later, a Cuban pastor remains imprisoned for peacefully protesting on July 11, also, Cuban dictatorship appoints female colonel as interim replacement for its dead money chief Lopez-Calleja
BattleSwarm: Biden’s EPA Trying To Crush The Permian Basin?, also, Halifax Bank Update – They Made It Worse
Behind The Black: Engineers propose flying gliders on Mars, Red China begins construction of commercial spaceport, and Today’s blacklisted American
Cafe Hayek: Majority Rule Isn’t As Straightforward As Many People Suppose It to Be, also, Change the Constitution?
Chicago Boyz: Where We Spent Today, also, Very Nicely Put
Da Tech Guy:  One Thing You Have To Remember About all the Left’s “I Hate America” July 4th Events, Report from Louisiana: renaming, rebranding, and rewriting history in a free country, and July Indulgence Calendar Plus Previews of coming Attractions and other loose ends under the Fedora
Don Surber: Next up: WV vs. SEC, Griner pulled a Kaepernick and now wants our help, and 80% still live in the American Dream
First Street Journal: Even hormones and surgery are not enough!, also, Six killed in Highland Park shooting, and everybody knows about it; ten killed in Philly, and no one cares
Gates Of Vienna: A Flood of Migrants From Hong Kong, Culture-Enriching Gang Rape Behind a Hedge in Milan, and What is it That We’re Not Supposed to Learn?
The Geller Report: Holland On The Brink Of Civil War After Left-Wing Government Bans Farming, also, Manufacturing Plants Aren’t Just Mysteriously Getting Burned Down In The United States
Hogewash: Team Kimberlin Post of the Day, also, A Prospective Merger
Hollywood In Toto: Thor: Love and Thunder Delivers Woke Camp, Not MCU Thrills, also, Isaak/Lovett at Red Rocks – The Culture Wars Get the Night Off
The Lid: Poll Ends Dem Hopes of Riding Roe Rage to Midterm Victory
Legal Insurrection: Google to Automatically Delete Tracking Info on Trips to Abortion Clinics, Biden Admin Shipping U.S. Oil Reserves Overseas as Americans Struggle at the Pump, and Yale Law Prof Says Right to Own Guns is Really Right to “Suppress Inner City Blacks”
Michelle Malkin: America, the Globalist Grift
Nebraska Energy Observer: In reverse, also, B1G Follies
Outkick: Ja Morant Blesses Waitress With Massive Tip, Leaves Her Stunned When She Realizes Who He Is, Dallas Cowboys Get Criticism from Liberals for New Team Sponsorship With Vet Owned Brand, and Baker Mayfield Traded To Carolina Panthers For Draft Compensation
Power Line: Biden Free Fall Continues, Hauteur with a twist of deceit, and Horror In the Law Schools
Shark Tank: FAA and NASA now Affecting Flights in Florida
Shot In The Dark: Vibrant! also, Recessional
STUMP: Yes, COVID was a top cause of death for middle-aged people in 2021
The Political Hat: Mandatory Wokeness In Academia – Mandatory Bias Test For Admission, Mandatory “Maoist” Diversity Training, and Mandatory Power, Inequity, & Justice Classes
This Ain’t Hell: SCOTUS Rules on Burn Pit Veteran’s Case, Marine aviator refuses to wear American Flag apparel, and Bonhomme Richard fire – too many admirals, not enough leaders
Transterrestrial Musings: In Case You Thought That Bill Nelson Was Smart, Ukraine’s Future, and More From Lori Garver
Victory Girls: Kamala Stops By Highland Park To Serve Word Salad
Volokh Conspiracy: Whites from Africa Claiming African-American Status
Watts Up With That: Dumb As It Gets: Germany Heads into Winter Refusing to Let Badly Needed Power Plants Operate
Weasel Zippers: Biden Gave 5 Million Barrels Of Our Strategic Oil Reserves To Europe, Mayor Groot Blames “The Toxicity In Our Public Discourse” For Increase of People Shooting At Police Officers, and Transportation Sec. Buttigieg Laughs When Confronted On Gas Prices Surging Since Biden Took Office
The Federalist: Washington State School Board Director Plans Sexual ‘Pleasure’ Workshops For 9-Year-Olds, Barstool Subverts Elites On Everything Except Sexual Ethics, and Dutch Government Launches Canadian-Style Crackdown On Farmer Protests
Mark Steyn: A Childhood Lost to Monsters and Their Enablers, The Child Sex Crime Capital of England, and The Stories the Media Won’t Tell

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Category: Linkagery

In The Mailbox: 07.05.22

Posted on | July 6, 2022 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 07.05.22

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Silicon Valley delenda est.

OVER THE TRANSOM
357 Magnum: What’s The Military Version of “Get Woke, Go Broke?”
EBL: Mamie Van Doren, also, Bikini Day
Twitchy: Dean Obeidallah says that Gov. Gavin Newsom is doing more than just crushing Gov. Ron DeSantis
Louder With Crowder: UFC Champ Asks the Question On All Our Minds, also, Macy Gray Says Changing Your Body Parts ‘Doesn’t Make You a Woman’
Vox Popoli: Truth in an Empire of Lies, That’s Not a Course Correction, and It’s Going to be So Bad

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
Adam Piggott: Fag Month – a Tale of Three Photos
American Conservative: Biden’s War for Liberalism, also, Last of the Greatest
American Greatness: The New American Slave Revolt, Led by Clarence Thomas, ‘If All Men Are Created Equal, That Is Final’, and So Much Winning
American Power: Leftists Push ‘F*** the Fourth’, also, California Governor Gavin Newsom Fuels Presidential Speculation
American Thinker: New York Moves to Nullify Supreme Court Decision Upholding Gun Rights, also, A SCOTUS Guide for the Perplexed
Animal Magnetism: Happy Independence Day!, also, Goodbye, Blue… Tuesday?
Babalu Blog: The death of dictator Raul Castro’s right-hand man could spell the end of the Cuban dictatorship, Cuba’s transition to kleptocracy, and Amidst chronic blackouts, Cuba’s sock puppet president tells Cubans to find the charms of summer heat
BattleSwarm: Russia Defaults; Finland, Sweden Get Greenlight To Join NATO, also, Halifax Bank: “We’re Going To Shove Pronouns Down Your Throat. If You Don’t Like it, Leave.” Customers: “Your Terms Are Acceptable.”
Behind The Black: One of Perseverance’s two wind sensors damaged by wind-blown material, Today’s blacklisted American, and How to find the least dishonest politician to vote for
Cafe Hayek: Hotter and Longer Perhaps – More Dangerous, Not So Much, also, Four Amazing Differences
CDR Salamander: VADM Brown; Remembering the Johnston‘s Turn
Chicago Boyz: Top Gun!, also, Shall It Be Sustained?
Da Tech Guy: Some Advice From My Grandfather for Those Doing Political Prosecutions These Days, When should you start a family?, and Fast Thoughts Under the Fedora for the 4th of July
Don Surber: Democrats, defying the Supreme Court for 190 years, Abortionists target Christianity, and Asian-Americans abandoning Democrats
First Street Journal: What is ‘gatekeeping’?, also, What happens when “racial inequities” are the choices of minority populations?
Gates Of Vienna: The Arrest of Michael Ballweg, An Actuarial Armageddon, and Vehicular Jihad in Norway
The Geller Report: Survey: More Than 750,000 Dead, 30 Million Injured Because of Covid Vax, Highland Park Mass Murderer, Tied to Socialists, Progressives, Antifa and the Occult, and Poll: Entire World ‘Unhappier, More Stressed’ Since Joe Biden Took Over
Hogewash: A Civil Rights Update, A Flyby of Mercury, and Team Kimberlin Post of the Day
Hollywood In Toto: HuffPo: Comedians No Longer Have ‘Right to Offend’, Joe Rogan: ‘All the Woke Comics Are F***ing Terrible’, and Breuer’s Somebody Had to Say It Pummels Pandemic Hypocrisy
The Lid: When Israel Showed The World The Spirit of 1776 Still Exists
Legal Insurrection: “The Nightmare Scenario SCOTUS is Plotting For the 2024 Election Takeover”, Democrats of Pima County Arizona Celebrate Independence Day by Saying ‘F**k the Fourth’, and Repeal of Roe Doesn’t Appear to be Helping Democrats Politically So Far
Nebraska Energy Observer: Random Observations, Thoughts, and The Mission Statement
Outkick: Elle Duncan is a Disaster, Madison Bumgarner Paid Awesome Tribute To America On The Fourth Of July, Joey Chestnut Choked Out A Protestor On Way To His 15th Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest Title, and ESPN Hates America on July 4th, Loves Woke Columnist Arrested For Choking His Wife
Power Line: Is Kamala’s Disease Spreading? (Updated), She who gets booed, and The eternal meaning of Independence Day
Shark Tank: Biden’s DOJ Sues Arizona To Make Mexico Great Again, also, Man Arrested for Assaulting Mills for Congress Volunteer, Rearrested on Felony Burglary Assault Charge
Shot In The Dark: Standards, Teenagers Vs. The Left, and We Three Things
STUMP: NY Corruption: Hochul, Benjamin, and Chester A. Arthur — Can You Tell the Difference?
The Political Hat: When in the Course of Human Events
This Ain’t Hell: , When They Say Who They Are Believe Them Biden supports abortion pill and crossing state lines to obtain abortions, and Team Biden asked about grants promoting atheism
Transterrestrial Musings: Who Is In Charge?, The Economic Genius In The White House, and Constitutional Visions
Victory Girls: Biden Team Is Making Sure There Is Pain At The Pump, Orlando Eats Crow After Fourth Of July Hot Take, and Democrats Are Mad That Biden Has Failed Them
Volokh Conspiracy: What the Declaration of Independence Said and Meant, also, “Oregon Health Officials Delayed a Meeting Because ‘Urgency Is a White Supremacy Value'”
Watts Up With That: The New Pause Lengthens to 7 Years 10 Months, Our Green Energy Future?, and British Greens Pushing for a Home Wood Heater Ban
Weasel Zippers: Capitol Police Were WARNED A Riot Might Break Out J6…Did Nothing, Kamala Harris Laughs At Americans Struggling To Afford Gas, and Ilhan Omar Booed Off Stage At Somali Concert In Minneapolis
The Federalist: If You Don’t Want Woke Bureaucrats To Ruin America’s 250th Birthday, Start Planning Now, Beavis And Butt-Head Are Back With A Movie And Haven’t Matured At All, and Liz Cheney Has No Future In The GOP And She Knows It
Mark Steyn: You Can’t Go Back Again – Robert Altman’s The Long Goodbye, A Name to Conjure, and America the Beautiful

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Category: Linkagery

Eulogy for a Great Southern Lady

Posted on | July 4, 2022 | 1 Comment

With my Aunt Pat Huber, May 2019

(My cousin Trish asked me to give a eulogy for my Aunt Pat Huber at the memorial service July 2 in Mableton, Georgia.)

The Roman poet Ovid said, “If you want to be loved, be lovable.” And I think everyone who knew Pat Huber would agree that she was a very lovable person. She was kind, she was generous and courteous, she was cheerful and optimistic. A smile was her natural expression, and she was capable of laughing even amid sorrow and hardship.
When I spoke to Trish about what I should say today, I mentioned that Aunt Pat reminded me of Melanie Wilkes in Gone With the Wind, the epitome of a gracious old-fashioned Southern lady. Like Miss Melanie, Aunt Pat never had a bad word for anyone and lived up to that ancient maxim of good manners, “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say nothing all.”
Trish laughed when she said her mother tried to raise her and Deborah to be nice Southern ladies, but perhaps not with as much success as she’d hoped. For me as a boy, a visit to Aunt Pat’s was always a pleasure, going over to play with my cousin Mark, and begging to spend the night. I was a rambunctious chatterbox of a boy, and I got on people’s nerves, but Aunt Pat was always so sweet to me. Then one Saturday morning after I’d spent the night, Mark and I were playing when he was supposed to be doing his chores. She chewed him out real good, and I was shocked: I had never in my whole life seen Aunt Pat angry.
Aunt Pat was the last living member of my parent’s generation. She was born on a farm in Randolph County, Alabama, in 1933, the second of three sisters born to Hermit and Eucal Kirby. My mother Frances McCain was the oldest of the Kirby girls and Aunt Barbara Ellis was the youngest. A sociologist might observe that there was a tendency toward matrilineal affiliation in this family. For example, we always attended the Fincher Clan reunion at Big Springs, an association owed to the fact that Grandma Kirby’s mother was a Fincher. And at holidays in my youth, the gathering was always of the three Kirby sisters and their children.
A mother is the heart of a home, and because my own mother died when I was 16, I have a deep appreciation for the maternal qualities in which Aunt Pat excelled. I was always welcome at her home, and any time I’d visit, she’d insist I stay for dinner. When I had first started dating Lou Ann, I took her down to meet my Dad and brothers, and then I took her to meet Aunt Pat. Lou Ann said it was after meeting Aunt Pat that she decided to marry me, so certainly I owe her that debt of gratitude.
Aunt Pat’s two-storey home on Pleasant Drive was the closest thing to a mansion in our family, and a symbol of how far hard work can take you in life. That a girl who grew up in rural Alabama during the Depression could live in such a fine home is truly the American Dream. And I think some of Aunt Pat’s grandchildren and great-grandchildren have no idea what her life was like growing up. Trish and Deborah and the rest of us in our generation grew up hearing stories of what life was like back then in those days of dirt roads and Franklin Roosevelt. “Y’all kids don’t know how good you’ve got it,” our parents would say. “When I was a kid …” And then we’d hear a tale of shocking hardship. Our parents had to walk five miles to school – uphill both ways! Barefoot! In the snow! Or so we were expected to believe. We can laugh about it now, but the hardship of life back then was very real. Poverty was so widespread in rural Alabama in the 1930s that it was more or less universal. Aunt Pat would say, “We didn’t know we were poor – everybody was poor!”
The Kirby family actually wasn’t as poor as some of their neighbors. Grandpa Kirby was a very hard-working man, and when World War II came along, he got a job working in the shipyards in Brunswick, Georgia. Grandma Kirby joined him there, working in the canteen that served meals to the shipyard workers. They left their daughters in the care of Grandma Kirby’s parents on the farm in Alabama, so that Aunt Pat was largely raised by her grandparents, Elisha and Maude Moses. Aunt Pat and her sisters knew the value of hard work, and they knew the importance of family. We take care of our own.
As a teenager, slender young blonde Pat Kirby caught the eye of a dark-haired fellow from LaGrange named Ervin Huber. He was a cotton mill worker, three years older than Aunt Pat, and rode a motorcycle. Try to picture 20-year-old Ervin Huber roaring around on a motorcycle in 1950, and then imagine what a reaction that caused for the parents of a nice Baptist girl from Randolph County girl. Love conquers all, however, and Grandma Kirby gave her consent to the marriage on one condition, that Pat graduate from Randolph County High School before the wedding.
Ervin and Pat Huber were married for 42 years until his death in 1992. I’ve often thought of how remarkable Uncle Ervin’s career was. After they moved to Atlanta, while Ervin was working in the mill there, he took a home-study course in electronics, and got hired by Rich’s. For most of my childhood, he worked at Rich’s repairing household appliances. For the benefit of you younger folks, I have to explain that Rich’s was THE department store chain in Atlanta for decades, and the big Rich’s store downtown was THE place to shop. So when Deborah, Trish and Mark were growing up, they were always fashionably attired, because of Uncle Ervin’s employee discount at Rich’s. I also have to explain to young people that, once upon a time, when you bought an appliance or any kind of what we’d nowadays call “consumer electronics,” the store that sold it to you would repair it if it wasn’t working. Something folks used to call “customer service.” Anyway, as I say, for many years, that was Ervin’s main job, repairing radios and toasters and whatever other kind of electrical things anybody bought from Rich’s. Over the years, however, his job description changed. In the 1970s, Rich’s became part of the nationwide Federated department Store chain. Computerized cash registers and automated inventory became standard retail practice, and Ervin’s skills made him the natural choice to take over this work, so that eventually he became basically the IT chief of the whole Federated chain – very impressive for a small-town boy with a high school diploma.
Meanwhile, Aunt Pat – the girl who grew up on a farm in Randolph County – gave birth to her first two children before she was 21. She took a home-study course and taught herself shorthand, and eventually went to work in the aerospace industry. Now, when I say she worked in the aerospace industry, she was an executive secretary at the Lockheed plant in Marietta. It takes a lot of people doing a lot of different jobs to run a major company like that, so when I say Aunt Pat was part of the aerospace industry, by God, it’s the truth. She spent about 30 years at Lockheed, which is now Lockheed-Martin. My Dad worked there for 37 years, and whenever you see a C-130 cargo plane, that’s something we can be proud of – Lockheed made the greatest cargo plane the world has ever known. Folks talk about the “military-industrial complex” like it’s some kind of awful thing and I tell ‘em, buddy, the military-industrial complex put food on my table when I was a kid. Those jobs are good jobs, and Aunt Pat had every reason to take pride in working for Lockheed.
All of her children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren ought to be proud to be part of Pat Huber’s legacy, just as I know she was always so proud of y’all. You are the descendants of a wonderful Southern lady, who was also a very devout and prayerful Christian. Her grandson Chris is an ordained minister, and I checked with Trish to make sure I wouldn’t be stealing from his sermon when I close this tribute by quoting from a famous passage of Proverbs 31:
“Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies. … Strength and honour are her clothing; and she shall rejoice in time to come. She openeth her mouth with wisdom; and in her tongue is the law of kindness. She looketh well to the ways of her household, and eateth not the bread of idleness. Her children arise up, and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praiseth her.”
Those of us who were blessed to know Pat Huber have reason to thank God for that blessing. We should cherish her memory forever, and each of us should strive to emulate her example.




 

Category: Family

A Story Too Good to Check?

Posted on | July 4, 2022 | 2 Comments

This headline appeared Friday in the Columbus Dispatch:

As Ohio restricts abortions, 10-year-old
girl travels to Indiana for procedure
On Monday three days after the Supreme Court issued its groundbreaking decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, Dr. Caitlin Bernard, an Indianapolis obstetrician-gynecologist, took a call from a colleague, a child abuse doctor in Ohio.
Hours after the Supreme Court action, the Buckeye state had outlawed any abortion after six weeks. Now this doctor had a 10-year-old patient in the office who was six weeks and three days pregnant.
Could Bernard help? . . .

This story has since been repeated all over the place (e.g., “‘A tragic situation’: Governor discusses pregnant 10-year-old with CNN host”), but having read through the original story twice with an editor’s eye, my question is: Where’s the comment from police?

Even if you’re willing to take Dr. Caitlin Bernard’s word for the basic claim — while some 10-year-olds are physically capable of getting pregnant, such cases are very rare — you’ve left the reader knowing nothing about the most basic elements of the story: What Ohio city did this happen in? Do authorities have a suspect in custody? Or is the public still in danger from the child rapist responsible for this atrocity?

The extreme youth of the alleged victim is what made the headline so shocking, and I actually checked the National Institutes of Health to make sure I wasn’t alone in finding this highly unusual. The median age of menarche (i.e., onset of menstruation, generally taken as meaning when a female becomes physically capable of pregnancy) in the United States is 11.9, about three months earlier than in the 1990s. About 10% of females reach menarche by age 10. Precocious puberty is slightly correlated with earlier sexual activity — the median age of first intercourse is 15.4 for girls reaching menache by age 10, compared to 16.6 for girls reaching menarche at age 14 or older. In general, blacks and Hispanics reach menarche earlier than white girls, but the differences are not dramatic.

Still, a 10-year-old girl getting pregnant is rare enough in the United States that I had difficulty finding any statistical data on the phenomenon. When you’re talking about something with far less than a 1% probability, good luck finding reliable data. What I was able to find was a 2008 NBC News story reporting that only 17.4% of U.S. abortions involved women under 20. So what were the chances, really, that Dr. Bernard’s Indianapolis clinic would be dealing with the case of a pregnant 10-year-old from Ohio at the very time that the Supreme Court’s ruling made this case relevant to Ohio’s abortion laws?

I don’t trust this kind of “just so” anecdote anchoring a story like this, especially when there is nothing else about the case reported in the story. While I’m not willing to go so far as to call it “fake news,” my editor’s eye immediately noticed the omission of any corroborating details. If a 10-year-old is pregnant, a crime has been committed, and the reader naturally expects such a story to include some comment from law enforcement officials where this crime occurred.

We don’t have that here. Of course, Dr. Bernard would cite medical confidentiality as a reason not to release information about the patient — except the age, because that makes for a good headline — but no reporter should accept this tale without corroborating information.

What this story reminds me of is Curry College in Massachusetts, where it was reported that swastikas were found on campus “directed at black individuals.” Six months later, the college reported:

The College carefully reviewed evidence gathered by law enforcement and interviewed the person of interest identified by law enforcement investigators and other individuals who were potentially connected to specific incidents. The outcome of our independent investigation has resulted in an employee being terminated and removed from our community. The College’s Statement on Non-Discrimination requires confidentiality related to investigations. Therefore, this is the only information we can provide at this time.

So, the former college employee who perpetrated this alleged hate crime is protected by school policy? You can’t even tell us anything which might confirm or contradict our suspicion that the whole thing was a hoax? How convenient, just like the similar confidentiality policy that Dr. Bernard would likely cite as why she can’t tell us anything else about this 10-year-old sex crime victim except that (a) she was 10, (b) she was from Ohio, and (c) she was more than six weeks pregnant in a state that recently outlawed abortion past six weeks gestation.

Nothing to see here, folks. Just another tiny example of how the news media are slowly destroying their own credibility.




 

Category: Abortion, Media Bias

Annual Bruce Catton Appreciation Post

Posted on | July 4, 2022 | Comments Off on Annual Bruce Catton Appreciation Post

— compiled by Wombat-socho

For every Southern boy fourteen years old, not once but whenever he wants it, there is the instant when it’s still not yet two o’clock on that July afternoon in 1863, the brigades are in position behind the rail fence, the guns are laid and ready in the woods and the furled flags are already loosened to break out and Pickett himself with his long oiled ringlets and his hat in one hand probably and his sword in the other looking up the hill waiting for Longstreet to give the word and it’s all in the balance, it hasn’t happened yet, it hasn’t even begun yet, it not only hasn’t begun yet but there is still time for it not to begin against that position and those circumstances…
– William Faulkner

This is, of course, the third day of the Battle of Gettysburg, the day of Pickett’s doomed charge against the Army of the Potomac’s center on Cemetery Ridge, and Custer’s more successful charge against Wade Hampton’s cavalry brigade in the East Cavalry Field. Meade is often criticized for not pursuing Lee’s army south on the fourth day, but what critics overlook is that the Army of the Potomac had been mixed and muddled in the successful defense of Culp’s Hill, Cemetery Ridge, and the Round Tops. Regiments and brigades were all scrambled together, and in fact Meade and his commanders spent the next day trying to sort out their units and get organized. This is not at all a situation like McClellan at Antietam, where he had entire corps of infantry that had done little or no fighting and were still coherent. Anyhow, this is supposed to be a book post, so let’s have at it. 

In my arrogant opinion, probably the best of the Civil War historians is Bruce Catton, whose grasp of the politico-military mess that was the Army of the Potomac is unparalleled. Mr. Lincoln’s Army, the first book in his trilogy of books on that often unhappy but ultimately victorious force is on sale at $2.99 for the Kindle, and one can, of course, get used copies in hardback and paper for about the same price. His account of Gettysburg, The Final Fury, is brief – 100 pages – but covers the battle hour by hour. This appreciation post wouldn’t be complete without mentioning his trilogy covering the entire war, which begins with The Coming Fury, an excellent survey of the political tensions between the Northern and Southern states that led to secession and war. 

Probably the best-known novel about Gettysburg is Michael Shaara’s The Killer Angels, and for good reason. Shaara shows you the commanders and the soldiers on both sides as people, blending the personal dramas into the fire and fury of the larger battle, and bringing fresh fame to John Buford and Joshua Chamberlain. The movie version, Gettysburg, is also worth watching. 

There are many alternate histories of the Civil War, but for my money the best of the lot is the trilogy co-authored by Newt Gingrich and William Forstchen, Gettysburg, Grant Comes East, and Never Call Retreat, which starts with the assumption that Lee takes Longstreet’s advice and forces Meade to come to him by getting between Meade and Washington; the resulting defeat forces Lincoln to call on the ever-victorious Ulysses S. Grant. If Grant had failed, perhaps the future would look more like Ward Moore’s Bring The Jubilee than our current state of affairs…

Back in my wargaming days, when SPI was working on A Gleam Of Bayonets, their game about Antietam using (basically) the same system as Terrible Swift Sword, the designer referred to Stephen Sears’ Landscape Turned Red as one of his sources for information about the game, and while one might expect that Sears’ book is just a dry recitation of events, it is nothing of the kind. Instead, it gives you a ringside seat to not only the clumsy generalship of McClellan, but the hideous carnage that laissez-faire command style produced. Highly recommended. 

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Category: Books

Rule Five Sunday: Ava Gardner

Posted on | July 4, 2022 | Comments Off on Rule Five Sunday: Ava Gardner

— compiled by Wombat-socho

What do we really need say about legendary actress Ava Gardner? One can only wonder how her kids with Frank Sinatra would have turned out…anyway, here she is in a pinup pic before she hit it big in Hollywood.
Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley esse delendam.

NINETY MILES FROM TYRANNY: Hot Pick of the Late Night, The 90 Miles Mystery Box Episode #1764, Morning Mistress, and Girls With Guns. 

ANIMAL MAGNETISM: Rule Five Path To Manhood Friday, and the Saturday Gingermageddon. 

EBL: MAGA Dobbs, Barefoot Pregnant & In The Kitchen, Miranda Lambert, Westworld Season 4, Summertime, Carrie Underwood, Ghislaine Maxwell, We Own This City, The Dead South, It’s Canada Day, Krystyn Crawford, and Nina Simone.

A VIEW FROM THE BEACH: A Self Confessed Racist – Rachel Zegler, Fish Pic Friday – Murmaid Hunter Heather, More Cassidy, Dems Lose Senate Majority (again), July 4 BBQ Up $10, Tattoo Thursday, No Problem!, The Wednesday Wetness, She, Snakeheads Invade Western Maryland, The Monday Morning Stimulus, No Sport for the Faint of Heart and Sunday Sunrise

Thanks to everyone for all the luscious links!

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Category: Rule 5

FMJRA 2.0: The Glorious Burden

Posted on | July 3, 2022 | Comments Off on FMJRA 2.0: The Glorious Burden

— compiled by Wombat-socho

The less said about baseball this week, the better. We’re going to have to send a crew down to Home Depot for some new water coolers, and pray hard for Juan Marichal’s quick recovery.
On the second day at Gettysburg, Longstreet’s division tried to crush the left flank of Meade’s forces but couldn’t quite break through, thanks to the heroic stand of the 20th Maine at the Little Round Top and the suicidal charge of the 1st Minnesota, which is the climax of this excellent book by Richard Moe.
Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley esse delendam.

The original cover of Richard Berg’s award-winning Terrible Swift Sword.

A Mostly Peaceful Insurrection: Deranged Pro-Abortion Mob Storms AZ Capitol 
The Pirate’s Cove
The Political Hat
Sigma Frame
A View From The Beach
EBL
357 Magnum

Rule 5 Sunday: Eugenie Bouchard
Animal Magnetism
Ninety Miles From Tyranny
A View From The Beach
EBL
Proof Positive


Meanwhile…
A View From The Beach
EBL

Good-Bye, Severodonetsk!
American Free News Network
First Street Journal
EBL

FMJRA 2.0: Synphaera
A View From The Beach
EBL

Important Questions the White House Press Corps Will Never Ask Joe Biden
EBL
357 Magnum

In The Mailbox: 06.27.22
A View From The Beach
EBL
357 Magnum
Proof Positive

Netflix Cancels LGBTQ-Themed Cartoon
A View From The Beach
EBL

In The Mailbox: 06.28.22
A View From The Beach
EBL
357 Magnum
Proof Positive

Sgt. McCain: Behind Enemy Lines
The DaleyGator
EBL

Like an Old REO Speedwagon Song
EBL
357 Magnum

In The Mailbox: 06.30.22 (Afternoon Edition)
A View From The Beach
EBL
357 Magnum
Proof Positive

In The Mailbox: 06.30.22 (Evening Edition)
A View From The Beach
EBL
357 Magnum
Proof Positive

SJW Snowflakes Melting Down Again
The DaleyGator
EBL
357 Magnum

In The Mailbox: 07.01.22
A View From The Beach
EBL
357 Magnum
Proof Positive

Top linkers for the week ending July 1:

  1.  EBL (15)
  2.  A View From The Beach (10)
  3.  357 Magnum (9)
  4.  Proof Positive (6)

 

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Category: FMJRA Award

The Fourth of July and the Partriotic Return of the Big Yellow Button

Posted on | July 2, 2022 | Comments Off on The Fourth of July and the Partriotic Return of the Big Yellow Button

 

LITHIA SPRINGS, GEORGIA
My family and I are gathered here this Saturday for the funeral of my Aunt Pat, one of the finest Southern ladies you can imagine, and I have been asked to speak a brief eulogy at the service. My brother and I rode down with my son Jim at the wheel, while my wife flew to Florida with daughter Reagan so that they could ride up with my oldest daughter Kennedy and Kennedy’s two young sons. We’re staying in a nice hotel on Thornton Road, now a bustling commercial thoroughfare, but I was telling Jim I can remember when this was a dirt road, as were many other roads in Douglas County when I was growing up here.

Memories are of course appropriate when you’re preparing for a memorial service, and one of the things I’m going to be telling the folks at the service today is that my Aunt Pat worked in the aerospace industry. She got married at age 17 and was a mother of three young children before she was 30, when she got a home-study course and began teaching herself shorthand, which qualified her to get hired as an executive secretary at the Lockheed Aircraft plant in Marietta (now Lockheed-Martin). When you describe someone as “working in the aerospace industry,” a secretary might not be the first job that comes to mind, but it takes a lot of people doing all kinds of jobs to make all those planes. My Dad spent 37 years working at Lockheed, mainly as a dispatcher on the C-130 flight line, and it’s always a moment of pride for me whenever I see the C-130 in action — the greatest cargo airplane in the world, and my Dad helped make it. Speaking of patriotic pride . . .

Monday is the Fourth of July, and we’ll be back home in time to shoot our annual family show in West Virginia, which isn’t going to be as big as some previous years, simply because my son Jim (my main accomplice in our pyrotechnic adventures) has been very busy the past year, and we don’t have quite as many fireworks as usual.

We hope to augment this small stash on our return journey home, which is why I’ve brought back the Big Yellow Button. Even though the PayPal contribution button is always on the page, sometimes I enlarge it for the benefit of near-sighted readers who may not have noticed it before.

 

Our usual request for tip-jar hits is $17.76. A 1,400-mile road trip is quite expensive under Bidenflation, so if you want to chip in $5 for a gallon of gas, that would be appreciated. Of course, on the Fourth of July weekend, you might want to pay tribute to such great American patriots as Andrew Jackson or even Benjamin Franklin, IYKWIMAITYD.

Helping defray travel expenses — God only knows how much we paid for two hotel rooms, because I was afraid to ask my wife, who booked it — and also maybe adding some extra fireworks to our Fourth of July are surely worthy causes, but as always the main thing is, keeping my wife happy. She likes it when the blog actually produces revenue, and keeping her happy is always Job One, so it’s once again my duty to ask readers to recall the Five Most Important Words in the English Language:

HIT THE FREAKING TIP JAR!




 

Category: Family, Shoe Leather Fund
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