Our Patriotic Duty

Posted on | July 3, 2020 | 2 Comments

Our fireworks stash (click on the image to see full size) for Saturday night’s celebration amounts to 35 cases, including two cases (192) of 5-inch canister shells and a case of two 500-gram, 200-shot Shogun Thriller cakes for the grand finale. My son Jim and I have spent the past week building finale boards like these two:

(Click on the image to see full size.)

It is difficult to describe how many hours of work and planning go into a project like this. It’s not a matter of going into a store and buying whatever we like. We started planning this year’s show almost the moment we finished last year’s show. The 364-day planning cycle involves going over lists of products, viewing videos and finding the best prices on the effects you want. We made our first wholesale buy (11 cases) last August, and also bought two more cases (blue roman candles and a special pink effect) from another vendor. My podcasting partner John Hoge supplied us with our 14th case (120 shells) last fall. Then in March, in a 40%-off “Early Bird” sale, we bought another 17 cases. You can see my brother Kirby with that purchase here.

(Click on the image to see full size.)

Here is a video preview of our fireworks stash:

Accumulating the necessary supplies, of course, is just the beginning of the process. We have to work out the timing of each effect, measure the fuses to connect them, position them on the boards — it’s a lot of work, and also a lot of zip ties. Just yesterday, I had to make a run to Lowe’s to pick up extra glue and another 800 zip ties. Did I mention that more than 200 feet of fuse will be involved in this project? Because what you want to do is set it up so that you light one fuse and this sets off a long series of effects. Our opening board will last about 7 minutes, all from one continuous fuse, then we go to the first finale (a/k/a “the fake finale”) shot from two different boards, giving the audience a “pause for applause” before lighting the real finale (a/k/a the Grand Finale) that will overwhelm spectators with a 45-second barrage of stunning intensity.

Did I say “stunning intensity”? Let me explain what that means. Sunday afternoon, I spent seven hours fusing together 144 Dominator Blue Thunder eight-shot roman candles on three angled racks:

Do the math. You see that this is 1,152 shots to be fired in the span of about 45 seconds, or about 25 shots per second — and the audience will barely even notice it, except as extra noise, because those candles will be fired along with a barrage of about 1,800 other shots, including multiple 500-gram cakes and more than 120 shells. Like I said, stunning intensity.

Did I mention that John Hoge bought us a case of 120 shells? That assortment included triple-break and double-break shells, which will be used in a concluding effect — the “coda,” as I call it, an exclamation mark of sorts — that will have 62 aerial explosions at once.

Because we love America.

It is our patriotic duty to light up the sky on the Fourth of July. Please remember the Five Most Important Words in the English Language:

HIT THE FREAKING TIP JAR!

Category: Fireworks

‘The Merciless Indian Savages’

Posted on | July 3, 2020 | Comments Off on ‘The Merciless Indian Savages’

Because tomorrow is the Fourth of July — $17.76, baby! — now seems like a good time to recall the words of our Declaration of Independence. Because our public schools are a cesspool of organized ignorance, a few poetic phrases from the preamble expressing lofty sentiments — “all men are created equal,” etc. — are the only thing most Americans know about the Declaration. It is not generally acknowledged that most of that document is a listing of colonial grievances against the government of King George III. In other words, the Declaration is mainly an indictment, accusing the king of seeking “the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States.” Presenting their charges (“let Facts be submitted to a candid world”), the Americans listed this among the crimes of “the present King of Great Britain”:

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

As I say, our schools are cesspools of organized ignorance, and have thus taught students a lot of romantic nonsense about Native Americans as enlightened pacifists living in harmony with nature. Doesn’t it seem more sensible, however, to accept the testimony of the authors of the Declaration of Independence, who had actual first-hand knowledge? If our eminent forefathers had this to say about the “merciless Indian Savages,” shouldn’t we take their word for it?

A bunch of “woke” corporations have petitioned the Washington Redskins to change the name of their mascot, and considering how lousy the Redskins have played lately — they went 3-13 last season, finishing dead last in their conference — I can certainly understand why some consider their name an insult to those “merciless Indian savages.”

Category: Football

In The Mailbox: 07.02.20

Posted on | July 3, 2020 | 1 Comment

— compiled by Wombat-socho

OVER THE TRANSOM
Pagan Vigil: After
357 Magnum: Crime In NYC And LA
EBL: Ghislaine Maxwell Arrested By FBI
Twitchy: According To ABC, The Outdoors Is Systematically Racist
Louder With Crowder: Black Sheriff Warns Protesters – The Citizens Are Armed And I Have Their Backs
Vox Popoli: It’s Clear Whom They Serve, also, Historian In Hot Water Over History

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
Adam Piggott: Milo Is Your Own Personal Humiliation
American Conservative: Justice Roberts Splits The Baby
American Greatness: Big Tech’s Escalating War On Free Speech, also, FBI Arrests Antifa Ringleader Of Andrew Jackson Statue Toppling Attempt
American Thinker: Is The COVID Surge More Fake News?
Animal Magnetism: Animal’s Daily Gun Sales News
Babalu Blog: Ana Maria Martinez, A Real-Life Character In The Wasp Network Movie, Was Never Consulted On Her Role
BattleSwarm: Worst Gun Ever?
Cafe Hayek: “While Everyone Was Distracted By Saul Alinsky, It Turns Out The Real Action Was Antonio Gramsci”
Camp of the Saints: Under Attack By The Dependence Mongers – Independence Day 2020
CDR Salamander: Smart Thinking Down Under, also, Diversity Thursday
Da Tech Guy: Under The Fedora – Courage, Courage, Courage, also, Over The Last Thirty Days We’ve Learned…
Don Surber: Pedophile Arrest Shows Why Trump Canned Geoffrey Berman, also, Cool Hand Trump
First Street Journal: Hahvahd Matriculates Some Pretty Stupid People
The Geller Report: Feds Charge Four DEMOCRAT City Councilmen In Bribes For Votes Scheme, also, California’s Panic Porn Programming
Hogewash: Team Kimberlin Post of The Day, also, Suicide Watch
Hollywood In Toto: Will Super-Woke Hollywood Crush TV’s Golden Age Of Streaming?
JustOneMinute: Here We Go Again
The Lid: Beware Of Mark Cuban, also, Schiff’s Staff Briefed On Russia “Bounty” Intel In February – And Did Nothing
Legal Insurrection: Maddow Gleefully Predicted “Absolutely Terrible” Employment Numbers, Winds Up With Egg On Her Face, also, TikTok Users Try To Shut Down Trump Merchandise Sites
The PanAm Post: Colombian Oil Sector In Crisis Amid Coronavirus Pandemic, also, Recruitment Of Venezuelan Kids By Colombian Guerrillas Rising
Power Line: Democrat Congressional Candidate Calls For Trump Supporters To Be Reported, also, The Minneapolis Effect
Shark Tank: Penelas & Cava Set Table For Progressive Food Fight In Miami-Dade
Shot In The Dark: Accountability
The Political Hat: When The Revolution Comes?
This Ain’t Hell: Seattle Update – CHAZ Demolished, Squatters Gone, also, A Prolonged Period Of Something
Victory Girls: Stab Threats Cost Harvard Graduate Her Dream Job
Volokh Conspiracy: U. Mass Nursing Dean Fired After Saying “Everyone’s Life Matters”
Weasel Zippers: We Have Reached Peak Wokeness Now That They’ve Burned The Elk, also, #BLM Chants In DC “Israel, We Know You, Jews Murder Children Too!”
Mark Steyn: Morons In Space, also, A Mullah Who Gets It

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Category: Linkagery

Play Stupid Games, Win Stupid Prizes

Posted on | July 2, 2020 | 3 Comments

The U.S. economy added nearly 5 million jobs last month, and perhaps would have added more if not for deranged Ivy League graduates losing their jobs because they threatened to stab people:

A recent Harvard University graduate claims she is getting death threats over a TikTok video she made in which she threatened to stab anyone who tells her that “all lives matter.”
Claira Janover, who graduated in May with a degree in government and psychology, went viral after posting a short clip in which she attacked anyone with “the nerve, the sheer entitled Caucasity to say, ‘all lives matter.’”
“I’ma stab you,” the Connecticut native said, zooming in close on her face.
“I’ma stab you, and while you’re struggling and bleeding out, I’ma show you my paper cut and say, ‘My cut matters, too,’” she added.

Harvard senior Claira Janover threatens to stab anyone who says “all lives matter.”

Will liberal colleges and universities ever teach students that speech ? violence?

? pic.twitter.com/VjiJv9w62N

— Paul A. Szypula (@Bubblebathgirl) June 30, 2020

Having a high SAT score doesn’t mean you’re smarter than everybody else, at least not in terms of basic common sense. Like, maybe it’s not a genius idea to post videos to social media of yourself making threats of violence against people you disagree with? Collect your prize:

The Harvard graduate who said in a TikTok video that she would “stab” anyone who told her “All Lives Matter” revealed in a new pair of recordings that she has lost her job over the perceived threats and ensuing furor.
“Standing up for Black Lives Matter put me in a place online to be seen by millions of people,” a teary Claira Janover said in a new video posted Wednesday afternoon. “The job that I’d worked really hard to get and meant a lot to me has called me and fired me because of everything.”
Janover’s LinkedIn account lists her as an “incoming government and public business service analyst” at Deloitte, a UK-based accounting firm. . . .
Janover, who contended that the message was an analogy rather than a serious threat, has since received a deluge of threats against her own life and safety.
In her new videos, she blamed supporters of President Trump for going after her job.

(Of course, because ORANGE MAN BAD!)

“Trump supporters took my job away from me,” she said in another new video posted Wednesday. “I have gotten death threats, rape threats, violent threats. It was OK, but now my future’s entirely compromised because Trump supporters have decided to come for my life.”
Through tears, a defiant Janover vowed not to back down.
“I’m too strong for you. I’m too strong for any of you ‘All Lives Matter,’ racist Trump supporters,” she said. “It sucks. But it doesn’t suck as much as systemic racism. And I’m not going to stop using my platform to advocate for it.”

Actually, losing a high-paying job sucks worse than “systemic racism,” because that job paid real money, whereas “systemic racism” is merely a political concept, an attempt to explain the social order. This is a basic problem with graduates of Harvard and other “elite” universities: They tend to fall in love with intellectual abstractions — concepts like “equality” or “social justice” — that don’t really have anything to do with the lives of ordinary people. It’s like the difference between (a) the concept of romantic love, and (b) actually having a sexual relationship.

It is easy to indulge in fantasies of what “love” might be in an ideal world, and to permit your devotion to this ideal to function as a substitute reward for your lack of success in the more practical and mundane matter of finding someone willing to be your partner in “love” (however you define that term). This is what gave rise to the so-called “incel” phenomenon. Elliot Rodger claimed to be “the supreme gentleman,” deserving of an idealized blonde girlfriend, and this belief inspired a murderous rage induced by his perception that he was being unfairly cheated out of his romantic fantasy. Likewise, the Harvard graduate is encouraged to believe in an idealized world without “systemic racism,” and succumbs to rage when real life falls short of this fantasy ideal.

Claira Janover evidently considers #BlackLivesMatter expressive of some ideal, and views “Trump supporters” as the antithesis of this ideal. So she engages in performative outrage — putting on a show, intended for an online audience of like-minded “social justice warriors.” When this stunt backfires, Janover doesn’t blame her own foolishness, but instead claims heroic martyrdom, and blames her enemies for the result.

Category: The Ivy League Is Depraved and Decadent

In The Mailbox: 07.01.20

Posted on | July 1, 2020 | 1 Comment

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Happy Canada Day, you hosers. Also, thanks to everyone who bought stuff through my Amazon links this month!

Greeting the Queen.

OVER THE TRANSOM
Ninety Miles From Tyranny: The 90 Miles Mystery Box, Episode #1034
357 Magnum: The Nightmare That Is Qualified Immunity
EBL: Carl Reiner, RIP
Twitchy: Jemele Hill Busted For Offensive Tweets After Trying To Cancel Barstool Sports, Changes The Rules
Louder With Crowder: CHAZ Gets CHOPped!
Vox Popoli: White Fans Don’t Matter, also, Palestinian Lives Matter

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
Adam Piggott: F**k Off, Greenie Shit, And Give Us Our Money Back
American Conservative: Three Glaring Problems With the Russian Taliban Bounty Story
American Greatness: Pelosi Lies About SCOTUS’ Upcoming Obamacare Case, also, Provo Police Arrest #BLM Agitator Who Allegedly Shot SUV Driver
American Thinker: The Source Of #BLM’s Super-Power, also, The Fatal Flaw In Democrat Elites’ Electoral Victory Plan
Animal Magnetism: Animal’s Hump Day News
Babalu Blog: Video Of The Firing Squad Execution Of Black Political Opponents By The Heroes Of #BLM
BattleSwarm: Firing A Minigun
Cafe Hayek: Taking The Knowledge Problem Seriously
CDR Salamander: No Shipmate, You Can’t Go To Church/Synagogue/Mosque/Oak Tree, also, LCS – Underperforming Even My Expectations
Da Tech Guy: On Your Mark, Get Ready, also, Report From Louisiana – Protests
Don Surber: The Flight 253 Election, also, Dear John Nolte – Never Bet Against Donald J. Trump
First Street Journal: The Democrats Want To Impose New Costs On Your Life
The Geller Report: St. Louis Prosecutor Investigating Gun-Toting Home Defending Couple Was Soros Beneficiary, also, Postal Workers Endorse Biden As Dems Agitate To Let USPS Run 2020 Election
Hogewash: Team Kimberlin Post of The Day, also, A Very Strange Exoplanet
Hollywood In Toto: Hollywood Erases Blackface, Whites Voicing Black Roles, But It’s Not Enough, also, Shouldn’t Hamilton Get Canceled Next?
The Lid: Sorry Liberals, But The Constitution’s 3/5 Compromise Was NOT Racist
Legal Insurrection: Boston Arts Commission Votes To Remove Emancipation Memorial, also, Appeals Courts Frees Molotov Cocktail Lawyers On Bond & Home Confinement
Michelle Malkin: What’s The Matter With Kansas State University?
The PanAm Post: Shadi Saab, Apprentice & Heir To Maduro Frontman’s Criminal Network, also, Singing Their Way To Freedom
Power Line: Joe Biden’s Plan To Abolish The Suburbs, also, Brit Hume – The #BLM Fraud
Shark Tank: Dem Reps Deutch, Frankel Support Antisemitic #BlackLivesMatter
Shot In The Dark: Public Order
STUMP: Private Equity In 401(k)s? Retirement Saver Beware!
The Political Hat: Totalitarian Salutes
This Ain’t Hell: USCGS Taney Name Stripped, also, PFC Vanessa Guillen’s Remains Found, Foul Play Suspected
Victory Girls: Mount Rushmore Will Not Be Cancelled
Volokh Conspiracy: Stare Decisis Is An Old Latin Phrase That Means “Let The Warren Court Decisions Stand”
Weasel Zippers: Ex-CNN Moonbat Marc Lamont Hill – Some Men Can Give Birth, Get Periods, also, Columbus OH Pulls Down Its State Of Columbus
Mark Steyn: The Race Is Not To The Swift, also, You Came The Wrong Way To St. Louis

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Category: Linkagery

White Supremacists in Kentucky Defeat Black Candidate’s Senate Campaign

Posted on | June 30, 2020 | Comments Off on White Supremacists in Kentucky Defeat Black Candidate’s Senate Campaign

Oh, sure, Democrats say “Black Lives Matter,” but they don’t really mean it, not if a black man’s campaign for the Senate might impede the political ambitions of one of their handpicked white favorites:

In a tighter race than expected, former Marine pilot Amy McGrath has been declared the winner of the Kentucky primary to win the Democratic U.S. Senate nomination.
The race went back and forth the past two days as results trickled in, ultimately ending in McGrath fending off Charles Booker.
Booker pulled off wins in Kentucky’s biggest counties, Jefferson (his home) and Fayette, but it wasn’t enough to keep him afloat. A vast majority of counties went to McGrath. . . .
The outcome seemed a certainty early in the campaign but became tenuous as Booker’s profile surged. The Louisville lawmaker got a boost in support as he moved into city streets, joining the fights for justice in the deaths of Black Americans there and across the country.

This is what most people don’t understand about politics. For us — the vast majority of Americans, who are neither activists nor politicians — politics is about electing a government which will implement policies that advance our interests and promote the general well-being of society. Because each of us has our own individual interests, of course we will often disagree about public policy, but we each form our assessment based on whether we think government policy is good or bad for us. Political parties exist to provide organized action on behalf of the interests and policy preferences of their constituent coalitions.

However, politics means something else to members of the political class. For them, politics is a vehicle for their own selfish ambition, their craving for power, money and reputation. And this is why Chuck Schumer, despite his oft-declared support for Black Lives Matter, was 100% against Charles Booker’s campaign in Kentucky. Black people only matter to Schumer insofar as they provide votes to help Democrats win elections and, however much black voters matter in terms of winning the Kentucky election, Schumer (and the rest of the Democratic Party leadership) have cynically calculated that white women matter more.

And guess what? They’re probably right. The demographics of Kentucky are such that it is probably impossible for a black Democrat to win statewide office there, but because of the gender gap (i.e., feminists won’t vote for men) it’s also probably impossible for a white man ever to win the Democratic nomination, and so therefore the only chance Democrats have to defeat Mitch McConnell is to nominate a white woman.

What is astonishing in all this — not just the result of the Kentucky primary, but in the drift of American politics generally — is how willing black voters are to be led to the slaughter, thus to fatten the coffers, and enhance the power, of the Democratic Party. All that is necessary for Democrats to get 90+ percent of the black vote is to point the finger at Republicans and yell, “RAAAAACIST!” Four decades of this name-calling routine have apparently hypnotized a majority of the black population to such an extent that they never even ask the most basic question about politics: “What’s in it for me?”

How would they begin to answer such a question? How can a black man in Chicago, Baltimore or St. Louis say that the policies of the Democratic Party have benefitted him? Or, considering what a wretched desolation Democrats have made of our nation’s major cities, how does the black voter imagine that Republican policies might make his situation worse?

Probably these voters could offer some rhetoric in defense of voting Democrat, in the same way a junkie can argue in favor of heroin, but the basic mechanism of this alliance seems to be simple spite: Perceiving that a majority of white people in America vote Republican, the typical black voter is a Democrat, because they have become the anti-white party by default. In much the same way, and for similar reasons, feminists vote for Democrats as an expression of their hatred of men.

Politics based on vindictive hatred — which is what “social justice” ultimately means — is not likely to yield policies beneficial to the mindless mobs summoned to cast their ballots as a weapon of revenge. Chuck Schumer and the other leaders of the Democratic Party believe they can win the fall election by inciting racial hatred, and believe that black voters will never get wise to the hustle being perpetrated. Democrats think black people are too stupid to realize they’re being hustled, and yet they dare to call Republicans racist?