Chernobyl: A Mountain Of Lies, A Mountain Of Bodies

Wife kitteh and I have been watching the excellent HBO series, Chernobyl. If you haven't seen it, I highly recommend it.

Aside: I was shocked that HBO green-lighted such an obviously anti-socialist piece of work. Good for them!

As we watched characters die of radiation poisoning while the government leaders told the people preposterously false stories that there was no danger, wife kitteh asked, "How did they get to the point where they would do this to their own citizens?"

I pondered it and came up with this: Chernobyl is what happens when a society is built on a mountain of lies and those lies are more important than people. "Leadership knows what it's doing so you must obey their orders! Our power plants are safe and Soviet nuclear technology is world-class! Our workers, underpaid with nothing in the stores to buy, are dedicated, sober and competent!"

If you disagreed or pointed out contradictions, you were arrested and sent to the gulags or simply shot. The lies had to be preserved no matter the cost.

There are a few modern-day, American examples of this as well that I'll blog about in later days, but I wanted to share that one with you. Below is a collection of videos from the accident that I found interesting. Enjoy?

The Transgender Fad Can't Last

... because you can't sustain the lies. In fact, each lie begets* more lies until the house of cards is so unstable that it collapses.

This occurred to me when I read this news article.

A transgender woman who competed as a man as recently as last year won an NCAA women’s track national championship on Saturday.

Franklin Pierce University senior Cece Telfer beat the eight-woman field in the Division II women’s 400-meter hurdles by more than a second, with a personal collegiate-best time of 57.53.

As soon as I saw it, something released in my mind and I realized that all of this nonsense will have to come to an end because of the endless stream of contradictions in reality. Cece isn't Cece, he's Craig and Craig is a dude, not a chick. End of story.

Stathole Sports did an awesome job analyzing the statistical odds of Craig whupping up on the ladies if, as the transphilic NCAA maintains,

“According to medical experts on this issue, the assumption that a transgender woman competing on a women’s team would have a competitive advantage outside the range of performance and competitive advantage or disadvantage that already exists among female athletes is not supported by evidence.”

Here's the payoff graph.

A histogram of finishing times for women in the 55-meter dash in Connecticut. The two purple lines are a pair of guys' finishing times.

The two purple bars are the dudes who claimed to be chicks and ran against real women. If those are women, they're from the heavy gravity planet Zongo.

Stathole went on the calculate the odds of trannies crushing the women, assuming men and women are athletically similar, like this.

The math works out here for the probability of both conditions occurring (top 2 and top 9 in same race) to be 3,039:1. This is, I guess, better news for 2019. After improving the first blush odds of 1 in 1.8 million, a fairer analysis significantly improves their odds of being accurate to a level that is slightly better than getting dealt a straight flush in one hand of Texas Holdem poker (3,589:1).

OK, we're done. The Elites can scream "BIGOTRY!" at us morning, noon and night, and it just makes them look even dumber, if that's possible. If you take a look at the comment sections in posts or tweets where a man has obliterated women in a women's sport, you see it running 99-1 against the Elites' worldview that people can simply declare their sex.

That's an unstable situation. Eventually, even the Ivy League / Berkeley crowd is going to have to submit to reality and this will all go away.

Well, except for the poor people who followed their advice and mutilated their bodies and poisoned themselves with hormones, thinking they could really change their sex. Those people are screwed. Fortunately, they were screwed in the name of progress, compassion and acceptance.

Yay.

* - This is the only thing the transgender movement begets. Lies.

The Prodigal Father

... is a lot like the parable of the woman caught in adultery. In that one, Jesus says, "Let him who is without sin cast the first stone." After everyone walks away, He doesn't tell the woman, "Party on!" Instead, He says, "Go and sin no more."

A friend was talking about the prodigal father this morning and made an interesting point. When the prodigal son comes home after blasting through his inheritance, which he should not have received until after dad died, his father does't line up hookers and blow for the dude. He forgives him and throws a party, but it's implicitly contingent on a change in behavior.

Forgiveness is a great thing, but getting repeatedly run over supporting bad behavior isn't.

Just something to think about.

Son, I forgive you. Also, here's some meth!

How To Make Super-Buttery Buttermilk Biscuits

Add an extra half stick of butter to your recipe.

I like to make buttermilk biscuits from The Glory of Southern Cooking, but I wondered how restaurants get theirs to be so, so, so, well ... buttery. One day, while making them, I decided to add that half stick and discovered the secret.

If you want more buttery flavor, add more butter. Counter-intuitive, I know, but there you have it!

They come out crispier because of all the delicious fats!

If You Think Small

... you stay small.

Craig Telfer, an NCAA track star, is now identifying as a woman and slaughtering the competition. Like that was hard to predict.

Senior (Craig) Telfer (Lebanon, N.H.) won three Northeast-10 Conference titles on Sunday, to lead the Franklin Pierce University women's track & field team and earn Most Outstanding Track Athlete honors at the NE10 Championships, hosted by American International College, on the campus of Smith College.

This is petite potatoes, guys. It's time to really let our freak flags fly.

We can rejuvenate the Miss America Pageant by having the contestants identify as purebred dogs and participate in the Westminster Kennel Club Show.

What? You don't agree that a woman can be a Pomeranian? Bigot!

Anyway, the whole competition is about walking back and forth in a straight line, looking fantastic. Those ladies from the pageant world are made for this! Heck, even the drug-addled transvestite from Oregon could manage it, provided they kept him off the meth and opioids for a week.

Yep, it's ground-breaking, but isn't that what we're into these days?

Wait, dog show judges aren't gay, are they? They are? Dang. Back to the drawing board!

Homemade Cajun Boudin Sausage

About two Christmases ago, wife kitteh bought me a meat grinder / sausage stuffer. And then life happened and it sat out in the garage until today. I finally had some time to play with it, so I made Cajun Boudin.

Making sausages is all about technique. The grinding and the stuffing is not like anything else I'd done, so the first trials were messy failures. I finally figured things out and ended up with a decent amount of sausage. The filling tasted good, fried up in a pan, so I figure the sausages will be good, too.

First, you boil pork butt,pork liver and some other odds and ends. Those get ground up.

Then you add rice and spices to the ground mix and turn it over real good.

Threading the hog casing on the stuffing nozzle took a little effort, but once I figured it out, it was easy. Similarly, figuring out just how full to make the sausages took trial and error. My first attempt burst the skin and I had to stuff the filling back in the grinder. No loss there!

Making your own sausage is a non-trivial task. I'm guessing that you need to allocate about 4-5 hours for the effort. Next time I do it, I'll do a lot of sausage because it's the prep and the cooking that take the time. I figure doing two or three different types would only add an hour to the process.

In 15 Years

... where will you be? Can you reliably predict your social life? What kind of friends you'll have? What will happen in your career?

How about if you will be a woman or a man?

I've blogged in the past about my friend who is a young woman who has decided she is a man. Transitioning is an expensive process. An insurance company that agrees to the procedure is committing to a lifetime of hormone therapy. Not many will make that decision. Planned Parenthood, vultures that they are, will give you hormone therapy without a prescription, provided you pay them. Anything for a buck, no matter who is ruined or killed in the process.

Compassion!

In any case, my friend has now been approved for hormone therapy. Testosterone is poisonous to women. It sterilizes them and changes their voices permanently right near the beginning of the treatment. Change your mind after a year, but keep the infertility and whacked-out voice for all time. Yay!

Where are you 15 years after you start the process? What's life like as a short, chestless eunuch with an odd voice and a peach fuzz beard? Do you get invited to a lot of parties? What's the club scene for such creatures?

Most importantly, when today's mania fades, do you still have celebrity credentials?

Probably not.

It's like watching a Greek tragedy unfold right in front of you. Or maybe it's more like one of those nightmares where you can see every painful thing that is about to happen, but you can't speak to warn anyone.

Yep, that's compassion.

Watching Youngsters Grow Up

... is what I thought as I listened to the episode of the Candace Owens show below, in podcast form.

I've become a fan of her show. She's not very polished or well-read, but that's only because she's young. She's full of energy and spirit. She's also very intelligent. That makes for an interesting combination.

Listening to her is like listening to one someone my daughter's age blossoming into a tough, smart woman. She's finding out that there is such a thing as the Truth and it's different from what the popular culture has taught her.

This interview with Lila Rose was a double dose of that. The two discussed sex, love, marriage and children. They had a fresh approach to an old, old topic. Their ideas dated back to the time of Moses and before, but for them, it was if they were just discovering it for the first time.

It was delightful.

Faith Isn't Therapy

... or, rather, it's only partially correct to see it as therapeutic.

Something I hear quite frequently from agnostics and atheists is, "Well, that Catholic thing doesn't seem to be working for you guys. Look at all those pedophile priests!"

Allow me to suggest that the appropriate response is not to make excuses or claim the problem is really pretty small, but to say, "Well, that secularist thing doesn't seem to be working, either. You guys are going extinct in Europe!"

That's not how faith works, is it? You don't believe because it pays off with higher income, more friends and happier children, you believe because you found something that explains the world better than the alternatives. Whether that's secular politics, Catholicism, Hinduism or whatever, you're only partially looking at the payoffs. In the end, aren't those payoffs proof of the belief system?

In other words, the effort to optimize your life is only partially connected to your belief system. The first step is to find a belief system and then optimize within that.

Just a thought.

One payoff to following your parents' belief system is that you don't tick off grandma. She can be quite a handful.

A Lack Of Self Awareness

... is something from which we all suffer.

I saw a really great interview with Michael Nesmith of the Monkees and I excerpted the video story below. I found it charming. Enjoy.

Thomas Jefferson And Geronimo

Pete Butteredge, or whatever is his name is, is one of 17,404 Democrats running for president. He's also not a big fan of Thomas Jefferson because Jefferson owned slaves.

Geronimo, an Apache warleader, was a crazed racist bent on killing as many Mexicans as he possibly could.

Geronimo had no concept of morality outside of his own. It was perfectly honorable to raid and steal and murder as long as it was done the right way. He had no problem wiping out whole farmsteads if they resisted when he and his goons showed up to rob the place. When it happened to him under different circumstances, he was aghast and complained of treachery.

I seriously doubt that Geronimo was that far removed from the intellectual and cultural mainstream of Apache thought. I wonder if Pete Butteredge feels we need to carefully inspect any and all honors we grant to Apaches and other Indian tribes. After all, if we're going to be morally pure, we need to be completely pure.

The Aztecs are similarly problematic. Hopefully Pete will be questioned about this soon.

Addicts In The Faculty Lounge

... are different than addicts in real life.

I'm not including an image in this blog post because I've known several addicts and have too much love for them to use a photo. Every addict was someone's little boy or little girl.

In San Francisco, just to use one example of academics trying to solve the addiction and homelessness problems, they're handing out free needles and putting up needle disposal stations all over the place. The end result is needles everywhere on the ground. It's as predictable as it is possible to be.

Well, only if you know real addicts instead of talk about them theoretically in the faculty lounge.

When an addict uses, they're not rational. They're not going to shoot up and then calmly gather their used paraphernalia and then deposit it, neatly, in some bin. They're not going to use safe procedures for injections, their not going to swab the site with alcohol and they're not going to spray hand sanitizer on their palms in the process. They're going to shoot up so that they can get loaded. And if you've ever known a real, live addict, you'd know that.

You'd also stop expecting them to turn their lives around. Most of them won't. If they're homeless, they're going to stay homeless because their brains are rotted out. If they aren't homeless, they soon will be because they can't manage their lives.

By the time you reach San Francisco / Los Angeles / Seattle levels of homelessness and addiction, the best you can hope to do is build big warehouses to house the poor devils for the rest of their lives.

And, for the love of God, get control of the border so you can stop at least some of the drugs making their way in to the cities.

Trapped In Politics

One of the things I love the most about the South is the racial harmony you see, particularly when you go to blue-collar dives like Waffle House. When wife kitteh and I went on our Great Confederate Livermush Adventure last year, we started off in Nashville. I took her, a Chicago girl, to an inexpensive BBQ joint. There, we saw mixed race staff, customers, married couples and so on. Everyone was Southern friendly and was having a good time. A fan of NPR and civil rights movies, she was surprised.

The next day, we went to an upscale restaurant and things were significantly different. The customers were all white and the wait staff were mostly black. "Ha ha!," I thought. "Look at those racist Democrats!" After all, it's the blue-collar whites who were the backbone of the Trump victory and the upscale folks who went for Hillary.

That was an entirely wrong analysis and was born of a desire to find justification for my own politics. The truth of the matter was that no one was racist or, if anyone was, it was the isolated jerk who could just as easily be sneering at short people, fat people or something else.

I figured this out while in Mobile last week. Wife kitteh looked up Fairhope, Alabama, which was the town on the outskirts of Mobile where we were staying. Wikipedia gave its demographic makeup and it was predominantly white. It was also pretty upscale, particularly for Alabama. The people we met were as charming as expected. No hate there.

It dawned on me that, like all of us, they can only be friendly to the people around them. Given the opportunity, they were warm and welcoming. It wasn't their fault that they lived in an area where almost everyone was married. It was just the nature of income generation for families of any and all types. Married families earn more so they can live in places like Fairhope and that's all there is to it.

I thought about our own lives back in San Diego. With the exception of a large number of Hispanics we know from Cursillo, our social circle was about as diverse as Fairhope. I, the converted Trump enthusiast who loves Robert E. Lee, had the most diverse circle of friends of anyone we knew. Politics didn't drive it, racism didn't drive it, opportunity drove it.

I misjudged the people at that upscale restaurant in Nashville and I'm ashamed of it now. No doubt a lot of them voted for Hillary, but so what? Americans are a decent lot. Almost none of us harbor hate for anyone. It was only my desire to score political points that caused me to slander them in my thoughts.

Focus on the people and the scenery and get politics out of your mind. You'll end up with a more accurate representation of reality.

Mucking With The SAT

So, as I understand it, the SAT scoring is being changed to reflect privilege or hardship or bias or something or other. Your actual score, based on your answers, will be modified by taking into account your race, your social standing, your horoscope and your cholesterol test results. Your shoe size may or may not be a factor.

Huh?

I thought the whole beauty of standardized testing was that it produced a decent estimation of how tough a college you should attend or whether you should go at all. If you scored high enough, then attending an elite university wouldn't be too much of a reach for you. If you scored poorly, then MIT probably wouldn't be a good fit. The test was there, as much as anything else, to keep you from flunking out.

When you fiddle with the test results, you're saying some combination of these things.

1. The test was never really a good estimation of your performance level. In reality, the thing is a bit of a joke.
2. We don't really care whether you flunk out of college or not. All we care about is getting the right balance of "advantaged" and "disadvantaged" students.
3. We're going to ditch the whole grading stuff in college to make sure that the students with the low SAT scores we've modified to gain acceptance don't flunk. 

In any case, objectivity has been blown to bits.

Yay?

SAT scoring explodes. Asians hardest hit.

Dos Pepitos

We're starting to think that Pepito is deaf. That's not surprising given his advanced age. He also seems mystified by mirrors.

Who is this other dog and why is he so handsome?

Vacation Fever

Maui is one of my favorite places to go on vacation, but I can only handle it for a week at most before I start going bonkers. I used to think it was Island Fever which came about because the place is relatively small. That never really made sense to me as San Diego is effectively the same size, an island surrounded by the Pacific, Los Angeles, the desert and Mexico.

Earlier this week, wife kitteh and I got back from a week in Mobile, Alabama. Of all the places on the planet, the Deep South is the most "me." I love the people, the culture, the food, the weather, the whole thing. Even in Dixie, I was climbing the walls after a week.

It's not Island Fever, it's Vacation Fever. What I really wanted to do while in Alabama was garden, work on a car, build something, work at the church, anything to be productive.

My mother is 89. She's almost blind, she needs a walker and has a live-in caregiver without whom she could not survive. She's had a real tough time with these arrangements. She's grateful and loves the care she gets, but the fact that she is "useless" these days drives her nuts. I used to dismiss these feelings and ask myself, "Why can't she just kick back and watch TV? This is just the way life is now." I won't be asking that any more. She's got Vacation Fever, too.

Leisure is all well and good. We all need some of it. What we need more than leisure is a purpose.

Some day, I'll be too weak to lift my 17" cast iron skillet and I'll have to watch as someone else fries the chicken. At that point, I might slide into the same despair as mom.

Welcome Pepito!

We have a new, old addition to the Catican Guards, one Pepito Gonzales by name. He's new because we didn't have him before and he's old because he's 18. He's a chihuahua who was left behind when his previous owners moved. I kid you not, they just left the dog behind like he was trash.

A friend of ours was involved in the real estate transaction and put out a call on Facebook for someone to adopt the little hombre. Naturally, we couldn't say no. So now we have an Aussie shepherd mix and three chihuahua-mixes. We're not sure if Pepito is a purebred, but I'm guessing not.

His original name was Bumper. That's hideous, so we are renaming him Pepito Gonzales. The Gonzales is there just for weight. It sounds good to me.

Being an ancient, little dude, he kind of toddles, has bristly fur and moans a lot. He's adorable and the rest of the Guards like him. I think he's pretty pleased with his new sitch.

The Elites' Finite State Machine

... is really what's breaking down.

Yesterday, I gave a set of examples of media elites interviewing conservatives. They were confronted over and over with views, ideas and facts completely contrary to the ones they hear inside their bubbles and could not cope. Someone else made the point, referring to the famous Cathy Newman interview of Jordan Peterson wherein she's utterly adrift in the conversation, that she was a finite state machine forced to deal with data outside any of her accepted states.

Using that diagram of a finite state machine as an example, I'd suggest that for the dominant, progressive culture, the accepted topics are:

1. global warming climate change,
2. racism,
3. LGBT issues and
4. income inequality.

There are others, of course, but the diagram that came quickly to hand had four states and I'm lazy. Each state has an accepted viewpoint and a standard question for those who disagree followed by the appropriate emotional responses of mockery, horror or sneering.

Maybe we're all finite state machines like this. I wonder how my responses would chart out under such circumstances. Probably about the same. I think that the difference is that when you are part of such a dominant, monolithic culture as you have with entertainment, the media, the tech oligarchs and politicians, your machine becomes far more rigid as each state is constantly reinforced by those around you.

Rigid machines can be fragile.

The Religious Aristocracy Losing Its Grip

... that's the aristocracy of the Secular Left, in case you're wondering.

Dig this interview of Nigel Farage on the BBC.

#Marr asks the Brexit Party Leader Nigel Farage if he’s changed his views on the NHS, climate change, gun control and Vladimir Putin #Brexit https://t.co/YWOQuda15q pic.twitter.com/uW8EzpteN6

— BBC Politics (@BBCPolitics) May 12, 2019

In case you aren't following the upcoming British elections, the Brexit Party is leading in the polls. Nigel is the head of the party. Their strength comes from the fact that the Elites are refusing to do what the Normals wanted, which was to leave the EU. The interviewer above, a member of the left wing aristocracy, can't get off the talking points worshipped within his bubble - global warming, LGBT, Putin, etc. He's trapped in his own opinions and can't cope with Nigel.

In a similar interview, again on the BBC, a member of the Elites' media aristocracy gets mauled by Ben Shapiro for the same reason. He can't cope with Ben's thoughts because he can't escape his bubble. Click on any point in the interview and it's the same thing - irrelevant questions batted down with typical Shapiro ferocity.

Now dig this tweet about what's happening with the Secular Left after Dr. Ray Blanchard, a highly esteemed psychologist was banned from Twitter for sharing the conclusions of his research on transgenderism. No surprise, he concludes it's a mental disorder.

5/I emailed the @ACLU hoping for clarification on the claim "girls can compete and win against boys," which, if true, would mean we don't need girls'/women's sports. No response.

There's just no accountabiltiy -- EVERYTHING is staking out the 'correct' position on culture wars. pic.twitter.com/C2XoJhIJwv

— Jesse Singal (@jessesingal) May 12, 2019

When I hear snippets of Joe Biden's stump speech it's similar. He's caught in his own, little world, warning of a return to Jim Crow because some states want you to show a picture ID before you vote, as if blacks are too ignorant or stupid to get IDs.

Over and over, you see devout adherents of he progs' religion speaking at anyone who disagrees, parroting the same things over and over like mutations of a sacred creed.

Weird, man.

Universities And Downward Mobility

Losing wealth is caused by going to an expensive university?

Here's the blurb from a recent essay discussing anti-Semitism at elite colleges.

American universities have become whirlpools of downward mobility that target the people and the ideas that they once cherished and protected. It’s time for Jews to stop paying for them.

I don't know about the anti-Semitism part, but I do know plenty of people who are deep in debt or their kids are deep in debt after going to high-end universities with student loans. They exit with liberal arts degrees with no real prospect of paying those debts back short of living like a pauper for a decade or more. The parents were all middle class or better, too.

I never thought of it in terms of social mobility, but it makes a lot of sense.

My Ship Has Come In!

Sadly, it's the Morning Star, which came in a bit too far off the Bon Secour River here in Alabama.

The Joe Biden Straddle

For a long time, I've thought that the Secular Left religion is only devoutly held by a fairly thin strata of society. They're loud and in positions of power, but when push comes to shove, most of the public isn't on board with the crazier aspects of it. Joe Biden's entrance into and current dominance of the Democratic primary race is an indication of that. Plenty of the True Believers are already there, like Kamala and Bernie, but some aging schlub of a career politician with all the fire and vitriol of a graham cracker is leading the pack. That's a big "meh" in the face of the SJWs.

Unfortunately for Sleepy Joe, he's got to genuflect at their altar. I saw a headline recently saying he was in favor of providing medical insurance for illegals. I didn't read the article because I had grass to watch grow, but if that's really his position, he's already finding himself forced to take positions straddling the boat of prog madness and the dock of sanity.

Which could lead to hilarious results.

Fish In The Alley

We finally made it to our VRBO rental in the Mobile area. What a place! Dig the alley behind the house.

I left this one a bit large, so it might be worth a click.

A pair of kayaks come with the place, so we might go paddling around later in the week. The house's dock is big enough for a 20' boat. That would be a load of fun. Across the way in the back is a house where you can see crab traps, nets and such like next to their boat.

Welcome to Gulf Coast Alabama.

I love Dixie.

Adventures In Flying, Houston Edition

So. Very. Tired.

Flying from San Diego to Mobile yesterday, we had one stop. Houston. So did a massive thunderstorm. The end result was a 2-hour delay on the tarmac before we could drive up to the gate. This caused us to miss our connection to Mobile.

Not to worry, there were three other flights going to the same place. The first two canceled after waiting a few hours and the last one was delayed and delayed and delayed. At midnight, they canceled it. We spent 2 hours on the tarmac and 9 hours in IAH proper only to have to get a hotel at midnight. Make that 1 AM because there were way more people looking for taxis than taxis running. There were also more people looking for hotel rooms than decent hotel rooms to rent.

We ended up at a hotel many miles away where the clerk sat behind bulletproof glass.

We finally got into Mobile today. It's beautiful. And we're tired. Did I mention that?

Going to nap now. Wake me when it's tomorrow. Hope your day is going well.

Notre Dame

When the Notre Dame Cathedral repair work started to be discussed, I had a sinking feeling that it could end up very, very badly. Dig this.

Due to France’s laws regarding secularization, the French government owns all churches built before 1905, including Notre-Dame. The government lets the Archdiocese of Paris use the building for free, and will continue to do so in perpetuity. The Archdiocese of Paris is responsible for the upkeep of the church, as well as for paying employees.

Maybe they'll turn it into a greenhouse, which would be great for Paris in August.

Basic Competency In The Papacy

This is a follow on to yesterdays' rant about how American politicians on the far left were obsessing on fantasy concerns and neglecting the basic competence expected of them.

Police protection is part of the basic services a government is supposed to provide its citizens. Meanwhile, the Portland government has taken strong stances on global warming climate change and white supremacists.

Fantasy concerns, yes. Basic functions, no.

Pope Francis has been no different. The Church is collapsing around his ears in Europe and America and not looking so hot in South America. Meanwhile, he's all over the global warming climate change thing and plastics in the ocean. Multiculturalism seems to be hot in the Vatican as well. Not only is this incompetent, it's actually counter-Catholic. Global warming climate change is a poverty issue, as seen in the Dinesh D'Souza video below. Multiculturalism flies in the face of John 14:6.

What's the deal here? Why do they choose fantasy concerns over essential services and organizational survival?

More on that in a future blog post.

In: Saving Us From Evil Spirits, Out: Fundamental Competence

This story blew me away. County sheriffs will no longer support the Portland Police Department.

PORTLAND, ORE. – Portland just lost a huge chunk of its police presence.

On Friday, Clackamas County Sheriff Craig Roberts wrote an email to his deputies, stating his concern for their safety.

“I will not place you at unnecessary personal and professional risk,” the email read.

The city of Portland is largely patrolled by the Portland Police Bureau and receives support from neighboring counties like Clackamas Sheriff’s Department. With this decision, remaining officers in the area will no doubt feel the stress of being understaffed.

Law enforcement agencies in the area feel that the Portland city government is so anti-cop that they are pulling out of their existing arrangements to protect their members. And no wonder. Dig the video below where Portland police stand by and allow ANTIFA thugs to control the streets.

Police protection is part of the basic services a government is supposed to provide its citizens. Meanwhile, the Portland government has taken strong stances on global warming climate change and white supremacists.

Fantasy concerns, yes. Basic functions, no.

The same thing is happening across the country in cities where the Secular Left dominates. If you haven't seen this video by the ABC Seattle TV station on the problems of homelessness and drug addiction up there, you should.

Again, this is part of the essential services a city is supposed to provide. In San Francisco, human feces and addicts' needles are strewn in the streets. Los Angeles has about 60,000 homeless and is the filthiest I've ever seen it. Here in San Diego, some of our streets downtown look like an REI showroom with all the tents erected on the sidewalks.

Meanwhile, the progs in the media, the academy, the entertainment industry and politics are focused on statues, flags and windmills. The worries of the Elites are totally separated from the concerns of the Normals.

Madness.

Searching For Hate In Portland And Alabama

As I understand the Secular Left's narrative on racism, it goes something like this: White supremacists are on the rise, targeting people of color (PoC) with threats of violence and oppression of various sorts. The white supremacists are the natural offspring of the hateful rhetoric of the right.

If that was true, wouldn't you expect masked rioters to show up in red states, particularly the South, attacking PoC while blue states would be welcoming and peaceful? How does that hypothesis hold up against real data?

Last weekend, Andy Ngo, an Asian PoC journalist attended an ANTIFA rally in deep-blue Portland, Oregon. He ended up maced by an ANTIFA goon. Here's a snippet of what he saw. I recommend turning down the volume on your device, there is absolutely nothing of value in the sound.

This is my last footage. I was sprayed point-blank in the face w/what appears to be bear mace. I was blinded & a woman on the conservative side took me away to help. I have reported this to police but the assailant's identity is still unknown. Please help: https://t.co/LlAsB1BVkc pic.twitter.com/F57ZcAPkGF

— Andy Ngo (@MrAndyNgo) May 2, 2019

Meanwhile, in deep red Alabama, we have these two stories.

A black woman who was the first black student at the University of Alabama received an honorary doctorate degree while the whites in the audience cheered.

Autherine Lucy Foster, the first African American student to attend The University of Alabama, on Friday received an honorary doctoral degree from UA at a commencement ceremony.

“I love The University of Alabama, and it is an honor to be recognized in this way,” said Foster upon learning of the honorary doctoral degree. “I am thankful for opportunities such as this, which allow us to talk about the past while looking to the future,” said Foster, who believes that while talking about the past may be painful, it is necessary so that none of us forget.

Foster applied to attend the university for graduate school in 1952, but was denied attendance because she was black. A federal court reversed the decision in 1956 and Foster attended class for just three days before she was removed from campus because of threats against her life.

Foster’s dismissal was reversed in 1988 and she re-enrolled with her daughter Grazia. The two graduated together in 1991.

Tuscaloosa First Methodist Church now has it's first black pastor. No violent demonstrations by masked racists were held.

The Rev. Clinton Hubbard Jr. has been appointed as senior pastor of First United Methodist Church of Tuscaloosa, effective in July.

He’ll be the first black pastor in the congregation’s 201-year history. He’s been a minister in the United Methodist Church for almost 37 years and is currently a district superintendent.

“This is a historic appointment for the North Alabama Conference,” said Mike Case, chairman of the staff parish relations committee for Tuscaloosa First Methodist, in a statement released Sunday. “It represents the first time an African-American pastor has been appointed to a large, predominantly white church. We are pleased to be making history and welcome Dr. Hubbard and his wife, Gloria, to First Church and to Tuscaloosa.”

If you're going to maintain that the right is a haven for crazed white supremacists and a hotbed of racism, you're going to have to explain these data points. Personally, I can't see how to do it.

As for Andy Ngo and Portland, dude, it's time to get out. Your reporting is spot on, but not groundbreaking. I doubt that anyone is surprised that Portland, a major center of the Secular Left, is psychotically obsessed with violent, anti-racist cosplay. After this, you only have yourself to blame if you get hurt. You wouldn't have stuck around in Mogadishu in the 1990s, either, would you?

Returning To A Quack

... would be a stupid thing to do.

If your doctor gave you a diagnosis of late-stage liver cancer and meant it with all sincerity, when you discovered that your liver was just fine and you had no cancer anywhere, would you go back to the guy? I mean other than to scream at him. How about if after he told you, he said "Frankly, I find it hard to care much, even though this is my specialty?"

Dig this from Paul Krugman of the NYT in 2016.

It really does now look like President Donald J. Trump, and markets are plunging. When might we expect them to recover?

Frankly, I find it hard to care much, even though this is my specialty. The disaster for America and the world has so many aspects that the economic ramifications are way down my list of things to fear.

Still, I guess people want an answer: If the question is when markets will recover, a first-pass answer is never.

Under any circumstances, putting an irresponsible, ignorant man who takes his advice from all the wrong people in charge of the nation with the world’s most important economy would be very bad news...

Now comes the mother of all adverse effects — and what it brings with it is a regime that will be ignorant of economic policy and hostile to any effort to make it work. Effective fiscal support for the Fed? Not a chance. In fact, you can bet that the Fed will lose its independence, and be bullied by cranks.

So we are very probably looking at a global recession, with no end in sight. I suppose we could get lucky somehow. But on economics, as on everything else, a terrible thing has just happened.

If you want to see a perfect example of why the Normals should not only mistrust but loathe the Elites, that's it. Particularly because the quack still has a job and is still called on by the Elites in the news media for his opinions.

"You have terminal cancer and I don't care. What, you don't have it? Whatever. Now I will opine on your spleen. Sit down and listen, peasant. I have a Nobel Prize."

Meanwhile, in the world the rest of us inhabit, we have this.

WASHINGTON—American employers picked up the pace of hiring in April and the unemployment rate fell to a half-century low, adding to signs of healthy U.S. economic growth as the expansion approaches its 10th birthday.

The economy added a seasonally adjusted 263,000 jobs in April, and joblessness fell to 3.6%, the lowest level since December 1969, the Labor Department said Friday.

Private-sector workers saw solid wage gains, with average hourly earnings up 3.2% in April from a year earlier, matching the prior month’s increase.

Screw them all.

Stay Out Of Venezuela!

No, really. We need to stay out.

Stay out. Stay out. Stay out.

Our wars in the Middle East fooled us into thinking that the American military can take on anyone and win easily. The ME is tailor-made for our technical advantages in that it is mostly flat and devoid of significant vegetation. Our high data rate communications systems which give us an immense advantage in command and control all operate in the upper frequency bands. Jungle and rough terrain makes those comms systems unusable as foliage and rock absorb or deflect their radio waves. Send troops into Venezuela's hinterlands and they will simply vanish.

Dig this gorgeous, 360-degree video from Venezuela and imagine trying to control the terrain with infantry units who have, at best, voice comms.

With visibility cut down to tens of yards, observation drones practically useless and data communications reduced to 9600 baud, the enemy will be on nearly equal terms with our soldiers. Add to that the language barriers and unfamiliarity with the terrain and you've got the makings of a real disaster.

And that doesn't begin to consider urban combat and the debilitating heat and humidity.

Now assume you go in there and "win," whatever that means. You have ... what at that point? Is this Guidado character or whatever his name is some kind of cross between George Washington, Adam Smith and Saint Pope John Paul II? How about the populace? If they voted for free stuff before, aren't they likely to do it again?

The place is a paleolithic mess. The water and electric infrastructure is in total ruins. Food and food distribution systems are non-existent. There are plenty of guns and millions of desperate people. There is nothing to be gained from sending in troops and plenty to lose.

Stay out.

Faith Comes First

One more thing, perhaps not the last thing, about last weekend's retreat.

I'm a Yankee born and bred. I've fallen in love with the South through repeated exposure, but it's all an affectation. When I was chosen as chief cook for the retreat, I went with an all-Southern menu, at least for the three meals where you can express some creativity. On Saturday night, the music team went all in on my bayou theme and had a skit and a whole bunch of songs for my "Mardi Gras" night. They're an exceptional group of musicians and they just lit it up.

They did it for me, out of love. They didn't do it for some evolutionary advantage reason. I'd have been their friend without it. They did it out of the infectious love that comes from hanging out with a bunch of wacky Catholics for as long as we have been doing these things, which predate me by decades.

The music-love was born of faith and the joy of Christ. That's all there is to it. I've been involved in other events as large as this, but I never felt transported like I was on the weekend. Each weekend is like this. You can't capture it, you can't measure it, you can't specify it in equations, be they numerical, physical or chemical. It's spiritual.

I wondered what the skeptical academics like Jonah Goldberg or Sam Harris would have thought had they been there to observe it. Would it have come off as mutual hypnosis, perhaps? Maybe they would have thought that it was the self-reinforcing behavior of a cult.

The poor things.

Table decorations for our Mardi Gras festivities.