Notes From A West Virginia Drive Through

Late last week, I spent a day driving through parts of West Virginia. Starting from Winchester, Virginia, I drove across to the mines near Grafton, down to Elkins along the Blue Ridge Mountains and then back across the mountains into Virginia.

West Virginia might be the strangest state I have ever visited. What struck me the most was the wild variations in houses. You'd drive by a couple that were in good shape and then you'd see one or two that were complete disasters.

Ones like the lower photo were common enough. They looked like no one could possibly live there, but then there would be a vehicle parked outside. One of them had a quarter of its roof caved in, like a tree fell on it and the residents never repaired it.

I tried to puzzle out what had happened. The only thing that made sense was that the derelict houses were markers of opiate or alcohol addictions. They must have been in good shape at one time, but over the years, they had been allowed to decay. You'd do that if you were continually spaced out on dope or booze.

I stopped by a couple of general stores, too. There were no Walmarts or Home Depots along my path, so the locals used general stores to get hunting, fishing and hardware supplies. There was typically a diner included. The customers smoked and chewed and looked pretty weathered. I decided, in my total ignorance of the place, that West Virginia was the "Why not?" state. It's a rough place that has suffered economically lately, particularly under Obama. Life expectancies might not be that high, so why not smoke, chew, drink or whatever? It's not like life has a whole lot of sophisticated pleasures for you.

Coming back into Virginia, I stopped for gas at a suburban strip mall about 45 minutes in from the West Virginia border. There was a row of Tesla charging stations, many with cars attached. The contrast in wealth was shocking. It was like a completely different planet.

Apology: Sorry for the poor photo quality. I took these through the windows of the car as I drove. I'm a fan of derelict houses and boats, but I always feel awkward getting out of the car for a photo.

I'm A Psychic Shingles Separatist

... because people with psychic shingles (PS) should be kept as far away as possible from the rest of us so we can relax and live a normal life should have their own homeland.

Megyn Kelly said something or another about dressing up as Aretha Franklin for Halloween. On Halloween, it's fun to wear a costume representing someone you love and respect, unless dressing as a creature that devours human flesh is your bag.  I'm pretty sure Megyn was putting Aretha in the former category, but I could be wrong.

Upon hearing that Megyn was suggesting that non-blacks dress in costume as a black for Halloween, people with psychic shingles do what they always do, which is react in spasms of outrage and fury. You see, psychic shingles is just like normal shingles. It makes it incredibly painful to come in contact with anything. In the case of normal shingles, that's something physical. In the case of psychic shingles, that's anything which you can turn into an outrage.

When I saw people suffering from PS on Twitter screeching about how IT WAS NEVER OK for a non-black to dress as a black for Halloween or any other time for that matter, I didn't feel sympathy for their position, I felt like I wanted to take steps to never interact with any of these crazies ever again. That's when I came up with the idea for PS Separatism or PSS.

I'd be perfectly happy to give up a state, say, California or Oregon, and hand it over to the PSS folks. Since CA and OR are already full of PSS sufferers, it would make the transition into a new country easier.

Just think of it. All of the diversity studies teachers and students, all of the ANITFA goons, all of the white nationalists could have their own country. Which would resemble some level of Dante's Inferno, but, hey, they live like that now anyway, so what's the big deal? The rest of us could go back to letting our kids dress as whatever they wanted on Halloween while we watch spooky movies on TV and drink rum and cokes while handing out ever-increasing amounts of candy to the little rodents who came to our doors to trick or treat.

Sigh. That would be heaven.

The famous painting, Jesus with the Trick-or-Treaters. The little girl closest to Jesus is actually a Polish chick in blackface dressed as Aretha Franklin. The young man on the right is an Angolan dude in whiteface dressed as Tom Sawyer.

Somewhere in PSSland, the residents are having group aneurysms.

A General's Funeral

I was in DC for the past few days to represent the family for the burial of an old friend. He'd been a general in the Army and was laid to rest at Arlington. I know I've been to Arlington before as I spent 7 years of my childhood in Virginia, but I don't think I've ever seen anything quite like this.

In the photo below, note the riderless horse. The horse follows that caisson carrying the flag-draped casket, symbolizing the general's trusty steed, from back in the days when generals rode horses.

It was beautiful, in a traditional way. Thank God for the military where traditions live on.

West Virginia Stream

My best photos from yesterday's drive through West Virginia are locked on my Nikon Coolpix's memory card which can be read by the camera, but not by my laptop. I could get them off the camera, but it uses an old school USB cable which I don't have with me, so I'll have to share them when I get back home. Oh well.

In the meantime, here's a stream that I thought was worth a shot. Enjoy!

More Religion, Less Compassion

... is what I'm seeing in regards to the illegal immigrant invasion force making its way through Mexico right now. There was a tweet I was going to use to illustrate this, but it was deleted. Fortunately, the faith community of the progressives is very strong, so it took me less than 5 minutes to find a replacement. Here you go.

Unfortunately, tired, poor, huddled masses only referred to white people. #MigrantCaravan #Immigration pic.twitter.com/FBzF6QkhT4

— Dean Snyder (@DeanSnyder1) October 25, 2018

Race paranoia trumps compassion for compassion for American workers.

In the old days, progressives cared deeply for the working poor and unemployed, low-skilled Americans. Now, with a couple of battalions of migrant workers on the way who will drive down the wages of said Americans, the working poor are discarded in favor of the holiness that comes from racial diversity or whatever you want to call the cult of racialism these days.

Here's another good one.

"Christians in modernity are highly conscious of their declining social status as the power and prestige of the church declines. Their rage increasingly fuels religious ethnocentrism in the West." @CC_brittain on 'white-rage' and the #MigrantCaravan https://t.co/KOZyKbmgfx pic.twitter.com/YDkdrPUrDB

— ABC Religion&Ethics (@ABCReligion) October 25, 2018

Appropriately, it's on some kind of religious analysis site.

Meanwhile, the United States is just about the least racist country in the world.

From this WaPo article.

So the preening on the part of the diversity-mad progs is nothing but angels dancing on the heads of pins while the economics of illegal immigration spells hardship and poverty for unskilled Americans.

Oh well. No price is too high to pay for the salvation that comes from multiculturalism.

It's Like A Hugh Grant Movie

I'm flying to DC for the funeral of my father's best friend today. In the security line, I ran into a woman who was flying back east to meet her high school sweetheart from 50 years ago.

They're both widowed, so he used his skills from a career in Naval Intelligence to track her down. 500 emails and a ton of phone calls later, they're going to meet for the first time in 50 years.

Is that the sweetest thing you've heard in a long time or what?

Yes, She Felt The Pea

The poor thing looks so uncomfortable!

What Will You Do With Your Free Time

... when the migrants arrive to take your place?

For Republicans and their business donors, these are replacement workers, who will accept half or a quarter of your pay if you're an unskilled worker. Benefits? Ha! No need for those, either.

For Democrats, they are replacement voters who won't demand self-governance and who will happily cede their power to the morally superior elite who will dishonestly promise to take care of them.

In either case, our work here is done.

Me, I'm going to develop new recipes for beans and rice. #WINNING

Diversity Is Evil

Diversity of thought, that is.

Pressed for time today, so this will be succinct.

Rod Dreher posted a letter the other day from my bishop's "Listening Tour" wherein Bishop McElroy has visited a couple of churches in his diocese to allow the unwashed masses to speak with him about the Church's abuse scandal. The first one turned into a riot as people blew up at him and since then, the events have been scripted like a straight jacket.

It was clear from the onset that the listening session was not a listening session but rather a controlled public relations tour. Tables were set up with about 8 per table and a facilitator. The facilitator was tasked to jot down one question from the table to ask the Bishop. A moderator who held the microphone to the facilitator’s mouth, ready to pull it away if need be, walked from table to table so we could ask our question. Most people complied with this arrangement which didn’t give the laity any chance to tell the Bishop what they thought or what they thought should be done as it was staged as a Q&A where we ask then listen.

A few more data points.

• Advertising for the Gosnell movie was repeatedly blocked by Facebook.
• Conservative Twitter accounts get blocked or banned with regularity. The latest one was Gay Patriot.
• All of the late night comics have the exact same political and social views.
• YouTube regular demonetizes Prager University videos.

I could go on, but you get the picture. If you don't hew the orthodox line with regards to politics and society, you will be silenced. The elites don't need nor want to hear your views.

This makes sense if you see it as a religious conflict. Your views aren't just wrong in their eyes, they're evil because they're wrong. You can't argue with them because they're not going to listen to you and they will do their best to make sure that others don't hear your evil opinions. Gaia forbid that your heresies might spread! They must evangelize their views and suppress yours to spread love, compassion and acceptance across the country. You represent hate, greed and bigotry.

Even to the elites in the Catholic Church, you are evil. Shut up.

Now, NPC memes are being deleted and banned from Twitter.

Gosnell Movie Review

I ought to get a ton of hits on this one as no one in the mainstream media is reviewing the film and therein lies one of the biggest horrors of the movie.

If you don't know the story, Kermit Gosnell was an abortionist operating in Philly. For decades, he ran a filthy, illegal, chop shop where he killed hundreds of babies and at least one woman as well. Like the Muslim rape gangs in England, he was able to escape punishment for many years because the authorities refused to police him the way they police the rest of us. Because of the nature of his business - abortion - Kermit Gosnell was left to wreak havoc with the full knowledge of the government and press.

The movie tells the tale deftly, which is unusual for "Christian" movies. Gosnell isn't really a Christian movie, it's much more of a crime drama and has extensive courtroom scenes. The acting is first-rate and the script, written by my man Andrew Klavan, packs a punch. And punches there are.

I can't recall the last movie that hit me so hard, emotionally. It's not maudlin and it doesn't try to jerk tears, but the story can't help but do it. There were several aspects of the thing that were mind-blowing, but, in the interest of not giving away too much and space on this blog, I'll focus on one.

Part of the horror of the movie is the sickening realization of how much the MSM lies to us. I'm staunchly pro-life and I was shocked at how much I had ingested from the popular culture about the pro-choice position, which is orthodoxy for the MSM. Internally, I had reduced abortion to a set of logical arguments. This movie rips the veil of indirection and clinical detachment off and forces you to look at the reality of abortion, even those performed in clean, professional establishments.

That's gut-wrenching in the way, if not the scale, of the Germans forced to tour the camps after WW II ended. In our hearts, we know something horrible is happening, but, with the conscious help of the MSM, we've been able to build walls of opacity between our minds and reality.

Gosnell tears down those walls and gives us a clear look at what really happens in abortion clinics. Powerful, powerful stuff. No wonder the MSM and the progressives have tried to suppress the movie.

Go see it.

Dirty Dishes

... from last weekend's men's retreat. It's my job to clean them.

This is only marginally worse than what my house looks like when wife kitteh is gone. Which she is right now. She's working them women's retreat weekend.

Oddly enough, I do the dishes about half the time at home, but when she's gone, the place falls to ruin in no time at all.

Elizabeth Warren Joins The Editorial Staff Of Der Sturmer

When you think about it, Elizabeth Warren has spent years telling us all a family story made from whole cloth to stir up racial paranoia for political gain so she and her cronies can accumulate more power in the central government and control an ever greater portion of our lives.

Hmm. Does that sound familiar?

If you've spent your time more wisely than those who watch Elizabeth Warren interviews and don't know the story, here it is.

Her mom and dad got engaged. Allegedly, mom was part Cherokee and part Delaware. His parents, being white racists from Oklahoma, forbade the marriage and so her parents had to hit the trail. Now we come to find out, via a DNA test, that Liz is, at best, 6 generations removed from any Indian blood. It could be as many as 10 generations.

Since the test can't determine which side the genes came from, it's a coin toss for her mom having any Indian heritage at all. Assuming she wins the toss and the DNA comes from the closest possible ancestor, it was her mother's great-great-great-grandprogenitor*.

I don't know about you, but there's not been a whole lot passed down from my grandparents, much less three generations farther back up the tree. I've heard a few stories about my maternal great-grandmother, but that's it. Absolutely zero going back any farther.

On my dad's side, one of his sisters did an extensive genealogy, but even that only goes back 5 generations. It's simply impossible that Elizabeth Warren's father's family could have sensed anything other than a predilection to produce race-crazed children. There's no way they thought she was even vaguely Cherokee because she wasn't.

So now we have a sitting US senator lying to whip up racial fears and most of the news media supporting it. No, that's not a problem. Not at all.

The new Nuremberg Race Laws Chart.

* - Here in California, we don't use cis-normative terms like grandmother and grandfather.

Real Oppression Is The Kind You Can't Escape

We hear a lot about privilege and oppression these days, but how many people are really oppressed? If your boss mistreats you because he's a racist, a sexist or a homophobe, you can always get another job. Not all bosses are like that and if you make an effort, you can eventually find somewhere to work that isn't so unpleasant.

How about if you're a really short man? What if you're 5' 2" tall? Girls like taller men, so you're at an extreme disadvantage while dating. What if you're a really tall woman, like 6' 3"? Guys like shorter girls. Wherever you go, you can't get away from your height, it follows you relentlessly.

What if you have an IQ of 80 or less or a severe learning disability? Where do you go to get a college degree? Nowhere, that's where. Your mental acuity goes where you go. You can't escape it.

The people of East Germany couldn't go somewhere less oppressive, either. Guard towers, barbed wire, walls and machine guns made sure of that. Even the people of Cuba were less oppressed than the East Germans. There was no escape from their fate.

What if our standard classifications of the population are all wrong? What if skin color, sex and sexual orientation are two or three orders of magnitude less important than things like health, attractiveness, intelligence and a strong will?

Maybe we're discussing the wrong things.

At work, there's a fellow who's blind. He works on a computer most of the day. My team had to make sure our sites were accessible to him, so we tried out a screen reader. Good God, what a chore to use! Talk about oppressive! You had to keep a map of each site in your head, like a decision tree as you tabbed through the thing. No matter where the guy goes, too, he's still blind.

Even The Nazis Wouldn't Have Considered Elizabeth Warren An Indian

When it comes to racial classification, I always turn to those race-obsessed, highly-educated, scientific socialists, the Nazis. Germany was a first-world country with a literate populace and top-notch schools including some of the best philosophers of their era. Well, until a bunch of them bailed out to escape der Führer, but, hey, they left behind a strong foundation of knowledge. Especially when it came to race.

Elizabeth Warren, heap-big Cherokee*, is parading around her DNA tests which the slavering MSM is claiming proves her to be an Indian. Hold on one sixty-fourth of a moon there, squaw. The Nazis would disagree.

Sadly, Elizabeth Warren still isn't an American Indian, even under this schema.

If I read this chart from the Nuremberg Race laws correctly, it only goes back three generations. Fauxcahontas' DNA tests say that at best, she would have to go back six generations to find an Indian and that might have been a Shawnee, with whom the Cherokee didn't always see eye-to-eye, to put it mildly.

Assuming this was an 8 1/2 x 11 (2.75 horizontal inches per ancestor dot) chart, made for handing out to members of the Volk, curious to see if they should start packing their bags for the camps, then a chart with a similar font size would have been about 15' by 12' in order to include the layer at which Elizabeth Warren would have been considered an Indian. The Nazis could have handed those out as linoleum patterns as they would have been larger than the average room in a German house.

As the progressives these days are basically Nazis without ambition, if she wins the presidency, we could very well see racial-classification-as-flooring sold at Home Depot. After all, when fascists take power, every big business wants to cozy up to the rulers.

Bonus Tidbit: On the lower end, Warren could be as little as 1/1024th redskin. A Nuremberg racial chart at that level would cover three quarters of a football field.

* - The Cherokees disagree and are telling her, "Beat it, paleface. You're not one of us." Then again, what do the Cherokee know about being Cherokee anyway?

San Diego Sailboats

I shot this one today while waiting for an appointment to start. I left the image a big large, so it could be worth a click.

Enjoy!

Jambalaya For 120

With a lot of loving help from my friends, I made Jambalaya for 120 men last night. It's quite different cooking for a crowd like that. I thought we had it all worked out, but there was one thing that surprised me.

Stirring a huge pot of Jambalaya is impossible. We could turn it over a little bit, but really stirring it after we added the rice couldn't be done. Once the rice began to swell, you could forget about doing much of anything with it.

If It's Good Enough For Shakespeare, It's Good Enough For Luca Pacioli

Luca is the dude what came up with double entry bookkeeping.

I'm working a men's retreat this weekend so I'm having to blog from my phone. These are just some thoughts I had after yesterday's post on evolution and sexual relationships.

We all know that Shakespeare is evil. He is a dead, white man. That's why we need to stop reading his works and take down pictures and statues of him. Why stop there? Why not extend that to other disciplines?

Luca Pacioli developed the foundational concepts of accounting in the year 1494. I would bet there wasn't a whole lot of social justice in 1494. In fact, it's a good bet that Luca was a member of the oppressor class. He needs to go. And so do his works.

I suggest that from now on accounting classes that derive anything from his works have all of their content removed. Students should create their own accounting systems from scratch to make sure it isn't tainted by white supremacy.

If we're going to do this thing, let's do it right.

Enrolling Baboons In Diversity Studies

... is what we should have done hundreds of thousands of years ago.

Or maybe bonobos. Or is it chimpanzees? I forget which one is our closest genetic relative.

I heard a sermon from our priest the other Sunday that perfectly encapsulated the elite, modern way of thinking about sexual relationships from the past. In the old days, you see, women had no power and were considered the property of men. They had no choice in marriage, either. Or so it's claimed.

The former is true, but the latter depended on the location and era. As I recall, in England in the Middle Ages, women could choose who they married, provided they weren't constrained by the political necessities of royalty where marriage bound treaties. In any case, what did you expect from a species evolving from creatures not known for getting positive, formal consent before proceeding along the path of behaviors that led to mating?

Evolutionary biology, which was a science last time I checked and therefore is governed by objective reality and logical thought, has concluded that in order to fulfill their biological imperative to propagate their genetic code through time, males will want to mate with as many females as possible. That's just the way it is. To get control of this impulse, marriage was created to give males pride of ownership and a desire to associate themselves with particular women and children.

Baboons don't do this, you see. Men do. Now. But not always, if evolution is to be believed.

You see, if evolution is correct, then humans had to go from indiscriminate spreaders of seed to modern, male feminists in steps. It didn't happen all at once. Our priest, who talked mockingly of societies that saw women as male property, was just making fun of a necessary intermediate step in getting to modern soy boys.

Therein lies the problem. If we saw the past through the lens of science, evolutionary biology to be precise, then we'd hate our ancestors a good deal less. They were making their way along a tortuous and uncertain path from baboons to Social Justice Warriors. Science would suggest that we would not transform from brutal primates to SJWs instantly, there would be steps.

Ah, but science is a product of white, male, Enlightenment thinking! That's wrong, you see. We've thrown that out and now know that progressive, post-modernism is the only right way to think. With progressive post-modernism, we can indulge in magical thought and condemn our predecessors for not having had the wisdom to behave like gender studies graduates from 2018, the hopelessly ignorant bigots!

So preach on, good Padre! Make all the fun you want of those swine from the past. It's OK to hate them because there's no need for logical thought or objective reality. Those are things of the past and are only useful to religious zealots like Catholics.

...

Uh oh.

Of course, had baboons instantly evolved into male feminists, they'd have stopped breeding and none of us would be here today.
Oh well, that would have been a small price to pay for moral superiority, don't you think?

Never Shop For Food When You're Hungry!

... or you might go crazy like I did. Check out my shopping cart from Tuesday. Note that there are only two of us at home.

MOAR MEAT!

In all seriousness, I went to Food 4 Less, my favorite grocery store and a hangout for the homeless that live along the San Diego River, and bought about 15 pounds of meat to make Louisiana Brown Stock. That turned out well, but throwing away that much boiled meat as detritus from the operation bothers me. I'm going to see if I can turn it into a meat spread for sandwiches.

Unquestioned Catholic Incompetence

I'm involved in Cursillo, a Catholic movement that causes you to sing a lot, cook good food and drink at a pub on Friday nights.

Well, there's more to it than that, but those are the parts that jump out at me.I mean, some Cursillistas work in the prisons, others help the homeless and some work with the mentally ill, but really, it's all about going to the pub. Oh, and we pray and read and try live more Christian lives, too. Whatever.

In any case, there are times where we offer up things for which we'd like the group to pray. Invariably, someone will ask us to pray for our children who have left the faith. Up until now, it didn't occur to me that this was anything unusual. It happens to a lot of us. The modern, secular world is a jealous god and will do its best to take believers of other faiths for its own.

I pride myself at having some amount of understanding of sales and marketing, but I never applied it to this problem.

How in the world could an organization manage to lose customers when:

• They enter as willing buyers of your product,
• They have coaches at their houses urging them to buy your product,
• You have multiple, winning sales pitches for your product and
• There are plenty of testimonials and recommendations for your product in their community?

In other words, our kids spend 8, 12 and sometimes 16 years in Catholic education and come out the other end as ... agnostics, atheists or fallen-away Catholics. Just how terrible at your job would you have to be to produce that given all of those advantages?

Not to worry, though. The US Council of Catholic Bishops is on the job. Don't question them, either. They're bishops, don't you know.

Here's our idiot, Bishop McElroy, giving a secular, political speech for open borders while the laity of his diocese mourn their children leaving the Church after 8-16 years of almost daily instruction in the bishop's schools.

That's some serious incompetence right there.

Norwegian Advertising

... would be more effective than what I'm seeing from some progressives on Twitter.

I'm not sure what that is selling*, but if it makes me like the fat dude with the auto-docking boat, I'll take three of them.

Meanwhile, the progs are writing tweets that start with "Fellow white women..." The tweets urge 'white women' to vote against Trump in the primaries. They read like something from another planet. If they understood anything at all, anything about the vast majority of conservatives in 2018, they'd know that adding any racial identity group in their pitch is pure poison.

On YouTube, you can find dozens of Q&A sessions from talks by Dennis Prager, Ben Shapiro or any of the other conservative luminaries and in the ones about race, the biggest applause lines, by far, are the calls for a color-blind society.

Talk about not knowing your audience!

* - OK, I know what it's selling, but I liked that turn of phrase too much not to use it.

Happy Indigenous Peoples Day!

In celebration, I plan to live like an indigenous person today. That is, I will forgo all dental care and force my wife to tend the children and raise crops while I go romp in the forest with my buddies, hunting for whatever it is I can find in the brown, dead hills of San Diego in October.

I figure I'll come home with a handful of lizards.

No matter, what's important is throwing away Euro-Christian hegemonic thingamabobs and embracing the purity and goodness of indigenous peoples. With that in mind, I will also engage in wars of conquest with my neighbors in the hopes of capturing slaves or at least raiding their houses for goodies.

Since I'm not a total purist, I won't attempt to capture their animals. The dogs next door are horrible creatures and I have no interest in bringing them into my house. Instead, I will put them to the sword. Err, I will put them to the rock lashed to the end of a stick with some vines. If I can find any vines, which I probably can't, given the local vegetation. I guess I'll just have to put them to the rock held in my hand.

Eww. That's pretty gross. Best not to think of that.

Speaking of things not to think of, I've been reading, on and off, this noble tome.

It's quite good. I highly recommend it.

That aside, it points out that the indigenous peoples lacked the ability to build POW camps. That meant taking prisoners was not just a waste of time, but an actual disadvantage due to the manpower required to keep control over the captured enemy warriors.

I'll leave it to your imagination to picture what our cul-de-sac will look like by the end of the day.

Have a great Indigenous Peoples Day! I hope you survive it.

I Believe Some Women

... love, love, LOVE being drama queens, even when it makes no sense at all.

Dig this tweet from Kirsten Powers. Kirsten Powers of USA Today and CNN. The 294,000-followers-on-Twitter Kirsten Powers.

I have a dream—that one day I will be able to say more than two sentences without some conservative man interrupting me and yelling at me and twisting my words.

— Kirsten Powers (@KirstenPowers) October 6, 2018

YOU MEN DON'T ALLOW HER TO SAY MORE THAN TWO SENTENCES! YOU'RE TRYING TO SUPPRESS HER! SHE WILL BE SILENT NO MORE! WHAT DO YOU THINK THIS IS, THE HANDMAID'S TALE?

I don't know if it's possible to be less self-aware. The chick's got gigs at two national media outlets and more Twitter followers than Dayton, Ohio has people and that by a factor of two. Looking it up, she's got more followers than Orlando, Florida has people.

STOP SILENCING HER, YOU MISOGYNISTS!

Well, I guess it just goes to show you how powerful the patriarchy is.

Kirsten Powers as she sees herself.

A World Where The Red Pill Makes Sense

... is not a world I want. Dig this.

Amy Schumer and Emily Ratajkowski leading the protest against Brett Kavanaugh. Senator Heidi Heitkamp putting her career at risk by vowing to vote against him. Women are taking over. It's past due. They won't be stopped. I would advise my fellow men to get out of their way.

— Palmer Report (@PalmerReport) October 4, 2018

As the progs have fallen over themselves, culturally trying to stab a good man to death like he was Julius Caesar in the Curia of Pompey, I've wondered what effect this is having on normal men and women, specifically normal, unmarried men and women.

Bill Palmer, whose tweet I embedded above, is symptomatic of progressive men, Vichy males who wriggle in pleasure as they vie to see which can attack manhood and collaborate with the crazed feminists the fastest. Meanwhile, normal young men are watching this and taking note. The personal is now political, so relationships have become a vicious power struggle and good, accomplished men are being torn to pieces right in front of them.

You'd be an idiot not to take the red pill in a world like that.

In case you didn't know, taking the red pill is where a man approaches sexual relationships in a predatory manner, learning as much as he can about women's vulnerabilities so he can ruthlessly exploit them to gain power and extract as much sex from the relationship as he can. If the feminists are going to fight to the death to ruin Brett Kavanaugh and the leaders of our culture are going to collaborate with them, the red pill is the only sensible choice.

Feminists want a fight and the red pill males are happy to give it to them. So the two sides launch all-out war and the casualties are normal men and women. Love, softness, kindness, protectiveness, nurturing - none of that enters into the vocabulary of either of the combatants. Anyone who tries to suggest that those should be our goals is screamed down by the warriors. It's all about raw power and dominance. Real love isn't about dominance it's about mutual surrender. "Well, screw that! We won't surrender to you any more!" is the war cry from both sides.

So what does a young man or young woman do? Do you try to cling to romantic notions of how to love while everything in the media is screaming at you to join the fight? It must be like trying to avoid enlisting after Pearl Harbor. "What's wrong with you? Didn't you see what the Japs Brett Kavanaugh did to us her? If you don't help the war effort, you're on their side!" Taking the red pill and learning how to exploit the enemy, err, women, just makes sense as good men are destroyed right in front of you.

In all of this, have you seen anyone defending traditional romance? I haven't. Sad. Instead, we get calls for total war from our cultural leaders.

Well, for one generation, at least. After that, things get a bit murky.

This Must Be Post-Modernist Feminism

... because it makes no sense at all in real life.

Can you imagine a high school girl telling her boyfriend that he needs to believe all the other girls in high school? My God, that's like trying to keep the ants away by pouring sugar all around you. Utter suicide, particularly if he's any kind of catch. They'd steal him from her just to prove they could.

Alabama Is Lost To The Democrats

I don't mean the state, I mean the singing group.

Read these lyrics from their hit, Dixieland Delight, with the Kavanaugh accusations in mind.

Rolling down a backwoods Tennessee bighway
One arm on the wheel
Holding my lover with the other
A sweet, soft, Southern thrill
Worked hard all week
Got a little jingle
On a Tennessee Saturday night
Couldn't feel better
I'm together with my dixieland delight
Spend my dollar
Parked in a holler 'neath the mountain moonlight
Holdin' her up tight
Make a little lovin'
A little turtle dovin' on a Mason Dixon night
It's my life
Oh so right
My dixieland delight

It's a song about the natural affection between a man and a woman - his strength and her softness, his passion and her happiness. He works hard for her and she gives his life meaning.

YOU'RE FULL OF HATE IF THAT'S WHAT YOU THINK! HE'S A RAPIST, FULL OF TOXIC MASCULINITY! HE MUST SHUT UP AND BELIEVE ALL WOMEN!

The music video for the song is shown below and I can't even imagine how triggering it is for a Democrat.

• Everyone is white
• Even worse, they are Southern whites
• On Mason Dixon nights, these guys reach for their sheets and nooses, no doubt
• The title is a dead giveaway about their racism
• Everyone is heterosexual
• The women are not in STEM fields and some of them are in farm fields
• The women are wearing dresses and skirts, showing submission to the male patriarchy
• The women's truths are not being heard
• The dozens of women these men have assaulted are not being heard. In fact, they're invisible!
• At 2:04, the man attacks the woman from behind, surprising and overpowering her
• It's a good bet that none of the men have been to sensitivity or diversity training
• The men are driving old trucks, spewing pollution into the air
• Watch it all the way to the end to see the massive carbon footprint of loads of phallocentric old cars (all driven by men, white men)

I could go on and on, but you get the picture. Until the band shows that happiness and love between men and women can only be based on an understanding of the problematic nature of masculinity, the patriarchy and white oppression, Democrats will never be satisfied with the music of Alabama.

Hmm. I could just shorten that to Democrats will never be satisfied with the music of Alabama and be done with it.

On The March

I took the Catican Guards out on maneuvers the other day and got this shot, which I really like. In case you're wondering, Lily, the third Guard, is walking right behind me.

Anyway, I like the curve of the road, the gray-blue of the sky and the feeling that this is infantry on the march.

I left it a bit large, so it might be worth a click. Enjoy!

Mother Teresa, USMC

Growing up, I had the odd health problem or two which prevented me from joining the military. Had I been able to do so, I probably would have gone for the Marines because that seems like the toughest of the lot. I would have wanted something difficult.

As a soul-refresher, I'm listening to Malcolm Muggeridge's book on Mother Teresa, Something Beautiful for God. There is so much to take from it, but I wanted to focus on one thing.

Malcolm asks her what most of us would ask. "What on Earth made you choose a life in the slums of Calcutta? What is drawing other young women to that life?" Her response is the Marine recruit's response. "I wanted to do something difficult and something with purpose." The young women who joined and still join her order wanted the same thing.

For some people, the desire to constantly prove yourself, to continually strive against long odds is a real draw. Crazy, man.

St. Mother Teresa. A seriously tough broad.

I Forgot How To Swim

I've done nothing but diving and snorkeling for so long that I forgot how to swim.

I joined a gym recently and this morning I went to swim laps in their pool. I got in the pool, put on my goggles, put my face in the water and began to swim. Then I breathed.

Note that there was no head action between "put my face in the water" and "breathed." I stopped, stood up and coughed. Then I did it again. It took me a moment to realize what was happening. It was so natural to simply breathe while looking down that the entire swim was awkward and weird. I did a couple of laps and then bailed on that and went and used one of the stationary bikes.

Sigh. What a maroon!

If Male Fiddler Crabs Could Write, They'd Post On Red Pill

I'm picking on the red pill (alpha male wannabe) guys, but in truth, I find them a lot more appealing than the cringing, wheedling, beta males who still support the Democrats. After what the Nazis-without-ambition did to Brett Kavanaugh, any man who would support a Democrat should be immediately checked for hazardously low levels of testosterone. My disagreement with the red pill guys is that they are locked into a very narrow world view.

I'm not quite done with The Rational Male, which has its good points. As I've listened, there's been something nagging at me that until now I couldn't identify. This morning, I finally got it. The Rational Male is the book successful, male, fiddler crabs would write if they could write.

That's not so far-fetched if you consider how they could hold a pen in that big claw they've got.

Hahahahaha! Haha. Ha. Err, sorry about that.

The whole book is about getting laid by lots of desirable women. That's it. That's your life's ambition. Nothing transcendent, just lots of sex with cute chicks. No kids, no family, no meaning to your existence, simply technique upon technique, analysis upon analysis, anecdote upon anecdote about how to more reliably get some action. It's well done, considering it's a philosophy tract for members of the Ocypodidae family. It's not quite St. Augustine's The City of God, if you know what I mean.

It's even more shallow than that. In a previous post, I argued that guys without wives and children cannot be alpha males.

In a strictly secular, Darwinist sense, the whole point of being an Alpha is continuing your genetic lineage by siring children and making sure they make it to prominence in adulthood so they can, in turn, become Alphas or mate with Alphas. 100 years from now, a true Alpha will have left his mark on the world in the form of whole platoons of successful progeny.

To be fair, the author is a husband and a father and at no point does he suggest you play around on your wife. His book, taken in the most charitable way, shows men how to learn to be men in the world of sexual competition, both with other men and with women who would prefer to control and effectively neuter you.

However, the book does not suggest that being a true alpha, as I describe one, should be your goal. It focuses myopically on a temporarily important part of becoming a man. I would argue that if that training is not leading you to become a leader in you family, community and faith* than it's nothing more than a how-to-manual for male fiddler crabs.

* - I do mean faith, too. The Rational Male is the perfect synthesis of atheist philosophy. It's got none of that utterly synthetic morality-from-evolution trash in it. It is the shallow pursuit of pleasure, mating for the sake of mating. If you listen to it from the perspective of an atheist, it makes complete sense and all of my complaints listed above are irrelevant.

Red Pill Teachings: Tactically Smart, Strategically Stupid

For a couple of reasons I'll share at another time, I'm reading (listening to) The Rational Male. It's a foundational book for the Red Pill community - men who are focused on being alpha males.

I've spent the day doing various dadly and husbandly things, so I don't have a lot of time for this post. Suffice it to say, the book is all about how to get laid. Don't give in to women, don't spend your time giving them what you think they want because that just makes you seem weak. That's not going to get you action. Be a bit difficult and masculine and you'll find all the women you want.

Also, date several women at the same time. It makes you feel more confident and confidence is a big deal.

Whatever.

Some of the advice is good and I've actually learned a thing or two from it. Having said that, I can't figure out why I'd bother if I were younger and unmarried. What's the point of it all? Have several girlfriends at the same time? Good Lord, what a lot of work. And in the end, what do you have? If the goal isn't to become a husband and father, why not ditch women altogether? There are lots of easy ways to amuse yourself without all that hassle.

My son tells me about a dozen or so young men he knows from his high school who have basically dropped out of the dating scene. Part time work, video games, weed, beer and other pursuits are good enough for them. For that crowd, what's the point of the whole pick up artist mentality? It seems to me that the sloths have the right idea. They're maximizing pleasure per calorie consumed achieving it.

If your goal is to be a husband and father, I can't figure out why I'd be dating lots of women at the same time. I can't imagine the Godly woman I'd want as my life partner would be sympathetic to being one of my "spinning plates." The tactics would seem to drive away the very woman I want.

I've a few more things on this topic, but they'll have to wait for another day. For all of those criticisms, the book makes good points about maintaining masculine pride, even in a long-term relationship. It's probably worth sampling the thing, but not too seriously.

Beta males in action. ;-)

What If He Did It?

Let's assume Kavanaugh is guilty and 36 years ago, as a drunk, high school boy, he got randy with you when you were also drunk. You made your escape one way or another, but told no one.

From that day to this, Brett Kavanaugh leads a blameless life. He rises to the top of his profession to the point where he is nominated for the Supreme Court, an honor only a tiny handful of people will ever experience. Every other woman who has had any significant interaction with him swears on stacks of Bibles that he's a gentleman and worthy of respect. It's clear beyond all reasonable doubt that whatever he did with you was a one-of-a-kind aberration.

Now you decide to confront him? Now? The dude has been letter perfect from the day he felt you up to this, but you figure that's enough to ruin his life?

What kind of sick, psycho witch does something like that?

BREAKING: Brett Kavanaugh May Be A Homophobic Werewolf

This may be the most serious charge yet. NBC has a blood-stained letter with copious amounts of wolf hair inside from an unnamed source that has no details, but some experts find it credible.

Breaking: My Source in Washington DC emphasizes the new 4th accuser, first delivered through Senator Gardner’s Office, is extremely anonymous. Delivered by the mailman. Many details lacking. Stressing caution with reporting this. But it’s out there via NBC News #kdvr

— Joe St. George (@JoeStGeorge) September 26, 2018

You can trust him. Someone is pointing an expensive camera at his face and he's wearing a cool jacket.

Don't get carried away with this. He may just have an early stage of lycanthropy. More reports as events unfold.

Another factor to consider is that many of the same people who use so-called "biology" to dismiss the existence of werewolves also use that so-called "science" to claim that babies come from the union of one man and one woman. Some experts say that it's possible that Brett Kavanaugh is a homophobic werewolf.

The Perfect Supreme Court Nominee

... would be a biker dude.

We tried the boy scout and that didn't work. The progressives are now accusing Brett Kavanaugh of running a gang rape ring in college. They know this because their witness went to 10 parties where this happened. After 9, she still wasn't sure if she saw a pattern or not, you see.

Just like all of the other accusations, it's impossible to disprove since there are no witnesses, no times, no dates, no locations and it happened over 30 years ago. As Frau Hirano (D-Hawaiian Reich) might say, "He has no right to a prezumption of innozence! He is a Jew! Err, a man! Yes, he's a man!"

Since being a good guy is worthless, we might as well start nominating people who listen to the accusations and respond, "That was nothing! You should see what I did with a pool cue at the Black Cat Bar!" And then he whips out his phone and shows videos of unspeakable acts.

Rich Lowry made this point with considerably more aplomb (and got paid more for it) here.

(T)he dark view of our politics that has driven the Trump phenomenon for three years now is impossible to gainsay. Who can watch the frenzied assault on Brett Kavanaugh and say that it’s wrong?

Yep. The answer is to find someone so awful that you can't claim they did anything worse than what they really did.

Once we get to that point, we might talk about the issues.

Nahhhhhh.

"I have witnesses that claim you beat two men senseless on the night of April 4, 1995!"
"That's outrageous! It was three men."
(Photo from Adobe Stock)

Group Uber Alles

There's no "us" without a "them."

Lately, I've been reading (listening to) The Coddling of the American Mind by Jonathan Haidt and Greg Lukianoff. I'm not sure that I'd recommend it and I'm not sure I'll finish it, but it's got some really good things to say.

For this post, the salient point is how humans are hard-wired to form groups and identify with them. The authors cite numerous studies where people are assigned into arbitrary groups, such as by coin flips or other random events, after which they quickly form bonds of defense with that group. Since the grouping is arbitrary, it means that grouping itself is a natural response. Further, when they feel threatened, even members of arbitrary groups jump into their bunkers and prepare to fight.

As long as we emphasize groups and not individuals, we'll get irrational conflicts based on groups.

The Brett Kavanaugh circus is a great example of it. The progs are driving the country apart again, this time with groups based on sex. You can see people in the media and ordinary individuals on Twitter screaming at members of the other group. It's madness.

How far will we pixelate? Will we get to the point where slender, middle-aged, agnostic, progressive, hetero women with college degrees have their own hashtag and fight it out with everyone else, screaming about how they've always been marginalized?

Or maybe we can't handle complex classifications like that and the most we can do is sex and race and maybe sexual orientation. Hispanic lesbians, for example. Even that sounds a bit ridiculous. I'll bet we stop at binary classifications, but on several dimensions with your alliances constantly shifting, based on which outrage is getting the most play at the moment.

One minute, you, a Hispanic lesbian will find yourself railing at a Hispanic hetero man because he's homophobic and misogynistic and the next minute, the two of you will be allies against the Asian hetero woman because she's racist. That sounds about right.

Yay.

Oh, this won't make men jump into their bunkers and load their machine guns. Nope, not at all.

Female Supremacists

With all the talk about white supremacists, you'd think you'd find them around every street corner. At least you'd find them trending on Twitter or something like that. Instead, #BelieveSurvivors is trending. That's a hashtag for those who unquestioningly believe women who accuse men of assault. Here's a graphic for it I saw today.

It's all trending because of the accusations against Brett Kavanaugh. These are accusations that can't name the time, place, date of his assaults nor can they find any witnesses to corroborate the accounts by the "survivors." And yet, we have the hashtag trending, US senators demanding men shut up and a news media treating it like it's a serious story and not a crude hatchet job.

Why? Well, because it's a woman, gosh darn it! Nazis Slaveowners Women don't lie about such things when it involves a Jew black man.

Hmm. Maybe we've been looking for the wrong supremacists all along.

Backyard Dinosaur

I finally got my Nikon D60 artillery piece cleaned. Over time, the sensor had gotten dirty, so all of its photos were coming out blurry. $60 later, it was ready to go. I spent a little time yesterday stalking our backyard dinosaurs, armed with the D60 and its telephoto lens.

This has been a great summer for lizards. It's been hot and humid and we're catless right now, so there's plenty of food and no predators. The lizards have waxed fat and prosperous. I didn't see any of the really big ones, but I did track down this saucy fellow peering at me from under a bush. I left the photos large, so they might be worth a click. Enjoy.

Social Security And The Singularity

Should you take your Social Security benefits as soon as you're able at age 62 or should you wait until age 70 when they max out? What if your mind is moved into an android body and you live forever? Does that change the equation?

Here are the raw income numbers, normalized to a $1,000 SSI income at age 66.

• Age 62 payout: $750
• Age 66 payout: $1000
• Age 70 payout: $1320

If you take the money and run at age 62, by the time you're 66, you will have fleeced the Millenials for $36,000. If you wait for age 66 to steal from the young, you will start catching up by $250 per month. It will take you until age 78 to have brought in the same gross income as if you'd started at age 62.

If you scoff at the idea of spending the whippersnappers' money and wait for 70 candles on your cake, you will catch up at a rate of $570 per month, but now the delta is $72,000. Your gross proceeds from that will equal what you would have gotten starting at age 62 when you hit the ripe old age of 80 1/2.

Will you care at that point? I don't know about you, but I find it hard to walk when I get up in the morning these days because it takes about five minutes for my achilles tendons to stretch out after tightening up all night in bed. I have to hold small print at arm's length to read it. I can't imagine what new treats lie in store for me as I continue to age.

When the singularity comes and we're all moved into android versions of Natalie Portman's body, the #metoo movement having made male bodies illegal by then, our life expectancies will become infinite and we'll have to go back to work anyway, so what difference does it make? Honestly, I only added it to the title to get a few more hits. Whatever.

Working In Non-Android Form

If you choose to continue to work prior to age 66, Social Security will send people to your house to beat you with sticks until you pay them back all of their money. They take back $1 for every $2 you earn over $17,040*. That means if you do anything more valuable than stacking empty cardboard boxes in a store room for a few hours a day, you will be thrashed to within an inch of your life for having the temerity to contribute to society in a capitalist way. Remember, socialism is the future and you have none. As the head of Social Security once said, "Bite me, you greedy exploiters of the workers! Oh, I'm sorry Mr. Sanders, I didn't mean you. Please, continue to live in your three mansions and yap all day about greed and injustice."

I seem to have digressed.

In short, if you're slothful and don't intend to work past age 62, take the money and run. If you're going to work, you will probably want to wait until 66 to steal money from your children. If you wait until age 70, you'll end up looking like Natalie Portman in a jumpsuit, stacking boxes in a closet and nobody wants that.

What's all the fuss about this chick? She doesn't look even vaguely feminine. Meh.

* - This number was arrived at by taking the age that a certain senator began having an affair with his 17-year-old "secretary" and putting a zero in between them.

Jules Verne Novels

... are really stories of applied science. The plots are only there to provide reasons for Verne to illustrate how this or that activity could be performed with the proper application of the knowledge of his time, the 1870s.

Right now, I'm making my way through Mysterious Island. In it, some Union prisoners of war escape Richmond by balloon and are blown by a hurricane all the way into the southern Pacific where they land on an island. There, with nothing but the clothes on their backs, they set about providing themselves with shelter, pottery, tools and more.

Each thing must be constructed from the previous thing and therein lies the applied science. Jules Verne clearly knew a great deal of chemistry, ca 1875, and I'm fascinated by the ways in which things like sulfuric acid can be distilled with what we would consider primitive appliances.

When I read books like this, I want to try it for myself and see how it would work.  What I lack is the applied knowledge of the time. If you lived in 1875, you certainly were a great deal handier than we are today. At home, I need power tools to do just about any job. Imagine living without power tools at all.

One of the characters, all of whom are ramrod-straight, cardboard cutouts of humans, is Herbert and he's a young, amateur naturalist. His discoveries have an innocent charm to them, as if Tim was writing his insect blog without the aid of anything more than a very old set of encyclopedias. Imagine the excitement of leaving the inadequate, written word behind and blazing trails in the field of biology yourself. Wondrous!

From there, I reread Robert Heinlein's The Rolling Stones, but that's a subject for a different blog post.

A Sphinx Moth? I think not! It would be named Tim's Flutterer, Hyles eisele.

Kavanaugh Thoughts

A couple of thoughts on the Kavanaugh Supreme Court fiasco.

What are we doing?

Honestly, what are we doing now? By all accounts, the guy has lived his life like Sir Galahad. Some far-left extremist says he felt her up in high school 35 years ago at a place she can't name with people she can't name at a time she can't name and we paused for more than 10 minutes to consider her accusations? It should have delayed things only long enough to stop laughing.

Double standards

Meanwhile, Keith Ellison, head of the DNC, has been accused of domestic violence with witnesses, medical reports and more. Crickets from the media while we all run around debating whether Kavanaugh groped a girl in high school. And the MSM cry about Trump constantly saying "Fake news?" Bite me.

The worst part

Imagine you're a young man watching all of this unfold. What is the lesson you learn from it? Avoid women. They offer nothing of value. From women, men want:

1. Respect
2. Admiration
3. A physical relationship

What do we have?

1. A US senator telling men to shut up because everything is their fault.
2. Academia telling us that men are horrible, there's a rape culture and men are to blame, masculinity is toxic and on and on.
3. Porn.

Want to know why marriage rates are declining? Kavanaugh is a primer on how it's happening.

Girls, when you want a husband and look around only to find the guys have checked out, there's always an alternative to spending money at the bridal shops.

Mr. Muckle

I was clicking around YouTube, looking for something else, when the artificial intelligence at Google decided to recommend this video to me.

I haven't laughed so hard in a long time. Enjoy.

A Simple Trade War Scoreboard

Blue is the Hang Seng (Chinese) index.
Orange is the SP500.

It looks to me like pushing the Chinese for a little more access to their markets isn't such a bad thing.

Scorched Earth

OK, let me get this straight. If the worst possible option is true, Brett Kavanaugh tried to make out with some chick in high school 30 years ago. She never told anyone until now, he has no track record of such things and women who went to high school with him vouch for him being a gentleman.

Right.

So now progs are simply taking a flamethrower to the conservative Supreme Court nominees because they're terrified that the normals will be allowed to vote on things like abortion and gay marriage instead of having 5 weirdos in black robes dictate the culture to them.

I swear, if his nomination gets scuttled because of this, I'm taking down our American flag and not putting it back up, ever. I thought Hillary getting away with her email crimes was bad, but this is totally insane.

Sadly, I'm not going to fly my Vatican flag as a replacement since Pope Francis has screwed us all, too.

Wife kitteh won't let me fly a Rebel Flag, so it's going to have to be a Jolly Roger.

These Headlines Always Make Me Think

... just what did they think was going to happen?

The death toll went up. Well, yes, it's going to do that. Imagine what happens if it goes the other way.

Billy Bob: Hey, Wayne, look at Jessie!

Wayne: Well, I'll be! Doc Johnson said he was stone cold dead and that was over an hour ago! Looks like he's doing fine.

Billy Bob: Hey, he's asking for something. Maybe he's hungry.

Wayne: What's he saying?

Jessie: Braaaaiiiiiinnnnnssssss.

Billy Bob: Y'all want some brains, Jessie?

Jessie: Braaaaiiiiiinnnnnssssss.

Wayne: Sorry, man, we ain't got no brains. Say, Billy Bob, do they still have those hog brains down at Wilson's meat market?

Billy Bob: I dunno. Maybe. Want me to go check?

Jessie: Braaaaiiiiiinnnnnssssss.

Wayne: Yeah, I think you oughta. Jessie looks powerful hungry. Don't worry, Jessie. Billy Bob is heading down to Wilson's to get you some brains. Want some eggs with that?

Jessie: Braaaaiiiiiinnnnnssssss.

Billy Bob: Wayne, throw me your keys. My truck's just about out of gas.

(tosses keys)

Wayne: Get me some beef jerky while you're there, would ya? Wilson's beef jerky is the best.

Billy Bob: No problem. Want a Moon Pie, too?

Jessie: Braaaaiiiiiinnnnnssssss.

Wayne: You bet! Better hurry. Jessie looks really hungry! And get a case of Budweiser, OK?

Billy Bob: Of course!

Festive Food

I made a huge pot of chicken and sausage gumbo last night, using yellow, red and orange bell peppers instead of green. As they cooked in the roux with the onions and celery, I thought they looked rather cheerful.

It's like they're smiling at you!

Holding The Pope's Beer

Me: What a week it's been! After decades of trying to keep the pederasty scandals buried, Pope Francis just accused the laity of being in league with Satan for wanting the complete truth about the homosexual abuse of our seminarians. How much worse can things get?

Pope Francis: Hold my beer!

Me: What?

Pope Francis: Hold my beer!

Me: I just held your beer a few days ago. Wasn't that enough?

Pope Francis: No. This is a different beer. Now hold it.

Me: I'm exhausted from all of this. I can't take much more of your nonsense.

Pope Francis: Who are you to question me? I'm the pope! Now HOLD MY BEER!

The Vatican's reported deal with China, to effectively abdicate the power of the pope to select bishops to the communist state, has therefore been met with feelings of shock and even betrayal among the faithful, especially those in China itself.

It is easy to see, then, why so many of the faithful in China who have risked so much to remain loyal to the Church now feel betrayed. Hong Kong's outspoken Cardinal Joseph Zen claimed that the Vatican is "selling out" Catholics in China. "A church enslaved by the government is no real Catholic Church," Zen asserted at a news conference.

A group of leading Catholic university professors, researchers, human rights activists and lawyers, mostly from Hong Kong, has published an open letter to Catholic bishops around the world imploring them to pressure the Holy See to reconsider the proposal.

Well, that answers the question of the day: How much worse can things get?

It's probably not even a good beer, more likely it's some lousy, lager-y Argentinian rubbish.