Tuesday, May 31, 2016

C'mon

Bill Kristol's mystery candidate for president reportedly turns out to be David French, a writer for National Review.

I like French. He's a smart, knowledgeable guy, and a principled conservative. He also has no party backing, no organization and no money, and, as far as I know, the thought of running for president never entered his head until he was wooed by Kristol. If someone can make a compelling argument that French can win outright in a four-way race (can't forget the Libertarians), I will gladly support him. If, however, this is part of a #NeverTrump scheme to siphon off enough votes in a few swing states to deprive the Republican and Democratic candidates of a majority in the electoral college, thus throwing the election to the House of Representatives in the hope that the House will choose this (presumably) more likable version of Ted Cruz, then that is utter bulls**t fantasy, and I'm not buying it.

Update: I should have pointed out, I suppose, that the probability of convincing me that French can win outright is zero.

Monday, May 30, 2016

Yeah, by all means, do your best

But the odds still don't look too good: "How to win a fight with a shark".

That toddlin' town

Or is "tottering" more apt?

This is probably the most comprehensive and detailed presentation on Chicago's homicide statistics to be found anywhere (covering everything from aggregate murder totals to how many people get shot in the gluteus maximus or in the "junk").

Getting hard to tell



(H/T: Western Rifle Shooters Association)

All honor and glory to those who paid the ultimate price



Here, the U.S. Marine Silent Drill Platoon does its stuff...

Sunday, May 29, 2016

Last words

"You...you mean....380 and .38 special aren't the same thing?"

"Hey, whadaya know, it really works!"

Dr. Heimlich finally gets a chance to try out his famous maneuver in a genuine, life-threatening situation.

Sunday funnies

Breaking b-a-a-a-a-d.

Probably just selling magazines (H/T: Mrs. Paco).

At Paco Enterprises, we borrowed a line from Ben-Hur to serve as our employee management philosophy: "We keep you alive to row this ship, so row well and live". Other companies have what might be called more progressive ideas.

FAQs from around the country.

Open-carry in other countries...


Friday, May 27, 2016

More healthy psychological behaviors noted

"The pup-play movement 'grew out of the BDSM community and has exploded in the last 15 years as the internet made it easier to reach out to likeminded people,' The Guardian's Nell Frizzell explained. 'Human pups tend to be male, gay, have an interest in dressing in leather, wear dog-like hoods, enjoy tactile interactions like stomach rubbing or ear tickling, play with toys, eat out of bowls and are often in a relationship with their human handlers.'"

So, it's a two-fer: a homosexuality and bestiality combo.

Good parenting = racism

"According to a professor at the University of Warwick in England, parents who read to their kids should be thinking about how they’re 'unfairly disadvantaging other people’s children' by doing so.

In an interview with ABC Radio last week, philosopher and professor Adam Swift said that since 'bedtime stories activities . . . do indeed foster and produce . . . [desired] familial relationship goods,' he wouldn’t want to ban them [well, thanks for that, perfesser! - Paco], but that parents who 'engage in bedtime-stories activities' should definitely at least feel kinda bad about it sometimes.'"

Sounds about right. Let's create an even bigger pool of ignoramuses so nobody's feelings will get hurt.

Happy Feet Friday

In commemoration of Memorial Day, here's Kay Kyser and his band playing a WWII favorite, Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition.

Thursday, May 26, 2016

Wait...I blew myself up for WHAT?

“The word for virgin has been mistranslated. The original word that was used in the Koran was the word for raisin. Martyrs would get raisins in heaven, not virgins.”

Wednesday, May 25, 2016

So you want to own a machine gun

Interesting stuff for those who like a little staccato firepower.



(H/T: The Fire Arm Blog)

Katie Couric's mad trick photography skillz

Noted television burn-out Katie Couric recently produced an anti-gun documentary that used some clearly dishonest editing to discredit 2nd Amendment advocates. As reported in the Washington Free Beacon:
“Katie Couric asked a key question during an interview of some members of our organization,” he said. “She then intentionally removed their answers and spliced in nine seconds of some prior video of our members sitting quietly and not responding. Viewers are left with the misunderstanding that the members had no answer to her question.”
Here's a tip, KC: if you're going to be this dishonest, you'd better be a lot less obvious about it.

Update: Much more from Ed Morrissey at Hot Air, including astomishing pretty predictable responses from Couric and the program's defenders.

I guess this is an exemplar of the "magical realism" style of journalism.

The big climate lie

How a third became a majority.
We find that 66.4 percent of abstracts expressed no position on AGW, 32.6 percent endorsed AGW, 0.7 percent rejected AGW and 0.3 percent were uncertain about the cause of global warming. Among abstracts expressing a position on AGW, 97.1 percent endorsed the consensus position that humans are causing global warming.
H/T: Tim Blair

Tuesday, May 24, 2016

Follow-up

In retrospect, I believe I probably should have provided some context for the title of my post, "One neck, one leash". The phrase was inspired by a scene in The Fountainhead, in which the deliciously sinister cultural critic and collectivist, Ellsworth Toohey, describes the mechanics of totalitarianism (a system of which he heartily approves):
Everything I said is contained in a single word – collectivism. And isn’t that the god of our century? To act together. To think – together. To feel – together. To unite, to agree, to obey. To obey, to serve, to sacrifice. Divide and conquer – first. But then, unite and rule. We’ve discovered that one last. Remember the Roman Emperor who said he wished humanity had a single neck so he could cut it ? People have laughed at him for centuries. But we’ll have the last laugh. We’ve accomplished what he couldn’t accomplish. We’ve taught men to unite. This makes one neck ready for one leash. We found the magic word. Collectivism.
In the film version, these words are spoken by the marvelous Robert Douglas in what is (in my opinion) his greatest movie role. I linked to a YouTube clip of the scene a year or so ago, but I think it has been taken down. If you haven't seen the movie, that one scene, alone, is worth the price of admission.

Monday, May 23, 2016

Remember to say "sleaze and thank you"

Virginia Governor Terry McLowlife is being investigated by the FBI for "possible campaign violations":
McAuliffe is a one-time board member of the Clinton Global Initiative, the foundation set up by former President Bill Clinton and likely Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.

The former chairman of the Democratic National Committee from 2000 to 2005, McAuliffe was also a co-chairman of Hillary Clinton's 2008 presidential campaign.

Records show more than 100 donors contributed to both the foundation and McAuliffe's campaign.
What a coincidence!

As Michael Walsh so accurately said, the Democrats are a criminal organization masquerading as a political party.

Update: More on the donation made by Chinese billionaire Wang Wenliang (I wonder what possible interest he can have in the politics of my beloved Commonwealth?)

Monday movie

Some good, old-fashioned anti-communism in this episode of The Big Picture, a television series produced by the U.S. Army in the early 1960's. This episode boils down the history of communism, and includes some very interesting archival footage.

Sunday, May 22, 2016

Grade A hypocrisy

"National Security Advisor Susan Rice told graduates at Florida International University that the presence of too many 'white, male, and Yale' staffers is posing a threat to the security of America."

As if Susan Rice, non-white, holds any opinions significantly different from those of Ben Rhodes, lily-white. You have all the colors, ethnic types, sexual "orientations", and races imaginable under the Obama administration, and it's all just a rainbow of leftist group-think. Ignorance, political partisanship, and presidential hero-worship are the glue that holds this administration together, and no amount of superficial "diversity" is going to change that fact.

I guess "One neck, one leash" would have been a little too obvious

"Democratic presidential frontrunner Hillary Clinton said Sunday that her campaign’s main slogan is 'Stronger Together' in an effort to define her candidacy’s message as Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) and Donald Trump have successfully done with concise phrasings of their own to gain support this election season."

Nah, let's go with truth in labeling:

Sunday funnies

If meat eaters acted like vegans...



Meanwhile, in Russia...



Important safety tip: when you buy a tree at a home improvement store, shake it - or, rather, have one of the employees shake it - real good before you leave (H/T: Mrs. Paco).

Bison for sale, housebroken.

Key and Peele capture lightning in a bottle.



Friday, May 20, 2016

A soldier's soldier

I may have posted about this before, but it just cropped up in the news again, and bravery of this order should be extolled as often as possible: "That day a lone Gurkha took out 30 Taliban using every weapon within reach".

So, what's up with Target?

I'm not talking about their bathroom policy. I'm wondering why they would sue a customer who saved a 16-year-old girl from a knife attack?

Happy Feet Friday

Benny Goodman and the boys in a live radio broadcast of Clarinet Marmalade on the Camel Caravan program (intro by Johnny Mercer, and hot solo by one of my favorite trumpet men, Ziggy Elman).

Thursday, May 19, 2016

Radical leftism finally enters the rubber room phase

Not long now before they'll be fitting NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio for a bespoke straight jacket and feeding him apple sauce on a long spoon through the bars of his cell:
Greeting customers as “Mr.” or “Mrs.” — or even not using the pronoun “ze” or “zir” — could prove costly for New York City businesses under rules drafted by Mayor Bill de Blasio’s bureaucrats.

The Gotham mayor’s Commission on Human Rights says entities that fail to address customers by their preferred gender pronouns and titles are in violation of the law and could be subject to penalties of up to $250,000.
Absolutely nuckin' futs.

The latest threat to life and limb?

Mortarboards.

Priorities

Texas Governor Greg Abbott: "JFK wanted to send a man to the moon. Obama wants to send a man to the women's restroom. We must get our country back on track."

EgyptAir passenger jet down

So far, it looks like a terrorist attack.

God have mercy on the souls of the passengers, and may the psychopaths responsible one day be exterminated.

Wednesday, May 18, 2016

Zero tolerance = Zero common sense

Five-year old girl suspended from kindergarten for bringing a bubble-blowing "gun" to school.
“My reason for doing this story is because the principal didn’t seem like she wanted to have a conversation with me this morning about it,” said the mother. “It was a very superior attitude. She made it very clear that she didn’t care what I had to say and that it didn’t matter what I said. It was something that she was going to enforce no matter what.”
No tyranny like a petty tyranny.

In loco parentis - emphasis on loco.

I've heard of a clown car

But this looks more like a clown ambulance: "University forms ‘first responder … Bias Response Team’ made up of 7 top-level administrators".

Nailed it

Sen. Tom Cotton has captured the revolting essence of the Obama White House, referring to the president's national security team as a collection of “yes men and fan boys”.

Monday, May 16, 2016

I'll spare you the maddening details...

...but this poster very nicely summarizes a lot of what's going on at my government agency right now:

Hey, when a former Spetsnaz soldier talks AK rifles...

... I listen.

Minister without portfolio

And without pants, too, if I know Bill. In any event, Hillary wants to employ her husband as an integral part of her junta.

Sunday, May 15, 2016

Bernienomics explained

R.I.P., Madeleine Lebeau

The last member of the cast of Casa Blanca has died at age 92.

Hillary Clinton loses lock on natural constituency

"Welcome to a Bernie Sanders Wiccan ritual".

Sunday funnies

Do they hunt swans in Russia? I'm not sure why else you would need a swan blind...



Russian lumberjacks don't let a shortage of axes stop them...



Reminds me of employee performance evaluation time at Paco Enterprises.

Music hath charms to soothe the savage moose...



A guy does da right t'ing, tries to be a gent, and look what happens (H/T: Mrs. Paco).

"Scientists discover first ever group of lesbian gorillas" (H/T: that relentless seeker after knowledge, Captain Heinrichs).

Saturday, May 14, 2016

Friday, May 13, 2016

Uncle Barry's Carnival of Weird

As Larry O'Connor says over at Hot Air, "if anyone wondered what President Obama meant when he promised to 'fundamentally transform the United States of America,' now they know":
The Department of Education will instruct every public school in America to provide “suitable” bathroom and locker room facilities to match transgender students “chosen gender identity.”
Who would have imagined, just eight years ago, that the federal government would wind up arrogating to itself the right to dictate the establishment of unisex bathrooms in public schools? I do not mean it facetiously when I say that Barack Obama is Public Enemy Number One. And note well how this lame duck, with less than a year to go in his horrible reign, is still assiduously dropping bird s**t over our Constitution and our culture.

Update: An obvious outbreak of transphobia in Chicago as restaurant patrons violently object to a man using the women's bathroom - and, um, choking an 8-year-old girl into unconsciousness.

Update II: Go Texas!

Happy Feet Friday

Jimmy Lunceford and his orchestra jump and jive with Rhythm is Our Business.

Wednesday, May 11, 2016

Some astonishingly frank observations coming out of the UK

From the “founding  chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission”, no less. A sample of Trevor Phillips’ exercise of common sense (or uncommon sense I suppose it should be called, these days):
“Squeamishness about addressing diversity and its discontents risks allowing our country to sleepwalk to a catastrophe that will set community against community, endorse sexist aggression, suppress freedom of expression, reverse hard-won civil liberties, and undermine the liberal democracy that has served this country so well for so long.”
One more taste:
“We maintain a polite silence masked by noisily debated public fictions such as ‘multiculturalism’ and ‘community cohesion’.

“Rome may not yet be in flames, but I think I can smell the smouldering whilst we hum to the music of liberal self-delusion.”

Snake-oil salesman touts his success

"President Obama’s Deceitful Legacy Tour".

The reality?


Public Enemy Number One

"Hobosexuality"?

Some, er, important new research out of Canada (H/T: Captain Heinrichs).

Monday, May 9, 2016

Monday movie

To commemorate the decline of civility and of the integrity of democratic institutions, how about a two-minute hate?

Sunday, May 8, 2016

Happy Mother's Day!



Kick back and relax!

Sunday funnies

Making things clear to the meanest intelligence: Be careful, comrade!

Canadian couple's first trip to Florida...





I suppose if you ever wanted to eat toast in the dark, this might come in handy.

I would have told the cops the monkey was driving.

Friday, May 6, 2016

The amateur

Ben Rhodes' curious rise to the top of Obama's inner foreign policy circle (or "Reason #937 Why Obama is the Worst President in American History").

Sorry to sound like a broken record on the subject

But you'd better load up while you can: "Six Parts of Hillary Clinton’s Plan to Disarm Citizens".

WW II comes to Virginia

William Geroux has written what appears to be an interesting book about U-Boat activity off the coast of Virginia: The Mathews Men: Seven Brothers and the War Against Hitler’s U-Boats.

Not surprising

After all, he is a meat head: Rob Reiner says Trump supporters are racists.

Happy Feet Friday

The dulcet tones of Dinah Shore, in Along the Navajo Trail.



Thursday, May 5, 2016

Yikes!

I knew great white sharks were large, but I didn't know they were this large.

BTW: Dude, what are you doing on the outside of the cage?

As the old saying goes...

... the problem ain't so much what we don't know, it's what we know that ain't so.

For decades, the reputation of the greatest Tiger of them all, Ty Cobb, has been tarnished with allegations of racism off the field and bloody-minded tactics on it (e.g., sharpening the spikes on his shoes in order to intimidate basemen with his slides). Paul Beston, at City Journal, reviews a recent biography of Cobb by Charles Leerhsen and discovers that, while Cobb did, indeed, have issues with his temper, many of the charges against him stem from the largely made-up scribblings of a hack sportswriter named Al Stump. A sample:
Time and again, what Leerhsen discovered through exhaustive research undermined the Cobb created by Stump, who didn’t source his work (“because he produced fiction,” as a contemporary said). Leerhsen could find no tangible evidence that Cobb hated blacks. On the contrary, he spoke in support of baseball’s integration when asked—and he wasn’t asked, as best Leerhsen can tell, until 1952. “The Negro should be accepted and not grudgingly but wholeheartedly,” Cobb said then. “The Negro has the right to compete in sports and who’s to say they have not?”

Wednesday, May 4, 2016

Hard to argue with this

"There is virtually no area of policy where Donald Trump might go astray where Hillary Clinton can be rationally expected to produce a better result."

High caliber

B. Gil Horman at American Rifleman talks about one of my favorite calibers: the .41 Remington Magnum.

RIP - Charlie Keating IV, Navy SEAL

An advisor to the peshmerga, Keating was killed in combat with ISIS in Northern Iraq on Tuesday. God rest his soul and comfort his loved ones.

Tuesday, May 3, 2016

The lights are going out all over the world

Ted Cruz has suspended his presidential campaign after losing in Indiana.

A sad day for Cruz; a sadder day for the rest of us.

Update: A little positive spin from Roger Simon.

The problem with "smart" guns...

...is that they're really pretty dumb.

Definition of the day



H/T: Michelle Obama's Mirror.

The ship of state is taking on water

At an alarming rate. Dennis Prager provides a brief outline of our woes.

We will fight on, of course, as Prager says. But it is hard not to think, sometimes, that America has begun the great winding down.

Monday, May 2, 2016

Truth in labeling



H/T: Moonbattery

Another act of asinine presidential clemency

"OBAMA FREES USS COLE BOMBING TERRORIST":
Sabri was rated as a high risk terrorist who is ”is likely to pose a threat to the US, its interests, and allies”, but that was no obstacle for Obama who had already fired one Secretary of Defense for being slow to free dangerous Al Qaeda terrorists and was browbeating his latest appointee over the same issue.

Sunday, May 1, 2016

Sunday funnies

Russian man caves.

Prehistoric cat...



Young people should start thinking about their future early...



Bear country...



Kevin and Celina's love story - interpreted via a 73-second video featuring LEGOs.