Quote of the day—Thomas Sowell @ThomasSowell

People sometimes ask if I have tried to convince black “leaders” to take a different view on racial issues. Of course not. I wouldn’t spend my time trying to persuade the mafia to give up crime. Why should I spend time trying to convince race hustlers to give up victimhood?

Thomas Sowell @ThomasSowell
Tweeted on June 7, 2020
[See also Reality is difficult.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Lauren Footman

The disease of racism spreads in an America where justice, fairness, and the rule of law do not work for everyone. The system is not broken — it is working exactly the way it was designed to. This is the same system that first enslaved Blacks, then segregated Blacks, then imprisoned Blacks, and now blatantly kills them.

Lauren Footman
May 2020
CSGV Responds to Unrest in Minneapolis and the Arrest in Killing of George Floyd
[What? Please show me where, in the U.S. Constitution and/or Federal law, it is “designed” to spread “the disease of racism”.

One has to wonder what color the sky is in Footman’s universe. She’s working for CSGV (Coalition to Stop Gun Violence) and, as we know, delusions are common in the anti-gunowner crowd so it wouldn’t be too surprising to see the delusion extend into this context as well.

But more likely than Footman being delusional, is that she is deliberately trying to destroy our country. Anti-gun as well as insisting the country as designed is fundamentally at odds with equality before the law can only mean one thing as far as I can tell. She wants a completely new design for our country. And the quickest way to accomplish that is to destroy it.

Fanning the racial tension flames, without evidence to support racism was even an issue in the precipitating event, is worse than actual racism. It’s deliberate deception which directly lead to the deaths of dozens of people and 100s of millions of dollars in property loss. It’s easy to conclude this is by design.—Joe]

Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone (CHAZ)

There has been some blog and reddit posts about Antifa taking over part of the Capitol Hill area in Seattle:

There are a few conventional media stories but not many:

As I reported some of the links people have been sending me and what I have read on the blogs Barb kind of rolled her eyes.

25+ years ago Barb lived on Capital Hill. For another 20 years she worked not far from there. She describes the people who live there as “in transition”. “They’re mostly young and trying to figure out who they are.” That some people moved some barricades isn’t all that much out of character for that demographic. They think of themselves as revolutionaries but it’s more of an extended teenager rebellious phase they are going through.

Today I visited CHAZ. It’s kind of a nothing burger. I half expected checkpoints with masked armed people and snipers in windows and on the rooftops. I brought my telephoto lens and planned to take pictures from a block or more away. I worried about someone seeing me, multiple people flanking me, taking my camera, and/or hurting me. I hid my camera under my loose fitting flannel shirt.

Continue reading

Quote of the day—Ashley Varner @AshNVarner

The gun range is not a good first date… if the girl shoots better than the guy.

Ashley Varner @AshNVarner
Tweeted on June 7, 2020
[I figured we needed something on the lighter side of the spectrum for today. We will return to our regularly scheduled depressing observations of our current situation tomorrow.

I could see Ashley’s assertion being true in the general case. I would like to think that if my first date with a woman demonstrated she was a much better shooter than me I would have been inclined to propose on the second date.—Joe]

Timely

Once a week my kids (all adults scattered among three different states) and I have a video call over dinner. After dinner we play some Internet games or watch a movie together. Weekend before last we watched Back to the Future.

That made this tweet from HollyCabot @HollyCabot all the funnier:

image

Lessons learned

From Twitter:

Quote of the day—Dave Smith @ComicDaveSmith

I don’t feel like the divide in the country is left vs right. It’s not authoritarian vs libertarian. At this point it’s sane vs insane.

Dave Smith @ComicDaveSmith
Tweeted on June 3, 2020
[Reality is difficult. It is also difficult to distinguish people without a solid understanding of reality through lack of effort and/or ability versus with those who are actually disconnected from reality due to mental defect.

Something most people don’t understand is that large numbers of people can share the same destructive delusion. Nazism and communism are probably the two most well known examples today but the example are countless and go back thousands of years in human history and almost certainly prehistory.

There is a mass delusion going on all around us. I have no idea how to connect these people to reality. It may not even be possible. Perhaps it will have to burn itself out. Perhaps it will have to be destroyed by those who are more sane.

I believe we are living in a remarkable time and place. A time and place that will be noted in history books for decades if not centuries.

This may be The Fourth Turning: An American Prophecy. It may be something else. But it is something more than I have ever seen before and I remember the 1960s.—Joe]

Facebook’s ‘Ban The NRA’ page

The NRA is the nations oldest civil rights organization and there is a Facebook page with the name “Ban The NRA”. I find it interesting that Facebook allows this. Would they allow a “Ban Black Lives Matter” page? How about a “Ban Muslims” page?

Perhaps so. I’m certainly not inclined to test it and find out as I don’t have an interest in participating in that sort of movement.

It appears the ‘Ban the NRA’ page is open for anyone to comment on. Perhaps free speech is welcomed.

The rifle that wasn’t

From a private group on Facebook:

Had a helluva time zeroing it at 25m, and at 100m it was all over the place. And some of the holes on the paper looked wrong…some of them were kind of…oblong. He’d bought some really cheap ammo online, so we were suspecting something was amiss with the ammo. Perhaps reloads sold as factory made. Then we got back to my place, he pulled the upper off, looked down the barrel, said it looked kind of funny. So I looked down the barrel. Then I quickly took my AR apart so I could look down it’s barrel. Then down his barrel again. Then mine, then his.

HIS HAS NO RIFLING.
It’s a fucking AR15 *smoothbore*.

No photo description available.

The targets are from 25 meters. The one on the left is the smooth bore. The one on the right is a normal rifle.

I’m sure the “rifle” owner is far less amused than I am.

Gather evidence for the trials

Via Milo we have news confirming it’s time for the adults to take charge (see also here and here):

A group of Minneapolis City Council members have announced their intentions to proceed with disbanding the city’s police force.

Council president Lisa Bender made the announcement at a Black Visions Collective and Reclaim the Block rally at Powderhorn Park Sunday, just blocks from where George Floyd lost his life at the hands of police on May 25.

Bender says that the plan is to “end our city’s toxic relationship with the Minneapolis Police Department.”

“It’s our commitment to end policing as we know it, and recreate systems of public safety that actually keep us safe,” she said.

One could make the case these people have carefully reviewed the history of the police in our country and others, decided the early 1800s skeptics were correct and we should go back to volunteer or privately paid watchmen and inspectors rather than a publicly paid professional organization.

Anyone making such a case would risk a charge of manslaughter as I might laugh myself to death upon hearing such a claim. The political left is composed of some of the most ignorant people I have ever met. Among other topics they appear to have no knowledge of relevant political history and/or how it might apply to the present day. The history of professional police forces? No. There is not any possibility of them taking that into consideration in this decision.

One could make the case these people don’t understand what they are doing. They don’t understand that the police actually provide a justice system for criminals rather than have them exposed to mob justice. Mob justice has no due process. Mob justice has not right to be represented by a lawyer. Mob justice has no consistence and proportionality of sentencing. Mob justice results in false accusations leading to being beaten to death within hours.

Maybe they merely clueless. Assuming no evidence to the contrary, at their trials they probably could claim to be useful idiots and get a lighter sentence.

The case could also be made these people know exactly what they are doing. This reminds me of the Sullivan Act. They are deliberately enabling criminals to prey upon innocent citizens.

You don’t think so? Look at the history of the Sullivan Act in the link above. They knew what they were doing.

As incredible as it might seem, they could be deliberately engineering the end of our constitutional form of government. We have people openly stating this is their goal. While I’m not entirely convinced this is the case for everyone advocating the apparent insanity I am certain it is true for many of them. And because of this people should be gathering the evidence for their trials.

Quote of the day—Milo Yiannopoulos@m

I fully support disbanding the police because it’s the only way to save the Second Amendment.

Milo Yiannopoulos@m
Posted on Gab June 7, 2020
[I’m inclined to disagree with the assertion “it’s the only way”. But, I’m willing to discuss the plausibility it is one way.—Joe]

Hate speech

Via Gab.com Speak Freely @getongab:

HateSpeech

Truth.

Men are drawn to borderline personality traits in physically attractive women

Via email from Barron. He says he laughed. That’s understandable. I didn’t laugh. That should also be understandable:

Those with borderline personality disorder have problems regulating emotional impulses and often experience rocky relationships. But new research suggests that many men find traits associated with borderline personality disorder to be appealing in physically attractive women. The study has been published online in the journal Personality and Individual Differences.

The research was inspired by a viral parody video, in which a man provides scientific-sounding advice about the relationship between a woman’s physical appearance, personality, and her dating appeal.

“I had stumbled across the Hot Crazy Matrix (HCM) YouTube video and was struck by its popularity and media coverage it had attracted. It got me thinking about why it resonates with so many people,” explained study author Alyson Blanchard, a senior lecturer at Bishop Grosseteste University.

More information on HCM is available here.

If you think you may be dealing with someone with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). Read this book:

It changed my life.

The Physics of Magnetic Monopoles

Via email from Boomershooter Mike T.

Very cool!

As the commenter Serious Söd6 said:

This is obviously a time lord talking about magic magnets.

Quote of the day—Jair Bolsonaro

Look, how easy it is to impose a dictatorship in Brazil, how easy it is.
The people are locked in their houses.

That is why I want, Minister of Justice and Minister of Defense, that the people arm themselves.

That’s gonna ensure that no motherf*cker is going to show up and impose a dictatorship here! Because it’s easy to impose a dictatorship here. Too easy!
A f*cking mayor makes a f*cking decree, handcuffs people and keeps everyone at home! If they were armed, they’d go to the streets!

And if I was a dictator, I’d want to disarm the people! Just like all the others’ disarmed people before they imposed their respective dictatorships.

That is when our demonstration, and I ask that Fernando and Moro sign the ordinance today…

   (Fernando Alveredo, Minister of Defense)

Because I want to give a f*cking message to these *ssoles, on why I’m arming the people. Because I don’t want a dictatorship here! And it can’t be postponed anymore!

Alright? It can’t be postponed anymore!

Whoever doesn’t accept my ideals, Damares…

   (Damares Alves, Minister of Women, Family and Human Rights)

Family, God, Brazil, guns, freedom of speech, free markets… Whoever doesn’t accept that, is in the wrong government.
  (A message to his Ministers not stepping up due to not supporting such ideals)

Wait until 2022 Sir Avaro Dias? Wait for Alckmin? Wait for Haddad? or maybe Lula, right?  And you can go and be happy with them.

In my government, you are wrong!

It’s to blow it wide, the gun question here!  I want everyone armed!
Because an armed people will never be enslaved!

Jair Bolsonaro
President of Brazil
May 22, 2020
Brazil’s President Bolsonaro: “An armed people will never be enslaved!”
©2020 by Dean Weingarten
[I wonder if Brazil would be a good place to retire. Is Portuguese difficult to learn for an old guy who has only learned one language?—Joe]

Quote of the day—Dinesh D’Souza @DineshDSouza

If you want to live in places that get burned down by rioters while the police evacuate and the politicians in charge celebrate the pyromaniacs, then you should vote for the Democrats in November.

Dinesh D’Souza @DineshDSouza
Tweeted on May 29, 2020
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Leslie Jones

I love that you guys are protesting and see how quick you did it. But I’m gonna tell you, to get the fuck what you really want, we’re going to have to change the fucking system. And to change the system, we have to fucking vote,” Jones said, reflecting on her role in the 1992 Los Angeles riots and expressed admiration for protesters. “You want to burn down buildings? Burn down this fucking Constitution. And we do that by fucking lifting our voice, by fucking voting… That’s how we really show them.

Leslie Jones
June 1, 2020
Leslie Jones: ‘Burn Down This F**king Constitution’
[As one commenter said,

Should we assume that the Thirteenth Amendment is included in that conflagration?

The honesty is almost refreshing. I appreciate her giving us such clarity.—Joe]

Riots are justified

There are people claiming the riots are justified:

Apparently if you can’t get the change you want via peaceful means then riots and massive destruction of property, injuries, and death are part of the acceptable solution space.

If you happen to have someone make such a claim to you please ask them the nature and extent of the violence they would recommend for gun owners such that we can eliminate the oppressive laws we struggle with every day.

Quote of the day—Bastiats_Pen @BastiatsPen

The Governor of Minnesota is a Democrat. The mayor of Minneapolis is a Democrat. The chief of police is a Democrat, hired by the Democrat mayor. Be consistent. Vote Democrat for more of what you are now seeing in Minneapolis.

Bastiats_Pen @BastiatsPen
Tweeted on May 29, 2020
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]

Protestor advice

Via Drishti @Drishti

SoldierPatch

I probably laughed longer and louder than I should have.