We Need To Humbly Admit We Can't Change the Weather

 According to Brian D. Joondeph, Democrats Suddenly Discovered That Summers Are Hot. Gentle readers can read the entire article. It is good, of course. But I wanted to highlight a hyperlinked tweet by Patrick Moore, co-founder of Greenpeace, in which he presents a graph showing temperatures and CO2 over the last 570 million years. The first thing to note is that there is no correlation between CO2 and temperature. The other thing to note is that CO2 levels have been as high as 5,500 ppm, as opposed to the current 420 ppm. There were no SUVs then, BTW. Note too that temperatures have been much, much warmer than today. And the world didn't burn up, nor did all life die out.

The truth is that the media, the UN IPCC, St. Greta of Thunberg, John, Horseface Kerry, Michael Mann, and indeed all the other climate alarmists, politicians, Karens, and so called journalists have been feeding us a myth. There is no era of "global boiling." or roasting for that matter. Yes, the climate is changing, as it always has. That is the truthful part. The lie is that man can do anything about it. We can't. Of course, it would be helpful if we humbly admitted that changing the weather, or the climate is simply beyond our power. It would be even better if we acknowledge that the only one who can is God, and He very wisely did not give us the power to change the weather.

Finally, it would also help if, instead of trying to decrease our CO2 levels, we took action to increase them. Not that it would do much, see above. But it would at least allow us to go about our days looking to improve the living conditions of the people around us.

A Solution Looking For A Problem

Jack Hubbard, over at Townhall.com has an article entitled Lab Grown Meat's Promises Don't Match Reality. Lab grown meats will not be better for the environment, will not be cheaper, and I doubt that we will discover that it will be as nutritionally dense and satifying as the real thing. Indeed, one suspects that the real purpose of creating the illusion of saving the planet is to destroy the cattle industry and force us to eat bugs, while of course the kreptocratic elites are allowed to nosh on real beef

It's official: Lab-grown meat may be coming to a restaurant near you. In June, USDA gave two lab-grown meat companies the green light to begin production and sales, kicking off a flurry of public interest and gaining the attention of prominent investors like Bill Gates and Ashton Kutcher. The federal approval marks a milestone for an industry claiming to be scalable, sustainable, and healthy. Certainly, growing meat from cell cultures is interesting, technologically speaking. But consumers shouldn't swallow the hype from lab-grown meat advocates who claim it will save the planet.

...snip...

Lab-grown meat is an attempt to grow animal cells into meat–without livestock. Lab-grown meat is made by harvesting cells from live animals and then “feeding” the cells with the nutrients in a bioreactor–a sterilized metal vat in a factory.

While it’s approved for sale, lab-grown meat is going to be difficult to find because it is incredibly expensive to produce. The first “cultivated” burger cost a staggering $325,000, and the only cultivated meat commercially available is served in minuscule portions in Singapore.

In a 2021 economic analysis, a chemical engineer calculated that, even accounting for technological improvements, the lowest price for laboratory meat would be between $17 and $23 per pound of meat product. Compare that with the much lower price of natural meat, just below $5 per pound.

Well, so much for costs. But what about saving the planet? As Gentle Readers know by now, climate alarmists are super concerned that cows burp methane and CO2. That cows are merely recycling carbon that is already in the atmosphere is a fact deliberately ignored by the Karens of climate.  After all, to acknowledge that cows might actually reduce carbon in the atmosphere would punch a hole in their balloon.

According to one study, researchers found that scaling up the lab-grown meat industry could emit up to 25 times more emissions than the global meat industry. Another review of lab-grown meat found it may produce a larger share of carbon dioxide, which lingers in the atmosphere longer than methane from cow burps.

As a UC Davis professor notes, “If companies are having to purify growth media to pharmaceutical levels, it uses more resources, which then increases global warming potential.”

So much for cost and the planet saving effects of lab grown meat. But maybe they can make it super nutritious, right? Maybe not...

But scientists developed so-called “immortalized” cell lines that can replicate forever, which are used by lab-grown meat companies to keep a supply of cells available. There’s just one issue: Endless cell replication is the defining feature of cancer. It grows and grows.

Essentially, lab-grown meat could be seen as the equivalent of eating a tumor. A benign tumor, to be clear–lab-grown meat is unlikely to cause cancer in people, according to experts.

But there are also no long-term studies that we can rely on to prove that. “The best way is to give it to people and then ask them 20 years later or 30 years later, ‘Has any of you gotten cancer at a higher-than-normal rate?’ But that’s not a practical experiment,” one biologist told Bloomberg.

In truth, there is no real reason for growing meat in a laboratory. There is plenty of land available for raising cattle, as well as sheep and goats. Much of the land that is used for crops is marginal for that purpose, but is ideal for grazing animals. These additional animals could be used to feed more people. After all, meat, fish and poultry is what our ancient ancestors ate most of the time. You will not find any wild crops other than fruits and nuts in season and these could not sustain them through the year. To survive, they had to kill to feed themselves and their families.

So it remains, why lab grown meat? It seems to be a solution looking for a problem

Also see the Epoch Times piece on the same topic.

The Will to Power

Mark Lewis, in his article The Will to Power the sort of people who rise to and hold onto power for dear life. They are not the best or brightest of us either. Rather they tend to be mediocre individuals, frustrated that nobody else recognizes their incredible wonderfulness. These are exactly the people who should be denied power.

Total power is not something people of strong character feel a need to possess; it is the provenance of the weak: mediocre, unfulfilled individuals of extreme arrogance, who have few moral scruples, and almost no capacity to control their actions, their emotions, their lusts, and their passions—the most dangerous human beings imaginable.

Power consumes those whose vanity and narcissism motivate them to fanciful and never-ending delusions of superiority. Within the human breast, power has its own organic life, worse than the most malignant cancer, ever-growing, never shrinking, with no medicine for its cure, constantly needing to be fed, and that only with more and more of its own kind—the insatiable monster who can never be satisfied, even at the cost of mountains of human skulls. It becomes a disease, an interminable, incurable malady that may not end even at death—it is often passed on to disciples. It is more intoxicating than alcohol or the most addictive drug known to man. Like the hopeless druggie, those craving and possessing power must constantly have their “fix,” and the drug must be increasingly more potent, more costly, and more destructive, to themselves and to others. When conquered by the will to power, a person convinces themselves they are omnipotent, that only they possess certainty, everybody else is inferior, that they alone have the answers, that the noble ends they seek justify whatever means they deem necessary to obtain them, because, in their high-minded vain egotism, only they have the betterment of mankind in view, and that the world simply cannot survive without their guidance. Those who oppose them are opposing Truth, the Only Truth, the True Progress of Humanity, and thus are evil, and must be silenced by any means necessary. And after extinguishing countless human hopes, dreams, and lives, they sit atop the pile, congratulating themselves on the “utopia” they have built, but ever vigilant for more dragons who need slaying. That is power. That isn’t strength, that is uncontrolled human weakness to its most malevolent extreme. It is the story of human history.

The fact is that we have a ruling class in Washington, DC today that is controlled by such people as Lewis describes. And it infects both parties. Joe Biden is 80 years old, and wants another 4 years. But there is Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Grassly, Chuck Schumer, Mitch McConnell to name a few. Even Trump, for that matter. Most of these people are mainly interested in retaining power, and not in the needs of their constituents. If they cared for their constituents, they would have collectively defended the border, maintained a strong defense of the homeland while avoiding foreign wars, kept our industries and jobs at home, supported our energy industries, and kept their noses out of things like education that are not in the federal charter.

Well, maybe demented Diane Feinstein is his (Biden's) equal. Grassley. McConnell. Pelosi. How many other septua- and octogenarians exist in Washington who have plagued the nation for most of their adult lives? On both sides of the aisle, not just Democrats. They aren’t serving the people, they are inflating themselves in their own eyes. And destroying the country in the process. They want one thing—glory in their vision of themselves. They are no wiser than most Americans, they are only more conceited. Look at the mess they have created in Washington and around the country. Could any other group of people have done any worse?

Believe it or not, nobody is indespensable. What we need is to limit government...a lot...and elect those who don't really have much interest in being there.

Mocking the Climate Alarmistas

 At PJ Media, Stephen Kruizer has satirical artical mocking climate arlarmistas entitled Climate Crazies Have Discovered That Summertime Is Hot.

“Weather isn’t climate,” is a popular refrain among members of the Climate Cult whenever a sane person points out that the weather is out of sync with their doomsday scenarios. When the weather does fit their narrative du jour, however, it’s climate.

They’ve been on this see-saw for decades now. The summer of 2023 in the northern hemisphere is a little toastier than usual so — PRESTO! — weather is climate again. It’s easy to make things up when you’re on the side of the political aisle that has decided that words have no meanings and absolute truths are for suckers.

Back in the real world, however, weather drives the climate, which is precisely the issue. If the alarmistas were correct, then with enough hot weather, the climate grows hot. And with enough extreme cold, the climate experiences another ice age. QED. But of course, climate alarmism is not real. It is only an excuse to limit our lifestyle.

The main difference between the climate cultists and those of us who dwell in reality is that we know that can’t control climate or the weather or the sun. They love calling us “climate deniers,” which is not only inaccurate, but also not terribly creative. We are far more realistic about climate than they’ll ever be. Not only do we not deny it, but we understand that it will always be “absolutely overwhelming” because we don’t have a Harry Potter Weather Machine (formerly “Bush/Cheney Weather Machine”) to make weather and climate do what we want.

The elites in the Climate Cult find it impossible to communicate without hysteria and hyperbole. A morning trip to the toilet is an existential crisis for them. If they can’t make someone feel like eating bugs and/or plunging into the darkest despair after a casual exchange on the street, they feel that they’ve failed humanity.

Well said.

Please read Kruizer's article. sometimes it feels good to mock the assinine mentally disturbed climate alarmist braying.

The Left's Fatal Conceit.

Long ago I noted that the Karens of the world were constantly sucking the joy out of pretty much anything the touched in life.  Trick or treat Halloween night used to be a fun night with little pranks and children receiving sweet treats.  Then the Karens stepped in and everyone had to worry that razor blades would lace apples and poison would be injected into candies.  Better to go about begging for dollars for UNISEF.  The message was to give up your joy, children, and do the adults' virtue signaling for them.  But as a child thinks, why bother?

In yesterday's American Thinker Asher Pat had a piece that points out some of the ways the Left (and the Karens of the world are Leftists) keeps stealing the joy and the convenience out of life for the average guy. The article is entitled The Left's War on Joy, and was inspired in turn by an article at the National Review entitled The War on Things That Work.  And example would be air conditioners in the old days used a substance called Freon for coolant.  But the hole in the ozone layer hoax inevitably led to less effective coolants.  Some automobiles have such weak air conditioners that they barely out perform swamp coolers.  

The average Western household is hardly aware of busybodies’ plans to ban or sabotage convenience appliances, from dishwashers to leaf-blowers. They also don’t know that, for years, the water flow in US showerheads is restricted so that they don’t fully enjoy their showers. In the same way, in Europe, vacuum cleaners are less powerful than required for best performance.

A recent article in the National Review entitled “The War on Things that Work“ describes a crusade by what the article calls “the Environmentalist Left” against “convenience” and against “things that work”.

But even more than convenience, the people behind the ungodly and anti-human ideology of Wokeism are after things that we, the humans, crave. “They” are after our joy.

The justification to reduce joy is often, although not solely, “Climate” or “limited resources,” but this nihilistic ideology invariably seeks and finds the rationale to oppose the things that make humans happy.

Pat then launches into a list of some of the most recent things the Left insists will heal the planet if we use them instead of our current "wasteful" appliances that unnecessarily increase our carbon footprint. Most of them either don't really work as well as what they replaced and cause us to have to spend more, get less, and often waste our time. These include things like red meat, mostly from cattle. Cattle, properly raised on grass are the natural and ancient food source for people, providing us with meat, fats, vitamins and minerals as well as leather to protect our bodies from the environment. Gas appliances such as stoves. Up until WWII many people cooked and heated their homes by burning coal of wood. In my own case, both sets of grandparents did this. My mother's parents switched to gas early in the 1950s. Baking on wood was more of an art than a science, as temperatures could not easily be controlled. Gas ranges are also critical to the modern chef because the temperature of the cooking surface can be infinitely adjusted to precisely where you want it. Electric ranges are far inferior to gas. Coffee is even on the block, as some have claimed that coffee farming hurts the planet. First of all, I don't believe them. But I also start my day with a rich espresso, and often end it that way too, and don't see any reason why it should change.

I have experienced already too many of the Left's "great ideas" that don't work as advertised. I switched out regular light bulbs for these more expensive supposedly energy saving light bulbs that, if the lasted as long as claimed, would save me money. But they do not. I bought a low flow toilet, because I had to. You can't buy one that isn't low flow. Now after using the toilet for its intended purpose, I often have to flush three times to get the...er...stuff...to go down. That doesn't seem like I am saving water. These are just the first steps, mind you. They are not done by a long shot. The Left will not be happy, or at least as happy as the Left can be, until everyone but them is reduced to serfdrom or slavery.

The Left is composed of people who refuse to acknowledge the God of creation, and instead like the evil one, insist that they are gods.  As a result, the Left does not recognize the natural rights of men, and instead insist that these rights are theirs to grant or not as they please. Sooner or later they will have to be disabused of these notions. It is the Left's fatal conceit.

The Issue Is Not the Issue, Part 2

On a similar topic to the post below, Jason Reed has an article at townhall.com entitled Don't Cry Over Spilled (Soy) Milk. Reed also takes the position that man made climate change is a serious issue, when in fact it is a hoax designed to scare the public into giving up its lifestyle and freedom. In this case, Reed skewers the non-dairy "milk" market so beloved by the virtue signalling vegans.

Now that the myth that our everyday purchasing choices and diets can stop the changing climate, veganism has become synonymous with saving the planet. As more and more people bump the environment up their list of political priorities, the market for non-dairy “milk” grows.

Veganism is taking hold more than ever before, especially among the young. Almost half of all vegans are under the age of 35, no doubt driven by a desire to stop climate change. While China churns out new coal power plants at a rate of knots, veganism has somehow become synonymous with saving the planet in the West. As a result, dairy milk is out of fashion and the demand for products to replace it is booming.

Among the young, middle-class, and eco-conscious, sales of non-dairy alternatives are skyrocketing. Despite a recent spike in oat milk sales, arguably the biggest runaway success in the non-dairy beverage market over recent decades is soy. According to the World Wide Fund for Nature, global soybean production is 15 times higher today than it was in the 1950s.

What many of these people don't understand is that soy beans are not actually good for humans. Yes, they contain proteins. But those proteins are not complete, whereas the proteins in meat and eggs are complete. Further, soy beans have what are often called "anti-nutrients" which make whatever nutrician they do contain toxic to humans. These toxins are only partially denatured by processing. You can read how vegetarians are degrading their own health and ruining the planet by a former vegetarian Lierre Keith in The Vegetarian Myth: Food, Justice and Sustainability. Meat, eggs, and dairy however are dense in nutrients that are readily available to humans.

The growth of the soy industry has led to the displacement of entire communities in some parts of the world, where people rely on their natural environment to survive, only to see it pummeled by big companies making soy “milk” to sell in the West. The waste generated by soybean production is difficult to dispose of and often leads to damaging pollution. And as if all that wasn’t enough, soy production emits a hefty amount of greenhouse gases – the same charge leveled at dairy farming.

Soy does the same thing to land as do other crops. To raise monocultural crops, you must plow the ground, exposing the soil to erosion and killing the microfauna. As crops take up soil nutrients, they are not replaced because the microfauna and microflora are destroyed. The fact is that if dairy cattle are fed on pasture grasses, they don't need soy, and 77% of soy is used to feed cattle.

Ultimately, those insisting we taper our lifestyles to stop climate change appear to resent technological progress and wish the Industrial Revolution had never happened, so these products’ poor taste probably doesn’t bother them too much. It might even feed into their guilt complex, satisfying their thirst for noble self-sacrifice on the altar of green wokery.

Meanwhile, right-thinking folk will continue drinking dairy milk until the cows come home. Innovation is making farming more sustainable before our eyes. If the planet is dying, it’s thanks to the rampant pollution of China – and no amount of horrid-tasting soy “milk” on your cornflakes is going to change that.

Eating corn flakes, or any cereal, is another thing not really good for you. But of course facts don't matter, because the issue is not the issue.

The Issue Is Not The Issue

 As Saul Alinsky noted, the issue is never the issue.  The real issue is to advance the revolution giving Leftists ultimate power.  So it is with the global cooling...er...global warming...er...climate change alarmism.  All the talk about how the world will end in "12 years" is just to scare the public into giving up their lifestyle and freedom in the name of climate change, while accepting a totalitarian government.  Whatever means necessary, right?  It is all farce.

My current reading list includes a book by Nicolette Hahn Niman entitled Defending Beef: The Ecological and Nutritional Case For Meat. She cites many many research papers and demonstration projects that show that properly managed cattle grazing returns desertified soils to health, while actually sequestering between 1.2 and 1.5 tons of CO2 in the soil per year. They thus support the grasslands, the soil microfauna and microflora, and bring great biodiversity to the environment, while providing humans with tasty and nutrient dense food.

One thing that bothers me about her book is that she evidently buys into the global climate change hoax, and is at great pains to show that contrary to the claim that beef is a generator of green house gases (GHG), in fact properly managed cattle herds have a net negative affect on GHG. Of course she is right, but like everything else, since the issue is never the issue, her presentation of fact after fact debunking the claims falls on deaf ears. So sad, because so many people can be helped out of poverty and malnutrition by using the methods she endorses.

(As an aside, I have been on what is termed a "carnivore diet" for about a month and a half now, and have noticed improvements in my health already.  I no longer struggle to climb stairs and even do so while carrying 5 gallon water bottles.  I am mentally more alert, and have noted my upper body strength returning.  But I digress; back to the subject at hand.)

So, it seems, a new book by Judith A. Curry, Ph.D. Climate Uncertainty and Risk: Rethinking Our Response will be ignored by the climate alarmists. Ms. Curry, a geoscientist has teamed up with a mathematician to discover that climate models can not accurately predict the weather 100 years from now. I could have told her that 20 years ago. The models metorologist use to predict the weather now can not predict with any certainty what will happen in 24 hours. It is hubris to think they can know what will happen in 100 years. But of course the climate models touted by the UN IPCC was never meant to accurately predict the climate, but was there as a beard for climate alarmists to point to when scaring the public.

At the American Thinker today Jerome R. Corsi has an excellent book report on Curry's book entitled A Leading Climate Scientist Expresses Dout About the Veracity of the Global Warming Movement.

In her new book, Curry acknowledges that a changing climate “has been the norm throughout the Earth’s 4.6-billion-year history.” She refuses to abandon the idea that we humans “are also changing atmospheric composition by increasing the emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases,” but she adds an important caveat:

This redefinition of “climate change” to refer only to human-caused changes to the atmospheric composition has effectively eliminated natural climate change from the public discussion.

The result is that the common parlance refers to “climate change,” with no mention of natural climate variability. Any change that is observed over the past century is now implicitly assumed to be caused by human emissions to the atmosphere. This assumption leads to connecting every unusual weather or climate event to human-caused climate change from fossil fuel emissions. Having acknowledged that climate change is the “norm” throughout the Earth’s 4.6-billion-year history, Curry understands that this politicized attribution of all climate change to humans burning hydrocarbon fuels is nonsense.

You could knock me down with a feather. For those of you interested in the actual facts, you will appreciate the article, and might want to get Curry's book. But don't expect it to change anybody's mind on the other side. For them, the issue is not about the issue. It's about how to enslave you and me as if we were machines to do their bidding.

Doing the Honorable Thing

 Molly Slag is a new writer at the American Thinker, but who is another insightful essayist. Today she points out that The Bible Undergirds American Law. This is so true, and like so much of our American culture, it is taken for granted by most people. Most who do not understand this point do not realize the great gift they have been granted.

We can gain an insight into just how far America has fallen by examining two facts that are neither generally known nor mentioned today: (1) The common law of England is the fundamental law of America, and (2) Biblical morality is embedded in the common law of England.

Someone will no doubt object to Fact No. 1 and assert, “The US Constitution says that it is the supreme law of the land.”

True. The US Constitution is the supreme law of the law. But the common law of England is the fundamental law of the land. Let me explain.

Before the Founders signed off on the Declaration of Independence, the thirteen sisters were thirteen British colonies, and their law was the common law of England. After they executed the Declaration of Independence, the thirteen sisters were thirteen sovereign states, and there was a puzzle as to what their law should be. Over the span of a few months, all thirteen adopted the common law as their law.

Does that seem odd? Not at all, as the very purpose of the revolution was to preserve and protect the colonies’ rights and privileges under the common law. All those rights now enshrined in the US Constitution’s Bill of Rights originated in the common law, including the principle of “No taxation without representation.”

...snip...

And what about Fact No. 2, the Biblical basis of American law? One of the bedrock principles of the common law is that “Christianity is Part of the Common Law.” Here we must be quick to explain that this principle is not about Christian theology—not “Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.” This principle is about Christian morality; that is, Biblical morality, that is, Judeo-Christian morality.

Many readers are now asking, “Why have I never heard this before?” The answer is that this principle is out of fashion. Although this principle remains in the books of the decisional literature, it has fallen into disuse among the judges as out of style. Likewise, no doubt many readers have never heard that the Supreme Court of the United States has declared that “America is a Christian Nation”.

We generally applaud things like the recent striking down of Roe v. Wade on the grounds that it was never within the Supreme Courts or the Federal government's perview, but also on the grounds that it set up the United States to sanction immorality. But where do we get off declaring something immoral, but from our Christian beliefs. God declares what is moral and what is not. Moreover, even if you do not believe the in the God of the Bible, you must as an American believe in the principles outlined by Slag.

The Left talks endlessly about indentity and racism, sexism and all the rest. All that is garbage. Our true identity is as Americans. If you do not believe in these principles, perhaps instead of trying to change America, you should find where your prinicples are already in practice and move there. But that would be the honorable thing to do, and Leftists are not very honorable.

Climate Alarmist Codswallop

Comedian Kevin Downey, Jr. at PJ Media writes humorously about just how wrong climate alarmists have been in Wrap Tinfoil Around Your Doorknob To Keep Eco-Doom Nutjobs Way: 56 Years of Climate Codswallop That Never Happened. Downey slams famous Cassandras such as Paul Ehrlicht, Al Gore, and St. Greta of Thumberg as well as minor characters like AOC while trying to fit in as many synonyms for "nonsense" as possible.

Soap-dodging prairie fairies have been ringing the Chicken Little climate klaxon for at least five decades. That means we are celebrating more than 50 years of “the sky is falling” horsefeathers.

Every climate gloomster has one thing in common: when it comes to their grim predictions for the planet, they’re all batting zero.

One other thing all of them have in common is that none of them is qualified to be pronouncing authoritatively on the climate, let alone scaring the public. At least Paul Ehrlict is a scientist, although his specialty is butterflys, not climate.  None of their predictions have every come true, yet they keep doubling down. They are like cultists who constantly predict the end of the world for next Tuesday, only to have to revise their prediction again and again. Why people listen to this balderdash and believe it is a wonderment.

Good and Bad Advice From The Lone Ranger

Cary Kozberg has some good advice for those who carry a gun everyday. Like most people I know who do, Kozberg prays he will never have to use it. Like my old Shotokan Sensei, Kozberg believes that you never lose a fight you don't have. You can read about it at The Lone Ranger Had Good Life Lessons, But Bad Gun Advice The Lone Ranger ultimately settled every problem with a gun, but in real life once you are forced to draw that gun, you don't know what will happen. You don't know if your opponent is faster than you, or a better marksman, or simply a cooler head. You don't know. So you are foolish to needlessly risk your life and the lives of others by drawing a gun unless forced to do so.

Like my male contemporaries growing up in the 1950s, I watched TV Westerns. Of all the cowboy heroes I followed, my favorite was The Lone Ranger. To this day, there are moments when listening to The William Tell Overture (TLR’s theme song) will deliver a quick uplift. Inevitably (and unashamedly), I will shout “Hi-yo Silver!” and continue reciting (in my best announcer’s voice) the opening monologue:

With his faithful Indian companion, Tonto, the daring and resourceful masked rider of the plains led the fight for law and order in the early West. Return with us now to those thrilling days of yesteryear…THE LONE RANGER RIDES AGAIN!”

The TV cowboy heroes of the 1950s were heroes because they were exemplars par excellence of “the Good Guy”—knowing Right from Wrong, seeking to preserve Justice and Goodness, and always willing to help those who needed help. Today we call such individuals “sheepdogs.” The code of a true “sheepdog” is accurately reflected in “The Lone Ranger’s Creed”:

Kozberg goes on to list a series of generally good advice for living a happy and productive life. Such codes have been written since ancient times, and the Lone Ranger's code is nothing new. Even the Lone Ranger's vow never to shoot to kill has as its motive a point all men (and women) should subscribe to, that to take a life is a most serious breach, one to be taken with deadly seriousness. Life is sacred because it was created by God, and only he has the authority to take that life. He has granted to us the taking of life only in certain circumstances.

Unfortunately, the Lone Ranger's vow that he will never shoot to kill, only to wound is totally at odds with reality of handguns. The first thing to realize is that gun fights are usually over in seconds. They are seldom long drawn out affairs where one has time to think and strategize. Once someone pulls a gun, the action takes place almost faster than a man can think. Each one is moving, and to aim to shoot someone in the leg, or even to shoot the gun out of the other's hand is...to say the least irresponsible. After all, one must insure that a bullet doen't go astray and hit innocent bystanders. And also remember that the purpose of using deadly force is to stop the threat. Perhaps shooting him in the leg might stop the threat, but remember he still has a gun and can fire it and kill you. That is not stopping the threat. You must shoot center of mass if you shoot at all.

But I’ve learned a bit more about handguns, Keemo Sahbee, and I must respectfully disagree with your noble statement, if only because, in real life, guns don’t function in the way TV and movies portray them:

On-screen guns rarely, if ever, recoil, making it much easier to shoot the gun out of a bad guy’s hand, especially with only one hand. Real-life guns, however, always recoil and shooting a handgun with one hand makes the recoil even harder to control. The smaller the gun and the larger the bullet caliber, the more control is needed.

On-screen, when the good guy fires his/her gun and wounds the bad guy, the fight is usually over. In real life, wounding one’s adversary does not automatically stop his/her ability to keep fighting, especially if his/her shooting hand is still functional. Therefore, it’s imperative that the defender keep firing until the threat of harm is neutralized.

Keemo Sahbee, your TV heroes were always quicker on the draw than the bad guys you fought. You could shoot accurately from the hip, again with little recoil management or sight acquisition needed. After a gunfight, you would twirl your guns back into their holsters. As cool as this always looked, it should never be tried “at home”! Why? Because it requires that a finger be inside the trigger guard—a big NO-NO! Proper re-holstering requires 1) checking one’s environment for any other potential threats and 2) carefully guiding the gun(s) back in their holsters. These last two steps are basic and necessary actions that every beginning shooter learns.

...snip...

Keemo Sahbe, in your world, shooting to wound was a noble approach. It reflects your creed’s affirmation of the sanctity of life. However, in our world, there are times when affirming the sanctity of life may require taking the life that threatens that sanctity. When we use a firearm with the requisite skill and with deep regret, we trust that we continue to follow in your footsteps—working to make this world into a place in which the services of you and all sheepdogs will no longer be needed. We hope and pray that that time comes soon.

The Old Path: The Way

Molly Slag at the American Thinker today has a very good explanation of why America finds itself in deep kimchi. If you have ever had the Korean version of sauerkraut, you will understand that this is a most uncomfortable position. The article is entitled America's Degredation Is No Accident. No, indeed, it is not. Whether you look at it as God removing his protection from us, or as the Left sinking its claws into us, it is the same thing. Just as the Left could not let ancient Israel stand because it was a rebuke to the rest of the ancient world, the United States stood as a rebuke to the Left and Communism. Their lack of success could not be hidden from their people, so the had to attack America.

Many of us are asking that same question as the full panoply of woke hoaxes comes more and more to dominate our life.

What happened? In a single word, the answer to the question “What happened” is “Hijacked.” The government we inherited from the American Founders has been hijacked and turned against us.

George Washington characterized America as “an experiment in ordered liberty.” The experiment promotes liberty, but liberty requires order. Every society has a criminal element. Supplying the order sufficient to suppress this criminal element calls forth the police power of the state. To fulfill its purpose, this police power must be considerable. Washington accurately described this power when he stated, “Government is not reason; it is not eloquence; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.”

...snip...

Today we have an enormous cloud of enemies of the republic, including the US Federal Government, about half of the state governments, major corporations (Disney, Target, Budweiser, Ben & Jerry, Hollywood, Maybelline, etc., etc.), public education, the United Nations, and the WEF, inter alia, all pushing onto the U.S. population the full delusion of the woke hoaxes, from global warming to transgenderism.

This cloud of enemies of the republic employs the police power of the state to repress the political liberty of the citizens rather than to protect the citizens from the criminals.

What has hastened this situation is that the church is no longer a bulwark for liberty. Indeed, often it operates as an enemy of the republic.

Joseph Farah has remarked, “More and more, it’s a lawless time in America. It’s as if people never heard of God’s Ten Commandments.” Writing at American Thinker, Richard Chiero pointed out that churches themselves have turned away from Judeo-Christian values and principles.

Note that the Left is the way that the Devil attacks people today. No one has to actually worship man made idols, though some may do so, but instead, if you place your trust in the state over God, you are worhipping the Devil, including his demons. That is why the state pushes abortion (Molech), the gay, lesbian transgender and whatever else queer agenda (Asteroth/Ishtar) and envy and lust for what others have (Baal). We have alowed the Left to take over so many of our institutions, that at some point, God, who protected us from harm, removed his protection. And as Molly Slag says, no one is riding to our rescue.

Having very forthrightly stated our position: we are alone, abandoned by God, and surrounded, Slag proceeds to what we can do about it. She suggests we release the hounds of revolution...but wait. This revolution is not your typical armed rebellion.

Here are a few examples of non-violent revolutionary actions that citizens can effectively take in pursuit of the restoration of law:

1. Extract children from public schools and either home-school them or send them to non-leftist private schools.

2. Teach children the truth about God, God’s moral law, and sin.

3. Teach children the truth about sex and the requirement of righteous sexuality for civilization.

4. Teach children about the value of family.

5. Start each day praying with the children to thank God for ELLP: Existence, Life, Liberty, Property.

6. Hire math and English tutors for the children.

In accordance with this line of thinking, you can establish your own legal, non-violent revolutionary acts.

While there are good apps for daily bible readings, I personally like the Daily Lectionary published by the Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod. I also like Luther's morning and evening prayer as printed in Luther's Small Catechism by the LCMS. Slag is correct that it takes more than simple belief. Once must place God and Jesus at the center of your life, trust in Him above all things, teach your children to trust in Him. That is what it means to repent: to change one's mind and embark on a new path. Only the new path is embracing the old path.

Degeneracy Is Normality

Adrian Gaty at The Federalist has an eye opening article today that explains Our Cultural Degeneracy Is Actually A Return To Normalcy. Your first reaction might be "What? That can't be right." But if we look at the long history of civilization, we see that this is truly what we are. What changed, 2000 years ago was God humbled himself and agreed to die on a cross because only He could be the perfect spotless lamb sacrificed for our many and manifest sins. 

The ancient demons, who went by many names, were worshipped by the ancients, and even though the Israelites had the God of creation revealed to them, even they succumbed. The demons, who still live today and still tempt people are Baal, Ishtar (or Astarte) and Molech. Ishtar is today working to spread her poison through drag queens, through transgenderism, through pedophilia, through pornography and other sexual perversions. People used to sacrifice to Molech by feeding their first born sons into the fire burning in his belly. It sounds horrible because it is!  Today, it is done through abortion.

If you listen to the advocates of, for example, abortion, and you have a Christian view of killing innocent unborn children, you have to wonder if these people can hear themselves. They talk as if it were a necessity: as if it was a required sacrifice. But in fact, they are speaking as if the demon Moleck were speaking through them. No, read the Psalms. God does not demand sacrifices, but rather a clean and contrite heart. But if you are going to sacrifice to God, other than repenting and doing what is right, it should be something pleasing to Him. And killing your children, whom God gave you, does not please Him.

As our leaders send the world the clear message that America is a nation of pride, a conservative reaction is brewing. Self-proclaimed “normies,” fed up with the nonstop sexualization of children, the identity politics obsessions of our elite, and the corruption of our institutions, are longing for a Hardingesque return to normalcy. The problem with that wish is that normal is exactly what we are now getting, good and hard.

Remember your history and your Bible: Idol-worshipping, sin-enslaved child sacrificers are the normies. The Israelites might have been the chosen people, but they weren’t the only people. There have been far more Sodoms and far more Gomorrahs in the history of the world than there have been Jerusalems — and even Jerusalem has had more than its fair share of pride-worthy content over the years. That it is becoming harder and harder to tell the difference between Old Testament prophets and the latest Libs of TikTok updates shows humanity is not heading toward some new degenerate frontier, but simply back to our old stomping grounds.

Consider that the most successful ancient cultures were so unspeakably degenerate by Christian standards that the 19th-century archaeologists who dug them up had to shovel that dirt right back and cover up their discoveries to avoid corrupting any tourists. It was not until the 21st century, for instance, that the full extent of Pompeii’s perpetual pride festivities was finally made public — a reflection not of our era’s open-minded dedication to scientific inquiry but of the sad fact that after a century of secular humanism, there was nobody left to shock.

In Pompeii, depictions of pedophilia, rape, and bestiality were a part of daily life, and its art celebrated the “blurred boundaries” between sexes and species. As the Smithsonian puts it, graphic depictions of sex were not sequestered in red light districts but celebrated by the culture at large: “At a time when polytheism, not Christianity, was the norm, sexual pleasure — embraced proudly by the very gods the Romans worshipped — was cause for celebration.” I bet they even had parades.

The Apostle Paul was the Apostle to the gentiles. But he did not go to a city and proclaim the Good News of the Gospel in the town square. He would have been instantly arrested, and beheaded, most likely. No, he was instructed to go to each of the cities and regions and preach in the synagogue. Christianity spread because the Jews were already spread throughout the known world. But gentiles often attended services at the synagogues as well. They then took Christianity to their friends and neighbors, which is how it spread from a few thousand in Jerusalem to the entire world. And as it did, the laws and culture began to change for the better. Our heritage, Western Civilization, is Christian culture. We often don't see it because we have known nothing else. But we are seeing now what we really are, and it is not pretty.

If this depravity sounds more like your local public school than an ancient ruin, you are starting to get the picture. If it’s a picture you don’t like, then it is imperative to understand how your elevated morality emerged from the debased practices of the ancient world. There is only one answer, and it involves the displacement of those polytheistic perverts by radical Christian revolutionaries. Yes, today we have Epstein Island. Before the spread of Christianity, however, the world was a veritable Epstein Archipelago. And until God humbled Himself on the cross, every month was pride month.

The first step to defeating the pedagogical porn peddlers and the gender-bending doctors lies in understanding precisely where your own revulsion at them comes from. Tom Holland’s work is a good place to start. Many, many martyrs had to die horrible deaths before the world started getting second thoughts about pedophilia; many more died to make a world with the Christian confidence to outlaw and punish child abuse. If family drag brunch disturbs you, remember: There but for the grace of God go I. It is only thanks to His grace that you’re not out there in your own pair of fishnets, twerking away.

Why does this matter? Why play into the hands of the queer theorists and rebrand sex criminals as the normies? Well, for roughly the same reason that it is important for a military commander to know whether he has encircled the enemies or they have encircled him. If you view child sacrifice as a self-limiting anomaly, the trans craze as a phase, and identity politics as a passing fancy, you’ll be tempted to sit back, relax, mind your own business, and wait for the madness to subside. Those tactics will get you nothing but a nonbinary grandchild.

The first thing you must do is speak reality, the truth. But if you have not read the Bible, you don't know the truth. You don't have to read the whole thing in one sitting. Rather read it day by day using a lexionary to read the whole thing in one year.

The Scribes of the Democrat Party

Kurt Schlicter today takes the mainstream journalists to tasks in a piece at Townhall.com entitled The Deserved Suffering of the Regime Media Hack.

Imagine, if you dare, that you are a regime media reporter. It’s a horrible thought, I will grant you, but consider this part of understanding your enemy so that down the road you can defeat him. So, put yourself in their cheap suits and bad shoes and think about your position in the universe. Right now, entirely as a result of their own choices, regime journalists are about as respected as groin fungus, and their career prospects in this ever-changing media marketplace are significantly worse.

And at some level, the smarter ones understand that. Try hard to consider what some of them probably feel inside. Not all of them. Some are mindless, Marxist robots, but there are some who have a glimmer of understanding of what they truly are. Sure, they can tell themselves the lie that they are the good guys, or girls, or non-binary individuals, but the ones who are not totally gone know the truth.

Regime media journalists are trash.

Many of them live in denial, but they understand the reality. They see the lies they are part of, and they know the truth.

Schlichter specifies some of the lies, so many lies and betrayals. This wasn't what most of them signed up for, but when they bought onto the Democrat program, that is what they became. To those who understand that what they are doing is telling lies, they must feel a twinge now and then. They went in to tell the people about government corruption, and end up telling people the propaganda of the Democrat party.

You know you’re trash. But what you don’t know, because you didn’t study history at the University of College, is what happens next. You majored in narcing out your friends for having views like that there are only two genders – and today you always insist on reporting castration as “gender affirming care” because of course you do - so you missed learning how people through the ages can tolerate injustice for a little while, how they can put up with lies for the time being, and how an unworthy elite can dominate for a bit, but then comes the backlash.

The backlash will come because the machine of which you are an insignificant cog cannot run forever. It’s built on lies, and it’s going to fall apart. Your problem is that you are one of the liars. You are one of the enablers. You are one of the bad guys. And you’re going to be held accountable. History, that thing you’ve ignored so far, will pay attention to you as you go in it as an eager accomplice to corruption.

Of course, as always, I urge Gentle Readers to read the whole article. As for the so called scribes of the Democrat party, you have been warned.

Climate Change in Context

 Ragin' Dave has a post at Liberty's Torch that places the climate change debate in Context. The context is that over the last 10,000 years, the earth has been warmer, indeed much warmer, than it is now. With due respect (ahem) to St. Greta of Thunburg, the we have survived these temperatures before, and we are unlikely to burn up and become extinct. Gentle Readers will want to view the chart in the embedded posting. The fact is that we really could use warmer temperatures for growth of grassland as pastures.

The Left Is The Aggressor...Always

 Not sure what I said to cause the folks over at the Gun Blog Black List to delete my blog Standing By. Perhaps someone might inform me of my offense. However, as they do consolidate a lot of Second Amendment related postings, and this was always a Second Amendment blog, I will keep them on Standing By. I do not ask people to agree with everything on here, but rather to think about what I and others say. If you find after doing so that you may have changed your mind, then I have been of use to you. And even if you don't change your mind, you have better arguments to debate the issues with others.  That is a win too.  In any case, I find your comments equally compelling, and try to answer them so you know that I did read them.

With that out of the way, let us go on to a thought provoking post today at the American Thinker entitled The Assault On Our Rights Is Not Sustainable by John Green. I would note that this sort of article is appearing more frequently, and I think it is more of a warning that unless the Left ceases its aggression against us, the results will not be pleasant. Green offers several alternatives, one of which is not unlike Kurt Schlichter's novel People's Republic. Unfortunately, the Left reads these articles, and they believe that their plan is working! The Left wants, desperately, for us to "fire the first shot." Look how gleefully the media rub their hands together whenever there is a mass shooting and they immediately lay the blame at the feet of the Right, only to have to back off when once again it is shown to be one of theirs that committed the crime. They want to round us up and kill us, they hate America that much.  Hate of course is a powerful weapon, but it destroys the hater.

Now, looking at the article itself, Green is a pains to show that it is the Left that has aggressed in every circumstance. When someone offers debate, they rather respond with attacks on the dissenter's very well being. This bad faith effort has the effect of silencing disagreement, but it does not convince anyone, and so grievences build up.

The Left is big on de-escalation of conflict. They insist on talk rather than action to address rioting, theft, and even violent assault. The one place where they will not use it is in politics. De-escalation of political conflict would require them to do something they are loath to -- debate ideas. The left is instead attacking our right to speech.

Try disagreeing with any element of leftist orthodoxy and see what happens. Challenging any of their core positions will not be met with robust debate, but with insults, cancellation, and even physical attack. Challenge them on:

Climate change -- you’re a denier.

Trans grooming of children -- you’re a homophobe.

Affirmative action -- you’re a racist.

Abortion -- you’re anti-human rights.

2020 election -- you’re part of the big lie.

The Left insists that words can be a form of assault. That’s a silly assertion that one’s opinion is somehow harmful to others. However, they use that claim as justification for “cancellation,” which really is an attack on the well-being of others. In the name of protecting against the harm of differing opinions:

Pundits are deplatformed for challenging leftist narratives,

Teachers are fired for stating scientific facts,

Citizens are doxed or swatted for expressing opinions,

Attorneys are threatened with disbarment for representing unfavored clients, and

Medical licenses of doctors are challenged for opposing government/pharmaceutical industry recommendations.

Cancellation is a genuine attack on the physical wellbeing of those targeted.

The above list is by no means exhaustive. Our grievences go back decades. Remember the Fast and Furious scandal in which the ATF forced FFL dealers to allow cartel straw buyers to buy guns, and walk them across the border to the drug cartels? Or the IRS targeting of conservative groups under the leadership of Lois Lerner? Or even older, what about the murder of Viki Weaver at Ruby Ridge. Green goes on to state that our grievences remain unresolved and warns that this situation must end at some point

There will be a future other than the consolidated power the Left craves. Our polarization cannot continue indefinitely, and it will not resolve while our grievances remain unaddressed. Our current path is unsustainable. There will either be resolution or dissolution.

While it is not irreversible yet, dissolution is already underway. Americans are sorting themselves between blue and red states on the basis of ideology. A massive migration is underway. When the sorting is complete, the United States will cease to be “united.” The reds will pursue God, freedom, and capitalism; while the blues pursue Gaia, central control, and communism. We may yet see how that turns out, but recognize that divorce is rarely pleasant.

Alternatively, we can keep our union if we resolve our differences. That can be done verbally or nonverbally.

Verbal resolution would require us to stop cancelling each other and talk. We would need to reach a compromise that we can live with -- not on basic human rights, but on the social issues that animate both sides.

Nonverbal resolution will happen if we dispense with the debate, and work to crush each other with boycotts, censorship, cancellation, ostracization, or even violence. Nonverbal resolution will require us to fight it out until one side surrenders. In this scenario, one side will win and the other will lose. This appears to be the preferred path of the Left.

On taking the verbal approach, the thing that not up for negotiation or compromise is reality itself. The Left is currently involved in attempting to make everyone believe that things that we can see, feel, touch, hear and taste are not real. This is happening on a thousand different levels. An example is the transgender movement. Anyone with half a brain can see that a woman is a woman and a man is a man from the moment of conception. One either has XX or XY chromosomes, and these will not change no matter what one wishes, no matter what is cut off by "surgeons." Even the Left, I am convinced knows this. But the Left is trying to bully you and me into denying the facts. If they can get us to deny the facts, they have us. It will take guts and determination to run this course, but this is our way out.

Otherwise, we face the nonverbal resolution...

The Push for EVs Is Big Brother Tightening His Grip

Gentle readers are directed to Townhall.com today to an article by David Harsanyi entitled Electric Cars Are a Scam. EVs are also an example of propaganda being expertly weilded by the "elites." In this case, they have provided a misdirection through propaganda so most do not realize the real reason for EVs. Supposedly EVs will "save the planet" while the real reason is to limit our movements.  Harsanyi points to a number of issues with electic vehicles that make them impractical in real life situations, but the most telling reason is at the end of the article:

Climate alarmists might believe EVs are necessary to save the planet. That's fine. Using their standard, however, a bike is an innovation. Because even on their terms, the usefulness of EVs is highly debatable. Most of the energy that powers them is derived from fossil fuels. The manufacturing of an EV has a negligible positive benefit for the environment, if any.

And the fact is that if EVs were more efficient and saved us money, as enviros and politicians claim, consumers wouldn't have to be compelled into using them, and companies wouldn't have to be bribed into producing them.

You, of course, instinctively understand this to be true. In most things, people do not have to be led by our "betters" to find our own  self interests. We can do that all by ourselves, thank you. Rather, the push for EVs as part of a "climate solution" is entirely orchestrated by globalist leaders to usher in the "glorious Utopian paradise on earth." But let's go back for a minute and look at some of the reasons Harsanyi cites in detail.

The left likes to treat skeptics of electrical cars as if they were Luddites. Truth is, making an existing product less efficient but more expensive doesn't really meet the definition of innovation.

Even the purported amenities and technological advances EV makers like to brag about in their ads have been a regular feature of gas-powered vehicles going back generations. At best, EVs, if they fulfill their promise, are a lateral technology.

This is why there is no real "emerging market" for EVs in the United States as much as there's an industrial policy in place that props up EVs with government purchases, propaganda, state subsidies, cronyism, taxpayer-backed loans, and edicts. The green "revolution" is an elite-driven, top-down technocratic project.

And it's increasingly clear that the only reason giant rent-seeking carmakers are so heavily invested in EV development is that the government is promising to limit the production of gas-powered cars artificially.

The problem with gas powered cars, you see, is that you and I, the unwashed masses, can drive any distance we like, whenever we like, without asking permission from anyone. The Horror! Things like the 15 minute walking cities, the digital currency, and of course EVs are intended to severely limit our ability to move about. Here on beautiful PolyKahr estates, a 15 minute walk wouldn't get us out of the neighborhood, let alone to a store, a restaurant, or a job. And what of people like construction workers?  Or repairmen such as plummers and electrical repair?  How would they get around?  What if a person in one 15 minte segment of a city married a person from another 15 minute segment. Would they have to seek permission to move into one segment or the other? What about people with job transfers? Everything can not be done by skype of face time. The Left paints these things in glowing colors but has not thought out the details. The "elites" are not truly our betters, they just delude themselves that they are.

In today's real-world economy, Ford projects it will lose $3 billion on electric vehicles in 2023, bringing its EV losses to $5.1 billion over two years. In 2021, Ford reportedly lost $34,000 on every EV it made. This year, it was losing more than $58,000 on every EV. In a normal world, Ford would be dramatically scaling back EV production, not expanding it. Remember that next time; we need to bail out Detroit.

Then again, we're already bailing them out, I suppose. Last week, the U.S. Energy Department lent Ford -- again, a company that loses tens of thousands of dollars on every EV it sells -- another $9.2 billion in taxpayer dollars for a South Korean battery project. One imagines no sane bank would do it. The cost of EV batteries has gone up, not down, over the past few years.

...snip...

Without massive state help, EVs are a niche market for rich virtue signalers. And, come to think of it, that's sort of what they are now, even with the help. A recent University of California at Berkeley study found that 90% of tax credits for EVs go to people in the top income strata. Most EVs are bought by high earners who like the look and feel of a Tesla. And that's fine. I don't want to stop anyone from owning the car they prefer. I just don't want to help pay for it.

Have you ever had a nosy neighbor who constantly watches to see if you are doing something they don't approve of, and calling the authorities whenever they think they have caught you at it? That instinct that drives your nosy neighbor is what drove the Puritans. The notion that someone, somewhere might be breaking a Commandment drove these people nuts. The Left is like that, without the Ten Commandments, meaning that their list of offenses is ever changing. But they are no less committed to the offences de jure. In Big Brother fashion, they want to keep an eye on everyone at all times. And by limiting your movements, they hope to do just that. They have not begun to address the ability of those who seek to get around their ever tightening grip.

Massachusetts Takes the Instramentality Approach To Violence

 Yesterday evening, Andrea Widburg of the American Thinker had a post about recent attempts by the Massachusetts legistlature to thumb their noses at the Supreme Court of the United States by enacting even more draconian gun laws. Note that Massachusetts already has some of the most draconian and frankly insane gun laws on the books. Here article can be found at Massachusetts is once again gunning for your guns. What's disturbing here is the display once again of the instramentality approach to violence. The instramentality approach says that the instrament causes the crime. Thus, when a gun is used, it is the gun's fault, not the human wielding the gun. I suppose that Leftists must believe that the gun jumps out of the holster and begins shooting people on its own accord.  But of course a gun is an inanimate object that has no motivating power of its own.  You would think that so called "smart" people would be easily able to discern the falacy of that arguement, but they seem to keep beating that drum.

Widburg embeds a warning from the Gun Owners of America with quotes as follows:

The omnibus gun control bill:

Redefines “Assault-style firearm” to be more extensive and bans ALMOST ALL semi-automatic firearms from civilian ownership.

Redefines “firearm” into a broader term that includes even stun guns.

Mandates “safe storage” procedures, locking up guns against your will.

Mandates REGISTRATION of all guns and feeding devices.

Confusing language for new MA residents and on the serialization of guns.

Mandates reporting any parts modifications to firearms.

Mandates reporting an itemized list of parts when modifying or building a gun.

Mandates serializing of feeding devices (magazines).

Mandates that privately made guns need to be registered within 7 days.

Bans anyone under 21 from acquiring or carrying semi-automatic rifles or shotguns.

Forces new requirements for firearms retailers.

Forces new training mandates for law-abiding gun owners.

Adds additional prohibited areas where even licensed individuals cannot defend themselves with a firearm.

AND DOES SO MUCH MORE.

Note that several of these new requirements are either silly or redundant. For instance, any gun that is found at a crime scene can be traced by a request to the ATF. Requiring registration of all guns and feeding devices is unnecessary.  And serialization of all feeding devices...ie magazines...seems downright silly. Magazines are as likely to be stolen as the gun is.  This is just an attempt to challenge the Supreme Court to strike down another state law as they did with Bruen while pandering to the Leftists in their state. Gentle readers are encouraged to go read Andrea Widburg's post.

Meanwhile, Mark Lewis over at Townhall.com has a great piece on some tragic news out of China where a madman (obviously) stabbed 6 people including 3 children at a kindergarten class in Southern China:

If there is one thing you can be absolutely certain about in life, it is that liberals are wrong (except by accident), they are ALWAYS wrong, they are inconsistent because they are wrong, but mainly, they are the worst hypocrites on earth. Note the following example.

Recently, a knife-wielding maniac killed six people (three children) in a kindergarten in a southern city in China. This isn’t the first such tragedy in China, they seem to happen with some degree of regularity there. Tragic to the nth degree, especially when the victims are children

I thought Obama said that these things only happened in America.  Hmmm.  In any case, Lewis points out that Mao took away the guns of the population years ago...for their own safety...wink, wink. It is too bad that there is no marking in HTML for "sarcasm" because this next quote should be enclosed with such markings.

A series of knife attacks targeting children, one Monday in Guangdong province, have raised public concerns about school safety and mental health.”

Raised public concerns about “school safety and mental health.” Nooooo. Some wise liberal in America needs to tell the ChiComs that it isn’t the person with the knife or even the protection of the children that is the problem; it’s the weapon itself! Dumb ChiComs. Don’t they know that weapons kill people? Well, they do have a great fear of people with weapons, so they took away all the guns from the masses in their country. Still, some brain-dead conservatives think it was because they didn’t want people shooting back when the government decided to slaughter untold masses of “counter-revolutionaries” and “unreliable elements” (aka “rightists”). It had nothing to do with that and everything to do with not wanting “gun-owning” maniacs breaking into kindergartens and killing children. Everybody knows that’s why the CCP took away people’s guns.

So, now we reach the truth. As liberals tell us, it’s the gun, always the gun, only the gun. China took away their people’s guns so “Han-supremacists” couldn’t commit mass murder against children, right?

Well...maybe not so much...

I think—but I could be wrong here—that even American Leftists understand (though they won’t admit it) that Mao Zedong confiscated the Chinese people’s firearms so they couldn’t protect themselves against the mass-murdering tyranny of the CCP. Just like the Democratic Party wants to do in America—and for the exact same reason. As James Madison said (and all Leftists in China and America and elsewhere know): “Disarm the people. That is the best and most effective way to enslave them.”

Here Lewis exposes for all to see the real reason the far left Fascist Democrats are firmly against guns. It is in the quote from Madison: "Disarm the people. That is the best and most effective way to enslave them" Gun control, the instramentality theory of violence, is only a cover to go after the law abiding gun owners property. They can't admit that the problem of violence of whatever stripe is the criminals themselves.

But here we come upon yet another dilemma, that of the truly disturbed among us. Leftists will use any tool and twist it to their own ends. So it is with mental health. In the old Soviet Union, so called "psychiatrists" posited that anyone who did not hew to the government line must be insane, so that a fair number of dissidents were confined as mental defectives. Of course this use of psychology denies the humanity of man. We must be extremely careful to hold people accountable for their actions, not their thoughts. Cain killed Able with a rock in the first recorded murder. But God held Cain accountable, not the rock. We should emulate God's example.

Update:  D. Parker has more on the knife attack against 6 people in China in an article at the American Thinker entitled Every mass shooting is a gungrabbing-ghoul fundraiser. Parker makes the point that the Fascist far Left doesn't actually care about crime, crime victims, drive by shootings or anything that does not advance their narrative of confiscating guns. Read D. Parker's article as well.

Artificial Intelligence is just a tool.

 I have had at least one article on the latest "thing" in technology known as "artificial intelligence."  I put AI in scare quotes because I believe, as does Mr. Dunn, that machines, designed by humans cannot achieve true intelligence.  As Mr. Dunn notes, we do not understand, nor can we break down human intuition, common sense, and our ability to use what we learned in one situation and apply it to others.  Unlike the panic that the mainstream media is spewing over AI, I believe that AI is just another tool.

 People are often bedazzled by the speed and seemingly awesome power of computers, but at their heart, computers provide three tools that we have been using for thousands of years: word processing, database building and manipulation (think of the telephone book), and spreadsheet functions (think mathematics and arithmetic). But gentle readers can read about it at the American Thinker in an article by J. R. Dunn entitled Artificial Intelligence: The Facts.

So what is the problem here? First and above all, when we speak of AI in the 21st century, we’re discussing two distinct and separate types as if they were one and the same thing. These are what I call “App AI,” which includes ChatGPT and the numerous AI art apps making the rounds, and “General Intelligence AI,” the movie-style HALs and Skynets capable of taking over everything and doing what they damn well please.

Up until now, all that we’ve seen are App AIs. These are software, generally operating on neural nets, devoted to one particular task – text creation or artwork – that feature algorithms capable of modifying the responses of the program as it “learns” more about the task. AI learning is accomplished through “supervised learning,” in which mere humans set the parameters and goals, oversee the process, and examine and judge the results. Until now this human interaction has proven strictly necessary -- “unsupervised learning,” when it has been attempted, usually goes off the rails pretty quickly. The App AI’s single task comprises their entire universe and they can’t simply take what they’ve learned and apply it to other fields. As Erik J. Larson puts it in The Myth of Artificial Intelligence (which should be read by anybody with an interest in the topic), “…chess-playing systems don’t play the more complex game of Go. Go systems don’t even play chess.” So no such AI is ever going to quit sampling internet imagery and try to take over the Pentagon. (This also applies to the guy who claimed, a couple weeks back, that ChatGPT is already “running the financial system.”)

There’s been a lot of speculation recently as to whether these systems will supplant humans working in particular fields. The answer is no -- not yet, and probably not ever. A few weeks ago, Monica Showalter, esteemed by all AT readers, ran a Turing Test of sorts on ChatGPT. She entered the prompt “Write a piece on the future of the airline industry in the style of Thomas Lifson.” What she got was a bland, gassy, ill-written piece filled with clichés, non-sequiturs, and outright errors, none of which, I can state with authority, has ever been characteristic of Thomas’s writing. It’ll be a long time before ChatGPT takes the reins here at AT.

ChatGPT will not replace human writers anytime soon, and I think never. As far as General Intelligence AI, I agree with Dunn that we are a long way off, if we ever will be there. We just don't understand or even have a clue how the human mind actually works. Note that knowing where certain things happen in the brain is not the same thing as understanding things like intuition and common sense. How do we take experience in one thing and apply it to something new?  It will take this kind of knowledge and  understanding before it can happen.

The Inevitable Purge

 Mark Lewis presents part 4 of his series on the Chinese Communist Party revolution at Townhall.com entitled The Left's Culture of Death IV: Then Cometh the Purge. It is inevitable that at some point, the Leftist dictators must begin to kill large numbers of those who actually believed that the revolution was really all about equality, and whatever else the Left had promised. It isn't, of course. It never is.  Note that many have been killed by simple starvation, as is being proposed with the new desire to eliminate chemical fertilizers and to kill the cows.  We can already see the results in Sri Lanka.  

On a cold day in February 1952, a crowd of 21,000 gathered in Baoding, Hebie province China, to watch the “trial” and execution of two people. Not unusual in Mao Zedong’s China of the time, except for their identities—two high ranking members of the Communist Party. They were both sentenced and shot. “Only if we execute the two of them can we prevent twenty, two hundred, two thousand or twenty thousand corrupt officials from committing various crimes,” Mao said. “Their deaths were meant to serve as a warning to others in the party.” (Frank Dikötter, The Tragedy of Liberation, Chapter 8, “The Purge”)

The above was only the beginning of more slaughter, this time of CCP members. The “purge” always happens. After they silence “counter-revolutionary” opposition, Leftists eliminate (usually after charges of “corruption”) all “unreliable elements”—that is, those actually naive enough to have believed all the “egalitarian” rhetoric. “Socialism!” “Egalitarianism!” “The Great Revolution!” Folks, Leftist “revolutions” are never about these things. They are only about power, and so, to keep down opposition from “true believers” who really want “equality”, they line them up against the wall and shoot them, too. Read about Stalin’s Great Terror in the late-1930s. American Democratic Party “true believers” who think it will be different here are in for a rude awakening when their back is against a wall facing a firing squad. I’m warning you liberals in advance. But I know you won’t listen. Remember me at your last breath.

I want to say to the journalists, the academics, the twitter mobs (who may be bots actually) the transgender idiots, the BLM and Antifa anarchists and all the rest who have supported the Democrats so well that I will be sorry to see you treated this way. But you have been warned numerous times. This is only the latest warning. You want to destroy the best form of government that man has been able to devise, and replace it with what is described in Lewis's article. Frankly, forgiveness requires two things: 1) true repentence and 2) you must ask for it. Since neither is forthcoming, I will not forgive you. You can go to your graves and remember that you have been warned.   I would not even ask God to have mercy on your souls, because you knew what you were doing.

Trump Has A Big Job Ahead

 I hate to keep highlighting the same authors works, but some people hit the nail squarely on the head more often than others.  In this case, J. B. Shurk has an excellent post at the American Thinker entitled DC Should Be Renamed for Benedict Arnold. It could almost be our new Declaration of Independence it list so many crimes committed by our government in our name against us.

There is no doubt in my mind that if General George Washington were alive to see how the permanent political class had defiled his good name, he would raze D.C. to the ground. "But George," I imagine Martha pleading, "there surely are some good people in the nation's capital who still serve the Republic."

"I don't think so. They celebrate baby murder, educate children inside brothels, tax the people to death, corruptly enrich themselves, and send the poorest to fight foreign wars for vague reasons."

"In that case, wait here; I'll go grab the torches." Martha was a patriotic and courageous first lady, who was never so insecure that she required strangers to address her as "Doctor."

If the denizens of D.C. had even the slightest inclination toward honesty, they would rename their little swampland after Benedict Arnold, a man whose capacity for betrayal they all secretly emulate. The filthy cesspool of narcissists and thieves rules over most of North America and a good chunk of the globe, but it is despised by pretty much anyone on the planet not making a buck from the crony Capitol-ism that fuels the whole rotten system.

Thereupon, Shurk begins to list in exquisite fury the many crimes of which the Leftist Deep State and politicians stand accused. They include the open Southern border, which is allowing fentanyl into the country, Planned Parenthood's murder of 60 million innocent unborn, its two tiered (in)justice system, its constant drumming up of foreign wars into which it feeds American lives. I could add its devaluation of masculinity, its pushing of gay and lesbian lifestyle along with grooming our children. And of course there is the Biden Crime Family. While the Republican House fusses and fumes, there is a 0% chance that Biden will actually be impeached let alone put in prison. All the evidence appears to show that Biden has sold out America to the Chinese, yet the Republicans will in the end do nothing.

In addition, I have often called the Republican party the stupid party. This is not because I thought Republicans were mentally deficient. No, they are often pretty smart. But they have a knack for snatching defeat from the hands of victory. Why is that? I think Shurk has answered that question. Shurk implies that the Republicans play the role in the Deep States game of offering the voters the illusion of a choice. In return, of course, the Republicans get rich, find golden parachutes for themselves with think tanks and media outlets. While I think some members of the Republican party are honorable men and women, my disgust with the party leadership knows no bounds.

I wish I could say that Republicans in D.C. are capable of righting the ship at some point. I wish the party of Lincoln still had real principles and served some greater purpose aside from providing the appearance of an electoral choice for voters. For decades, though, it has been the home of too many backstabbing neoconservatives all too willing to vote for Hillary Clinton and underhanded Uniparty co-conspirators working for Marxist globalism and against the American people. In reality, most Republican officeholders are shiny hood ornaments whose function is to distract the public while the Deep State barrels down the road, hitting innocent pedestrians.

Have you noticed how little Republicans actually get done when Donald Trump is not in town? They do a lot of loud huffing and puffing but follow up with little in the way of concrete action. While unethical prosecutors and judges lock up Trump confidants and supporters for their political beliefs, Republican leaders do nothing. While the Department of (in)Justice pursues a potential life sentence against President Trump, Republican leaders are silent. When thoughtcrimes, censorship, and political persecution run rampant, the time for half-measures has ended.

Commie-leaning rags habitually run headlines claiming that Republicans have "pounced" on some issue; conservative publications run headlines applauding Republicans for having "sounded the alarm." I don't know about you, but the Republican Party reminds me of a bunch of kitty-cat Karens who struggle to do anything more than report their problems to the manager. In a time when only lions will do, the house cats in D.C. just add stink to the litter box.

America has always been somewhat flawed, as all human institutions unfortunately are, but we were definitely seen as being on the side of the angels. We were a place where people wanted to come becuase these United States offered opportunities not available in their native countries. Biden didn't do it all, but he has accelerated the destruction of the United States and seems to be handing us over to the fascist far Left.

But if Trump is to be successful, he needs to go into his second term armed with a long list of people to fire, prosecute, put in prison, or send to somewhere in Alaska where they can not do any harm. In addition, he needs to have some legislation prepared for Congressional action which takes back some of the power slowly sent to the Executive and returns it to the Legislative where it belongs. That would include getting rid of entire agencies whose perview is outside of the Constitutional powers granted to the Federal government. Things like the Education Department belong with each state. Besides getting rid of the deep state, Trump should also slim down the government to eliminate some of the resistence to not only Trump but future presidents. Trump has a big job, and a short time to do it. He should be working on it.

The Truth As No Agenda

 Glenn Spitzer has an excellent article explaining all the latest Marxist "theories" designed to keep us on our heels. We are assaulted from every side by DIE, by ESG, by the LGBTQ ad nauseum, and threats of gun control, digital currency, and on and on.  Christianity is denigrated, while Islam is seen by cultural leaders as a "religion of peace."  What all of this, in the end, is the oppressor versus the oppressed, or as one commenter noted, coveting what you did not earn and is not yours.  The Marxists propose, always to take it from those who own it by means legal and foul, which is why they crave power.

Spitzer's article, at the American Thinker is entitled Understanding Marxism Is Key To Understanding Today's Leftists.

As Americans, we are being assaulted by numerous alphabet ideologies we don’t understand—from DEI to ESG to LGBTQ+. We seek to understand through logic, but by doing so, we become only more confused. The only way to understand what’s happening is to recognize the ideology that underlies all of it: Marxism. When Patrisse Cullors, BLM’s co-founder, acknowledged that BLM leaders were “trained Marxists,” we failed to understand the significance. It is time to change that.

Marxism’s central idea is that the world is broken down into two groups; or as Marx stated: “in a word, oppressor and oppressed.” This is from his opening statement in the Communist Manifesto (published in 1848). If you remember nothing else, remember this.

Classic Marxism sees the world in binary terms: the bourgeoisie (oppressor) and the proletariat (oppressed). The bourgeoisie own the means of production, and the proletariat don’t. Marx believed that, if the proletariat seized the means of production, all class conflict would end, bringing us to a Communist utopia. Ironically, Marxists advocated achieving utopia through violent revolution.

The Frankfurt School is the key to understanding how Marxism is used today. It is responsible for what we now term “cultural Marxism” or “neo-Marxism.” The Frankfurt School was established in the 1920s to study Marxism with the goal of understanding why communism was not taking hold in Western societies. The most important idea that came from the Frankfurt school is “critical theory.” (The seminal work is Traditional and Critical Theory” by Max Horkheimer, published in 1937.)

One thing you must understand, the Marxists can never be wrong. For if they are wrong in their diagnosis of what troubles society, then they might not achieve the power they so crave. Thus, while much of their proposed "theories" such as the unverified and unverifiable "institutional racism" have no objective standards, they cling to them as if they are real. After all, if they were to see the ridiculousness of these ideas, they would be forced to change their minds. Indeed, they would be forced to change their minds about everything including the idea that perverse sexual ideologies result from being "born that way," or that there are "racist highways." Horror of horrors, they might be wrong about guns and gun control!  But rather than look at objective facts and statistics, they prefer the lie. And since they can not convince enough others of their lies, they resort of violence and revolution.

The obvious problem with critical theory is that it purports to explain all disparate outcomes between the various oppressor/oppressed groups. Its advocates are conditioned to attribute any unequal outcomes to institutions and not to individuals. However, the connections are often tenuous and unverifiable (think “racist highways”). When one believes oppression is reinforced by unverifiable factors within social institutions, one soon comes to believe that oppression lurks everywhere within those institutions.

Take, for example, the issue of “systemic racism,” a concept that was raised repeatedly during the George Floyd riots. Advocates could not provide concrete, verifiable examples of “systemic racism.” Instead, systemic racism came to stand for the vague notion that our social institutions reinforce oppression on unconscious levels. This naturally led policymakers to flail around on nonsense solutions designed to disable the institutions themselves (think “defund the police”). Contrast modern systemic racism to the actual systemic racism in Jim Crow laws—laws that are verifiably racist and oppressive.

Without concrete or verifiable explanations for disparate outcomes, critical theorists come to see even the most innocuous ideas as responsible for maintaining the oppressive “hegemony.” Extremist CRT advocates attack ideas that most would find universally beneficial. Why do whites (and now Asians) do better in school? To CRT advocates, it’s because standardized testing, meritocracy, and even math and logic are racist concepts that only serve to maintain the status quo. These extremists even decry diligence and promptness as “white” standards used to maintain oppression. Ultimately, if there is any “inequity” (defined as unequal outcomes), the related institutions are viewed with suspicion, sometimes comically so.

So, what does this mean? How does this manifest in reality?

In other words, critical theory trains people to ignore the far more obvious and simple explanations, such as cultural differences, fatherless homes, and other factors that more directly lead to differences in school performance. In that way, critical theory prevents us from effectively identifying and addressing real problems.

With subjective analysis, evidence becomes less relevant. Critical theorists use concepts like “lived experience” or “my truth” to support disparate outcomes. Lived experience holds that truth is subjective and that we experience oppression through our subjective experience as members of victim groups. Individuals from oppressor groups do not have “lived experience” and may not assess the lived experience of the oppressed group members. In fact, this is a common theme in Marxism: the rights of the “oppressors” are irrelevant or subordinate to the rights of the oppressed, which are sacrosanct (think different standards for free speech).

At first blush, we may compare “lived experience” to anecdotal evidence. However, the differences are significant. Whereas anecdotal evidence is an objective piece of evidence used to verify conclusions from larger data sets, lived experience is a subjective understanding of the world. It cannot be verified, falsified, or discounted by the oppressor groups. Instead, it simply must be accepted as true, and it becomes a replacement for traditional scientific methods of proof. Under the “lived experience” standard, objective verification of critical theory becomes impossible and ultimately irrelevant.

For too long, we have not challenged these repulsive ideas. Too many of us have been silenced by the loud mouthed mob that has been seduced by the thought of getting something for nothing. But if we are to stop this assault we must...must...be willing to tell the Truth. Glenn Beck said that the Truth has no agenda. I believe he is right. The Truth is neither right nor left, but sits squarely in the middle. The Truth is God's truth, and since he created us, he probably knows us better than we know ourselves.