The Latest Larry Correia Rant

 DO I UNFAIRLY PAINT THE LEFT WITH A BROAD BRUSH?

 ...I’m talking about YOU. Regular people. Voters. The guy next door. The masses on the internet. Just average joes. Democrats. Libs. Whatever you call yourself. Anybody who identifies as being on the left.

When your leaders pick a narrative, you drink that Kool-Aid. Even if it’s shit flavored Kool-Aid, most of you smile and tell us it’s the best fucking Kool-Aid you’ve ever tasted. It’s milk from the teat of a magic cherry flavored Unicorn. Nope. It’s shit. You all know it’s shit. But you go along with the narrative anyway.

When the insane progs among you lie their asses off, I’m talking blatant, easily disproven, painfully ham-fisted, fucking LIES… Do you call them out? Do you say, “hang on guys, that’s a little nuts”. Because if you do, the rest of us sure as fuck don’t ever see it. Pick a topic, any topic. It’s always the same.

Read the whole thing. When I got to that part, though, I laughed out loud, woke Mrs. Drang up from her  migraine-induced snooze, and further disturbed her by reading the entire thing out loud. She hasn't objected, so I guess she agrees. Either that. or she has Plans for tonight while I'm sleeping. 

(Actually, i know she agrees because she started talking Seattle politics...)

Whatever it was...

 ..it wasn't a coup. 

Not even an attempted coup.

Mises Wire: The Capitol Riot Wasn’t a Coup. It Wasn't Even Close.

What Is a Coup?

A gang of disorganized, powerless mechanics, janitors, and insurance agents running through the Capitol isn’t a coup. And if it was a coup attempt, it was so far from anything that might hope to succeed as a coup that it should not be taken seriously as such.

So how do we know a coup when we see one?

In their article “Global Instances of Coups from 1950 to 2010: A New Dataset,” authors Jonathan M. Powell and Clayton L. Thyne provide a definition:

A coup attempt includes illegal and overt attempts by the military or other elites within the state apparatus to unseat the sitting executive.

There are two key components of this definition. The first is that it is illegal. Powell and Thyne note that this “illegal” qualifier is important to include "because it differentiates coups from political pressure, which is common whenever people have freedom to organize."

In other words, protests, or threats of protest don’t count as coups. Neither do legal efforts such as a vote of no confidence or an impeachment. 

But an even more critical aspect of Powell and Thyne’s definition is that it requires the involvement of elites.

Truth

One of my favorite parts of this is the people who spent the last four years insisting the 2016 election was rigged now demanding that after four days, in an election where we have demonstrated actual evidence of irregularities, @realDonaldTrump must concede.

No.

— Kurt Schlichter (@KurtSchlichter) November 8, 2020

"Vote rigging: How to spot the tell-tale signs" + an Update

From Nitay Arbel at his blog Spin, Strangeness, Charm comes a link to this BBC item from 2016, on vote-rigging election fraud in Africa.

Or Detroit, Philadelphia, Wisconsin, Tucson...

Vote rigging: How to spot the tell-tale signs

(Should open in a new window.)

In his own post, Mr. Arbel offers this summary of the Beeb article:

• Anomalously high voter turnout. Even countries with mandatory voting (like Belgium or Australia, where you can get fined for not voting!) only reach 90-95% turnout.
• Conspicuously high turnouts in specific areas. “Why would one particular area, or one individual polling station, have a 90% turnout, while most other areas register less than 70%?”
• A large percentage of invalid votes/voided ballots. (I’d make an exception for countries with mandatory voting, like Belgium, where a certain percentage of voters would deliberately void their ballots by, e.g., writing helpful anatomical suggestions across it.)
• More votes than ballot papers issued
• Results that don’t match. (Even in Africa, citizen poll observers increasingly use cell phones to document vote counts.)
• Inordinate delay in announcing the result: this can often reflect the need to either manufacture more of the desired votes, or to go back and disqualify more of the undesired votes. 

UPDATE: Mr. Arbel has posted three "Videos Worth Seeing".

To me, the most astonishing thing about the blatant fraud is that it is so blatant. Plus, frankly, Larry Correia is right (as usual):

I am more offended by how ham fisted, clumsy, and audacious the fraud to elect him is than the idea of Joe Biden being president. I think Joe Biden is a corrupt idiot, however, I think America would survive him like we’ve survived previous idiot administrations. However, what is potentially fatal for America is half the populace believing that their elections are hopelessly rigged and they’re eternally fucked. And now, however this shakes out in court, that’s exactly what half the country is going to think.

I am sure you never would have thought anyone would tell you a blog post discussing the process of auditing the books would be interesting, but if you think about it, if anyone could make it so, Larry Correia is The Man, and the application to election fraud is pretty clear.

Isn't that interesting... -- An Update

 So, what with all the news about Hunter Biden and the while sleazy, corrupt Biden clan, and the CSPAN "journalist" confessing to lying about sending that tweet and all, it has been an interesting day or two in social media, especially if one is part of the leftist/progressive/media/DNC persuasion, and I mean "interesting" in the Chinese curse sense. 

Or, of you prefer, in the US Senate accusing you of interfering with an election, and the FEC  being out for blood sense.

So I go into Twitter and I see John "Oh No!" Ringo has tweeted as follows:

(I took a "snip" and copied it in, instead of embedding the tweet, because embedding the tweet these days is... messy. Stray code all over the place. Link to the tweet here.)

So I attempted to tweet as follows: "Their brain is full?" and got:

Note the pink bar at the top...

I can't even tweet "Testing". 

Have I finally reached the level of deplorableness where I am worthy of having Twitter shut me down?

Or is Twitter just so all upgefukt over the mess it has made the least few days that it is melting down?

Stay tuned!

UPDATE: apparently it was everybody, everywhere. They're "investigating." 

Just coincidence it hit right as they were discovering the Streisand Effect? 

Sure, let's go with that.

Flash Back!

A little way into the Korean Basic, once we had gotten to the point that we could manage more advanced grammar, we had a lesson in which "Dad" came home from work to find his sons brawling, and yelled "POK DONG AH! SSA-OOH JI MA!"; colloquially translated, "What is this riot?! Stop fighting!" 

Only we thought he was calling one of his sons "Pok Dong" -- riot or civil disturbance -- and did not quite grasp yet the nuances of Korean grammar; in this case, the imperative forms indicated by the "AH/MA" verbs endings.

(Confession digression: I are grammaring goodly in English, written or spoken, but if you require me to diagram a sentence, I'm heading for the door. I still have a hard time telling the difference between an adverb and an adjective, and I'm not clear on what a gerund is.)

So several years later I'm in Korea on my second tour, my first at the Second Infantry Division, and one weekend I scored a day pass to head down to Seoul. Maybe I was Christmas shopping, I don't recall, but I don't remember it as being particularly cold, so may not. 

Anyway, the bus route went by several universities, including Yeon Sei Dae Hak ("tae hak" = university; commonly referred to as "Yeon Dae", which, confusingly, is also the word for "regiment".)

The student body was participating in their favorite intramural activity, loudly proclaiming their opinions on various and sundry matters of great concern, featuring a variety of special effects and training aids by both said student body and their critics, to wit: bricks, rocks, fire bombs, and tear gas.

In other words, rioting.*

I caught a whiff of said tear gas, leaving me a bit hoarse for a day or two. When a Korean acquaintance asked if I was well, I explained that I had gotten too close to the "pok dong" near Yeon Dai.

And was promptly corrected: "Not a pok dong, it was a demo!"

And that, boys and girls was my first exposure to the concept that, if the cause is exalted enough, any amount of riotous, destructive, behavior can be excused by the simple process of designating it a "demonstration" or "peaceful protest."

*See P.J. O'Rourke's hilarious essay "Seoul Man" from Rolling Stone, reproduced in his collection Holidays in Hell.

 

A Review Which Should Not Be Necessary

I hear Ted Cruz has introduced a bill to impose term limits on congresscritters.

Must be the beard.

Meanwhile, the ignorance on display daily among voters (or non-voters, if they make that choice) is bad enough, but the media should know better, and anyone in government, whether hired, appointed, or elected...!

Anyway.

So Nancy Pelosi claims that according to the Constitution, she is the equal of the President.



Meanwhile, I keep being told it's the President's fault that a Democratic senator filibustered the budget bill the House sent there, or that the house has since failed to send a clean bill to the Senate, so that body can send it to the President...



While we're at it...

"Darmok"

In my previous post, LOL of the Day, I shared a meme which, quite frankly, I knew a lot of people wouldn't get.

And that's OK. I even know some Star Trek fans who had forgotten the episode "Darmok".

Now, that particular episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation happens to be my favorite for several reasons.

A quick synopsis, for anyone not familiar with the episode:

• The Enterprise is dispatched to meet an alien race. 
• Picard is beamed off the ship as the aliens cast a "scattering field" which prevents Enterprises transporter from beaming Picard back up.
• Picard discovers that the intent of the alien captain is that he and Picard cooperate to fight a creature.
• Slowly, Picard realizes that the reason that the Federation has never been able to communicate with this alien race is that they only speak in allegory and metaphor; likewise, they find straightforward speech baffling.
• The alien captain dies, but Picard is now able to communicate with the aliens, so Everything's Fine.

How many Standard Star Trek Tropes did you spot in that executive summary of a synopsis?  (More at Darmok - Wikipedia and Star Trek One Trek Mind: Deciphering "Darmok".)

One of the reasons I like this episode is that it is one of the few examples of science fiction in media where there was an honest attempt to live up to SF's nickname "The Literature of Ideas." While any literature can be described as starting from the question "What if...?" -- "What if the teenage children of two feuding families of Verona fell in love and secretly married?" -- in Speculative Fiction the "What if?" gets to be (one might argue should be) more out of the ordinary.

In this case, "What if we met a race/culture that only communicated in metaphor and allegory?"

This is cool.

Mind you, it is also absurd, because, as is pointed out in the article "Deciphering 'Darmok'" I linked above,

Yet there's one annoying thing about “Darmok.” If the Tamarians only speak in these metaphors, how did they ever learn the words that later came to be used in the phrases? How did they know that walls fell around Shaka if they need a phrase to symbolize the word “wall?”

They had words for stuff, but they couldn't just use a word? They couldn't say "Here", meaning "take this", they had to say "Temba, his arms open"? How did they learn what "arm" or "arms" or "open" were? Or "his"?

Not to mention, how does a race that only speaks in metaphor develop the science and math needed to become a space-faring race?

My assumption has always been that there were certain ceremonial occasions on which it is an unbreachable imperative that one speak in these metaphors, not unlike a Vulcan's dedication to logic. We know Vulcans are actually susceptible to emotion and illogic, and that they must fight to maintain their control, so perhaps this alien outreach mission would be regarded as a failure if they didn't play by their own internal rules. ("Deciphering 'Darmok'" posits a race that is partially telepathic.)

Another thing I liked about the episode is that they routinely broke every other magic double-talk generator device on the show, but this is the only episode I remember where Universal Translator failed.

Given Roddenberry's known utopian vision for the future -- routinely ignored on the show, when it was convenient, but don't dare suggest to him that he was full of shit! -- he probably had some Chomskian notion of a "language organ"...

May Day, 2018

This about sums it up:

This #MayDay, hundreds of thousands of protesters across the world will fly the flag of communist dictators who have butchered millions, demand a more authoritarian government, and be praised by the media for doing so. pic.twitter.com/bgDBcVEKEd

— Far Left Watch (@FarLeftWatch) May 1, 2018

20 years, down the drain

And just like that, my Army career was rendered irrelevant.

Pacific Stars and Stripes: Moon and Kim Discuss Denuclearization at Historic Summit

BBC: North Korea's Kim Jong-un Pledges 'New History' With South Korea

The Times: Koreas Poised For ‘Great Transition in World History’

Voice of America: North, South Korean Leaders Hold Historic Meeting

Moon and Kim
Photo from The Small Wars Journal

Moon and Kim
Photo from The Small Wars Journal

Not really, of course.

Note, by the way, that Kim and Moon did not sign a peace treaty, which some of the reporting implied happened. It sounds like they agreed to look into it later this year.

No, what is so momentous is the fact that the heads of state met: Neither country has heretofore even acknowledged that the other existed legitimately. North Korea has always insisted on meeting with the USA alone, while the USA refuses to meet separately, and officially designates it "north Korea", with a small "n".

As I was explaining to a colleague in The Salt Mines,  I served for 20 years, 3 months, and 3 days, and almost 9 of those years were in the Republic of Korea. I spent a fair amount of time on, or within rifle-shot of, the Demilitarized Zone.

One year I was Watch NCO at Field Station Korea; this was under Bush 41, when Mrs. Drang and I were still newlyweds, and de-nuclearization talks on The Peninsula were proceeding well enough that every installation in the republic of Korea was required to make plans for how to deal with commie inspectors.

At a facility that was a wholly-owned subsidiary, so to speak, of the National Security Agency (which was still commonly referred to as "No Such Agency" at the start of my career) you might assume this resulted in some angst.

You would be correct, but it might surprise you that the Secret Squirrel contingent just read the instructions, and made plans accordingly. (Collection operations would be suspended, equipment turned of, and contents of filing cabinets and the like would be covered with kraft paper. IIRC, things would filed so that the kraft paper could be pulled back to reveal files, but they would be set up in such a manner that nothing could be learned of the contents of files by so doing. They would not have the right to inspect read the files, just do a quick scan with the Mark I Eyeball, and wave a Geiger Counter over it, if they wanted.)

(This was the first use I saw of an Access Card scanner; some genius covered those boxes with kraft paper...)

No, the person who really got all spun up was the NCOIC of the Information Technology Section. (Whatever we called it back on 1990.)

Mind you, that doesn't mean we were all impressed, those of us who had already invested a significant amount of time and effort into the "Korean Mission" fully expected the whole thing to come to naught, which it did.

So.

My standard answer regarding peace on the Korean Peninsula remains "I'll believe it when I see it", but I must admit, for the first time since 1980 I do feel some hope.

Ignorance, arrogance, and "gunsplaining"

Seen on Twitter:

If I have this right, only climate scientists can have an opinion on climate change, but any jackass can opine on guns even if they don’t know a .22 from a 12 gauge.

— J.R. Salzman (@jrsalzman) March 9, 2018

In all modesty, I believe I have an improvement:

"...don't know an ear plug from a rubber bullet."

— Drang (@DWDrang) March 9, 2018

It is my understanding that this sort of attempt by those of us who are knowledgeable about firearms technology and terminology to correct those who are clueless about same is now derided as "Gunsplaining". Note that the link goes to what might be called a "friendly" site, as opposed to the ones that criticize "gunsplaining" as using "jargon" in "bad faith" to "bully" the gun grabbers...

Because terminological inexactitude is unimportant when The Feelz are at stake.

So, remember, next time you feel the need to correct someone on "Standard Capacity" versus "High Capacity" magazines, or to explain the difference between the independent and dependent clauses in certain articles in The Bill of Rights, or why cosmetic features make little or no difference to the actual functioning of a firearm, or why  certain firearm features are actually safety features...

...Remember, I say, that you are engaging in jargon-based, bad-faith, bullying behavior.

Make sure you capture any progressive tears that ensue, as I am assured that they make excellent firearms lubricant.

TriggrCon, Media/Industry day.

When we last we saw our intrepid blogger, he was stuck in traffic, heading home from Triggrcon Range Day.

In case you hadn't heard, the Seattle-Tacoma area has nasty traffic these days. Besides, all that free ammo can really take it out of a guy, you feel an obligation to not let it go to waste.

So, first things first: Today and tomorrow, Saturday and Sunday July 29th and 30th, TriggrCon is open to the public for "Enthusiast Days." Go to the website to register, for free.

Up front, I did confirm that the last pistol caliber carbine and sub machine gun I fired at Range Day was by Battle Arms Development, and made that correction in my previous post.

The show itself is being held at the Greater Tacoma Conference Center.

Which bans guns and knives on site, and has security pawing through your bags and checking you with a hand wand.

It was hardly a TSA-level search, and I suspect I could have gotten a pocket pistol in, in my bag, but it's still annoying that they couldn't find a venue that either had more reasonable policies, or was willing to make an exception.

Especially since you walk in and turn left, and Freedom Munitions was selling ammo by the case, and knives, and if you turn right the Triggrcon Proshop is selling guns.

While wandering over to the Proshop I stopped at the Sig Sauer station -- they have a trailer set up as a traveling display, I've sen it elsewhere -- and confirmed that Sig does have plans for a .22LR P320, it's just that no one knows when...

But first... Before you got to the security station, there were several tables set up out front, mostly of local operations.

Mostly... The first stop I made was at the booth/table/display for PHLster Holsters. I've been admiring their Flat Pack Tourniquet "device"
(Another pic-heavy post, after the break...)

Triggrcon, Range Day

TriggrCon is the Northwest Shooting Sports Expo, which has been described as a "Mini-SHOT Show."

Well, I have a had time making it to Vegas for SHOT Show, but I can sure make it to Tacoma for this...

Signing up for tickets for Mrs. Drang and I for the "Enthusiast Days", I went ahead and applied for a Media Pass, because, hey, New Media and all that. I wasn't sure I'd get it, but what the heck...?

Sometimes I feel like the guy that does the police blotter for the Resume Speed Shopping News and gets invited to a press conference with the Times and stuff.

Anyway. Thursday was Range Day. The invite said it was at an "undisclosed location" which changed "at the last minute." I dunno about that. From the route the bus driver was taking I was pretty sure I knew where we were going, especially when someone said "I heard we were going to a sheriff's range."

Yep.

So here's the layout:

It's a pretty good set up. We were last there probably10 years ago (!) or more, for a muzzleloader shoot, when the range complex was pretty new, and still mostly bare dirt and rock. The best part is that it is far enough out in unincorporated King County that development stops before it gets this far, and the commute is too much for anyone.

Also, it shares the grounds with the before-mentioned King County Sheriff's Office range, as well as the Seattle Skeet & Trap/Boeing Employee's Shotgun Club range. (A friend of mine who worked on building the new range complex told me that, one night during the construction work, they came out of the club house after  meeting and witnessed a cougar taking down an elk. It's waaaaay out there...)

Anyway. A close up of who was at the range:

Click to enlarge.

Mostly pictures after the break:

Interview with local gun 'riter in... Forbes?

If 'Democracy Dies In Darkness,' Dave Workman Will Light A Torch With Gunpowder

Much truth here. The author obviously got to know Dave pretty well...

In the 1940's, Central Casting would have called Workman an “atmosphere” character for any newspaper newsroom scene. Today they wouldn’t even let his mustache in the door.

Workman is the type who only trips into a lyrical line out of sheer bluntness. He is after facts, not prose that paints a pretty picture or a witty line that would impress Maureen Dowd. After President Donald Trump’s speech before Congress, Workman wrote that a few Democrat’s “gave [Trump] a ‘thumbs down’ like privileged Romans motioned for the death of a gladiator at the Colosseum.” With Workman, even if you disagree with his conclusions, you always get the feeling he is trying to boil out the perfidy.

 Go RTWT.

Fer Pete's Sake

So, Tamara has this song she wrote, a pastiche on "A Few Of My Favorite Things" from The Sound of Music. Tamara's is commonly referred to as "The Fun Show Song", and it's about the joys of going to gun shows.

Ambulance Driver and Squeaky made a music video of it as a Christmas Present for Tamara, which she posted here.

The notorious plagiarists at a certain site noteworthy for their unintentionally ironic use of the word "truth" in the title posted it without attribution; Bobbi has some details at Stop, Thief!. Be it noted that I have no idea about the whole Dead Hooker magazine thing, but since Tamara makes a living as a writer, and a writer owns copyright on the words she puts into certain order, and Dan Zimmerman and that website have infringed copyright before, I think we can certainly state that Dan Zimmerman is an intellectual property thief.

Look, it's all too easy to embed an image or video without attribution. When the copyright holder says "Hey, I own that" you should either replace the embedded code with a link, or (at least) add the proper attribution.

Linoge has a history of the infringements at the truth about the truth about guns and robert farago | walls of the city.

Thoughts on murderous nut jobs

Well said: Virginia journalist killer getting just what he wanted. Editorial originally from the Arizona Republic, reproduced here in the Detroit Free Press.

In the meantime, of course, The Usual Suspects are waving the bloody shirt and demanding that us non-murderous non-nut jobs should be deprived of our rights.

Because it's the guns.

And, since the murderous nut job in this case was a member of the media, who murdered two fellow members of the media, the media will ignore the possibility that maybe the problem isn't guns, it's murderous nut jobs.

In addition to being a member of the media, the murderous nut job was a member of two other protected categories, as a gay African American male. Who was reportedly censured on the job for reporting on Election Day while wearing an Obama pin or sticker. And had to be escorted from the work place when he was terminated, after having filed grievances against just about everybody there.

But it's the guns.

Nut jobs are gonna nut, they're gonna find a grievance -- goes with the territory -- and once they go all murderous, they'll find the means.

Doesn't have to be a gun.

Speaking of Cascadia...

As I was in a two-month old post, here.

The New Yorker has just published an article about a Cascadia Subduction Zone quake in The Earthquake That Will Devastate Seattle - The New Yorker.

Note that the title of the article on the page is "The Really Big One", not "ZOMG THEY'RE ALL GONNA DIE!!!!11!"

OTOH, that may be what it takes to get anyone in the Center of the Universe to acknowledge that maybe bad things do happen outside of their little urban paradise. (Note that the author manages to work Hurricane Sandy in, even though it was a minor inconvenience to most denizens of the Eastern Megalopolis.)

Not a lot of science there. Vivid imagery, dumbed down so you can peruse it over your morning bagel or on the subway.

Still, if you need to explain to your family elsewhere why you think it's a good idea to maintain a month's supply of food, water, etc., it's not a bad article.

OTOH, if your family is the type that won't leave you alone until you return to the safety of the New Madrid Seismic Zone, you might want to steer clear...

Outrage

I was hoping it was a rhetorical device...

But no, alas, they seem to be quite serious:  The Washington Post ask France has strict gun laws. Why didn’t that save Charlie Hebdo victims?

le sigh.

#JeSuisCharlie

#JeSuisCharlesMartel

Also, #JeSuisAhmed*




*The assumption is that as the son of North African immigrants named "Ahmed", Officer Merabet was a Muslim, practicing or not. It is entirely possible, of course that he was Catholic, or Atheist, or Asatru, or...

Yet another Internet Gun Control Poll

At PBS, no less, and it seems to be fairly straightforward.

Poll: Would you support more restrictive gun laws in your state?

1. Yes. Increased regulations on firearms are necessary to prevent another tragedy like the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary.  
2. No. Laws like this unnecessarily punish lawful gun owners and will do little to prevent mass shootings. 
3. Unsure. It's important to keep the weapons out of the wrong hands, but this may not be the solution.   

Obviously, vote only once. 'Cuz Ghu knows, the progressive statists will never, ever cheat on any kind of voting...