Thoughts I don't like having

Yes, it's been a while, but this will take more than a tweet...

I've been reading and watching stories about police and government abuses during the Wuhan Virus outbreak. There are clearly more than a few government functionaries who are enjoying this. This ranges from telling new parents that the infant car seat they need to buy isn't "essential" to police ticketing Christians for going to church on Easter Sunday to police kicking in doors to check for "illegal gatherings". In California, police have sent patrol boats after paddleboarders for not "social distancing".

...alone on a paddleboard.

...100 yards offshore.

The first of those "thoughts I don't like having" is the thought that there's going to be a reckoning for these abuses. And by that, I don't mean people losing their civil service jobs or elective offices. I mean something nastier. There are people who aren't going to forget this and let bygones be bygones. They're going to want some payback. And can you blame them? They're being treated like subjects instead of citizens.

The scarier thought, however, is the thought that there needs to be a nastier reckoning.

As in the earlier case, there are people who aren't going to forget this. But in this case, those people with the long memories are the abusers who will think that they got away with something. The scary thought is that they need to learn a very unpleasant lesson; or more accurately, that they need to become an object lesson for future generations of government officials.

Frederick Douglass stated "A man's rights rest in three boxes. The ballot box, jury box and the cartridge box". The former two are the normal state of affairs in a representative democracy. The latter box is only opened in extremis, but it has been opened in the past.

This nation was founded after the People's government turned on them and began treating them as subjects rather than as citizens. It took violence to end those abuses. The tyrant refused to have it any other way. He took away the ballot and jury boxes and left the People with one option only.

Let's hope that this episode can end differently. Let's hope that a few lost elections, a few criminal prosecutions, and a few lost pensions are enough of a reckoning to teach aspiring tyrants a lesson.

Let's hope that tree isn't getting a little dry.

The longest tantrum

If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face -- for ever.

1984, George Orwell

It's been over a year since Donald Trump won the presidential election; nearly a year since he was sworn into office. And yet, the American far left is still pitching a fit. Why? It's because of who they see themselves as in that quote from 1984. No, in their minds they're not the human face and Trump isn't the boot. In their version, they are the boot and they were to do the stamping -- for ever.

The Left has been pulling the levers of power in the US since the 1930s. Some might argue far longer than that. The election of the occasional Republican or conservative to the White House meant little over the long run. However, the election of Donald Trump is another matter. He's not one of "those" Republicans. You know the type... The respectable kind who think that "go along to get along" will one day get them something. They're the Charlie Brown of politics; perpetually kicking at the football and never suspecting that Lucy will pull it away again. Trump is different.

He kicked Lucy and took the ball away.

And worse yet, now he's going to toss the ball into a wood chipper.

For all of their talk, deep down, the Republicans were never about smaller government. Like their esteemed colleagues on the Left, they wanted to be the boot too. Ultimately, they view government just like the Left does: As a club to hit people with. They feigned outrage when the Left swung that club, but they wanted their turn at bat one day. Or if you prefer Game of Thrones imagery, they were looking forward to the day when their spoke on the wheel would be on top.

Donald Trump may not have long, flowing, silver hair, or access to dragons, but he's out to break the wheel too. To the Left, that's their wheel; it belongs to them; it's always supposed to belong to them; their spoke is supposed to be on top. For ever.

Then along comes President Trump. He doesn't just advocate different policies. He's actually dismantling the government; the Left's Government. He's tearing down what took them decades to build. No wonder they're losing their minds! And no wonder the GOP establishment tried so desperately to stop him. How could their spoke ever reach the top if the wheel is broken? But unlike the Charlie Brown Party, the Left is having a harder time accepting the loss. Hence the year long tantrum.

Why "CalExit" isn't going to be a thing

OK... I know that it's been a while. My attention has been elsewhere. This subject, however, is a good one for this sort of "long form" format...

So here's why "CalExit" isn't going to happen: The national Democrat Party will never allow it.

California is the beating heart and soul of the Democrat Party. Its powerbase is here. Democrat money comes from here. The Democrat-controlled media is based here. When they last controlled Congress, their majority came from here. There's a reason why Nancy Pelosi is still in charge of the House Democrats. Every four years, Democrat presidential candidates start election night with California's 55 electoral college votes in the bag; before a single vote has been cast here. When the votes were cast, Hillary Clinton won 2 votes here for every 1 Donald Trump won. The notion that Clinton won the popular vote exists only because of this disparity.

Next, let's look at the process itself. There is a procedure to admit a new state, but no mechanism for a State to leave the Union. Before California could secede, the Constitution would have to be amended to include a "divorce" clause. This is where the Confederacy went wrong. They thought that simply demanding to go their own way would be sufficient. Crazy Californians here are making the same mistake.

Now there are some in Red State America that might go along with a CalExit plan. These red States might be tempted to go ahead with plans to take 55 Electoral College votes, 2 Senators, and (at least) 38 Representatives away from the Democrats. However, there aren't enough red States to push through such an amendment. 3/4 of the States must ratify an amendment before it becomes part of the Constitution. Blue States would be needed and those Democrats would never let this happen. The last thing they want is to be members of a permanent minority party. CalExit would guarantee that fate.

Every last Democrat in California might want to leave the US, but every last Democrat in the rest of the country would oppose them.

Have they lost their minds?!

OK, so perhaps Trump won't win in November. Hillary has $1billion in bribes sitting in her bank account, so perhaps no Republican will win. But the solution isn't to undo the results of months of primaries.

The GOP electorate has spoken. They don't want another Bush. They don't want Mittens. They don't want any other member of the GOP Elite. The vast majority of the votes cast in the primaries went to the candidates that the elites didn't want: Trump, Cruz, Paul, and Carson. Slipping in at the last minute with a smoky backroom candidate will destroy the Party. And it should. If the Republican Party cannot abide by the results of elections, then it deserves its place on the ash heap of history.

Move the goal posts? How about erasing them altogether!?

Decius at the Journal of American Greatness writes about Speaker Paul Ryan and his plans for a new GOP initiative on poverty...

But the Trump campaign is vastly superior to Ryan in its core understanding of the core issues most urgent right now. Every new President can focus on three, at most four, such issues. Trump seems to have three: secure borders, economic nationalism, and interests-based foreign policy. We can have a debate about whether those are the most urgent issues just now. Indeed, the whole campaign may be said to be such a debate. We’ll see who wins. 

Obviously, we at JAG think these are the most urgent issues just now. Maybe you agree, maybe you don’t. But does anyone—other than Paul Ryan—believe that developing a new poverty policy is the most urgent issue right now? Perhaps Jack Kemp’s ghost?

The "why" of Ryan's priority has little to do with compassion for the poor. It has everything to do with compassion for his own political career.

The three Trump policy priorities Decius lists above have one thing in common: They can be measured for success or failure. Ryan's cannot. There is no metric by which you can judge an anti-poverty campaign. You can, however, determine whether or not a border is truly secure. You can judge whether or not an economic policy is helping or hurting the economy. You can decide whether or not our foreign policy is advancing or hindering our national interests.

Trump, unlike Paul Ryan or the entire Democrat Party, is putting his political capital where his mouth is. He's advancing policy priorities that can be used to judge his performance. Judging Ryan's performance with regard to the efficacy of his poverty program would be like nailing Jell-O to a tree. Since you can't say that he succeeded, you can't say that he failed.

There's an old Klingon proverb: bItuHlaHbe'chugh bIquvlaHbe'. "If you cannot be shamed, you cannot be honored." Paul Ryan turns that on its ear to become "If you cannot be honored, you cannot be shamed."

It's been a while

I just have to laugh at the GOP establishment (GOPe).

They've spent months battling The Donald. They've been expecting his implosion. They've been expecting the rise of an anointed candidate; preferable one who's the son of a former president and who's name rhymes with "Bush". They've been waiting for those other awful candidates like Cruz and Paul to go away. Everything was supposed to go their way again. They were supposed to get their milquetoast candidate, lose another election, and return to a comfortable life of complaining about the ruling Democrats.

But, none of that happened.

Bush tanked. Rubio tanked. Kasich tanked. Graham tanked. And now their last hope of stopping The Donald is Ted Cruz! The one guy they hate possibly more than they hate Trump is now their last hope.

Euroweenie cookies

OK Euroweenies... I have no idea what Google's cookie policy is. This is legal notice that you're on your own.

Still not dead yet

This blog is still a blog.

I'm still here

Hi! This is a post. It doesn't tell you anything beyond that.

Google Chrome fun

I had this happen after the latest update from Google for Chrome: The "newtab" page stopped working. I have "chrome://newtab/" as my start page. This was getting redirected to "chrome-internal://newtab/" which went nowhere. After some digging, I found that bad (or, I suppose, out of date) extensions can cause this. Open "chrome://extensions/" and turn off all of your extensions. Then, one by one, turn them back on and try newtab. Then just leave the problem child disabled.

I'm posting this here in the hope that the next person who has this happen won't have to search quite so long.

So where should Christians be in the immigration debate?

I got to thinking about this earlier today while tweeting about House Speaker John Boehner and whether or not he would cave in to the Senate's demands for amnesty and a "path to citizenship". I stopped before clicking "Tweet" to consider whether or not I was just being foul tempered and snarky; or if I was being consistent with the Word of God. What should Christians think about this issue?

I had been reading in the Old Testament recently and these verses from Zechariah Ch 7 came to mind:

8 And the word of the Lord came again to Zechariah: 9 “This is what the Lord Almighty said: ‘Administer true justice;show mercy and compassion to one another. 10 Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the foreigner or the poor.Do not plot evil against each other.’

There are references throughout the Old Testament about the treatment of foreigners. God reminds the children of Israel that they too were foreigners in Egypt and thus must not mistreat foreigners in their midst.

In Zechariah, the word translated as "foreigner" is the Hebrew word "ger" (גֵּ֥ר). This word is often translated as sojourner or stranger. It implies a gentile living among the Israelites and obeying some basic rules (namely the laws given to Noah) and accepting the authority of the rabbinical court. This is as opposed to the more generic "goy" (גּוֹי) where no such adherence to the law or rabbinical authority exists. In fact, we see throughout the Old Testament that the goyim are so often the enemies of Israel; not only fighting against them and oppressing them, but also introducing them to idolatry and leading them away from God..

So for us, this tells us that there are foreigners and then there are foreigners. Those who come here and obey our laws and customs ought to be welcomed among us. Those who break our laws and ignore our customs... not so much.

So where does justice lie?

There are two options only for amnesty: Grant it or deny it. It's a binary decision. If we deny it, then there are once again, only two options open to us: Ignore those here illegally, which is de facto amnesty, or forcibly remove them from the country. The latter I believe to be unjust.

There are "officially" 10-12 million illegal aliens living in the US. Some estimates put that number at closer to 20 million. There is simply no way to move upwards of 20 million people in a forced migration without killing thousands in the process. History shows many instances of mass deportations being used as a mechanism for genocide. Why? Because it works for those bent upon killing the target population. Even when genocide isn't the intent, deaths occur whenever mass deportation is used by a government. During the "ethnic cleansing" of Kosovo, the Serbs meant only to remove the Albanian population from Kosovo. Their intent wasn't genocide. However, many displaced Kosovars died anyway. Even with the resources of the United States at our disposal, I do not see how we could safely move so many people. I may not want these people here, but I don't want them dead either!

So if we're forced to grant amnesty, what about a "path to citizenship"? That, I believe, would also be unjust. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) points out that this would be ”profoundly unfair to the millions of legal immigrants who followed the rules.” It would also be unfair to the American people. A "path to citizenship" would suddenly inject millions of people into the voting public who do not share our values or our culture. This would be like opening our elections to the rest of the world. How would it be fair to the American people have their government chosen by people who do not share American values? Or worse, who may despise American values?

So if we are to seek justice and mercy, we need to value both the lives of those living among us and the liberty of the American people. We cannot force millions to move and we cannot force millions of others to accept what would amount to foreign rule.

Ladyface Alehouse & Brasserie

Agoura Hills. Go. Have the IPA. Trust me.

Humor break

The scary thing is that they vote...

How Beer Saved the World (HD)

What civilized Man? Beer...

The hurricane aftermath in NYC

Headline after headline after headline after headline speaks about the horrific conditions in NYC following Hurricane Sandy. Residents of the city are crying for help from the Obama administration and seem shocked that more help isn't forthcoming

But why should The One respond?

NYC, and all of the Northeast are what's called a captive constituency. They will vote for Obama on Tuesday no matter what. So why should he bust his hump saving their sorry asses when he has more important things to do?

Like win Ohio.

This is the problem a State finds itself in when the people of that State show slavish loyalty to one political party. There's no reason for that party to rush to the rescue of that population; no reason to expend political capital on them when they're already won over to the party. We see this whenever California gets into a jam too. The party the majority re-elects without fail will mouth comforting words, but do nothing. They don't have to. They will get re-elected no matter what. And so it is with New York City and the rest of the Northeast. They will vote for Obama on Tuesday, even if they are starving as they vote.

And Obama knows this.

I can't believe I did that...

I can't believe I did that...

I actually donated money to Mitt Romney's campaign last night. If told me a year ago that I'd be doing that, I'd have told you to put down the meth pipe. But lately, the guy had been saying things that only a conservative would; like acknowledging the existence of the 10th Amendment. Or refusing to take the "reasonable gun control" bait that Candy Crowley was trolling the other night.

If only he'd been talking like this a year ago.

More MSM lies

From the same organization that installed detonators on pick-up trucks to make their "crash test" work the way they needed it to comes this: MSNBC Caught Doctoring Clip From Romney/Ryan Rally . MoreShitNBC doctored the audio on their own footage to make it look like the crowd at a Romney/Ryan rally were supporting Ryan over Romney...

I'm not what you'd call a Romney supporter. He was my last choice in the primaries. But this crap makes me want to go out and donate to the guy.

I just got push polled

I just got a call from a pollster trying to push me toward supporting Brad Sherman in the Berman/Sherman Celebrity Death Match. I had to suppress my laughter as Sherman was described as a "fiscal conservative" at one point. Most of the questions were of the form: "Do you like Sherman more now that you know that he interfered in the free market on this issue?"

I really don't think that they wanted my answers.

An update on the solar power saga

We're still going 'round and 'round with the yutzs at the solar power company. I've been trying for months to pay them what they're owed.

This started with the lazy, idiot salesman who didn't want to redo the paperwork from a lease to a sale. Instead, he lied and claimed that this was just how the company liked to do things. At the time it seemed silly, but "whatever" we'd thought.

Next up were the dishonest weasels at the lease servicing company. They, of course, don't want to talk to us about buying the system. How would they make a dime off of that? I get that. But instead of telling us to contact the actual vendor, they pretended to be the vendor and claimed that they never do sales; just leases. But a quick check of the (real) vendor's site shows that they do, indeed, sell their systems.

So now, about once a week, I write or call the vendor trying to get them to straighten this out. Only one person has responded, after sufficient nagging on my part. She tried to get someone to contact us, but they're ignoring her just like they ignore me.

Fun with residential solar power

We just installed solar panels at the sprawling Redcloak family compound. This is something we would never have done without the stupidly generous subsidy that LADWP provides for this not-ready-for-prime-time technology. But, we saw this as a rare opportunity to get back some small portion of the moolah they've extracted from us over the years.

The company we dealt with, who shall remain nameless, but their name rhymes with sunflower, sold us on the project with the quality of their cells. While they're idiots, and their contractor is an asshat, the cells they make are beautiful. But, had we known what sort of semi-trained chimps would be sent to install the system, we would have walked away.

First off, it took 6 months from start to finish. This ain't rocket science! And, the city of L.A. does most of the work for you. Next, the chimps installed their gear in a spot where the building and safety inspector was bound to reject it. The job foreman even warned them that it was a bad location. That added 2 weeks as they tried to con me into additional, and unnecessary, work to relocate an air conditioning compressor. And by additional, I mean they wanted more money from me. The asshat contractor insisted that the inspector was fine with where he placed his gear, but that the A/C would have to move to get it away from the main electrical panel. Numbnuts finally caved when I spoke to the inspector myself and uncovered the lie. It then took the foreman (the one competent person in their entire operation!) intervening with the inspector to get the installation approved.

So now it's up and running. And last night, at about 10, my wife looks out the window and sees something funny in the yard. There are 2 signs out there. At first, I thought they were illegally placed campaign signs. It turns out that they were advertising signs placed by the idiot contractor! You'll be happy to know that I recycled them. I'm waiting for the call from them asking what happened to their signs. I'd love the opportunity to inform them that I wouldn't recommend them to someone I didn't like; let alone one of my neighbors.