Month: March 2016

It Cometh from the Pit:And Hath a Knout

Guest Post by

Once upon a time there was a fairy kingdom that lived inside a place called The Beltway, and was surrounded on all four sides by a land called America. The Beltway was aligned with another kingdom called Manhattan, inhabited by disembodied heads that spoke from the walls of bars, and with with yet another closed kingdom called Hollywood, the abode of  half-educated narcissists. These kingdoms were in eternal political syzygy, and spoke not with the people of the surrounding lands, of whom they knew nothing. The following is a chronicle of what befell them, and why.

After years of peace, the Kingdoms were taken greatly aback by the rise of the Trump Monster, their surprise being proof that they knew nothing of the surrounding lands. They knew nothing for good reasons, of which there were two. The first was that they passed their lives with each other and among each other and talking to each other and writing about each other and reading about each other behind the high walls of their kingdoms. In organs like National Review and The Weekly Standard they endlessly wrote stories of the form “A soothsayer in Manhattan replies to what some  other sayer of sooths said about yet another’s  attack on someone else.”

They had all dwelt in monasteries called Harvard and Princeton, where they learned that they were the wisest of men, and inerrant. They had no idea that they were hated in the strange lands without the walls, which on their maps were drawn as fog with notations such as “Here dwelleth dragons.” They did not know that there were people who agreed not with them. For were they not right about all things?

Continue reading “It Cometh from the Pit:And Hath a Knout”

More terror: ‘Trump 2016’ in sidewalk chalk traumatizes Emory students

Via Twitchy

TRIGGER WARNING: This post contains multiple mentions of GOP candidate D—– T—- and may be upsetting to some readers.

* * *

If you’re fortunate enough that your age, career and/or life experience allow you to see beyond the “safe spaces” that enclose and protect America’s finest colleges from stranger danger, you know all about the terrorist bombings that killed nearly three dozen and wounded hundreds in Brussels, Belgium.

Those of us on the outside of that safe space and forbidden from looking in might have missed another terror incident that took place recently on the campus of Emory University in Atlanta. In a piece in today’s edition of The Emory Wheel that runs more than 1,100 words, Sam Budnyk describes the horrifying discovery of “Trump 2016” chalk drawings and the administration’s flaccid response to student concerns.

Phil Kerpen

OH NO! CHALK! https://twitter.com/_cingraham/status/712428712004816896 …

Yes, chalk.

Christopher Ingraham

Somebody wrote “Trump 2016” in chalk on an Emory University sidewalk. Students report feeling “unsafe” and “afraid” http://emorywheel.com/emory-students-express-discontent-with-administrative-response-to-trump-chalkings/ …

[Editor’s note: Christopher Ingraham is a verified Washington Post reporter, and we’ve confirmed The Emory Wheel is not a parody site.]

Budnyk reports today that after around 40 students stood outside Emory’s administration building and chanted, “Come speak to us, we are in pain!” and “We have nothing to lose but our chains,” the demonstrators comforted each other in a stairwell. “I’m supposed to feel comfortable and safe,” one student reportedly confessed. “I don’t deserve to feel afraid at my school.”

Students then assembled in a board room where they continued to bare their feelings. University President James W. Wagner was unfortunate enough to join the impromptu meeting, where he was asked if Emory would “decry the support for this fascist, racist candidate” in an official campus-wide email. The president vetoed that idea, but after an hour said the university would review security footage to identify those who made the chalk drawings and press trespassing charges if the people behind them weren’t students.

Some pertinent tweets:

Ann Boger ‎@ann_boger

@_cingraham @emorywheel I’d laugh, but it’s just too sad.

BitterApplesauce ‎@bitterclinger4e

@_cingraham @AndrewStilesUSA @emorywheel maybe they can get their midterms delayed while they recover

Pauli Babba ‎@PauliBabba

@_cingraham @emorywheel safe spaces filling up quickly @ Emory U

BRRT ‎@uDiZZLEm8

@_cingraham Hopefully they don’t develop PTSD. Differing opinions can destroy lives. pic.twitter.com/KelWhuZS0y

View image on Twitter


Big Brother Shows Up In My Front Yard

Guest Post by Gayle

I moved to my community in Southern California in 1999.  I wasn’t here very long before I recognized the high quality of life the citizens enjoyed; in fact, I was heard to murmur that I would be content here until I died.  There is a lot of money (much of it medical) in our fair town, which is generously shared with the community in a number of ways, especially the arts, youth programs, and charities serving the poor.  Generally speaking it is a peaceable and beautiful place despite the recent bomb factory that was uncovered here.

There have been a lot of changes in the past ten years.  A chunk of land of several thousand acres next to our city but owned by the county was unavailable for development of any kind.  That changed about ten years ago, and now the area is filled with unimaginative shopping centers, many large concrete warehouses (including Amazon’s two), large apartment complexes, and lots of traffic.  This was preceded by the ripping out of productive orange groves. I am fortunate to live on the old side of town, so I can avoid this area unless I need my Target fix.

In the older neighborhoods, there are many mature and beautiful trees shading lovely lawns and flower beds.  These make life much cooler and more pleasant in our very long and hot and dry summers. They also require a fair amount of water to maintain, and the drought has put pressure on our water supply.  Last year most of us tried to reduce our water usage.  I started doing laundry every other week and tried to significantly reduce my lawn and garden watering.  Some people just let their lawns dry up and left them.  Others paid landscapers to rip out lawns and put in desertscapes, some of which are quite attractive, especially if brown is your favorite color.  Others tried the do-it-yourself route and they are not so attractive.

Continue reading “Big Brother Shows Up In My Front Yard”

Recipe For Collapse: Rising Military & Social Welfare Spending

Submitted by Charles Hugh-Smith of OfTwoMinds blog,

Leaders faced with unrest, rising demands and dwindling coffers always debauch their currency as the politically expedient “solution.”

Whatever you think of former Fed chair Alan Greenspan, he is one of the few public voices identifying runaway entitlement costs as a structural threat to the economy and nation. We can summarize Greenspan’s comments very succinctly: there is no free lunch. The more money that is siphoned off for entitlements, the less there is for investment needed to maintain productivity gains that are the foundation of future income generation: Greenspan: Worried About Inflation, Says “Entitlements Crowding Out Investment, Productivity is Dead” (via Mish)

Many people look to the rising costs of the U.S. military as the structural problem, and they have a point: there is no upper limit on military spending, and the demands (by the civilian leadership of the nation) on the services and the Pentagon’s demands for new weaponry are constantly pushing budgets higher.

But the truth is entitlement spending now dwarfs military spending: entitlements are more than $1.75 trillion, half of all Federal spending, while the Pentagon, VA, etc. costs around $700 billion annually.

We have a model for what happens when military and social welfare spending exceed the state’s resources to pay the rising costs: the state/empire collapses. The Western Roman Empire offers an excellent example of this dynamic.

Continue reading “Recipe For Collapse: Rising Military & Social Welfare Spending”

Similarity in Stock Market Charts for 1929, 2008, 2016 May Show This is the Epocalypse

 Guest Post by David Haggith

Is the US stock market a caged bear? [By Philip Timms [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons]Compare the Great Depression to the Great Recession, and you’ll see a similar pattern in how the Dow Jones Industrial Average graphs out. That pattern appears to be repeating now. The nation’s most notorious stock market crash in 1929 did not occur as a single fall off a cliff, but started with high points that rounded downward as the market bounced off a lowering ceiling; then it experienced a sharp plunge for about a month, then rallied, and then it experienced the huge crash we’ve heard about all our lives. After that, it experienced many more rallies and crashes before it found its absolute bottom.

What people forget is that each of the cliffs was made distinct by brief rallies and sometimes by extended rallies in between. The Great Depression was never a smooth path to the bottom.

 

Graph of the stock market crash of 1929 – The Great Depression

 

1929 Stock Market Crash Chart

 

Here’s a graph of the dailies leading up to the Great Crash of October 1929 — the first big drop of many that constituted the Great Depression. Notice that the stock market in 1929 rounded off at the top, took an initial small plunge that lasted about a month, recovered back to the downward curved trajectory of its highest points, then rounded down more sharply and finally fell off the great cliff that became known as “Black Tuesday” or the “Crash of 1929.” Then it spiked way up over the course of a week, only to fall deeper into the abyss over the next half month. And that was just its first crash on the long road to despair.

Continue reading “Similarity in Stock Market Charts for 1929, 2008, 2016 May Show This is the Epocalypse”

Why Islam Lops Off Heads, Christianity Doesn’t, and Trump Is Right

As an introduction to this article, I would like for you to ask yourself the following question; — “What is life like in a western nation where Muslims are at least 10% of the population?”. To get an honest appraisal of that question, please click here regarding how “multi-culturalism” is working out in Sweden. At least scan the article.

Horrific, is it not? But, it shouldn’t be surprising. Not when one considers the statistical fact that since September 11, 2001, followers of the Religion of Peace have committed more than 27,000 deadly terrorist attacks in the name of Islam. Neither is it surprising that Danish linguist Tina Magaard, after leading a team of researchers who for three years studied the texts of the holy books of the world’s ten biggest religions and interviewed 45,000 subjects concluded that; —- “The texts of Islam are clearly distinct from the other religions texts as they, to a higher degree, call for violence and aggression against followers of other faiths. There are also direct incitements to terror. … Moreover, in the Qur’an there are hundreds of invitations to fight against people of other faiths.” No, to those of us who have eyes and ears and the intellect to cast aside the pure “Islam is peace” bovine-excrement thrown in our faces by the Tolerance&Inclusion panoply of liars, none of this is a surprise.

What may be a surprise, especially to those who haven’t completely read the Old Testament, is that the Bible is every bit as violent as the Koran. There are thirty six (36!!) different offenses in the Bible which qualify for capital punishment. Here are a few of them; — cursing parents, working on the Sabbath, premarital Sex (girls only), disobedience (boys only), worshipping any god but Yahweh, witches, loose daughters of clergy, girls who are raped within the city limits, blasphemers, anyone who proselytizes Yahweh worshipers to a different religion, men who lie with men, adulterers, men who lie with beasts (btw, the beast is also put to death … so think about that before you decide to boink your toy Poodle).

Continue reading “Why Islam Lops Off Heads, Christianity Doesn’t, and Trump Is Right”

Two Views of Terrorism

Post by Anonymous Conservative

http://www.anonymousconservative.com/blog/k-selected-art-vs-r-selected-art-terrorism/#comments

Suggest you read comments as first is by dc.sunsets.

When 9/11 went down you saw examples of K-selected art highlighted by the media:

It said ominously, “Nice shot – Now it’s our turn.” Inherent to it was a sense of independent self-reliance, and imminent vengeance. We didn’t need sympathy, we didn’t give a fuck what other people thought about us, we just wanted to get it on with the scumbags who attacked our nation.

There is a strong, violent, K-selected strain that runs strongly enough through American culture that back then it frightened the American liberal media enough to make them cater to it’s desires with art like that.

Today, the liberal cartoonists in Europe are a little bit different

Belgium was attacked, so the liberal European artsy types, represented by doughy blob-like flags, want some sympathy, some heart-shaped floating love bubbles, and a good group-cry-hug, because of what those evil meanies did. Inherent to the theme is a sense of helplessness, a desire to avoid the problem, a desire to acquire the emotional approval of others, and wholly absent is any sense of imminent violent and brutal retribution. I am actually disgusted, in a deep, visceral way, as I look at that pathetic image.

These are two very different psychologies, and as time goes on all of our populations are splitting ever more widely, to the point we not only no longer understand each other – we cannot tolerate each other. Doubtless there are Europeans who cringed at these pictures as strongly as any K-strategist, and there were liberals in America on 9/11 who would have preferred some variant of the two crying flags. We all hate each other, and there is no reasoning through it.

The problem is these psychologies cannot coexist when resources run out – and resources always run out at some point.

The only bright point is, the rabbits aren’t designed for resource restriction.


Swedish kids beg to leave 95% immigrant school after beatings and strangling

Home schooling is illegal in Sweden. What an open and humane society this little socialist country has become. Diversity is their strength. Dumb fuckers.

Guest Post by

swedish-school

Two Swedish schoolboys have sent a letter to the principal, begging her to let them stay home from school after they and several other Swedish children were beaten, strangled, and tripped up by immigrant children.

“My kids have been home since Wednesday, they have not felt safe and I have not wanted to force them there” said Malin, a mother to two boys who go to the school in Kristianstad.

“When one of the boys said he did not want to play football because the immigrants cheat, two of them attacked him. It ended with this boy being completely covered in blood before some adults intervened.”

Madeleine, another mother to children at the school said “My children were at home on Friday as their best friend was getting strangled on Thursday.”

“They had fear in their stomachs, my little boy who is seven, and in first grade, was tripped and fell. His knees are bruised.”

At first, Annika Persson, the school’s principal, refused to speak to parents about this. But then she did meet with 7 Swedish families who had been attacked.

Madeleine attended the meeting, and brought the letter that her two sons had written to the principal.

The principal took the side of the immigrant kids who were attacking Swedish kids, and she instructed the Swedish kids to “walk away” when there was trouble.

Continue reading “Swedish kids beg to leave 95% immigrant school after beatings and strangling”

Trump’s Image Among Republicans Continues to Tilt Positive

Via Gallup

 

Trump's Image Among Republicans Continues to Tilt Positive

 

Story Highlights

  • Between 54% and 61% of Republicans have viewed Trump favorably since July
  • Trump’s image more negative than other GOP front-runners in previous years
  • Republicans who view Trump positively are older, more likely to be men

PRINCETON, N.J. — Republicans nationwide remain more positive than negative in their views of Donald Trump, with 55% viewing him favorably and 41% unfavorably so far in March. Despite Trump’s extraordinary journey since last summer as the central — and controversial — focus of the 2016 election, Republicans’ views of the billionaire businessman have generally held steady. His image today is roughly where it was last July.

TrumpGOP1revised_jp

These trend data are based on Gallup Daily tracking of more than 1,600 Republicans who have rated Trump each month since July. Overall, Trump has averaged a 57% favorable rating and a 37% unfavorable rating among Republicans over that period. Since Trump’s favorable rating peaked at 61% in January, it has been lower each of the past two months. But from a broad perspective, the month-to-month changes have been relatively minor.

The relative stability in Trump’s favorable percentage — ranging between 54% and 61% — shows that his supporters are fairly locked into their support and are not dramatically affected by what Trump says or does, or by what the media and rival candidates say about him. This, in turn, may reflect that Trump was well-known early on, and that many Republicans formed a fairly firm opinion of him in the early stages of the campaign.

On a comparative basis, Trump’s popularity among Republicans is roughly similar to where Mitt Romney was in February 2012 (59% favorable, 31% unfavorable), although fewer Republicans had an opinion of Romney four years ago, giving him a higher net favorable than Trump’s today. In March of election years prior to that, the eventual Republican nominee had much higher favorable ratings among his own partisans, with John McCain in 2008, George W. Bush in 2000 and Bob Dole in 1996 all earning favorable ratings among Republicans in the 80% to 90% range.

Few Young, Female Republicans Are Pro-Trump

Continue reading “Trump’s Image Among Republicans Continues to Tilt Positive”