Sunday, February 26, 2017

Way Too Early: RIP Bill Paxton




We note with sadness the far too early departure of actor Bill Paxton, yesterday from complications of heart surgery, at the age of only 61.

Well, fuck. One more face to add to tonight's Oscar tribute of those we lost this year.

Paxton was fun to watch, and we can't recall him ever shooting his mouth off about things outside his ken as an actor. We first noticed him in the before-its-time cult classic Streets Of Fire, and he absolutely nailed every terminal lance corporal we've ever seen with his portrayal of Pvt. Hudson in Aliens ("Man, I'm too short for this shit...game over man, game over!").



He was clearly a favorite of James Cameron, which is why we kept seeing him in everything, and making him that top-tier 2%: a regularly working featured actor, and he deserved it every time, paying it off to the audience in every scene.

Loved him in Navy Seals, he made a great Earp brother in Tombstone, he made Twister worth watching, and was rock-solid in Apollo 13, Titanic, and U-571.



What a helluva run, and over way too soon.
Sincere condolences to his family at a loss to them, and everyone who enjoys a good flick.

Saturday, February 25, 2017

Califucktardation





Being dragged kicking and screaming to an essay is getting to be a regular thing, so here's today's thought exercise.

Apparently, some people keep picking the booger of California secession, and then they can't help eating it. (Pat Buchanan, call your office.)

And wiser heads than mine have noted that the easiest way to slay a stupid position is to grant its premise. So let's go with that.

Somehow, we'll ignore history, common sense, and naked reality (pretty much like CA's political parties have done jointly here for 40 years, to be fair), and assume the baker's dozen actual supporters of CA seceding from the United States manage to convince a majority of voters amongst 30 million of their friends and neighbors to vote for CalExit (because where there's smoke, it's the tail exhaust of flying pigs).

So Governor Moonbeam and the Progressive Communist Party apparatchiks, looking for all the world like a dog who caught a car, now have their own little socialist utopia, for discussion purposes. For as long as that lasts.

Half the Pacific Fleet is homeported in Alameda, Long Beach, and San Diego.
So, when President Trump declares the entire state in rebellion to the union, and orders the crews of any numbers of those ships to launch cruise missiles into the state capitol building, the governor's mansion, etc., and knowing that their families are hostage to the whims of the leftists attempting secession, and knowing how radical and contrary and out-and-out leftist the members of the US military are(n't), how many sailors are going to say "No, Mr. President."?
(Or should the question be better phrased as "How long before they carpet bomb every city's government centers with cruise missiles and cluster bombs, and napalm most of the UC campuses, movie studios, television and radio stations "just to be safe"?)

One third of the Marine Corps - the First Marine Division, the First Marine Air Wing, etc. - is located at Camp Pendleton, Miramar MCAS, and MCB Twentynine Palms.
When SecDef Mattis tells them to seize and defend San Diego, the greater Los Angeles area as far north as Santa Barbara, and secure the US border with Mexico, do you figure they're going to take a pass?
And how many people do you think they'll have to kill outright, vs. how many will they round up and hold in their underpants in stockades in the desert at 29 Palms, for sedition and treason trials in batches?

When reinforced by USAF squadrons from Nellis AFB in Nevada, and from AFBs in AZ and NM, how long do you think it will take components of the USAF at Vandenburg AFB and Edwards AFB, etc. to reduce Sacramento, San Francisco, and most of leftist bastions in coastal CA from Monterey to Oregon to smoking Dresden-like heaps of ashes after the firestorm? Will it be a full hour, or more like seven minutes?

How long will it take the tenant OPFOR Regt. at the NTC, and whatever unit is training there, to road march up the Central Valley and surround Sacramento, and send a detached combined arms company team to secure the California Aqueduct, cutting off LA's water supply, and nipping the rebellion in the bud?

When the 40th Div., CA NG (yes, the frickin' CA National Guard) is informed they've been federalized, do they honor their oaths, or become the palace guard of the 40-second commissariat?
(Or more realistically, how long before they call the Pentagon and let them know that have Gov. Moonbeam's head - just that - mounted on a handy display pole?)

When the 40-45% of Californians who vote Republican, own metric fucktons of guns, and are sick of the nanny-statist shit going back 50 years have the opportunity to start taking out the opposition, do you figure their biggest problem will be organizing, or will it be making sure everyone has enough targets to shoot at, so no one feels left out before it's all over, way too fast, and the inevitable clean-up of bodies has to begin?

And will they have to take out the cops defending the new communist utopia, or will their biggest problem be keeping up with the cops who change sides en masse, organize, and start taking out every city government pro-actively, and holding them under arrest in Death Valley until the arrival of federal forces from outside CA?

When the eastern 3/4's of the state that is redder than a sunburned pig realizes there's no way past them, especially after AZ, NV, and OR NG units are federalized and seal the borders, do they march on the coastal enclaves and go all Genghis Khan, lopping off heads, pillaging, and so on; or do they simply drive the leftist herds of footie pajama-clad cocoa-sipping nancy boys right into the fucking Pacific, and watch them swim (partway) to China?

That takes us to Monday afternoon, on the first day after the vote, to about 2PM.
We can stop there, and anyone who sees that going some other way can show their work in comments.

My biggest quandary if this looked like it had a snowball's chance in hell would be wondering if I could get a good file and handle to sharpen my bayonet, or whether prep time would be better spent acquiring a pair of waders to keep the blood running in the streets from ruining a perfectly good pair of trousers. And wondering whether it's more ethical to loan Molotov cocktails, versus selling them for cash to those who hadn't brought any from home.

Fucking hell, people, if you could just vote yourself your own little communist paradise, does anybody seriously think MA, NJ, and NYFC wouldn't have been independent countries like, 40 years ago??
Get a farking cluebat, and smack yourselves over the head with it if you're falling for this efflulvia.

{Nota bene this is a no-lose proposition: I either get to laugh at people taking this seriously, or I get to participate in regime change within range of a tank of gas, and set to undoing a half century's unbridled leftism at the cyclic rate of the contents of the gun safe. I'm trying to see a down side.}



Bonus round: Given current Republican control of the presidency, both houses of congress, and a conservative majority once again in the Supreme Court, who wants to bet cash money that five minutes after a vote to secede from a state from exactly the opposite political leadership, the Democrat Party is officially listed as a subversive and seditious organization, their leadership rounded up and imprisoned, and every registered party member/voter in 50 states put on terrorist watch lists. And spotting you the five minutes is the best odds you'll get on that.
Please, do tell me how that isn't ever going to happen.
But stay out of the doorway, through which 20-50% of former members of the Democrat Party would momentarily be streaming past, in a rush to change sides, and get to breathe free oxygen for awhile longer.

Secession would become Tet 2017, with Ds playing the VC, and there won't be any Walter Crankhype to try and snatch victory from out of the jaws of overwhelming strategic defeat.
And when the Democrats get let out of Manzanar in a decade or three, given the sedition involved, we won't even owe them any reparations.

Be still, my beating heart.

Sunday, February 19, 2017

Sunday Punditry



Consider this your alternative to the talking featherheads of fake news at ABCNNBCBS.

I've been trying not to write this, because of a natural aversion to herding cats and sorting out the furball catfights that are inevitable, but the question simply won't go away.

Some people seem bound and determined to wreck everything and burn it all down, because, in their view, there's no way what most of us call the United States can go on.

And they think, because reasons, and the Underpants Gnome, that whatever happy little tribe they'll come up with will fare better than the original idea.

So ignoring the heads-banging-against-the-wall-at-the-Retard-Academy arrogance of presuming you have or are a group of benevolent geniuses equal or superior to the likes of Franklin, Adams, Jefferson, Washington, Madison, and all the rest, let's say you get a chance.

The United States dissolves into a hellish balkanization of competing interests and regions.
(And make no mistake, such a turn would rival the Dark Ages or monkeys at the monolith in 2001: A Space Odyssey for pure animal destructiveness). So you, and whatever clan, tribe, or polity you can concoct and aggregate are going to have to figure out a system of governance; else get your asses kicked and your carcasses stripped to the bone by someone else who does. And they won't be observing any rules but "Winning" or waiting for a starter's gun to kick off festivities. Assume they'll be hip-deep in your ass from the get-go.

So, what are you going to come up with that isn't vastly worse than what you would so casually cast aside? (And handily documented by everyone from Caesar to Genghis Khan to Napoleon to Hitler to Stalin to Mao to Hugo Chavez to Nancy Pelosi?)

BLUF, you aren't going to improve on the original concept, banged out by renaissance-pinnacle geniuses and hard-headed practical successes of a type far beyond the high-water mark of any twenty universities today, who made it work in a rougher time, with a stupider national mean, and with more adversity (in a Darwin Award-winning way) than a truly benevolent deity should have allowed to block their path. Wail and gnash your teeth as you see fit, but that's just the way it is.

There is absolutely nothing you can think of they didn't have to consider, and then ended up discarding. Today we have a panoply of means to communicate ideas instantly, a cornucopia of Internet resources to reference, and lack the handicap of actual slavery as a built-in punisher to sabotage any notional new scheme. And despite literal man-decades of political thought since then, nothing better has been proposed with so much as a snowball's chance in hell of being adopted and actually working, let alone better than the original.

Froth and fume in comments (and show your work), but facts are stubborn things.
And if you can't reference Hammurabi, Moses, Plato, Augustine, Calvin, Hobbes (that would be John and Thomas, respectively, not a cartoon child and his stuffed tiger, though the latter may serve at some points), and Locke, along with six millennia of recorded human history in your arguments, you probably aren't tall enough for this ride.

For the brighter and/or lazier who consider this problem, you might want to put forth more effort towards restoration along the lines of Founder's Intent, than into destruction for its own sake. (Despite not as fun, but far more profitable in the long run.)
Just saying.

Founding philosophy workbook bullet points:
Government, like fire, is a dangerous servant and a cruel master.
That government governs best which governs least.

Thursday, February 16, 2017

I'm Sure There's Nothing To Worry About...



Item One:
In Britain, they have the Official Secrets Act, which means anyone telling tales that affect national security in any way can get racked for it. Here in the U.S., we have fairly wide-ranging freedom of speech and press, so as long as you aren't handing over actual classified data to foreign powers while charged with custody of same, you're a lot freer to pass things along and around.

Item Two:
For reference, the classic signs and symptoms of organo-phosphate poisoning (i.e. exposure to nerve agent, including Sarin, VX, and the rest of the families of post-WWI and subsequent witch's brew of poison gas derivatives brought to the world by the work of I.G. Farben, and subsequently improved on in Britain, the U.S., and Russia.) are:

  • Runny nose and eyes.
  • Small pupils or blurry vision.
  • Coughing, chest tightness, wheezing, or shortness of breath.
  • Nausea and vomiting.
  • Abdominal pain or diarrhea.
  • Fatigue, headache, or sweating.
  • Muscle twitching or a seizure.

  • Or, in more technical terms,
    lacrimation (tearing of the eyes)
    rhinorhea (runny nose)
    diaphoresis (sweating)
    bronchorrhea (excessive lung secretions)
    emesis (vomiting)
    urination (peeing yourself)
    defecation ($#!^^ing yourself)
    Along with headache, fatigue, dyspnea, constricted pupils, abdominal pain and cramps, muscles cramps, twitching, seizure, coma, and death.
    In short, if you have a pore or orifice, it begins running like a river, and then you die, as every muscle is short-circuited by the chain reaction of the nerve agent molecules through your nervous system, making everything trigger and keep triggering, affecting you at the nervous, glandular, and organ level. Dosage and route of exposure makes all of this happen in between two and fifteen minutes.



    Item Three:
    Dateline: Los Angeles, July 2016
    Southern California EMS response brought three college-/military-age (20s-30s) males of undisclosed Middle Eastern extraction to two Los Angeles-area emergency rooms, all from one apartment.
    Two of them were found in the bathroom(s) on the premises.
    All were brought in suffering acute respiratory distress, seizures, and coma, after having been found, in one case, vomiting and crapping themselves on the thinking throne when they seized up.
    All were notably tearing, snotting, drooling, sweating, short of breath, and incontinent of urine and feces prior to arrival at two area emergency departments.
    All three subsequently suffered complete cardio-respiratory arrest, and despite the best efforts of medical staff there, expired.

    In short order, a swarm of black SUVs arrived tagged with government plates, and a number of MIB (Men In Black) wearing earpieces arrived at both EDs, and being from The Government and Here To Help Us, subsequently informed the doctors at one of the EDs that the two victims had died from meningitis. The third victim, expiring similarly at another ED, and having neither external wounds nor bleeding, was explained as having died of a gunshot wound. This despite presenting no such signs, symptoms, nor any other supporting clinical manifestations of such cause(s) of death.

    Presumably after further activities, the local fire, police, and coroner's authorities were similarly briefed, the site was investigated and cleaned, and no mention was made of this to any media organizations whatsoever.

    But some of us have friends and acquaintances in all sorts of places, the Internet is a thing, and ultimately, secrets get out. (And I knew about this in real time in July, but it took a while to get independent confirmations before I was willing to pass it along.)

    But sleep tight, folks, officially, none of this ever happened, it was all in your imagination, and everything's just fine and dandy.

    And I'm sure everyone has a military-grade field protective mask, chemical protective suit, boots, gloves, and hood, and atropine and Pralidoxime auto-injectors on them at all times, right? Sh'yeah, right.

    Wednesday, February 15, 2017

    Tomorrow


     


    "Seven".
    The earpiece crackled in Jake's ear from one of the handheld radios they were each tuned to. They'd picked up a couple of dozen surplused Motorola LE-only encrypted radios on eBay, and after a lot of work, Gene had programmed them all to use a normally unused simplex channel reserved for the authorities for tonight. All anyone else would hear was a brief bit of static with the factory encryption, but they still stuck to brevity codes.
    Jake calmed himself. He knew the signs of buck fever, and he took a few moments to stretch his whole body, starting with his toes, and ending with his fingers. It wouldn't be long now, and he didn't want to be fighting adrenaline when the moment came.
    The van he was in was non-descript. It was the twin of one belonging to a local business the next city over, and the plates on it would be back in the morning, with any luck at all. Inside was dark and quiet, but he could already hear the noise of the protesters as they moved down the main street, closing at the speed of a 6000-footed caterpillar, fueled by youthful exuberance, and a healthy amount of stupidity. Well, they were about to get a lot more education than what they'd gotten at U Cal, and he was happy to be a teaching assistant tonight.
    He focused on the intersection, and checked over his gear one last time inside the darkened vehicle, as the sounds of yet another leftist temper tantrum grew louder by the moment.

    "Six."
    Jim, hunkered down behind a load of cardboard boxes in a van much like Jake's, sat at right angles to the intersection.
    His weapon too was identical to Jake's: the ubiquitous Ruger 10/22, modified for tonight.
    It had a frame optimized for grown-ups, with one of those evil pistol grips that gave the state legislature hissy fits, going back to the late 1980s. Also a high-cap magazine, which torqued them out even worse. In this case, picked up out of state on a visit to relatives, and driven back across state lines into what Jim referred generally to as "Occupied Territory". He had several more loaded and waiting next to the stock. Also present was a heavy barrel, making the thing a tack-driver out to the limits of the relatively weak cartridge. And under the heading of "in for a penny, in for a pound", both rifles had custom home-made suppressors screwed on at the business end. They wouldn't be truly silent, but inside a can, inside a van, a couple of hundred yards away from a herd of screaming protesters, would be as near as. Just to be on the safe side, Jim screwed an earplug into the other ear, the one without the earbud.
    Jim hadn't been in the military, and he wasn't the shooter Jake, who'd been a designated marksman when he served, was. But a lot of patient practice and range time had made him plenty good enough. And using the little pop-guns tonight wouldn't tax anyone's abilities at all. He checked the bipod legs to make sure they were securely locked. If they had failed, he had a beanbag rest for backup.
    And when they returned, the barrels used tonight would come off, replaced by factory barrels again, and the heavys would go on a fishing trip, after being reamed out with a hardened bit. No evidence, no traces.

    "Five".
    Gene spoke in a monotone voice familiar to anyone with long hours in a ham shack. He was the geek in the bunch. He'd found and programmed their radios, made sure everyone understood how to use them, and how to communicate.
    There wasn't a leader as such, but he was older than the others by a decade or so, and after raising three teenagers to adulthood, there wasn't much that fazed him or ruffled his feathers, so he made, if not a Daddy to the group, a good Friar Tuck: a bit more mature, thoughtful, and worldly-wise, when it was needed.
    He focused on his screen, and his fingers moved the controls to guide the drone slowly and deliberately. It was unregistered (of course), blacked out, and over the din of the demonstration, almost as silent as Jim and Jake would be, on the moment.
    He followed the mob's progress as they moved towards the intersection where all their flyers and internet blather had helpfully pinpointed they would end their rally.
    The police scanners indicated that, exactly as before, the town cops would be studiously ignoring the protest except for a token presence, and the campus cops were half a mile behind, doing about the same thing.
    No roadblocks, so he and the others, in separate vehicles, would take separate, easy, and rehearsed routes out of Moscow-Near-The-Bay, and back to the quiet semi-rural small community they lived in an hour or so back up California's lush Central Valley.
    Not so lush now, with dumping the agricultural water formerly set aside to feeding the world now going to a Sacto Delta baitfish to appease the whims of the idiots Gene was watching, and their elected Foole, long known as Governor Moonbeam.
    Gene focused his attention on the drone's power supply. He had four of them, and had alternated them in series, swapping  hot batteries for the depleted ones, so he wouldn't lose visual on the herd. Other than a minute or two between coverage, it had worked flawlessly, until one of his drones had a hiccup, and had to be retired from the relay. The others picked up the slack, but he was glad he was able to recover it without losing one of his numerous toys. The mob was now crossing the fourth street from the target intersection.

    "Four."
    Pete could barely hear his earpiece, turned up all the way, but he had the most dangerous job. He'd infiltrated one of the local bunches of miscreants some weeks prior, after the first riot. He wasn't one of their anarchists per se, just one of the multitudinous black-clad folks giving them cover.
    He had several jobs.
    First, on his way to the rally, he'd carefully dumped a couple of hundred pieces of wiped .22LR brass around the intersection; some in each direction, where later investigators would find it, for all the good it would do them. It had been collected off the ground and floor at half a dozen shooting ranges, separated by brand, and location. The consensus was it would look like between 4 and 8 close-in shooters, rather than just the two.
    Second, he was the one with an interest in historical sabotage. Careful research on real manuals (not the tripe in The Anarchist's Cookbook, which he was sure had been written by BATFE to get amateur bomb makers to blow themselves up) and practice with real materials had taught him several time-honored ways of getting something to go up in flames or explosion, reliably timed, and without him being there to get the full effect in the face. Most, but not all of the materials would be consumed, making things that much harder for anyone looking into it afterwards, as he was sure they would. That's why after tonight, he wouldn't use that particular set-up again for some time, so as not to create a signature. And just for fun, the night before, he'd left enough parts and exemplars inside the garage of the witch organizing this event to see her off to a long odyssey through the federal courts and prison system, after one anonymous phone call. Life's a bitch, especially when you are one, he chuckled to himself as he salted the items among her possessions the night before.
    Third, as the mob moved along, he would place his devices underneath several likely cars about a block behind the festivities, on both sides of the street. That mainly entailed tying his shoes a lot at the bumpers, and surreptitiously sliding his items under their gas tanks. Time and physics would do the rest, in about three minutes, once he set them in place.
    Lastly, once he'd done that job, he was artillery.
    He had a water balloon cannon ready to attach to poles on the sides of his pickup truck. Practice had taught him that he could hurl small-bottle Molotov cocktails a couple of city blocks with minimal effort, and hit minute of mob, in about thirty seconds. Three shots in 10 seconds, break it down, and then be gone in half a minute.
    He was wearing the mob uniform black, head-to-toe: black combat boots, black baggy military-style cargo trousers, black long-sleeved t-shirt and black hoodie, with a black balaclava over his face, and black leather gloves with hard knuckles. On his back, a generic but sturdy nylon black backpack.
    Underneath, hard soccer shin guards, knee pads, a cup, hard elbow pads, soft body armor, and lightweight HDPE Level III plates in a plate carrier. A homemade hard helmet shell under the balaclava. He would not be playing victim in the knockout game if he got confronted.
    He also had OC spray, a stun gun, a cheap but sturdy full-tang knife, and a Glock 19 with several extra mags, as well as the CCW permit (from a more enlightened sheriff in the nearby county where he lived, but good statewide), to make him almost 100% legal. Well, except for the incendiaries in the backpack.
    Like the others, he also had a generic camelback, a small IFAK, and a personal E&E kit, including colorful regular shirt and pants, maps and routes on a removable cell phone thumb drive that led to an alternate and contingency rendezvous, a burner cell phone with the battery removed, paper cash and change, energy bar, and a good plausible and backstopped cover story.
    He was young enough to pass for a grad student, and a bit of an adrenaline junkie, hence his choice of assignment, but he was nobody's fool, and they all planned to get home quietly and safely, and had taken every precaution to make it so.

    "Three."
    Gene noted everything on the scanners normal, mob moving into position.

    "Two."
    Jake and Jim chambered the first rounds in their rifles, and stayed on their scopes.

    "One."
    Now it got hairiest for Pete, and as he entered the last block, he started dropping off his packages, pushing them well under gas tanks, and making sure to trip the chemical chain to start the ball.
    The first two were easy, then he had to work his way quickly through the mob as it congealed, to get to the other side of the packed street, and his alley exit. The front end was in the target zone already.
    "Target 1. Target 1."
    "Target 2. Target 2."
    "Confirm Target 1. Confirm target 2."
    Jake and Jim both had eyes on the front of the herd in their crosshairs.
    Pete pulled out his last timer, and shoved his package delicately along the asphalt under an SUV.
    As he hit the alley and made his way along it, he gave the all clear.
    "Thunder. Thunder."
    "Confirm Thunder."
    "Waiting for ignition."
    As Pete jogged towards his truck, the chemical chain ignited his first package. A fire blossomed underneath a sedan on the far side of the intersection.
    The drone confirmed it as the orange blossom grew.
    "Ignition."
    "Weapons close. Weapons close."
    Two safeties were snapped off, and two pairs of eyes searched for targets.
    A second package ignited, as flames from the first began to engulf the first car.
    Pete got to his truck, jumped into the bed, and limbered the poles into place.
    "Drone's off. Drone's off."
    Gene guided his drone back towards his vehicle. When it was well away from the zone of interest, he dropped it to 100 feet, set it on homing, and turned on his burner phone.
    He punched in a number, and a previously selected landline rang.
    It was connected to a timer, and the timer to an Israeli-made cell phone jammer sitting in a phony generic utility box as camouflage, on the roof of a building on the near side of the intersection.
    For the next 10 minutes, no one would be connecting any calls within 100 yards of the site. All streaming video from the riot stopped. Texts bounced to nowhere. No 911 calls would be going out.

    The crowd pushed into the intersection, some of them cheering the fires they thought their own thugs had started.
    "Shot out. Shot out."
    Pete called the first of three launches of lit Molotovs now arcing towards their target, labeled "to whom it may concern."
    The first bottle bloomed into fire amidst the mob. There were screams; they weren't expecting this.
    "Splash. Splash."
    "Splash. Splash."
    Both shooters confirmed the impacts.

    Gene was recovering his drone; he closed the sliding side door as he made the call.
    "Weapons free. Weapons free."
    Inside the two vans, the shooters began plinking through their 25-round magazines. The rounds might kill, maim, or just leave a painful but survivable wound, but in less than half a minute, they were all on their way. Inside the vans, the rounds tick-tick-ticked off, and the brass went into catch-pouches.

    The mob was careening around the intersection now. Panic set in with a vengeance as people started to go down. The herd started to stampede back the way they'd come when the first vehicle's gas tank went up with a "Whoompph!", and sent them in new directions. The third package ignited across the street, just as the last of three molotovs landed in the confusion and screaming terror, amplifying it.

    "Rounds complete. Rounds complete."
    Both shooters changed magazines, and began to send the second batch of 25 shots into the fleeing mob. They both aimed low; a lot of knees and legs were hit.
    "Three, Tally Ho."
    Gene was already on the road and outbound.
    "Four, Tally ho."
    Pete had dropped his poles, and was on his way out too.

    "Winchester 1."
    "Winchester 2."
    Jake and Jim had gone through their second magazine apiece. They each dropped the hinged windows back into place and secured them there. The rifles were dropped into hide boxes, then covered with a couple of heavy crates.
    "Two, Tally Ho."
    Everyone waited breathlessly for Jake to announce he was rolling as well.
    "One, Tally Ho."
    Three other hearts started to slow down to normal.

    NOW the idiots would know what a "WAR" was. None of the men driving away thought they'd like it very much in reality. And the authorities were still trying to figure out WTF had already happened. They wouldn't learn anything useful, though the anonymous call the next day that snitched out the organizer of the violence for cooking her own people "for the greater good" would come as a great PR boost, rather than their usual "we're investigating all leads" B.S.

    The cards on their steering wheels led them to separate freeway entrances. After that, the routes were in their heads. Cruise control kept them driving at the speed limit. Radios were switched off. Each drove silently into the night. Behind, the screaming continued, and the nightmare for the protesters, and TPTB, was just beginning.

    One hour later, the radios came back on.
    They each checked in by number, and verified from different directions their primary rendezvous site was clear and uncompromised.
    There, the rifle barrels would come off, the brass would be policed, and they'd switch to the cold license plates. 
    The rifles were put back to original configuration. Jake took the weapons. Jim took the silencers, and the custom stocks.
    Gene got the hot barrels. Pete got the brass.
    Everyone changed clothes. Gene took these to an all-night laundromat.
    The other three, in sweat clothes, hit the 24-hour gym next door, and took long showers, scrubbing every trace of residue from their bodies. Then they changed into their normal attire.
    Pete took the hot plates back to the lot where the delivery vans they'd borrowed them from were parked, and put them back on without incident.

    They drove home individually, at intervals, and by separate routes. Gene drilled out the barrels; next deep sea trip, they'd fall off the boat at night on the ride out. Jim cleaned and stashed the other parts, and Jake cleaned the weapons thoroughly. Pete took the brass home, where he pounded it into lumps of scrap with a sledgehammer, then shot off a bridge into the tule marshes with a slingshot.

    And they all slept like babies.




    This is entirely a piece of fiction. And a cautionary tale. Hopefully it stays that way, but I wouldn't put chips on that square. If it gets your panties all twisted, too fucking bad. Get over it.
    It took about twenty minutes to type out, and I haven't even been thinking about this much.
    If I can come up with this off the cuff, so can five hundred thousand other people. Some already have.
    Bet your ass on that.
    And if you're one of the erstwhile protesters, many of them wouldn't be as merciful towards you and yours as I was in this little tale. You ARE betting your ass on that, every time you show up for another piece of street theatre. And when it actually happens, 100:1 they'll see that YOU get the blame for it. Win-win.

    So, contrary to all experience thus far, you all could grow the fuck up, knock your silly shit off, and just suck it.
    Or keep pushing your luck.
    Call the toss in the air, kids.
    -A.

    Sunday, February 12, 2017

    Reasonable Questions File


    (No, Snowflakes, this isn't war. If it were war, you'd have been dead in wholesale lots, and the Right would have been grinning from ear to ear from their sniper perches hundreds of yards away, and would have laughed out loud as designated mop-up teams waded in and shot your wounded in the face. That's how WAR is played. You could look it up. This was an infantile tantrum where you shit your own crib. -A.)


    From comments at this thread over on WRSA, comes this reply from the bloghost, Concerned American:
    What is the military spec from 25 years ago on taking boot camp intakes to rifle competence, both USA and USMC?
    Short answer, seven weeks for the USMC, somewhat less for Big Green.
    (Which accounts for the overall difference in the respective products received.)


    Longer answer:
    It takes a metric shit-ton of difference between basic recruits, and the rabble that calls itself Antifa.

    It takes:
    People willing to volunteer not just to commit violence, but doing so with a mature appreciation that they may very well be called upon to die in the effort, rather than hide behind a bandana and run like little girls if there's any chance of even getting arrested.
    Edge: military recruits. From ever.

    People willing to undergo weeks of draconian authoritarian discipline, follow commands to the smallest detail, down to how they shave, cut their hair, tie their boots, and wipe their ass, and create pools of sweat to meet the most minimum standards for every single thing, or failing to.
    Edge: military recruits.

    A trained cadre of experienced warfighters, intensively trained to break down those recruits, and then build them back up into what is needed, sufficient to kick the asses of every major power for two centuries.
    Edge: military recruits.

    A training ethic that knows the more you sweat in peace, the less you bleed in war.
    Edge: military recruits.

    Long days of training during longer weeks, just to get every person imbued with a sense of discipline at the individual and unit level, in order to accomplish the greater objectives.
    Edge: military recruits.

    The institutional mindset to shitcan the lazy, the stupid, the belligerently malingering, the psychotic, and the permanently weak, rather than pass along a cat's breakfast of two-legged abortions to later units.
    Edge: military recruits.

    Years of intense study to find, refine, and instill the techniques of shooting at the individual level, and fighting cohesively at the small unit level, to enable further training progress, and ultimate combat success.
    Edge: military recruits.

    A dedicated recruitment, training, supply, and support establishment to guarantee an unending pipeline of first-rate personnel, doctrine, training materials, and common equipment, thus insuring reinforcement of basic principles of warfighting and winning.
    Edge: military recruits.

    In point of fact, the Antifa is such an obvious display of libidinous monkeys trying to fornicate with a football, they wouldn't even register if there were side-by-side graphs next to each of these points comparing them to the training programs of the Army or Marines.

    They can't be shake-and-baked into anything but a pack of armed baboons in seven (or seventy) weeks' time, from the starting point of being a pack of unarmed baboons (their default setting on their best day).

    Someone like John Mosby, Max Velocity, etc. could take maybe twenty such raw recruits and turn them into a couple of barely competent squads. In seven long weeks. Because 20:1 is about the ratio at MCRD for Marine boot camp or in the Army for BIT/AIT for drill instructors/drill sergeants vs. raw recruits.

    And to make them barely competent light infantry, the .mil allocates even more time and resources. With a vast cadre of experienced trainers, luxurious training establishments, and a gargantuan budget, just to, six months later, burp their products out the back end as minimally-competent basic infantry, ready to spend months and years learning and refining their arts, and marginally able to pour piss out of a boot, if given instructions stamped on the heel, and the tender loving supervision of sergeants who educate by profanity the way Michelangelo worked in marble.

    Antifa could, with dedication, get to being perhaps almost half-assed, after the helpful application of six months' direct combat. Which would cull the bottom 95% of their number, either from casualties, or desertions, which both amount to the same thing.

    The left going violent will be the VC launching Tet in 1968: a quick, glorious, spastic orgy of self-destruction, and permanent non-existence and political irrelevance after the bodies are counted.

    And the Left has no Walter Crankhate to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat afterwards (though no shortage of those willing to try), and paint the stacks of protesters piled like cordwood - as they would be - as inarguable proof of their inevitable victory.
    It would mainly end the Left as a political option, for the next century, and open season on them wherever and whenever found, until several generations post-blood-letting have passed.

    By which point, being long dead myself, I will assuredly give no more fucks than I give about their pet causes now, while I'm very much alive.

    The left is dangerous, but if they seek to win by force what they couldn't win by reason or peacefully voting into power, they will be the de facto Redcoats in the re-enactment of Lexington Common and Concord Bridge, and fare about as well as their spiritual forefathers did on that day in history.

    And they would learn at that point, with alacrity and dismay, why it's always a bad idea (in a Darwin Award-winning sort of fashion) to bring a half-assed rabble to a guerrilla war. And don't ever pick a fight with rednecks that they can drive to in their pickup trucks, unless you like eating a sandwich for lunch made of your own ass, which they'll promptly hand you.

    The little black-clad Bitch Posse feels brave when pepper-spraying women who thought they were going to a lecture, and ganging up 40-to-1 on unarmed middle-aged guys.
    They will, by contrast, squirt their shorts full the first time they start catching facefuls of .30 caliber incoming, in a manner that will trigger the activation of their organ donation cards, and all their chicken-shit posturing has done is get a sizable cross-section of the right to salivating on the prospect of the smackdown we're inching closer to, with each one of these infantile street tantrums.

    The pendulum swinging their way is a wrecking ball, with spikes on it. And even money, after the first casualties, some generous souls will then go after the fallen agitators' families, just to make a point. (In this case, the point being that the outcome of the Third Punic War is considered a reasonable victory line upon which the Right will settle.)

    That isn't over-confidence, bluster, or braggadocio talking. It's the cold, hard, bloody truth, calling out down through the ages:

                       Beware the wrath of patient men.

    Tuesday, February 7, 2017

    When Is It Okay To Punch A Nazi?



    After foisting this vile piece of agitprop onto the world, the Sturmabteilungs everywhere, and the Reichshauptamt der Propaganda at Salon deserve the obvious answer:


    When everyone who disagrees with you is labeled Hitler, and you're the one who starts punching people in the face,
                      YOU'RE THE NAZI.


    In case that's too obscure, that means we can punch you'ns in the face anydamntime we want to.

    Update: And under the heading of Great Minds Think Alike, here are my last two posts rolled into one essay by a blogger I follow. RTWT.

    Natzsofast...


    John Mosby, AKA Mountain Guerrilla, generally knows his stuff. As if he or anyone needed me to say so.

    But when it comes to analysis of the Left, and things in general in his latest post, IMHO, he's leaving out a few salient details.

    Other rants, from the grievously unhinged, were partly why I posted Get A F***ing Grip a couple of days ago.

    So let's dig in to this one, and see if any chips fly.

    John writes,
    #1) I can train a fucking monkey to run an AR or an AK in three days. Give me ten days, and I can bring a complete novice to a near-expert level of proficiency with the gun. That’s fucking easy. The hard part? Convincing somebody to actually use it. Convincing someone that they actually need to overcome the culturally conditioned aversion to interpersonal violence that Americans have been spoonfed for the last sixty years, is far more challenging than teaching someone the mechanics of gunfighting. Guess which side has already overcome that cultural conditioning? I’ll give you two hints: first, it’s not the guys typing away on FB about how they’re gonna “slaughter” Leftists, as soon as they get permission from their Mommy. Second, it’s the people that are already cracking complete strangers in the head with bricks, then putting the boots to the unconscious victims, before throwing a Molotov Cocktail through their car window.

    Yes, John, you can, as one would expect given your former SOF MOS, and countless sincere AARs of your classes would well attest.

    But the million dollar question is, do any of the fuckwits like we saw at Berkeley have anyone remotely of your caliber doing their training?
    Nothing from that or any other recent clown show would indicate anything like that.

    Second, the monkey would have to have an AK or AR, wouldn't he?
    There is, to date, zero evidence of wide-scale (or even narrow-scale) up-arming by today's Che wannabees.
    By contrast, as noted by others, the Right in this country buys enough small arms every three months to completely outfit the current Russian and Chinese militaries.

    Third, those monkeys would have to invest three to ten days into that training (as if they could defer their vente lattes and iTunes long enough to afford such).
    There is zero evidence that any of them have invested that much time even learning to use spell check, let alone training, hard, with guns, under expert tutelage, and investing any sweat equity into anything. That would be too much like a j-o-b.
    Whereas a notable percentage of the Right already did boot camp once upon a time, and many if not most regularly practice and train with weapons, from paper-punching to Three-gun. To the point a whole industry exists to cater just to that itch.
    (Maybe not as much or as realistic as you or I would like, but it's orders of magnitude more than the Leftists in this country have ever done, from 1917 to present.)

    Fourth, what culturally conditioned aversion to interpersonal violence?
    That's the same nonsense Dave Grossman has been burping out for a decade or more, with about as much evidence. Americans whack people and beat the ever-loving shit out of each other at a prodigious rate, both in the ghetto, and in suburbia, as any homicide detective or beat cop will tell you. As Casey Stengel said, "You could look it up." And Grossman's pet bugaboo that in his fevered mind indicates we're becoming a nation of hardened killers is First Person Shooter games, which sales have skyrocketed since his silly hypothesis was first spawned. The murder rate, high by first-world standards, has mainly decreased. So we're neither over-conditioned to avoid violence, nor averse to actually using it when it is called for.

    What intelligent Americans do have (which lets out about 99.8% of the criminal class), is an aversion to jail and prison. They'll still happily cap bad guys at 3 to 10 times the rate the trained and authorized cops do (and with better marksmanship and a higher kill rate), but it's in self-defense. That's not "permission from Mommy", John, and you know better, but you're letting your mouth run away with you before engaging your brain. Dial back the snark, turn up the brightness, and take another whack at it. Please.

    The people cracking other folks in the head with bricks, putting the boots to them, and throwing Molotovs, are doing so only and entirely because there is a chance approaching ZERO that they'll be stopped, investigated, pursued, or prosecuted for doing so. And just in case, they're doing it wearing masks, because why risk TPTB having a change of heart later on?
    Calculating? Certainly. Dedication or bravery? Not so much. Chickenshit? Five-starred.

    NO ONE in Berkeley or anywhere else was getting cracked in the head with batons or taking LTL beanbags, which is precisely why that shit went on unabated. And everyone, then and there, here and now, and coast to coast, damned well knows it.

    And they'll stop this nonsense the minute they start catching lead in the face, which was exactly what stopped an entire city from rioting during Rodney King. I was there, and I saw it happen. I also watched the ineffectual Ole` Policing (watch them go by with an armload of Nike shoes or color TVs) fuel the first three days of that like throwing jet fuel on it. 
     
    #2) The Left has won far more dirty civil wars and insurgent conflicts than the Right has won. There are a host of reasons for this, but most notable is the aversion, on the Right, to give up the security of law-and-order. As long as there is a politician telling them, “Now, now, let’s all keep calm. Let the authorities sort this out,” the Right is content to sit at home and bitch about those juvenile delinquents. The Left? They’re all, “FUCK THE MAN! LET’S MAKE IT BURN!” As long as there is a police officer in uniform…even if he is, like so many are currently, telling people, “Hey, we’re probably gonna be busy with other catastrophes when your personal catastrophe happens, so you’re on your own….” as long as he is on the job, the Right is going to say, “Meh, we’ll let the police do their job.” The Left? They’re going, “FUCK THE MAN! KILL THE PIGS!”
    A) Not in this country, it hasn't. Not anywhere, not ever in our history. That masthead pic is the Class of '73, one of the few to even make a serious effort, and most of them went down in the same blaze of glory that saw the LAPD invent the idea of S.W.A.T. Leftist Winning!
     
    B) The Left is really good about talking trash, but the minute they try it, they end up in short order on the "Most Wanted List", and that's usually the last you hear from them before they're seen pleading that "it was all a mistake!" just before they're dragged off hogtied to do 30 years in the pen. See A, above.
    #3) The government isn’t going to save you. The government isn’t going to save your neighborhood, your city, or your state. The government MAY try and save itself. Those piranhas in the Beltway, on both sides of the aisle? They don’t give two shits about Mayberry RFD, until Mayberry RFD isn’t paying it’s taxes anymore, and by then? It’ll be too late for Sheriff Andy, Deputy Barney, Aunt Bea, Opie, and all their friends and neighbors. You want to be saved, you’d better be looking around and building what SF once upon a time called “CIDG,” or “Civilian Irregular Defense Groups,” among your neighbors and friends and families….you know…your tribe: the people in your local community that share your values and traditions. There’s a couple of really good books available that tell you exactly how to go about selecting those people, and training them. Let me see if I can recall what they are, and where you can fucking buy them……
    Just about everyone who's been paying attention gets that, and has for years, which is why you've got book sales and classes and a website and writing articles as a gig, instead of doing something mundane like stacking hay, or whatever. And I hope you prosper and keep on doing it as long as you feel like doing it.
    Mayberry, OTOH, will pretty much settle down to taking care of itself, with or without either your guidance or Washington D.C.'s help, just like they have since someone hacked it out of the wilderness anywhere between the Cumberland Gap and the Golden Gate.
    While I hope they'll pony up for some of your wisdom and training, I doubt you'll find many waiting for a handout from the Beltway, or expecting any of that. This ain't 1932, and no one sees the president as FDR, outside of the vote ghettoes of the inner city.

    So where does that leave us?
    The Left tore up Berkeley, with official permission, or at least the concerted efforts of TPTB to look the other way. So fucking what??
    That would be the same Berkeley that told Marine Corps recruiters they weren't welcome in that city, at the height of the recent SWAsian War Games? Fuckin' A, I hope the whole piece of shit leftist town burns to the ground, and I'll send 'em my Chevron gas card if they need more gasoline to git 'er done.

    That's a far cry from coming to my town, and I'm already right here in Califrutopia.
    They'd get about 50 yards down the street if they tried it hereabouts, and if the cops let them continue unmolested, the rounds flying in from outside their perimeter would be no respecter of badges or uniforms, at that point. Given the choice between being in the middle, or cracking heads, I have little doubt where the cops' natural sympathies would lead most of them.
    That riot would end in about ten minutes, either way. Getting shot in the face, or a sucking chest wound, tends to take the wind out of rioters' sails, and lungs, with equal rapidity.
    We can ask Rooftop Koreans if I'm F.O.S., or spot-on with that assessment.

    There's plenty of room for preparing for a host of problems, not least of them the non-human disasters that will always be with us. But there's no room nor reason for getting anyone's underpants in a twist over the antics or imaginary capabilities of the Free Shit Army.

    I'm all for getting ready for the day that changes, but right now there's more reason for concern over the Sweet Meteor Of Death wreaking havoc than there is over the trust-fund kids who lack the courage to ship out for Whale Wars, let alone pose and front that they really want to go toe to toe with The Man.

    And have even less inclination to mess with their Old Man, or his buddies from the Water Buffalo or Leopard Lodges.

    That's why they stay off his lawn, and hang out at the campus instead.


    The brighter ones (and there's damned few of those) know if they tried it, they'd have picked the wrong damned rec room.


    You can have fun with that, John, and you can mock it all you want; it's easy pickings.

    But even Hollywood didn't pull those memes out of its ass, they got them from a few thousand examples of people who behave exactly like that, and have in this land, since shortly after settlers debarked in Virginia in 1607. Despite the lack of knowing how to be tactically operating operators, they seem to have done okay, albeit granting that anybody could always use a few pointers from professionals. Especially from quieter professionals.

    Just saying.

    Monday, February 6, 2017

    Weather Report


    The Trigglypuffs are disconcerted, and warn that there is a storm coming.

    They don't know my brothers; we ARE The Storm.

    Sunday, February 5, 2017

    Breaking News



    Tom Brady Caught Letting Air Out Of Atlanta Falcons

    I'm sure the Trump MAGA hat had nothing to do with it.
    But as a rule, this isn't a year to bet against Patriots.

    And one more reminder to the lazy that nothing is over, until it's over.

    Saturday, February 4, 2017

    Get A F***ing Grip



    Dear Conservatives,

    Take a deep breath, boys and girls.
    I have some news for some of you. Brace yourselves.

    Shrillary Clinton lost the 2016 presidential election.

    Wait, it gets worse.

    President Trump (which sounds better every time I say it) was sworn into office as the 45th President of the United States, by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, on the steps of the U.S. Capitol, at noon, January 20th, 2017. (As foretold by the prophecy.)
    Hopey Dopey left office, without pardoning Shrillary, and he's now just another unemployed former president, free to golf 365 days a year, forever, and safely ensconced at the absolute bottom of every presidential ranking for the next EVER.

    The more perspicacious out there may possibly have heard some of this already, and be coping with the news as well as can be expected.

    For the rest, teddy bear hugging may be appropriate for some of you now. In extreme cases, you may need some soothing music, in increasing dosage:


    There now, feeling better? Good. It's about to get even scarier.
    Trump undid eight years of HopeyDopey's executive orders in about an hour.
    He's named some good to great cabinet picks, and a sterling SCOTUS nominee.
    He's going to build the border wall.
    And on and on it goes, like a tornado, leaving ruin and destruction in its wake.
    In this case, of the entire Democrat Party.

    And in response, the Left is in epic diaper-shitting frothing insaniac meltdown, because they lost an election. And they've been hyperventilating and losing their shit over reality for something like three months non-stop.

    This past week, in response to news that Milo Yiannopolis was going to speak there, the Special Snowflake Brigade of the Free Shit Army, along with the Crack Suicide Squad of the Judean People's Front, smashed windows and set fires in Berkeley, on and off the campus. (Be still, my beating heart!)

    And this news has some out there wanting to call up the reserves, spin up the alert bombers, and go to DefCon One. After you change your shorts.

    WTF, srsly?!?

    Imagine the news in London in 1940:
    Hitler Bombs Berlin
    The London Times' subheadline would have read
    Churchill sending emergency resupply of avgas and bombs to Luftwaffe for second sortie.

    Sweet suffering shiva, instead of BMWing (that'd be Bitch, Moan, and Whine) about this, and wondering why nobody rushed to arms to thwart this grave threat to the republic, the proper response should be to immediately send funds for airfare, and book Milo to speak at Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Georgetown, Vassar, Oberlin, et al, while simultaneously sending comic book training manuals on Molotov cocktails to the commie and anarchist student groups there, along with cases of empty beer bottles and jerry cans of racing fuel.
    (Rommel, you magnificent bastard, I read your book!)

    And if you can book Milo at CNN, The Spew, The Daily Show, and whatever Colbert is doing, along with alerting the mob and sending the supplies in advance, I'll kick in a check myself.

    That is the only thing anyone should be doing.

    You want to do more PT, double-check your supplies, get trained individually and as a neighborhood group? Go ahead on; it's a good plan regardless of the recent lunacy.

    But worry about this rabble amounting to much more than comedy relief?
    Hell to the No!

    Let the Looney Left tear itself to bitsy pieces, and sandbag yourselves in with beer, pretzels, and popcorn, and after the Superbowl, settle in to watch these antics until the idiots run out of cannon fodder, or energy. Because they're the funniest damn thing I've seen in ages.

    They lost an election, FFS. You'd have thought someone found a dirty fork at a restaurant or something.

    So grasp that Trigglypuff is not 300 feet tall and coming to eat your children.

    Learn how to piss on your enemies severed heads (at least rhetorically), and shit in their breakfast bowls, with a hearty laugh and a happy grin on your face.

    And then, do it again tomorrow, because you can.

    But please, ixnay on the anicpay.
    And don't rush out to counter-protest with the jacktards, because most people won't be able to tell you apart from them.
    And they'll be right.




    Update: For those actually living IN the city where such festivities break out (though if we're talking Berkeley, the obvious question is "FFS, Why?!?"), we suggest a trip to this thoughtful piece by Tom Kratman:
    Riot Control: How To Stop A Riot
    Myself having lived through two major all-city events, I can attest the wisdom of the piece.