I suppose the chances were good, but the commies finally got me. After starting to feel like garbage on Friday, I had one hell of an awful weekend and got to the drug store today to get the covid test today. Huzzah, positive.
Things are not so bad now, but Saturday was really something, with a fever high enough to make me loopy. The whole weekend was characterized by “inertia,” not just physical, but mental. It stripped me of anything resembling enthusiasm, initiative or creativity. I sat my ass in front of the computer all weekend to work on Book 3… and I plopped out a grand total of four sentences.
Things today are much less awful, though still awful. Temperature is all over the place, though no longer as high as Saturday. I’d like to think that the worst is passed… but who knows. So if I vanish… well, there ya go.
EDIT: I just noticed that I posted a surprising number of posts on Saturday.
At first it looks like anger. On closer examination, I think terror might be closer to the truth. Either would be appropriate… but the latter is more likely as that critter is faced with incomprehensible cosmic horror.
In short… the British government plans to implant 1,500 military age foreign men into a village with a total native population of 600. Men from cultures *very* different from English, with whole different ideas about just how wrong it is to sexually assault girls (and probably boys as well).
There is no good end to this story. And the people in charge fully know this… and they’re not just doing it anyway, they’re accelerating it.
It’ll be a while yet before Disney snaps up all the righted needed to make this happen. But when the day comes, the *idea* will be there. Whether the execution will be any damn good is another thing entirely.
Tench Coxe (May 22, 1755 – July 17, 1824) was an American political economist and a delegate for Pennsylvania to the Continental Congress in 1788-1789, and a key anti-Federalist, writing under the pseudonym “A Pennsylvanian”.
Quotes
The power of the sword, say the minority…, is in the hands of Congress. My friends and countrymen, it is not so, for the powers of the sword are in the hands of the yeomanry of America from sixteen to sixty. The militia of these free commonwealths, entitled and accustomed to their arms, when compared with any possible army, must be tremendous and irresistible. Who are the militia? Are they not ourselves? Is it feared, then, that we shall turn our arms each man against his own bosom. Congress has no power to disarm the militia. Their swords and every terrible implement of the soldier are the birthright of Americans.[1]
Recently I’ve seen a lot of pundits and politicians yammering on about “the Europeans figured out how to ban guns, why can’t we?” Because… we’re not Europeans. Yes, we are descended from Europe; our history and much of our culture of course comes from Europe, as did, at least at one time, most of our people. But our reason for existence? That’s all us, baby. The foundational principle of the United States is “liberty.” Not “safety,” not “peaceableness,” not “conformity” or “quiet.” LIBERTY. How many other nations have foundational principles in the first place, rather than being based on “this here plot of land” or “this here ethnic group?” We’re built and based on a philosophy, the cornerstone of which is “leave me alone to live my life as I see fit.”
I’ve just made available to subscribers and Patrons at the $11 and up level a mid-1961 Honeywell booklet describing the space projects they were involved with at the time.
While not a detailed technical design document, this illustrated bit of PR is nonetheless interesting as it shows the sort of thing that aerospace companies would produce Way Back When in order to inform and enthuse the public. Modern aerospace companies would probably produce this as a web page or a PDF, which just doesn’t have the same impact. Of course, *this* one is being distributed as a PDF, but moving on…
If you would like to help fund the acquisition and preservation of such things, along with getting high quality scans for yourself, please consider signing on either for the APR Patreon or the APR Monthly Historical Documents Program. Back issues are available for purchase by patrons and subscribers.
“If the filibuster obstructs us, we will abolish it. If the Supreme Court objects, we will expand it. And we will not rest until we have taken weapons of war out of circulation and our communities each and every day.”
The new favorite phrase of the lying idiotarians is “weapons of war.”
And the senile groper-in-Chief continues to blather about how awful it is that citizens are currently allowed to have conventional rifles with standard capacity magazines:
November should prove interesting. Whether or not you believe the Dems rigged the game in the last election… you can bet your ass they’re certainly going to *try* to rig the next one. Between their desire to strip Americans of their rights and their desire to see Americans offspring aborted as often as possible they’ll be highly motivated to make sure they don’t lose their grip on power.
Alrighty then. This particular bit of video has been making the rounds the last few days. In short, it shows an apparently unhinged feller going bugnuts on a subway train in New York City, at one point assaulting a woman who begs for help from her fellow passengers. Nobody raises a finger, other than to film it.
The arguments I’ve seen basically boil down to two sides;
1: “Where are the men? What has happened to make men such cowards that they will not help a woman in distress?”
2: “Strong independent woman don’t need no man.”
Argument #2 is of course pure snark. There is validity to it… a lot of modern feminists sneer about the utility of men, but they get kinda quiet about that when TSHTF. But that need not be litigated here. Argument #1 is of greater interest.
This is hardly the first Public Transit video depicting violence and a lot of people standing around doing nothing more helpful than looking uncomfortable. The basic story is not new; look at Kitty Genovese. People stand around and are basically useless a lot of the time. “It’s not my fight.” “I could get injured.” “If I ignore it it’ll go away.” “Someone else will help.” “Maybe I’m wrong about what’s really going on, who’s the bad guy.” And so on.
But there are of course a few new ones:
“If I wade in, I could get sued, by the perp, by the bus/train company, by a bystander, by the victim herself.”
“If I use any kind of force, I could get arrested.”
“That guy is black. I’m white. If I intervene and edited video goes out, I could get cancelled, lose my job, my career, my friends, home, family.”
It is normal for people, and I believe men in particular, to fantasize about playing the hero. I’ve often seen people, and here in particular that tends to be man-hating modern feminists, claim that the “male power fantasy” is that they will be Billy Badass, able to lay a beatdown on their opponents, be just the meanest, toughest, strongest, scariest sumbitch out there. I have no doubt that many men daydream about just that, viewing themselves as the GigaChad that all the women insta-swoon over. But I also believe that a lot of other men have a different sort of “male fantasy:” that when the moment comes, when they are needed, they will prove to be competent. That they will be up to the task, whatever that task is. Change the tire, put out the fire, save the damsel in distress. And, if needed, wade into the fight and succeed. But these sort of fantasies rarely ever get put to the test. And actual violent lunatic is *not* someone you, a sane person, want to go up against. And so if you don’t actually have to… it seems most of the time, you don’t.
Especially now when trying to be a hero, doing the right thing, being selfless, stands a not unreasonable chance of having a large and vindictive chunk of society dropping on you and your future like a ton of angry, unthinking bricks.
What would you do? What would I do? Hell if I know. What I’d like to *think* I’d do is, to start off, *not* wade in and try to lay out the whacko. That would not go well. But what I’d like to think I’d do is to spot one or two likely looking other guys, preferably large and young, get their attention and have a *group* wade in. A few people stepping between whacko and victim might shut down the aggression. Might not. But three against one is way better odds than one against one.
– – –
Perhaps just through random chance, YouTube recommends this video after the one above:
It shows the sort of thing that any decent man *wishes* he could pull off… and any smart man knows he couldn’t. In reality, Our Hero would be incapacitated or dead in seconds.
Counterpoint: Snack Man.
Huh. The Snack man video is “age restricted.” The clip from “Nobody” doesn’t seem to be. Go ahead and try to make that make any kind of sense.
