Monday Funnies

What happens on Mondays, doesn’t necessarily stay on Mondays.

In similar vein, let’s look at some likely disaster scenarios in the near future:

My confident prediction:  never in recorded history will so many guns have been lost in boating accidents, fires or similar catastrophes as during a Biden/Harris/Beto Administration.

Then again:

I should stop now…

Get some practice in.  I know I will.

Castles

Here’s yet another of those “Pick One” posts.  In this case, it’s castles.  If you had to live in one (and assuming that you could set up a decent shooting range / clay station on its extensive grounds), which one of the following would you choose?

  • West Dunbartonshire
  • Powys
  • Exeter
  • East Dunbartonshire
  • (ignore the one in Fife because it’s basically just a pile of rocks)
  • Wigtownshire
  • Aberdeenshire
  • Northumberland

Assume that all are actually habitable (not always a given in Britishland, regardless of price), and have decent insulation, electricity, hot water and so on.

As always, resist the temptation to say “I’m just happy with my lil’ ole place in Tennessee / Texas / Montana / wherever, and I don’t wanna live in Communist Britain.”

Play the game.

Getting Real

I found this linked SOTI (can’t remember where, sorry):

And it gets worse:

Now I don’t know who these people are, but they sound seriously unhinged.  I’m trying to see how any rational person could define supporters of a Manhattan businessman (and one-time Democrat) as a “conspiracy-fueled belligerent death cult”.  Taking each word in turn:

What conspiracy?   The only people who have been obsessed with conspiracy have been Leftists — Russia, Ukraine — and this despite the fact that the real conspiracy has been by ex-Obama staffers, the various intelligence services and government bureaucrats against President Donald Trump.  Sheesh, just the Strzok-Page email exchanges alone are proof of that, and there’s so much more that I barely know where to begin.  This does not exist in the imaginations of Trump supporters:   it’s all been exhaustively documented — and despite that, Trump has only fired a few of the more egregious offenders, and prosecuted not a single one, not even the most obvious transgressors like Hillary Clinton (having a private — and illegal — email server while Secretary of State) or John Brennan (leaking classified information).

Belligerent?  Who’s talking about gulags, about the State coming to confiscate guns from private citizens?  And who is rioting in the streets, demanding to “burn it all down” and “destroy America”?  Trump supporters?  I wish we were that belligerent.  Every single act of belligerence — from attempting to assassinate a Republican Congressman at a ballgame, burning and looting, and threatening the lives and livelihoods of people working in the current Administration — has come from the Left.  Who screams invective at restaurant patrons, demanding support for the self-confessed Marxists at Black Lives Matter?  Not Trump supporters, for sure.

And a death cult?  What fevered imagination came up with that one?  Where are the Trumpian suicide squads, the Trump-sponsored bands of thugs roaming the streets and beating up political opponents, the conservatives en masse bellowing “Death to Marxists”?  (Although sometimes I wish we would, if only to drown out these assholes’ endless screams for a minute or two.)

No.  All the above are activities engaged in by the Left.

Ask yourselves this:  are these people to be taken seriously?  I mean, it’s all very well for lone loonies like this David Atkins to call for mass “deprogramming” pogroms (taking a leaf from the Stalinists of the 1950s, who must be nodding their gray heads with satisfaction from that Great Collective In The Sky).  But didn’t a former Cabinet Secretary (the snarling dwarf Robert Reich) first suggest some foolishness like this?  Is this suggestion of Atkins about to become policy, if Biden ever becomes President?

Just the magnitude of such an undertaking is astonishing.  Let’s remember that upwards of seventy million people either voted for Trump, or else were motivated to vote against “whatever it is that you Leftists want to implement”:  open borders, high taxes, gun confiscation, wealth redistribution, “hate speech” (we already have “hate crimes”), civil unrest and all the other foulness that the Left has been supporting and threatening for the past fifty-odd years.

But when a massive segment of the population says in no uncertain terms, “We don’t want that, because such lunacy has caused death, destruction, poverty and misery in every single country it has been implemented”, then we — all 70 million of us — are the ones in need of “reeducation”?

These twerps are getting worked up into a frenzy — anyone who’s ever had to deal with a thwarted child’s growing tantrum recognizes this progression all too well — and this unreasoning hatred towards people who reject their political philosophy is simply setting up a situation for bloodshed.  As much as we conservatives are called “Nazis” by the Left, the plain fact of the matter is that this demonization of political opposition has its roots in the Left:  whether by the Jacobins of Revolutionary France or by Hitler’s own National Socialist Party, we all know from their example that the elimination of political rivals begins with dehumanization and demonization.

My biggest fear, and it is very much a fear, is that the Left have been building themselves up into a febrile frenzy, and at some point, it’s going to burst into mass violence towards us conservatives.

And while we may chuckle and load up our spare magazines, I’m pretty sure that few of us want that mayhem to actually come to pass.

But I think they do, because when fanatics see that they’re losing, they often choose self-sacrifice as an alternative to failure.

And we’re the “death cult”?

Missing Comfort

As any fule kno, I am partial to the occasional visit to a pub.  [pause to let laughter die down]

But  not just any pub.  I have strict rules for places which charge me far too much for the pleasure of indulging myself, because if I am going to be hit with a $7 (or more) tab for a single beer (!!!), the establishment had better offer me more than just a pint.  Here’s a short list of necessities:

Decent beer.  Any bar in the U.S. which doesn’t give me a choice of at least three British-ale equivalents won’t see me after a single awful American beer, and never again as well.  (Curiously, I find Mexico’s Negra Modelo  to be the closest thing to a decent ale, although I do have to pour it from glass to glass a few times to get rid of the appalling and excessive fizz.)  If they serve Fuller’s London Pride or Boddington’s, then we can be friends and they can be assured of a follow-up visit (or two, or three).  And if the beer isn’t up to snuff, they’d damn well better have a decent selection of single-malts or gins, or else it’s to the door I’ll be heading.

No loud music.  I’ve talked before about my hatred for this piece of modernism, whereby the acceptable noise of drunken people having a good time has to be drowned out by music — any kind of music, really, not just the revolting  thumpa-thumpa  of hip-hop — as though the background noise of simple conversation and occasional laughter are somehow incompatible with drinking pleasure.

Loud TV programs.  I can live with this if a.) it’s a “sports” bar or b.) there’s a big game being played (e.g. Bears vs. Packers or Chelsea vs. Arsenal).  But if I walk into a bar and there’s a large-screen TV showing ESPN’s SportsCenter (i.e. people talking about sport instead of playing it), I turn around and walk out.  Don’t even get me started if it’s CNN, Fox News or (gawd help us) Oprah Winfrey (I had to endure that once — client lunch, so I had no control — and it took me days to recover).

A foot-rail at the bar counter.  This may seem a strange one, but it’s a critical part of drinking that’s too often overlooked.  Note this otherwise-excellent setup (in a private house, withal):

But the Arrow Of Accusation points to the missing piece, and the whole pub is ruined by the glaring omission.

It’s a simple thing, really.  I (and many others) actually prefer to drink standing up, and especially around the bar counter, where space is at a premium.  It’s the one time I don’t mind being in a crowd, because I am in the company of people with a common goal, that of getting a good buzz on and enjoying life, and I far prefer a crowded bar to a nearly-empty one, which is depressing.  If one is enjoying the company of a lady, standing close to her bar stool makes the whole activity more intimate, too.  But if you’re going to stand, you must have a rail to rest a foot on, because otherwise you get tired of standing.  (I don’t know why that it, but it’s a fact nevertheless.)  Look at this place:

That picture simply screams out that I’ll be there till closing time, or later (don’t ask; I’m still banned from The Blue Cow which, needless to say, served about five excellent ales — all of which I sampled extensively —  and had a brass foot-rail).

Decent decor.  I hate modernist interior design, as all my Readers know well, but while I prefer the traditional pub style, it doesn’t have to be that.  Here’s the inside of the fantastic Randolph’s Bar at the Warwick Hotel in Manhattan:

…and yes of course it has a foot-rail at the counter.  And yes, I have been tossed out of that place too, several times, but always gently as I used to be a frequent guest there (hi, Carlo!).  On each of those occasions, the company was excellent and much disposed towards trying to finish all the Scotch in the place, but the atmosphere and decor did no harm to the attempt, either.

Here’s yet another of my favorite haunts, the Coq d’Or at the Drake Hotel in Chicago (where I do not have a tempestuous history, albeit not for lack of trying):

It’s a little hard to see (bottom left), but yes, there is a foot-rail, and it’s brass.

All this bar talk is making me thirsty.  And now, if you’ll excuse me, my post-birthday hangover needs a little TLC and that gin isn’t going to drink itself.

Total Bullshit

Not 25 miles south of where I’m sitting, this nonsense happened:

Texas Governor Greg Abbott is sending state police resources to the City of Dallas in response to a spike in violent crime. The governor responded to a request for assistance from the Dallas Police Department after city leaders cut the police overtime budget by $7 million.

So the “city leaders” cut the police budget and then discovered that the resulting resources were inadequate for the task (Bullshit Item #1, like they couldn’t have seen that coming), and then (Bullshit Item #2) the TexGov bails them out of their stupidity instead of letting them stew in the soup of their own making?

I should point out, by the way, that like Houston, Austin and San Antonio, the “city leaders” of Dallas are irredeemably Democrat, ergo  in thrall to the BLM pustule that has infected big cities anywhere.

Abbott should have told them to go pound sand, and sent in the Texas State Guard when the thing got really nasty.