Good Wishes

To all my Tribe Readers:  G’mar Chatimah Tovah.

For us non-Jews:  it’s about Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement, which starts at dusk today.

As well as refraining from food and drink, many Jews spend the whole day in synagogue, with a special service called Kol Nidre  taking place soon after the fast begins the night before, and services for the whole of the following day until the fast ends at sundown.

In addition to fasting, people also abstain from bathing, wearing leather and wearing perfumes or lotions, while marital relations are also a no-no on the day.  (As my buddy Selwyn Shandel once sourly remarked:  “So in that respect, it’s no different from any other day.”)

Yom Tov, y’all.

Ugly, All Round

Here’s the headline:

…and my first thought was: if a judge can’t be trusted with a gun on board a plane, then who can?

But then commonsense kicked in and my secondary thought was:  fuck ’em.  I’m sick of all these carve-outs and special treatments for people like this.  If I can’t carry a gun on a plane, then nobody should (excepting U.S. Marshals acting as “sky marshals”, perhaps).

But it gets worse.  From the story:

One of the latest gun owners to find herself in this embarrassing and potentially pricey situation is Bexar County Court Judge Rosie Speedlin Gonzalez, who recently realized the hard way that she had left one of her pistols in her carry-on bag as she was going through security at the San Antonio airport on her way to a conference in Miami.

At which point my antennae started to twitch a little.  Bexar (pronounced “bear”) county is San Antonio (city motto:  “Like Austin, but with less class”), so no doubt “Speedy” Gonzales is one of those Children of Soros judges… and then the next paragraph confirmed it:

Gonzalez says police allowed her wife to come pick up the gun.

Her wife?

Ah, fuck.  I apologize in advance, but here’s a pic of Speedy:

…complete with rainbow LGBTOSTFU flag, no less.

And another story about her, on that same topic:

A lesbian judge in Texas has been sanctioned for displaying a rainbow flag in her courtroom, after a lawyer complained that it was a “symbol of sexuality” and comparable to a swastika.

Bexar County Judge Rosie Speedlin Gonzalez is appealing a decision by the Texas Commission on Judicial Conduct, which told her in a private sanction that the rainbow flag — which flew alongside the U.S. flag and Texas state flag — was a breach of impartiality rules, Texas Lawyer reports.

Gonzalez made history in 2018 by becoming the first openly gay judge to be elected in Bexar County, and argued that the flag represented equality in her courtroom.

Listen, you rug-munching cow:  by definition, every courtroom in the United States represents equality before the law, and you shouldn’t have to wave your silly little flag to “prove” it.

I need to stop now before that 300+ blood pressure thing kicks in.

Range time?  I think so.

SURE They Wouldn’t

Over at Bearing Arms, another silly question:

If the FBI will “mislead” to seize assets, why wouldn’t they do the same to take guns?

As the man says, to ask the question is to answer it.

I think that the time is rapidly approaching when the feds will just come in whenever they feel like it, take whatever of yours that they feel like taking, and fuck you up if you dare question them.  Hell, they probably have a drawer full of pre-signed (possibly forged) warrants that they can fill in with the necessary details, wave in your face, and then conveniently “lose” after the raid.  If they bother to do even that.

My question:  Why the fuck should we believe anything that law enforcement says, anymore?

Once again, to ask the question is to answer it.

And to quote another wise man (H.L. Mencken):

“Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats.”

Are we there yet, Ma?

Getting Rid Of The Burden

Salma Zito has done it again:

Café Raymond is a favorite destination and, as usual, both floors, the balcony and the sidewalk tables at the diner are packed with patrons.

None of the people waiting for his signature stack of ricotta pancakes stuffed with blueberries, his home-cured smoked salmon and caper platter or his savory sunny-side-up egg and brisket hash have any idea the man behind the kitchen counter — Ray Mikesell — has placed his beloved restaurant up for sale. He’s calling it quits two decades after he returned home from Baltimore to raise his children and carve out a life in Pittsburgh.

Through tears he says he simply has had enough — not of his customers, not of creating new dishes or specialized drinks, but of all the uncertainty that has dogged nearly every small businessman in the country since the beginning of the pandemic.

“It started with COVID and just over time, the uncertainty, the stress of trying to stay open, the inability to hire people, the underlying tension in society, the inflationary cost of everything you need to purchase to create quality food, that is, if you can get it…” he says, his voice trailing. He stops and pauses to hold it together.

The food costs are crushing him, he said, but so is the cost of doing business, period. His utility bills have skyrocketed, as has the cost of fuel to pick up fresh meats and vegetables from local farms or to deliver food for catering jobs. The costs are crippling, he says, and they are creating a barrier to investing in a business he has loved for so long.

“It just breaks you down no matter how strong you are,” said Mr. Mikesell.

Here’s my take on this.  Every time a politician says he cares about small businesses and their owners, he’s lying in his teeth.

This new crowd of socialists (including, alas, the Socialist Lite Republicans) absolutely loathe small, successful businesses, for the same reason they hate people owning cars: having your own car gives you freedom of movement, and your own business makes you part of a community, a community that binds you to itself because they now have the freedom to decide when, where and what they want to eat, and not have to go at specific times to a dreary commissariat like the hapless Winston Smith in Orwell’s 1984, and be fed the same slop and gruel as everyone else.

And the government absolutely hates that you have those freedoms.

If that’s not the case, please then explain to me why commuter and passenger rail systems are so popular with neo-socialist governments and why, when businesses like that of Ray Mikesell experience the same ghastly misfortunes (created, it must be said, by government), the government policy does absolutely nothing to help those businesses except by ladling out one-time, piddly subsistence-level “incentives” instead of addressing the main issues that cripple both the businesses and their customers:  soaring inflation (created by the government printing too much money), high fuel prices (even though we are the most self-sufficient energy-producing nation on Earth), the double whammy of ever-higher food prices and shortages (in America!!!), and logistical / transport operations that are crippled by (all together now) government regulations.

I know that anecdotes are not data — except that they are, when the owner of a business like Café Raymond is not a statistical outlier, but just one of tens of thousands in a similar or worse predicament.

Explain to me why Ray Mikesell, and all those other business owners, should not just quit and go somewhere else.  Explain also why the millions of ordinary people who are affected by the closing of small businesses and their own personal misfortunes should not be heating barrels of tar, oiling ropes, and loading up their semiautomatic sporting rifles.

But then we’re the bad guys.  Yeah, right.

Old Times, Good Times

Here’s a heartbreaker:

Fern Britton’s ex-husband Phil Vickery was seen kissing her best friend in the street in new images taken leaving a fancy London hotel on Wednesday.

The TV chef, 61, was pictured passionately kissing Lorraine Stanton, 58, who has been close friends with presenter Fern for years, in pictures obtained by The Sun.

According to the publication, the new couple were on a date and were seen leaving the hotel together with overnight bags in their hands.

Some “date”.

As these two people are somewhat obscure Brit TV celebrities (certainly very few of my Murkin Readers will know who they are), here’s a pic of Fern ‘n Phil in happier times:

...much happier times:

And Fern, in the same photoshoot:

But let me not be unkind.  She has lost a lot of that weight, recently:

Not at all bad for 65…

News Roundup

Brought to you by our all-vegan sponsors:

So let’s skin it and wring it with some news:

From the Disaster Department (Florida Division):


...everybody panic!


...the FuturePOTUS shouldn’t have bothered.

In Italy:


...good thing they voted for her and not him, then.

And then there’s this, which might be a little more important:


...let’s hope she does.


...actually, that’s not bad advice.  I’m assuming the soldiers don’t have any clotting salve because Russia.


...as long as they swap them, one for one, with convicted Mexican criminal child molesters, then fine.


the more science progresses, the closer it comes to magic.

From the Furrin Travel Department:


...as long as you want to visit Airstrip One, with their ubiquitous telescreens, $20 pints and non-existent crime, that isOh, wait:


...having solved all other crimes, they can afford to do thisOh, wait:


...and of course, no guns or rights to self defense for you.  They, however, will be carrying Glocks, knives and machetesAlso:


...so much for that tour of the UK, thenAnd:


...yup:  never a better time.

Back on this side of The Pond:


...I suspect the “zero tourists” thing may have had something to do with it.


...but what if the FBI was responsible for the breach?  Asking for a friend.


...headline edited for clarity.


...which never existed anyway, except in Nancy Pelosi’s wet dream.


...remember Kim’s 7th Law:  no cameras in the bedroom, ever.

And from the bowels of INSIGNIFICA:

  say okay, then ban her from the party.

And finally:


...perhaps if you dressed with just a tad more modesty, sweetie…?

And the pics in question:

I have no idea who this tartlette is, of course, and I suspect that the same may be true for many of my Readers.  So what follows is purely for educational purposes, of course:

 

 

Just your standard Hollywood skinny, then.

And so much for the news.