Latest Posts

By Its Real Name

Funny Stuff

Victor Davis Hanson calls it “pseudo-authenticity“;  I call it by its real name:  fake.

“It” of course refers to how people create fake or at best misleading backgrounds for themselves (VDH provides a list of the more modern ones) in order to make them more appealing to prospective employers, voters, whatever.

I’ve always joked that if someone hires me, they can check a whole slew of “desirable” boxes:  Kim = female, Du Toit = French-sounding, Africa-born = racial minority quota, etc.  Of course, instead of the Black French-speaking woman they expect, the company would get this employee:

…but that would just serve them right, wouldn’t it?

At least my pseudo-authenticity (and this post) is humorous;  that of “Beto” O’Rourke (fake Meskin), Elizabeth Warren (fake Injun) and Rachel Dolezal (fake nigra) is quite serious.

Unimaginable

Politics

Over at Reason magazine, Ryan Bourne does a scholarly debunking of Rep. Ocasio-Horseface’s suggestion of a top marginal rate of 70% on “the rich”.  Here’s an excerpt:

The idea that the value of rich people to the rest of society rests solely on their tax contributions… is bizarre. In fact, the risk that higher tax rates might deter entrepreneurial activity by reducing the future payoff to innovation should worry us greatly.

In language designed for ordinary citizens, that thesis actually leads to a question: what if rich people (and their expensive tax attorneys) resist the idea that they and their activities are simply money sheep waiting for the government to shear them?

And quite frankly, I have another, more relevant question.  Why the fuck are we even giving any credence or time to anything that this Commie ingenue says?

Dropping Standards

Military

It’s about time somebody took a stand — and it happened in Britishland, too:

Woman who failed frontline infantry fitness test given a ‘pass’ by the Army until furious male soldiers who HAD completed course staged rebellion

Corporal Daisy Dougherty was hoping to become one of the Army’s first female infantry instructors following the landmark decision last year to let women join combat units and Special Forces.
The first stage in the selection process required her to prove her fitness by completing an eight-mile march in under two hours over arduous terrain while carrying a heavy pack and a rifle.
Despite being a qualified personal fitness trainer and a member of the Army’s athletics squad, the 29-year-old took too long to finish the challenge. Under course rules, she should have been immediately ejected and sent back to her unit.
But Cpl Dougherty – the only woman on the course – and 14 others who also failed were told they could carry on, sparking a furious backlash among the 75 soldiers who passed the test.
The soldiers rounded on commanders at the Infantry Battle School in Brecon, Mid-Wales, accusing them of lowering standards to suit women. When top brass refused to back down, troops contacted The Mail on Sunday to expose what they claimed was ‘positive discrimination’.
Fearing a public backlash if they allowed her result to stand, commanders backed down and asked Cpl Dougherty and the other soldiers who failed the march to leave.

Read the whole article, because there’s some equally-good news about the Paras towards the end of it.  (Ex-Para Mr. Free Market, for one, is chortling into his morning gin even as we speak.)

I repeat, for the umpteenth time:  women have no place in combat units.  Period, end of statement, end of story.

Texas Hold-Outs

Gummint, Immigration

I’m not quite sure what to make of this situation:

The federal government has started surveying land along the border in Texas and announced plans to start construction next month.  Rather than surrender their land, some property owners are digging in, vowing to reject buyout offers and preparing to fight the administration in court.

Now of course this is an Associated Press report (motto:  we put the “Ass” into “Press”) so I don’t know how much credence to put into the word “some”, as written above.  How many, exactly, is “some”?  Five?  Twenty?  Five hundred?

If it’s just a few, then fuckem.  The need for a secure border is greater than their need for a couple hundred acres of (largely) semi-desert.  And if it is a small number, I’d have no problem with the wall being built right up to the property line, and have those property owners have to deal with the funneled hordes of illegals trying to gatecrash our party.  (Suggestion:  the very first time they appeal for help from, say, ICE or the Border Patrol, they get told to shut the fuck up and live with the problem they caused for themselves.)

If, however, that “some” means “lots and lots” then there’ll have to be serious negotiations.  I suspect, however, that this threat of lawsuits is simply a negotiating position (for some of them, anyway) so that Uncle Sam can pay them an inflated sum for that valuable land.

I’m often skeptical about the Gummint’s use of “eminent domain” to take private property away from the owners, but if ever there are good reasons for its use, a secure border would probably rank near the top of the list.  Lest we forget:

Building in the region is a top priority for the Department of Homeland Security because it’s the busiest area for illegal border crossings.  More than 23,000 parents and children were caught illegally crossing the border in the Rio Grande Valley in November — more than triple the number from a year earlier.

Myself, I’d hire the selfsame wall-building companies that enabled Israel to keep the hordes of Arabs from flooding their country;  that, or thousands of “smart” landmines coupled with robotic machine-gun towers.  But that’s just me.