From John Derbyshire:
“Every totalitarian power cult needs a vocabulary of vituperation—some way to talk about the enemies of the people: those wreckers, saboteurs, and counter-revolutionaries who are always trying to slow or divert society’s righteous march forward to a radiant future.”
Hence the current Congressional hearings about “White nationalism”.
A while ago, I drew attention to the floods which have inundated the Upper Midwest states like Iowa and Nebraska. What I did not know at the time (but should have), is that when there is catastrophe, can the fat finger of government be far behind?
There is much more to the “management” of the Missouri River basin than just how and when to drain water.
In the interest of habitat restoration, etc. (the highest priority since 2004), tens of thousands of acres surrounding the river and more than a thousand miles of riverbank have been mechanically altered by the Corps — not with an eye to controlling flooding, but rather to facilitate the “reconnection of the river with its floodplain,” believed to be a necessity in achieving the goal of species and habitat preservation and restoration.
When the Corps believed that protecting people and property was a more worthy aim than fish and wildlife, the riverbanks were stabilized, shored against erosion and high-water events. The channels were kept largely free of silt infill to facilitate the draining efficiency of the river that essentially deals with the runoff of vast millions of square miles of mountain and plains snow and rain.
Dikes were built and maintained. Levees, too. Chutes (secondary channels of a meandering river) were closed to inhibit the ability of the river to overcome its banks in seasons of high-water. All these things (and more) combined to permit millions of Americans to develop the reclaimed lands, for farming, ranching, and homes. Indeed, these millions of Americans were encouraged to do so by their elected representatives, who happily took credit for the resulting economic benefits and increased tax revenues.
And then in 2004, it all changed. Read the whole thing, and be enraged.
Found at some bloke’s place in North Central Idaho:
Day 1: Wish violence, rape, or even death on @NRA members & anyone who supports gun rights — and their children for good measure.
Day 2: Wonder why the people you just threatened don’t want to give up their guns just yet.
Oh, and speaking of Joe Huffman: I cannot attend this year’s Boomershoot (again! ) for family reasons, but next year, Rodders… and that’s a promise.
Just when I’d got my blood pressure down to healthy levels, this kind of shit (from Britishland) gets published and back we go to 500/400:
Parents who homeschool their children will be forced to sign a register or face possible prosecution, according to government proposals.
The Department for Education plans to hold a register of all children not in mainstream schools in a bid to protect them from ‘dangerous influences’.
The move will help crack down on religious fundamentalists who send youngsters to secret schools where they are at risk of radicalisation.
We all know where this regulation is aimed: at Muslims who want to turn little Abu Buma into Abu Ben-Bomba. The only problem, as always, is that the law won’t be used against Muslims, ever — but it will be used, often, against conservative parents, Christian parents, and anyone, in fact, who dares to raise their children to be intellectual, inquisitive and independent (precisely the qualities that all state education systems seek to eradicate). All that is dangerous to the control freaks and nannies who infest our modern-day bureaucracy, and don’t for a moment think that they’ll hesitate to brand it thus.
What time does the range open?
Somebody ‘splain to me why this little shit doesn’t deserve to be taken out behind the courthouse and shot in the back of the neck, instead of being jailed for only 20 years. (Note that even without time off for “good behavior”, he’d be back on the streets at age 46.)
A California man has been sentenced to 20 years in prison for hoax calls that led police to fatally shoot an unarmed Kansas man following a dispute between two people over $1.50 bet in a ‘Call of Duty: WWII’ video game.
Tyler R. Barriss, 26, was sentenced on Friday by U.S. District Judge Eric Melgren sentenced under a deal in which he pleaded guilty in November to a total of 51 federal charges related to fake calls and threats.
The 2017 death of 28-year-old Andrew Finch drew national attention to the practice of ‘swatting,’ a form of retaliation in which someone reports a false emergency to get authorities, particularly a SWAT team, to descend on an address.
If there was ever a malevolent, spiteful crime, this one of “swatting” another person deserves a massive prison sentence — but if someone gets killed (see story), it should carry an automatic death penalty… pour encourager les autres assholes who want to play this sick little game.
Whatever Lindsey Graham’s been drinking these past few months, can we set up an IV line of the stuff for Senate RINOs like Susan Collins? This is excellent:
A day after the attorney general said the report by Special Counsel Robert Mueller found Trump’s campaign did not conspire with Russia, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham said: “We will begin to unpack the other side of the story.”
He said it was time to look at the origins of a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant for former Trump adviser Carter Page, which was based in part on information in a dossier compiled by Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence officer who co-founded a private intelligence firm.
Graham told reporters he planned to ask Barr to appoint a special counsel to investigate the FISA matter, which is already being probed by the Justice Department’s internal watchdog, Inspector General Michael Horowitz.
Give ’em a fair trial, then hang ’em. After we’ve taken down the rotting corpses of the various mainstream media reptiles, that is.
Ye Olde Hanging Tree is going to get a workout over the next couple years… well, it should, anyway.