Quote Of The Day

From SOTI:

What is white American culture?  According to the Smithsonian, white culture is characterized by individualism, hard work, objectivity, the nuclear family, progress, respect for authority, delayed gratification, and more.

“More”?  Allow me to expand on the above and/or add some more aspects of White American culture (note the caps) because those soft pinkos at the Smithsonian obviously have a problem doing so.

  • self-reliance
  • personal responsibility
  • religion, or at least firm adherence to Judeo-Christian principle
  • respect for our Western European cultural heritage and its institutions
  • clearly-defined masculine and feminine personae, and their respective roles
  • protection of self, family, the community and the nation against all enemies, foreign and domestic
  • reverence for the nation’s flag, and the principles for which it stands
  • belief in and support for the Founding Fathers and our nation’s founding principles as enumerated in the Constitution and Bill of Rights
  • deep suspicion of, or even hostility towards people and institutions who do not support, or actively try to subvert any of the above.

…and that’s just off the top of my head.  And by the way, all the above are precisely why I left the country of my birth and became a U.S. citizen, a White American.

Feel free to add any omissions in Comments.

Changing The Playing Field

I have to say that I like this move:

Thirteen fed-up counties in liberal Oregon have voted in support of measures to start negotiations to secede from the state and join conservative Idaho.

The proposal seeks to move the Oregon border 200 miles to the west, meaning that 14 counties and several partial counties would fall under Idaho state lines.

Here’s what the redrawn boundaries would look like:

I have no idea how all this would work, but it sure beats back the tired old “If you don’t like it here, then leave”  trope, to be replaced with “Sure we’ll leave, but we’re going to take all that farmland and our tax dollars with us”.

Needless to say, the Washgov (not to mention the feddle gov) is going to fight against this tooth and nail.

Get to it, guys, and git ‘er done.

Getting Burned

Loyal Readers will remember this happy event:

Seems as though this Old Phartte popped his clogs at age 91, and decided that because his grandchildren had never bothered to visit him while he was in hospital, that they weren’t worthy of getting any of his loot once he was gone. So instead of cutting them out of his will, he left them each only a few bucks.

Needless to say, the grandchildren sued the estate, claiming that they were “entitled” to a third, rather than the 0.0001% thereof specified in his will.

Anyway, this group of ingrates lost their case, and a damn good thing it is too.  And for the record, they’re as ugly as they are greedy.

I know, I know:  you loved the outcome as much as I did.

BUT WAIT!!!  THERE’S MORE!!!

Five granddaughters who were handed just £50 each of their grandfather’s £500,000 fortune because he was ‘hurt’ they never visited him have been ordered to pay £220,000 in court costs.

I love a story with a happy ending.  Especially when it comes to greedy assholes getting their comeuppance.  Like this lot:

Commonsense, Swedish Style

When even the Swedes come to realize it’s all bullshit:

Sweden is now looking to build more nuclear reactors after its parliament formally abandoned its 100% renewable energy target to meet net-zero by 2045.

On Tuesday the country modified its net zero targets to 100% “fossil-free” which its right-leaning government creates the conditions for the return of nuclear power to the country’s energy mix.

“We need more electricity production, we need clean electricity and we need a stable energy system,” Finance Minister Elisabeth Svantesson said in parliament.

Observers said the decision implicitly acknowledges the low quality of unstable wind and solar, and is part of a general collapse of confidence in the renewable energy agenda pioneered in the Nordic countries and in Germany.

Here’s the wake-up call:

“Living close to Russia focuses the mind, and the Swedish people not only wish to join NATO, but also to ground their economy in an energy source, nuclear, that is physically sound and secure, unlike renewables which are neither.”

I should point out that the vast majority of Sweden’s electricity generation comes from hydro-electric dams already, so calling converting the tiny fraction left into “fossil-free” generation is not only eminently doable, but largely irrelevant.

Also, a reminder from a little further south:

German energy giant RWE has begun dismantling a wind farm to make way for a further expansion of an open-pit lignite coal mine in the western region of North Rhine Westphalia.

I should point out that the above operation was okayed by Germany’s Green Party, surely the most eco-addled political party in Europe.

Guess that Russian gas pipeline closure hurt.

Toolbelts Over Titles

…the titles being useless shit like “PhD in Gender Studies”, “Vice-President of DEI”, etc.  Of course, Mike Rowe, bless his dirty, calloused hands, has noted this trend:

Kilmeade asked Rowe to comment on the data, which comes from the National Student Clearinghouse. It showed a 16% increase in overall enrollment for vocational-focused community colleges compared to 2022. The Journal also noted an increase of 23% for students pursuing construction jobs and a 7% rise in students enrolled in Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning (HVAC) and vehicle repair.

While the “Dirty Jobs” star said he wasn’t “ready for the victory lap” after seeing the data, he said that he believes Gen Z is more willing to consider trades, which he believes is positive.

“The color of collars is no longer the thing it used to be,” Rowe said, referencing the classification of blue-collar versus white-collar workers. “I just don’t think it matters.”

However, in his usual forthright fashion, Rowe noted also:

“The idea that the generation that has become the biggest target for entitlements and a lack of work ethic… I mean, these guys are an easy target. They’re snowflakes, essentially. But… we’re the clouds from which the snowflakes fell.”

Which is uncomfortably true.  (My own kids are Millennials, and despite my best efforts they’re only a shade away from having Gen Z values, alas, but that’s a story for another time.)

And let’s be honest:  there will come a time when “learn to code” will be as obsolete a piece of advice to future youngsters as “get a degree” advice has become to the current crop.  Why?

Because at some point, “coding” will be left to the sardonically-named “artificial intelligence” — in fact, unless I miss my guess, most technological work will be performed by A.I.

But there will always be a need for guys with toolbelts, because A.I. can’t build houses — design them, maybe, but not actually hammer nails and pour concrete — and believe me on this, the Baltimore bridge rebuild will never be accomplished by A.I.

And once again, from Rowe:

“They’re seeing all of the craziness… Brown and Dartmouth and Harvard. They’re seeing a $52 billion endowment at Harvard. They’re seeing all the craziness that’s constantly in the headlines. And they’re just saying, ‘Look, why do I want to start a career in a major I haven’t even declared yet and go that far into debt to pursue a job that probably doesn’t even exist, when we got 10,000 other jobs over here… that don’t require a four-year degree?’ “

Maybe, just maybe, a future generation will see the inherent value in and the pride engendered by those “dirty jobs” that Mike Rowe supports, and eschew the dubious values of what non-STEM university degrees have degenerated into.