Tuesday, November 29, 2022

Here's the list of companies who are sad about Elon Musk buying Twitter

Source.

Abbott Laboratories

Allstate Corporation

AMC Networks

American Express Company

AT&T

Big Heart Petcare

BlackRock, Inc.

BlueTriton Brands, Inc.

Boston Beer Company

CA Lottery (California State Lottery)

CenturyLink (Lumen Technologies, Inc.)

Chanel

Chevrolet*

Chipotle Mexican Grill, Inc.

Citigroup, Inc.

CNN

Dell

Diageo

DirecTV

Discover Financial Services

Fidelity

First National Realty Partners

Ford

Heineken N.V.

Hewlett-Packard (HP)

Hilton Worldwide

Inspire Brands, Inc.

Jeep

Kellogg Company

Kohl's Department Stores, Inc.

Kyndryl

LinkedIn Corporation

MailChimp (The Rocket Science Group)

Marriott International, Inc.

Mars Petcare

Mars, Incorporated

Merck & Co. (Merck Sharp & Dohme MSD)

Meta Platforms, Inc. (formerly Facebook, Inc.)

MoneyWise (Wise Publishing, Inc.)

Nestle

Novartis AG

Pernod Ricard

PlayPass

The Coca-Cola Company

The Kraft Heinz Company

Tire Rack

Verizon

Wells Fargo

Whole Foods Market IP

Yum! Brands

Monday, November 28, 2022

We're screwed



I get a kick out of the people who make these videos. They are pretty ardent about becoming an interplanetary species, and they are worried about "global climate change" and troubled that world governments don't see the value of creating a moonbase. I am just trying to raise my kids and survive the next apocalypse, which will be financial if nothing else.

Saturday, October 8, 2022

Officer Tatum calls it

the way it is.



The choice is made in the bedroom, not the clinic.

Friday, September 30, 2022

Stoeger = Budget Glock

I'm a striker-fire guy; might pick one of these up.

Wednesday, September 21, 2022

Good News and Bad News

Was watching this RK Outpost vid about the misandry in the latest dreck from the Disney company, and this comment popped out at me:

I know a guy, 23, that told me that he has joined a support group for men, they hang out, talk about bbq, sometimes they do work on eachothers houses and will lean on eachother for mateship. I felt pretty sad for this, that the world is so hostile towards men, young men and boys that they need to seek eachother out this way just to do guy stuff. I might even join, but honestly it's a f*cking awful state of the world.

Yes, that is the bad news. But one piece of good news is that it is easier than ever to start a club like this.

Monday, September 19, 2022

Guys, this so beats barking

You got to imagine how excited each of this good boys and good girls was when he or she first discovered this easy-to-use invention.



I don't want to be judgmental about other peoples' habits, but I could never leave my dog in the car. She hates it. But I am pretty sure that if she found the horn she would do exactly the same thing. And she would lay it on all day like a freakin' Brooklyner.

Sunday, September 18, 2022

Is Good Information Foundation in violation of non-profit laws?

An attorney was asked to spread false rumors about January 6 and offered $400.00 to do so. The Post Millenial has the scoop:

Attorney and TikToker @TrialByPreston revealed in a video that the Good Information Foundation attempted to pay him $400 to spread unsubstantiated rumours and misinformation about January 6, President Trump, and his 2020 presidential campaign.

"I was just offered $400 to make an anti-Donald Trump propaganda post related to the January 6 investigation that is completely not true," Preston Moore, Esq. said in the video. The Good Information Foundation, headed by Rick Stengel, Former Under Secretary of State in Obama administration, emphasizes that "America is in an information crisis," and that "disinformation is threatening public health, safety, social trust and democracy."



Preston Moore, Esq. turned down this invitation, and he appears to do so on ethical grounds. But my question is this: is what the Good Information Foundation which the article says is a 501c3 non-profit. Could not this action be described as "directly or indirectly participating in, or intervening in, any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for elective public office" as the IRS rules specifically forbid?

Tuesday, September 13, 2022

Cherry Picking and Broad Brushing: Some "How-to" Guides

Over at the Daily Stumble, the author is sad that the satirical Babylon Bee "...used to be funny, now and then, but is now simply dull GOP agitprop for Evangelical Trump adorers." I'm not an Evangelical nor a "Trump adorer", and I find the Bee a funny read now and again. What's insightful about the Stumbles accusation of "cruelty" and those of a blog post at Hacking Christianity is how a single instance of so-called "punching down" has led to gross generalizations like the following:

After being banned from Twitter, the CEO of the Babylon Bee reveals why they punch down at marginalized groups instead of focusing on the powers and principalities.

Babylon Bee is punch-down frat humor, not real satire that punches up.

This is simply the standard perpetual victimhood mindset on the left that treasures and exploits what it sees as disadvantages from being a part of a marginalized group. You can see the insincerity when people like Kyle Rittenhouse become victims of intense injustice and dishonesty in society and they join the jackals in the media in lying about them.

But is the claim by self-proclaimed Christianity Hacker Jeremy Smith that the Babylon Bee never punches up even true? It is pretty simple to disprove this generalization, and requires little effort.

Target Babylon Bee Link
US President Joe Biden Keeping His Promise To Rid Country Of Cancer, Biden Steps Down
US President Joe Biden / FBI Trump Voters Put Biden Signs In Their Yards So That The FBI Will Pass Over Them
World Economic Forum World Economic Forum Introduces Pumpkin Spice Crickets
Male Gamer with disposable income Man Spends 800 Hours and $3000 To Beat Free Mobile Game
FBI FBI Concerned That If MAGA Doesn't Conduct A Terrorist Attack Soon They'll Have To Fake One
World-famous Members of British Royalty King Charles Replaces Harry & Meghan With Two Corgis In Line Of Succession
Former US President Obama Obama Releases Memoir About That Time He Got His Portrait Done
Multi-millionaire Jennifer Lawrence It's Tucker Carlson!' Says Jennifer Lawrence At Every Image In Rorschach Test
Washington Post (major US newspaper) Lost Journalist Accidentally Wanders Into The Washington Post
US President Joe Biden (& Queen Elizabeth II) Powerless Figurehead Leader With No Official Responsibilities Still Alive

These have all just been posted over the last several business days, and if it is not "focusing on powers and principalities" I don't know what would consitute it. This took me about 10 minutes to put together, and it demonstrates that almost every target of the Babylon Bee is considered to be a powerful person, entity or social subgroup. You could argue that taking a shot at "male gamers" is punching down, but I include that group because anyone with kids know that this subgroup is supposed to be comprised of some of the most virulently anti-trans people alive. So why would the Bee skewer them if they are such purists in their trans-hatred? Hint: it's because this is just one more canard about the Babylon Bee.

A more honest criticism of the Babylon Bee could be accomplished in this way. Suppose I am offended by this article because it seems to compare Corgis and goats, and I am a big super-fan of corgis. I could link to it, say why I am offended, state why God is mad about it since he made Adam give the animals different names, for example, and then end with a big QED and a "so there".

But it is preferable for them to accuse, assert and generalize. It is very curious to me neither the Daily Stumble article nor the Christianity Hacker site links to the Babylon Bee article in question, and that is most likely by design. You would go there and see a trans-joke surrounded by shots at Pres. Biden, PM Trudeau, WEF, FBI, IRS, Disney, Amazon, etc. — all powerful entities — and the assertion that this satire site only punches down would be clearly disproven. They would have to settle for being able to say "This one thing they did and said? I disagree with it. It is mean and cruel."

But oh, no. This is not SOP on the left anymore. Dave Chappelle makes a trans-joke they want to cancel him. Joe Rogan makes a vaccine remark they want to cancel him. They are big mad when these people won't go away. And they might even be the maddest at the Babylon Bee, I would suggest, and it is because of this.

Friday, September 9, 2022

Wokappopotamus Loses

In case you haven't heard the wonderful news, Oberlin College is finally ponying up the now $36.59 million dollar judgment to Gibson's Bakery.

"But what's with the headline, Pauli? What the hell are you talking about?"

I got the nickname Wokappopotamus from this Rate My Professor's page for Meredith Raimondo. She is really the big, big loser of the moment, whether she would admit it or not. The nickname is from an obviously fake review, but oh well.

Meredith Raimondo is the former Vice President and Dean of Student Affairs at Oberlin who distributed flyers condemning Gibson's Bakery as a "RACIST establishment with a LONG ACCOUNT of RACIAL PROFILING and DISCRIMINATION".

It was Meredith Raimondo who egged on students to slander and libel Gibson's with a bullhorn.

It was Meredith Raimondo who did all these things in her official capacity as a representative of Oberlin College, causing all the pain and suffering of the bakery owners and eventually causing the original judgment of $32 million to be leveled in the original 2019 case, and my guess is that it was Meredith Raimondo whose shear insolence and intransigence led to refusal to pay and appeals which increased the price tag by over $4.5 million.

There was never any evidence provided for this "long account of racial discrimination". And this was all occasioned on a refusal to admit that some kids are bad and sometimes they actually steal stuff.

It is highly unlikely that this will hurt Oberlin College financially that much which has an endowment of over $1 billion. But it is a huge victory for Truth, because now supporters of the Truth can point to this court victory and say "Look --we can still win in court." It is too bad it has to come to this, but here we are.

I would love to hear what certain people at Oberlin say about Meredith Raimondo behind closed doors. She basically came in and stood behind an obvious lie, and then she puts the school's name on the lie, and then she lied long-form, in court and she LOST the college $36+ million. What did it gain or would it have gained the school if the judge had ruled that no slander or libel occurred? I can only think of one thing, and that is respect among other liars, mostly of the liberal persuasion.

The award for my favorite summation of this hard-fought victory goes to Daniel Suhr in his article:

When universities cross that line to actively back such protests, they have to own the results. Responsible adults in charge of billion-dollar institutions should not lightly accuse beloved small businesses of racism because their spoiled students feel entitled to shoplift scot-free.

Amen, buddy.

Wednesday, September 7, 2022

Hinged and Unhinged

In a video produced by Word on Fire, actor Shia LaBeouf discusses main points of his recent conversion to Roman Catholicism with Bishop Robert Barron. I think it is very much worth watching and I have embedded it below.

I am happy Shia Labeouf found the Holy Church. I always liked his acting, and some of the crazy stuff he was involved in during his past life showed me that he was searching for something, not unlike the rest of us. Hopefully he will keep his newfound faith, but no matter what happens with Mr. LaBeouf in the future, this video has value. Because it shows someone in the midst of discovery, turning his life around and pursuing God with the sort of relentlessness which we are all suppose to aspire to.



Shortly after this video was released we got this gem from Cardinal Arthur Roche. Displaying all the normal reticence of churchmen to speak directly, we get this strange line of argumentation:

The head of the Vatican's liturgy office says he would welcome a conversation with Hollywood actor Shia LaBeouf, who recently cited the traditional Latin Mass as motivation for his conversion to Catholicism.

"I'd like to know why he thinks that, what is his experience of the celebration of the Mass," said English Cardinal Arthur Roche. "That's what priests do; we try to talk to people."

"Reform of the liturgy was an enormous, long preparation prior to the council and the council is the highest legislation that exists in the church," he said. "Once that legislation comes into effect, it's a very serious matter."

"You disregard that and you're really putting yourself sideways towards the edges of the church," he added.

Roche warned against those reluctant to embrace the reforms of Vatican II, describing them as "not only dragging their feet but stubbornly opposing what the church has decreed."

"And that's a very serious matter," he continued. "In the end, people have to ask themselves, 'Am I really a Catholic or am I more of a Protestant?'"

Yes; every Catholic at the Latin Mass needs to ask themselves "Am I a Protestant?" You know, I used to say about the SSPX that they were more Protestant than they realized, but then Pope Francis slapped me down on that idea. "They are Catholic. They love the Church," he exclaimed in 2016. Well, then! I stand corrected.

But back to Cardinal Roche. When he states that Tradition lovers are putting themselves "sideways towards the edges of the church", it sounds like he is saying that we're out on the margins or peripheries, right? We most definitely have heard that kind of language before. I wish at least one of these Churchmen would work on a pastoral strategy of accompaniment for us weirdos who like tradition and Latin. Oh, wait... one of them did.

The title of Cardinal comes from the Latin word for "hinge" as most Catholics know, and a lot of what happens in Church government hinges on what they say and do. If Cardinal Roche really wants to talk to LaBeouf I'm sure it is merely a matter of contacting Bishop Barron and getting his contact info. Then he could provide LaBeouf with all the teaching and mystagogy he would like to. It seems to me like this calling out of a public person is merely being used to express a contrary opinion, and I really do not have a problem with simply doing that per se. It just seems like he could accomplish this discussion rather easily, and so stating publicly that he is trying to talk to someone means he is using this situation to push his own messaging.

Speaking of hinges, we got another article from NCR Online about Shia LaBeouf which is a little more unhinged a few days after the article about the Cardinal. The Shia LaBeouf conversion interview: A portrait of masculine aggression. Oh, man, do I love that headline. The author, Madison Chastain, is one of those Catholics who was sad about the overturn of Roe v. Wade. And she is not shy at all about expressing how she feels about Mr. LaBeouf:

LaBeouf also says, before his conversion, he did not initially feel compelled to have a relationship with Jesus because he only knew the "soft, fragile, all-loving, all-listening but no ferocity … meek" Jesus (Barron immediately offers the word "feminized"), and it was only when LaBeouf encountered what he considered to be "masculine" — "cape, dipped in blood, sword" — that Jesus felt "appealing."

We should be concerned about anyone who finds the Gospel most compelling in its violence or who is put off by the femininity of Jesus. If we are to understand Jesus as the savior of all, we must embrace his full divinity that has no gender, and we must confidently identify the goodness of both the masculine and feminine in the incarnation.

Throughout the interview, LaBeouf cites a number of tropes and returns to them often: cowboys, cavemen and gangsters. He repeatedly expresses gratitude for the men who accompanied him and "masculinized" his journey, "the hero's journey."

... At the time of his initial engagement with Catholicism, LaBeouf's mother wasn't speaking to him and his career was flatlining. LaBeouf shares about experiencing suicidal ideation and total lack of hope. Once he embraces the Gospel, he feels God calling him to let go of his egotistical striving for power. He finds the safety he was looking for in "non-transactional" relationships where he isn't expected to do anything besides contemplate how best to use his gifts for others. It is a beautiful narrative of acceptance.

And yet still, the concerns about the attractiveness of Catholic violence and secrecy cannot be downplayed, as they directly relate to LaBeouf's troubled past. LaBeouf minimally addresses the accusations made against him in the last few years, referring to them only as "the news." Barron never asks.

The money line: If we are to understand Jesus as the savior of all, we must embrace his full divinity that has no gender, and we must confidently identify the goodness of both the masculine and feminine in the incarnation. This is language which Miss Chastain probably heard from a liberal priest or theologian. Jesus is both God and Man; He is God throughout Eternity and he became a human male in space and time. He embodies masculine goodness and masculine gentleness and not aggression. And in Christianity, Divinity most definitely has a gender: masculine.

In fact, the idea that aggression need be masculine is faulty, and I would argue that this article is written with a great deal of feminist aggression, making needless assumptions about LaBeouf's guilt and insinuations that Bishop Barron is negligent for not probing into his Hollywood scandals.

Read the whole Chastain piece and tell me it is not a perfect occasion for playing Buzzword Bingo for members of the intersectional feel-feels contingent. We get to hear all the standard terms and phrases mentioned: Black Lives Matter, #Metoo, bigotry, sexism, racism, cultural appropriation, platform, Catholic violence, powerful men, etc.

Back to the Cardinal's concern about the Traditional Liturgy. I would advise him to read a really well-considered and well-written article by Rebecca Weiss called The Traditional Mass is not the problem with Traditionalist communities. I don't know if that would help, however. It might be that Mr. LaBeouf will never get any respect or trust from certain quarters. After all, he does mention that he is friends with Mel Gibson and that might explain all the reactions, both hinged and unhinged.

Monday, July 18, 2022

Dan Bongino: "[Members of the media are] Champions of Misinformation"

Ladies and Gentlemen, the President of the United States



Democrats be sayin' "check your privilege!" I be sayin' "check your President."

Thursday, July 14, 2022

"This government stands unequivocally against critical race theory."



Excellent speech. There is no such thing as inherited guilt, let alone inherited racial guilt.

Friday, July 8, 2022

Vivek Ramaswamy on freeing the Energy Producers from outside influences



I am using Vanguard at the moment for my retirement and investments. Whenever Strive Asset Management comes online, that is where all my money is going.

Steve Inman's Interview With An Original Rooftop Korean



The cold war is heating up.

This is why I am happy to be in a based parish

...with a based and/or redpilled priest. I don't have to listen to current thing crap during the Prayers of the Faithful.

Sadly I think that Dymphna is correct here:

Every week at the Prayers of the Faithful I hear "For the people of Ukraine facing tyranny..." but so far the liturgical committee has not noticed what's been going on in Nigeria where people are being slaughtered and kidnapped at Mass. Considering that this diocese has a large number of Nigerians this is odd and disappointing.

I've said it before and I will say it again. Have you noticed that nobody, not one rabbi, or Protestant preacher has publicly offered to stand by Catholics as our churches are being attacked? The Mass was changed in part, to appeal to Protestants and there are Catholics who have spent their entire church careers for lack of a better term, working feverishly on Interfaith causes. We certainly are seeing the worthlessness of those efforts.

This Ukraine thing can be directly traced to Joe Biden's actions with regard to fuel pipelines. Yet I don't hear anyone on the left talking about how Everything is Interconnected! when discussing this, although it is an economic fact that “the gravest effects of all attacks on the FOSSIL FUEL INDUSTRY are suffered by the poorest”. All I hear is OMG THOSE HORRIBLE RUSSIANS AND TRUMP!

There is no Ukrainian flag inside or outside my house. But there are plenty of instances of another flag, believe me.

Wednesday, June 29, 2022

Dan Bongino explains why Cassidy Hutchinson is full of crap

Hunter Biden asks his prostitute if he hurt her



I feel like such a heel; I have never spent $10,000.00 on a woman. Not even on a whole weekend with my wife.

Tuesday, June 28, 2022

Different Takes on the Overturn of Roe v. Wade

Bill Donohue comments in his latest press release that the vast majority did not support what the Roe and Casey decisions allowed, which was abortion through nine months with no restrictions." A viral TikTok video by someone named Michelle Rhodes expands on this point.



Basically the horrible awfulness of abortion has not only been tolerated by the left for 49 years, but it has been expanded, exported, celebrated, recommended for every women and every situation, it has been propagandized by the liberal media which never covers anything negative about abortion, and we could go on and on about it. The result is that the defenders of abortion are now unveiling themselves as the most vile, hateful, violent people in our country and they are burning down churches, threatening to assasinate justices and making asses of themselves in the streets upon the news of the overturn.

This can be juxtaposed with the completely different take which you will continually find on Mark Shea's Daily Stumble blog. The enemy, according to Shea, is the prolife movement which has "turned itself into a monomaniac heresy at war with almost the entire social teaching of the Church and using the unborn as human shields for all that." To support his take on Roe v. Wade's overturn being a mistake, he cherry-picks some statistics and quotes some mean, personal insults some idiot made to him. He rarely if ever points out that abortion is pretty singularly horrible, and that anything which steps toward eliminating the procedure should be applauded. The tactic is to assert that the left is right about literally everything else — guns, welfare, immigration, tax policy, environment — and then, weighing all things to a nicety in the scales of his malice toward prolifers, he finds them deficient. Ergo, the 6-3 Dobbs decision to overturn Roe v. Wade is forever tainted by those who worked hard to bring it about, and he just cannot be happy about it.

Or... I might be going out on a limb here, but maybe Shea is butthurt because he often predicted — as he did in this post — that this day would never come, insinuating that the "Right Wing Cult Leadership" would give "nothing in return" for the slavish loyalty of religious conservatives.

This is, of course, completely counter to the official position of the Church which can be read in this statement on the USCCB page.

“This is a historic day in the life of our country, one that stirs our thoughts, emotions and prayers. For nearly fifty years, America has enforced an unjust law that has permitted some to decide whether others can live or die; this policy has resulted in the deaths of tens of millions of preborn children, generations that were denied the right to even be born.

“America was founded on the truth that all men and women are created equal, with God-given rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. This truth was grievously denied by the U.S. Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade ruling, which legalized and normalized the taking of innocent human life. We thank God today that the Court has now overturned this decision. We pray that our elected officials will now enact laws and policies that promote and protect the most vulnerable among us.

In fact, I received a link to this page in an email from the USCCB Marriage group on Friday, June 24. The USCCB is often said to be left of center and I generally think it is a bad idea to generalize about the Bishops since there are close to 200 of them in the United States and they obviously vary in their political ideas. Anyway, the subject of the email was "Praise God! Roe and Casey have been overturned!"

I am not sure in what universe a serious Catholic has to live to have a case of the sads about this news. Unless one puts being a committed leftist ahead of being Catholic.

Monday, June 27, 2022

Thank you, God, Supreme Court, Trump, RBG, Mitch McConnell, etc.

I feel bad I did not post this a few days ago when it happened, but I was really busy. But obviously the fall of the Roe v Wade decision is pretty much more important than any other news, or any opinion of mine, or petty like or dislikes. In fact, I really can't say it any better than this:

What a day! Of course this only means that abortion policy is now up to each state to regulate as it sees fit. There’s lots of work left to be done for the unborn.

Let us be thankful for all the faithful men and women and even children who marched, who prayed, who donated, and who sacrificed over the past 49 years to make this day a reality. Let us be thankful for the courage of Justices Alito, Barrett, Thomas, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and even Roberts, despite his waffling.

Let us be thankful for Donald Trump; I didn’t vote for him in part because I didn’t think he would do anything on abortion in the courts; I have scarcely been happier to admit I was wrong. This would not have happened without his presidency. And thank you, Federalist Society!

I am not a Catholic, but I want to give special thanks to the Catholic Church in the United States, for never once failing to fight for life. Thanks to to all the churches and church leaders who stood publicly for life. In America, the Catholics were always there, without fail. Thank you, National Right To Life and all other pro-life lobbyists.

It is always good to see people on the prolife side putting aside differences to give credit where it is due, so it is good to see Mr. Dreher doing so here.

Also a special thanks to my own mother who died on February 3, 2020. She always said what everyone else in the prolife movement said: Roe will fall, but that will not mean it is time to rest. But she worked at a crisis pregnancy center, went to the marches, and got tons of people involved in the effort including my brother and me. So she gets to rest now.

More Good News

This is good news for the gene pool, potentially.

Pro-abortion women are threatening to go on a sex strike following the U.S. Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade. However, pro-life Americans exposed a major flaw in the abortion ultimatum by liberals. In a rare instance, pro-life Americans completely agree with pro-abortion activists for them to practice abstinence.

However, pro-life Americans pointed out why the sex strike proposal completely backfires on liberals....

This is not so much as a backfire as it is a misfire. Maybe this will be a good penance for pro-choice men who have been enabling and benefitting from legalized abortion for almost 50 years now.

Here are some of the responses, all much more obvious than witty:
  • "Do all these women who say they’re going on a sex strike realize that they’ve now solved their abortion problem?"
  • "That moment when you realize if you go on #SexStrike you won’t need an abortion."
  • "Nicely done ladies! Abstaining from sex prevents an unwanted pregnancy and abortion."
  • "To people tweeting this, your terms are acceptable. We actually have no issue with you taking responsibility for once in your lives and not just having meaningless sex that ends with you taking an innocent human life."
  • "I don’t understand the logic behind going on a #sexstrike. Who exactly are you hurting by doing this aside from yourself and your partner? And if you love abortions the world is probably better off if you don’t have sex anyway."
  • "I am wondering if these ladies recognize that their pro-choice/abortion husbands would be the victims, while the pro-life husband and wives could protest this movement by simply having sex. Too Hilarious!"

Saturday, June 25, 2022

Pro-abort advocates violence

Quotes: "I'm advocating for violence. I am advocating for violence. Light it on fire."



It is like she is drawing a straight line between abortion and violence, saying "I am not allowed to destroy a life in abortion anymore, so I will destroy other lives." Wow, who would ever have thought that abortion causes violence?

Monday, June 20, 2022

2020: Brian Stelter's "proof" of Biden's Fitness for the Highest Office

Too funny.

Well, Brian, bike-riding proficiency is a low bar, but he's failed at that now also.

Prediction on the Downfall of the MCU Coming To Pass

Disney/Pixar just laid a pretty big turd this weekend, so it seems like a good time to revisit my answer to a Quora question a year ago. It has garnered 75 likes in that time, and so I am kind of proud of that. Honestly I just rushed my answer out with a lot less work that I generally put into blog posts. The reason people like it is obviously not because of brilliant writing but because the message resonates with fans of stories of all sorts. Here's the text:

Will Marvel Studios’ “woke” stance backfire like the comics did?

If the storytelling goes downhill, then the MCU will fall. “Wokeness” seems to erect artificial barriers to good storytelling. For example, look at the Charlie’s Angels movie. All the women are Mary Sues and can all do just about everything. All the men are awful and easy for the women to beat. The old white guy turns out to be the villain and this surprises no one. The movie tanked and was deservedly mocked.

“Batwoman” is another recent cringeworthy example. Good storytelling takes a back seat to woke button-pushing, and it is one of the lowest rated things in the DC realm.

Having said all this, there are many macho-crap films, stuff as far from “woke” as possible, out there that suck as badly as Batwoman. They feature one-dimensional, steroid-jacked heroes and hot women posing merely damsels in distress. I have just never heard anyone insist that those examples of film-making are great. Not in the way people insist that Last Jedi or Rise of Skywalker is great storytelling when the plot holes in those films are gaping and their characters demonstrably less realistic.

The best of the older, cheesy action films didn’t suffer from macho or woke posturing. Commando didn’t take itself very seriously, but neither of the females comes across as a fearful damsel-y character, but rather tough characters with courage. Rae-Dawn Chong actually uses a rocket launcher to free Schwarzenegger from a paddy wagon. But if Chong was shown beating all these military guys up with Arnold sitting there cheering her on that would have ruined the story. I feel like there are a bunch of woke fans that want that, i.e., ruin the story for the sake of a narrative that shows that men need to take a back seat to women, not that men and women can work together, using different talents, to beat the bad guys. “Edge of Tomorrow” is a good example of a more recent example of this, along with the first “Avengers” film of course.

“Falcon and the Winter Soldier” is a good example of the latest MCU project which was not sure what it wanted to be. Quirky action romp or preachy geopolitical / racial statement? Fortunately, the great action scenes provided enough cover for fans like me to ignore the cringe-worthy monologuing and confusion about who really is the “bad guy”. But here’s the thing: I’m a hardcore comic movie fan. If the MCU takes the wrong message from its decent ratings and injects more statement and less fun into their products, they are going to lose a lot of audience. You have got to get normal people to see your movies. If you are just able to count people like me coming through to door then woke or not, you’ll go broke.

I added a number of comments over the months about new MCU movies. I noted that Spiderman did really well and was missing all the SJW virtue signaling. A guy whose first name was Mohammad showed up in the comments and agreed with me numerous times, providing his own insights and examples that I appreciated very much. Unfortunately he deleted all his comments. He may have been scared that people might see them and decide he is a _______phobe, so I do not blame him one bit.

There are many people out there calling this stuff out now and pointing out that political messaging destroys stories. So many in fact that a list would be sort of hard to make, but here is a partial one: Critical Drinker, Nerdrotic, Ryan Kinal, Infinity Girl, The Quartering, Clownfish TV, Geeks and Gamers and Odin's Movie Blog. A lot of these folks are great fellow travelers for traditional Christians and conservatives to follow and check out.

Friday, June 17, 2022

Enough of the Drag Queen crap



Walsh is correct. Drag is basically "female blackface".

Tuesday, June 7, 2022

Nigerian Catholic Massacre: The Murderers are Muslims

The Catholic League points out the taintedness of the media's coverage of the Nigerian Catholic Massacre.

This was only the latest in a series of killings carried out by radical Islamists against Christians in Nigeria, though the media are reluctant to discuss the identity of the terrorists.

No one was better at describing what happened than Nina Shea, whose expertise is monitoring religious liberty worldwide at the Hudson Institute. “The massacre in a church while filled with Sunday worshippers is an atrocity that we’ve repeatedly seen in northern Nigeria over the years. Those were the work of Islamist extremists.” Mostly Muslims live in the north of Nigeria; the south is populated by Christians.

Among the media who did an accurate job reporting on the mass shooting was Christianity Today, Quartz Africa and Reuters. They made it clear that Muslim radicals were to blame.

The New York Times and the Associated Press made a passing reference to the role of Muslims (abcnews.com and the Washington Post picked up the AP story). Many others were worse.

There are many reasons why people like to cover for the violent actions of Muslims, but they all cause the truth of Islamic violence to be supressed in the name of something of lesser value than the truth. Sensitivity ("They have a different culture..."), equality ("Christians can be violent, TOO!") and even tolerance ("We have to try to understand their point of view!").

Here's the harsh truth from a page on the Christianity.com site.

By most conservative counts, the Quran contains over 100 passages that call Muslims to take up arms against unbelievers in the name of Allah.

“Kill them [unbelievers] wherever you find them… And fight them until there is no more unbelief and worship is for Allah alone” (Quran 2:191-193).

“Strike off their heads and strike from them every fingertip” (Quran 8:12).

“Allah has purchased from the believers their lives and their properties; in exchange for that they will have Paradise. They fight in the cause of Allah, so they slay and are slain” (Quran 9:111).

“Truly Allah loves those who fight in His cause in battle array…” (Quran 61:4)

“The Messenger of Allah said: I have been commanded to fight against people till they testify that there is no god but Allah, and that Muhammad is the messenger of Allah” (Sahih Muslim 1:33).

Monday, June 6, 2022

The Daily Stumble goes beyond the normal level of cognitive dissonance

Atop Mark Shea's Facebook feed today we find this sensible and true assertion:

Jesus Christ is not here to put the stamp of approval on your political ideology.

Yet several minutes before this, he linked to this dainty morsel on his blog which I call The Daily Stumble. Excerpt:

The young man said to him, “All these I have observed; what do I still lack?” Jesus said to him, “If you would be perfect, go, sell your guns and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” When the young Gun Lover heard this he went away sorrowful; for he had a great arsenal.

And Jesus said to his disciples, “Truly, I say to you, it will be hard for a Gun Lover to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a Gun Lover to enter the kingdom of God.” (Mt 19:16–24)

Mark Shea admits that this is a paraphrase of what Jesus said to the rich man in Matthew 19. And I submit to you that this paraphrase is an attempt to have Jesus Christ put the stamp of approval on his political ideology "gun hurt people whole bunch so gun bad".

I would love to go up to anti-gun-Christ and mock him — which is ok since he is not the real Christ — by pointing out "hey, them liberals love theyself some fancy plug-in cars and proceeds from they car sale gonna feed a whole lot more po' people than from my gun, bruh".

I don't know anyone who loves guns, period. A gun is a tool that can be used for good or ill. People tend to get attached to things for many reasons. If you are holding onto your great grand-daddy's 30-30 for sentimental reasons, I would definitely sell it and buy someone for which you can buy cheaper and more common ammo. There's my free practical advice for the day.

Taken from an article titled "Lithium Mining and Its Impacts on the Environment" (https://www.techolac.com/business/lithium-mining-and-its-impacts-on-the-environment)

Thursday, June 2, 2022

Strive for Excellence

This story makes me exceedingly happy.

Today, Strive Asset Management (“Strive”) launches with the mission of restoring the voices of everyday citizens in the American economy by leading companies to focus on excellence over politics. Strive is led by co-founder and Executive Chairman Vivek Ramaswamy and has raised over $20 million from some of America’s most prominent venture capitalists and entrepreneurs.

Strive aims to solve a fiduciary problem created by the three largest U.S. asset managers — BlackRock, Vanguard and State Street — which control over $20 trillion in assets, exceeding the total U.S. gross domestic product. These “Big 3” firms bear a fiduciary duty to advance the best interests of their clients. Yet in the name of “stakeholder capitalism,” they use their clients’ funds to exercise decisive influence over nearly every U.S. public company to advance political ideologies that many of their clients disagree with. They engage in coordinated efforts to enact a uniform social agenda across corporate America resulting in higher gas prices and other consumer harms, which Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich recently called “the biggest antitrust violation in history.”

The fact that it is happening in my home state of Ohio is simply an added bonus. I will be transferring my Vanguard accounts to Strive Asset Management as soon as possible.

Kill people when necessary



"This ain't gonna make the news.... They want you to stay in the dark because they have a political agenda."

Friday, May 27, 2022

I am tired of Bad Language, Part 1

I have been becoming increasingly tired for some time now with what I have decided to call Bad Language. I am not referring to curse words or slurs, F-words, N-word, S-word, etc. What I mean could be more exactly called "abuse of language". But I am going to call it bad language because its effects are bad.

There are numerous uses of the phrase "brother's keeper" in current popular media, and most people with some Biblical literacy know that this phrase comes from the story of the murder of Abel by his own brother Cain which appears in the fourth chapter of Genesis. After Cain kills Abel, God asks Cain "Where is Abel, your brother? Cain says "I don't know; am I my brother's keeper?" Then God says "The voice of your brother’s blood is crying to me from the ground."

I have heard insightful sermons on this passage, but they are rare. Most of what you hear is like the content on this page. Don't get me wrong--many of the standard messages here are very good, such as "love your brothers and sisters", "treat them kindly", etc. But the big conclusion, delivered in bold capitalized words, at the end of the article is completely off: Even If Cain Wasn’t a Brother’s Keeper, We Are Still Called to Be.

The context needed to understand the phrase is in Genesis 4:2, "Now Abel was a keeper of sheep." When you realize that Cain's answer to God's question is first a lie ("I don't know") and then a bit of mockery ("Am I my brother's keeper?") then you will see what a misuse of this phrase is. God is emphatic about this brotherly relationship and Cain is dismissive. There are a lot more things going on in this passage as well having to do with Cain being a "tiller of the ground" and Abel's blood "crying... from the ground" that skilled Hebrew scholars have noted, and it simply cannot be an accident that Cain used the same word as Abel's chosen profession.

I am not my brother's keeper. I am my brother's brother.

Writers like Mr. Haynes in the aforementioned article would no doubt expect God's answer to Cain's mocking rhetorical question to be "Yes; you are your Brother's Keeper." Whereas I believe the implied answer is "No; you are his brother." Cain is not expected to treat Abel like Abel's ovine charges. In fact, since Abel obviously slaughtered the animals he raised, the implied negative answer is made all the more emphatic to my mind.

A lot of people will roll their eyes at this point and say "Oh, gee whiz Paul, does this matter? Aren't groups like My Brother's Keeper and My Brother's Keeper International and I am my Brother's Keeper Prison Ministry Book Club good and wonderful organizations?" My answer is that I have no reason to believe they are not wonderful, but insofar as they exist to help other people and treat them in the proper way, they should not have brother's keeper in their names.

I realize that all human language deals with abstractions and therefore no word construct perfectly describes reality. But using this phrase is reinforcing at least several incorrect ideas about what is going on in the story, and frankly, it is ignoring or at least making light of the terrible sins and failings which led up to Cain murdering his brother. The jealousy, envy and anger of Cain were unchecked and they all led to a murderous, blind rage and finally to murder itself. This was the "sin crouching at the door", not some vague failure to realize that we all need to play "keeper" to each other.

Why is this so important to emphasize? It is because the people close to us in one way or another are the ones with whom we have the hardest time. Older brothers are embarrassed by their little brothers doing things which they would merely laugh about if a kid the same age next door did them. And younger brothers are resentful of their older brothers' privileges. And jealousy goes in both directions constantly. Let go, these smaller sins grow into more terrible ones--that's a fact. Indiscriminate killings seem to more often grab headlines, but most murdered people know their killers.

As I mentioned earlier, Mr. Haynes' article is replete with great scripture references, but a good antidote to Cain's problem would be Romans 12:14, "Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep." It is one of those verses which is practically identical in many English versions. I am the father of seven sons and when my boys follow this verse there are no problems. But when they let their "countenance fall", that is always the first inflection point. The devil says over and over, "If this person feels bad, you will feel good." It's the zero sum lie, and it is believed by many.

Look back at Genesis 2:15: "The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till IT and keep IT." The emphasis here on the word IT is mine. I have a hypothesis: the greatest instances of abuse of language involve the treating of people like things, or things like people. I have heard this saying before, "We are supposed to use things and love people. But too often we love things and use people." Also I believe that Pope John Paul II remarked that all the evil in the world had its origin in the treatment of people like things. We should take comfort in the knowledge that we are called to be brothers and sisters to one another, and not keepers.

Tuesday, February 22, 2022

Economist Glenn Loury on Biden's "craven pandering"

Glenn Loury, an African-American Economist who teaches at Harvard, was asked recently what he thought about President Biden's preannouncement of the race and gender of his first Supreme Court pick. Excerpt:

You could call this craven pandering. I’m bemused by it because it unnecessarily raises questions about the fitness of whomever he might appoint, when he might have simply chosen a black woman as his nominee, and crowed about it after the fact. To avoid casting any doubt over the choice that he would have made, he could have said this is the best, most qualified person that I could find. But in any case, as he’s done it now, he’s limited his range of options to a very small percentage of the total population of people who might have been selected, and, you could say, has put an asterisk by the name of whomever it is that he might ultimately select.

This is, by the way, the Supreme Court of the United States of America, this is the final stopping point for any legal dispute. There are nine justices serving there, the quality of an appointment is not a small matter. We’re not now admitting a marginal student to an elite college campus, we’re selecting the people who are going to govern the country. The President might have engaged in a kind of subtle and tacit preference, rather than crowing about it and making it overt and explicit. It sows a kind of contempt for the standards that we ought to be employing.

Loury sort of pegs the act of preannouncing and limiting himself as having an effect which is opposite to the presumed intention. It is like affirmative action on steroids, or perhaps a better analogy would be "quotas with more cowbell." The presumed intention is to tout the idea that a black woman can be just as brilliant a legal scholar as a white man, or white woman, or black man. But then suddenly you tacitly say "And to prove this, we will eliminate anyone else from the running!".

The only response to something this illogical that I can think of is "OK, boomer."