As liberals shy away from the word “woke,” the media has blamed Republicans’ negative use of the term for its downfall. What actually happened to “woke” may be more complicated, and cause problems for Democrats in coming elections. — Kelsey Koberg, Fox News This isn’t the first time the Right has successfully wrested …
Category: political combat
Nov 13 2021
A Note On Contemporary Political Combat
Just a brief piece today, as I’m plunging toward the completion of The Discovery Phase…well, if a snail shackled to a boulder can be said to “plunge”…anyway, have three links that share a thesis: Satan Loves To Slice Salami Thou Shalt Keep Masking, Thou Peasants! The Normalization of Pedophilia I recommend that you …
Nov 04 2021
Always Reinforce Success!
One of the harder tactical lessons to learn, if we judge by the behavior of field commanders throughout history, is rather simple: Cut Your Losses;Reinforce Your Successes. The first part of that maxim is on all fours with “Don’t throw good money after bad.” It’s remarkable how many people will nod sagely when …
Oct 26 2021
The Storm Is Upon Us
Yesterday’s piece, which I was reluctant to post, seems to have gotten a stir going. Perhaps that’s to the good. But if you liked it, you’ll purely love the following video: a speech from the most admirable man in entertainment, Jim Caviezel: I believe we see things the same way, which comes as …
Oct 25 2021
Carts And Horses, 2021 Edition
Good morning, Gentle Reader. I’ve given much of the past day or so to thinking about this Victor Davis Hanson essay. It’s a good piece – what else would we expect from Hanson – but I think it’s missing one component to give it a full picture of our enemies: both the visible figures …
Oct 03 2021
A Not-Funny Conversation
Imagine, Gentle Reader, that rather than talking to one another about how much of your money to spend, Congress is a single individual, and he’s talking directly to you, hoping to win your approval for his spending bill. Your exchange might go thus: CONGRESS: So you see, this $[insert insane spending amount here] appropriations …
Sep 29 2021
More On The “Think Again” Front
“The threat is more powerful than its execution.” – Aron Nimzovich “Not if the probability of execution is zero.” – Me. I’ve been seeing a lot of online bravado of the sort that runs “If they go any further, we’ll rise up and…” – You get the idea, don’t you, Gentle Reader? …
Sep 10 2021
Bluster Means Nothing When The Enemy Holds All The Trumps
I’ve long encouraged Americans to present their “leaders” with a healthy spirit of defiance. It’s as American as apple pie – considerably more so than any of the “woke” pro sports leagues. But it’s not enough to be verbally defiant when the Schutzstaffel is at the door, armed and ready to drag you to …
Aug 28 2021
An Eye-Opener For My Saturday
Even though I’m “retired” – from wage labor, that is – I continue to treat the weekends differently from the rest of the week. I reserve them for rest and recreation, the occasional domestic disaster (and a house built from a random collection of leftover components has them rather often) notwithstanding. I’ll admit that …
Aug 11 2021
Politics Uber Alles
John Hinderaker pins it: The Democrats are bidding Andy Cuomo a fond farewell. They want to pretend that he was a successful governor and his downfall was solely attributable to sexual harassment. Not the untimely and unnecessary deaths of 15,000 nursing home residents? Not the immense damage done to New York’s already …
Aug 06 2021
Fighting FB Disinfo
At every post that mentions the vaques, FB intrudes the tag shown in the picture below. While it is impossible to reply to the intruders, a rebuttal has been permitted and it gets copied and repeated. So there are ways to fight back, at least until FB decides to penalize every account that repeats it. …
Jul 19 2021
No Remedy
It’s easy to castigate men long dead. It’s especially satisfying – for persons of a certain disposition, anyway – when those men have an achievement to their names that their critic could never have equaled. When the achievement is the founding of the greatest nation in history, the castigator has a hard time not …
Jul 01 2021
Today’s Democrats
This was recorded in the Ohio House of Representatives: That’s today’s Democrat legislators for you. No one who opposes their agenda, or who dares to impede the agenda of any of their mascot groups, shall be permitted to speak – or to be heard. I favor expelling them all from every position of …
Jun 23 2021
Everything’s Worse In…
SURPRISE! I shan’t finish the sentence begun in the title just yet. (Caught you lookin’ up in the air, didn’t I?) No, I was just recalling a joke I heard a long, long time ago, the central motif of which was that “Everything’s bigger in Texas.” I’m sure there’s more than one such …
Jun 19 2021
“On Conditions”
Way, way back at the dawn of history, when I was a wee lad and IBM still ruled the computer industry, I was briefly focused on learning a language that has since passed into obscurity. It was IBM’s “everything” language: PL/I. The computer giant had dedicated serious resources to develop a language that would …
May 13 2021
The Dam Is Creaking
Folly, the late Barbara Tuchman wrote in her book The March of Folly, is “knowing better but doing worse.” More lucidly if less lyrically, a fool is one who refuses to learn from his own mistakes. He persists in a course of action that has led him astray previously – perhaps on several occasions …
May 06 2021
Onus Of Criterion
A weird-looking phrase, eh what? I first encountered it in Michael Emerling’s recorded talk on “The Essence of Political Persuasion.” The tactic he described was a real eye-opener – and smashingly relevant to conditions today. The “onus of criterion” tactic relies upon your adversary’s unwillingness to admit that there’s no imaginable evidence that …
Apr 19 2021
Good Ideas Always Resurface
A long, long time ago, back when there was music on AM radio and I was a wee proto-engineer who spent his days correcting other people’s errors in Fortran (Fortran-66, mind you), a colleague commenting on a promotion we in the Computing Center were attempting urged us all to “Think visual.” He exhorted us …
Apr 17 2021
Pushing The Outside Of The Credibility Envelope
Courtesy of Weasel Zippers, we have this literally incredible story about Joe Biden’s “popularity:” Joe Biden approaches the 100-day mark of his presidency with a relatively strong job approval rating and the public continuing to express positive views of the coronavirus aid package passed by Congress last month. Moreover, nearly three-quarters of Americans …