AI created.
Welcome back to the Washington home, we’re closing in on being ready to list this puppy, the main repairs are done, most of the stuff that isn’t needed to function until the house is sold except for my woodshop is packed. Dinner tonight will be Tacos at the Masonic lodge because we have a first degree to initiate. Booze is in its normal place, as are soft drinks.
It’s worth noting that the prompt for the above art was “dressed in a suit and tie, a very modern Pontius Pilate stands on a dais in the open air washing his hands in front of an angry mob. Crucifixions occurring in the background.” I couldn’t get it to draw that, it continuously left out the crucifixions, and the only way I could get a modern suit, kept putting the crowd as all black men. I’m not sure what that says about the AI and how it’s programmed, I’ll leave that to you to decipher.
The tip jar is at the link. Thanks, as always to everyone who has chipped in.
Before we talk about Truth, and “Truth” I want to give a very brief review of Mission Impossible-The Final Reckoning.
Tom Cruise just keeps getting better. Before the movie starts, there’s a brief segment with just Cruise, in an empty theater, talking to the audience. Another recent clip came across my desk with him in a similar staging, talking about the Armed Forces, and Memorial Day. His authenticity, and his class, shines through in both of them. This is a trait that used to exist in Hollywood, guys like John Wayne used to talk to the audience, to thank them, to talk about why they made the movie, and why it matters, and most importantly, that they understand that without an audience, they’re just a bunch of guys playing “Dress-up” and “Make-believe.”
It’s a style that declined over the years. So did Hollywood.
Maybe, just maybe, at least part of Hollywood has started to get the message.
Look, MI-FR isn’t perfect, if you’re a submariner there are a couple places you’re going to have to turn off your brain for a few minutes. On the other hand, it was nice to see some of my old stomping grounds immortalized on film. If you’re part of the Aviation Community in any way shape or form, you’re going to have some questions about the G forces and survivability of some of the stunts. If you’re in the Strategic Weapons Community, there’s also some “just push the I believe button” moments.
That’s OK, you must understand that Ethan Hunt is a demigod, the reason he didn’t know his father has nothing to do with secret agent stuff, it’s because daddy was Osiris; move on with enjoying the damn movie. The intro says it all, all the movies, all the crap, leads up to this. The Flick is long, almost three hours. Make sure you pee before the ball starts, there’s no time during the movie that you won’t miss something. Oh and having a president with balls? Even if they’re so big she wears them on her chest?
PRICELESS.
I give it five rounds out of a six-gun.
Now on to the main event. Pontius allegedly washed his hands, after acceding to the demands of the crowd that a murderer be freed, instead of a man who claimed to be the son of God, and King of the Jews, saying “What is Justice?” Today’s version, similarly, asks “What is Truth?”
Tom Knighton alludes to this with his piece on the Leftist climate change cult, and Congresswoman Creem’s bill mandating limits on personal vehicle miles permitted, @ it-was-always-going-to-come-to-this. Go take a look, Tom’s always good, but this one was perfect.
Except it didn’t go far enough.
Tom was picking on one particular parlor pink commie, who wants to rule your life, for your own good of course…
The Bad Cat, El Gato Malo, also nails it, over at being-dishonest-about-honesty and hits more of the targets. Starting with academia and spreading to the left in general; Cat calls out the lies of “peer reviewed” as a guarantor of truth and honesty. There are too many takeaways for me to single out one quote, please, go and read his piece, it’s way worth the price of admission, even if he charged.
Over at “Reason” they tried to justify some of Harvard’s excesses and lies, with “well, it’s coming from Trump, so it’s all “Fruits of the Poisonous Tree” because Orange Man Bad @ /seizing-harvards-federal-funds/ Reason always comes at it from an odd angle, They’re basically anti government no matter what the government is, while at the same time saying “but you know, this stuff that they did is good.” Once you understand that these folks are as close to pure “Libertarian Party” as it gets these days, some of it’s explained. They have their own huge blind spots, and consider that to be a feature, not a bug.
They also buy into the “soft power of educating our enemies and thus inoculating them with the ‘freedom bug’” theory that has been so popular for decades as a reason for our colleges and universities to pick foreign nationals over Americans as student body.
History shows that this idea is about as smart as a screen door on a submarine.
The Romans learned how well this worked when they taught this kid named Attila at their military schools, while he was a hostage to his uncle, the king of the Huns. Throughout history there are many examples of peaceful nations trying to use “soft power” on totalitarian regimes, up through formerly Great Britain teaching this “WOG” named Osama, a child of one of the noble families of the house of Sauid. His full name was Osama bin Mohammed bin Awadh, bin Laden, but most people just called him Osama bin Laden.
Hell, we taught Adm. Yamamoto at Harvard! (If you don’t know who he is, well, maybe you would be more comfortable watching the View, or something equally brainless.) Yes, Harvard has that long a history of choosing our enemies over our nation.
In short, Soft Power doesn’t work. If you come from a different culture, in many cases, exposure to our culture just reenforces how fucked up we are, from your perspective, while teaching you how to best attack us.
And, there’s a lot of other silly ideas in their post as well. That said, if it seems like all liberals lie, well, that’s not quite right. See they’ve been taught from birth that “Truth” is not an absolute. If you can’t define a Truth that we can all agree is factual and complete, you can’t even talk with the other side. There is no frame of reference. It’s like trying to describe a painting of a mountain, done in blues and greens, to someone who has been blind since birth, and doesn’t speak a known language. (Not “doesn’t speak your language” Doesn’t speak any language we have ever heard of.)
In a world where there are no absolute truths, all you can operate on is emotions.
Now of course there are absolute truths. Down is the direction aligned with the pull of gravity, water boils at 212 degrees F at sea level, if you sever the spine at C1, the person will die, and if you have XY chromosomes you’re male, if you don’t you’re female.
See, I just stepped over the line as far as the left is concerned. For them, as they have been taught, it’s all about how the person feels, not their genetic makeup. We can’t discuss things where we can’t even agree on basic definitions. They are not lying; they have an entirely different frame of reference. If you’re a Star Trek fan, we’re at “Timba, with arms wide.”
The sad thing is that it’s not just the Left. The Right is getting into the game too!
Take the recent bullshit that happened over in Seattle, with a rally, protests, and arrests.
If you are a Leftist, well first, they put these radical far right protesters, who want to kill all the gays, in the most sacred park in Seattle, a park named for the first openly queer (and before someone takes offense, please, tell me what the Q stands for in LGBTQ?) politician to be elected in WA, right in the middle of the most queer part of the biggest population of queers on the west coast.
To the Left, this was bigger than the Skokie Illinois Nazi march, in terms of offensiveness. Then, the cops protected the guys that want to kill us!!! The cops took Billy clubs to us because we were protesting! The extremist right wingers were looking to agitate us and provoke a response, so that the real villains of the piece would become the victims. Then the mayor declared that Seattle is a “welcoming city” specifically mentioning this group of fanatics as an example! The original stories by the Seattle Slimes emphasized this version, as did the NYT, and a lot of the rest of the MSM. Oddly, a day later they moderated their version a little, when the FBI announced that they would be investigating the whole shindig for shenanigans.
To the Right, a bunch of mainstream Christians, concerned parents, who were frightened by the threats to their kids, from a bunch of pervs and pedophiles, held a rally. They wanted to hold it in downtown Seattle, but the city said NO. Then they asked for “Red Square” at the UW, and again the city said NO. So they asked, “Well, where can we hold our event???” The city said “Well, you could have it at Cal Anderson Park, that would be a great place, you could have it at Lake Union Park, I guess, Cal Anderson would be a great place though.”
So they held their event at Cal Anderson, and holy shit, the event got swarmed by a bunch of ANTIFA types, who showed up looking to beat our asses, and kill us if they could, they brought clubs, bricks, bottles, all the modern weapons of riot mele combat, they obviously were looking for trouble, and it was only by benefit of the police, that we escaped with our lives. The cops just stood by until they started throwing bricks, then they had to step in! Then, the Mayor condemned us for holding a worship event in a public park, demanded an investigation of how we were allowed to pray in public, who authorized it, and how can we fire them/they? The real villains of the piece are made out to be the victims by the city!
By the way, who the fuck is Cal Anderson, anyway?
This is the version that “Not the Bee”, The Patriot Post, Fox, and a lot of the conservative blogosphere tells.
Once again, we each seem to have our own “Truths”, and no one is searching for TRUTH. Everyone is telling some actual truth, and everyone is being deceptive.
Yes, the “Mayday USA” outfit did ask for several other venues before ending up at Cal Anderson. Yes, someone in City Hall pushed for that venue. Yes, they were just praying and singing. Yes, they are concerned about a bunch of Pervs and Pedos. Yes, they were assaulted.
NO they did not, not know who Cal Anderson was, no, they were not all just “mainstream Christians” their group was asked into the area, and boosted, by former state Representative Matt Shea, who has been accused by his own party of being a domestic terrorist just before they kicked him out. No they were not surprised by the reaction, in February one of their leaders was bragging in Portland about going up to Seattle “kind of like Antifa’s headquarters” “It’s kind of a big deal.”
Yes, leftists, the mayor mentioned this event in a discussion about being a “welcoming city.”
Yes Rightists, the context matters, what he actually said was “I’m proud of our reputation as a welcoming inclusive city for LGBTQ+ communities, and we stand with our trans neighbors when they face bigotry and injustice. Today’s far-right rally was held here for this very reason—to provoke a reaction by promoting beliefs that are inherently opposed to our city’s values, in the heart of Seattle’s most prominent LGBTQ+ neighborhood.” He then went on to claim that it wasn’t the LGBTQ+ types that did the violence, they were “infiltrated” by “Anarchists.”
Yes, both sides, the mayor said the “Christian Extreme Right Wing Rally itself stoked the violence. Which is sort of the same thing as “she was asking for it, walking on a public street dressed like that.”
He then went on to demand an investigation into who let those Christians into the parks and allowed them to have a rally. A council member referred to it as “we must also acknowledge the harm caused when hate groups are able to invade spaces meant to celebrate our community’s vulnerable populations and lift up their contributions to our city.”
It’s worth noting in fairness that a UW law professor pointed out that the First Amendment is strongest in public places, and the ability of Governments to regulate Speech in parks is highly restricted.
The cops say “we only cracked down when they started throwing things at us” the protesters say, “the response was unprovoked and needlessly brutal.”
So, who was actually the villain of the piece, and who was the victim? Well, it seems to me there was no real victim, both sides were looking for a rumble. This is far less “Montgomery Alabama’s freedom riders,” and far more “Shoot out at the OK coral” (there were law officers on both sides of that, it was more “two gangs fighting over turf”, and far less “the good guys upholding the law” than modern Hollywood wants you to believe.)
The same sort of thing is being batted about over Trump’s pardon of a VA Sheriff, who depending on who you listen to, was either railroaded and framed for his political views, or was the most corrupt politician since Tamny Hall.
It’s almost like no one knows what the word Truth means any more. Everyone is lying, either through commission, or omission.
Then there’s the Left saying the quiet part out loud again. Madeleine Dean, Pennsylvania Democrat, was ranting about the fact that the house passed “the Big Beautiful Bill” which included the full legalization and removal of taxes on Suppressors for firearms. Something that has been pushed for, for years.
It’s worth noting that suppressors do not make the firearm as quiet as the movies would have you believe. They just drop it down enough that if it were occupational exposure, you wouldn’t be required to wear double hearing protection.
So anyway, this vapid idiot suggested not dropping the tax, but tripling it, to $600 a unit, with the following quote, “You know what the dollars are? It’s $1.4 billion over 10 years. I did the math. That means something like 700,000 silencers are sold in this country a year. That baffles me. I don’t know if that’s accurate, but by the numbers and by the math, that’s what we’re talking about.
“If we doubled it, if we just went to $400, you could sell only half as many and not lose a penny in revenue. If we tripled it, you might actually discourage some sales of silencers. Wouldn’t that be a good thing for us to be doing in this committee?”
It’s all about the Bennies, and making it as difficult as possible to exercise your rights. Anyone with a knowledge of history, knows that gun laws started as Jim Crow laws, to “Keep them darkies and them poor white trash from shootin our God Fearing Knights of the Klu Klux Klan.” Those same folks also know that the KKK was a wholly owned subsidiary of the Democratic party. But it was one of those pieces of Truth that the Dems were never supposed to say out loud.
Here in WA, they just passed a law that requires you to request a license to buy any gun. The license can be refused for any or no reason and requires proof of the passing grade on a state approved firearms safety course. It’s good for five years. “Please, your majesty, might I be permitted to exorcise my rights enumerated in the Constitution?” Said no patriot or crook ever.
What’s next, a license to access the internet, requiring proof of a political science course approved by the state, and a test in spelling?
Well, I need to shower and get down to the lodge so I can cook, so that’s it for this week.
QOTD: "One of the two political parties is — let me put it nicely — white supremacist adjacent, at a minimum." —former FBI Director James Comey. But remember, the FBI under Biden and Comey was even handed, fair, and totally not weaponized. Says so right here on the label.
Yours in Service,
William Lehman