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Five Fast Thoughts Under the Fedora: Curry Nails it but it’s a matter of time, Will the Dem Ticket be the Same? Ukraine Jackson, Stewart or Bragg? Will Maduro Stay or Go? The Money Keeps Coming

Posted: August 12, 2024 by datechguy in business, election 2024, nba, under the fedora, war
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Stephan Curry’s impossible three point shot was the talk of twitter as team USA won gold again in basketball and is rightly considered a huge moment for the team in the Olympics.

But the real story is European basketball has progressed so far since the days of the original dream team of Bird, Jordan, Magic and Barkley that both France and Serbia are making these games, GAMES.

I may live to see another country win the Gold vs a dream team.

Between Walz’s issues with Stolen Valor and Kamala’s fake crowds I’m really wondering if the Democrats won’t be changing one or more horses in next week’s convention.

Given the coup against Biden it’s very possible. I think they just should have done the 25th Amendment but they don’t want to risk a 50-50 senate for the next 100 days or more.

Eventually reality wins out and the reality of the same Kamala that the were saying was a weakness for Biden remains.

The real question in Russia right now is what will the Ukrainians do with the initiative they have seized.

Will they like Stonewall Jackson in the valley use this initiative to try to turn Russian forces out of the Donbas region or will this like Jeb Stewart try to wreak havoc on a wider area or will they like Braxton Bragg that Lookout Mountain await the Russian response.

This decision might decide the war or at least as much of the war that takes place before the election.

In Venezuela Maduro fresh from stealing an election is getting all kinds of offers for amnesty if he leaves the country rather than continuing his crackdown to suppress the people after the steal.

What it really comes down to is does he want to spend his stolen money there or somewhere else? Of course if he leaves a lot of those folks who are doing the grunt work of Murder and oppression will have their days numbers so even if he wants to go they might not allow it.

I’m sure there are more than a few Democrats in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin watching what happens there.

Finally can someone explain to me how Boeing gets a new giant defense contract given their massive problems lately?

I don’t know how much they’re paying their lobbyists in DC but apparently they’re worth every penny and more.

Britain throws The Two Greatest Gifts to Mankind Away

Posted: August 10, 2024 by datechguy in culture, internet/free speech
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The nations, not so blest as thee,
Must, in their turns, to tyrants fall;
While thou shalt flourish great and free,
The dread and envy of them all

."Rule, Britannia! rule the waves:
"Britons never will be slaves."

Rule Britannia! 1740

I have often argued that the two greatest social developments in the history of mankind for the cause of good are

  1. Christianity
  2. British Common Law

The first Christianity establishes the idea that all people are equal in the sight of God:

Men, women, slaves, freemen, Jews, Greeks, rich, poor (to use the phrases of scripture) all are God children and thus due the respect of such.

Even if you don’t believe in Christ, that idea was about as radical as you can get in the 1st century. And it is from that idea that the rights of man evolved.

The second British common law built on both the concepts of Christianity and the rights granted by Magna Carta. Again this was revolutionary.

From this grew the concept that if men were equal before God they should also be equal before the law. It was the idea that the law applied to the great as well as the common, the powerful as well as the powerless and that judgement would not come in a summary manner.

It was this idea spread by the Brits going around the world that made possible those in the world who would eventually leave the empire they would build, because they would be educated in this law and then insist that said ideas be applied where they were.

Now I don’t claim for a moment that these concepts were always applied by imperfect humans nor to I claim that there were not those who tried to use them for their own advantages. If you want perfection you’ll have to wait for heaven. Suffice to say that those who would use such things for advantage would have had no problem using other systems the same way, systems that didn’t provide legal or social restraint to their goals.

These things changed the world for the better.

That’s what makes Britain’s situation today really sad and completely predictable.

Once the British started rejecting Christianity, equality before God, it became easy to reject equality before the law. The seeds laid by Henry VIII finally bloomed at the 1930 Lambeth Conference and have now spread and taken solid root to the point where Englishmen don’t have confidence in their own culture and are now ironically being colonized by a people who DO have confidence in both their laws and religion which proclaim them superior.

Thus if all men are not equal in the eyes of God why would they be equal before the law so why should British police or members of the British government risk their single life and limb with no reward to follow to enforce the laws of those who might harm them if they do or protect the rights of those who can not?

And of course nobody can be allowed to speak aloud this shameful change, they must all be silent less their true state be known and the newly minted slaves become aware of their chains.

So much for “Britons never never never shall be slaves”

How foolish, how sad and how utterly predictable.

Russia, Britain and the Left: “Institutional lying”

Posted: August 9, 2024 by datechguy in culture, internet/free speech, Uncomfortable Truths
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Consider too what undesirable deaths occur in wartime. Men are killed in places where they knew they might be killed and to which they go, if they are at all of the Enemy’s party, prepared. How much better for us if all humans died in costly nursing homes amid doctors who lie, nurses who lie, friends who lie, as we have trained them, promising life to the dying, encouraging the belief that sickness excuses every indulgence, and even, if our workers know their job, withholding all suggestion of a priest lest it should betray to the sick man his true condition! 

C. S. Lewis The Screwtape Letters #5 1941

The truth is like a lion; you don’t have to defend it. Let it loose; it will defend itself

St. Augustine of Hippo

I noted yesterday that there was very little reporting on the Ukrainian incursion into Russia but Redstate has a pretty informative article:

The Two big developments:

That means troops to the south don’t get resupplied and in a war of attrition that’s deadly. Think of it as if Jubal Early’s Force had taken the rail hub at Harrisburg PA in 1864. If I’m Ukraine I’m destroying this ASAP

This however is even bigger:

That means that Ukraine can hold or destroy this state which would cripple Russian exports of gas (and not do any favors to Europe that needs it) at any time. In fact when the Russian Counter attack comes this will likely be the first place blown up.

I’ll let Redstate tell that story but there was a bit of info that I think goes beyond the bounds of the war into something fundamental:

Those are the key words: “institutional lying”.

For Russia this institutional lying has two purposes. For those doing it in peacetime it allows the diversion of funds that are necessary for anything from training to equipment to the person committing the graft, people below either are intimidated or get their share and the people above are told all is well as are the people. This of course leads to disaster when you actually needed troops or equipment to work.

The second of course is the classic problem of delivering bad news. When dealing with a leader who makes people disappear or whose enemies have interesting “accidents” this can really hurt your life span so you do not tell the truth, particularly an uncomfortable truth and have to spin a lie to cover when disaster strikes, to wit:

This by an odd coincidence was both the same problem that the Arabs had in their various wars with Israel reporting “glorious victories” to their people while Israeli was routing their armies, in fact the “Britain did it” was the same line that both Nasser and King Hussain used in the Six Day War because it obviously couldn’t have been the Jews who destroyed their jets on the ground and neutralized their air forces in a single day.

Because it CAN’T be the mere Ukrainians successfully pulling off this attack, it HAS to be a major power like Britain attacking them, which is of course ridiculous as the government of Britain right now is too busy attacking their own citizens who tweet or retweet the wrong things.

In fact the Labour party who are all in for radical Islamists in their nation are also using “institutional lying” to deny the Two Tiered Justice system that has arisen there

And of course such visuals can not be spread, upsets the people you know.

This is also why control of the internet is so important to the left in general and anyone wanting to sell a big lie in particular because you can’t sell the “big lie” if anyone can look on twitter and see the reality happening before their eyes

Meanwhile if Croydon:

Well we can’t have news of that spread can we?

This “institutional lying” is one of the basic MO of the left/media making it a point of telling an untruth that they either want to advance over and over and accusing others of “disinformation” if they contradict it.

Consider less that 50 days ago if you suggested to anybody that Joe Biden was not able to function you were called the spreader of disinformation and assured by everyone from Joe Scarborough to Kamala Harris that Joe was as sharp as a tack. It was only when this was publicly revealed in the Debate to be a life that this fell apart, sort of like the Russian defenses and the big push to get Biden out began.

The media was shocked SHOCKED that they had fallen for the “institutional lying” that they at best had enabled and at worst had committed.

And then once Joe Biden was forced out the institutional lying pivoted stating that old Joe had dropped his campaign of his own free will and that Kamala who just a few weeks earlies people were wondering aloud how to get rid of was suddenly portrayed as the most competent person on the planet.

Nobody wants to say the reality, well ALMOST nobody:

“I don’t know if [Biden is] happy about that decision [to quit]. The presidency was taken away from Joe Biden. And I’m no Biden fan. But I’ll tell you what, from a constitutional standpoint, from any standpoint, you’re looking at they took the presidency away.”

That’s Donald Trump saying the truth out loud and publicly which is why the left has spent so much effort trying to shut him up over the last few years.

Bottom line Institutional Lying is the primary tool of any group trying to oppress you, you can either pretend it isn’t happening or fight, your choice.

I’ll give the last word to Christ:

you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.

John 9:32

Update: Glenn Reynolds makes a true historical point about the Russians that I forgot about:

Of course, the Russians have a history of carrying on when their logistics are shot. But that’s what they’ll have to do, if they are to carry on at all.

Ukraine’s Interesting Offensive Into Russia

Posted: August 8, 2024 by datechguy in Uncategorized, war
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“We must stop this army of Grant’s before he gets to the James River. If he gets there it will become a siege, and then it will be a mere matter of time.”

Robert E Lee 1864

I was very surprised to hear about the new Ukrainian offensive into Russia, I didn’t see it coming and apparently neither did the Russians.

In one respect it makes a lot of sense, if there is a war of attrition Ukraine loses. It’s sort of like Lee sending troops against Washington to relieve pressure on Richmond. The difference of course is that Ukraine is getting plenty of supplies from the west and has decided to act proactively. If it works out it takes out a main Russian supply hub and complicates things for the troops in Donbass. This could give Ukraine a boost in getting better terms from Russia or perhaps cause them to decide that it just isn’t worth it or even bring down Putin.

Of course it’s also possible that it causes Russia to allocate resources to crush this offensive and drive into the heart of Ukraine figuring they’ve gone all in to raise the troops for this offensive, or even back Putin into a nuclear corner.

I have no idea how this ends but it’s a logical move if you want to change the course of a war that was heading for Ukrainian defeat.

What really surprises me is that this offensive is not only Ukraine having the balls to launch it but that it’s getting almost no coverage in the press.

I find that almost as interesting as the offensive.

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