Apparently a small beer company in Seattle is making beer with the Acronym APAB (all Police are bastards) on each can. The owner says he’s happy to lose customers that disagree.
The irony here is palatable he is free to put whatever message he wants on the beer, other are free not to buy it, that’s free market capitalism at work.
The bigger irony? He is free to do so because he doesn’t have to worry about those who disagree torching his brewery, thanks to police.
In something right out of the movie The Devil & Daniel Webster, between 180 and 270 million bushels of corn in Iowa were likely damaged by hurricane force winds and rain that hit the state. Given that Corn is the basis for a lot of what we make and eat expect food prices to go up fast.
I finally got that replacement laptop I was talking about. I ended up buying a HP from my local Staples vs the Acer I was going to buy on Amazon because it seemed to me that every single laptop being sold there was from a 3rd party seller and the number of bad reviews of the specific sellers seemed awful high to me so I decided I’d rather buy somewhere so if there is a problem I can go to an actual person in an actual store face to face (or these days mask to mask) for relief rather than go to court.
It’s nice having choices like this rather than having to go through a monopoly like Amazon.
Thank Capitalism
Counting the new laptop that is still in its box I now have 3 laptops functioning. All of my email in done on the oldest. This one is going to get hooked up to ann old screen with an HDMI cable as soon as I find one and the new one will be for my general work. Interesting point. Didn’t have brave on the oldest laptop and because I wanted a link for an email opened a site I visit regularly in chrome.
The number of ads and popups was astounding. You don’t really appreciate the joy of running a brower like Brave until you do without it.
I oppose the whole sanctuary City business as a violation of the rule of law, however if there is one thing you can say about the Sanctuary City movement is that it is in keeping of the American Tradition of completely ignoring laws that they don’t like.
We’re now seeing a glimpse of this in NYC:
Upper East Side bars and restaurants allowed patrons to drink on sidewalks, and in some cases dine in. Tonight's lead story on @NBCNewYork at 11p—shot by photojournalists Danny Ojeda and Alex Plasencia. pic.twitter.com/RBvZqUUimu
When you have a one party state or city it usually takes an “I’m mad as hell and can’t take it anymore moment. I’m wondering if this might become the case in blue states that remain locked down as other places open.
“A resolution of the city council of the city of Atwater affirming the city’s commitment to fundamental rights of life, liberty, and property, and declaring the city of Atwater a sanctuary city for all businesses,” the resolution read.
A statewide shelter-in-place order has been in effect since March 19, with gradual easements happening this month. While some counties were reportedly approved to move to “Phase 2” of the state’s reopening plan, which would allow some non-essential lower-risk business to reopen, Atwater’s Merced County was not included.
It will be fun to see the left object to these thing as they’ve objected to sanctuary gun counties. Perhaps they should have thought about the “new rules” as Kurt Schlichter calls them, before imposing them.
The same thing applies to liberals rushing to cheer Judge Sullivan who is doing all he can to pretend that he’s in a Soviet Courtroom rather than an american one. In one respect given how this entire Mike Flynn business has gone such actions by the left should be unsurprising but I’d remind our friend on the left that Donald Trump has appointed a 3rd of the judiciary at this point and you might not like the Sullivan Standards if they are applied to their allies.
The left will not consider these tactics an outrage until they are used against them and under a Jacksonian president, I’d not be surprised to see it, except for the fact that he’s not to my knowledge appointing Jacksonian judges. As Razor put it on twitter:
This won’t be a shocking scandal impacting democracy and undermining the rule of law until the moment a Republican copies it.
It’s not often that I disagree with President Trump but I think this is a VERY bad idea:
I think it would set a really bad precedent for him to be called because frankly I would expect a Democrat administration to use it as a precedent to go after a GOP @POTUS
A good general rule is never set a precedent that you don't trust your foes to abuse
It’s worth noting that the reason why President Trump has been able to so effectively pack the courts with conservatives is that Harry Reid changed the rules when he presumed that the left would hold the Senate forever.
It’s also a bad political move. I suspect that while Black Americans intellectually know that Barack Obama was a disaster in the White House for America in general and them in particular they cling to the myth of the light-bringer culturally to the point where they might actually turn out to defend that fantasy.
Turned on a livestream of a Sunday Mass on the Roku (I keep ending up finding different ones) and I noticed that there was a chat option.
I thought this was odd considering you aren’t supposed to be talking in Mass but if nothing else said option is an exercise in realism.
The Prospect of Elon Musk dropping California over their continued lockdown is highlighting one of the biggest facts of life concerning the left. For three years they were praying for a recession to slow down the Trump economy. Now that the Corona Virus / Wuhan Virus / CCP Virus has produced one they are desperate to keep the ball rolling. Unfortunately for them the President’s deference to the state on reopening is likely going to create a red/blue economic divide where states run by Trump supporting Governors and/or legislatures are open and thriving while states with Democrat governors or veto proof Democrat majorities hold their people back. We’ve already seen one LA district go GOP in a special election this cycle and if the Democrats insist on keeping people unemployed the revolt against the left might turn an election already looking bad for the left thanks to Biden into a disaster on the state level as well.
The dropping of the Michael Flynn case and the revelations that the Democrats were saying one thing under oath while saying a 2nd to their audience in a normal time might mean doom for them in general but I had a long talk with my parish priest on the subject and he’s noticed that when it comes to things political a real tribalism sets that blinds people to certain things. He gave an example where during the Clinton years a devout woman who would have never tolerated such behavior in her own family would comment. “The poor man, he can’t help himself.” People will find a blind spot when they need it and lately they really need it with the left.
One of the most significant revelations from the Flynn case has been the degree to which Barack Obama was involved in the attempts to destroy the Trump campaign and Flynn. This should be no surprise as Obama was always just a cheap member of the Chicago corruption gang who brought that game with him to DC. However the prospect of senior Obama people’s conduct being examined by the AG and a case that might even reach to the top is one of the reasons why the ex-president is getting involved, it’s also the reason why if evidence is found there is unlikely going to be any move against them till after the election so as not to energize the left.
It’s been interesting to see Jake Tapper questioning several democrats on the Tara Reade / Joe Biden double standard. Over the last few years he has been as NeverTrump as it gets but once the embargo on Reade ended he has not hesitated to challenge leftists on the new METOO standard of “believe all democrat candidates”. One might think this is more toward his roots and it is but if your goal is to defeat President Trump it’s necessary to get this taken care of now rather than later and Tapper’s questions actually serve this purpose better than anything the Democrats have done.
Finally this week’s Monday AM podcast was cancelled due to some issues at home. Barring disaster the livestream will resume Friday Morning at 9:30 AM and the Monday AM podcast should return three days later
On Easter Sunday my son put on a video of the Internet comedian JonTron with his latest takedown of Gwenith Paltrow and her Goop people.
It was a hilarious takedown of what’s pretty much a bunch of people being grifted. There is a reason why he has 6.6 mil followers
The funniest thing about this? I’ll wager the vast majority of the people featured in this video would consider belief in Christianity foolishness.
Speaking of Christianity there was a great piece at Hillfaith linked by Instapundit with six proofs of the resurrection several of which I never thought of such as
The first witnesses to the empty tomb and the living Jesus were women: It’s a sad reality, but women only counted as half as reliable witnesses as men. So the fact all four of the Gospels present women as the first witnesses to the Risen Jesus is a strong indicator Matthew, Mark, Luke and John reported the facts, not what they thought would be the most credible claims
I should have thought of this myself but my favorite proof of the accuracy of scripture is one I used many years ago at my 1st personal blog:
Now lets look at the evidence. I am going to lean on Will Durant:
He first cites Josephus circa 93 AD and points out that the praise given to Jesus by a person out to please both Jews and Romans is a tad suspect but the big gun comes from a 1st man named Thallus.
Lets Jump to the Gospel of Matthew briefly:
From noon onward, darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon. And about three o’clock Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Some of the bystanders who heard it said, “This one is calling for Elijah.” Immediately one of them ran to get a sponge; he soaked it in wine, and putting it on a reed, gave it to him to drink. But the rest said, “Wait, let us see if Elijah comes to save him.” But Jesus cried out again in a loud voice, and gave up his spirit. Matt 27:45-50
Now Thallus the pagan isn’t going to put up with this. About 50 AD he states that the darkness is a purely natural phenomenon and just a coincidence.
Durant put this argument in its modern perspective:
the argument took the existence of Christ for granted. The denial of that existence seems never to have occurred even to the bitterest gentile or Jewish opponents of nascent Christianity.
And remember that particular fragment to the best of our knowledge predates the Gospel of Matthew that it unintentionally collaborates by two decades. The pagan provides the proof. Talk about working in mysterious ways.
You should really read the whole thing;
There are many candidates for some of the lamest arguments on twitter but this one is big
For 17 years, the Republicans and many Democrats insisted on spending trillions of dollars on fighting a ‘war on terror’, supposedly, to save American lives. Turns out they never really cared about protecting American lives, but just wanted to bomb brown people in faraway lands.
Of course there is the possibility that this is a lab virus released accidentally in that case there is a murder to be upset at, but I’m sure he’d consider that racist.
As I mentioned during my midnight livestream podcast (available here) had a lot of fun with people insisting that Trump is a fool and this corona virus conferences are hurting him who are oddly not willing to bet $500 bucks and give me points to back up their beliefs. Apparently “experts” and those who don’t even like try know why:
Wallace noted, “In all of our [Fox News] polls for months, Biden had an 8-9 point lead, and that’s now gone. It’s dead even.” He continued:
It seems to me as this virus goes on, that instead of this being a choice between the president and Joe Biden, as a lot of elections are, I think that this election is going to end up being a referendum on President Trump and the handling of the coronavirus.
As we get into September and October after Labor Day, I think people are going to make a judgment, and they’ll understand, the president didn’t create the virus, so I think they’re going to be fair-minded about it. Do they think he handled the health crisis well? Do they think he handled the economic crisis well?
If they do, I don’t see how he gets beat. If they don’t, I don’t see how he could win.
And that’s not even taking into account that the polls have been undercounting Trump supporters from day 1
Finally, in a time of social distancing here is a story that surprised me:
Around 400 people were at a party at an East Bakersfield apartment complex when dozens of shots rang out, wounding six people early Saturday morning, according to the Kern County Sheriff’s Office.
Based on evidenced recovered at the scene, KCSO says, it appears at least one partygoer fired back at the suspects in a white sedan that fled the scene. Officials said nearly 100 empty shell casings of multiple calibers were recovered at the scene in the 3500 block of Pioneer Drive.
Even at a time of social distancing 400 at a party in an apartment complex is a lot. You would think that a story like this during social distancing time would be front page news everywhere but I suspect it will not be because of this line:
The suspects were only described by deputies as four black males, in a white sedan.
Now I could be wrong, we might see this as a lead everywhere and see the Governor of California condemn the lack of social distancing here, but I suspect I’d have a harder time finding a taker for a $10 bet on this than I have for the Biden election one.