Merry Christmas, everyone! To celebrate, enjoy this video of Christmas package thieves getting bombed:
Posts Tagged ‘video’
Glitter Bomb 4.0
Saturday, December 25th, 2021No Exit
Sunday, December 19th, 2021Yeah, another Louis Rossmann video, this one about the news that several Broadway shows are cancelling due to “breakthrough” Flu Manchu cases among their cast. This is despite all cast, crew and audience being required to be vaccinated. “It scares me is because it means that we do not have a path back to normal life.”
Maybe you won’t watch all 25 minutes of this, but it’s worth watching the first six minutes to see how ordinary Americans who were sympathetic to early coronavirus restrictions have lost all patience with endless Covid Theater.
“‘If it even saves one life’ is unsustainable for society.”
Rational people have already abandoned lunatic Flu Manchu restrictions, and it’s long been obvious that the vaccinated can spread the disease, but hard left Democratic Party elites continue to insist that lockdowns and mandates are the way to go, and that their unwavering insistence on these measures is a marker of their moral superiority over those that oppose them.
At this point, Flu Manchu virtue-signaling is a self-reinforcing loop. Democratic Party elites and their leftwing transnational allies see coercive measures as an invaluable tool for The Great Reset*, and time and time again they’ve proven that rules are for the little people, and that any restrictions imposed on ordinary Americans can be safely ignored by the nomenklatura. So too rank-and-file Democratic Party activists (at least the ones not actively burning down small businesses) seem to have embraced Covid Theater as one of the defining virtue signals of their lives. They have too much ego and self-love at stake to admit that their own sacrifices were all for nothing, and that those Bible-clinging Trump voters were right and they were wrong about living normal lives.
Now that it’s been proven time and time again that the fully vaccinated spread Mao Tse Lung, there’s no exit for them from the Flu Manchu Fearmongering Treadmill, no logical place where they can finally declare “enough!”
Expect Covid Theater lunacy to continue until the people pushing it are removed from power.
(Eighteen and a half minutes in, Rossmann also talks about Thomas Sowell’s Discrimination and Disparities and the cost of being wrong. I haven’t read that particular Sowell, but he’s always worth reading.)
*Do I believe every part of The Great Reset/New World Order conspiracy theory? No. But there’s something there, some powerful, unspoken, anti-democratic agenda that explains why so many elites pursue so many coercive measures long after they’ve obviously become both unpopular and counter-productive given their ostensible goals.
Paul Krugman Is Always Wrong: Inflation Edition
Monday, December 13th, 2021If you’ve been reading this blog long enough, one recurring theme is that Nobel-prize winning leftwing economist and pundit Paul Krugman is always wrong. Back in the day, Larry Kudlow made a career pointing out Krugman’s errors, and you may remember such Krugman howlers as “the Internet is no more important than a fax machine” and “markets will never recover from Trump.”
Lately he’s been in the news for dismissing the idea that inflation is a problem.
Paul Krugman, May 7: “[Treasury secretary] Janet Yellen and I believe that the Fed can contain any inflationary risks.”
Paul Krugman, June 21: “For those paying closer attention to the flow of new information, inflation panic is, you know, so last week.”
Paul Krugman, July 23: “Overheating is still possible, and the Fed should keep its eye on that possibility. But the big numbers aren’t as scary as they seem.”
Paul Krugman, August 12: “Anxiety about the inflationary impact of public investment just doesn’t make sense if you work through the numbers.”
Paul Krugman, September 10: “Companies aren’t acting as if they expect lots of future inflation, where they can hike wages without losing competitive advantage. They’re acting, instead, as if they see current inflation as a blip.”
Paul Krugman, November 11: “So yes, that was an ugly inflation report, and we hope that future reports will look better. But people making knee-jerk comparisons with the 1970s and screaming about stagflation are looking at the wrong history. When you look at the right history, it tells you not to panic.”
The New York Times, this morning:
Inflation jumped to the highest level in nearly 40 years, fresh data released on Friday showed, as supply chain disruptions, rapid consumer demand and rising housing costs combined to fuel the strongest inflationary burst in a generation (emphasis added).
The rising costs spell trouble for officials at the Federal Reserve and the White House, who are trying to calibrate policy at a moment when the labor market has yet to completely heal from the pandemic, but the risk that price increases could become more lasting is increasing.
The Consumer Price Index climbed by 6.8 percent in the year through November, the data showed, the fastest pace since 1982.
One of the reasons inflation is such a serious problem right now is that we have an administration, a Fed, and a lot of ideologically or politically aligned economic elites who are wedded to the belief that inflation is not a serious problem.
Proving that some of the most basic facts of economic life for ordinary people elude some Nobel-prize winning economists, Krugman dismisses the idea that inflation hurts the poor worse than the rich.
Inflation redistributes from creditors to debtors — not exactly a burden on the bottom half of the income distribution 2/
— Paul Krugman (@paulkrugman) December 11, 2021
"Inflation especially hurts the poor" has truthiness — it sounds like it should be true. But I don't see either evidence or a mechanism 4/
— Paul Krugman (@paulkrugman) December 11, 2021
Hey, Mr. Super-Genius: A family of four just getting by on $1,500 is hurt a lot more when the price of milk rises by 80 cents a gallon and gasoline rises a dollar a gallon.
Here Louis Rossmann (who does something like two videos a day) expounds upon that theme:
Some of his complaints are more acute for New York City than the rest of the country, but he’s far more in touch with reality than Krugman seems to be.
So what does the Biden Administration plan to do about inflation? Easy. They’re going to redefine it away by removing commodity prices from the CPI.
Yes, I’m sure that will fool people…
A Triple Shot of Joe Rogan
Saturday, December 11th, 2021The redpilling of Joe Rogan continues apace, and here are three video clips from his interview with independent journalist Matt Taibbi about things that just don’t add up.
First up: The obvious Fed false flag “Patriot Font” march.
Joe Rogan calls bullshit on the bizarre Patriot Front rally. pic.twitter.com/aw11u1BaeU
— Mythinformed MKE (@MythinformedMKE) December 8, 2021
“This is so stupid it hurts my feelings.”
Next up: Just how much Bill Gates has spent on influencing media.
Finally, how Trump broke the media’s brain.
Joe Rogan and Matt Taibbi discuss how the legacy media blatantly distorts the facts to attack Donald Trump. pic.twitter.com/k79LpRpfp4
— Mythinformed MKE (@MythinformedMKE) December 7, 2021
One correction to Rogan and Taibbi. The bias itself isn’t new. You could start to see the outlines of media bias against Republicans in the 1980s. However, Trump Derangement Syndrome made them drop even the pretense of objectivity.
Bob Dole, RIP
Sunday, December 5th, 2021Longtime Republican fixture and 1996 Presidential nominee Bob Dole has died at age 98:
It is with heavy hearts we announce that Senator Robert Joseph Dole died early this morning in his sleep. At his death, at age 98, he had served the United States of America faithfully for 79 years. More information coming soon. #RememberingBobDole pic.twitter.com/57NtGfqtmL
— Elizabeth Dole Foundation (@DoleFoundation) December 5, 2021
Dole was around so long that it many ways he came to represent both the strengths and weaknesses of the Republican Party establishment.
He served honorably in the grueling Italian campaign of World War II where he was seriously wounded.
In 1942, Dole joined the United States Army’s Enlisted Reserve Corps to fight in World War II, becoming a second lieutenant in the Army’s 10th Mountain Division. In April 1945, while engaged in combat near Castel d’Aiano in the Apennine mountains southwest of Bologna, Italy, Dole was seriously wounded by a German shell, being struck in his upper back and right arm, shattering his collarbone and part of his spine. “I lay face down in the dirt,” Dole said. “I could not see or move my arms. I thought they were missing.” As Lee Sandlin describes, when fellow soldiers saw the extent of his injuries, all they thought they could do was to “give him the largest dose of morphine they dared and write an ‘M’ for ‘morphine’ on his forehead in his own blood, so that nobody else who found him would give him a second, fatal dose.”
Dole was paralyzed from the neck down and transported to a military hospital near Kansas, expected to die. Suffering blood clots, a life-threatening infection and a fever of almost 109 degrees…
Holy crap! I didn’t know you could even survive a fever of 109°! 22-year-old Bob Dole must have been tough as nails.
…after large doses of penicillin were not successful, he overcame the infection with the administration of streptomycin, which at the time was still an experimental drug. He remained despondent, “not ready to accept the fact that my life would be changed forever”. He was encouraged to see Hampar Kelikian, an orthopedist in Chicago who had been working with veterans returning from war. Although during their first meeting Kelikian told Dole that he would never be able to recover fully, the encounter changed Dole’s outlook on life, who years later wrote of Kelikian, a survivor of the Armenian genocide, “Kelikian inspired me to focus on what I had left and what I could do with it, rather than complaining what had been lost.” Dr. K, as Dole later came to affectionately call him, operated on him seven times, free of charge, and had, in Dole’s words, “an impact on my life second only to my family”.
Dole recovered from his wounds at the Percy Jones Army Hospital. This complex of federal buildings, no longer a hospital, is now named Hart-Dole-Inouye Federal Center in honor of three patients who became United States Senators: Dole, Philip Hart and Daniel Inouye. Dole was decorated three times, receiving two Purple Hearts for his injuries, and the Bronze Star with “V” Device for valor for his attempt to assist a downed radioman. The injuries left him with limited mobility in his right arm and numbness in his left arm. He minimizes the effect in public by keeping a pen in his right hand, and learned to write with his left hand. In 1947, he was medically discharged from the Army as a captain.
Dole started his political career as a solid conservative with a great dry wit who gradually got squishier over the years. He was a fixture as Kansas Senator from 1969-1996. He was Gerald R. Ford’s running mate in 1976, and served as Republican Majority leader from 1985-87.
He launched multiple unsuccessful Presidential campaigns, finishing way back of Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush and a host of others in 1980, then losing to Bush again in 1988.
He finally won the nomination in 1996, with Jack Kemp as his running mate, when the American electorate opted to reelect draft-dodging Bill Clinton over wounded World War II hero Dole (thanks again, in no small measure, to H. Ross Perot’s third-party run). It goes without saying that he would have made a much better President than Clinton, though I wonder if the Welfare Reform Act of 1996 becomes law without a Democratic President pushing for it.
Dole was a good Republican who simply stayed in Washington too long, where he and second wife Elizabeth Dole became one of the earliest “power couples” that have become the normal way of doing business there. Dole was widely liked and seemed to be a good sport, as this clip with Saturday Night Live‘s Norm Macdonald (who we also lost this year) shows:
This clip of Bob Dole and Norm Macdonald a week after Dole lost in 1996 is so great and it's beyond sad to lose both of them this year.pic.twitter.com/gUa2B9Dnfg
— Josh Jordan (@NumbersMuncher) December 5, 2021
He was awarded a Congressional Gold Medal in 2017, one of only eight senators to receive it.
Whatever you think of both Dole and Bush, the moment when the wheelchair-bound Dole is lifted to standing to properly salute the casket of his fellow veteran and former rival is deeply moving:
Dole was important figure for a long time in American politics, and another stark reminder that World War II is passing out of living memory.
.50 BMG Bullpup vs. Walmart Safety Glasses
Saturday, December 4th, 2021It’s been a while since I posted a silly Demolition Ranch video, so this video features the GM6 Lynx Bullpup .50 BMG (with the cool reciprocating barrel), and features how well two brands of safety glasses ($300 Gators and $10 Walmart) handle shrapnel.
Spoiler: The Walmart glasses do better…
World War II Tanks and Planes Still in Military Service
Wednesday, December 1st, 2021My friends and I watch a movie every week, and World War II films (Bridge on the River Kwai, The Dam Busters, Fury, Twelve O’Clock High, etc.) are a regular staple. One recurring topic of discussion is “I wonder how many of [particular model of tank/plane/etc.] are still running/flying?”
The two videos below cover not only World War II tanks and planes that are still running, but which are still in active military service.
First tanks and armored cars, of which there’s considerable variety still in service:
It’s not a big surprise that T-34s ended up serving a long time in various Soviet satellite states, and North Korea is still using not only T-34s, but also ISU-152 self-propelled artillery, SU-100 tank destroyers and BA-64 armored cars. But M-3 Stuart light tanks are still serving in Paraguay, and Senegal and Peru are still using U.S. M3 Half-Tracks. And watch for the new lanyard-fired T-34 variant. (Paraguay was also using M-4 Sherman tanks for training as late as 2016.)
As for World War II aircraft, only one type is evidently in common military service: The Douglas C-47 Skytrain, the military versions of the DC-3, still being used around the world in a variety of roles, including as an aerial gunship (“Puff the Magic Dragon”).
Did you know that there’s an Internet Movie Plane database? And also an Internet Movie Firearms Database and an Internet Movie Cars Database.
Texas Governor’s Race Update for November 30, 2021
Tuesday, November 30th, 2021A few quick updates in the Texas Governor’s Race:
— Matthew McConaughey (@McConaughey) November 29, 2021
Celebrities (especially those as famous as McConnaughey) tend to be formidable candidates, but there was no guarantee he would even win a primary. His hetrodox views might prevent him from winning the Democratic primary over Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke, and a run against incumbent Greg Abbott (and his giant warchest) in the increasingly crowded Republican primary was no sure thing either.
Is it a bit early to be dropping direct mail flyers? A bit, but: A.) As a longshot challenger, Huffines has to raise his profile to have any chance at all, and direct mail probably offers a much bigger bag for the buck than broadcast media advertising. (There may be lots of online advertising as well, but I have so many online ads blocked that I almost never see them on my Mac.) And: B.) It’s not that early, as we’re roughly six months out from the May 1st primary date.
It’s always intriguing when a well-known figure whom everyone understands has no chance of winning decides to run for office.
I doubt even Beto’s under illusions about his chances. He’ll be running in a red state facing a massive red midterm wave against a Republican who’s more popular than the one he ran against in 2018 and who’s raised more money than any governor in U.S. history. Why bother?
Some blather about the “hardness” of Abbott’s stand on vaccine mandates snipped, as Texas conservative activists have been all over Abbott for refusing to call a fourth special session to outlaw vaccine mandates by statute, not just decree.
A poll published last week found him rocking a 27/57 approval rating among independents in Texas. If the 2022 midterm environment was as favorable to Democrats as 2018 was, I’d give them an outside chance of pulling an upset.
More erroneous analysis snipped.
But 2022 isn’t 2018. And a candidate as far left as Beto O’Rourke isn’t the man to dethrone a longtime governor.
Team Abbott posted this ad featuring some of Beto’s greatest hits a few weeks ago. They’re going to attack him as too liberal for Texas, which he is:
O’Rourke’s defining issues when he ran for president two years ago were liberalizing America’s border and grabbing guns. Given the crush of migrants seeking asylum that the U.S. has seen this year, though, open borders is an especially toxic position to hold in Texas of all places. And gun-control is a perennial loser in a state with as robust a gun culture as Texas had. You would think today’s announcement would be an occasion for O’Rourke to say he’s rethought his previous positions on firearms. Instead, incredibly, he’s doubling down:
Abbott has already been campaigning against O’Rourke as too liberal for Texas, branding him “Wrong Way O’Rourke” and seizing on multiple positions he has taken since last running statewide. At the top of the list is O’Rourke’s proposal to require buybacks of assault weapons during his presidential campaign. That led to a memorable moment on the debate stage in which O’Rourke proclaimed that, “Hell yes, we’re going to take your AR-15, your AK-47.”
O’Rourke said he was not backing away from that proposal in his latest campaign.
“I think most Texans can agree — maybe all Texans can agree — that we should not see our friends, our family members, our neighbors, shot up with weapons that were originally designed for use on a battlefield,” said O’Rourke, whose hometown of El Paso was the site of an anti-Latino mass shooting in 2019 by a gunman who killed 23 people.
His progressive views during his 2020 presidential run appear to have stuck to him in Texas as he’s polled poorly there over the past few months. Last month a UT survey found his favorable rating at 35/50, including 22/48 among indies. O’Rourke trailed Abbott 46/37 in that same poll, a pitiful showing against a governor whose popularity had waned lately. Another poll taken a month earlier also put O’Rourke at 37 percent against Abbott. A third recent survey from Quinnipiac had a mere 33 percent willing to say they thought Beto would make a good governor.
I’ll give you a few possibilities. One, simply, is time. If O’Rourke had waited to challenge Ted Cruz for Senate again in 2024, he would have risked being perceived as old news, especially having failed in his two previous statewide runs. The 2024 Senate primary could be a competitive one for Democrats, with no guarantee of Beto winning. This year’s primary is easier for him since no one else wants to to face Abbott in a Republican-friendly cycle. Simply put, his political capital was depreciating. He could either use what was left of it for one more campaign or go bankrupt.
Two is fundraising. I’m skeptical that we’ll see the return of the “Betomania” money juggernaut in full force in Texas but it probably remains true that O’Rourke can raise cash more easily than the average Dem, if only by dint of name recognition. He’ll be at less of a money disadvantage against Abbott than any other prospective nominee would be. Of course, if Betomania does run wild among Democratic donors nationally, that’ll backfire on the party by drawing cash into Texas in a likely losing effort that could have gone to more competitive races elsewhere. Double-edged sword for Dems.
Three is enthusiasm. Between Biden’s troubles and the likelihood of a red wave, Democrats will have a hard time getting Texas liberals excited to vote in 2022. Having a charismatic well-known liberal at the top of the ticket who captivated them once before might boost turnout at the margins. And while that won’t be enough to make Beto governor, it might help Dems win a few state races downballot that they otherwise would have lost. His candidacy is a favor to the state party, in other words. He might even be able to steer some Latino voters who defected to Trump and the GOP last year back into the Democratic column.
Realistically, the best-case scenario for O’Rourke is that he raises a ton of money again, loses by a respectable margin, and is then targeted by Biden for some sort of national job either in the cabinet or at the DNC. Beto’s long-term challenge is staying politically relevant and another run for office advances the ball — albeit at the risk that he’s well and truly done politically if he gets blown out.