Sunday, September 30, 2018

Bad Day/Month For P.T.s

THU 30 SEP 1943
Pacific
Motor torpedo boat PT-219 founders and sinks off Attu, Aleutians, sometime during September (exact date unspecified).

In the Solomons area, tank landing ship LST-334 is damaged by dive bombers, 07°43'S, 156°40'E; motor torpedo boat PT-126 is damaged, accidentally, by USMC F4Us, 07°50'S, 157°05'E.

Motor torpedo boat PT-68 is damaged by grounding off Vincke Point, Huon Peninsula, eastern New Guinea, 05°56'S, 147°18'E.

Submarine Bowfin (SS-287) delivers supplies and evacuates people from Siquijor Island, P.I., and sinks small Japanese cargo ship Mitake Maru 05°17'N, 121°57'E.

Submarine Harder (SS-257) sinks Japanese auxiliary submarine chaser No.3 Shosei Maru, 34°10'N, 150°45'E.

Submarine Pogy (SS-266) sinks Japanese army transport Maebashi Maru 300 miles east of Palau, 06°01'N, 139°08'E.

USAAF B-25s and P-40s sink Japanese auxiliary minesweeper Chikushi Maru in Kwangchow Bay, China, 21°12'N, 110°24'E; the vessel is later salvaged, however, and resumes active service.

Atlantic
Coast Guard cutter (ex-Menhaden fisherman) Wilcox (WYP-333) founders and sinks 94 miles off Nags Head, North Carolina.

Beginning Of The End?

The end of everything & everyone, we hope, but we'll settle for today marking the end of reg'lar season baseball, & the end of the month of Sep't. & the first three quarters of this yr.

Pretend we gave enough of a shit to look for an image of pages flying from a calendar.

Saturday, September 29, 2018

Sad News: M.B. Has Passed

76-yr. old Marty Balin, né Martyn Jerel Buchwald, that is. Who'd you think?
Always liked this one, in large part due to Balin's voice.
"It's No Secret" - Jefferson Airplane
The Airplane was always the best of the '60s San Francisco bands. (Surrealistic Pillow was the first slab of vinyl for which I shelled out my own hard-stolen moolah.) 'Though it's fair to note there was little local competition beyond the Dreadful Grate.

M.B. wrote this one as well, & it happens to be another of this reporter's faves, in large part due to the bass line; better exemplified here, but I've never heard this one before.
"Plastic Fantastic Lover" - Jefferson Airplane
Mr. Balin died in Tampa, Florida. We hope it was quick.

Today In Seamanship

WED 29 SEP 1943
Pacific
During a sweep to destroy Japanese barge traffic north of Kolombangara, destroyers Patterson (DD-392) and McCalla (DD-488) are damaged in collision, 07°36'S, 157°12'E.

Submarine Bluefish (SS-222) sinks Japanese merchant cargo ship Akashi Maru, 06°11'S, 126°00'E (see 25 September 1943).

Submarine Gudgeon (SS-212) damages Japanese gunboat Santo Maru off Saipan, 15°28'N, 145°57'E. Transport Kenryu Maru tows the gunboat into Saipan.

Mediterranean
Off Salerno, Italy, tank landing craft LCT-342 sinks after running aground; LCT-537, LCT-553, LCT-556, LCT-583, LCT-603, LCT-605, LCT-606, LCT-614, LCT-616, LCT-618, LCT-621, and LCT-626 are all damaged when gale strands them off Salerno's south beaches.

Friday, September 28, 2018

Hollywood Libdart Attacks
Lying Fratboy!!

Friday Freak-Out II: Irrepressible!

James Brown - "Papa's Got A Brand New Bag"/"I Feel Good" (The Ed Sullivan Show, 1966)
Current Mood: Hey, believe it or shove it, things could be worse!*
James Brown - "I Feel Good"
None of your damn beeswax why.
Easily one of the X greatest records/songs/singles of all time, ever.

*Didn't want to go overboard.

Cisco Sunk

TUE 28 SEP 1943
Pacific
Submarine Cisco (SS-290) is sunk, probably by Japanese naval aircraft (954th Kokutai) and gunboat Karatsu (ex-U.S.-river gunboat Luzon (PR-7)) in Sulu Sea, off Panay Island, 09°47'N, 121°44'E. [On her first patrol.]

Submarine Grouper (SS-214) lands men and supplies on south coast of New Britain.

Submarine Gudgeon (SS-212) sinks Japanese merchant cargo ship Taian Maru, 15°22'N, 145°38'E. Minelayer No.2 Fumi Maru (which Gudgeon had engaged on 16 September 1943), counterattacks, but does not damage the submarine as Gudgeon and No.2 Fumi Maru encounter each other for the second time.

Japanese minelayer Hoko is sunk by aircraft off New Britain.

Mediterranean
Salvage vessel Brant (ARS-32) is damaged when she is accidentally rammed by British landing craft HMS LCF 16 during a gale in the Gulf of Salerno, Italy.

Friday Freak-Out

No Further Comment

"Scumbag" - John & Yoko

Thursday, September 27, 2018

Sabotage Succeeds!

MON 27 SEP 1943
Pacific
Submarine Bluefish (SS-222) sinks Japanese torpedo boat Kasasagi 25 miles south of the Flores Sea, N.E.I., 05°45'S, 121°50'E.

Submarine Bonefish (SS-223) sinks Japanese army transport Kashima Maru, and damages cargo ship Chihaya Maru, 10°10'N, 109°40'E.

USAAF B-24s and P-38s bomb Japanese shipping at Wewak, sinking merchant transport Taisei Maru and cargo vessels Sakihana Maru, Taisho Maru, Fuji Maru, and Kiri Maru.

Malayan saboteurs, promised a livelihood after the British reoccupy Malaya, sink Japanese cargo ship Hakusan Maru and damage cargo ship Kizan Maru at Singapore. Efforts to salvage the latter are eventually abandoned and the ship written off as a total loss.

Atlantic
PBMs (VP 74) sink German submarine U-161 off Brazil, 12°30'S, 35°35'W.

Throw-Up Thurs.

Today in sex crimes:
“This confirmation process has become a national disgrace,” he said in an opening statement that he said he wrote himself on Wednesday. “The Constitution gives the Senate an important role in the confirmation process, but you have replaced ‘advice [sic] and consent’ with ‘search and destroy.’”
The Dictators - "Search And Destroy"

“My family and my name have been totally and permanently destroyed by vicious and false additional allegations,” he told the committee. But he vowed never to withdraw.

“You may defeat me in the final vote, but you will never get me to quit,” he said. “Never.”
If your reputation is ruined, you shouldn't be on the Supreme Court, should you, you whiny pretend victim & frat-boy asshole?

Simple Question

Missed It By That Much

A photo taken at the bus stop at the ARCO station.
Close call: I could have been at this ARCO station waiting for the bus yesterday around 1700 had I run an errand. Indeed, I'll be running said errand w/in hrs. today. Hope nothing happens.
A man was hospitalized Thursday after being shot four times — including once in the head — by a man with a BB gun during a robbery attempt at a gas station in East Hollywood.

Officers were summoned just after 5 p.m. Wednesday to the intersection of Melrose and Western Avenues, where they found a man in his 30s conscious and breathing, according to Los Angeles Police Department Officer Tony Im.

Security video of the incident showed a woman walking out of the store with beer she had not paid for and the clerk chase after her, returning moments later with the beer. The woman re-entered the store and an altercation took place between the woman and the clerk. At that time a man with a BB gun walked up and fired at the clerk as he fought on the ground with the woman.

“He (the alleged shooter) told him not to fight a woman,” a witness who asked to remain anonymous told NBC4. “He pulled out the BB gun and shot him.”

“The male shoots the clerk four times, one in the head,” LAPD Capt. David Kowalski told NBC4.

After the shooting, the woman allegedly was seen on security video kicking the clerk as he lay on the ground, then grabbing beer out of a cooler and walking out.

The suspects were a male and two females, neither of whom were immediately taken into custody.
Unless hit on the eye, getting a BB in one's head is no big thing. I had a BB stuck in my neck once ('though from a small explosive device, not a pellet gun, if that makes any difference in the force involved) & other than noticing that there was a sort of lump where I'd been hit, it didn't bother me. After a day or two of squeezing & worrying it, you can imagine my surprise when the BB popped out.

[mynewsLA.com]

Wednesday, September 26, 2018

Why Do I Even Bother?

SUN 26 SEP 1943
Atlantic
Naval Operating Facility, Natal, Brazil, is established.

"Dr. Chaps"? What's That Mean?

Religious Right activist Gordon Klingenschmitt used a recent episode of his “Pray In Jesus Name” program to rail against the idea that Bert and Ernie from Sesame Street are gay, saying that it is nothing more than an effort to “recruit children into [that] perverse lifestyle.”

Klingenschmitt was reacting to a recent comment from Mark Saltzman, who wrote for Sesame Street in the 1980s and 1990s, in which he said that he envisioned Bert and Ernie as a couple “as a way to contextualize them” when writing for the show, though the Sesame Workshop responded by insisting the Bert and Ernie are merely puppets and “do not have a sexual orientation.”

“Mark Saltzman, by projecting his sexuality upon beloved children’s puppets, he is actually trying to recruit children into his perverse lifestyle so that he can eventually recruit them to become what he is,” Klingenschmitt said. “Homosexuals, because they don’t have their own children, they have to recruit the children of heterosexual couples in order to continue and propagate their own population of available sex partners. They are perverting and recruiting children by making these false allegations and that is a demonic spirit inside of you, Mark Saltzman, who [is] targeting children for your own pleasure.”

Klingenschmitt then prayed “against the sin of recruiting and defiling” and called on God to protect children from “the homosexualization of the liberal culture who wants to reach every child possible for their own pleasure.”
"Homosexual" - Angry Samoans: Live at the 700 Club, NYC, 6/14/1981
[Right Wing Weirdo Watch]

GUILT!

Nothing more, nothing less.
 Ben Kesling / Wall Street Journal: 
More Young Veterans Committing Suicide, VA Data Shows

Tuesday, September 25, 2018

Greedy Pigs In Space

“This Is About Money”
Trump’s sudden childlike attachment to the concept of a Space Force isn’t the only factor pushing it. As Alabama Republican Congressman Mike Rogers, a Space Force advocate whose state includes Huntsville (aka “Rocket City”), the military space capital of the world, put it in an interview with the Los Angeles Times: “I mean, this is about money. As long as space is in the [Air Force] portfolio, they can move money from space to support fighter jets, bombers, or whatever. The Air Force is run by fighter pilots. Space will always lose.”

Rogers, who has received hundreds of thousands of dollars in contributions from defense contractors, has relentlessly pressed Trump to make space a separate armed service. His allies in the administration include Pence, a long-time space enthusiast, and Undersecretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan, a former Boeing executive who presided over that company’s missile defense division. Among the projects Shanahan oversaw was the disastrous Airborne Laser system, a laser mounted on a Boeing 747 aircraft that was supposed to be able to zap missiles in flight but failed miserably, while chewing up $5 billion worth of taxpayer funds.

A future Space Force could waste money on a scale that would make the billions squandered on that Airborne Laser look like chump change. Initial set-up costs over the next few years have been estimated to be at least $8 billion. But once space is fully established as a separate service the price tag could go far higher over time. In “Space Force: Spending At Warp Speed,” the watchdog group Taxpayers for Common Sense suggests that -- worst case scenario -- it could, in the long term, cost as much as $190 billion annually “to establish a new military service and the enormous bureaucracy of a new department.” Even by Pentagon standards, that’s a massive sum. Among the questions that remain are: Will there be enough spoils to go around? In other words, will Space Force funding come at the expense of the Air Force and the other services or will it be a staggering add-on to the Pentagon budget, pushing it even further into the stratosphere?
[TomDispatch.com. Read it, there's even more.]

Bonefish, No Bonefish?

SAT 25 SEP 1943
Pacific
Tank landing ship LST-167 is damaged by dive bomber off Vella Lavella, Solomons, 07°45'S, 156°30'E.

Submarine Bluefish (SS-222) damages Japanese merchant cargo ship Akashi Maru, 06°23'S, 118°55'E, and escapes counterattack by escorting auxiliary minesweeper Wa 4 (see 29 September 1943).

Submarines Bowfin (SS-287), Billfish (SS-286), and Bonefish (SS-223) attack Japanese convoy; Bowfin sinks tanker Kirishima Maru 220 nautical miles north of Nha Trang, French Indochina, 09°50'N, 112°03'E.
Sinking of the Kirishima Maru. From the link below.
None of the other attacks prove successful, and the enemy ships continue their passage to Manila.

Mediterranean
Minesweeper Skill (AM-115) is sunk by German submarine U-593 in the Gulf of Salerno, 40°19.5'N, 14°35.5'E. Sister ship Speed (AM-116) rescues the few survivors, screened by Seer (AM-112). Pilot (AM-104) conducts a followup search for survivors without success.
The Case of the Missing Submarine:
On 25 September Bowfin sighted USS Billfish (SS-286) and together they performed a submerged attack on a large convoy. Of the five ships assigned to her for this attack, Bowfin sank a cargo ship and a tanker, and set another tanker alight. The next day Bowfin continued to follow the remaining ships in the convoy, however the gap between the convoy and Bowfin grew periodically throughout the day and they were not able to make any attacks. On 27 September Bowfin attempted an attack on an island steamer but the torpedoes failed to hit their marks, and one failed to leave the tube when fired.

In Which I Tweet To Twitter

I am so fucking tired of everything & everybody in this world of shit, pain & perpetual bullshit. But keep it up, assholes & cretins. Push me a little farther & see what that gets you.

Drinky Crow In A "Drinky Crowd"?

The Drinky Crow Show is about
... a crow that likes to drink.
And Uncle Gabby, his monkey-ish
friend who likes to bed as many
women as he can.
 Molly Hensley-Clancy / BuzzFeed News:
Brett Kavanaugh's Yale Classmates Remember Him In A “Drinky Crowd”
[Drinky Crow from TV Tropes.]

Lock! Her! Up!

Did this witch lie under oath, or just to the American public?
 Adolfo Flores / BuzzFeed News:
The Secretary Of Homeland Security Said There Was “No Policy Of Separating Families.”  A Memo Proves There Was.  —  A memo signed by Secretary of Homeland Security Kristjen Nielsen contradicts statements she made at the height of the family separation crisis last spring that the administration …

"S-E-X War!"

Ignoring the difference between consensual sex and sexual assault, publicist Andrew Wyatt claimed that both Cosby and Kavanaugh are victims of America’s “sex war.”

“What is going on in Washington today with Judge Kavanaugh is part of that sex war that Judge O’Neill is a part of,” Wyatt said, referring to the judge who presided over Cosby’s case.

Wyatt added: “They persecuted Jesus and look what happened. Not saying Mr. Cosby is Jesus, but we know what this country has done to black men for centuries.”
And we know what men have been doing to women for even longer. Two wrongs don't make a right, Mouth of Sauron.

MURDER In Modesto Follow-Up

Previously.

Now:
The parents of a woman who was killed last month when a California Department of Transportation crew bulldozed a homeless encampment in Modesto have filed a wrongful death claim.

The claim, the first step in pursuing a lawsuit, seeks damages in excess of $10,000. It says the woman, Shannon Marie Bigley, was killed after being struck by Caltrans machinery that was “negligently and/or recklessly operated.”

Did You Know?

There are
four Mormon members of the Senate Judiciary Committee — Sens. Orrin Hatch and Mike Lee of Utah, Jeff Flake of Arizona, and Mike Crapo of Idaho, all Republicans.
No, really.

No Shit. Where Can We Find One?

It Is To Laugh

Eat fucking shit, you cretinous orange pantload.
 Jordan Fabian / The Hill: 
UN audience laughs when Trump boasts of achievements
 Matthew Choi / Politico:
Trump bragged about his presidency and world leaders laughed  —  World leaders laughed Tuesday after President Donald Trump said in a speech to the United Nations General Assembly that his administration had accomplished more than any other in American history.
 Meghan Keneally / ABC News:
Trump 'didn't expect' to get laughed at while speaking at the UN  — President Donald Trump appeared to go off-script after boasting about his administration's accomplishments.  — He went on to defend his June meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and some of the controversial moves he's made at the United Nations.
 Jeremy Diamond / CNN:
Trump 'didn't expect' UN speech reaction he got
Flipper - "Ha Ha Ha"

Monday, September 24, 2018

Touched For The Very First Time

🎶Comedy Music, Comedy Music ...🎵

Hon. Brett Kavanaugh - "Sexual intercourse, or anything close to sexual intercourse ..."
McDonna - "Like A Virgin"
The Tubes - "Don't Touch Me There" - 24 August 1979 - Oakland Auditorium

Warheads ... "Detach Upon Impact"

FRI 24 SEP 1943
Pacific
Submarine Cabrilla (SS-288) attacks Japanese carrier Taiyo, escort carrier Chuyo, and destroyer Shimakaze northwest of Chichi Jima, torpedoing Taiyo at 28°00'N, 146°10'E. Chuyo tows the disabled carrier to Yokosuka. Taiyo is saved from worse damage because two of the three torpedo warheads that hit the ship (of the six fired by Cabrilla) detach upon impact.

USAAF B-24 sinks small Japanese cargo vessel Shonan Maru off Mussau Island, 00°27'S, 147°43'E.

Indian Ocean
U.S. freighter Elias Howe is torpedoed and sunk by Japanese submarine I-10 about 75 miles southeast of Aden, 11°40'N, 44°35'E. Subsequently, British seaplanes rescue one boatload of survivors and those on board two rafts; British trawler HMS Aiglon rescues the remainder. Two of the 42-man merchant complement are killed in the initial explosion; the 18-man Armed Guard survives intact.

Sunday, September 23, 2018

War Is Boring

THU 23 SEP 1943
Pacific
Submarine Trout (SS-202) sinks Japanese transport Ryotoku Maru and merchant cargo ship Yamashiro Maru northwest of the Marianas, 20°45'N, 142°10'E, and eludes counterattacks of the escort, auxiliary minesweeper Keinan Maru.

Submarine Tuna (SS-203) attacks Japanese cargo vessel Shinwa Maru, 04°50'N, 105°50'E.

Atlantic
U.S. freighter Steel Voyager, in convoy ONS 202, is torpedoed by German submarine U-952 at 53°30'N, 40°40'W, and abandoned. Although reboarded when Canadian corvette HMCS Morden and Free French corvette Renoncule arrive to provide assistance, Steel Voyager is abandoned a second time when it becomes obvious that the ship cannot be gotten underway. All hands (39-man merchant complement and 27-man Armed Guard) are taken on board the two corvettes.

Shelby Steele: "Why Libs Hate"

We were under the impression that Murdoch's Wall Street Journal was paywall central; perhaps this is available to all as trolling; either way, since it didn't disappear into the ether seconds after opening we figgered we'd copy the whole mess & then laugh & laugh.

Shorter: There's no more racism in America, so eff off, libdarts!!

Why the Left Is Consumed With Hate

Lacking worthy menaces to fight, it is driven to find a replacement for racism. Failing this, what is left?

Even before President Trump’s election, hatred had begun to emerge on the American left—counterintuitively, as an assertion of guilelessness and moral superiority. At the Women’s March in Washington the weekend after Mr. Trump’s inauguration, the pop star Madonna said, “I have thought an awful lot of blowing up the White House.” Here hatred was a vanity, a braggadocio meant to signal her innocence of the sort of evil that, in her mind, the White House represented. (She later said the comment was “taken wildly out of context.”)

For many on the left a hateful anti-Americanism has become a self-congratulatory lifestyle. “America was never that great,” New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo recently said. For radical groups like Black Lives Matter, hatred of America is a theme of identity, a display of racial pride.

For other leftists, hate is a license. Conservative speakers can be shouted down, even assaulted, on university campuses. Republican officials can be harassed in restaurants, in the street, in front of their homes. Certain leaders of the left—Rep. Maxine Waters comes to mind—are self-appointed practitioners of hate, urging their followers to think of hatred as power itself.

How did the American left—conceived to bring more compassion and justice to the world—become so given to hate? It began in the 1960s, when America finally accepted that slavery and segregation were profound moral failings. That acceptance changed America forever. It imposed a new moral imperative: America would have to show itself redeemed of these immoralities in order to stand as a legitimate democracy.

The genius of the left in the ’60s was simply to perceive the new moral imperative, and then to identify itself with it. Thus the labor of redeeming the nation from its immoral past would fall on the left. This is how the left put itself in charge of America’s moral legitimacy. The left, not the right—not conservatism—would set the terms of this legitimacy and deliver America from shame to decency.

This bestowed enormous political and cultural power on the American left, and led to the greatest array of government-sponsored social programs in history—at an expense, by some estimates, of more than $22 trillion. But for the left to wield this power, there had to be a great menace to fight against—a tenacious menace that kept America uncertain of its legitimacy, afraid for its good name.

This amounted to a formula for power: The greater the menace to the nation’s moral legitimacy, the more power redounded to the left. And the ’60s handed the left a laundry list of menaces to be defeated. If racism was necessarily at the top of the list, it was quickly followed by a litany of bigotries ending in “ism” and “phobia.”

The left had important achievements. It did rescue America from an unsustainable moral illegitimacy. It also established the great menace of racism as America’s most intolerable disgrace. But the left’s success has plunged it into its greatest crisis since the ’60s. The Achilles’ heel of the left has been its dependence on menace for power. Think of all the things it can ask for in the name of fighting menaces like “systemic racism” and “structural inequality.” But what happens when the evils that menace us begin to fade, and then keep fading?

It is undeniable that America has achieved since the ’60s one of the greatest moral evolutions ever. That is a profound problem for the left, whose existence is threatened by the diminishment of racial oppression. The left’s unspoken terror is that racism is no longer menacing enough to support its own power. The great crisis for the left today—the source of its angst and hatefulness—is its own encroaching obsolescence. Today the left looks to be slowly dying from lack of racial menace.

A single white-on-black shooting in Ferguson, Mo., four years ago resulted in a prolonged media blitz and the involvement of the president of the United States. In that same four-year period, thousands of black-on-black shootings took place in Chicago, hometown of the then-president, yet they inspired very little media coverage and no serious presidential commentary.

White-on-black shootings evoke America’s history of racism and so carry an iconic payload of menace. Black-on-black shootings carry no such payload, although they are truly menacing to the black community. They evoke only despair. And the left gets power from fighting white evil, not black despair.

Today’s left lacks worthy menaces to fight. It is driven to find a replacement for racism, some sweeping historical wrongdoing that morally empowers those who oppose it. (Climate change?) Failing this, only hatred is left.

Hatred is a transformative power. It can make the innocuous into the menacing. So it has become a weapon of choice. The left has used hate to transform President Trump into a symbol of the new racism, not a flawed president but a systemic evil. And he must be opposed as one opposes racism, with a scorched-earth absolutism.

For Martin Luther King Jr., hatred was not necessary as a means to power. The actual details of oppression were enough. Power came to him because he rejected hate as a method of resisting menace. He called on blacks not to be defined by what menaced them. Today, because menace provides moral empowerment, blacks and their ostensible allies indulge in it. The menace of black victimization becomes the unarguable truth of the black identity. And here we are again, forever victims.

Yet the left is still stalked by obsolescence. There is simply not enough menace to service its demands for power. The voices that speak for the left have never been less convincing. It is hard for people to see the menace that drives millionaire football players to kneel before the flag. And then there is the failure of virtually every program the left has ever espoused—welfare, public housing, school busing, affirmative action, diversity programs, and so on.

For the American left today, the indulgence in hate is a death rattle.

Mr. Steele, a senior fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, is author of “Shame: How America’s Past Sins Have Polarized Our Country” (Basic Books, 2015).
Quite revealing exactly how race-oriented, shall we say, Mr. Steele view is, innit? (Thought it was all about "economic anxiety".) Note the penultimate sentence: Per Steele, all the left ever espouses are programs that people of Steele's ilk transform into assaults on white people. And he calls the police murder of Michael Brown in cold blood by a pig who was acquitted a "white-on-black shooting", in a sad effort to contrast w/ "black-on-black shootings" in, of course, the mythical hellhole of Chicago.

One usual detail from any anti-left screed worth its salt: The initial quote illustrating the all-consuming evil comes not from an elected Democrat, high party official, Cabinet Sec. or the like, but ... McDonna! Yes, the one-time pop star & semi-pro actress.

At least he held back on the baby-eating Satanic pedophile conspiracy theories. For now.

No need to continue. If even a cretinous know-nothing such as this reporter can see through this intellectually dishonest (& stupid) horseshit in a quick scan of the low points there's little point in our reading any more. Y'all go right ahead 'though. We're getting back to Home Run Derby at Dodger Stadium & Battle: L.A. at The Coliseum.

These United Snakes Rotting From
The Head Down

Scum of the elite on parade.
The stories of Whelan and Butler have nothing to do with whether one thinks Kavanaugh and Ronell did nothing at all or behaved appallingly. They have everything to do with the current crisis of American elites in many fields, to include the law and higher education. For the lawyer and the professor are exquisitely similar. Their academic pedigrees are magnificent: Harvard Law School, Yale University graduate school. Their positions in their professions are eminent, if detached from the rest of the world. If you are a liberal you probably do not know or care that Whelan writes often for National Review and is a leading figure in conservative legal circles; if you do not know, or care to know, much about critical theory, the writings of Butler are academic in the unflattering sense of that term. But in their worlds they are, if not royalty, lords of the realm.

Their motives here are also similar: Eminent friends are being taken down at the peak of their professional careers by someone who is, in their worlds, a nobody. It’s outrageous, and it has to be stopped. And if, by so doing, you defame a classmate of Kavanaugh’s, accusing him of attempted rape, or effectively threaten to obliterate a graduate student’s career by lending a mob of literature professors the imprimatur of the MLA, so be it. That is the point and that is the sin: the willingness to stomp hard on a defenseless little guy in order to protect your highly privileged pal.

Of the many forms of cruelty, that directed against those who are weak or powerless is one of the worst. Of itself, it undermines whatever legitimacy a person can claim by virtue of intellectual or professional distinction. Societies and governments will have elites—that is simply inescapable, except perhaps in an ancient city-state, and probably not even then. But in a free society, for those elites to exercise their power—their very real power, as those subject to it well know—they have to do so with restraint and good judgment. The alternative is, sooner or later, revolt, which is why higher education often finds itself battered by angry citizens who, in a different setting, conclude that the legal system, too, is rigged.
Everything is rigged against you. Tear it all down, now, or you'll be a loser forever!

Saturday, September 22, 2018

"Former top White House official revises statement Admits Lying Like a Damn Rug to special counsel about Flynn's calls with Russian ambassador"

"Only the best people"

 Washington Post:
Former top White House official revises statement to special counsel about Flynn's calls with Russian ambassador  —  A former top White House official has revised her statement to investigators about a key event in the probe of Russian interference in the 2016 election, after her initial claim …
Really dog bites man here; after all, McFarland's been a Mouth of Sauron on & off since 1970, when she worked part-time for Kissinger's N.S.C. Criminy, almost 50 yrs. of professional lying. I'm oddly impressed.

Piling On

Johnny Osbourne - "Murderer"
 Jon Levine / The Wrap:
CNN political commentator Jason Miller has left the network after court docs allege he secretly administered abortion pills to ex-lover; Miller denies claims  —  Pro-Trump CNN political commentator Jason Miller announced Saturday that he has “decided to step away” from the network …
Barrington Levy - "Murderer"
Whoa. Are we libeling Jason Miller by embedding those two tunes around his hideous story? ALLEGED, awrite?

Aussies Put Ashore

WED 22 SEP 1943
Pacific
TF 76 (Rear Admiral Daniel E. Barbey) puts 20th Australian Brigade ashore at Finschhafen, New Guinea. [Not an attack on Japanese positions, just intolerance: "Another damn chorus of 'Waltzing Matilda' & I was going to make every last manjack of 'em walk the plank," the admiral did not say.]

Coastal transport APc-35, irreparably damaged by grounding en route to Renard Sound, New Georgia, 08°48'S, 157°46'E, is beached and abandoned.

Gunboat Charleston (PG-51) is damaged when accidentally rammed by U.S. merchant ship Sam Jackson, Kuluk Bay, Adak, Alaska.

Submarine Harder (SS-257) sinks Japanese merchant tanker Daishin Maru and cargo ship Kowa Maru, 34°46'N, 140°55'E.

Submarine Hoe (SS-258) attacks Japanese fleet tanker Gen'yo Maru, 10°08'N, 147°01'E.

Submarine Snook (SS-279) sinks Japanese merchant cargo ship Katsurahama Maru, 39°00'N, 124°20'E, and damages merchant cargo ship Hakutetsu Maru, 39°15'N, 123°30'E.

Submarine Trigger (SS-237) damages Japanese army cargo ship Gyoku Maru, 26°27'N, 122°40'E.

Mediterranean
U.S. freighter Richard Olney, in convoy KMS 26, is mined off Bizerte, Tunisia, 37°25'N, 09°54'E; two of the 43-man merchant complement perish in the explosion. There are no casualties among the 31-man Armed Guard or among the 143 troop passengers. Although Richard Olney reaches Bizerte under tow of British (ex-Coast Guard) cutter HMS Landguard, the freighter will be written off as a total loss.

Ocean going tugs Moreno (AT-87) and Narragansett (AT-88) and British rescue tug HMS Weazel scuttle the stern section of U.S. Liberty ship William W. Gerhard with gunfire off Salerno.

Indian Ocean
British destroyer HMS Relentless rescues 34 survivors from two boats from U.S. Liberty ship Cornelia P. Spencer, torpedoed by German submarine U-188 the day before. Freighter Sandown Castle rescues 16 men from a third boat (see 6 October 1943).

"Activist Mommy" Wants "War"
W/ "Degenerates"

It's a mental health issue for this reporter: If he hears one more of these twisted creeps spewing such idiotic crap he's going to lose what little remains of his already-addled mind & declare war on one of these toads himself.
Elizabeth Johnston, a right-wing activist better known as the “Activist Mommy,” spoke at the Values Voter Summit today, where she asserted that sex ed programs in public schools are promoting illegal “obscenity” and must be shut down because they are part of a grand “war on our children.”

“They are obscenity, legal obscenity,” Johnston declared. “That should not be allowed. This is pandering obscenity to minors.”

After praising a recent successful effort to shut down a Drag Queen Story Hour in Illinois, Johnston called on right-wing activists to “get aggressive” and to ready themselves to wage war.

“It is past time for us, guys, to get aggressive about protecting our children’s innocence,” she said. “Conservatives have been playing much too nice with these degenerates. This is war. This is war on our children.”
[Directly & entirely from Right Wing Witch Watch.]
The Dictators - "Teengenerate"

Summer's Over, Back On Your Heads!

Another season passes like nothing. Try to enjoy the equinox before the sun goes away forever.
"Autumn Leaves" - Cannonball Adderly
Somethin' Else, Blue Note, 1958: Cannonball Adderley - Alto Sax, Miles Davis - Trumpet,
Hank Jones - Piano, Sam Jones - Bass, Art Blakey - Drums.
Totally 'phoning it in now. (Did we do this last yr. too? The yr. before?) Whatever. Soon we hibernate.
Doris Day - "Autumn Leaves"
With Paul Weston and His Music From Hollywood
Lucille Dumont - "Les Feuilles Mortes"
Bonus CD-Only Obviously Lame Association Track:
The Rolling Stones - "Dead Flowers" (Live)

Recent (Republican Sex) Crimes

The "Culture of Life"

Of course secretly administering an abortion drug goes beyond criminal sexual violence to manslaughter or even straight-up murder, depending on the laws in Florida. Law enforcement there is apparently incompetent. How can someone poison a pregnant woman &, rather than doing hard time, be a flunky for Lumpy?

Body Count

"It A Go Dread In A Babylon" - Sam Bramwell
Say, how's that war on the other side of the world workin' out for ya, Pentagon morons?
PUL-I-KUMRI, Afghanistan — Taliban insurgents killed so many Afghan security forces in 2016, an average of 22 a day, that by the following year the Afghan and American governments decided to keep battlefield death tolls secret.

It’s much worse now. The daily fatalities among Afghan soldiers and policemen were more than double that last week: roughly 57 a day.

Seventeen years after the United States went to war in Afghanistan, the Taliban is gaining momentum, seizing territory, and killing Afghan security forces in record numbers.

Last week was especially bad, with more than 400 killed, according to an account by diplomats. But even the average numbers in recent months — from 30 to 40 a day, according to senior Afghan officials — represent a substantial upswing from two years ago and appear unsustainable in a country that has been shattered by decades of war.
The Best and The Brightest, once again. Do you fucking sheep ever learn?

Friday, September 21, 2018

Ships Being Sunk

TUE 21 SEP 1943
Pacific
Submarine Haddock (SS-231) torpedoes Japanese collier Shinyubari Maru west-northwest of Truk, 08°53'N, 148°30'E.

Submarine Trigger (SS-237) sinks Japanese fleet oilers Shiriya and Shoyo Maru and merchant cargo ship Argun Maru, and damages fleet oiler No.1 Ozura Maru north of Keelung, Formosa, 26°27'N, 122°40'E.

Submarine Wahoo (SS-238) sinks Japanese merchant fishing vessel Hokusei Maru 45°45'N, 145°46'E.

USAAF B-24 aircraft sink Japanese transport Takashima Maru southeast of the Admiralties, 03°45'S, 149°20'E.

Mediterranean
U.S. freighter William W. Gerhard, in Salerno-bound convoy, is torpedoed by German submarine U-238 at 40°07'N, 14°43'E, and abandoned by the 46-man crew, 29 of the 30-man Armed Guard (one man perishes in the initial explosion) and 191 Army troops. After the crew returns to the ship to prepare her for towing, tug Moreno (AT-87) takes the torpedoed merchantman in tow and heads for Salerno. Fires break out on board, however, and after unavailing efforts by the crew, aided by tug Narragansett (AT-88) and British rescue tug HMS Weazel, the crew abandons ship a second time, transferring en masse to Moreno. William W. Gerhard explodes that night and breaks in two; the bow section sinks immediately (see 22 September 1943).

Indian Ocean
U.S. freighter Cornelia P. Spencer is torpedoed by German submarine U-188 at 02°08'N, 50°10'E; when the U-boat surfaces to finish off the merchantman, however, the Armed Guard gunfire proves so accurate that the U-boat submerges and torpedoes the ship again (the explosion kills two merchant sailors). Cornelia P. Spencer is then abandoned. Torpedoed a third time she sinks soon thereafter. The survivors (39 merchant sailors and the 27-man Armed Guard) are divided amongst four lifeboats (see 22 September and 6 October 1943).

Efficiency

Tochinoshin v. Kakuryu • Aki Basho Round 11
Georgian Tochinoshin vs. Mongolian Kakuryu.

Trump's Next Nominee?

The Skin Crawls

Minnesota state Rep. Jim Knoblach drops re-election bid, citing MPR News investigation

Republican state Rep. Jim Knoblach of St. Cloud abruptly ended his re-election campaign Friday as MPR News prepared to publish detailed accusations from his adult daughter of what she described as his inappropriate behavior toward her since childhood.

The announcement came hours after an attorney for Knoblach denied the allegations in an interview. The attorney, Susan Gaertner, said Knoblach "does not want to drag his family through six weeks of hell."

Knoblach, who is chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, declined to be interviewed after being approached more than a week ago.

In a written statement, Knoblach, 60, called the allegations "indescribably hurtful" and said he would work toward healing his family.

"I love my children more than anything, and would never do anything to hurt them. Her allegations are false," Knoblach wrote. "I and other family members have made repeated attempts to reconcile with her in recent years, but she has refused."

The timing of his exit could make his St. Cloud-area seat, already a top target for Democrats, impossible for Republicans to hold, barring some kind of court intervention or a write-in campaign by a substitute candidate. Knoblach was seeking a ninth term and was being challenged by Democratic candidate Dan Wolgamott, also of St. Cloud.

Knoblach's daughter, Laura, alleges that the prominent legislator inappropriately touched her for most of her life, with her first memories starting when she was 9 years old.

Now 23, Laura said she confided in close friends, family and authority figures at her school and church about the behavior for more than a decade.

Authorities from the St. Cloud police department and Sherburne County Sheriff's Office began an investigation into the claims in 2017. Authorities declined to bring charges. Jim Knoblach wasn't interviewed by investigators, but Gaertner denied the allegations.

After exhausting other means to hold her father accountable, Laura Knoblach made the allegations to MPR News on the record and supplied extensive documentation about her attempts to get help.
[MPRnews]

Texas Trash: Life & Death In Abilene

George Hamilton IV - "Abilene"

WARNING, GRAPHIC VIDEO: Abilene father, son kill neighbor over trash

Shirtless white trash w/ guns: Always a recipe for trouble.
Gawd Damn America!!

[KTXS.com]

Self-Parody Dep't.

Fear Of A Tasty Burger

OPINION

Liberal Elites Are Even Ruining Hamburgers And They Must Be Stopped

Kurt  Schlichter
|
Posted: Sep 20, 2018 12:01 AM

The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not represent the views of Townhall.com.
Even Clownhall is embarrassed by valiant culture warrior Schlichter, if putting the disclaimer at the very top is any indication. And they should be, w/ typist Kurt desperately scraping around the bottom of the culture war mayonaise jar looking for more goo to fling. Don't give them the satisafaction of clicking; he starts by abusing Sloppy Joes, fer-gawds-sake, as if they were even in the burger category. Philistine.

Anyway, Kurt, let me know when someone holds a gun to your empty head & makes you eat somewhere other than Mickey D.'s (or The Olive Garden, for special occasions) or if you're ever at a casual dining experience where they sneak something you can taste into your chow. Until then, these United Snakes remain a free-range country, so just keep your nose out of America's food & your yap shut.
NB: Don't get me wrong. I despise foodies at least twice as much as the next vermin on the iNternet (see the "Nausea" label) but who the hell doesn't like a burger w/ something other than bland Amurkin rat cheese? Totally nekulturny.

Thursday, September 20, 2018

T'row-Back T'ursday

Every One A Hit!

"Tin Pan Alley" - Jimmy Wilson
"They start cuttin' & shootin' soon as the sun goes down."
Redundant piano triplets, low-down sax & git-fiddle. You need nothing more.

Frederick Douglass
'is being recognized more and more'

MON 20 SEP 1943
Pacific
Covered lighter YF-579 sinks off San Francisco, California.

Submarine Haddock (SS-231) damages Japanese fleet tanker Notoro east of the Palaus, 07°23'N, 150°11'E; auxiliary submarine chaser Takunan Maru conducts fruitless search for Haddock.

Submarine S-28 (SS-133) sinks Japanese gunboat Katsura Maru 165 miles southwest of Paramushiro, Kuriles, 49°05'N, 151°45'E.

Repair ship Hayase is sunk by Chinese aircraft, Ch'iu-Chiang, Yangtze River, China.

Atlantic
U.S. freighter William Pepperell is again attacked by German submarine U-260, but with the same result as two days before. Again, there are no casualties and the ship ultimately reaches port under her own power.

German submarine U-238 attacks New York-bound convoy ON 202, torpedoing U.S. freighters Frederick Douglass, 57°03'N, 28°08'W, and Theodore Dwight Weld, 57°03'N, 28°12'W. British rescue ship Rathlin rescues all hands (40-men merchant complement, 29-man Armed Guard, and one female stowaway) from Frederick Douglass, which remains afloat until finished off later the same day by U-645. Theodore Dwight Weld sinks so quickly that 20 of the 42-man merchant complement and 13 of the 28-man Armed Guard perish. Rathlin rescues the survivors.

Next On The List: Trump

Twenty-Fifth Amendment, bitchezz!!
 Reuters:
French court orders Le Pen to submit to psychiatric evaluation  —  PARIS (Reuters) - A French court ordered Marine Le Pen to submit to a psychiatric evaluation as part of its investigation into her decision to post images of Islamic State executions on Twitter, the far right leader said on Thursday and denounced the order.
At least France, unlike these United Snakes, has a semblance of a government that takes care of the sick & diseased.