Cancel Culture Doesn't Exist--Also, If You Speak-Out Against Cancel Culture, You Will Be Cancelled

Gina Carano ought to be the sort of actress that our betters push forward as a role-model. 

In a world where it's controversial for a straight man to play a homosexual character (It's called acting!) why is it that waif-like actresses are regularly starring in roles where they fight beefy-looking men by the bushel and always come out on top and nobody says, "Why don't they cast a woman who could, you know, realistically be able to do that?

Ms. Carano is and looks like the kind of woman who has the size, strength and training to play these roles--without total suspension of disbelief.

But then what happened?  She pointed out the well-documented and apparently not taught anymore, details of how the NAZIs carried out the Holocaust.  The first steps were propaganda campaigns which portrayed Jews as sub-human, devious, etc. This paved the way for discriminatory laws and ultimately, to genocide.

Here is what she wrote:

“Jews were beaten in the streets, not by Nazi soldiers but by their neighbors…even by children. Because history is edited, most people today don’t realize that to get to the point where Nazi soldiers could easily round up thousands of Jews, the government first made their own neighbors hate them simply for being Jews. How is that any different from hating someone for their political views,”

The parallel is not exact when it comes to political beliefs v. an ethno religious group, but neither is it far-fetched.  People can change their religion as well as their politics, but generally they remain in whatever group they came from.

I can already hear the retort:  But they believe hateful things!  We will have to agree to disagree on that. For myself, I'm a lot more threatened by the many prominent members of society who seem sober and yet propose things like "deprogramming", "re-education" and 
"truth commissions" for half the country.  Meanwhile, conservatives propose being left alone, letting us keep more of our earnings and allowing us to keep and bear the means of self-defense.

Added:  My admiration for Ms. Carano being cast into The Mandelorian role was prior to me having any knowledge of her politics.  My assumption, things being as they are, is that unless otherwise ruled-out; I always think every actor is a leftist. 

Is "Only" In There Or Not?

I think we can all agree that black lives matter.  Of course they do, all lives matter and blacks are a subset of all, so it's just mathematics.

Wait!  You can't say "all lives matter".

Why not, it is after all true.  Right? 

Sure, it's true, but when you say it, it's harmful because:---"Reasons" given that require many dubious assumptions...

So, I can't say something which we all agree is true, because it will hurt the feelings of people who are making outlandish assumptions about my motives?  It seems to me as if I am being expected to accept being a second-class citizen.  

The level of aggression given for why you can't say "all lives matter"  convinces me that there is an invisible "only" in front of "black lives matter".

Much like The Emperor's New Clothes , some of us can see it and (well everyone sees it) but some people know it's there but feel as if it's wrong to point it out.

Alternate McSweeny's Articles, Part 7

 

I BELIEVE WE CAN HEAL OUR PARTISAN DIVIDE IF YOU JUST give in and ADMIT that things i think are reaL are not batshit crazy

by DORIAN FOX

Hidden Treasure, Hidden Knowledge

 

I discovered, quite by accident, that McDonald's double cheeseburgers ($2/ea, recently 2 for $3) microwave really well.  How well is really well?  They are exactly like when you first buy them fresh from the store.

You can find 4 of these little beauties in our cheese drawer.  If you happen to want one, put it in the microwave for 30 seconds on each side.  And leave it in the wrapper while you do this.

Alternative McSweeny's Titles Part 6

 I never liked MEDICARE, but I was forced to pay into it my entire working life. I suddenly have to be a socialist to enroll?

by SUSIE AQUILINA

Alternate McSweeny's Articles, Part 5

 

I AM A dissapointed BIDEN VOTER WHO WAS TOLD by the legacy media that HE’d never do all the things he promised he'd do and here he is on day 1 keeping his promises!

WTF, MSM?

by CHANDLER DEAN

1619 And The Arrow of Time

 The idea behind the 1619 Project, is that the "real" founding of the United States was in 1619, when the first slave was brought here.

The problem is that the United States didn't exist until 1776.  We were part of the British Empire and did not rule our own affairs.  Whatever happened 157 years before our founding, has no bearing on what we created in 1776.

But, what if 1776 was itself about slavery?  Like, if the British were about to outlaw it and so we were motivated to be independent because of this, undesirable change.  The British outlawed slavery in 1833.

So we founded a new nation to protect slavery, 57 years before our masters outlawed it?  That is some real thinking ahead, or the 1619 Project is complete bullshit.

L'enfer, c'est les autres

 Sartre:  Hell is other people.

Americans:  Hell is other Americans.

Most Americans believe the biggest threat to America's way of life is other people in the country and domestic enemies

Inauguration Day Markers:

As of today, Worldometer has US Covid deaths at 415,038 and the Bloomberg vaccine tracker says that 35,990,150 vaccine doses have been distributed to the states.

Let's check back every so often and see how it goes from here.

The 7-day average as of the 20th is 912k and the 20th itself had 1.6 million administered.

UPDATE June 2nd

1.5 Million doses administered June  1st

610,438 Deaths

Alternative McSweeny's Titles, part 4

 

A CONSERVATIVE’S GUIDE TO packing for your trip 

to the gulag

by SARAH HUTTO

Piano Sheet Music

I never really learned to play the piano, but I could pick-out a tune if I had music and piano available.  What I just realized, and maybe will try, should I ever have music and a piano, is to turn the sheet music on its side.

The problem with sheet music is that higher and lower notes are arranged along a vertical line, but the keyboard runs horizontally left to right. It seems as if it would be easier if what you saw mapped to the finger positions. You'd have to read the music top to bottom instead of left to right, but I don't think that's a challenge.

An additional advantage would be that the bass cleft would be on the left and the treble on the right, just like the hands which play them.

I Plan To Cut President Biden Some Slack

 No. Not for when he insinuated that Mitt Romney would re-institute slavery.  And also not for perpetuating the lie that Trump praised white supremacists. 

What I will cut him some slack for is the election fraud which may have gained him the presidency.  I doubt Biden could engineer his way out of a paper sack, let alone engineer voter fraud in half a dozen states.

What Biden ought to do, especially since he is very unlikely to run for re-election anyway, is propose a bipartisan commission to investigate the safeguards which protect the integrity of elections.  He would gain a lot of goodwill across the isle by saying:  

I don't think fraud determined this election, but close to half the people have doubts about this.  We need to audit and then work to make a system which inspires confidence that the outcome is legitimate and encourages every eligible voter to exercise their right to vote.

I doubt he'll do this, but I am putting down a marker:  If he does this, it would be praiseworthy. 

Lies, All Lies!

 My Father in law, who is in his 80s, called his local town health dept. here in MA to see when he could get his vaccine.  They told him that they had not received their allocation from the federal government.

Bloomberg:

Jurisdiction	Doses distributed	Doses administered	% shots used

Massachusetts

669,325

257,175

38.4

Update: According to mass.gov/covid, people over 75 or with 2 comorbidities will have no priority until the start of Feb.

Alternate McSweeny's Titles part 3

 

Actual MLK QUOTES

which will now

get you branded

 A RACIST

by RYAN WEBER

Alternate McSweenys Titles Part 2

 

Please stop pointing out 

that we stole the 

election

 as it WILL ONLY 

FURTHER DIVIDE OUR NATION

by MIKE LANGLEY

Forget The Election

If you want some improbable (yet true, I swear) data, my last three runs on a certain 6.05 mile route are a good example.

I ran exactly (according to my Garmin) 50:51 each of the last three times.  And the thing of is that most of the time I run around 54 - 56 minutes for the route, so these are fast for me.

Now that I think of it, the speed may provide an answer:  Maybe, due to lack of the usual injuries, I've been running flat-out and 50:51 is more-or-less my limit.

Still seems as if there would be a few seconds of spread in there.

Why Was The Capitol Breached But Not The White House?

There are really only two explanations:  One is very tin-foil hat and the other disproves the media narrative.

First, the conspiracy explanation:  The Democrats wanted protesters to get into the Capitol as a way of taking the wind out of the very fishy election.  I think this is unlikely because, unhinged as they are, I do not (yet) think they are that evil.  But mostly, I don't think they have the physical bravery to take that sort of personal risk.

Second, while the media narrative is that leftist's protests are always peaceful or mostly peaceful, anything conservative is considered very threatening.  Remember the TEA party protests?  They were like geriatric garden parties but always described in the darkest terms.  What really happened is that everyone knows that conservative protests are peaceful.  So, when one turned out to be only mostly peaceful, the police presence was wholly inadequate.  

Contrast with protests outside the White House:  The mostly peaceful protests had left American cities shell-shocked, burned and boarded-up.  Of course the security outside the White House was tight.  It wasn't as if ANTIFA and BLM were Boy Scouts, security forces knew what they were facing and were prepared.

The Logic of Path-Dependence

Our Dog has been getting up in years and in some ways this has become a pain.  For instance, she used to be able to jump up onto our bed and would do so a few times/night.  The problem was that she would insist on being helped-up multiple times per night.

So I thought, why not build her a set of stairs?  The risk was that I would put a lot of work and materials into something solid, like plywood and then she would refuse to use it.  My solution was to mock-up something with cardboard, since there are always a few boxes that we need to get rid-of in the basement.

This worked! She would use the mocked-up stairs. After time, I noticed that her claws were denting the material and due to nature of cardboard, she would slip.  It was only a matter of a couple of wipe-outs and she would become afraid to use it.

Now, we had been working on some flooring projects in both 2nd floor bathrooms and if you know anything about the process, it involves many iterations of thin-set cement/mortar.  I took to applying skim coats of left-over cement to the cardboard.  My initial goals were to give her better traction, protect the surface from her claws and add a bit of stabilizing mass.  In successive coats, I started using old window screen material to reinforce, first 90 degree angles and later, whole planes.

Finally, it has felt on the bottom, so you can slide the, now pretty heavy, thing around and it is strong enough to support my 155 lbs.  I even painted it with some 20 year old paint, which was somehow still good.

This was all done about a month ago--around the time all the kids got home from their various colleges for the holidays.  I had just used these stairs to reach a bug on the ceiling and indicated to my wife--who had asked for the bug to be dealt-with, "Considering all the work that went into these, why didn't I just make something out of wood?  It would have taken a lot less time and been stronger"?

She, unlike me, remembered and reminded me of the history of the project.

Sometimes you are stuck with what works rather than with what would have been the better solution.

Alternate McSweeny's Titles

 

DOMESTIC TERRORISTS burned down cities all over the country all summer long AND OUR REPUBLIC IS IN TATTERS, BUT IT WAS ALL WORTH IT BECAUSE WE GOT a geriatric white man elected president

8 Years of Running Data

Each year from 2012-2015 I made posts at the end of the year for my running statistics, but I haven't done it again till this year. 

I think the reason has been the fact of having an Achilles tendon issue, getting old and becoming steadily slower. But one must face facts, so here is the rest of the story--freshly number crunched: 

The good years, when I could be very pleased with myself: 

Year Miles Pace 

2012 1,502.13 7:57 

2013 1,571.55 7:58 

2014 1582 1/2 7:55 

2015 1573.61 7:57 

The wheels are coming-off years: 

2016  1451.9   0:08:04 

Still pretty respectable, but not making 1,500 and over 8:00 for the first time... 

2017  1077.38   0:08:23 

Now, way below 1,500 and still slower: I think I was experimenting with fewer, more intense runs... 

2018  866.36   0:09:09 

Okay, low miles is not, I repeat, not working... 

2019  1247.54   0:09:27 

Okay, still slower, but a big increase in miles for the first time. This was the era of my monthly goal of 100 miles coming into effect. I had found that I felt less crippled with injury if I put in a bit more miles. 

2020  1227.54   0:09:14 

This feels like progress: I kept up more-or-less the same miles but did a better pace than the year before, for the first time--probably the first time since the first couple of years I've run. I took up running in 2002 and I think I hit a plateau around 2003 or 2004.