The Czar understands the Grammys are nothing more than a show of money and power; music is merely the means by which the power manipulates the money. He has steadfastly avoided them since 1988, but did catch a portion of the 2018 broadcast wherein he saw Camila Cabello deliver this speech, a complete musical non sequitur about the Dreamers:

Today, in this room full of music’s dreamers, we remember that this country was built by dreams, for dreams, chasing the American dream. My parents brought me to this country with nothing in their pockets but hope. They showed me what it means to work twice as hard, and never give up. And honestly no part of my journey is any different from theirs. I’m a proud Cuban-Mexican immigrant, born in Eastern Havana, standing in front of you on the Grammy stage in New York City, and all I know is, just like dreams, these kids can’t be forgotten and are worth fighting for.

Well, here’s the thing. Her parents did not arrive here illegally by sneaking over from Mexico: they came legally through normal means. She’s not a Dreamer. And honestly, her entire journey is about 180° apart from theirs. But why screw up a good embarrassed-applause line with details, right?

The Czar also understands that Dreamers didn’t choose to be born to illegal parents, and that their parents loved them so much that they wanted these kids to have a better shot in America—even illegally—than endure the crushing poverty of rural Mexico. Got it. The Czar might make the same move in those circumstances.

But the Czar has little sympathy for today’s Dreamers…because this all happened decades ago, and these kids grew up from being little, tiny Dreamers into adults with no interest in doing the right thing for themselves or their families.

By the book, it takes five years to become a U.S. citizen; the average time is a bit longer than that, and there are thousands of people waiting in line to do just that—many from shithole countries, and many from nice countries. These folks are working hard to safeguard their families for as much of the American dream as they want to taste.

Meanwhile, we’re supposed to feel sorry for people—some of whom have been here for 30 years—because they couldn’t participate in a process that’s free and would legalize them immediately? The Czar was particularly set off by a television news interview with a woman being deported after 31 years of illegal residency, who was holding down an IT job and spoke with no trace of accent. Look, the Czar gets the idea was to show “just how American she is,” but it came off as “I’ve been able to become a citizen six times over and just didn’t love the benefits of this country enough.”

Enough. The Dreamers have been profiting from intense public relations, and the truth is that most of them—maybe even almost all—have failed to legalize themselves despite having a ridiculous amount of time to do so.

Picture your sister and her live-in boyfriend, who never seems to get work, has little interest in getting married, and spends all day living it up on her money. At some point, she needs to realize that he’s a parasite, and she needs to get rid of him. He doesn’t love her: he just knows a free ride when he sees it. People like that probably make your skin crawl: he has the power to change his life—and hers—for the better, but doesn’t see the point when the food is good and the bed is warm and dry.

At least that’s how the Czar pictures your sister. Anyway, see if you can connect the dots. If so, you can grasp our annoyance with this whole Dreamers thing.

Sorry, Ms. Cabello—they’re not you, and they’re not your parents. The Czar has so many other people to feel sorry for, so he’ll pass on a bunch of free-loaders. But we’re certainly glad your parents and you are citizens! It’s the coolest club in the world, and so easy to join.

Central American illegal immigrants practice so they can blend seamlessly with other Metro riders when they arrive in DC.

Immigration.

Say the word and normal, sane people lose their minds.

On one side, we have people screaming “THEY TOOK R JERBZ!!!” and “BILD TEH WAL!!” On the other side, we see people ranting without open borders, America’s the moral equivalent of Hitler. Once again, America’s allowed its politicians and media to divide us. Ordinary Americans (i.e., those not making money off sowing discord and strife) are a lot closer policy-wise than we think.

The vast majority of Americans (if polls are to be believed) support a pathway to legal status of some sort for so-called Dreamers. The vast majority of Americans also support increased border enforcement, as well as better, stricter enforcement of our immigration laws generally.

Trump, assuming today’s policy position is his true position, understands this. He supports both notions, legalizing the Dreamers and tight borders coupled with strict enforcement of law. This seems to ‘Puter to be the correct position. Or, at least, the position best suited to satisfy both sides of the immigration debate (while providing grist for extremists’ grievance mills for the decade to come).

To Trump’s credit, he is not making the mistake Republicans made in the 1980s when they agreed to amnesty first, then increased enforcement later, which conveniently (for Democrats) never materialized. Trump is insisting on a package deal, which is the smart play.

Media and Democrats can blame Trump all they want if Dreamers are deported, but if Trump and Republicans are on record with an offer for a pathway to legal status for Dreamers in return for the Trump Taj Ma-Wall and tighter enforcement, Republicans are in pretty good shape because that’s where Americans seem to be.

Democrats found out the hard way the importance of at least appearing reasonable when they shut the government down, thus breaking the first rule of government shutdowns: Don’t shut the government down. Worse, no amount of spinning by Democrats and media could change the inescapable conclusion that Democrats were willing to punish American citizens to gain benefits for illegally present aliens, even sympathetic ones. This, to put it mildly, is not a winning look.

So, as the immigration saga plays out, here are my predictions, for whatever they’re worth.

• Trump gets his beloved wall and increased enforcement.
• Dreamers get some sort of pathway to legal status, though I fervently hope not citizenship.
• These two items are part of larger immigration reform which will include at a minimum an end to the diversity visa lottery and sharp curtailment of family related visas (except for spouses and minor children, who will not then get to bring their relatives in).
• The entire mess will be rolled into a consolidated two-year budget which will pass before August, allowing both Republicans and Democrats to claim victory prior to November’s mid-term elections.

You may disagree. You may think this solution is wrong and bad and proof positive that Democrats/Republicans are ruining our once great nation. My take? It’s America returning to bare knuckled, hard fought compromise.

And that, whatever the policy outcome, is a good thing for America.

Pretty fly for a 71 year old guy.

Gentle Readers,

It’s been a while since Dr. J.’s posted, but the latest edition of ‘Teh Trumpzesz Must Rezign!!!!!!!!!@11!!!Eleventy!!@onE!!!!!!!’ pushes the narrative that Trump is too sick for office, unlike those strapping and robust Presidents Harding, Wilson, Roosevelt, Eisenhower and Kennedy and William Jefferson ‘CABG 4 years after leaving office’ Clinton.

What do we know about President The Donald. (http://abcnews.go.com/Health/read-president-donald-trumps-full-physical-report/story?id=52404444) He’s a 71 year old gentleman, who’s 6’3, 239#. He’s not hypertensive. He has a normal EKG, Normal echocardiogram. Normal stress echo with above average exercise capacity. His Total Cholesterol is 223, LDL 143, HDL 67!, Trigs 129. EBCT score 133. He takes a baby aspirin and 10mg Crestor.

His 10 year estimated risk of MI, stroke or other cardiovascular badness is 16.7%. It’s above the optimal 13%.

Normal cell counts, no real kidney, thyroid, liver tests.

He doesn’t have lung masses. And why should he, he’s never smoked. He has a negative colonoscopy.

He has a perfect Cog Function test.

Dr. J.’s friends Dr. David Maron and Dr. Dan Rader who are preventative medicine gurus were interviewed by the NYT about President Trump’s health.

Dr. Maron is extremely bright and a very thoughtful physician. He is a very aggressive preventative cardiologist and his desire, with his patients is to do everything possible to mitigate their cardiovascular risk. Of course he would be worried about Trump’s risk of a heart attack . He’s a 72 year old man with an elevated cholesterol and a pooch. Dr. J. thinks ‘God, no.’ is an excessively strong response to the question of if Trump is in perfect health, but knowing David, Dr. J. would expect that answer. David would eat Trump to eat ‘bark and twigs’ metaphorically speaking, lose weight (which he does need to do), and probably up the Crestor to 20 mg. Indeed, his doctor, Dr. Jackson is upping the Crestor.

Dr. Rader, was more of a muse in the article, asking more questions than giving answers.

Collectively, David, Dan and Dr. Topol (who Dr. J. met and had lunch with once as a fellow) agreed the CT Calcium scoring test was a waste and overblown. It’s the wrong test for a 71 year old man.

Dr. J. plugged in his numbers into the calculator. Age 46, TC 216, HDL 33, LDL 156, BP 148. His risk was 5.4%/year compared to 1.1%/year which was his ideal. The statin, and BP medications that were added have reduced his risk to 3.0%/year. Indeed Dr. J. will not go down to the optimal risk with modification.

Dr. J. pulled up President Obama’s 2016 physical, and when trying to score his risk, he found an error. The lipids were reported as TC 188, LDL 125, HDL 68 and Tg 42. That is impossible. Total cholesterol = LDL + HDL + Tg/5 or 125 + 68 + 42 which gets you 201. Now we’re quibbling but given all of the dissembling of the Obama administration, the discrepancy should have been noticed by Drs. Gupta, or if presented to my friends they would have noticed lickety split. Anyway, like Obama’s event rate is 7.6%/year which can be reduced to 4.4% with a statin and smoking cessation. His lifetime risk of an event is 50% compared to Dr. J.’s 46%.

So what should we take from the healthscare kerfuffle? Not much. Despite Sanjay Gupta’s alarmist caterwauling about Trump’s coronary artery disease,, he was too cute by half and even Dr. Jackson stated that he Trump has non-obstructive coronary disease. What this means is that yes, he has cholesterol plaques in his coronaries, but you would expect MORE, truth be told, in someone his age Trump is 71, with an elevated cholesterol and a pooch. Relatively speaking while not perfect he looks better than most folks his age, and Dr. J. should look as good. Upping his statin to 20mg will bring his risk for optimum fo this age, which is something that neither Dr. J. nor President Obama can expect to see with risk factor modification. His coronaries look better than President Clinton’s who is the same age. He doesn’t smoke, doesn’t drink. Sorry Democrats, it looks like you’re stuck with him for a long time.

Hey CNN, why don’t you look onto where the 13 points in total cholesterol went in President Obama’s 2016 examination. LIPIDGATE! Dr. J. just can’t even.

Bottoms up!

Vodka Tonic

One-third vodka
Two-thirds tonic water
Pour over ice
Serve with lime wedge

Gin & Tonic

One-third gin
Two-thirds tonic water
Pour over ice
Serve with lemon wedge

Vodka and 7

One-third vodka
Two-thirds seven
Pour over ice
Serve with lime wedge

Vodka Martini

One-third vodka
Two-thirds vodka
Pour over ice
Serve with olive wedge

Whiskey Sour

One-third whiskey
Two-thirds sour
Pour over ice
Serve with fruit wedge

Manhattan

Two parts rye or bourbon
One part sweet vermouth
Three dashes of Angostura bitters
Pour over ice
Serve with no fruit whatsoever, especially cherries, which is the mark of a prat.

Old Fashioned

One-third cheap rye whiskey
One-third polluted water
One-third manifest destiny
Pour over ice
Serve with sweat and hard work
Best served with the Depression

Cosmo

One-third vodka
Two-thirds metrosexual
Pour over dry ice
Serve with social wedge

Malört

One-third Jepsen’s Malört
Two-thirds humiliation
Pour over dignity
Serve with lack of self-respect

Tom Collins

One-third good looks
Two-thirds witty social banter
Pour over married women
Serve with divorce papers

Bloody Mary

One-third blood (accept no substitutes)
Two-thirds Mary
Put body on ice
Serve with celery

Irish Coffee

One-third Guinness Stout
Two-thirds Irish whiskey
Pour over ice
Serve with sarcasm

Margarita

One-third tequila
Two-thirds married women after work on a Friday
Pour over ice
Too drunk drive, honey, can you come get me?

Rubbing Slimfast

One-third rubbing alcohol (70% conc. is okay)
Two-thirds Slimfast, any flavor
Pour over ice
Serve to ’Puter

Daquiri

One-third rum
Two-thirds tap water
Pour over ice
Serve with lime wedge or whatever, because really, who the hell still orders these?

Black Russian

One-third vodka
Two-thirds soulless despair
Pour over ice, all year long
Serve with maudlin self-pity

Ramjet

One-third Jack Daniels
One-third dark rum
Two-thirds Scotch whiskey (single malt)
Three-thirds carrot juice
One-sixteenths wormwood
Seven-thirty-seconds cod liver oil
Sixteen-point threaded rod over pi Tupac Shakur
Pour over floor
Serve with ghost pepper cheese, kale,* banana leaf, peas, and sauerkraut on a toothpick

*Volgi’s tip, here, and it’s a good one.

Like Zelda Fitzgerald, ‘Puter is both beautiful and damned.

‘Puter hasn’t written much lately. He’s had a lot going on.

Regular readers know ‘Puter’s Dad has advanced dementia and has been declining rapidly. ‘Puter’s Mom put him in a memory care facility (nursing home) last Wednesday. While in the Greater DC Metroplex and Traffic Thunderdome, ‘Puter also put Laptop on a plane bound for London, where he’s studying abroad this semester. Upon ‘Puter’s return home, his beloved mutt promptly had something resembling a mini-stroke, where she lost control of her rear right quarter for a couple of hours.

Sweet.

But this post isn’t about negativity. It’s not about wallowing in despair and depression. It’s about making the conscious choice to find light in darkness.

‘Puter and Laptop showed up at Historic ‘Puter’s Childhood Home late Thursday evening, just in time to have dinner (pork tenderloin, if anyone cares) with ‘Puter’s Mom. After dinner , as ‘Puter’s Mom and Laptop cleaned up, ‘Puter eavesdropped on their conversation.

‘Puter’s Mom was explaining to Laptop how, with the trees winter-bare, she could look out her kitchen window, across about a half-mile of empty space, and see the lights of the ‘Puter’s Dad’s nursing home. ‘Puter’s Mom went on to say how that simple act, looking out the back window and seeing ‘Puter’s Dad’s light, kept her connected to him even as his mind slipped further and further away.

As ‘Puter sat there, pretending not to listen and fighting back tears, he could only think of this:

Involuntarily I glanced seaward—and distinguished nothing except a single green light, minute and far away, that might have been the end of a dock.

And ‘Puter realized in that moment that he is – that we are all – on a lifelong journey at sea, seeking the light at the end of our dock. Our only job is to cling to each other and beat on, boats against the current, as we are borne back ceaselessly into the past.

With that, ‘Puter stirred his coffee a bit more, got up, and hugged his mom.

The Glock G43

Greetings, mere mortals. Today, the Czar was nice enough to take the Царица to claim her Christmas present—or at least, part of it. When asked what she might want for Christmas, she did not hesitate to suggest a trip to the range. Days later, she handed the Czar a Bass Pro Shops catalog and pointed to a circled item on one of the pages, asking us “What do you think about this?” Circled was the Glock G43 pistol, in robin’s egg blue (right).

“Really,” we said aloud, but then she explained: place this inside a purse, and it’s basically camouflaged, unlike a solid black or silver firearm. This thing looks like an iPhone, and won’t call attention to itself when she opens her purse to fetch anything. Obviously, its smaller size makes it much better-suited for concealed carry, as well, when worn on the body in a holster. “Camouflage, you say,” we wondered. She might have a point about that, if our male readers immediately ignore our default notions of what guy camouflage is, and think about it from a woman’s standpoint. Yeah, she won’t need a RealTree pattern on hers—urban camo is going to look more like this.

All right, but what about the firearm? The Glock G43 is a 9mm single stack—meaning that the rounds inside the magazine are stacked up in a straight row, like the fingers on your hand; many pistol magazines have the rounds zigzag their way up to maximize how many you can fit into it. A single stack results in a much thinner weapon (which is great for concealment), but you lose capacity. In fact, the magazine on the G43 only holds six rounds. By chambering the top round into the weapon, you can fit one more into the magazine, which is called a “6+1” capacity. So assume you would have seven shots before needing to reload.

Introduced only in 2015, this weapon comes in a fairly wild variety of colors and combinations. Yes, you guys can have your basic black, but the slide and lower receiver can come in all sorts of finishes and colors (not just light blue). The Царица, for example, loathes pink-colored weapons simply because—in her words—that just screams “Look at me, I’m a princess who shoots.” Mind you, that’s purely her opinion…if you have a pink firearm, more power to you. But yes, the G43 also comes in pink.

Okay, so with her color choice out of the way, we needed to go shoot one. Fortunately, there is a range not terribly far from the Muscovy dacha that has one available for rent…although, it’s in basic black. But the weapon is identical, either way. The Царица has always favored 9mm weapons, but has never really liked anything she’s tried: she always finds something wrong with it. Well, that’s not quite true; she once fired a 9mm pistol at a range’s open house, and when she brought us back to see it, the weapon had vanished with its owner, and she never got the manufacturer’s name. Several of us have tried to locate the pistol based on what she could describe of its logo and grips, but we’ve never found it. In despair, she began to belittle any other 9mm she tried.

Today was quite different. We rented the G43, put a few rounds into the magazine, and loaded her up. Her first shot was into a silhouette target at 20 feet out, and she put a hole dead-center into the inner circle. Her subsequent shots were just outside it. “Oh, I like this,” the Царица said. We brought the target into various ranges from 10-feet to 40-feet, and every shot hit in a lethal area.

On the positive side, she appreciated that the weapon, loaded, was fairly lightweight. The grip was perfect—and long-time readers know the Czar has always found Glocks to have clumsy grips intended for the dainty, but she found herself easily holding it. And yes, we tried it as well: this is probably the first Glock we have fired that actually felt pretty comfortable to hold.

Further, her prowess with it cold indicated that it was excellent at any distance. Probably she would never need to engage a lethal threat at 40 feet away, but she knows she could consistently hit center of mass using only the front sight at that distance. Like most of us, she finds that very small, short-barreled firearms can be good at close range but often very inaccurate at longer distances. But Glock seems to have really dialed this one in.

On the negative side, she admitted she needs more practice with it. Because the weapon is smaller than a full-size semi-automatic, the slide catch and magazine release are not exactly where you might expect them. The Царица had some moments fumbling with the catch, and needing to stop and watch her thumb operate the tiny devices. She acknowledges this is a mere familiarity issue, and another couple hours with it and she could probably reload it blind-folded and one-handed. (The Czar’s only complaint was that the trigger safety has a definite feel to it: when you pull the trigger, you feel a distinct two-step action from inside the weapon as the safety disengages and the striker releases. But it’s very faint, and by the third or fourth shot, we stopped noticing it.)

So the Царица wants more time with it, which is fine. The Czar was willing to purchase this for her as the other part of her Christmas present, but she asked for a return to the range after a little while so she could fire it again after a period of time to see if her positive opinions matched. However, the Царица believes this is a finalist in her personal trials for an everyday carry firearm. Right now that category consists of the G43 and nothing else, so this might be a pretty lopsided competition.

GorT read (and re-read) Czar’s post from earlier today. It hit home. It rang true. GorT knows the same types on both sides of the aisle. GorT is frequently one of those bemoaning what passes for political leadership in today’s America.

If, keeping with Czar’s post’s title, it doesn’t take a village to be as stupid as we are with the current crop of politicians, I’d argue that there’s this other village just down the road. People have been slowly walking down the path to the village and cautiously looking around. Then, in finding alike souls, they sit around the fire and tell tales. Tales that speak of smaller federal government, adherence to the federal-state relationships outlined in the Constitution (n.b. 10th Amendment), smarter use of funds, and attention to fiscal health. Many heads nod around the flickering light and hope rises in each of their souls. Then, they trudge back home to the other village and shake their heads and ask one simple question: when?

I really do think that an enterprising GOP could really shake things up…but it is highly unlikely. See, the cycle of elections and the power is a pretty high barrier for change. We’ll hear the usual arguments against it – loss of “institutional knowledge”, “but this is the way we’ve always done it”, etc. And those in power will fight against it if for no other reason that pure job preservation. At that, my friends, is the root of the problem.

The “institutional knowledge” issue doesn’t bug me – in fact, I’d argue that it might be better to start with a clean slate. When someone asks why we should change what we’re doing, ask them, as an example, if they think that multiple Continuing Resolutions are the way to fund the federal government and the work being done by industry for them? No, the real nut to crack is when we need an institution such as the GOP or the Democrat Party to change, we’re asking them to change or lose their job. That’s a tall order. But, GorT is convinced that we’ve arrived at that place. We need a serious change to the political parties and the way they run the federal government. It shouldn’t be the industry it is. Clearly it has a function and some of those functions have developed post-Constitution. However, we should be very careful with what power and control is granted to the federal government that the state or local governments can’t do.

You are all welcome to walk down that road to the other village. If I had to guess, I’d say the population doesn’t care about your gender, race, or religion. It doesn’t care if you’re rich or poor as long as you’re trying to be a constructively contributing member of society. The society will provide some amount of help for those falling on hard times. The village cares about the law and is going to follow it. No one is above it and no one is going to abuse it for their own gain or to put down others. The village is going to start at the cul-de-sac and local street and work upwards with limited services being managed by the broader government. If either of the current political parties could tap into that, I’d think they’d be doing this country a world of good.  Well, at least a village of good.

A few days ago, amidst the revelation that Mario Batali was one of the latest in a long and growing list of public figures embroiled in sexual misconduct and abuse issues, I posited the following on Twitter regarding the revelation:

Not exactly surprised either. Again, an industry that develops hierarchies of power much like politics and media.

Mo (see this post for more info) – one of our fabulous friends online responded that I might be onto something. I thought about it for a while and had some additional thoughts.

Yes, I think industries where stricter hierarchies of power and decision-making exist are more susceptible to these kinds of corruptions. Politics, clearly. Hollywood, check. And yes, with the rise of the celebrity chef and the foodie craze, the restaurant and cooking scene as well. All have that organizational control model. When you hear the survivors (I think that’s the current preferred term) speak and use phrases like, “I thought I had to do X in order to keep my job or advance my career,” that’s a clear signal. And make no mistake, with the deviants that are out there, the survivors (while predominately so) aren’t limited to just women. Regardless, it’s a horrible situation that should be ended. Now. Having said that, keep in mind that everyone is afforded due process and shouldn’t be judged guilty out of the chute. It’s a tight line to walk and a troubling one.

I’d wager there are other industries that are prone to this kind of power structure. Maybe ones that we haven’t seen or heard from yet as these revelations are made.

Finally, I think this lends more support to the argument favoring term limits for politicians. Many will argue that institutional knowledge will suffer. Or that the careerists (staffers) that remain from administration to administration will rise in power and suffer from these same corruptions. But, I think that might be easier to address. If politicians can’t establish these power structures, imagine the reduction in both potential and actual corruption and abuse (sexual or otherwise) that we’d experience.

The House today passed a bill to allow interstate reciprocity of concealed carry. As you expect, social media is having a freak out over this, since of course a peaceful gun owner carrying his legal weapon into another peaceful state automatically means he becomes a raving lunatic.

As you know, the folks opposed to firearms are the real gun fanatics, because they’re completely unhinged on the subject and refuse to consider any facts on the issue. Most states already allow reciprocity. Like drivers licenses and gay marriage, states would be compelled to honor another’s sovereignty. The Czar need not point out that the news media and its social media stooges are crazy-nuts over this, proving they understand neither how Congress works (the House advanced a bill to the Senate; it has not declared anything law because Congress cannot do that), how concealed carry works (the only states that don’t allow it have even fewer requirements), and certainly don’t get what reciprocity means (“So this means some nut from a red state can totally trample on my blue state rights????”).

The bill, incidentally, received a lot of support from Democrats and a fair amount of opposition from Republicans. It increases—some say enhances—background checks to prevent some of the missteps that allowed recent mass murderers access to firearms they should not have had, and does not allow for Constitutional (“anything goes”) carry.

The intent of the bill is to prevent people legally licensed to carry a weapon in a concealed form from being arrested simply because they pass through another state. This is already the law in most states—although Illinois is perceived as one of the unfriendliest gun states, your Utah or Florida permit is acknowledged here. Not a big deal, right?

Well, that’s great if you’re a Utah resident and pass through Illinois. But if your drive takes you into New York, good luck—your concealed carry permit does not protect you very much, as you have to go through a lengthy and intentionally difficult process before local law enforcement—not elected and not challengeable—decides whether you can carry. That’s not reasonable law—for either the Utah visitor or a New York resident—and that’s what the bill attempts to correct.

Now, as everyone outside of the liberal world understands, the bill moves to the Senate. Its fate there is unknown—the party lines are tighter, but because some Republicans and Democrats are switching sides on this issue, one can’t say for sure whether it goes to the President (who has previously said he would sign it into law). It may actually garner enough support to be filibuster-proof, but whether that means it makes it into law will be anyone’s guess. The Czar expects it will pass, but barely.

And even if it does pass and President Trump signs it, what then? There is no guarantee the law can be easily applied. If you have a license to drive in North Carolina, you can drive in North Dakota, say bill supporters. This is true, but you are expected to obey North Dakota laws while there. The “drivers license” analogy falls flat—in fact, that’s pretty much what the law allows right now.

Further, federal law doesn’t require any state to honor any other’s drivers licenses: this form of reciprocity is a voluntary compact. Okay, but then consider this—driving isn’t a fundamental right. Indeed, it’s not even a broad right—it’s a privilege, as those of us old enough to remember grade school classes on the Constitution. Access to a weapon is a fundamental right, and driving isn’t. States are not allowed different laws for what’s allowed under freedom of speech, or your right to an attorney, and all 50 states agree on what “double jeopardy” means. Shouldn’t they all agree on what “concealed carry” allows?

Not helping any of this is that the House bill is cloaked in terms of the U.S. Commerce Clause, meaning that the Federal government has an overwhelming interest in ensuring national reciprocity for reasons only the bill writers truly understand (“necessary and proper”). Of course, conservatives should bristle at this, because so much of Obamacare, New Deal legislation, and welfare programs were jammed down our throats under that guise. While you may support the use of the Commerce Clause because it at least advances the bill into law, remember that the U.S. Commerce Clause almost invariably results in expanded government.

But maybe that’s not the point. Maybe the whole point is, indeed, getting the bill into law. Because then, once passed, it’s immediately appealed. As it moves back and forth through challenges and stays and upholdings, it works its way to the U.S. Supreme Court, who could agree in a split-decision that the law is unconstitutional under the Commerce Clause, but is unnecessary because Americans have a fundamental right to carry a weapon across state lines.

That then advances the next step—constitutional carry. If the Czar can carry a weapon openly or concealed in Arkansas, with no concern, why can’t he do so in California?

One thing is clear about firearms—legal challenges are the only way to get the Second Amendment recognized.

Every day, every doofus you hate in politics, media, and entertainment seems to be lining up for the fire exits. In fact, we’re seeing anywhere from three-to-five sex creeps being shown the door. At this rate, there will be no one left in the Washington, New York, or Hollywood spotlights by 2019, and the Czar, for one, cannot wait for this glorious golden age.

Let’s be honest here. These three epicenters of distaste have needed cleaning out since they were begun in 1776, 1880, and 1910, respectively. They were started as boys clubs, and they continued to be so. None of this is news: sex scandals go back to the earliest days of these institutions, with confirmed rumors of wild parties, perversity, and virtual or literal sex slavery. Do we really think the addition of women, people of color, and opposite orientation would magically eliminate the Delta Houses that run our culture? Actually, the 21st Century is showing that maybe, yeah, it can.

When the stories started to break about Harvey Weinstein a couple months ago, thousands of people correctly prognosticated that we have just lit the first match in this bonfire. And almost immediately, people waited for the political and media titans to follow. If you yourself did not make such a prediction, let the Czar explain to you why this was such an easy call for them to make. It requires no special genius or gift of foresight.

When child predators want to get closer to their victims, they pursue certain lines of work. (Ah! The Czar sees about two-thirds of you already figured out the trick.) For a long time, these monsters went into the priesthood, education, scouting, or park districts…because it was an easy way to be left alone with a group of potential victims. Starting in the 1970s, the first accusations began to be taken seriously, and by the 1990s, the floodgates were open. Today, a huge population of people on social media still believe that 99% of priests, scout leaders, and social workers are all unbridled child molesters and rapists…although they tend to be pretty blind to the abuse going on in teachers’ unions.

The reality is that most of these organizations began to clean house twenty years ago…maybe not as fast as they could have, and indeed many monsters still lurk in daylight. But the big broom cleaned out most of them, and the same thing is just beginning to happen in politics, media, and entertainment.

And that brings us to the easy prediction: there’s a certain personality defect that thinks it’s perfectly okay to grab women like a hungry person grabs melons* or thinks it’s fine to treat women like toys or personal property. And where do they go? Into places where they can be left alone with a group of potential victims. Look, there are a lot of women desperate to make it in politics, in the news media, or in acting. And while few of them are very dumb, just enough of them can be bullied into silence by threats of lawsuits and financial or career reprisals to make depredation as easy as grenade-fishing.**

So if you’re one of these sleazy guys, what do you do? Do you go into the real world where some woman will spray oleo resin capsicum into your face, or she or a significant other will put a fist into your throat? No—you go into the world of politics, mass media, or entertainment where pickings are easier. Heck, if you’re Senator Al Franken, maybe you do all three.

When you spot a politician who tries to break into the mainstream media, maybe you should be a little suspicious. When you see a news reader become more of a movie or television celebrity, you should suspect maybe he’s a little dirty, too. When you see an actor spout off about politics, be sure to wash your hands after shaking his. The more of these three circles a guy moves around in, you should expect he’s got a story or twenty that he wants kept really, really quiet.

*See what the Czar did there? He’s so much more classy than ‘Puter.
** Something else ‘Puter does with reckless abandon. The grenade-fishing part; not so much the depredation. He saves that for Twitter.

If you’ve been anywhere near Pinterest for the last 50 years, you know that Disney characters are even more interesting than smoking meats, building your own water filtration system, or ripping down Confederate statues. And the ability to draw a Disney character (really, any Disney character) elevates you to the level of godhood. In fact, no matter how new you are at art or how little experience you have, it’s essential to upload everything you have ever drawn to the internet so that the entire world can scoff at your incompetence.

So with that in mind, the Czar decided to run an experiment to see how each of the major Castle dwellers could draw a Disney character. We shan’t spoil the results, but we will say efforts were somewhat mixed, like that’s some surprise to you. The Czar didn’t require much effort to find a suitable subject: he simply did what he always does, and looked through an 11-year-old girl’s bedroom window to see what artwork she had on her wall. And there among all the pictures of someone named “Aiden,” he found a Disney character. This was easy to find on the internet, and the Czar could have simply done that, except that’s not nearly as fun. The picture you see here is a fish named Dory, from a movie the Czar recollects is named Finding Minnow. It seems she is a forgetful fish, and her character is hilarious because she suffers from obvious trauma to her hippocampus, which is always funny.

Dr. J.’s effort is pretty darn solid, even if he did apparently manage to set fire to the paper. We’re not quite sure he’s got the eyes right, but when you’re possessed by the Dark Side of the Force, or whatever, you probably assume everybody has crossed over. We asked him how he felt about his attempt, and he said it was “Good,” even “Gooood!” This is probably worth printing out and hanging up on the refrigerator. So go ahead, and we’ll wait while you do that.

He signed it, too, which is surprising. He sent us a very nice thank you note the other day, and it took like 6 attempts to read it because his handwriting is so terrible. Volgi has good handwriting, by the way. It’s very cool; it looks like he wrote the Voynich manuscript…which, as you know….

Speaking of obvious head trauma, Ghettoputer did a very nice job and managed to keep his paper clean of fecal smears. That’s definitely a fish, although it’s orange and not blue, and is facing the wrong way entirely. Also, the Czar is pretty clear that this fish has boobs. We have to give ‘Puter some credit for understanding Dory is a female character.

The Czar asked ‘Puter if those are bubbles around her head, since fish live in the water. He didn’t seem to get that, despite several attempts to explain, and finally confessed that, as he interprets the character, the fish is drunk because she’s a girl. We had GorT find the movie in his thumb drive (it’s literally his thumb), and ‘Puter has been watching it constantly for the last few days. His goal is to memorize and sing all the songs in the film for our annual talent show, and he continues to watch hoping a song appears in it at some point.

And that mention of GorT brings us to his attempt. Here it is. Basically, it’s a four-bit scan of the image that he wirelessly sent to a printer located somewhere in his lower back. Yes, he still uses thermal paper, but it’s what you would expect.

“You know, I could have done better,” GorT said to us, “but I just didn’t have the time.” This cracks us up: for a time traveling robot, who can go back in time repeatedly as often as he pleases, he never seems to have much time for anything. You’d think a time traveler would have better time management. As you frequently hear us mutter, if you don’t have time to do it right, you don’t have time to do it over. GorT chose to do neither, and, well, there we are. Fish have gray scales, apparently. And like ‘Puter’s fish, this one is pretty pixelated, too.

The Volgi, who apologizes for being so busy but he requires an entire week to get the stuff done that you typically do in a single afternoon, looked at the picture, nodded, and turned to head up to his room. “Are you doing one?” we asked. “Verily, I shall,” he replied. “Um, don’t you want to take the picture with you?” we suggested. “The master needs no model for his efforts; he merely looks within.”

He says crap like this all the time, and calls them analects. Anyway, he came downstairs about three weeks later and handed us this. It’s very nice, but it’s a carp. Personally, we think he really should have taken the fricking Dory picture upstairs with him, maybe looked at for more than ten seconds, but whatever: this picture is for sale in our gift shop and it’s worth probably $200 at a minimum. So we all win.

Hey, here’s the Czar‘s attempt. The Czar does like to draw, and he spent a fair amount of his younger years sketching and doodling stuff. Unfortunately, most of our efforts wind up looking like this. Not sure what we were so upset about that caused us to ruin another sheet of paper like this, but it was almost certainly related to that idiot cousin of ours who stole the true throne of Muscovy from us back in 1283. We know this looks bad, but don’t be grossed out: that isn’t fish blood.

Of course, we know you think we just grabbed something off the large pile of blood-soaked papers in our chambers, but if you look carefully, you will see that we took the time to write «Доры эта рыба», which helpfully informs the casual viewer that “Dory, that is a fish.” We must have been pretty pissed at somebody that afternoon.

“What the fresh hell is this?” you’re probably asking, and you’d be right. The Mandarin doesn’t exactly see the universe the way we do since he spends so little time in it. We keep looking at this, and from certain angles it kind of gets interesting, but it’s really not any type of fish we’ve ever seen. “Look closer,” the Mandarin said. “Maybe it’s one of those stupid magic eye things where a three-dimensional fish appears,” we said, and like a dumbass we walked around the Castle with this inches from our nose, bashing into things. “Well, sorta,” the Mandarin admitted. “But if don’t limit yourself to three dimensions,” which is the sort of crap he says all the time.

Great, so here are stumbling into furniture and guests and whatnot, and the Czar not only fails to see Dory in n-dimensional space, but he sees almost no blue at all in the picture. We showed it to some passing guest in the lobby, and we asked her “Does this look like a damned royal blue tang?” and all she did was say “I obey him in all things.”

So there’s that. Anyway, we have all but Volgi’s laying around the lobby of the Castle, so swing by and take a look. It does appear that GorT’s is being used as a coaster, at the moment, but maybe he could have spend more than 4 milliseconds on his. And maybe his would be in the gift shop, too.

A few of us discuss eating out, restaurant experiences, and other food topics

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Fortunately, there’s nothing preventing her from enjoying the outdoors on the same level as any scout. And that’s true for anybody of any age. Although the Царица was a (gold) Girl Scout herself, she agrees that the modern program lacks authenticity. However, she capitalized on everything she could outside of scouts to spend time outdoors. Today, as many of you know, the Царица is an avid fisherwoman, hiker, camper, and loves archery and firearms. She doesn’t hunt, although she’d love to use her bow to bag a turkey for us to eat. Never learned any of that in scouts…she just associates with people who can teach her things, and she learned everything she could.

And there’s nothing unusual about a third grader fieldstripping a 1911…you might find that lots of boys and girls know how to do it. And I mean lots. Anyway, you’re doing everything right as a parent, as the Czar sees it, and you better get some really nice gifts from the family this holiday season.

The Czar received a fair amount of email and social media comments about the recent decision about the Boy Scouts of America’s decision to allow in girls, most of it negative. The Czar’s own opinions are available on this site, as are GorT’s. So the Czar wanted to give you an update from inside the ranks, so to speak.

Most leaders are pretty hopping mad about the way the decision was carried out. Overall, most troop leaders are not opposed to the idea per se, but feel the following might have been a more intelligent strategy:

1. Announce to the leaders, internally, that polls are showing a large request for girls to enter the ranks of the BSA and Cub Scouts.
2. Indicate that BSA is willing to entertain the idea, but will not vote on this for one year.
3. Work with Girl Scouts of America to offer assistance in re-vamping their program to prevent the need for BSA to bring in girls. If they refuse to modify their program, quietly but firmly indicate that the BSA will then be forced to admit girls at the expense of the GSA program. Basically make them an offer they can’t refuse.
4. During that year-long period, review comments from local troop leaders as well as solicit ideas from the public, for and against. Local councils should host meetings as well to determine whether opinions vary geographically.
5. Vote on this as a national organization.
6. After this is approved, announce a one-year delay on bringing girls into Cub Scouts until existing manuals, training materials, and organizational structures can be changed over.
7. Bring packs up one year at a time, until girls are old enough to enter into Boy Scouts (age 11), by which time BSA will have changed over those materials as well.

The only step that happened was number 5. Since then, the BSA has confirmed that boys and girls will not be mixed, stipulating that the concerns of many parents and scouts about mixed packs and troops are valid and justified. However, as GorT will tell you, the BSA is one lawsuit away from a transgender scout demanding crossover.

Overall, scout leaders are pretty pissed, and are telling their local councils that they anticipate the rollout will happen the way gay scouts (and leaders) and 5-year-old cub scouts was handled: a national announcement, and then local troops and packs are left to figure out the details, resulting in total chaos. The Czar is encouraged that the national organization is well aware that mixing boys and girls (especially teens) could be a recipe for disaster, but sympathizes with local leaders that they need a little more information than what they’ve received so far.

Our local scout master in Muscovy learned of the decision off Facebook, two hours before that night’s scout meeting. He’s not opposed to girls entering the BSA in general, but feels this announcement was an unwelcome surprise. He’s already received two inquiries from parents looking to have their girls enter cub scouts, but politely informed the parents to contact the national organization for next steps, as he has absolutely no direction on what to do. And, it turns out, because he can’t mix girls and boys in the same pack or troop, he can’t help them anyway.

This continues to remain interesting, and the Czar is delighted so many people are watching nationally.

Your Gormogons in high school, rocking their Mexican tuxedos before junior prom. (Not pictured: Doc)

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. Call me Ishmael. Hop on Pop. Dear Penthouse Forum. All great stories start with a memorable opening line. Not this one.

‘Puter really should start with some backstory. But, ‘Puter being ‘Puter, he won’t. The reader will just have to figure out Meaux and ‘Puter’s preexisting relationship for themselves.**

Our story begins in high school. ‘Puter and Meaux attended the same high school, which is odd because ‘Puter attended an all-male Jesuit school in DC and Meaux went to some Sconnie public school co-ed hellhole. But that’s not important right now.

Meaux was a vision of loveliness. She was a cheerleader, ran with the cool kids, and had the bitchin’-est beauty school perm of anyone in school.*** ‘Puter wasn’t any of that. ‘Puter was chubby, obnoxious, wore wide-wale corduroys, and had a bowl cut. ‘Puter and Meaux were anchoring two very distinct ends of the high school cool bell curve.

One day as classes were changing, Meaux stopped ‘Puter in the hall. ‘Puter remembers it as if it were yesterday. ‘Puter was in shock and, to be honest, a bit in awe. The early morning autumn sun glinted off Meaux’s dime-store permed hair as it does off a new Brillo pad. Meaux smiled her most fetching crooked smile, the drool pooling at the corner of her mouth only barely noticeable as it dripped in a near-constant stream to the linoleum below. Meaux clutched her Hello Kitty Trapper Keeper tight to her chest, popped her massive wad of Big League Chew gum, and asked ‘Puter to be her date at the movies that night, her treat. ‘Puter managed to control his bladder and squeaked out a barely audible, “Sure. Whatever.”

As Meaux languidly glided down the crowded hallway trailed by her phalanx of cheerleaders (tripping only twice and managing for once to avoid walking face first into the glass principal’s office door), ‘Puter nervously farted as he wondered what had just happened.

‘Puter arrived early for the 7:30 showing of “My Little Ponies” at Downtown Cineplex and Gun Shop and waited nervously outside for Meaux to arrive. Five minutes before the show was to begin, a small plane flew over trailing a banner reading, “’Puter, Meet Me Inside. Meaux.”**** Never one to disobey a plane-dragged sign, ‘Puter dutifully bought a ticket and went inside to find Meaux.

The previews had already started, and the theater was nearly dark. ‘Puter couldn’t find Meaux anywhere. Eventually, ‘Puter grabbed a seat and waited for Meaux to show up. Thirty minutes passed, and no Meaux. ‘Puter told himself he hadn’t been stood up, but he knew in his pudgy, cholesterol-clogged heart he had been. After softly weeping into the sleeve of his Members Only jacket for twenty more minutes, ‘Puter collected himself and left.*****

To this day ‘Puter blames himself for not seeing it coming.

As ‘Puter walked sullenly to his car, a 1972 puke-green Dodge Dart Swinger, his wide-wale corduroys softly voop-vooping as his fat thighs rubbed together, he saw them. Meaux and her cheerleading horde clad in matching uniform skirts, tops, and Tretorns in a perfect pyramid blocking ‘Puter from getting to his car. ‘Puter’s heart stopped. He knew at this moment he’d been set up, and there were only two outcomes for him: abject humiliation or super-uber abject humiliation. ‘Puter was betting on the latter, and he was not to be disappointed.

Meaux and the Golden Cheerleader Horde expertly disassembled the pyramid and assumed their (kind of) individual identities. Mocking me merciless, they encircled me while chanting savage cheers at me. ‘Puter vaguely remembers hearing “YOU’RE A LOSER! YES YOU ARE! YOU’RE A LOSER! SO’S YOUR CAR!” and “TWO FOUR SIX EIGHT! YOU SHOULD LOSE SOME F*CKING WEIGHT!”

Jennifer Schultz and Kimmy Santorini soaped peppy school slogans and profane words all over ‘Puter’s car windows. Patti Melrose, the hot but dumb as a sack of hammers girl who wanted Meaux’s job as head cheerleader, dumped the warm remainders of her second two-liter bottle of wine cooler on ‘Puter.

‘Puter cried and covered up as the bloodthirsty pack of cheerleader set upon him like fat college girls at all you can eat Ben and Jerry’s night at the dining hall. There were fists and kicky pleated skirts and matching Tretorns and color coordinated bows everywhere. ‘Puter couldn’t tell where one cheerleader’s fist or foot ended and the next one’s began. Blows rained down on ‘Puter like dollar bills on strippers named Chlamydia and Fondue at an NBA player frequented nudie bar.

Then it got dark. Really dark. Like approaching the event horizon dark. Time slowed, and ‘Puter’s senses heightened. ‘Puter could hear the steady drip, drip, drip of Meaux’s drool hitting the ground.

‘Puter heard Meaux yell to one of the marauding cheerleaders to stop beating me for a moment and to bring her the antenna off “that crappy ride of his.” Snap! Meaux laughed menacingly, like Ursula the Sea Witch from “The Little Mermaid,” but hotter and droolier. ‘Puter heard a fast woosh. ‘Puter wasn’t sure if it was the biting early autumn winds off the Lake blowing through Meaux’s immovable perm or something else.

‘Puter soon got his answer. The crazed pack of cheerleaders parted as their alpha-Meaux approached wielding ‘Puter’s car’s antenna. A sharp crack followed, and searing pain drove ‘Puter to the edge of unconsciousness. Meaux continued beating ‘Puter with his own car’s antenna until sirens sounded in the distance. It took four cheerleaders to pull Meaux off ‘Puter.

“Meaux, if you don’t stop beating ‘Puter now, the cops will catch you, and your parents won’t let you go to the district competition where you can make out with that totally hot college guy with the Flock of Seagulls haircut who drives the team bus!”

That seemed to snap Meaux out of it. She dropped the antenna, hopped into a subordinate cheerleader’s brand new Volkswagen Golf drop-top, and slowly, lurchingly made her escape******

‘Puter regained consciousness in the hospital covered with stripes from the savage antenna beat down Meaux had put on him. The doctors say the only thing that saved ‘Puter was his Mexican tuxedo.******* Its thick denim dulled the blows enough so ‘Puter escaped with only a collapsed long, severe blood loss, and a lacerated kidney.

‘Puter returned to high school a broken man. He survived the remainder of his high school career by avoiding Meaux-positive situations like parties, the cafeteria, school hallways, the boys’ locker room, public transportation, grocery stores, Christian churches (all denominations), and the red light district.

‘Puter went on to junior college and an unaccredited law school in a vain search for respect and meaning in his pitiful life. To this day, ‘Puter has found neither.

‘Puter wonders the bleak, gray Upstate tundra, collar turned up against the frosty gales. People see ‘Puter coming from a distance. They hurry their children inside, pull their blinds, and double-check their doors are locked. I can feel their eyes upon me as I’m shaking off the cold. And I hear the hushed whispers of “Loser Matlock,” the name Meaux required the state bar association to put on my license.

I shall forever be Loser Matlock and live in shame. And it’s all because of one night in high school and a cruel, unforgiving cheerleader.

Oh, and “My Little Ponies.” Don’t forget that part.

* Sure, ‘Puter could’ve titled this “The Ballad of Meaux and ‘Puter,” but that’d just be dumb because this ballad’s all about ‘Puter. Plus, ‘Puter’s a sexist bastard who’s hell-bent on keeping women down. So there.

** ‘Puter doesn’t like boring his readers with superfluous factoids, like Meaux and ‘Puter are evil twinsies, born of the same mother. First Mom had to choose one kid for reasons that were never clear to ‘Puter, but it was probably Meaux’s doing. Meaux’s pretty damned evil. And it’s also not important to know that First Mom and Meaux set ‘Puter adrift on an ice floe in Lake Michigan in January to get rid of him. Or that ‘Puter’s Second Mom found him adrift in the reeds in Milwaukee, like a fat, white, goyim Moses. So forget all of that stuff.

*** Meaux had also learned through extensive operant conditioning to stop her involuntary and copious drooling. This small victory probably had something to do with the cool kids accepting her.

**** Remember, we 1980s kids didn’t have your fancy cell phones with your instant massaging and BDSM texting and whatnot. We had to rely on our wits and ancient technology.

***** ‘Puter’s still pissed at Meaux for making him miss the denouement of the Harvey Weinstein produced, Roman Polanski directed “My Little Ponies.” Marlon Brando won an Oscar that year for his gritty, gut-wrenching portrayal of the crack addicted Twilight Sparkle who turned to a life of prostitution and coding to support her unholy appetites. People say it’s the best performance by an actor ever, but ‘Puter just can’t bring himself to watch it. The crushing heartbreak is still too fresh.

****** The Volkswagen Golf was a standard transmission. Girls can’t drive stick. So to speak.

******* Yes, ‘Puter knows his clothing lacks continuity. STFU, already. How else was ‘Puter going to work the totally awesome wide-wale cords going “voop-voop” imagery in as well as the life-saving Mexican tuxedo, ‘Puter’s denim armor? DOO NAWT JUJ ME, PEEPUL!!

The Inscrutable Mandarin and the Czar of Muscovy have very different watchdog natures: the former tends to monitor Facebook, and the latter is more a creature of Twitter. To be more accurate, the Mandarin’s Facebook-to-Twitter ratio is about 80/20, and the Czar’s Twitter-to-Facebook ratio is closer to 100/0. However, the two of us do compare notes frequently about social media, and there is often a high degree of similarity between the two outlets; unfortunately, this is more true after a terrible firearm-related event like Las Vegas.

Pro-gun-control advocates tend to Frogger their discussion points: they ask a seemingly genuine question about the legality of something; a pro-Second Amendment responder answers the question…and is immediately challenged by a largely unrelated question. Answer that, and a third question about a different subject appears. This is largely tactical: the inquisitor wants to keep skipping around until he or she lands on a topic for which the defender has no immediate answer, and then the long knives come out.

We should add that it is possible for a pro-gun-control advocate to have a substantive discussion on a technical level. It just doesn’t seem to happen. So while a series of questions can be welcome (“Can a semiautomatic weapon be easily converted into a fully automatic one?” “What does the sear do?” “Is this even worth doing?”), the most likely exchange involves an irritating degree of Froggeration (“Can a semiautomatic weapon be easily converted into a fully automatic one?” “Why is America’s murder rate so high?” “Why does the NRA need you to have silencers?”). This Frogger effect results less from a lack of logical structure, and more from a need to set off a trap. As pro-gun-control advocates are learning over the last two decades, the pro-Second Amendment crowd is surprisingly well-equipped to deflect every one of these. On rare instances, if the deflections come often enough, the argument stops.

Originally, this essay intended to be a recap of the old arguments about Australian crime rates, the difference between semiautomatic and automatic, and other common questions. However, two things are inarguably clear:

1. A neutral piece explaining these items will not be read or even appreciated by the pro-gun-control side—that side seems deeply uninterested in fundamental information that would advance discussion, largely because the assumptions the pro-gun-control side make are so flawed that most arguments collapse.
2. The pro-Second Amendment side already has this down pat.

So what are the new arguments that are popping up on social media?

• Bump Stocks—Why are these legal? First, we recommend asking both sides if they know what a bump stock is? There’s a tremendous amount of misinformation and confusion. Be sure you can articulate what it is very simply: an attachment designed to work a trigger faster than most people can pull a trigger themselves. Remind them that bump stocks are generally pretty expensive, are considered by most shooters as a waste of ammunition since they ruin your accuracy, and are fairly rare. That said, there has as yet been no formal proof that a bump stock was even used in Las Vegas, although some variation seems probable. Both sides should be aware that a bump stock is a simple mechanical device, and that outlawing them is probably a waste of time because these things can be constructed out of Legos and a good rubber band. That’s not an exaggeration.
• Silencers—Since no one is selling a silencer, this is a waste of time to discuss. What most folks are calling silencers are in fact suppressors: a device designed to absorb some of the sound pressure (not the volume) of the gun at the end of the barrel. The confusion is understandable, since they look a bit like silencers in movies and attach to the same place. But a suppressed weapon is still extremely loud, especially at the back end where the explosions happen. A suppressor is nothing more than a muffler on a car’s exhaust system: it’s a good idea to reduce noise pollution, but it doesn’t make the car silent. There are no disadvantages to suppressors, and they have been legal in many places for decades without any adverse effects.
• Centerfire Weapons—This is a weird one, and it’s been showing up more and more. “Why does anyone need a centerfire rifle?” Since nearly all rifles, shotguns, and handguns are centerfire designs, it seems odd to question these. The best response is ask the inquisitor what makes centerfire ammunition deadlier than rimfire. Is a .380 centerfire cartridge more destructive than a 7.62mm x54R rimfire one? This one is also a waste of time to discuss, unless the inquisitor can explain what makes a centerfire design more lethal by itself, as opposed to the ultimate kinetic energy of the projectile itself.
• The Second Amendment—Eventually, you will get down to it. Here are some points to remember:
  • The Second Amendment is not a privilege allowed by the government. As with the other nine amendments in the Bill of Rights, it is a pre-existing right that exists outside of any branch or level of government.
  • The Second Amendment is not restricted to the armed forces, or it would have been covered in Article I, Section 8, where the Constitution outlines the establishment of a standing army and navy.
  • The word “arms” includes firearms as understood by the original writers. The word is not limited to flintlocks and muskets, as rifled weapons were well-understood by the general public at the time, and the fundamental functional concepts of modern weapons were already understood and in use on weapons of the time. Most of today’s so-called (and erroneously labled) assault rifles contain elements that were familiar to 18th Century hunters. The concept of a high-capacity magazine even appeared in the Siege of Copenhagen in 1658, and folding stocks and bayonets go back even earlier.
  • It’s the militias who need to be well-regulated. It’s the “right of the people,&#148 as upheld by every Supreme Court who has been asked to clarify, who have an unfringed right to keep—and bear—arms.
  • Increasingly, we see references to the word “militia” as meaning the army…and that the United States was never supposed to have a standing army. Therefore, the Second Amendment really suggests that the private individual should keep and bear arms only when serving as a defensive force in lieu of a standing army. However, Article I, Section 8, disputes this at once, by defining a Congressionally supervised and funded standing army.
  • If that’s an originalist view of the Constitution, that’s also correct because the Constitution is still a legal contract in force. All original terms and definitions apply, unless moderated by subsequent amendment. Since that hasn’t been done, one should assume the original wording of the Second Amendment still applies.

Over time, the pro-gun-control community will discover new questions and raise new challenges. In some respects, this has been a good thing: pro-Second Amendment Americans are generally exceptionally well-versed in their rights as citizens, and have come to understand and respect both firearms and the law in equal measure. However, one can reasonably predict that future counters and challenges to the Second Amendment will also be based on misreadings or a lack of understanding of the basic technology. The Mandarin and the Czar will continue to monitor social media so that you don’t have to. In fact, stay off it entirely. Let us take care of that for you.

Boy Scouts of America

GorT stopped and just stared at the news report on TV last night as they were announcing that the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) are rolling out a plan to include girls in the program. I’m not sure exactly where I want to start with this so pardon me if this post wanders.

GorT is an Eagle Scout and enjoyed his time in BSA. And, until this decision, was seriously considering getting back into Scouting in some form now that his kids are largely out of the house….maybe as a Merit Badge counselor or advisor to a local Troop. Nope. Not anymore.

First, and rightfully so, the Girl Scouts of America are a bit peeved. As the Czar points out the BSA has done a better job developing a curriculum and marketing it than the Girl Scouts. I’m not going to dive into why as it would be pure speculation on my part and, in the end, we are here today.

Second, do I think a girl can achieve Eagle Scout? Absolutely. That’s not the issue and for anyone that wants to call me sexist, you’re missing the point. I fully believe that a young lady could earn every single merit badge that I earned and complete all the requirements I did in order to earn Eagle Scout.

Third, I predict that this will only introduce and cause more issues. While BSA is only starting at the Cub Scout level and has stated that the plan is to have single-gender or mixed-gender packs with single gender dens (small groups), I think that this move opens the door for pushing the borders of that framework. It is readily apparent to many how the social dynamic and therefore attention and focus changes within adolescents and teenagers in a mixed gender environment. GorT has a good friend whose son started at a private co-ed high school. After a week or so, the father asked the son how school was going. The son responded that the classroom environment was a mess – many of the girls were angling to get attention by the boys and many boys were acting up in order to impress the girls. All the while, the teacher was trying to teach but few were paying attention. The son said you could cut the sexual tension in the classroom with a knife. Yes, the BSA seems like they are intent on segregating the genders but I’ll put a wager that this will be challenged shortly after implementation.

Which brings me to point four: the BSA’s main claim for doing this is that families are busy and it’s hard for parents to get their son to boy scouts and their daughter to girl scouts. Does anyone else see the flaws in this argument?

• Are the Boy Scouts implying that parents are choosing to get their sons to boy scouts and their girls? Well, sorry, Suzie, we are just too busy to do that. Or do they think that families are too busy that they opt not to do either and by allowing girls they will entice those families to bring both children? Pffft. Wrong.
• What happens when the local Cub Scout pack decides it is single gender – now you have to find a different Pack for your other child and then make the decision to put both your children in a different pack with a longer commute time and away from their local friends. Likely to happen? Nope.
• Assuming their is a mixed gender Pack available, many times den meetings are on different nights as they frequently leverage the same meeting space. And if the two dens actually meet in different spaces, what happens when they choose the same day and time? Back to square one.

Finally, groups like NOW (National Organization for Women) issued a statement that “the Boy Scouts have a long history of discrimination” implying that they discriminate against women. It is the BOY Scouts and there is a GIRL Scouts organization. Has Toni Van Pelt, President of NOW, issued any statements about the Girl Scouts being discriminatory against boys? As a parallel, Title IX expressly allows single-gender social organizations (fraternities and sororities).

Do I believe some of the insinuations that have been made that the Boy Scouts, whose enrollment peaked in 1972, is making this move because of declining numbers? Yes, and it’s completely the wrong move.

In GorT’s world, BSA would have quietly worked behind the scenes with the GSA to enhance their programs and offer, in some form, a path with equivalent requirements to Eagle Scout. I’d even advocate for calling it the same, having the same merit badges, etc. At the same time, the BSA should review the GSA curriculum and see where it could leverage anything. Then, the national level organizations should encourage the district-level and down to work on joint events. For example, the Pinewood Derby could be open to both. Jamborees could be held (although, just imagine having to patrol for kids crossing between the girls and boys side of the campground) with joint contests and competitions. I believe this would only improve the BSA’s image.

Also, the BSA should do a review of what has changed in society and within its programs since the 1970s. I think they’ve tried to react to the changing times with the creation of a STEM-like program and set of merit badges. I think there has been a growth and focus within society to have kids “do it all” – largely in sports. Mrs. GorT and I term some as “3-letter families” since their kid(s) is playing football (tackle or flag), soccer, and fall-ball baseball or lacrosse all in one season. BSA, and GSA for that matter, need to market what they offer and the benefits of Scouting better. And they need to not shy away from having a broad curriculum that some segments of society might attack – and advertise it. They have 137 currently active merit badges that range from teaching kids about civics to the proper handling and firing of a rifle, to cooking to nuclear science. There is goodness there. Then, they need to strengthen the local Packs and Troops. Provide guides – better guides – for parents to step up and feel confident in volunteering to run dens, packs, and troops. Emphasize that this isn’t primarily a social gathering for people to serve desserts – there is a curriculum. Follow it.*

Yes, GorT is a bit fired up about this.

* This was GorT and 3of3’s experience with the local Cub Scout pack. The adult leaders focused a significant time on what we were going to feed the kids at the monthly pack meetings. The leader was blown away by GorT’s den which completed Bobcat, Tiger and Wolf badges (before we had enough) early each year while other dens were struggling to complete in a year.

Of all places, Slate.com has a strange piece about the Boy Scouts of America considering accepting girls into their ranks, and the Girl Scouts of America being, well, kinda pissed about it.

The Czar serves as a “committee member at large” for Muscovy’s local troop, although the Troop refers to him as a “consultant at large.” The Czar, as he has mentioned before, teaches the troop (and potentially other troops, provided they ask) all sorts of outdoor and survival skills that most suburban dads haven’t mastered. As a result of this, he’s fairly hip about a lot of things going on inside the organization.

And as far as the Slate story goes, yeah, it’s true. But there’s are a couple of errors or unintentional omissions. Here they are:

1. If you count Venture Scouts, Sea Scouts, Air Scouts, and other teenager-oriented programs—which are part of the BSA, so you should—the Boy Scouts of America have had co-ed programs for decades. Girls are not a new thing to Boy Scouts, that’s for sure.
2. The story quickly wanders into child abuse allegations, even though the BSA has done an impressive job developing state-of-the-art background checks and training to prevent this. This is a tired news story from the 1980s, and it’s a stale, eye-rolling subject within scouting. “This again?” Evidently, for Slate, this is still a hot topic. Imagine if everytime we talked about Slate.com, we brought up their disastrous paywall campaign in 1998.
3. The idea to bring in girls is coming from outside the organization, not inside.

We should talk about that last one for a minute. Our troop was contacted by the local council, asking quite politely what the troop leadership’s reaction would be, positive or negative, about bringing girls into the organization. During that discussion, the council explained that BSA was getting an overwhelming number of inquiries from parents of girls about letting them join.

Politically, as we know, the Girl Scouts of America is undergoing a crisis for having been promoting Planned Parenthood and other liberal causes, and at least one Catholic archdiocese is terminating its support over the depth of it (and the Mormons have bailed on Boy Scouts for similar stipulations). However, that isn’t the whispered reason so many parents are calling in.

The reason is that parents of Girl Scouts are concerned their daughters aren’t learning anything. As readers have been reading here, the Boy Scout merit badge program is pretty robust, and many of the survival skills being taught are excellent. Too excellent, in fact—and many parents want their daughters to learn them.

Girl Scouts have a Survival Camper badge, but the requirements are incomparable to the Boy Scouts’ Wilderness Survival merit badge. They are also a far cry from what they used to be, according to the Czar’s resident expert on Girl Scouts, his wife. The Царица is herself a Gold Award recipient from the Reagan era, and wrings her hands over the dumbing down of the programs offered by the GSA: “Art in the Outdoors—Girls get outside and explore colors, shapes, light, and shadow as they create art inspired by the natural world.” Check out the current list to see more.

Now, a lot of these are pretty serious, and Czar is not mocking. But he can sympathize easily with moms and dads who believe their daughters can be much more than happy homemakers with the ability to pump their own gas. The Girl Scout program starts of age appropriate, but tends to stay on the safe side. This is within the power of Girls Scouts of America to change. Give the girls much, much more challenging opportunities. In our experience, they will succeed and even exceed.

But the real sticking point is the end game. Do you know what a Gold Award is? It’s the highest rank the girls scouts offer, and most of us have no clue what that is, what it’s called, and whether it’s easy to get. Well, it’s not easy to get, and any girl who achieves it should view it as a massive accomplishment.

Now if the Czar asked you about the Eagle Scout award, you’d probably get a sense that some massive trial was overcome, and the young man in question has gone through hell to earn it and learned something from it. That’s true—and Eagle Scouts know to put that on résumés, scholarship and financial aid forms, notify their insurance companies (some carriers offer Eagle Scouts lower premiums as they tend to be responsible drivers), job applications, and more. The Czar knows many job recruiters personally, and they all admit that Eagle Scouts get a second look almost automatically. It’s a serious fraternity.

So why does the Eagle Scout get the attention and the Gold Award recipient does not? Again, this comes down to marketing. There’s an entire website devoted to the Eagle award’s dominance. Here’s an excerpt:

The Eagle Scout Award. It’s Scouting’s highest rank and among its most familiar icons. Men who have earned it count it among their most treasured possessions. Those who missed it by a whisker remember exactly which requirement they didn’t complete. Americans from all walks of life know that being an Eagle Scout is a great honor, even if they don’t know just what the badge means.
The award is more than a badge. It’s a state of being. You are an Eagle Scout—never were. You may have received the badge as a boy, but you earn it every day as a man. In the words of the Eagle Scout Promise, you do your best each day to make your training and example, your rank and your influence count strongly for better Scouting and for better citizenship in your troop, in your community, and in your contacts with other people. And to this you pledge your sacred honor.

And here’s the Girl Scouts’ description of the Gold Award:

The Girl Scout Gold Award represents the highest achievement in Girl Scouts.

Open only to girls in high school, this prestigious award challenges you to change the world—or at least your corner of it.

By the time you put the final touches on your seven-step project, you’ll have solved a community problem—not only in the short term, but for years into the future—and you’ll be eligible for college scholarships.

Doesn’t that seem weak? Change your little corner of the world and solve a community problem? Or pledge sacred honor to lead the world into a better place?

Sure, this is quibbling, but it’s marketing, too—and the BSA is simply better at it. No wonder parents are calling in to see if their daughters can blend in. And look what else the BSA offers: leadership training programs, high adventure experiences in the outdoors, venturing, and more. The Girl Scouts have nothing competitive at this level…or perhaps, the better word is not competitive, but interesting.

For the record, the Muscovy troop leaders appreciate the value girls could bring to the troop, but we ultimately recognized that the disruption would not be worth the benefit. Instead, we came to the conclusion that the solution isn’t to bring girls into Boy Scouts, but to encourage the Girl Scouts of America to revamp their program. We understand it was softened so that girls would be more inclined to try it and stay longer, but that plan is evidently backfiring. Boy Scouts softened some things, but remained quite difficult and demanding on others. And that seems to be working a little better. The girls should give it a try.

The Czar discusses Korea

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Chances are good you haven’t heard much about the Kurdish independence vote in Iraq, which is a shame because it’s way more important than the Catalonian vote that sometimes pops up on world-news-only broadcasts.

And if you’re like most Americans, you might not know much about this at all, so here’s what’s happening. The Kurds are a nationality without a nation: they are, in fact, the largest nationality who lack a country. Back at the end of World War I, when the Ottoman Empire was divided up among the players, the Kurdish people—distinctly different from Arabs, Turks, Persians, Dari, and the other groups who live in the Middle East—found their lands divided up by almost arbitrarily drawn lines. Their homeland was quadrisected between Turkey, Iraq, Iran, and Syria.

The Kurds always assumed this was a temporary oversight, given that Kurdistan, as a national name, existed in theory since the 14th Century.

Lots of new nations didn’t like the Kurdish people. Turkey horribly oppressed them from the beginning; Iran and Syria have kept them under a tight fist, and we all remember that Saddam Hussein gassed them in 1988 while ostensibly at war with Iran, not the Iraqi province of Kurdistan.

With the fall of Iraq in the 21st Century, the Kurds of Iraq always sort of assumed their long, internal exile was over and that Iraq would be carved up again and Kurdistan would once more be a real place. This didn’t happen.

With the Syrian civil war, Kurds in Syria hoped this could be their chance, and they demonstrated their loyalty to the West by utterly punishing ISIS wherever they found them: the Kurdish fighters are absolutely stunning in terms of bravery and efficiency. Of course, this didn’t happen, either. But in the meantime, the Kurds of Iraq proved they could function as a real government, and have something like an autonomous shadow goverment in place.

Fed up at last with waiting, the Kurds of Iraq voted for independence last week, 93% of voters announced they demanded independence. What could go wrong with that?

Lots—the Turks are terrified of this, knowing that an independent Kurdistan to the East will make the Turkish Kurds inconsolable. And if they elect to join their families in Iraq, or even declare themselves independent, Turkey will suffer a massive blow economically.

Likewise, the Iranian Kurds in the South could well decide they’re done with blackguards in Tehran, and declare their independence. If Iranian Kurdistan revolts, the leaders in Tehran are smart enough to know the rest of Iran could follow…and Iran, as our readers already know, is inherently unstable and would have fallen ten years ago had Obama backed the incipient revolution. Tanks are already rolling to the Iraqi border, warily watching what the Kurds do next.

Syria, already unstable, would surely collapse if the Syrian Kurds declared themselves separate. They’re the best-performing military in Syria’s battle against ISIS.

Not surprisingly, others are against this move. Russia depends upon Kurdistan as a natural junction of its oil business, and an independent Kurdistan would change the rules and lessen Russian control in Syria. Kurdistan would have a lot of oil, and are not friendly to Russia. They are friendly to Europe and the United States, which is bad, bad, bad for Russia. And the United States, God bless us, is despairing that the Iraq we sacrificed so many American lives to free could collapse with the loss of Kurdish stability.

About the only folks rubbing their hands gleefully for the Kurds is Israel, who appreciate that the Kurds would almost certainly run their new country as a stable, free democracy that’s mostly secular. Women are treated fairly well per Kurdish tradition,* and their Muslim population is, to put it mildly, pretty easy-going. As a hint, Kurds are very tolerant of both Jews and Christians.** Plus, taking the wind out of Turkey’s and Iran’s sails would be very good for Israel’s long-term survival.

Many of their non-Kurdish neighbors are displeased: whole countries in the area have suspended business with the Iraqi Kurds, canceling flights, shutting down supply lines, and more. Iraq itself is correct that the vote is illegal because it violated Iraqi law—law that the Kurds themselves helped pass years ago. In fact, Iraq views the vote as an act of secession. Iraq is already partnering for military exercises with Turkey and Iran—if you can believe it—to demonstrate that the Kurds don’t stand a chance if they continue.

But not all Kurds are in favor of independence. Many are declaring the vote a symbolic gesture: the truth is that Kurdistan would start off badly in debt, with a government not quite mature enough to avoid catastrophic, early mistakes. Independence, yes, but not just yet. This is something the United States does support, and we have advised them to take this in baby steps.

The Czar’s view? Well, he’s a bit sympathetic to the good folks of Kurdistan. If they can organize themselves, if they can restructure their debt, and if they can guarantee first-world freedoms, then yes—the sacrifice made by so many Americans will be justified if Kurdistan can create a stable, peace-loving democracy in the most unstable, bloodthirsty, and medieval region in the world. It’s about time our investments there paid off. And Kurdistan could do it.

Yet, if Iran, Turkey, and Syria suffer as a result of oppressing the people of Kurdistan for over 100 years, that’s just gravy.

* Still some work to be done.
**Compared to their neighbors, that is.

Eddie Murphy’s iconic SNL character Buckwheat today tweeted his disgust with Colin Kaepernick and called for Kaepernick to get his own hairdo. Kaepernick, currently employed as the last resort booty call of the horrible woman who ruined his career, could not be reached for comment at his home in a van down by the river.

Rule 1: Americans don’t like being lectured.

Rule 1 is the only hard and fast rule applicable to all Americans. Think about it. What other generalization can you make that covers the trailer park junkie in rural West Virginia, the inner city gang member dodging bullets in Chicago, smug, liberal, bubble-dwelling Ivy League professors, and richer-than-Croesus captains of industry?

‘Puter can almost hear his three loyal readers crying out, “So what, ‘Puter?”

Here’s what. Professional sports decided to violate Rule 1 and are paying the price.

It started innocently enough. Colin Kaepernick started dating a hard Left, socialist, “activist and radio DJ.”  As one might imagine, her politics are a bit to the Left of America’s in general. Kaepernick fell under the seductive spell of politics and pussy (mostly the latter), grew out his hair, and decided to stick it to Whitey T. Mann at his place of employment by refusing to stand during our national anthem.

As with all things political now, a third of the country screamed “YEAH! STIK IT 2 DEM RAYCISS BASTIDS!!!,” a third of the country screamed “BUTT MUH FLAGS!!!,” and a third of the country screamed, “WOOD U ASSHATS LEEV UR POLITIX OUTTA MUH FUTBAL??!?”

Last season, the NFL decided to ride out Kaepernick’s ill-advised tantrum, allowing him to continue his juvenile protest without interference. Kaepernick’s corrosive asshattery spread to several other players across the League, but for the most part, it didn’t really catch on.

His protest didn’t catch on mostly because arguing a League full of rich black people is racist may be the dumbest thing ever uttered by an “activist and radio DJ’s” f*ck buddy, and there’s a lot of fertile ground there.

But Kaepernick’s protest did have an impact, albeit unintended. The NFL, television’s ratings juggernaut, saw its ratings plunge and game attendance drop. A large subset of Americans voted with their remotes for a variety of reasons ranging from anger at Kaepernick’s disrespect for the flag to disgust with the politicization of an apolitical sport.

Americans’ revolt (and revulsion) had been growing for years. Kaepernick was merely the precipitating event. Americans watch sports to *avoid* politics, not to wallow in them. ESPN started the long march to politicizing sports by injecting liberal political tropes into everything. Professional athletes began believing ESPN’s hype (and their mostly false assertions that pro athletes are smart and thoughtful enough to have cogent opinions on anything) and taking political stances including refusing to travel to the White House for presidential recognition if they didn’t like its occupant.

To the point, Americans don’t like being lectured. Americans like being lectured even less in a time, place, or manner inappropriate for such lectures, say, for example, during the national anthem at a professional sporting event. Or by coddled rich children who refuse to respect the office of the president regardless of its occupant. Show up, shut up, shake hands, leave. Is that too much to ask for the millions you make for playing a game? Apparently it is.

Americans really, really don’t like being lectured by rich people or stupid people. We don’t like being lectured about racism by a guy who went to college for free and was paid millions to play a child’s game at the highest level. We don’t like being told by morons who get paid to read cue cards and talk out their asses about children’s games that we’re racist if we don’t hate our country. We don’t think your Harvard degree or ability to put a ball through a hoop gives you special insight into intractable issues facing the country. Quite the opposite, in fact.

Honestly, most Americans want to be left alone. We don’t need a “safe space,” because we know there’s no such thing. We just want a place where we can go and forget about the world and all its problems for a while. Sports afforded America this escapist place. Sports had a special role in America. No longer.

Professional athletes, NFL teams, and ESPN may be entitled to lecture us on the “correct” politics and the “correct” views on racial issues. But Americans aren’t required to listen, and none of them should be surprised when a large chunk of America changes the channel.

Professional athletes, their leagues, and the chattering class that “reports” on them would do well to remember Rule 1.

But they won’t.

The Gormos gather in the rumpus room and talk about movies

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Gormos discuss elites and their affects

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GorT sent us a memo last week stipulating that he was going to do a series on scouting, particularly on merit badges. The Czar serves officially as a “committee member at large” for his boys’ scout troop, although everyone refers to him as a “consultant.” Like Liam Neeson in Taken, the Czar is consulted on all manners of special training: firecraft, knots, navigation, wilderness survival, and so on. He is, in fact, an official merit badge counsellor for various related merit badges, and unofficially guides the many scouts in Muscovy’s troop in all sorts of other badges.

Wilderness Survival, which the Czar teaches for the BSA.

• First Aid
• Citizenship in the Community
• Citizenship in the Nation
• Citizenship in the World
• Communication
• Personal Fitness
• Emergency Preparedness or Lifesaving
• Environmental Science or Sustainability
• Personal Management
• Swimming or Hiking or Cycling
• Camping
• Cooking
• Family Life

If you’re interested in the requirements for each—you may be shocked at the level of difficulty—these are widely available online.

Scouting isn’t all about merit badges, of course—to be promoted from rank to rank, there are all sorts of physical activities to master, documented community service hours to provide, primitive camping in all weather and seasons to perform, and a lot of adventure-type events to do. As GorT notes, each troop is different from the others, and the amount parents become involved and resources are available will dramatically affect the scout’s experiences: in our troop, scouts also learn climbing, survival, archery (typically), flag care, construction-related skills, and so on. Other troops do different things, but troops often share resources and get along great.

Back to the merit badges. Most adults think of these from the context of Cub Scouts or Brownies. Build a bird house kit, and you’re now a Construction Expert! Draw a map, and you’re a World Traveller! Make a hot dog, and you’re a Chef!

Boy Scouts merit badges are often very, very difficult. Parents cannot help, except to provide distant guidance or to coordinate getting the scout from point to point. Merit badge counselors are individuals who are experts in a particular avenue, and review each and every requirement with the scout to ensure there is fundamental understanding of the concepts. There’s no skating by or coasting through: it can take months or even a year to earn a single badge.

Take the Personal Managment one. It’s practically an “adulting” course: investing, understanding the different types of loans, using a credit card correctly, budgeting, writing business plans, knowing how the stock market works and what all the terms mean, and so on. Family Life sounds like a blowoff, but in fact teaches the boys how to do household tasks. It’s not listed explicitly, but the boys are taught to vacuum correctly, wash dishes, do laundry, and anything else mom wants out of for 90+ days. The counselors all know that “brushing teeth,” “combing hair,” and so on, do not meet the requirements for five or more chores. Chores also cannot be season or occasional: no lawn mowing or leaf raking—they have to be daily or weekly, so that by the end of 90 days, the scout actually knows how to do this stuff.

Does it stick? So far so good, but the Czar will defer to the Mandarin—Mandy learned how to fold laundry earning this merit badge, and damn if he doesn’t fold a shirt into a perfect square in one freaking move every single time, decades later. We assume GorT can do it, too.

Merit badges are probably the one area the Czar plays defense on harder than anything. For all the ribbing or ignorant comments people give us about Boy Scouts, by far the most pervasive one is on the difficulty level of merit badges. Yes, there are some easy ones (Indian Lore), and some frankly weird ones (Nuclear Science), but the Czar is happy to challenge any homemade AR-15-purchasing badass with just-out-of-the-box Leupold scope to meet or beat the requirements for the Rifle Shooting or “Riflery” badge the way the scouts do it—a cold .22 LR rifle with unzeroed iron sights, getting three holes in a quarter-size group five times at 50 feet. Bear in mind, at that distance, the front sight completely covers the entire target, so you have to shoot almost instinctively. And that’s just one requirement in that badge.

Or take a look at Personal Fitness, which gives you 12 weeks to show progress, each week, in a variety of physical fitness challenges. Can you run a mile? Maybe you can walk a mile, but you then need to improve your time each week for 12 weeks. If you fail to do so one week, you run it again that week until you exceed. Ditto for push-ups, pull-ups, sit-ups, and so on: after 12 weeks of this, we saw kids unable to do a couple sit-ups spanking out 70 or more. Everyone passed, to give you an idea of how focused this was. The Czar had his doubts, looking at some of these muffins, but it’s amazing to watch a doughy kid, after 12 weeks, suddenly execute military-style pull-ups one after the other.

Well, we could go on and on, but the point is that the merit badge program is astonishingly good. If all you do is read the list of the 134-or-so names, you might raise an eyebrow. But read the requirements. Game Design? Actually, it’s about psychological game theory, not video games. Canoeing? You can eventually do a high-speed obstacle course. Search and Rescue? You learn UTM, dividing geographical areas into search sectors, managing SAR teams, and more.

It’s tough stuff. But it’s even more impressive to see an 11-year-old perform dead reckoning with a handheld compass and a blank map two weeks after not knowing where North was.

A week or so ago, GorT came across his old merit badge sash from when he was a boy scout*. Since then I have been mulling over doing a series of posts on Scouting in general and some of the merit badges based on in-person and Twitter conversations.

First, a few thoughts and one opinion on Scouting:

• Scouting has a parallel to our federal system of government: there is a national organization that is composed of many local councils that serve as the organizing group for a geographic region (I was a scout and currently live in the NCAC – National Capital Area Council, which actually encompasses most of the Washington, DC metro area plus the US Virgin Islands and US citizens abroad in North and South America) and each council has many troops – the group that is your immediate organizing unit. Each council and troop does things a bit differently, but operate within the parameters set by the national level organization.
• A boy’s experience with scouting is hugely dependent on the local troop (or “pack” for Cub Scouts) and parental involvement. I count myself lucky that both were in place for my experience – I had a very active troop and parents who were supportive, involved, and pushed me to do my best. Unfortunately, my son’s experience with the local Cub Scout pack wasn’t good (nor was my experience at the adult level).
• Opinion: politics shouldn’t be mixed with Boy Scouts. Don’t look for political positions from them and don’t impose them upon the organizations. The Boy Scouts are a group aimed at teaching and growing young boys into young men with useful skills and admirable traits.

To orient those unfamiliar, boys enter Boy Scouts at the rank of “Scout” and progress through six ranks: Tenderfoot, Second Class, First Class, Star, Life, and Eagle. A number of your Gormogons are involved in scouting – GorT earned Eagle and a number of additional merit badges. When I was a scout, we had “belt loop skills” to earn as well – there was a total of 12 available and I think 8 were required. Over the years, the requirements for Eagle have been relatively stable at 21 merit badges (12 required), a service project, and other scouting knowledge and skills.

In subsequent posts, GorT will talk about various aspects of his scouting experience and merit badges. Some of the other Gormogons might jump in with their views.

* Of course with the recent packing for college, I can’t find it right now, but I’ll add a picture later

The following essay is a guest post from JAB, of the Double-Wide. We remind our readers that you are welcome to submit your thoughts either as an email or as a complete essay.

Since the Trailer-Park-at-the-Edge-of-Town is a bit southwest of the “Zone of Totality,” our humble domicile did not experience a complete, total 100% solar eclipse Monday afternoon, but it was close enough for me. Pretty cool to watch (through the goofy glasses natch!), and it was as a demonstration of nature’s power, especially when the birds stopped chirping in the midday darkness. Many multitudes gathered along the path of the “Zone of Totality” in places like Hopkinsville, KY and Carbondale, IL. So determined to get that bona fide 100% eclipse were the masses, that I know of farmers along the route who rented out pastures for pop-up camp sites. I was in the Atlanta airport Tuesday, and I lost count of the number of times I heard folks say that they “just flew in for the eclipse.” But even though most of us did not see maximum eclipse, events of the last couple weeks make it feel like we are all living in a “Zone of Totality.” Please permit me to elaborate and bloviate.

After weeks of publicity, with local permits secured thanks to the assistance of the ACLU (which I bet they just hated), a couple hundred morons with nothing better to do on a Friday night, marched around a statue of Robert E. Lee wearing Nazi garb and bearing tiki-torches. But that was about all that happened. The first amendment applies even to idiots venerating losers, right? Out of a nation of 300 million or so, they managed to gather only about a couple hundred “jungend-mit-tiki.” I call that pretty encouraging. As an aside, I do wonder how many of those “jungend-mit-tiki” might be the grandsons or great-grandsons of men who fought to eradicate the Nazi’s (actual, not the tiki-kind) in WWII? If Granddaddy, he of the Greatest Generation, is still around and kicking, here’s hoping he might lay a little education on his ignorant descendant(s).

But then came Saturday, when well-intentioned citizenry came out in great numbers to voice their disapproval of the “jungend-mit-tiki.” That was their right. However, I hope I can be forgiven for wondering why didn’t they simply ignore the moronic neo-Nazi’s? Well-intentioned though most of them were, they ignored the fact that the “jungend-mit-tiki” were seeking publicity. Which they were given in spades, because in addition to the well-intentioned majority, there was a substantial minority of anarcho-communist-black bloc members armed with staves and urine-filled balloons [what low-life does that???]. But in the “Zone of Totality,” there can be no recognition that a couple hundred “jungend-mit-tiki,” however ignorant, ridiculous and offensive, as a group poses no threat to the nation as a whole, or even to the groups (Jews, non-whites) they despise. There can be no room for disagreeable or offensive speech; instead it is labelled “hate speech” and must be purged from the public, by any means necessary according to the anarcho-communist-black bloc types. In the ZOT, speech is equated with actual violence, the better to justify its suppression, and all those who fail to sufficiently denounce such speech are labelled “racist.” The ZOT requires absolute allegiance to “tolerance” of everything, except intolerance, which is, of course, must not be tolerated.

Which brings us to last Saturday on Boston Common, where thousands showed up to protest a “free speech” event organized by a few dozen libertarians under the name “Boston Free Speech Coalition.” No one knows what was said or even if there were speeches, however, because the police prevented journalists from approaching the pavilion and loudspeakers were not allowed. Check out some of the video and you’ll see anarcho-communist-black bloc members, some with their faces masked, commit acts that ought to bring legal charges. One grabbed an American flag from a middle-aged woman, dragging her along the ground in the process. Punches were thrown. The cops had to escort and extract those who had tried to speak for their safety as mobs. In the ZOT, no one learned in kindergarten that “Sticks and stones may break your bones, but words will never hurt you.” Now that’s intolerable.

In the “Zone of Totality” a new spasm of iconoclasm has taken hold. Medieval monastics debated whether venerating religious icons was akin to idolatry, and the Protestant reformation saw the destruction of religious art, statuary and altarpieces, which were viewed as violating the commandment against the making of graven images. But today’s “idol-breakers” judge images of our nation’s historical figures through the lens of modern mores and morals, and only one dimension of character or actions counts. Thomas Jefferson owned slaves? Off with his head…or at least pull down his statue. George Washington owned slaves? Ignore the anti-slavery sentiments expressed so eloquently in his will…ignore his role in founding our nation…ignore his wisdom and nobility in refusing hereditary office, and indeed his return to private life after two terms as president. Slaveowner. Racist. Off with his head…or at least pull down his statue. Today’s “idol-breakers” might want to consider that statues of those they venerate today might not stand up to scrutiny should another dimension of character or actions come into vogue in the future. Imagine if serial adultery were judged to be such a moral failing that it obliterates all other values and contributions. Might some future “idol-breakers” then train their disgust on statues of Martin Luther King, Jr.?

You know who else destroyed and suppressed art that failed to support their views? The Nazi’s (actual, not the tiki-kind). They burned books and banned ”degenerate art” (Entartete Kunst), mostly expressionist and modernist works that were deemed insufficiently Aryan. You can look it up. More recently, we’ve seen ISIS destroy centuries-old Greco-Roman works in Palmyra because they stood as silent proof that there was a signifiant and glorious civilization that came before Islam and most definitely did not conform to their Islamo-fascist notions. Seems to me that if something was/is practiced by both ISIS and Nazi’s (actual, not the tiki-kind), it might be a practice best avoided.

But don’t tell that to Bill de Blasio, who announced a “review” of a statue erected to commemorate Columbus’ voyage across the ocean-blue, way back in 1492. In today’s “Zone of Totality,” the fellow who figured out that you could sail waaaay far west into the Atlantic Ocean, that guy is now the personification of evil. He and those who followed from Europe to the Americas are guilty of subjugating, raping, exterminating the native inhabitants. I’d like to stipulate that no reasonably knowledgable person denies that there was a great deal of brutality and that European diseases decimated natives who lacked any immunity to small pox, for example, but the Europeans did not have a monopoly on violence and brutality. Anybody know about how the Aztec’s treated their prisoners-of-war? Can you say “Tower of Skulls”? And they didn’t just victimize rival warriors either. I suppose that the lefty-correct interpretation is that there were no barriers to entry for cis-gendered women in the Aztec “Tower of Skulls.”

Care to play a little thought experiment? If the Aztecs, rather than Columbus, had figured out how to cross the Atlantic, where in Europe would they have constructed a “Tower of Skulls”? Amsterdam, perhaps? France? If Columbus personifies the evils of colonialism, white power, slavery, rape, total planetary destruction, destruction of “peaceful” native civilizations, would our lefty ruling class prefer that the Aztecs had “won”? Maybe then, instead of a statue of Columbus, we would have a “Tower of Skulls” in….San Francisco or NYC?

Yours from the Doublewide, JAB

The Gormogons finish off our episode on grilling and smoking food.

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Dear America,

‘Puter’s been doing some thinking and far too much drinking. ‘Puter was on vacation last week. Don’t judge him. Of course, ‘Puter’s doctor’s probably not going to be too pleased when ‘Puter goes to see her next week, but that’s for another post.

So there ‘Puter was, minding his own business at his undisclosed Delmarva palatial beach manse, sucking down Lavoris and Leinenkugel shandies, and macking hard on Mrs. ‘Puter, as one does on vacation.* ‘Puter happened to hear his oldest son, Laptop, ranting like a communist on crack about how Nazis had invaded central Virginia. Naturally, any information coming from Laptop is suspect especially since he’s now into his seventh year of Jesuit education.

Naturally ‘Puter checked up on Laptop to make sure he hadn’t swallowed his tongue from apoplexy and spite. Laptop hadn’t, so ‘Puter checked his Twitter feed.

Holy sweet baby Jeebus in the manger, what a sh*tshow of epic proportions. Near as ‘Puter could make out from the garbled nature of his feed, Nazis, Fascists, Fascist Nazis, Nazi Fascists, Fascist Anti-Nazis, Nazi Anti-Fascists, local cops, state cops, National Guardsmen, a poorly maintained helicopter, the governor, the mayor, the junior mayor, and Dodge Challenger brand image had all simultaneously shat the bed.

‘Puter dutifully ignored the First Annual Charlottesville Fiesta de Mierda for the remainder of his vacation lest the delicate and ladylike Mrs. ‘Puter repeatedly nut punch him. Again. ‘Puter managed to catch up on the facts and the uproar upon his return to scenic Upstate New York, Land That Hope Forgot^TM.

So ‘Puter was on Twitter at lunch today, as he is wont to do, and Dave (@nochiefs) said, “Hey, ‘Puter. You really ought to write that crap you pass off as wisdom up.” So here we are.

Behold, ‘Puter’s Epicly Awesome and Totally Correct Takeaways on Charlottesville:

• Charlottesville is the home of Thomas Jefferson’s University of Virginia, which can suck on ‘Puter’s tiny Irish wang for rejecting him for both undergrad and law school.
• In Charlottesville, natives wile away the blissful, serene days by enticing once-great magazines to falsely accuse fraternities of rape. Oh, the fun the natives have doing this!
• When they’re all done destroying media outlets, Charlottesville natives periodically invite morally abhorrent groups comprised of basement dwelling Millennials adhering to discredited ideologies to go to war over a guy who went to war for slavery. Did ‘Puter mention both sides dress up in cute costumes? Because they totally do!
• Charlottesville causes politicians to explain away bad behavior of a group they agree with (but pretend not to agree with) by pointing at the bad behavior of the group they don’t agree with and going “Aha! You’re evil and bad! Recant, or face the Inquisition!”
• Charlottesville has a magical aura which renders rioting Leftists invisible to media. It’s the darndest thing! Media didn’t see hard Leftists do anything wrong! Media has no idea what you’re talking about! It’s hysterical and it never gets old. Trust ‘Puter on this one.
• Charlottesville causes mayors and governors to endanger lives by playing political games with police protection. Man, is it funny to watch police stand idly by as Charlottesville descends into lawlessness, riots, and murder so local and state Democrats can score political points!
• Charlottesville causes mass hallucinations on both the Right and the Left in which each side believes the fringe on the other side is massive in number and power and totally representative of the other side’s actual beliefs.

‘Puter’s had a bit of fun with his characterization of this past weekend’s events, but here’s the real takeaway. It is dangerous to excuse or coddle fringe groups, no matter how small. And people on both the Right and the Left are doing just that.

There’s plenty of blame to go around for how much things are screwed up right now. Put your own house in order before you bravely go flame-war the other side’s trolls on Twitter.

Hugs and kisses,

‘Puter

* ‘Puter’s undisclosed palatial Delmarva beach manse is actually ‘Puter’s parents’ beach house, but ‘Puter likes to pretend it’s his. After all, who wouldn’t want their child who was as awesome and super-cool as ‘Puter to inherit the beach house? Certainly not Mom and Dad ‘Puter. Sure, ‘Puter’s three siblings might be a tad miffed, but c’mon. ‘Puter’s frikkin’ awesome.

GorT is back from vacation and ready to take on a few things that took place while he was tanning his 8-foot titanium robot casing.  Given that it is a topic I have discussed before and that it is near and dear to me since I’m in the field, let’s tackle the “Google Anti-diversity memo”. There are a variety of aspects to this, so if you think, as a conservative, I’m going to totally back the no-fired author, you’re wrong….read on. Warning, you might want to get your coffee now because I’ve been giving this some thought…I did have a 4-hour plane ride.

First, let’s tackle the authoring of the memo – the software engineer who wrote it is like many early-career developers that I’ve worked with: they don’t have a good sense of how companies run, why certain policies are in place, and how to properly address certain issues. Instead of working with Google’s HR department and his direct management chain, he decided to write a misguided screed that is going to leave him in a tough place professionally. While I don’t ascribe to his beliefs that biological differences hinder women from being good developers, there are aspects to his complaints – specifically around preferential treatment to certain groups of people – that are worth exploring.

GorT has worked with, for, and managed female developers. The memo’s author is wrong, I believe, in stating that biologically, women wouldn’t make good developers. I know plenty of males who aren’t or wouldn’t be good developers. Years ago when I worked for IBM, they were experimenting with hiring creative types – music and art majors out of college and trying to train them to program in the belief that software development is a creative process (it is) and that more creative minds like artists and musicians will be more adept at it (doubtful if not an outright failure). Anyway, two of the best managers GorT has ever had in his career are women. GorT has had top notch women developers and ones who were average. I will state, that in my career, I’ve only had one female developer who was sub-par to the point that I had to address it. And it didn’t go well. I’ve had my share of good and bad male managers and employees. I’ve had to fire some and hire many. I strive to evaluate everyone – from the time I read their resume through 1-on-1 reviews, it is all about what that person has done, how they’ve done it, and the potential they demonstrate. It isn’t about race, religion, gender, sexual-orientation, or whatever category someone wants to throw around. It is how well they can do the job – because that’s what matters.

And this is where the discussion gets difficult. The current focus by the media and others on diversity within certain businesses will likely continue to create situations like this and it will damage individuals and companies while failing to address the real issues. Measuring “diversity” at the employment end of timeline and thinking that the companies are the ones to blame is as misguided as the author who wrote this screed. The issues are complex but let me lay out a few of my thoughts:

1. Addressing diversity – gender, race, etc – in technological fields starts in elementary school. Usually, the simple and pedestrian response to this is to “focus on STEM” education. Public and private schools are doing just that – some well and some are just paying lip service to it by having tablets in the classrooms or building web pages as part of history class projects. No, I don’t mean that everyone should be learning to program. That’s just as wrong as thinking everyone should go to college. It does mean that we need to expose these children to what it takes to become a good developer. How, at a high level and one appropriate for their age, a computer works and how applications are built.
2. In middle school, basic programming options should be available. Not mandatory, but we need to have options for those children who are interested to explore the possibility.
3. In high school, where one does have the ability to begin focusing – hard science, tech, math, liberal arts, arts, etc. – we need to provide solid foundational classes. I visited with my AP Computer Science teacher last year and he bemoaned the “dumbing down” of the AP Computer Science exam. Take or leave the AP exams, it is a data point showing that we’re not maintaining a rigor needed. I’m not saying every developer – or every good developer – needs to take the AP exam or a harder AP exam, but those that are challenging themselves and growing fast need to have that option.
4. We need to be careful and cognizant of social pressures, stereotypes, and mocking when it comes to these fields. Think about it for a minute – how many “nerdy” or “geeky” women are portrayed as positive, role-model-esque characters on movies or TV. Even on The Big Bang Theory, there is mocking of nerds and scientists in general, to include the two main, science-educated female characters: Bernadette and Amy. We all know the picture: unstylish hair, glasses, maybe toss in some acne issues and unpopular clothing choices.

Finally, I understand measuring these type of demographic numbers since you can’t manage or affect change on something that isn’t measured. Having said that, the slippery slope is that people focus on the numbers and not the issues and broader pictures. While not a complete barometer, one could argue that the demographics of Engineering and Computer Science graduates should inform us as to the desires of the population seeking those types of jobs. While the numbers vary a little, recent reports put women at about 20-25% of the degree graduates. One will note that in the tech fields at Google, they are self-reporting around 20% women. My division of software developers is slightly higher at 22% – all but one of the women have an Engineering or Computer Science degree – the one remaining, who is largely self-taught and highly motivated and REALLY good, is a history major who taught for a while and used lots of technology in her lesson plans. And we should honestly discuss what the goals are for measuring these numbers – while the US population has slightly more than 50% women, should companies aim to have slightly more than 50% women? Consider that only 47% of the workforce are women. Shouldn’t the measure be against qualified candidates for the job? Guess what happens when you do that? The problem shifts to our education system. And many on the left side of the political spectrum don’t want that area to get focus because it won’t be pretty. It will expose the lack of progress in teaching, the problems that – in a field where, as of the 2011-12 school year, over 75% of the teachers are female, we are failing to prepare enough women to get more than 20-25% degrees in Computer Science.

The other part of this slippery slope is the compensation. Let me be clear: no category (race, gender, etc.) should be a factor in determining compensation – merit, tenure, skills, market demand, etc. are all viable factors. And this is where it gets really hard. Remember that one woman who I spoke of early on who wasn’t a good performer? I had to collect and track performance information, including conversations that were then agreed to between us (me as her manager) in order to make sure that her performance rating and subsequent removal from a program was based on performance and not her gender or minority status. We need to get beyond attacking people for implicit biases when they might not exist and evidence shows otherwise. I have two daughters and I’d be the first to defend saying that they can do anything they put the minds and efforts against and should be compensated just like anyone else.

Imagine, however, that we pick another private industry to examine outside of the likes of the high tech companies of Facebook, Google, Uber, Microsoft. What about professional sports? Should professional leagues match the country’s demographics as far as race, gender, sexual-orientation, etc. ? Many would argue, correctly, that it is based on the best athlete for a position: point-guard, quarterback, goalie, defenseman, second baseman, etc. So isn’t the corollary that in industry, the best skilled person should get the job?

So here is your takeaways:

• Discrimination is wrong and that extends to compensation – but don’t mistake problems in critical employment factors such as initiative, resourcefulness, and skills for prejudice
• While compensation and other problems exist in industry, diversity issues start much younger and largely have issues in our education system
• Don’t do stupid things like writing screeds – instead challenge your management and HR why specific classes are restricted by race, gender, etc. when they seek diversity which should cut across racial, gender, and other lines. Ask them why limit the perspectives those students get?
• Strive to be objective and look at the merits of what your employees and co-workers do. Remove politics, generation, race, gender, sexual-orientation, etc. Are they doing a good job? Can you count on them if they get assigned something critical?

While taping one of our episodes, ‘Puter decided to go off on a rant…about pandas. Seriously.

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Well, like the Czar, you probably call them “generations,” whereas the trendy thing to call them these days is “cohorts.” Although sociologists mock at the idea that people born within certain time-frames share similar, almost predictable values, it’s important to note that more people mock sociologists. While generation gaps are arguable, and some are based on less rationale than others, there are clear differences between people of different ages that range well beyond the physical or psychological: people who grew up together, under different cultural and historical influences, really do view society differently and solve problems in fundamentally different ways.
From time to time, the Czar likes to revisit these differences for you, and put together his observations. Here, in chronological order, are the Czar’s summaries of America’s generational cohorts Zeitgeists.
The Czar understands some groups prefer certain clusterings of birth years; uh-uh: the Czar knows better, and has adjusted some dates below. Additionally, the Czar has identified key splinter groups within some cohorts worth acknowledging.

The Lost Generation

Birth years: 1890 – 1901. The term was coined by Gertrude Stein and popularized by Ernest Hemingway to describe the strange disconnect America’s youth felt during and after World War I.
Characteristics:

• Grew up under Republican prosperity
• Values limited government and individual liberty
• During the Depression, appreciated the value of food and money
• Recognized the horrors of war.

Good news for this generation: Turned out not to be lost, but quite adaptable and capable; saw fantastic transition from agrarian to urbanization and was the first to recognize the value of women and minorities.
Bad news for this generation: You’re pretty much dead already or about to go. It’s been nice knowing you.
“Where were you when” moment: Armistice, 1918.

The Greatest Generation

Birth years: 1901 – 1924. Although this generation had quite a few names, the novel of the same name by Tom Brokaw cemented this name forever.
Characteristics:

• Worshiped FDR and the New Deal
• Volunteered and mobilized to fight fascism, to an indescribable degree
• Could fix or repair just about anything; ask someone from this generation if you doubt it.

Good news for this generation: Beat Hitler.
Bad news for this generation: Terror of growing up in the Depression and fighting fascism made them spoil their kids to the nth degree, creating the Boomers.
“Where were you when” moment: December 7, 1941

The Silent Generation

Birth years: 1925 – 1946. The term originated in Time magazine, noting how they avoided drawing too much attention to themselves; this generation wanted peace and quiet. They didn’t get it.
Sub-generations:

• The Beat Generation
• The Eisenhowers

The Beat Generation

Birth years: 1925 – 1933. The Czar has coined this term.
Characteristics:

• Grew up during World War II and just when they thought the bad times were over, got drafted into the Korean War
• Among the earliest counter-cultures; often skeptical if not disrespectful toward authority. You think M*A*S*H was wholly invented to parody the Vietnam War? No way: there was a fair amount of truth to the erosion of discipline during the Korean War.
• Grew up in small families often run by a single mother due to dads fighting WWII.
• Began to question the use of racial discrimination
• Resented traditional norms: two parents with a non-working mom, classics, fine art. They wanted to do their own thing, baby.

Good news for this generation: Expected their kids to be tougher than they were; don’t mistake their pseudo-liberalism for weakness: most of this generation suffered during their early years and expected the kids to man up the same way.
Bad news for this generation: Ensured we’d have really bad poetry for a long, long time.
“Where were you when” moment: Sputnik.

The Eisenhowers

Birth years: 1934 – 1946
Characteristics:

Good news for this generation: Conservative and self-sufficient, this generation got America safely through the Cold War until its end.
Bad news for this generation: Probably the last generation who would be educated in traditional ethics and civics.
“Where were you when” moment: The Cuban Missile Crisis

The Baby Boomers

Birth years: 1946 – 1963, although these numbers vary as various authors try to exclude themselves from this group by adjusting the dates. Named after the sudden explosion in births as Americans came home at the end of the war and rebuilt families.
Sub-generations:

• The Hippies
• The Post-Boomers

The Hippies

Birth years: 1946 – 1955, although the term “hippies” describes more of a culture than an actual belief. Lots of people born in these years weren’t hippies, although that doesn’t guarantee they were likable.
Characteristics:

• Self-centered, obnoxious, and fixated on their own worldviews, this was the first group acutely aware that it was its own generation; as a result, it defined itself internally by what it wanted, rather than let itself be define by external demands
• Nakedly leftist and even dangerous
• Under-educated by their own insistence at softening education, they were easily manipulated by smarter forces.
• Responsible for love-ins, widespread drug abuse, easy divorce, lousy sex, disco, all of the 1970s, horrific design and style (earth tones, bell bottoms, sideburns, pop art, psychedelic fonts, yuppies, tree hugging, New Age crystal healing, junk bonds, four or five recessions, new math, Andrew Lloyd Weber, the collapse of Black America, Common Core, the Clintons, and everything that’s retro now that was just as bad when it was new.
• Explosive growth in government

Good news for this generation: They generally can be credited with some seriously kick-ass music. Really, even if you hate Pink Floyd, the Beatles, or Prog Rock, that was some pretty cool stuff.
Bad news for this generation: They’re still peddling their egocentric fantasy that they were right about everything, and today’s kids don’t realize how disastrous nana and papa’s philosophies are.
“Where were you when” moment: The Kennedy Assassination, before which and after which nothing else seems to have mattered.

The Post-Boomers

Birth years: 1950 – 1963, maybe. The Czar coined this term in response to a backlash effort he saw by older Boomers.
Characteristics:

• Strong libertarian streak; most dyed-in-the-wool libertarians (“wing nuts”) are from this era.
• Early adoption of Reaganism and its outpouring of optimism.
• Strong sense of entrepreneurialism, especially toward technology and expanding small business by understanding value of quality and customer service (having survived the 1970’s collapse in both).

Good news for this generation: After howling for decades about libertarianism, they’re finally getting some respect and attention.
Bad news for this generation: They generally don’t vote in large enough numbers to make a difference, writing off everything good as the enemy of the perfect.
“Where were you when” moment: Nixon’s resignation.

Generation X

Birth years: 1964 – 1982, or possibly 1985. It depends on your view of a sub-group that followed it. This generation was often called the Latchkey generation until Douglas Coupland reintroduced the phrase Gen X in his 1991 novel (the term did not originate with him, but was in use as early as 1965).
Characteristics:

• Cynical, sarcastic, and skeptical of most traditional institutions
• Considerably self-educated, given that they learned to detect bullshit at an early age
• Generally conservative and libertarian leaning; some of its liberal members are obnoxiously shallow
• Transitioned the world onto the Internet
• Struggling to maintain a belief in faith and religion
• Able to process and sift through an incredible amount of simultaneous information; although they do not multitask as well as later generations, the Gen Xers are quick to identify and reject trends as non-productive.
• Small population has neutered much of its political effectiveness

Good news for this generation: as Boomers die, retire, and lose interest in politics, their voting influence is growing.
Bad news for this generation: They are out-numbered by Millennials, who now have enough members entering voting age to counteract all gains made by Gen Xers.
“Where were you when” moment: The Challenger explosion. If this seems odd, ask any Gen Xers where they were during the explosion, and you’ll get an answer, even if they were toddlers at the time.

The Slackers

Birth years: Okay, maybe 1981 – 1988. The Czar came up with the term, although much of this group prefers to call themselves, with characteristic lack of ingenuity, as Generation Y. Pffft.
Characteristics:

• Fascination with pop culture and Top 10 lists.
• Skateboards and marijuana.
• They emerged as skaters and Goths, until the term Emo became vogue. They now write vampire books for teenagers because, like the Boomers, they are self-absorbed with their own pop culture. It’s probably important to point out that the Boomers actually had a sense of culture. The Emos just hated everything, buddy. They couldn’t even cough up a decent punk culture like the post-boomers did.
• Not terribly interested in work, many of them went to work at Blockbuster video until their dead weight collapsed that titan, too.
• They don’t vote. They generally have little understanding of conservatism or liberalism.
• Thanks for pushing tattoos and piercings on all the kids. Really helped. Thanks.

Good news for this generation: They’re now at an age where they’re starting to recognize they need to take life seriously. Or else, they’ve starved to death being the 35-year-old cashier at Taco Bell full of ink and stubble.
Bad news for this generation: Know who cares less than you? Life. Life cares less than you. Time to wake up, dudes.
“Where were you when” moment: Y2K.

The Millennials

Birth years: 1983 – 2000ish. The name Millennial first appeared in the early 1990s.
Characteristics:

• Fairly naive compared to previous generations about manners, work ethics, dress, politics, family life, and retirement
• Grew up with low self-esteem and constant need to be rewarded or acknowledged
• Reliance on social media, although this is probably an offshoot of their need to be acknowledged
• Multitask to an amazing degree, and while they have trouble adhering to a 9-to-5 schedule, actually are more inclined to work 24 hours a day if you approach them through texts and email
• Often under-educated through a variety of pedagogical experimentation and lax testing of applied knowledge; Millennials often feel they can just “look it up on Google.”
• Although the first wave is stultifyingly liberal and often to a fascistic degree, when asked about government takeover of their favorite web-based businesses, show a strong anti-government streak
• May be showing early signs of a libertarian attitude: starting to reject the Democrat party in larger numbers, voted for Trump in surprisingly high numbers, all for legalization of many goods and services; unfortunately, may also skew toward nationalistic without understanding crucial differences
• Materialistic, particular about clothing and technology and high-rent apartments

Good news for this generation: There is substantial reason for optimism: they are starting to get their act together—Millennials are starting to save money for homes, are beginning to embrace marriage, and are now even saving for retirement (something they historically avoided)
Bad news for this generation: This generation is often gullible and lockstep. The longer they are out of the collegiate leftist education camps, the more they reject their upbringing and struggle to develop individual responsibility and political thought.
“Where were you when” moment: September 11, 2001.

Generation Z

Birth years: 2001 – to the present. The term Generation Z was an obvious continuation of the X and Y pattern; there’s a pair of movements afoot to name this generation either Founders (the term was coined by MTV, although its meaning seems vaguely to refer to this generation founding a new society after the mess they perceive being made by the Millennials) or Homelanders (named after the Department of Homeland Security, which is about as probable as Gen Xers being called HUDders). Neither of those will probably stick, and if you look at the history of naming generations, the actual name will come later—and was probably proposed in 2002 or 2003…we just haven’t circulated it enough yet for it to stick.
Characteristics:

• Completely integrated into digital technology: they will transcend both the internet and social media by staying in close contact through social networks hundreds or thousands strong via texting and other instant communication methods
• Consumer-oriented; although some analysts believe they are prone to spend money, the Czar anticipates they only do so after extensive consideration of value versus costs. Today’s kids seem to be able to evaluate product features carefully, even for relatively trivial items.
• Likely going to be quite conservative; however, have little concept of religious faith or its value to a stable society
• Educated, and will reject (or bypass) Common Core for more active learning. Curious and able to connect disparate information together quickly and likely to double-check statements with a variety of sources.
• Will likely see a collapse of higher education; this generation will likely benefit from a subsequent reformation of academia or will reject college for trade schools and internet-based learning.
• Because of their diverse backgrounds, this generation is more likely to value teamwork, cooperation, and assimilation more than modern diversity, largely because they do not observe significant functional differences between individuals (having been hammered to ignore aspects such as race, orientation, religion, disability, or economic background).

Good news for this generation: Has never known a really shitty superhero movie.
Bad news for this generation: Will likely be stuck with ultimate consequences of crushing government debts and costs of tolerating Boomers when the latter were alive.
“Where were you when” moment: This has not yet occurred for them, but will likely occur in the next five-to-seven years.

Famous transgender man and Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau visits Friend of the Gormogons @GingyNorth at her totally ghey pride themed Maryland compound.

‘Puter dutifully logged onto Twitter yesterday morning to see about what outrage of the moment had America’s Most Dysfunctional Social Media Site’s attention.

‘Puter soon found and read this CNN article concerning Attorney General Sessions filing an amicus brief in a case pending before the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. The Department of Justice argued in its brief that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act did not protect homosexuals from employment discrimination. The DOJ had the balls to argue essentially, “Um, court dudes? Yeah. You three in the black Hefty bag dresses up on the altar thingy there. The statute doesn’t actually mention homosexuality at all, so you prolly shouldn’t pretend it does.”

Feeling deep self-loathing and an unnatural yet innate need to stir up trouble, ‘Puter posted (some would argue shitposted) the following on Facebook knowing full well the response he could expect. ‘Puter was not disappointed.

I’m just going to drop this bomb and leave. Sessions and the DoJ are correct.

On second thought, perhaps I’d better offer a bit of explanation lest Facebook explode in ALL TEH RAYJ (which, frankly, is why I’m not around these parts much).

Based on the statute’s plain text, Title VII covers only “race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.”

From a purely legal and Constitutional perspective (leaving aside the underlying issue of whether it’s right, good, smart, politic, etc.), I agree with Sessions. There is no way in Hell Congress in 1964 thought “sex” covered homosexuals and/or transgender people. It’s not DoJ’s job (or the courts’ job) to extend a law to an area Congress hasn’t covered.

This is my general beef with presidents (both parties) and courts legislating. This trend has enabled Congress to avoid tough issues and foist unpopular decisions on unelected judges and bureaucrats. Further, it abandons the field to the executive.

Congress avoiding/refusing to do its job is a prime driver in the divisions we feel so strongly today. Think about it. Congress was intentionally designed to be the representatives of the people. Congress makes the laws. In theory, this should require give and take on tough issues where there is no national consensus. Congress has chosen to punt on every major social issue of the last 30 or 40 years.

Abortion? *punt* Gay marriage? *punt* Transgender rights? *punt* Legalizing marijuana? *punt*

Instead, we have unelected judges deciding fraught social issues (abortion, gay marriage) without popular check of the voting booth. Or we have a unitary executive cramming down his will on the nation with a pen, phone, or tweet. Or worst of all, we have agency bureaucrats making up rules from whole cloth and enforcing them in kangaroo courts. This is not good for America. The president and the Supreme Court matter far more than they ought because one branch is phoning it in.

So, to the original point, were I the judge hearing the case, I’d agree with Sessions. Congress did not extend Title VII protections to cover homosexuals. It clearly knew how and knows how to do so, and it did/has not. And in dicta strongly urge Congress to act (or not) so America is clear on where homosexuals stand under law.

Blame Congress for this mess, not Sessions, the DoJ, or the courts.

As predictably as night following day, ‘Puter’s liberal college friends proceeded to lose their collective minds. Y DOO U HAYT TEH TRANNYZ, PYOOTR?!? they impotently raged.

Oh, well. ‘Puter doesn’t need friends anyway. He’s got his fellow Gormogons and a well-stocked liquor cabinet.

Some days ago, the Czar was in his Trailhawk headed east-bound on a thoroughfare through Muscovy, when he saw in the west-bound lanes a fellow Jeep driver—this one in a stupidly “tacticalized” Jeep Wrangler, with blackened windows, snorkel, black tow winch, and black angry eyes headlight cowl. Whatever floats his boat, we thought; no doubt the driver felt positively badass while driving past strip malls and fast-food places in that expensive mess.

Ah, but then… as he passed us, the Czar saw an American flag hanging off the back of that Wrangler, whipping around.

Doubtless the driver thought this a patriotic display, but in fact, it’s a fulsome violation of the flag code. See this guy, in this picture? Major no-no.

Think about it: this driver believes he travels ahead of the American flag, when in fact the flag should precede him. And let’s be clear: the flag is not there to catch your mud, dust, road debris, and exhaust as it comes off your vehicle.

Here’s what the flag code says about displaying flags on vehicles [4 US § 7 (b)]:

The flag should not be draped over the hood, top, sides, or back of a vehicle or of a railroad train or a boat. When the flag is displayed on a motorcar, the staff shall be fixed firmly to the chassis or clamped to the right fender.

So…

This is okay. The flag is on the right fender.
This is not okay: the flag is hanging off the back of the vehicle.
This is not okay. In fact, the Czar is shocked that the American Legion—who defend our flag on our shores—continually fail to deliver an official notice to fire departments nationally that hanging our flag off the dirty ass of your apparatus is against the law.
This is okay, but it’s really just a decal, and not a waving flag. But we show it here as an example of what fire departments should be doing. It doesn’t have to be reversed, but many people feel the stars should always lead the way when the vehicle is moving forward. That’s very cool.
This isn’t good at all, and NASCAR ought to know better. Because in addition to dragging the flag behind the truck, the flag is being presented to the audience horizontally [4 USC § 8 (c)]; and there’s nothing preventing the flag from touching the ground [4 USC § 8(b)].
Which means this is not okay, either.
This is okay because it’s not a real flag. Also, stickers, magnetic decals, and so on, aren’t actual waving flags, and aren’t subject to our wrath.
What about these things, that you see everywhere? Well, it’s a flag that can wave…so it needs to be on the front right fender or secured to the chassis of the car. So this is a no. Which would be fine, since the Czar sees too many of these curled up in rain gutters.

An acquaintance of the Czar mentioned to us today that he had no idea that the flag code was so precise about displaying flags on vehicles. Indeed, it’s likely most of the people shown in the no pictures above think they’re doing a wonderful thing. But the flag code covers vehicles, and for very specific reasons: too many flags on vehicles are spattered, ripped, frayed, torn, or dislodge from the vehicle. The flag deserves better than that, of course, and that’s why there are specific laws about this.

Care to argue? The Czar recommends reading the code first: you may be surprised how incredibly specific it is. Check out 4 U.S. Code § 7 (o) if you want to be amazed.

Listeners of our podcasts got quite the lecture from GorT on the importance of brining, to which Ghettoputer and the Czar immediately agreed. Brining meats before cooking them is often helpful, sometimes essential.

The Czar likes to brine poultry…although arguments can be made more almost any meat. Brining is the process of soaking meats in salt water (brine); via osmosis, a chemical reaction occurs in which the cells of the meat soak up the salt, which in turn soaks up the water. When the meat is heated during cooking, the salt releases the water back into the cells, resulting in an especially juicy chunk of meat.

This sounds easy, and it is—but there is one especially important thing to remember: the formula to create proper brine. You can’t, despite what the Czar reads from internet grillers from time to time, just dump salt into water. There’s a specific ratio of salt to water you need to use. This isn’t advanced chemistry, fortunately, so just read this post.

Sunday, we decided to do a duck and a chicken on the smoker. The reason for the chicken is that duck is a tremendously expensive way to get very little meat on your plate. The Czar can do many things, but feeding four hungry people off one duck is a miracle equivalent to loaves and fishes. So to add meat to the pile, we threw a chicken into the mix.

Here’s the duck, all defrosted and washed clean, resting on a plastic bag because we really hate contaminating the food with stuff left on the worksurface.

And here are the solid ingredients for the brine. This is a quarter-cup of sea salt (or any kosher salt…iodized salt has different properties and should be avoided when brining…trust us on this) and a quarter-cup of brown sugar. The sugar is unimportant to the process. All you need is salt and water. Frankly, most brine recipes contribute little to nothing to the final flavor of the meat and are a good waste of herbs and spices. Brown sugar however helps make the meat surface a bit sticky, which is important when smoking the meat. Sticky meat traps smoke particles better.

Now we add four cups of warm water and stir to dissolve the sugar and salt. The duck is immersed in this bath. Actually, to be honest, we used a half cup of salt and half cup of brown sugar, and added 8 cups of warm water because the duck was a big guy. The brining formula is quarter-cup of salt to four cups of warm water. Write that down. Anything else you add is immaterial. And yes, you can use beer as a substitute for water…that does impart a slight flavor to the meat, though, especially if it’s an ale.

Every few hours, the Czar rolled this bird over to ensure the whole bird was soaking in the brine since birds tend to float. Two things to observe: first, yes, ducks contain a lot of blood. Chickens generally don’t leak this much when brining, but ducks sure do. The second is to compare the water level in this photo to the one above: see how much salt water the duck absorbed? That’s the photo-proof that brining is a superb way to get moisture into meats.

The Czar also made up a second batch of brine and poured that into a whole roaster chicken stuffed into a gallon plastic bag. Here they are, reunited:

The Czar got the smoker going with cherry wood and Kingsford briquettes. You can slow-cook poultry a little hotter than pork, so the Czar was aiming for a smoking temperature between 200° and 275°, which due to the wind, fluctuated between these values.

Duck and chicken should be cooked to a temperature of 152° – 155°, and then held at this temperature for two to three minutes. This temperature, plus this holding trick, kills more bacteria and bad things on the meat as well as cooking it to 165°, but without drying out the meat. The USDA knows this, and publishes this information on their website, but understanding that most cooks are idiots, has them get the temp to 165&deg. That kills everything, but dries chicken into cardboard. The USDA correctly acknowledges that cooking chicken to a lower temperature is just as safe, but you have to hold it at this lower temperature for a longer period of time.

Here’s the birds on a foil tray; the tray was too large for the smoker, so we curled up the edges.

When the temperature probe hit 152° we counted to two minutes and thirty seconds, whisked the birds off the smoker, and put them on the grill for a bit at 300°, just to gently crisp the skins. We don’t eat the skins, but it helps loosen them up a bit for easy removal.

Anyway, the results were terrific. The chicken was gently smoky in flavor but very moist. The duck was tender, and the little bit of meat we got off it was a classic taste and texture: picture a blend of turkey and steak.

Duck’s probably not your thing, and maybe you’re not into smoking. The point is that none of this is essential: brining, however, can improve your chicken—and other meats—whether you smoke, grill on gas, grill on coals, oven-roast, or bake. And the quarter-cup salt to four cups of water ratio is the secret.

Based on the recent discussions in the Castle (listen here to our most recent podcast for a taste) and a recent Twitter post by ‘Puter who pointed out the problems with this NY Times article. Keep in mind this article is in the Politics news section of the NY Times, not the Opinion section.

First, let’s trace back the history on this. In the final Presidential debate in October 2017, Hillary Clinton stated:

We have 17, 17 intelligence agencies, civilian and military who have all concluded that these espionage attacks, these cyber attacks, come from the highest levels of the Kremlin. And they are designed to influence our election. I find that deeply disturbing

Politifact – a supposed “fact-checking” website – confirmed this as 100% true. They recently claimed that DNI Clapper’s testimony refers to a “newer” assessment and the facts surrounding Clinton’s claim remain true.

This story of “17 agencies” has persisted in the media for months. And in the referenced article at the beginning of this post, we get the following opening statement:

President Trump said on Thursday that only “three or four” of the United States’ 17 intelligence agencies had concluded that Russia interfered in the presidential election — a statement that while technically accurate, is misleading and suggests widespread dissent among American intelligence agencies when none has emerged

Wrong. It is technically accurate period. It’s not misleading and does not suggest widespread dissent. Most Americans hardly know that there are 17 Intelligence Community agencies to include the Department of Energy, The Drug Enforcement Agency, and the Department of State. I would wager that the majority of Americans that you poll, unless they work in or around the Intelligence Community, couldn’t name more than four or five. This statement is NOT FACTUAL. This is an opinion of the author, Matthew Rosenberg, and his editors at the NY Times. Rosenberg goes on to explain why only the four agencies are involved:

The reason the views of only those four intelligence agencies, not all 17, were included in the assessment is simple: They were the ones tracking and analyzing the Russian campaign. The rest were doing other work.

Not only “doing other work” but the four agencies are the ones who have purview over the matter.

The headline is what is misleading:

Trump Misleads on Russian Meddling: Why 17 Intelligence Agencies Don’t Need to Agree

Imagine a more accurate and less politicized headline:

Trump Corrects Prior Reports on Russian Involvement regarding the 17 Intelligence Agencies

The left cannot understand why people are so disgusted with the media but this is a plain example. This incorrect statement made by Hillary Clinton was left unchallenged by the media for months. And now, the storyline is that Trump is using the accurate update as a means of misleading people?

And the NY Times recent correction was buried at the end of another Politics piece reading:

A White House Memo article on Monday about President Trump’s deflections and denials about Russia referred incorrectly to the source of an intelligence assessment that said Russia orchestrated hacking attacks during last year’s presidential election. The assessment was made by four intelligence agencies — the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Central Intelligence Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the National Security Agency. The assessment was not approved by all 17 organizations in the American intelligence community.

This isn’t isolated to the NY Times, however, USA Today and other papers reported similar news. And, just recently, CNN reported Jim Acosta claimed that the “three of four agencies” statement by Trump was “fake news”.

When are we going to get that press that has the skeptical view of government officials across BOTH parties and not one that is so slanted that it becomes essentially an opinion arm for one side?

There’s a momentum-gathering notion in Congress to repeal Obamacare, then replace it… as opposed to a repeal-and-replace two-for-one.

Repealing Obamacare first is smarter politics, because the attitude about Repeal-and-Replace is this:

     Conservative GOP: This bill doesn’t cut enough.
     Moderate GOP: This bill changes too much at once.
     All Democrats: Folks continue to be covered by Obamacare. Hooray for our side!

In other words, there’s no incentive for anyone to vote yes. Allow the Czar to explain.

The conservative side of the GOP is unhappy with the way the 276 brilliant Obamacare replacement proposals were hammered together because it doesn’t cut enough crap out of the mess that is Obamacare. That’s a good reason not to vote for the bill.

The moderate GOP wing is unhappy with the proposal because so many people have become dependent on Obamacare, that a wholesale replacement will be a systemic shock, hurt a lot of carriers, and result in an administrative mess. That’s also good reason not to vote for the bill.

The democrats, meanwhile, aren’t going to vote for any replacement, because right now Obamacare is in full force, and their voters are covered, as far as they know or understand it. Why bother? They’ve got the stack of chips, so they can sit there and bluff while the other two players keep checking each other.

But repealing Obamacare first…? Well, that’s a different story.

Both factions in the GOP want Obamacare gone—they should have very little trouble getting the votes for that, provided this leads to a replacement for the moderates.

The democrats will scream and howl, but they won’t have the votes to oppose its repeal.

So what happens when Obamacare is repealed? Now the conservative wing and the moderate wing have to agree on a replacement—which may go nowhere, meaning government-regulated healthcare is effectively dead. Everyone’s taxes go down, health insurance carriers go back to normal policies, folks who were covered remain covered, and employers start reducing how much is chopped out of your paychecks. Just about everyone is happy, including the folks who weren’t covered before but now can be because their policies could be grandfathered.

Net result? Obamacare is dead, folks are mostly covered, and the economy starts moving again.

And if the Republicans come up with a replacement plan? Well, now the Democrats can vote against it—in which case is passes with Republican majority—or they can admit the GOP plan should be better, and more than a few vote for it—in which case it passes with slightly bipartisan majority.

Net result? Obamacare is dead, folks are covered, and the economy starts moving again.

As long as Congress repeals Obamacare first, the scenarios play out in America’s favor. Thank goodness both flavors of the GOP are starting to concur.

And for the Dems, who see Obamacare destroyed in flames with either scenario? Welp…elections certainly do have consequences. Their fear isn’t that millions of Americans will suddenly lose insurance—that’s been fact-checked to death. Their fear is that millions of Americans will realize Obamacare was a disaster for America and like the GOP alternatives.

The Gormogons gather in the Castle and do introductions on this podcast and discuss the media

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

August 21st, the United States enjoys a total solar eclipse, in which the moon slams into the Earth, blocking out sunlight for years. Actually, this will be the closest the moon will be to the earth (periodontology) until 2988, so the moon will be the size of the a bowling ball in the sky.

The only type of eclipse no one ever found inspiring.

What is a solar eclipse? It’s like a lunar eclipse, but with the sun and the moon, whereas a lunar eclipse is like a solar eclipse, but with the moon and sun. Basically, the moon flies up between the sun and the earth—who knows why—and blocks out the sun.

In reality, you only see a total solar eclipse if you’re directly underneath the moon, which will, of course, crush you completely. Everyone else will see a partial eclipse or nothing at all—particularly those of you on the other side of the earth, where it will be “night”, the astronomical term for being on the dark side of the earth. Those of you there will see a nocturnal eclipse, in which the earth gets between you and the sun.

The Czar is driving his boys five-and-one-half hours south that day, so that we can see the eclipse happen at about 1:19pm Central Daylight Time. To see the time and location of the solar eclipse near you, you need to do some research. Here’s a handy link. The Czar thinks this is important for them to see because (a) the Gormogons are responsible for this, and (b) this won’t happen again for like 100,000 million years. And nothing in nature is as splendid and overwhelming as a total solar eclipse, which has inspired millions of people to a life-changing degree and affects everyone who sees it. The Czar’s wife is staying home because she has to work, so we’ll be laughing about that as we drive there and back.

The Mandarin reminds us that you could drive from Newport, Oregon, all the way to Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, keeping the eclipse sustained directly over your head, provided your car can drive about 2,000 – 3,000 miles per hour. If you can drive that fast, do so, because you’ll see some really interesting things.

During a total eclipse, it basically becomes night—right during the middle of the afternoon: stars come out, birds go to sleep, raccoons knock over your trash, and ‘Puter staggers out of the Leaping Peacock, urinating right in the street as he shambles home. Except, as you look around the edges of the horizon, it’s still daylight. Most people who gaze upon this hole in the sky become violently insane, and most wind up butchering their families that very evening.

As the moon passes in front of the sun, the sun fades back and to the right to dodge, but lacking protection in the pocket, winds up intentionally grounding the ball. As this happens, the moon utterly blocks the light of the sun and you see the sun’s corona—a huge ball of gas that glows like the biggest neon beer sign you ever saw.

Is it dangerous to look directly at an eclipse? Yes—the light from the sun is so bright that it will blow your eyes out the back of your head. The only safe time to look at the sun is directly during the height of the total eclipse…unfortunately, the sun is blocked by the moon at that point, so you wind up seeing only the dead, withered surface of the moon and not the sun at all. The best place to see the sun is from its far side at that point, or at night.

Sometimes, the sunlight will pour through the craters of the moon’s horizon, creating little sparkles of light. Actually, that glittering is off the domes of the space colonies the Apollo chimpanzees built when their ark crashed there in 1968. You want proof of freaky shit, that right there will keep you up at night wondering when the feces starts getting flung down on us from Lunar Station Zaius 1.

One of the more interesting aspects of a solar eclipse that they never tell you about in school, but the kind of cool stuff you only get here, is that the temperature around you drops to where Al Gore turns off his 18-ton air conditioning unit in his LA-area beachfront home. The temperature drop is due to the local loss of sunlight in the area. But don’t worry: the temperature comes right back in a few minutes when the moon continues on its merry way, wandering aimlessly about the heavens, carrying only the inhabitants of Moonbase Alpha.

So the Czar is definitely heading down to the Missippi Missippippi Mississippi River on August 21st, getting there around 1:15pm. If you see us there, say hi, and the Czar will cheerfully explain orbital mechanics to you as expertly as he presented this.

GorT knew yesterday’s commute home was going to be a trainwreck. I was leaving the Chantilly, VA area around 3:30pm heading to the Bethesda, MD area right at the tail end of a sizable summer thunderstorm – guaranteed the Beltway was going to be stop and go and all my usual side routes congested as well. So, with our new venture into podcasts, I decided to give a listen to a few podcasts I had tagged to give a listen. The first one up was the “Stuff to Blow Your Mind” podcast and their episode, “Science Communication Breakdown” which was posted about a week ago.

Robert Lamb and Joe McCormick try to take on the subject of why people don’t accept certain ideas when these ideas are based on science – in particular, they center the discussion around the perception of climate change (and even more specifically, global warming). This includes discussions around cognitive dissonance, “identity protective cognition”, and “cultural cognition”. If I had to guess, the hosts are firm believers that Anthropogenic Global Warming is happening and scientific consensus proves that. If you haven’t guessed, GorT has a few issues with these guys and their podcast episode.

First, I’m not sure if they realize that what they are describing with regards to “identity protective cognition” – where people’s beliefs about a subject are skewed in order so they fit into the social group with which they find affinity – applies just as much, if not maybe more so, to the American left where identity politics are at its core. These are the folks that have presented us with “post-normal science” where “facts are uncertain.”

Second, consider this quote from the podcast, “there are some facts of science that, if true, tend to be unfriendly to the world view.” The speaker (I don’t know which one of the two this is) goes on to align that with folks opposed to community or broad organized efforts to address climate change. Let me be a bit nit-picky here: facts of science ARE true…so maybe the speaker meant, some theories of science, as theories are what gets proven true or false. Second, if he is implying the man-made CO₂ is driving climate change, that is a theory that has yet to be empirically proven true. The last 10 or so years of temperature data contradict the models’ predictions and therefore, following the scientific method, the theories should be re-addressed or tossed out.  Maybe I’m wrong and these guys are thinking that the “facts of science” that exist are these temperature readings that are disproving the models and theories….but I don’t think so.

Lastly, during the podcast, the hosts repeatedly talk about why people can’t agree with the “scientific consensus”. They break that down with numbers that try to defend the “97% of climate scientists believe that humans are a significant driver in climate change.” While part of this is debatable and likely flawed, I’d like to poke at a different aspect today. Just because 70 or so climate scientists agree doesn’t mean it is scientifically proven. Believing in scientists doesn’t make the science real. Consider that most of the world believed in the scientists who believed in a geocentric view of the solar system. Heliocentric ideas existed probably back to the 3rd century BC with Aristarchus of Samos. But it wasn’t until 1543, when Copernicus published De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Bodies), that we starting seeing a real push of science with regards to our understanding of the solar system’s orbits. Think about that: for over 1800 years the scientific consensus was that the Earth was the center of the solar system. And don’t discount science back then – it was really happening:

1021 – first use of controlled experiments and reproducibility of results
11th century – concepts of true north and magnetic declination discovered
1121 – variation of gravitations and gravitational potential energy discovered
1220-35 – rudiments of the scientific method established
13th century – correct explanation of rainbow phenomenon
14th century – discovery of the curvature of light through atmospheric refraction

Yes, science has accelerated and we can do more now than ever before, but scientists are still humans with all our flaws and biases.

The real question that should be asked is whether people believe in the science behind Anthropogenic Global Warming. Many will not understand it – and the hosts do point out that when you encounter a subject that you do not comprehend one turns to “experts” in the field for an opinion. The slippery slope, that I think these hosts slid down and fell right into the waters of Camp Wannaweep, is the equating of a scientific belief with an opinion of a scientist.

It’s been a while since GorT provided an update on entertainment options that he’s enjoyed recently.

First, let’s be honest: the Netflix, Amazon, and non-traditional media players are really coming forward with some great stuff. GorT’s been enjoying a number of those programs in addition to a number of BBC productions recently while traveling for business and exercising to include the following.

Red Oaks

This Amazon Original show is a “coming of age” series set in the mid-80s follows a bunch of college-aged kids in New Jersey who have summer jobs at the local country club. The storylines are ok, the acting is solid, and the casting is spot on – particularly with Craig Roberts in the lead role as David, Paul Reiser as the country club President and Wall Street trader, his wife played by Gina Gershon, and – in particular – Ennis Esmer as the aging, playboy tennis pro at the club. Two seasons are available now with a third coming. GorT has a fondness for much of the music featured in the series given that he is 4-5 years younger than the main characters but grew up with the same tunes.

GorT awards it 7 out of 10 sleestaks

The Expanse

GorT, unsurprisingly, is a Science Fiction fan and believes that we’re in a drought of good science fiction on television today. The revamped Battlestar Galactica (BSG) was a stand out and few series since have been good. I’ve mentioned Dark Matter as a decent, throw-away* series but The Expanse, from the SyFy Channel, is a solid effort. The storyline is complex and engaging. The story, set 200 years from now, pushes the future just enough to be believable but create an interesting “universe” for the series. It pulls a thread from a seemingly isolated incident to one that involves multiple faction conflict. GorT is starting season 2 and looks forward to enjoying it.

GorT awards it 8½ out of 10 sleestaks

Father Brown

Based on G.K. Chesterton’s mysteries written a hundred years ago, stars Mark Williams, notable as Mr. Arthur Weasley from the Harry Potter series, as the main character who solves local mysteries via his intuitive abilities. While a bit campy and shallow in the plot, the series is well done and enjoyable with characters that you get to know and enjoy. I assume that the creators worry that the more complex plots of Chesterton’s originals would be too much to accomplish in a single episode TV show.

GorT awards it 7 out of 10 sleestaks

Shetland

GorT has a thing for British mystery** shows – Father Brown is one, and I’ve mentioned others in the past: Death in Paradise, Sherlock, The Bletchley Circle, and Broadchurch. And Netflix’ recommendation algorithm*** works really well and popped up Shetland as a potential candidate for GorT to watch. Well, I pretty much binged it over the past few weeks – mostly while on the treadmill, but the final season on Netflix (Season 3) held me such that I finished off the last two episodes in one sitting. It’s a smart mystery series set on the Shetland Islands in the North Sea between Scotland and Norway. A bit like Hinterland, a series set in Wales, the show focuses on a small police force solving crimes in the remote area. The main character has a good backstory that gets developed over the seasons and the supporting cast is solid with some good dry humor tossed in to lighten it up.

GorT awards it 8 out of 10 sleestaks

If you’ve got thoughts on these or other series, drop me a line. Plus, maybe this will form up into a podcast episode in the near future.

* by throw-away, I mean that it doesn’t involve deep thinking where you have to be mentally engaged with the show for the entire time. GorT needs a distraction on the treadmill, not a mental workout as well as physical

** and British naval shows to include Hornblower and Master & Commander

*** the algorithm works until your kids find it funny to add Caillou, Higgletown Heroes, and other random shows to my profile

It has been a while since the Czar has taken you on a whirlwind tour of a place he’s never been and, frankly, has zero intention of ever visiting. Today’s stop is Benin, featured because the Czar has never taken you to Africa on one of these spotlight tours, and because it sort of popped up on the world map we glanced at.

Benin is a smallish country on the underside of Africa, where it grips tenaciously to the continent lest it fall into the Atlantic Ocean. Actually, it’s the Gulf of Guinea, which we also had to look up because frankly that’s a perfect body of water to have a name. Benin is tall and thin, and we don’t really know much about it except what we just Googled:

The name of the Country in West Africa. Benin, a French-speaking West African nation, is a birthplace of the vodun (or “voodoo”) religion and home to the former Dahomey Kingdom from circa 1600–1900. In Abomey, Dahomey’s former capital, the Historical Museum occupies two royal palaces with bas-reliefs recounting the kingdom’s past and a throne mounted on human skulls. To the north, Pendjari National Park offers safaris with elephants, hippos and lions.

Doesn’t that sound like fun? Benin is the birthplace of voodoo, has a throne made of human skulls, and you can see an elephant there.

Gormogons Spotlight On: BeninEvidently, this is pretty much all there is to Benin, so that Czar is going to have to make up a lot.

Benin, like all African countries, has really bad food. The Czar is aware that the cultures of, say, Morocco, Kenya, and South Africa are as astonishingly different from each other as Japan, France, and Brazil, but those three countries aren’t in Africa, which has uniformly bad food. Look, the Czar has grilled food from France, Thailand, and even Argentinia—he’s never once grilled a goddamned thing from Africa. And we’ve made a lot of unusual stuff, too, including smoked lemons, duck, and blueberry freaking pie, but never once have we made elephant, hippo, or lion on the Weber. Ask yourself why.

The wildlife in Benin is really interesting, which we researched by looking at a two-year-old neighbor’s plastic animal safari playset. According to this playset, Benin wildlife must surely consist of elephants, hippos, and lions, as well as zebras, a tyrranosaurus rex, and part of a Lego minifigure.

The Benin flag is one of the easiest flags to draw: it’s a rectangle, divided into two smaller rectangles: a green one, and a second rectangle itself divided into two rectangles: yellow and red. That’s it. No Nike swooshes or other branding: just a flag that makes it really easy for Benini kids to draw in school, assuming they have schools there and the child mortality index is less than 100%.

The Czar googled pictures of Benin, which mostly show maps of Benin. Actually, it’s a fairly dong-shaped country, now that we look at these pictures. Non-penile pictures of Benin show that people wear grass skirts, live in penis-shaped houses made of grass skirts, and clearly spend a lot of their day making thinkg out of grass and penises. The Czar doesn’t want to go.

Oh, yes, we should add that people in Benin speak French, which is another good reason to avoid going. The Czar assumes it’s real French they speak, and not that fake-French they speak in Quebec (which is really English) or Paris (which used to be French, but they eliminated all the diacritical marks, making it really had to know how to pronounce all those fake-French words like huicend (“weekend”).) We were talking about something here, but we’ve totally lost track of what it was.

Benin seems to have a lot of sand and green hills, as well, and looks like it would be a really beautiful country if the population there didn’t speak French and fixate on male genitalia all day. Anyway, the landscape is lush and varied, the beaches incredible, and the people very charming, which you’ll never know because you’re never going. It’s in Africa. What will you eat? We’ve already told you the food is bad, and probably consists of grass and penises, like everything else.

The Czar evidently needs a vacation, but you can bet it won’t be in Benin.

Visit other places the Czar has explored!, which the Czar just used to discover he’s already visited Zimbabwe, which it turns out it still largely in Africa, as is Burkina Faso.

This is one way to destroy an ideology by gently pushing its adherents to unconditionally surrender and abandon the toxic ideology.

Monday’s terrorist attack in Manchester got ‘Puter thinking.

No one defends mass murderers. People (mainly progressives) defend terrorists. Why? What’s the difference?

Ideology.

Terrorists are out-of-power mass murderers with an ideology. Ordinary mass murderers kill without ideology.

Castro, Lenin, Hitler, and Mao were all terrorists. They ceased being terrorists when they took power. We call terrorists who hold territory and control governments “Dear Leader” or “Chairman” or “Fuhrer” or even “Mr. President.”

Muslim terrorists are driven by their ideology: Islam. Islam commands its adherents to spread the faith through conquest, and if necessary, slaughter. Islam’s goal is to marry its religious ideology to its political ideology (arguably, one inseparable ideology), bringing about Muslim government over the earth. Muslims will cease being terrorists when every country has a Supreme Leader dedicated to sharia and Islam.

In order to destroy terrorism, it is necessary to destroy or discredit the ideology. The Allies had no compunction about destroying the Nazis, thereby destroying the ideology. Ditto the West versus the Soviet Union’s communism, though primarily through less violent economic means. America’s embargoed Cuba since Castro and his thugocracy took over. Destroy the ideology, destroy the terrorists.

Admittedly, it’s much more difficult to destroy an ideology once it ascends to governmental status.

So where does this leave us with Islamic terrorism? Must we destroy the ideology to put an end to terrorism?

Maybe.

If Muslims rise against those in their ranks who see violence, murder, and conquest as acceptable methods of spreading the faith, perhaps a larger conflict can be avoided. ‘Puter has seen few signs of this, though he is certain some efforts have occurred.

If not, the West has a choice to make. Submit to Islam or destroy it. This is not to say destroy all Muslims. Just as not all Nazis were destroyed, all Muslims need not be destroyed. Unconditional surrender works as well as absolute destruction. But destroying an ideology requires the competing ideology to be stronger willed.

We are quickly coming to a point when a decision must be made.

Choose wisely.

Mainstream Media looks in the mirror and brushes her hair furiously. How dare that dorky Donny Trump take Emily to the Delight Under the Stars dance next week? What do they see in each other? She’s so weird, with her love of Marvel movies, AR-15s, cheap beer, fireworks, and Jack Reacher books. Media bets Emily has never even read Der Capitol or watched Trevor Noah.

And Donny Trump, eeewwwwch. Okay, so he has a nice car and a big house, but have you seen that hair? No, Emily should be going out with that cool Bernie Sanders. Yeah, he’s skinny and has a weird mouth, but come on. He’s soooo smart and sooo clever. And Liz Warren, she’s cool, too. She’s like half-Choctaw Indian or something, and she’s like a million times smarter than those jocks like Scotty Walker, Mittens (seriously, what a name), or Marco Rubio (although he is kinda cute in a creepy way).

Media hates hates hates Donny. Everybody knows class president should have gone to Hillary, who’s old and smelly but so nice, but those dumb jocks had that Russian kid Yurosh totally steal the ballots when everyone was laughing at Jimmy Comey when he took over the PA system at school. Donny just sucks. He eats weird food, and he doesn’t show up on time, and he allegedly pulled his pants down in the girls’ bathroom, and Media just hates him. Not just for one thing. For everything.

Wait, her phone just bleeped. A text from fam. Oh, but check this out:

FYI Donny Trump msybe steppd in it big time.

Didnt hear this from me!!!

Omigod omigod omigod omigod omigod. Is this true? It’s got to be true. Why wouldn’t this be true? Omigod, this could be soooo perfect. They kick Donny out of school just before graduation, and then class president goes to Hillary by default, right? Isn’t that how it works? Media doesn’t know; she really should get around to reading the rules. But how else could this play out? It’s got to go to Hillary.

He is so expelled. Wait, what if they give the job to Mikey Pence? No way. He’s so derrrrrr and behhhhh. He’ll probably go off to join his church choir or whatever. Yeah, you totally know they’re going to call up Hillary and say “Hey, guess what? Donny is out. Done. 404ed. And guess what else? You’re in! You’re class president for like for evah.” Omigod, Media would like to be a fly on that wall. Maybe Media should call her and let her know. Hillary oughta have a lit thing to say, like “See ya, Felicia,” or something. Whatever. She’ll think of something.

Of course, Media recalls, we’ve all been here before. A dozen times. But they didn’t kick Donny out when his buddy hung out with Yurosh, or he used the p-word at the big game, or when he said he’d kick all the Islam kids out of the cafeteria. But this time, it’s different.

It has to be. Because when Donny’s out, Hillary is in. And when Hillary is in, Media becomes sick popular again, and all her old friends will want to sign her yearbook and take selfies with her again.

This time has to be different, because if it isn’t, well, Media doesn’t know what to do next.

She goes back to brushing her hair furiously in the mirror. Being a freshman is so zero chill.

The Czar’s boys are full-fledged Boy Scouts, replete with the traditional skills of fire building, survival shelters, rifle shooting, camping, eating weird foods, and volunteering all over the place, in uniform, to help out all sorts of seemingly lost causes to succeed. You can tell we’re very proud of them. In fact, all the boys in their troop would impress the hell out of you. Here in Muscovy, the general impression the boys get from their non-scouting peers is “I wish my parents let me stay in.” Of course, this is usually after the peers hear about white water rafting, rappelling, survival courses, high-rope adventures, and so on—scouts often leave out the anecdotes about hiking in freezing cold conditions or washing dishes for two hours in a total downpour. As one Eagle Scout told the Czar a couple years ago, the hardest scouting attribute to maintain is Cheerful: setting up a tent in pitch darkness in the middle of a freezing rain is easier to do without smiling like an idiot the whole time.

More of this, please, and less promotion of topics utterly unrelated to scouting. It hurts the girls.

The Czar adds that as visible a force as the Boy Scouts are, the Girl Scouts are invisible. Oh, they’re out there—we hear rumors. And someone decorates their community Christmas tree each year. But they’re absent at flag ceremonies, parades, veterans’ events, and so on.

You can’t judge each side of scouting by Muscovy. There are plenty of Boy Scout troops that consist of one obnoxious brat only, who believes that video gaming counts as a merit badge.* Likewise, there are plenty of Girl Scout troops who kick ass, like the ones who replaced flags at veterans’ graves a few years ago, at their own expense, after they were all stolen…even though it meant sacrificing funds for a trip they planned to take.

But generally, the Czar tends to note that the Girl Scouts tend to stay out of the press. Boy Scouts are, however, continuously attacked from the Left and the Right—the former for teaching self-reliance and continuing to promote the Second Amendment, and the latter for rolling over on every class-action lawsuit involving LGTBQ issues and “softening” requirements.**

So it was with interest that the Czar saw the Girl Scouts were in the news, lately: the archbishop of Kansas City announced that the Archdiocese was ending its decades-long association with the GSA, and endorsing the growing (but still small) American Heritage Girls organization, citing that, in the Archdiocese’s view, the GSA no longer promoted Christian ideals.

Naturally, the Left retaliated by hating on the Church, even though—deep down—the Left would love little more than seeing scouting go away totally. But the archbishop’s decision was not made lightly: the Archdiocese cited that within the GSA, there was numerous and inarguable evidence that the GSA promotes abortion, premarital sex (by way of emphasis on contraception instruction), and the role modeling of Margaret Sanger under the guise of health care. Some of this evidence even included sexually explicit material, which the GSA—the Archdiocese acknowledged—took seriously and eliminated.

The GSA is not very happy about this, as you would expect, and you might anticipate other communities considering a similar endorsement switch. One question that the Czar has seen raised in regard to this issue—why not the Boy Scouts of America? Haven’t they, you know, gone all queer now and getting into all this gender fluidity?

Actually, no—despite the BSA’s announcement that gay scout leaders would not be cause for discontinuation of a troop’s charter (unexpectedly issued single-handedly by then-president-elect Robert Gates (yes, that Robert Gates), which did not sit well with many board members), there has not been a single known case of issues with gay scout leaders… further, the only discontent that occurred was the (popularly photographed) recent participation of some scout troop in an anti-Trump/pro-gay rally—correctly so, since scouts are forbidden from participating in partisan political events while in uniform.

In short, there has been very little tumult resulting from this decision. The Czar should reveal that he serves as a “special consultant” (don’t ask for what) to the Muscovy troop, and is involved in all leadership discussions and planning events; it is with some authority when we say that discussions about contraception, abortion, premarital sex, homosexuality, transgenderism, and so on, are unheard of in the troop or its parent council. And it should be so—there’s not a whole lot of this going on with 11-to-12-year-olds who have brains and are learning to start fires in the rain with powdered magnesium.

Kids don’t care about this stuff until uppity adults make them care.

This should be no surprise. As you’re doubtless aware, the late 1980s were not kind to the Boy Scouts: a rash of justified lawsuits and criminal investigations occurred—some dating back to the 1940s—regarding sexual abuse of scouts between those years. In the 1990s, BSA launched a massive, and in some ways revolutionary, effort to rid itself of threats to the scouts. They weren’t all of a sexual nature: many long-standing leaders were bounced out when background checks revealed some of them were thugs and dangerous.

Since then, BSA has introduced numerous safeguards into their system: two-deep leadership (no child—scout or not—can be left alone with one adult, even for a few seconds), extensive background checks, mandatory training that explains to adult leaders how to prevent situations that lead to risky situations as well as preventing situations that create false lawsuits or blackmail. The Czar has attended this training: it’s deep and well-produced, and covers all sorts of amazing ways people have gamed the system on both sides, and what they lead to, and how legal “situations” set themselves up.

Anyway, the point of this is that the Boy Scouts have trained themselves to become especially sensitive about any conversations with kids about topics remotely involving sex or even so-called “reproductive health” topics like, evidently, abortion on demand or contraception. So while some scouts have left BSA to join other, smaller scouting organizations that deny membership or leadership to non-heterosexuals, BSA remains pretty focused on skills and achievements, and less on far-left political topics. That’s why you’re not seeing communities rejecting BSA troops.

The Czar is pretty confident that GSA offers the same abuse-prevention training (he’s too lazy to simply Google it) to the same degree of sophistication…but GSA lacks the leviathan litigation that BSA survived…otherwise, some GSA board members would easily scrunch their noses and ask “Do we really want to be promoting pro-abortion organizations?” “Should we really be introducing contraception discussions to 9-year-olds?” “Isn’t idolizing Margaret Sanger going to provoke some questions we don’t want to explain?” When you’ve been almost sued to death by legitimate victims, the answers are pretty clear.

Let’s hope GSA learns from this experience and gets back to their stipulated charter. And while you won’t find much about this from the Girl Scouts, those inside the organization seem to know that there’s some funky stuff happening behind the scenes that backs up the Archdiocese’s claims. Any former Girl Scout*** or leader is welcome to email us here at the Castle and tell us what you know.

*It doesn’t. There is a “game design” merit badge, but it’s based more on game theory, logic, and strategy, and is fairly challenging. Board games are emphasized. Not everybody gets it.

**There’s been very little softening of requirements. I challenge any rabid adult to undergo the Riflery or Wilderness Survival merit badge tasks and see how easy they are. Go ahead and try.****

***The Царица herself is a Gold-ranked Girl Scout, and she’s not aware of any of this stuff. To be fair, she was a Girl Scout a very long time ago during a very Republican age.

****The scouts completed the Personal Fitness test last summer: only two adults finished out of the many who tried. All the scouts finished, though.

The Guardians of the Galaxy are back, in theaters right NOW!

No, of course it isn’t: it’s actually much longer, thanks to 25 minutes of previews, courtesy AMC Theaters. And, as usual, we answer your questions about the movie, in case you’re interested in seeing it anyway.

Q. Is the music any good?

A. Even better. The Czar was able to read the songlist weeks ago and knew every one on it, including the Chicago-specific-one that made most people scratch their heads. You could save yourself a theater ticket by reading the song list and looking at a picture of Vin Diesel, and it would be pretty much the same thing.

Q. As good as the first one?

A. Yes and no. Like all these Marvel Studios movies, the tone and inspirations are very different than any other film. It’s as good as the first, but it’s a very different movie in terms of the style. If you liked the first, you’ll like this one. If you didn’t like the first, you wouldn’t be reading this anyway.

Q. Is this a good movie to bring my aging grandmother to? She’s 105 and drinks brown liquor, forgets where she is, and blurts out obscenities a lot.

A. You already brought her, because you were sitting right behind us.

Q. I have a parrot that sleeps all day and shrieks randomly with a pitch high enough to peel your skin. Do you think he’d like the movie?

A. No. But that’s what you get for finding a pet that’s way more annoying than you, and that will live decades longer than you and be a terrible burden on your family who inherits the goddamned thing.

Q. I read that President Warren G. Harding makes a cameo, in which he emphasizes the importance of regular dental checkups. Did this scene work, or nah?

A. Yes, although the CGI looks incredibly bad, with rubbery skin and inhuman eyes. Unless the Czar is mistaken, and that was actually Sylvester Stallone.

Q. Does this film promote heteronormative cis-insensitive triggers that reinforce the racist, white patriarchy?

A. Hell, yeah, it does. And Kurt Russell is in it.

Q. ἄρτι, ὦ Τερψίων, ἢ πάλαι ἐξ ἀγροῦ?

A. ἐπιεικῶς πάλαι. καὶ σέ γε ἐζήτουν κατ᾽ ἀγορὰν καὶ ἐθαύμαζον ὅτι οὐχ οἷός τ᾽ ἦ εὑρεῖν.

Don’t make me out to be a monster, Mr. Science

On the eve of the “March for Science” (I had to look that up as I’m lost my quick reference guide to the various marches), Neil deGrasse Tyson posted a piece titled, “Science in America.” You can read it here, it’s not long. He also has a corresponding short video that compliments the post. For the most part, I agree with the content taken at face value. Science is the pursuit of determining the truths of our universe. But there is an underlying agenda in it and I ascribe to it to some degree.

Let me set the stage a bit. I’m an engineer* and I would argue (and my parents would likely agree) that I have been since I was very young. I took apart the toys I was given as presents, I built electronic kits, participated in numerous science fairs, pursued it as a career. I have been in and around science for the super-majority of my life. I believe in science and the scientific method and I have disdain for those that don’t or try to manipulate it in order to advance a personal or political position.

The underlying agenda Neil deGrasse Tyson has is about human-driven climate change. While not explicitly stating it in either piece, he clearly believes that it is settled science. I believe that, yes, the climate is changing. And yes, humans have some amount of influence on the climate. However, the degree of that is in question. He makes a reference to the scientific method in the video stating that scientists propose a hypothesis, test it, and publish the results. Then others try to recreate and verify or disprove it. To continue, when disproven, the scientist goes back and alters the hypothesis and lather, rinse, repeat. But in the realm of climate science, look at what has happened. In the late 1970s, climate scientists believed that the next ice age was on its way**…imminently. Fast forward and now the earth is going to burn up as temperatures increase. The initial IPCC predictions of temperature have been repeatedly revised lower. Various scientists have been unable to explain the “pause” in global warming. And now anyone who questions it is labeled a “skeptic”, “a denier” (which Tyson directly references), and is mocked and ignored. But some (not all) are people who have a legitimate doubt which is part of the scientific process that Tyson lays out. Shouldn’t the scientists be revisiting the hypotheses? Shouldn’t they consider other factors that currently are not part of the models as potential contributors? This movement has been politicized and it needs to stop but it won’t.

“This means scientific truths emerge by consensus — not of opinion, but of observations and measurements — rendering the research that falls outside of consensus the shakiest possible grounds on which to base policy.”

Let’s be clear – scientific truths emerge by consensus of people following the scientific process using observations and measurements. Note that much of the climate science are models and recent observations have not always aligned with the hypotheses.

“The creation of the NSF deserves some exposition. It was inspired by the 1945 report Science: The Endless Frontier. Written by Truman’s science advisor Vannevar Bush, the report compellingly argues for government-funded science as a driver of our wealth, our health, and our security. He further notes, “A nation which depends on others for its new basic scientific knowledge will be slow in its industrial progress and weak in its competitive position in world trade, regardless of its mechanical skill.” Bush also observed, “In 1939 millions of people were employed in industries which did not even exist at the close of the last war.”  America in the 20th century would become the world’s largest economy, leading in every important category of innovation and production.”

It is my strong belief that the two World Wars and the Cold War propelled America to where it is today. The number of advancements in industrialization, technology, and organization that stem from those programs – which includes the Space Race as part of the Cold War – is huge. It didn’t just happen. And no, I’m not advocating that wars are the way to continue to improve (cold or real). But it was competition. In those cases competition of good versus evil – of liberty and freedom versus oppression and fascism. As someone who believes in free market economics and limited government, that is what I see as the future…get competition going in the commercial, private-sector space to drive economies.

Tyson continues, “Meanwhile, did you ever wonder who conducts science in America? From 1900 onwards, on average about 10% of Americans have been first-generation immigrants. Yet first-generation immigrants have won 33% of all American Nobel prizes in the sciences since the award began in 1900, representing thirty-five countries from six continents. So immigrants to America are three times more productive at winning Nobel prizes than population statistics would predict.”

How many were illegal immigrants? My guess is zero. I bet that these folks immigrated through legal means. I’m all for legal immigration – follow the laws in place – but no one should be equating the high percentage of Nobel prize winners or some other remarkable statistic about immigrant success to the country ignoring our own laws and handling illegal immigration.

He then dives into the funding cuts that have recently been in the news. Keep in mind that President Trump’s budget, just like President Obama’s, is a notional one but it carries little meaning as Congress is the entity to form the official federal spending plan. As an aside, it should be noted that our space program – a branch of science with a ton of R&D – has been trimmed repeatedly leaving us with no shuttle program and limited government capabilities. Although, the commercial sector is picking up with DigitalGlobe, Planet, SpaceX, etc.

“Do you prefer one branch of science over another because you think its discoveries will be more useful in coming years? Consider that in hospitals, every machine with an on/off switch that diagnoses your health without first cutting you open, is based on one or more principles of physics, discovered by physicists and chemists who had no specific interest in medicine. This includes the MRI, PET scans, CT Scans, EKGs, EEGs, ultrasound, and of course, good old fashioned X-rays. So if you defund one line of research in favor of another, you thwart the entire moving frontier of discovery. In the end, nature cross-pollinates all sciences, so perhaps we should too.”

Tyson should consider for a minute how the federal funding of R&D, which he praises President Bill Clinton for increasing, is allocated at the broad level: by politicians. Not scientists. Not engineers. Not entrepreneurs. Politicians and their staff with lobbyists chirping in their ears. So it is the government picking on branch of science over another. This only reinforces my belief in limited government where they don’t fund R&D efforts.

He concludes with: “To reclaim America’s greatness, anyone with business acumen could think of science investments within our various government agencies as the R&D of a corporation called the USA.  Science is not a Liberal Conspiracy. It’s not even bi-partisan.  Science is a  fundamentally non-partisan enterprise that serves us all. Without it, watch America fade from relevance on the world stage, as we gasp for an era of scientifically enlightened governance to rise once again.”

Ok, a little nit-picking here – “to reclaim”? The government isn’t a “corporation” and doesn’t run like one. If it were it would have failed long ago as it cannot balance its books. Yes, science is not a Liberal Conspiracy, nor do all Conservatives believe it is. If our government is to be “scientifically enlightened” then why don’t we just rip the bandaid off of the whole abortion argument here and now. When does human life begin, Mr. Tyson? The Big Bang is when we believe that the universe as we know it started…not some arbitrary time after it. And as Tyson points out in the video, let’s accept the facts and then have the political discussion: should it be legal to end the life of a human in a mother’s womb and under what circumstances. It sounds crass, but heck, we want a scientifically enlightened government, right?

* ok, technical a Computer Scientist, but my Master’s degree is in engineering

** who doesn’t like Leonard”Spock” Nimoy’s “In Search Of…” series? 

Earlier this week, the United States Navy sped the USS Carl Vinson carrier strike group toward North Korea. Yesterday, the United States Air Force demonstrated pinpoint accuracy with the GBU-43/B Mother of All Bombs (MOAB) on an ISIS cave system in Afghanistan, illustrating for anyone watching that we can take out a good-sized military force with incredible precision. Today, Air China stopped flying over North Korean air space.

See where this is going? We certainly hope North Korea does.

North Korea has been a sore spot with the Czar since World War II ended, and it remains the only lasting bad decision of the war. Yes, the Soviet Union fell and China has become so dependent on US trade that war between the two of us would be predictably bad for business. But North Korea is an itch that won’t go away.

United States foreign policy toward North Korea has labored for over 60 years under two extremely fallacious ideas:

• Appeasing North Korea with food and minimal necessities will buy you time until the regime collapses under its own weight.
• China controls North Korea, and we can’t do anything there without their help.

 
Neither of these premises are true.

Today, the Czar has no interest in beating a single war drum. North Korea is a bad, bad place to fight, and its ordnance is horrifyingly close to millions of innocent and freedom-loving South Koreans. The Czar knows—through his own channels—that a military assessment made during the Clinton years concluded that the United States could, with China’s staying out of it, take down almost all of the North Korean command, control, communications, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (C4ISR) in about 20-30 minutes. Despite PyŏngYang’s military parades, constant drilling, and perpetual war-time footing, they’re genuinely a 1950s-era military with no experience (all the original guys were dead or executed years ago), and insufficient outward reach. 20 to 30 minutes might be a stretch, but the NorKs make the Iraqis of Desert Storm look like the Avengers.

Therefore, the Clinton administration concluded, as did the Bush administration later, and the Bush, Reagan, Carter, Ford, Nixon, Johnson, Kennedy, and Eisenhower administrations before, that North Korea was living on borrowed time. They have no food, no resources, no infrastructure, no trade, no research, no development, no assets, no friends, and no future. Probably, under the leadership du jour,* the North Korean government will collapse within five years of whatever day you pick.

So you ameliorate them a little. Negotiate. Offer carrots for good behavior. North Koreans will promise all day long only to laugh at you when you leave the room. If you don’t solve North Korea during your presidency, don’t worry: the next guy will take care of it.

The sad truth is that North Korea is not going to change: it is perfectly balanced on a pin-tip. It has found a way to subsist on nothing: and that, unlike Venezuela or Yemen or ISIS, means North Korea will not collapse. It doesn’t need to! Of course, all it needs is a tiny push in any direction.

We have no idea what President Trump** really will do with North Korea, but so far—and so early in his administration—he doesn’t seem to partake in that first myth. He, or someone close to him, seems to regard North Korea with wiser eyes: that the North really is at war with the entire world, and it’s happy to resume its extermination of the South. The Czar must assure you this is a sea-change in how we have treated North Korea, and that sea seems to contain a carrier strike group right now.

The other myth is just as stupid. Long-time readers know the Czar’s belief that China views North Korea as it’s drunk, stupid, and crazy uncle. You know, the guy who shows up at really large family weddings, starts insulting everyone, and drops his pants while someone—usually China—throws a towel around his waist and pulls him down from the dessert table to get him a cab home.

Because here it is: China absolutely hates North Korea. It’s been a pimple on China’s anus since 1950. China’s military remains on high alert around the Yalu River not because it likes North Korea, but because North Korea exports all its bullshit over that river for China to deal with. China would love to see North Korea collapse.

But—and this is the keystone of the problem—North Korea has to fall China’s way. What China does not want is to see North Korea go tango-uniform, and the new interim democratic government elect to unify with the South. A unified Korea is bad news for China: trillions of dollars will pour into the North from Korea, Japan, and the United States, and put a massive manufacturing economy right on the border with China. A unified Korea has the potential to exceed Japanese economic influence: if you think Samsung is powerful now, imagine it in a unified Korea.

This is the source of terrible dread for China. On the other hand, just imagine what would happen if North Korea decided to remain a separate country and ask China for help. Picture a Marshall Plan for China and North Korea: massive Chinese investment, cheaper Korean labor, and a total outlet for Chinese goods for the next 20 years. China sustains its gasping economy for another generation, and the United States, Japan, and Korea lose out. China makes trillions of dollars.

This alone is why China has promoted this imaginary relationship with North Korea, Yeah, she hates that crazy, drunk uncle—but happens to own an incredible piece of under-developed property. He’s going to leave that to somebody—and flipping that property could be a massive boon for China. She can’t wait for him to die, but she’ll always be the one to make sure he gets home safe in a cab.

You’re getting the picture. China doesn’t like North Korea: but she is looking to protect her future investments there.

Again, we have to wonder what President Trump*** thinks. But he seems to be banking on China doing nothing at this point. Going to China to say enough’s enough? Hasn’t been done before. Putting carriers off the coast? Hasn’t been done before. Openly ridiculing the North to piss them off? Also new. No wonder China canceled its flights into North Korea.

Maybe that investment isn’t going to pay off. Maybe it’s time to cut those losses.

* The Czar knows that foreign policy opinions become instantly credible when French and Latin phrases are sprinkled around. They’re the bons mots sine qua non of policy discussion.
** That’s still weird, like typing President Colonel Sanders or President Stimpy.
*** Or President Pauly Shore or President Charo. That’s weird.

It’s not a tax, except it totally is a tax, but we can’t say that because the narrative must flow.

‘Puter read Nicholas Kristof’s column in yesterday’s New York Times. The column concerned Trump voters remaining loyal despite Trump’s acts which Mr. Kristof asserts harm his voters. The column is unobjectionable using ‘Puter’s standards for judging NYT columns.*

‘Puter did note this one particular portion with considerable consternation, however:

Payton suggested that if the government wants to cut budgets, it should target “Obama phones” provided to low-income Americans. (In fact, the program predates President Barack Obama and is financed by telecom companies rather than by taxpayers.)

Did you catch the “financed by telecom companies rather than by taxpayers” part? ‘Puter did.

Obama phones are, in fact, funded by American taxpayers, or at least by American phone rate payers through the Universal Service Fund. The USF is most certainly not funded by telecom providers out of the goodness of their shriveled, black, capitalist hearts. To claim otherwise is to be a tax denier, to borrow the language of our global warming cultist brethren.**

The USF originated to allow providers to offset the cost of providing telephone service in rural areas, where the number of users per line mile is low. If rural users were charged the cost of their service, they couldn’t afford phones. Hence the it-totally-is-a-tax, which distributes the burden widely, not just on the highest cost customers where it should properly lie. Think of it as Obamacare’s individual mandate, where the young and healthy subsidize the old and sick.

The FCC imposes a charge on all telecom providers “based on a percentage of their interstate and international end-user telecommunications revenues.” This charge varies on a quarter-by-quarter basis, depending on the USF’s need. From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs, ‘Puter guesses.

Did ‘Puter mention this alleged contribution is involuntary? Because it’s involuntary. Totally involuntary. Like an, um, what’s that word for the government takes money from you under threat of arrest? Oh, yeah. A FRIKKIN’ TAX.

The FCC, like Mr. Kristof, likes to pretend that telecom providers’ “contributions” totally aren’t taxes and totally don’t affect the end user consumer at all, except, you know, for the fact that telecom providers routinely (and properly) pass through the costs of the totally-not-a-tax to the consumers through a surcharge on their bills.

The FCC helpfully notes:

Some consumers may notice a “Universal Service” line item on their telephone bills. This line item appears when a company chooses to recover its USF contributions directly from its customers by billing them this charge. The FCC does not require this charge to be passed on to customers. Each company makes a business decision about whether and how to assess charges to recover its Universal Service costs. These charges usually appear as a percentage of the consumer’s phone bill. Companies that choose to collect Universal Service fees from their customers cannot collect an amount that exceeds their contribution to the USF. They also cannot collect any fees from a Lifeline program participant.

So, the federal government requires a subset of business to pay an involuntary “fee” based on a percentage of its revenues. And the “fee” is passed through to customers in a progressive manner, excluding those below a certain income level. But it’s totally not a tax, got it?

Leaving aside the wisdom behind expanding the USF to cell phones, it’s clear that Mr. Kristof’s statement is (1) an honest error, (2) a purposeful obfuscation, or (3) an outright lie.

Since this is Mr. Kristof, ‘Puter’s chalking it up to an honest error. If it were Paul Krugman or MoDo the PoMoHo, ‘Puter’d chalk it up to dishonest propagandizing from lying sacks of flaming poop.

The ObamaPhone paragraph’s really a throwaway in the column’s larger context, but the NYT really ought issue a correction.

* ‘Puter’s standard for objectionable NYT columns is whether he can read them without blowing out an aorta, projectile vomiting, or self-crapping. Most NYT columns meet ‘Puter’s standard, unfortunately for all involved.

** And sistren. Don’t get your hemp, free-bloodied granny panties in a wad, feminist jackwads.