I said to someone on Twitter tonight who had a terrible, evil mother, that living today in our culture is like watching our Cluster B mothers win everything, all the time.
Um, yes, some days (today happens to be one of them) I am filled with dread and despair over the direction the world is going. Even more so over the direction that my little corner of it is going. I’m not in a good frame of mind right now.
I can only report what I see. I live in the most red county in a very blue state (Caroline County, Maryland). We are oppressed with mandates that come from Annapolis. They just passed a bill stripping counties from being able to restrict solar companies from coming in and invoking eminent domain unless 5% of your "vulnerable land" is *already* in solar. Cities hate rural folk and take every legislative opportunity to squeeze us. "Democracy is two wolves and a sheep deciding what's for dinner." Yep.
My sympathies, GG, I missed that one in this year's lovely Annapolis session. There were just soooo many highlights. 🙄 But Wes Moore is such a great speaker!! He'll only tax us a little and make Maryland a competitive state for business. After he wrecks Maryland, he'll get a shot at the whole country in 2028 (he's the anointed one!).
That's unbelievable about the solar companies. It's no doubt the splendid idea of some idiot from Montgomery or PG because they boogered the electrical grid and are scrambling for generation.
I honestly don't think we even need to do that. We've been ass-deep in resident Canada geese (i.e. they stopped migrating because life is so easy here they don't feel the need to haul their butts to Alberta every spring) so I think some strategically scattered bait will have those solar panels covered in six inches of goose poop before the RCMP can shut down Mark Steyn's credit cards again.
If you've heard of an "extinction burst," it's possible that that's what we're seeing here. Sometimes a cornered and defeated animal is most dangerous when it's right on the verge of death...that's when you'll find out just how vicious it can be. Let's hope what we're seeing right now is the death throes of the old regime.
I realize that what's happening right now could be taken as a good sign OR as a bad sign. But at least a fifty/fifty chance is better than an unequivocally bad sign.
Gardening is very important as my strategy towards sanity. The daffodils are blooming, the forget-me-nots are soon, then the roses. I take out my aggressions on the woodchucks, building walls to keep them out. I think I'll name the fat one AOC.
Speaking of HOAs (someone brought them up earlier), my sister-in-law wanted to do some gardening in her front and back yards. Lay some stepping stones, plant a few shrubs and some flowers. The HOA required her to hire a landscape architect and submit a formal plan for approval. I kid you not.
I've heard about this. The boards are probably afraid of the nutters who don't want the grass to be cut and don't want that dying tree, a danger, to be taken down. I wonder if your sister in law can find others who want a bit more gardening independence! And lobby the board for this container garden or that pollenator-friendly plant?
We have rotating woodchucks (we can't tell if same or new ones) and we call the bigger one Harvey and the little ones Harvettes. They don't dig in our yard and don't have a garden so we leave them be :)
I try to balance the two. Prepare for the worst and I'd say hope for the best, but seeing is believing at this point. There's no voting our way out of this. That's the wall that I run into with Trump.
Congress hasn't done much so far. The Democrats will block any actual legislation in the Senate. People will forget the horrors of the Left as the news screeches and the courts constantly stymie the President. Ahh, there's my doom.
Have a plan for some of the worst black swans but realize it's all not dropping in the sh!tter tomorrow or anytime soon. After 2028, who knows? There could be a culture shift occurring or just more of the electoral whiplash that we get once the Left comes back to power to drag us further into gay race communism with a heaping side of trans.
efforts by most media) to forget that Trump has nearly stopped the illegal invasion (even the New York Times finally printed a stat in a lonely corner of a back page last month admitting the number of Illegals coming over the border was the highest in history under Biden), raised awareness and shut down DEI madness, shut down trans ops in the military, reinstated military who didn't jab, shut down gov-funded leftist NGOs aiding and abetting insanity and so much more in two months, and the media's doom & gloom re:tariff lies are being exposed as wishful thinking, and so much more, in less than 3 months. We had no chance w/o this Storm of Storms coming in with a mandate to TRY to restore sanity and a better ability (that I've used) to tell leftists to shut the fuck up.
Which is why I've held onto hope for now. I've mostly kept to my 6 month promise. Without acts of Congress, most of his actions are temporary. As for a culture change, 2026 will be the tell for elections.
speaking 'as a fat old VT trustafarian' i sympathize completely. the stupid berns in so many facets that it is hard to keep track. However we be past the equinox and things are warming and the carbon dioxide is making the plants grow. the turkey buzzards have come back to clean up.
as mark steyn sez April hangs you up the most. take heart and be merry.
normal Democrats --- Are Democrats actually normal? Or have they fallen to the dark side?
The number of people in this country who think it's OK to murder political opponents, castrate children, protect illegal foreigners --- They think this, until someone threatens to hurt them, then it's hi-ho to the police they go. They will advocate for illegal immigrants, until the immigrants show up on their doorstep, then they call on the military to remove them.
The actions being taken by courts, unprecedented intrusions into foreign policy, the facilitation of Mengele-level child vivisection, and on, and on ---They are gung-ho to wave around their authority, until someone threatens to impeach them.
Conservative politicians don't have the spine to pick up a bullhorn and pass laws to protect those endangered by communist waveforms.
More and more, I find myself agreeing with the seminal line from Aliens: "Nuke it from orbit. It's the only way to be sure."
And it appears that young men are more likely to return to religion than young women (https://www.ncregister.com/commentaries/the-rise-of-religious-young-men). It's a drag that young women have gone off the deep end, but increased religiosity among young men can only be a good thing.
I hope it means a girding of loins and a restoration of courage. I hope young men are SO over wokeness that they form a bulwark against its further advance, and that they emulate the DOGE boys in rooting out corruption and salting the earth behind them.
That said, I do worry that the current efforts to root out corruption will be reversed by the [apparently] inexorable forces that set up the NGO networks in the first place. The tides haven't turned such that they are sweeping away the forces of evil once and for all. More needs to be done. Much more.
Remember, though, that sometimes things are chaotic and scary and apparently going the wrong way, but in reality, hundreds of small things are lining up the right way, such that suddenly it all resolves in the right way.
But if not, death creeps nearer every day, and then we don't have to care anymore.
I'm attending a friend's baptism and confirmation this Saturday at St Paul's cathedral in London. Anecdotally amongst dissenters, former liberals, and other anti-woke types there is a clear (re-)embracing of Christianity.
Hell, in the last Census a few years ago I marked myself down as Christian (I was baptised Catholic, after all), despite having thought of myself as an atheist since the age of 12. I'm still not exactly a churchgoer but I believe this is a spiritual war and I want to equip myself.
I hope the UK isn't past the point of no return, but there seem to be so many leftists and low-level police and bureaucrats who embrace the government stomp-down on the citizens who refuse to accept
Faith. That thing you only think that you don't have, but it's easy to see from my vantage point that you have it in spades. It's just fixing to jump you. I know you already know that they are traps, but don't look inside the boxes for it. Any of them.
This is why you have to have faith. Evil may seem triumphant, but it is in fact collapsing. Satan’s time is short, and he’ll make as great a catastrophe as he can. But all that is, is inalienably good. Even this evil and suffering we experience is for the good: it is a beautiful challenge for us to be true, a goad for us to worship the good, the trial our chance to be heroic. Without evil, there would be no glorious self sacrifice, without temptation and sin our fidelity would be meaningless, without suffering there would be no proof of our love.
So be not afraid. Scoff at the devil, do not let him dismay you. The victory is ours, it is already won, all the strurm und drang is distraction from the transcendent reality that it is all already over but for the crying. Courage, then. Never let these dopey uncouth cretins get you down, rather laugh at them.
I go back and forth. Most days I am good but boy liberals sure are making a racket and drowning out normal. Hard not to get taken in by it. They are desperate and not going to go gentle into that good night.
I can certainly sympathize with sensing doom, or at least being worried that it's lurking. Here in Canada conservative-leaning voters are puzzled (appalled might be more accurate) by the surge in support for the present "liberal" government, despite the damage it has done, following a change in leader and a strong reaction to Trump's hostile rhetoric and action against us. If the Liberals retain power, it will doom us to even deeper recession and continued wokeism from Ottawa.
Because the shift from an almost certain Conservative majority that could reverse much of the damage is largely due to Trump, even conservatives now find him distasteful. It's a real shame. It seems that liberty and prosperity are disappointingly dependent on honest, responsible government and that propaganda works on most people.
Um, yes, some days (today happens to be one of them) I am filled with dread and despair over the direction the world is going. Even more so over the direction that my little corner of it is going. I’m not in a good frame of mind right now.
I am with you on that.
The overall vibe seems ominous of late.
Yes it’s very scary
DOOOOM!!!
I spent way to long looking for this:
https://youtu.be/xoCZ07hwoZ4?si=Ydy7xV_r7FLxMTU1
Wanna see some real crap? Join a Little League board...
How would you pit one against a Homeowner's Association?
Little Leagues are far more corrupt. Not even close.
They're don't have the do-gooders-for-your-own-sake like HOAs do, but they're more consistently thieves.
Fascinating. I hadn't thought about them. I'd bet that's where you find the narcissist parents, the braggart types?
Not just braggarts but power/control types too. And then of course the embezzlement...
HOA's make me mad. How are they even legal?
I can only report what I see. I live in the most red county in a very blue state (Caroline County, Maryland). We are oppressed with mandates that come from Annapolis. They just passed a bill stripping counties from being able to restrict solar companies from coming in and invoking eminent domain unless 5% of your "vulnerable land" is *already* in solar. Cities hate rural folk and take every legislative opportunity to squeeze us. "Democracy is two wolves and a sheep deciding what's for dinner." Yep.
My sympathies, GG, I missed that one in this year's lovely Annapolis session. There were just soooo many highlights. 🙄 But Wes Moore is such a great speaker!! He'll only tax us a little and make Maryland a competitive state for business. After he wrecks Maryland, he'll get a shot at the whole country in 2028 (he's the anointed one!).
That's unbelievable about the solar companies. It's no doubt the splendid idea of some idiot from Montgomery or PG because they boogered the electrical grid and are scrambling for generation.
The shore should split from upstate.
It is all just play and games until good rural folks start petering solar panels with birdshot.
I honestly don't think we even need to do that. We've been ass-deep in resident Canada geese (i.e. they stopped migrating because life is so easy here they don't feel the need to haul their butts to Alberta every spring) so I think some strategically scattered bait will have those solar panels covered in six inches of goose poop before the RCMP can shut down Mark Steyn's credit cards again.
If you've heard of an "extinction burst," it's possible that that's what we're seeing here. Sometimes a cornered and defeated animal is most dangerous when it's right on the verge of death...that's when you'll find out just how vicious it can be. Let's hope what we're seeing right now is the death throes of the old regime.
I realize that what's happening right now could be taken as a good sign OR as a bad sign. But at least a fifty/fifty chance is better than an unequivocally bad sign.
Gardening is very important as my strategy towards sanity. The daffodils are blooming, the forget-me-nots are soon, then the roses. I take out my aggressions on the woodchucks, building walls to keep them out. I think I'll name the fat one AOC.
Speaking of HOAs (someone brought them up earlier), my sister-in-law wanted to do some gardening in her front and back yards. Lay some stepping stones, plant a few shrubs and some flowers. The HOA required her to hire a landscape architect and submit a formal plan for approval. I kid you not.
I've heard about this. The boards are probably afraid of the nutters who don't want the grass to be cut and don't want that dying tree, a danger, to be taken down. I wonder if your sister in law can find others who want a bit more gardening independence! And lobby the board for this container garden or that pollenator-friendly plant?
She's a complier. As for me, my solution is to never, ever, under any conceivable circumstances live where there's an HOA.
We have rotating woodchucks (we can't tell if same or new ones) and we call the bigger one Harvey and the little ones Harvettes. They don't dig in our yard and don't have a garden so we leave them be :)
I try to balance the two. Prepare for the worst and I'd say hope for the best, but seeing is believing at this point. There's no voting our way out of this. That's the wall that I run into with Trump.
Congress hasn't done much so far. The Democrats will block any actual legislation in the Senate. People will forget the horrors of the Left as the news screeches and the courts constantly stymie the President. Ahh, there's my doom.
Have a plan for some of the worst black swans but realize it's all not dropping in the sh!tter tomorrow or anytime soon. After 2028, who knows? There could be a culture shift occurring or just more of the electoral whiplash that we get once the Left comes back to power to drag us further into gay race communism with a heaping side of trans.
It's very easy (because of
efforts by most media) to forget that Trump has nearly stopped the illegal invasion (even the New York Times finally printed a stat in a lonely corner of a back page last month admitting the number of Illegals coming over the border was the highest in history under Biden), raised awareness and shut down DEI madness, shut down trans ops in the military, reinstated military who didn't jab, shut down gov-funded leftist NGOs aiding and abetting insanity and so much more in two months, and the media's doom & gloom re:tariff lies are being exposed as wishful thinking, and so much more, in less than 3 months. We had no chance w/o this Storm of Storms coming in with a mandate to TRY to restore sanity and a better ability (that I've used) to tell leftists to shut the fuck up.
Which is why I've held onto hope for now. I've mostly kept to my 6 month promise. Without acts of Congress, most of his actions are temporary. As for a culture change, 2026 will be the tell for elections.
speaking 'as a fat old VT trustafarian' i sympathize completely. the stupid berns in so many facets that it is hard to keep track. However we be past the equinox and things are warming and the carbon dioxide is making the plants grow. the turkey buzzards have come back to clean up.
as mark steyn sez April hangs you up the most. take heart and be merry.
Didn’t know your background. I’m sorry… but you’re right…
"Didn't know his background?" No shame is that, and now please stick around. :)
normal Democrats --- Are Democrats actually normal? Or have they fallen to the dark side?
The number of people in this country who think it's OK to murder political opponents, castrate children, protect illegal foreigners --- They think this, until someone threatens to hurt them, then it's hi-ho to the police they go. They will advocate for illegal immigrants, until the immigrants show up on their doorstep, then they call on the military to remove them.
The actions being taken by courts, unprecedented intrusions into foreign policy, the facilitation of Mengele-level child vivisection, and on, and on ---They are gung-ho to wave around their authority, until someone threatens to impeach them.
Conservative politicians don't have the spine to pick up a bullhorn and pass laws to protect those endangered by communist waveforms.
More and more, I find myself agreeing with the seminal line from Aliens: "Nuke it from orbit. It's the only way to be sure."
https://youtu.be/aCbfMkh940Q
Yes, I hate this atmosphere.
The oppressive atmosphere of the girl boss
Nothing makes me more sick !🤢🤮
It's not just you.
The degree of evil that's making itself manifest lately is truly alarming. And maybe -- hopefully -- that's one of the reasons that the decline in religiosity has started to reverse itself. (Depending on whom you ask. Some say it's merely leveled off: https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2025/02/26/decline-of-christianity-in-the-us-has-slowed-may-have-leveled-off/)
And it appears that young men are more likely to return to religion than young women (https://www.ncregister.com/commentaries/the-rise-of-religious-young-men). It's a drag that young women have gone off the deep end, but increased religiosity among young men can only be a good thing.
I hope it means a girding of loins and a restoration of courage. I hope young men are SO over wokeness that they form a bulwark against its further advance, and that they emulate the DOGE boys in rooting out corruption and salting the earth behind them.
That said, I do worry that the current efforts to root out corruption will be reversed by the [apparently] inexorable forces that set up the NGO networks in the first place. The tides haven't turned such that they are sweeping away the forces of evil once and for all. More needs to be done. Much more.
Remember, though, that sometimes things are chaotic and scary and apparently going the wrong way, but in reality, hundreds of small things are lining up the right way, such that suddenly it all resolves in the right way.
But if not, death creeps nearer every day, and then we don't have to care anymore.
I'm attending a friend's baptism and confirmation this Saturday at St Paul's cathedral in London. Anecdotally amongst dissenters, former liberals, and other anti-woke types there is a clear (re-)embracing of Christianity.
Hell, in the last Census a few years ago I marked myself down as Christian (I was baptised Catholic, after all), despite having thought of myself as an atheist since the age of 12. I'm still not exactly a churchgoer but I believe this is a spiritual war and I want to equip myself.
Come back, man. We need you.
Josh is still here. He'll do it.
I hope the UK isn't past the point of no return, but there seem to be so many leftists and low-level police and bureaucrats who embrace the government stomp-down on the citizens who refuse to accept
the islamic invasion initiated by Stasi Starmer.
"...death creeps nearer every day, and then we don't have to care anymore."
I know what you mean, but it's so damned sad that we are in a place where we look to death as possibly the only relief from the leftist nightmare.
Faith. That thing you only think that you don't have, but it's easy to see from my vantage point that you have it in spades. It's just fixing to jump you. I know you already know that they are traps, but don't look inside the boxes for it. Any of them.
This is why you have to have faith. Evil may seem triumphant, but it is in fact collapsing. Satan’s time is short, and he’ll make as great a catastrophe as he can. But all that is, is inalienably good. Even this evil and suffering we experience is for the good: it is a beautiful challenge for us to be true, a goad for us to worship the good, the trial our chance to be heroic. Without evil, there would be no glorious self sacrifice, without temptation and sin our fidelity would be meaningless, without suffering there would be no proof of our love.
So be not afraid. Scoff at the devil, do not let him dismay you. The victory is ours, it is already won, all the strurm und drang is distraction from the transcendent reality that it is all already over but for the crying. Courage, then. Never let these dopey uncouth cretins get you down, rather laugh at them.
I go back and forth. Most days I am good but boy liberals sure are making a racket and drowning out normal. Hard not to get taken in by it. They are desperate and not going to go gentle into that good night.
I can certainly sympathize with sensing doom, or at least being worried that it's lurking. Here in Canada conservative-leaning voters are puzzled (appalled might be more accurate) by the surge in support for the present "liberal" government, despite the damage it has done, following a change in leader and a strong reaction to Trump's hostile rhetoric and action against us. If the Liberals retain power, it will doom us to even deeper recession and continued wokeism from Ottawa.
Because the shift from an almost certain Conservative majority that could reverse much of the damage is largely due to Trump, even conservatives now find him distasteful. It's a real shame. It seems that liberty and prosperity are disappointingly dependent on honest, responsible government and that propaganda works on most people.