MOM: “Why isn’t your homework done, Junior?”

JUNIOR: “January 6”

MOM: “Fair enough”.

GUY A: “Who was that woman who got arrested here in Highland a few years back for being a terrorist?”

GAL B: “Sarah Jane Olson. She was arrested for being involved in January 6″.

GUY A: “I thought it was from in the Symbionese Liberation Army, back in the seventies?”

GAL B: “Couldn’t be. There was no political violence before January 6”

GUY A: “Doh. My bad”.

TOUR GUIDE: “Welcome to Volgograd – formerly Stalingrad”.

TOURIST:”Excuse me – will we see any monuments to the Battle of Stalingrad?”

TOUR GUIDE: “What?”

TOURIST: “The epic battle between the Nazis and Soviets, in 1942-43?”

TOUR GUIDE: “I don’t understand. There was no war or violence of any kind before January 6”.

KOMMISSAR (yelling from off-camera left (where else?)): “Or since!”

GOVERNOR WALX: “Any questions?”

REPORTER: “Tell us why you moved people with Covid into nursing homes?”

WALZ: “It was January 6. It was responsible for everything“.

REPORTER: “Thanks!”

BOSS: “Er, let’s talk. You’ve turned in no work yet this year.”

PROGRESSIVE EMPLOYEE: “After January 6, how could I?”

BOSS: “Fair point”.

COP (PULLING WOMAN OVER): “Do you know how fast you were going, ma’am?”

WOMAN: “After January 6, does it even matter?”

COP: “Good point. You’re free to go”.

…that Reverend King…

…flew coach.

A friend of the blog emails:

Recently I was in a meeting with State of Minnesota bureaucrats. They said it is now the practice for state of MN meetings to start each one with this recital.

Why is this necessary? Why not an acknowledgement for the ingenious federal republic devised to govern such a vast and varied people? Why not an acknowledgement for the free enterprise market that has done more to raise more people out of poverty than any other economic system ever invented.

I was just so floored by the Land Acknowledgement. Really.

That floors me, too.

And I have sat through Saint Paul school board meetings.

Reading Governor Klink‘s response to the situation in Brooklyn Center…:

… Several questions jump to mind.

One of those questions is not, as it happens, “who is side is the governor on“. That’s easy; whichever side gets him credit with the “progressive“ wing of the DFL, to whom he owes his position in every possible way.

This is, of course, the inevitable and result of single party democrat governance. You dear Fellers like to chant “you we own this town!“ After your little lopsided, fraud a tinge to factories.

Yes, you do. Every bit of it. To the hilt.

Biden: Texas, Mississippi and Florida going free-market on mask mandates and lockdowns is “Neanderthal Thinking”.

Reality:

And Minnesota’s not looking so hot, with its death rate pulling ahead of Wisconsin’s after being tied for months.

An Indian wag and devotee of Mahatma Gandhi once quipped “It costs us a fortune to keep Gandhi poor“.

Likewise, it takes an immense amount of carbon-based fuel for Transportation Secretary and choo-choo train fanboy Pete Buttigieg to virtue-signal his carbon neutrality:

There are, of course, innumerable such conundra on the left. For example, it takes a staggering amount of the fruits of western capitalism to keep Ilhan Omar’s anti-western hatred in business.

Keep it going.

I mean, when even Bill Maher gets uncomfortable…

Former North Dakota Senator and current useless mouth Heidi Heitkamp calls Gina Carano a “Nazi”. Plain and simple, full stop.

I’ll chalk this up to the (utterly true) idea that any Democrat can parrot any narrative twaddle, no matter how moronic, without fear, knowing that their audience hasn’t the critical thinking skills to call them on it. Or anything.

But I won’t get mad. I’ll just get on the air. I sent this to her Facebook page.

Senator,

I’m Mitch Berg. I grew up in Jamestown. My mother, Jan Berg/Brooks, was a volunteer for any number of your campaigns at the state and federal level.

I fell a bit farther from the tree, politically, of course.

I’d like to make a media request – I’d love to interview y ou on my show (WWTC AM1280) in the Twin Cities regarding your assertion that Gina Carano is a “Nazi”.

I can either do it live on Saturday at 2PM, or record an interview at any time convenient to you.

Hope we can discuss this.

Thanks.

Why, sure – I expect a response! Why wouldn’t I?

CNN’s ratings, without Bad Orange Man to thump on, plunge:

That leaves 55 to go.

I’m doing my bit.

A buddy owns an electrical contracting shop.  He writes:

“14/2 shot up about 50% since the inauguration.   It doubled since last
week.  It was running about $38 a roll last summer.  It hit $92.   And
the word is that there will be shortages. Suppliers are limiting
customers to 60% of normal inventory.  I had a few bids out.   I may
need to pull them.   For certain I won’t be in a hurry to write a lot of
new ones.”

For those who don’t speak Electrician, 14/2 is the size of plastic-clad
copper electrical wire used in Minnesota homes for common household
circuits (15 amps).  Busy electricians go through miles of it every
year.  The smallest change in price can upset the bid price.  So why is
the price of wire spiking now?  Why are shortages looming?

Turns out, the plastic coating of the wire is made from PVC which is
made from natural gas, which is extracted from leases on federal lands,
which the Garden Administration terminated by Executive Order to reverse
President Trump’s policy of American energy independence, because
anything the Bad Orange Man did was Bad and must be ended, regardless of
how much it costs.  It’s a moral imperative. Sometimes you have to
destroy a civilization in order to save it.

The first order effect of ending leases was to signal their virtue.

The second order effect is to make crude oil and natural gas less
plentiful domestically thus requiring the use of higher priced imports,
which push futures prices higher for gas and oil and PVC, which causes
higher prices for consumers of those products (such as electrical wire).

The third order effect is a slow-down in travel and home construction,
as higher prices push marginal customers out of the market.

The fourth order effect is lower tax revenues from reduced sales of gas,
wire and homes.

The fifth order effect is higher income taxes on the middle class to
offset the tax revenue lost in other areas.

We’re seeing it happen in real time.  We know what’s coming.  Why are we
the only ones who notice, the only ones who care?

Joe Doakes

To answer Joe’s question – because the “progressive” pols running the show today don’t care, and their voters aren’t smart enough to know better.

…that DFL politicians have is that they can say anything, no matter how illogical, preposterous and risible, anything at all , knowing that not only will the media never call them out on it, but that “their” voters, of all races, classes and education levels, having as they do zero critical thinking skills, will gobble it up.

Councilman Philippe Cunningham, in a “Neighborhood Safety Manual”, repeats the assertion from last year that “Klansmen”, complete with robes and pointy hoods, were roaming North Minneapolis during the riots.

Note to non-MSP residents: Klansmen in robes will occur in the Twin Cities about the same time I go on a hot third date with Anna Kendrick.

Dissenters are the first target. Especially the ones whose dissents actually work:

If I were him I’d run background checks on every customer coming through the door.

The good news: people are taking a second look at Ron DeSantis and Florida’s approach to Covid.

The bad news: to our cultural overlords, that means the same thing as “Jaws” taking another pass at Roy Scheider’s boat.

The DFL and the Teachers Union – pardon the redundancy – is rejecting the idea of allowing high school kids to take their standardized tests from home…

…because there’s no way to make such an important bit of work reliable and honest.

Democratic senators said Minnesota’s testing provider, Pearson Education, would not be able to develop a remote testing option in the next few weeks. It would be impossible to control the at-home environment like a classroom to monitor for cheating, they said.

“You can’t have anything on the board that would give a student an unfair advantage. How can we ensure that is going to happen at home?” said state Sen. Mary Kunesh, DFL-New Brighton.

Huh.

Gotta hand it to the DFL. They know the value of keeping institutions, the ones vital to democracy, un-sullied by essentially sending them home on the honor system.

Yessirreebob.

…of constant violence that he encouraged not only with as many words but with as many actions, Portland, Oregon mayor Ted Wheeler says people are “sick of” the constant sturm und drang that has made parts of the city unlivable:

Portland became a hotbed of civil unrest last summer during demonstrations protesting the police killing of George Floyd, an unarmed Black man in Minneapolis. Similar demonstrations in cities across the country were largely peaceful. But in Portland, some of the demonstrations have deteriorated into widespread arson, looting and assaults. ADVERTISEMENT

Rioters in the city, who have called for the defunding of the local police department along with other measures, have on several occasions targeted a federal courthouse, spraying it with graffiti, setting fires and destroying nearby storefronts and other property.  

“The people who work here support the voices of racial and social justice and will not be intimidated from doing our jobs by the ugly graffiti or broken windows,” Scott Erik Asphaug, a U.S. attorney for the District of Oregon, said during the press conference, the AP reported. “We do not confuse the voices of the many with the shouts of the few who hope to hold our city hostage by petty crime and violence.”

The first two things that jumped to my mind?

1. After ten months of Wheeler all but setting Portland up as an “Anti”-Fa staging area, I wonder what powerful “progressive” constituency finally figured it was time to rein the party in?
2. Reading Asphaug’s quote, am I the only one who thinks it sounds like they’re trying to pin the violence on…”the right”?

What Liberals believe will happen:

Gangbanger 1: “Hey, man, that guy was disrespectful to me.  I’m going to kill him.  Give me your gun.”

Gangbanger 2: “No way, man.  There’s a new law: you must pass a background check first.”

Gangbanger 1: “Dang, man.  I guess I’ll go play some basketball instead.”

Joe Doakes

Joe gives gun grabbers too much credit. I doubt most of them consider the notion that there are people out there we already prohibit from owning guns. They think the good guys are the problem.

A federal judge rules the federal government has no power to order a nation-wide moratorium on evictions.  State governments can do it, but not the federal government.  That’s a refreshing change.

Did I mention the judge is a Trump nominee?  The winning continues long after The President has left the Oval Office.

Joe Doakes

Which, as a Trump skeptic, was always my best-case result.

Podcasts are all the rage.  I hate podcasts.  They remind me of sitting in fourth grade class when the teacher says, “You read silently while I read aloud.”  I was done with the chapter and bored long before the teacher finished.

Worse, the skills needed to be a good writer are not identical to those of a good speaker. Podcasters may have good things to say, but it’s torture to listen to them say them. 

Our Gracious Host, of course, has training and experience in both sides – print and radio – so this is not a dig at him.  But I miss reading guys like Scott Adams and Mark Steyn.

Joe Doakes

No dig taken, JD. And I’m with you – I don’t much care for podcasts, and I’m slow in warming to audio books, for that matter. Part of it is that so many of them have such lousy production values – and yes, that may sound shallow, but poor audio quality, bad mic technique and a lousy speaking voice are very analogous to terrible grammar and lousy style. They’re integral parts of the medium.

It even happens with “polished, professional” podcasts. “The Daily”, the New York Times’ daily podcast, is hosted by Michael Barbaro. Leaving aside Barbaro’s history of hackery, he has the most annoying “radio voice” anywhere.

I still much prefer reading.

Two-Mask-Tony has famously decreed that if one mask is good, two masks
is better.  I figured out where he got the notion: from software
security people.

My password to remotely log into the work computer is the same password
as I use to log into the various software programs on the work server. 
What’s the point of every program having a password if they’re all the
same?  Since I know the password to get into the computer itself, I know
the password for everything else, too.

It’s as if they expect to thwart some cartoon villain tapping on my
keyboard.  “Dammit, I made it through the first nine passwords, but now
I can’t get into the timesheet system to report my hours for payroll. 
Curses, foiled again!”

Joe Doakes

I’ve cracked wise about this in the recent past.

It’s easy to design “perfect” safety: wear ten masks, and never leave the house!

The costs of that approach never seem to enter these peoples’ thinking.

Perhaps because it costs them nothing.

I’m not sure whether this…

…is the greatest parody site since Titania McGrath, or the most depressing thing I’ve ever read.

I’m praying for parody.