The image I’ve posted is an American cemetery in France, near Verdun. These graves are for soldiers killed in World War I. There are nearly 15,000 graves at the site. Over 53,000 Americans died in combat in World War I and 116,000 Americans in total died as a result of the war. My grandfather fought in World War I and was able to survive the carnage and come home. He was one of the lucky ones. And because he was lucky, so am I.

My grandfather died in 1959, before I was born. I never did get a chance to know him, or to thank him for his service. He did get 40 more years, time enough to marry and raise a family that included my father. I don’t doubt that each of these crosses represents a man who would have loved to have 40 more years to live, to do the things my grandfather was able to do.

We remember those who gave their all on this day precisely because of the enormity of the sacrifice they made. Every one of these crosses represents a human life that was cut short, a dream unrealized. We owe these individuals our gratitude in ways that we cannot adequately express.

We didn’t have access to a lot of contemporary popular music in the home I grew up in . It’s not that my parents discouraged it, but they discouraged it; I’m pretty sure my Mom wanted me to be a classical musician.

That started to change, a bit, in sixth or seventh grade. I got a cast-off sixties-vintage Emerson transistor AM radio, and turned into WDAY in Fargo and, eventually, KFYR in Bismarck. Through junior high, I taught myself guitar by learning to play by ear along with the “Torrid Twenty” on Tuesday nights. If you tell me the top couple hundred songs from about 1977 to about 1980, I pretty much know them all. Try me.

But I was a reader. So I took a little time off from reading history at the high school library (which I went to when I couldn’t get away to go to the city library), and read whatever I could find.

There wasn’t much.

I remember one book from the early seventies – I couldn’t begin to remember the name of the author or the book but it was some pop critic and cultural academic who bemoaned the vapid excesses of glam rock – he didn’t much care for Elton John, as I recall…

…and in the last chapter, made his case for the future of popular music.

And that future was…

Tubular Bells by Mike Oldfield.

Truth be told, I got put off the song so hard by that particular book, I have somehow managed to go, lo, these past four or so decades without hearing it so much as once.

But it popped up on Youtube last weekend. And curiosity overcame me.

On the one hand, now I can see where “punk” came from.

On the other hand, that’s (checks video)…

…twenty five freaking minutes I won’t be getting back.

Another friend of the blog emails:

Funny, why would this article mention “ghost guns”?

It relates to the San Jose shooter – who showed ample sign of being completely, although not legally provably, insane.

And no sign of having used a “ghost gun”.

A friend of the blog emails:

I’m not going to weigh in on whether the Interstate system was bad for some neighborhoods when it happened. 

But, every urban renewal project since then (like St Paul’s Green Line) seems to have been worse in terms of the impact on these neighborhoods. The goal in these current projects seems to be to keep poor neighborhoods poor and segregated. 

So, I read this and anticipate that current St Paul activists/councilmembers are looking at Syracuse and drooling at what they can do to I94 and the businesses owned by Immigrants and POC that survived the Green Line and the 2020 riots. And how many accolades they’ll get from Macalester Groveland for “saving those people” from pollution of cars by destroying their businesses and displacing them out to suburbs. 

It’s funny- they supposedly hate cars so much, but they never ask to close the section of Snelling Ave down between Selby and Grand, for instance. It’s always about shutting down streets in neighborhoods where they want to make sure to keep control of the residents.

I’ve wanted to tell these people – you want to make a statement? Muster all that political clout you have and shut down Lincoln and Portland Avenues from Hamline to Western. Or Dayton from Snelling to the River . Or just block all the streets south of West Seventh from Eagle down to Grand. Or Como from 280 east to Raymond. And make Crocus Hill, Merriam Park, Irvine Park and Saint Anthony Park, respectively, the urban meadows you envision.

Lead by example!

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:\

I missed this earlier.  Sarah Johnson has proposed a ‘race offender registry.”  The idea is that people who are racists (actual, accused or suspected) should be prohibited from living near racial minorities.  It’s based on the sex offender registry concept.  Her idea is back in the news because Ms. Johnson was accidentally injured in a drive-by shooting.  Honestly, I didn’t know they had those in England, what with guns being banned and all. 

In honor of her bravery and sacrifice, I’d like to give her concept a try.  I’d be willing to live in a community entirely made up of suspected or potential racists: White people only, no Black people at all to ensure no possibility of racism or microaggression.  I envision a large mixed-use development with housing, retail, and casual dining areas called “lunch counters.”  Our community motto will be: “Segregation today, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever,” and I already have a great idea for a flag.

We’ll call it ‘Alabama.’

Joe Doakes

Watching to see the Cathy Newman-ing in 3…2…1…

Value propositions:

The Ukrainian energy company that was paying President Biden’s son Hunter $1 million a year cut his monthly compensation in half two months after his father ceased to be vice president.

From May 2014, Burisma Holdings Ltd. was paying Hunter $83,333 a month to sit on its board, invoices on his abandoned laptop show.

But in an email on March 19, 2017, Burisma executive Vadym Pozharskyi asked Hunter to sign a new director’s agreement and informed him “the only thing that was amended is the compensation rate.”

The board member’s access to the White House had been amended a bit, too, and it’s difficult to imagine Hunter’s, ahem, skill set was particularly valuable to a Ukranian energy company when his dad was a private citizen. There’s more:

Documents on the laptop also show that Hunter invited [Burisma executive Vadym] Pozharskyi to meet then-vice president Biden at a dinner in Washington DC in April, 2015.

That would be the laptop that dare not speak its name about seven months ago. While we’re not sure what was on the menu at that dinner, there were just desserts:

In December 2015, Biden flew to Kiev and strong-armed the Ukrainian government into firing its top prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, who was investigating Burisma at the time, including seizing four large houses and a Rolls-Royce Phantom belonging to the company’s owner Mykola Zlochevsky.

And there was more:

Three months later, Shokin was forced out of office, and nine months later, all legal proceedings against Burisma were dropped. Joe Biden has said in the past that Shokin wasn’t doing enough to crack down on corruption and that the push had nothing to do with Hunter’s position.

And the future Leader of the Free World said this:

In a 2018 speech at the Council on Foreign Relations, VPBiden bragged that he had threatened to withhold $1 billion in US loan guarantees for Ukraine unless Shokin was sacked.

“I looked at them and said, ‘I’m leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money.’ Well, son of a bitch. He got fired,” he said.

Correlation is not causation, but son of a bitch, it sure has an aroma.

Sorry for the long delay in continuing/finishing our World War I series – professional & personal duties stood in the way.  But we’re back and going to continue the series to see through to the end of the Great War…

The sun had yet to rise when the first artillery shells fell at 4:40am on March 21st, 1918, along the banks of the British position near the Somme.  The sector had been far from quiet since the horrific Battle of the Somme less than two years earlier, but most of the offensive action had come from the British line.  With the adoption of their defense-in-depth with the Hindenburg Line, Germany had maintained a largely defensive position in the West since the ascension of Paul von Hindenburg and Erich Ludendorff in the fall of 1916.  But this was no defensive attack, nor even a limited counteroffensive, as the Germans had conducted from time to time.

Over 3.5 million German shells were fired within five hours – the largest bombardment from either side in the West since Verdun.    And following that barrage were 110 divisions, including many experienced Stoßtruppen or “shock/storm troopers,” trained to exploit any openings in the Allied line.

Nearly four years of combat were about to come to a head in a massive, bloody final attempt by Germany to end the Great War.  Despite widely believing that a traditional victory against the Allies was now impossible, the German High Command (minus Hindenburg) would now gamble their entire army on a long-shot effort to force the Allies to the negotiating table before further American reinforcements could arrive.  The Germans would call their offensive the Kaiserschlacht or “Kaiser’s Battle,” underlining the gravity of the operation to Berlin.  At stake would no longer just be military reputations, strategic territory or human lives, but the very outcome of the war itself.

The German Spring Offensive – the last ditch effort by Germany to win a conventional victory in the Great War

Almost exactly one year earlier, Germany had relinquished miles of hard-won gains in France to retreat behind a nearly impenetrable series of reinforced trenches and bunkers.  The concept had been the brainchild of the Chief of the German General Staff Paul von Hindenburg and his talented deputy, Erich Ludendorff.  Together, the duo had reoriented Germany’s strategy, indeed even German society itself, towards a goal of defensive warfare designed to reduce German casualties and, hopefully, force the Allies to seek terms to end the bloodshed.  The shift in strategy had seemingly worked – Germany was given more of a free-hand in the East, which aided in producing the Russian defeat, and the Western Allies had nearly broken themselves throughout 1917 in offensives that slaughtered their own men for nebulous gains.  So why was Germany now abandoning the strategy that had seemingly produced sizable victories for the Central Powers? (more…)

Minineapolis has been through crime waves before. The thirties, the late sixties/early seventies, and of course the “Murderapolis” years almost thirty years back.

Not sure if this sort of thing happened at any of those times:

Sounds like Beirut in 1984.

1985:

“Progressive” “In” Crowd (academics, media, non-profiteers, etc): “It is good to be politically correct”.

(Months of mockery, from conservatives and just plain real people ensue).

1986:

“Progressive” “In” Crowd: “Political Correctness” doesn’t exist, and is just a term made up by right wingers to try to ‘satirize’ us”.

1994:

“Progressive” In Crowd: “It’s time for comprehensive Gun Control . Join Handgun Control, Incorporated!”

(Months of mockery, from conservatives and just plain real people. and a tidal wave of political annihilation, ensue).

2000:

“Progressive” “In” Crowd: “Gun Control” doesn’t exist, and never existed, and is just a fairy tale the right uses to scare its followers and increase gun sales!”.

2002:

“Progressive” In Crowd: “It is good to be diverse”.

(Months of mockery, from conservatives and just plain real people ensue).

2002006:

“Progressive” “In” Crowd: “Diversity” doesn’t exist, and is just a term made up by right wingers to try to ‘satirize’ us”.

2018:

“Progressive” In Crowd: “It is good to be ‘woke'”.

(Months of mockery, from conservatives and just plain real people ensue).

2021:

“Progressive” “In” Crowd: “Wokeness” doesn’t exist, and is just a dog whistle the “alt right” uses to try to ‘satirize’ us”.

2022: What will be next?

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

There have been a spate of shootings in Minneapolis. Liberals reflexively trot out the same tired solutions: close the gun show loophole and tax ammunition to make it more expensive and therefore harder to obtain. No guns, no bullets, no shootings. Simple, right?

It occurs to me there’s a real-world way to obtain empirical data to test these theories. I’m all about the SCIENCE. Show me the numbers.

Dictator-for-Life Walz issued Executive Order 20-4 closing public accommodations during the pandemic. His order had the effect of cancelling all gun shows as nobody could rent a hall to hold a public gathering. No gun shows are scheduled until the end of June 2021. Okay – loophole closed 15 months. Any measurable effect on criminals’ ability to acquire firearms to commit shootings? Are there fewer guns on the streets? Fewer people being shot, car-jacked, robbed at gunpoint? What are the numbers?

Ammunition shelves have been bare since before the election. 9mm pistol ammunition which cost $0.20 per round last June peaked at $0.70 and is holding around $0.50 now, but only on the web. There is none on the shelf. If price and scarcity affected criminal shooting patterns, we should be seeing it. Are we? Criminals conserving ammo? Firing fewer shots? Switching to knives or bats because bullets aren’t available? What are the numbers?

Or do the numbers show that criminals can get guns and ammunition pretty much at will, meaning those same tired solutions don’t work in the real world any more than Prohibition or the War on Drugs worked in the real world? It’s important to know the numbers, because if we have empirical evidence showing those same tired solutions don’t work, shouldn’t Liberals stop nattering on about them? Aren’t Liberals interested in SCIENCE? Don’t they care about proof?

Joe Doakes

Why, it’s almost like Twin Cities gangs are actually as immune to the free market as the Minneapolis City Council thinks it is.

Look over this news story, about “Palestinian” sympathizers attacking a Jewish familiy in Florida.

What word is missing from anyplace in the story?

A friend of the blog emails:

So, if the cops think they got one of the shooters of those young kids in Mpls, they can’t pull him over if they have a taillight out?

Just asking.

Snark aside, I am trying to imagine the actual process of sorting calls between, at the most extreme case:

1. The actual cops
2. The unarmed traffic police
3. The social workers that are supposed to respond to mental health calls

Mental health cases routinely escalate. As the FOTB notes above, traffic stops find felons all the time; two of Ted Bundy’s arrests, to pick a random example, started as traffic stops; not a few homicides started as mental health calls.

The gnashing and grinding at the 911 center alone will be epic – as will the hordes of cross-department staff that wind up getting laboriously dispatched to calls after the the first social worker or unarmed hall monitor,…er, traffic cop gets “unexpectedly” killed.

The sound of gunfire, off in the distance/I’m getting used to it now.

That wasn’t off in the distance. It was the scene at 38th and Chicago yesterday, also known as George Floyd Square. Sure, it was the middle of the day, but it’s always a good time to bust a few caps, right? This news report was, ahem, deadpan:

The Minneapolis intersection where George Floyd died was disrupted by gunfire Tuesday, just hours before it was to be the site of a family-friendly street festival marking the anniversary of his death at the hands of police.

Nothing quite says family-friendly street festival like random gunfire. But fortunately, a bona fide journalist was on the scene:

Journalist Philip Crowther, who was shooting live video from 38th and Chicago, reported hearing as many as 30 gunshots about a block east of the intersection. Crowther said a storefront window appeared to have been broken by a gunshot.

“Very quickly things got back to normal,” Crowther said. “People here who spend a significant amount of time, the organizers, were running around asking, ‘Does anyone need a medic?’ It seems like there are no injuries.”

Mr. Crowther? There’s nothing normal about any of this. But hey, we appreciate the narrative!

The DFL put this out on social media over the weekend:

“In partnership with the USDA?”

Isn’t there some kind of rule against using taxpayer money (or things bought with taxpayer money) to directly benefit a political party?

I mean, they put this event at their headquarters – down an obscure little side road along the river, far from where most of the hungry people are – for a reason, right?

There are few statements I personally find less convincing than “my ancestors suffered, so I have absolute authority on a completely different question“

Almost 35 years ago, reacting to the Democrat bias in the media, Rush Limbaugh brought fearless, joyful paleoconservatism [1]. Spends thirty years dominating the ratings.

Decades ago, reacting to “liberal” slant from the Big Three and CNN, Rupert Murdoch creates Fox News [2]. It dominates cable ratings for decades.

2021: reacting to a landscape of deadly dull, smugly “progressive” late night hosts that all have different names but may as well be reading off the same deadly dull script [3], Fox Launches Gutfeld.

What’ll be happening in decades? Time will tell, but the roll-out has been pretty spectacular. I’ve added emphasis:

Gutfeld!” averaged 1.6 million viewers for the week ending May 14, beating Kimmel on ABC and Fallon on NBC, though it trailed CBS’s “Late Show with Stephen Colbert,” Nielsen data shows.

May 13 was the Fox show’s best night so far, with 1.8 million viewers, placing second only to Colbert’s show, which drew 1.9 million viewers. Gutfeld’s show beat Colbert slightly in the key 25- to 54-year-old demographic.

The free market will provide.

Which is why the Harris Administration is trying to hard to kill it.

[1] “But but but but he was so hateful!” He was no such thing. You’re projecting.

[2] “But but but but but but they’re teh biased!”. In terms of news coverage? Less so than CNN. In terms of opinion programming? Who cares (other than “you, because you’re threatened by dissent and have no productive, adult way to deal with it”, I mean).

[3] The fact that Stephen Colbert has a late night show at all shows that the late-night comedy gene pool is very, very shallow. The fact that Samantha Bee and Jimmy Kimmel have late-night shows tells us that gene poll is inflatable and gets filled with a hose.

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

This is the “infrastructure” that ordinary people think the Susan Rice Administration wants to spend money on:

This is where the money actually would go:

Joe Doakes

The left, as Dennis Prager notes, destroys everything it touches.

Including words.

It’s rapidly becoming a Berg’s Law: if the media doesn’t give any demographic details about a violent criminal (say, a white Hell’s Angel with an umbrella), you can infer the rest.

When I saw the initial coverage of Saturday morning’s bloodbath in the Warehouse District, I treated it as a test.

Up until noonish yesterday (Sunday)? Even after the arrest was made? Not a word about the shooter.

So – was I right?

What do you think?

Carroll was arrested in 2016 for a variety of felonies egregious enough for Mike Freeman to put down his bottle for a moment at try to make an example of.

Carroll ended up getting all charges dismissed, in exchange for pleading guilty to “disorderly condcut”.

Remember – public safety is a privilege.

Saturday, after a bloodbath in downtown Minneapolis and the “inadvertent“ shootings of three Minneapolis elementary school kids, chief Madaria Arradondo released a statement:

“Brazen senseless acts of…”

What?

Say its name, Chief.

They are acts of gang violence.

Friday Morning: local media cover the bejeebers out of a press conference – the sort of coordinated coverage that screams “a PR flak is working this hard”:

While challenges remain, downtown Minneapolis’ progress toward a post-pandemic revival is picking up steam, according to the panelists who joined a Friday morning online forum hosted by the Minneapolis Downtown Council…“My take on all of this is that you haven’t seen anything yet. Downtown is going to come back stronger and bigger than ever,” said Fhima, who leads the kitchen at Fhima’s Minneapolis.

Still, the panelists said, downtown is currently battling the perception that it’s unsafe — a perception Fhima [1] said was fueled by the lack of foot traffic on downtown streets during the pandemic, when many office workers shifted to working from home and widespread closures of restaurants and venues kept visitors away. Just as an empty restaurant might make diners question the quality of the food, he said, an empty downtown can leave visitors unnerved

“Challenges remain”, indeed.

18 hours after that coordinated burst of manufactured sunshine blowing up the Twin Cities collective nethers:

Two people were killed and 8 wounded in a shooting in downtown Minneapolis, police said early Saturday.

“Preliminary investigation reveals that two people were standing in a crowded area and got into a verbal confrontation,” the Minneapolis Police Department said in a statement.” Both individuals pulled out guns and began shooting at each other.”

Look – I enjoy downtown. I’ve worked there, and 2-3 years ago I used to go down there for concerts fairly regularly – move the Dakota than the First Avenue these days, but whatever. And as a taxpayer, I’ve had a lot of taxpayers money “invested” in it on my behalf, so it’d be nice if the current occupants at the City Council stopped screwing things up.

Not holding my breath, of course.

[1] Have any of Dave Fhima’s restaurants ever succeeded? . I haven’t paid much attention to the restaurant scene, but going back ten years or so, any of his places turned into their own vacant slices of downtown in a year or so.

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

Canigilia v. Strom is an extreme case, but if traditional Fourth Amendment precedent holds, Red Flag laws will also be held unconstitutional.

Joe Doakes

Forty years ago, the Second Amendment was on the brink of oblivion. A grassroots movement and a whole bunch of good lawyering and litigating fixed that, hopefully for good.

Hopefully we can do the same thing for the Fourth.

And if we’re going to save this Republic, the Tenth.

Speaking Proudly – an oratory contest for high school girls – is coming up October 23. Deadline for applications is between August 1 and September 11.

And here’s the song list:

We’re a week past the lifting of the mask mandates. But as Miranda Devine notes in the New York Post, confusion reigns:

This is how confused New Yorkers are about masks. At Barnes & Noble Wednesday, no mask was required to browse the bookshelves, but on the other side of Union Square, the Strand bookstore had mandated masks for all shoppers. Practically everyone inside both stores was wearing a mask, anyway, despite CDC advice that you don’t need one, indoors or outdoors, if you’re vaccinated against COVID-19.

Considering that more than half of Manhattan has been fully vaccinated, something is very wrong with the way we are processing risk. The trust between public health experts and the public is broken and now no one knows what to believe.

Why is that? Devine has a culprit:

We can blame one man above anyone for this parlous state of ­affairs: Saint Anthony Fauci, the coronavirus czar once hailed as the most trusted man in America for his leadership through the pandemic. He has flip-flopped on every piece of advice, never admits doubt and tells lies with ­brazen indifference.

True, Fauci is a dissembler for sure. But the weirdness must be just in places like Manhattan, right? But what are we seeing here in Minnesota? 

Mitch shared a few examples yesterday. Here is what I’ve seen: I get a cup of coffee every morning at a gas station near my home. While I live in Ramsey County, I am not a St. Paul resident and there is no mask mandate for our community. The mask requirement signs are all taken down. But based on what I’ve observed, just about everyone who enters the station, at least in the morning rush, is wearing a mask. I started watching this behavior midweek. In the two days I observed, I saw about 25 people enter the store. Almost all of them were still wearing masks. The only guys who consistently didn’t wear a mask going into the store were the guys delivering milk. And, um, me.

Is there a health benefit to still wearing a mask, especially if you’re vaccinated? Or is it theater? Back to Devine:

It was just on Tuesday that Fauci admitted it was not science but theater that kept him wearing a mask — even double masking — despite being fully vaccinated for ­almost five months.

“I didn’t want to look like I was giving mixed signals,” he told “Good Morning America.” “But being a fully vaccinated person, the chances of my getting infected in an indoor setting is extremely low.”

So it is. But even then, he squirted out more octopus ink:

“I think people are misinterpreting, thinking that this is a removal of a mask mandate for everyone. It’s not,” Fauci told Axios. “It’s an assurance to those who are vaccinated that they can feel safe, be they outdoors or indoors.”

And Devine isn’t having it:

Fauci at this point is being deliberately confusing. He is feeding the mental disorder of vaccinated Karens who cling to their masks. He needs to tell them the truth and stick to it.

I agree. And don’t expect Governor Walz to help straighten things out.

Ryuichi from Richfield writes:

Your blog has been really remiss in failing to cover the finer points of modern Japanese Self Defense Force armored combat doctrine.

I know, I know.

Hopefully this will help.

A few weeks back: U of M “student government” official (and Tina Smith employee) calls for students to resist the U of M police – in as many words, to “make their lives hell“.

Today – the U is turning into a cold Newark:

University of Minnesota police are warning students, staff and neighbors to be on alert after a rash of sometimes violent robberies and thefts in the Dinkytown and Stadium Village areas of Minneapolis…One of the more violent incidents occurred midafternoon Sunday at SE. University and 14th avenues, where a young man took someone’s phone and fled in a stolen vehicle. As the suspect drove off, he hit his victim with the car, causing minor injuries.

Y’know, for all the flak being heaped on all conservatives for the first-ever act of political violence in American history, January6, you’d think someone might do the same for all the damage “progressive” rhetoric has wrought…

…oh.