“[John Hurley] did not hesitate; he didn’t stand there and think about it. He totally heard the gunfire, went to the door, saw the shooter and immediately ran in that direction,” [colleague Bill]] Troyanos said. “I just want to make sure his family knows how heroic he was.”
A manager at a business nearby who asked not to be identified said he was outside when he heard Hurley urge people to get to safety.
“He turned back and looked towards everybody at the restaurant and told us that he (the gunman) is coming, that he is coming back and that we should get inside,” the manager said. “I ran to the back of the store, closer to the alley, kind of ‘nooked’ myself in a corner just to feel safe.”
It’s an object lesson – being the “Good Guy with the Gun” doesn’t necessarily ensure one’s safety.
But by all indications, it’s a spree killing deterred.
UPDATE: He was apparently killed by the responding cops.
Today is the 17th anniversary of the opening of the Metro Transit Blue Line – the beginning (or re-beginning) of light rail transit in the Twin Cities.
So on this anniversary, let us remember the people who gave their lives – unwillingly and in many cases unwittingly – to further Big Minnesota obsession with feeling like a Big City.
The Blue Line has claimed 15 lives – eight pedestrians, three bikers, a man in a wheelchair, and three people in cars. There was also a stabbing death this past winter on the Blue Line, and two more murders at stations along the line. That’s an average of just one death per year.
The Green Line has taken eight victims in only five years – the first just six weeks after the train started operating, mostly pedestrians trying to navigate the badly-designed street-level crossings. The most recent was in the last couple years.
That’s 29 dead, so far. 29 lives sacrificed so that the Met Council, the various governments, and other people who love to play with the dials and levers of government can feel like they’re “running” a big city with all the trimmings.
Let’s take a moment today to remember these innocent victims of government megalomania.
Fearless prediction: being able as they are to count on the fact that the typical Democrat voter thinks Samantha Bee is “news”, they’ll keep talking about “voter suppression” anyway.
Odd tourism ad, doncha think? Usually you get a picture of nature, or a soaring skyline, or beatiful people enjoying dazzling nightlife. But not this time.
So what does a tourist do in Portland? Apparently you can cross a bunch of bridges. That might have some allure. I have it on good authority that Portland has a number of restaurants, but it’s difficult to tell what the bill of fare might be from this brown paper ad. It’s possible the restaurants in Portland feature word salad. “We’re a place of dualities that are never polarities.” What does that even mean? Does it mean this?
Considering opinions on Gov. Tim Walz’s approach to handling crime, the results have virtually flipped since last year in terms of approval. In June of 2020, 59% approved and 35% disapproved of the governor’s approach to crime, but in June of 2021, 55% disapproved and only 39% approved…Fifty-eight percent of respondents said they visited Minneapolis less than normal in the past year, compared to 4% who said they visited the city more frequently than in the past.
Despite this, a majority of Minnesotans do trust law enforcement to keep the city safe — far more than they trust elected leaders in the state to do the same.
Ample reasons for dissatisfaction are obvious. And some are not so much . More tomorrow in this space.
Fearless prediction: the adherence of the left’s official opinion-makers to this video:
…whether its’ Samantha Bee or Ibram Kendi, to an almost plagiaristic level (but for the fact that it will be in earnest, not at all satirical) is going to take six months.
“We must picture hell as a state where everyone is perpetually concerned about his own dignity and advancement, where everyone has a grievance, and where everyone lives with the deadly serious passions of envy, self-importance, and resentment.” C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters
It was a typically sweltering summer day in Canton, Ohio on June 16th, 1918, but it hadn’t stopped an estimated 1,200 locals, bolstered by a healthy contingent of press, from gathering in a city park. Nor had it stopped the day’s speaker, former 4-time Socialist candidate for President Eugene Debs, from wearing a heavy tweed jacket and buttoned vest, sweating profusely as he spoke. At 62 years of age, Debs had barely recovered from an illness in time for his midwestern anti-war speaking tour and looked worse for the wear. His audience was a Socialist convention picnic and federal agents wandered through the crowded, randomly demanding draft cards.
Debs, always the political firebrand, heaped praise on the Bolshevik Revolution and defended three local Socialists who had been recently imprisoned for speaking out against the war. “They have come to realize,” he intoned, “that it is extremely dangerous to exercise the constitutional right of free speech in a country fighting to make democracy safe in the world.”
Two weeks later, Debs would find himself arrested under the same charges and become the most well-known defendant against the recently-passed Sedition Act.
Uncle Sam picks up a variety of individuals – an IWW supporter, a Sinn Fein activist and a “traitor”
While the Sedition Act of 1918 – and it’s precursor, the Espionage Act of 1917 – most assuredly had their roots in America’s involvement in the Great War, President Woodrow Wilson’s interest in far-reaching legal authority related to the domestic end of national security pre-dated the American declaration of war. In late 1915, as Europe’s war raged on, Wilson delivered his State of the Union, declaring:
“There are citizens of the United States, I blush to admit, born under other flags but welcomed under our generous naturalization laws to the full freedom and opportunity of America, who have poured the poison of disloyalty into the very arteries of our national life; who have sought to bring the authority and good name of our Government into contempt … Such creatures of passion, disloyalty, and anarchy must be crushed out.”
New documents obtained under state open records laws reveal important details about the expanding, and arguably improper, deployment of law schools by or on behalf of donors in the climate litigation industry. That latter, national effort, which we now know is being coordinated by donors out of New York, enlists local activist groups, faculty, and attorneys general to bring lawsuits in state courts against traditional “fossil fuel” energy companies, as well as others involved in energy production and transport. As described by the plaintiffs’ lawyers and advisors, these suits have been brought to impact public policy and to find new sources of revenue for activists and state budgets. Numerous schools including public universities now have donor-funded faculty advising the tort firms and AGs. They enlist students to assist, and they serve in the media to support the litigation campaign, often without disclosing relationships with the litigants or their funders. Law schools are described as a “secret weapon”1 in the litigation campaign targeting companies. The roster of schools assisting the donor-driven campaign has expanded beyond elite universities, to public institutions in jurisdictions where the national coordinator has arranged for an allied state attorney general to target industry. Newly obtained documents show a much broader group of faculty quietly assisting this litigation industry.2 They also show faculty being quietly advised and guided by activist attorneys engaged by financiers of this campaign. This extends even to allowing the activist attorneys — described as “the lawyers advising the Rockefeller family fund [sic]” — to ghost co-author supposedly academic pieces published on university letterhead, apparently in violation of rules governing these public institutions
You’d think there’d be a law against people buying executive branch officials. And you’d probably be right.
So what are you going to do – go to the Attorney General’s office?
Minnesota’s level of corruption is creeping toward Chicago levels.
“Government is run by those who show up” – apparently with a checkbook.
Warning up front: It’ll be an investment of time. Over two hours, to be exact.
It’s Jordan Peterson, interviewing former NYTimes editor Bari Weiss, who famously resitned from the paper, roasting it all the way for its obseisance, not to “journalism”, but to the feelings and politicized motivation of a small, “woke” faction of the staff.
It’ll be worth the investment:
If we can’t trust our institutions – law enforcement and the judiciary, the bureaucracy and the media – to act fairly and dispassionately – then the Republica has a huge problem.
Joe Doakes from Como Park emails, citing the title of a “Crime Prevention Research Center” article “What is the danger to allowing Concealed handguns on University property?: Shootings by permit holders from 2012 to May 2021”:
Obviously because college students are too stupid, too immature, too emotionally volitile to safely and wisely use guns. Unlike sex, drugs, alcohol and Tide pods, for which they are perfectly well suited.
Turns out college kids who are mature enough to go through the process of getting carry permits, don’t use them in fraternity hazing rituals.
The anxiousness in the Austro-Hungarian trenches along the Piave river in Italy was obvious at 2:30am on June 15th, 1918. In 30 minutes, hundreds of thousands of men, supported by nearly 7,000 pieces of heavy artillery, would launch themselves at the Italian line as part of a massive, nearly one-million man offensive designed to finally push Italy out of the war. Despite the rapidly increasing political disintegration of the Habsburg Empire, if Italy could be dealt one more major blow like they had received the preceding fall at Caporetto, the Dual Monarchy’s last major remaining front would close, perhaps meaning that the Empire could successfully negotiate their way out of the war. Coupled with Germany’s gains in France as part of their Spring Offensive, a glimmer of hope that the war could be conventionally won, despite all evidence to the contrary, was seen. The Empire had staked everything on this offensive – either it would be one of the greatest moments in the Dual Monarchy’s history, or it would be a failed gamble that would hasten the polyglot Empire’s end.
At 2:30am, the Piave roared to life with the crashing sounds of artillery. The offensive wasn’t suppose to begin for another half-hour. It was Italian artillery. Rome knew exactly what was about to occur – and was throwing their own million-man army into the attack.
A Bridge Too Far – crossing the Piave would become the major hurdle in the offensive
The disaster of Caporetto had shaken the Italian army – and society – to its core. 305,000 casualties, essentially one whole Italian army group, had been destroyed and the Austro-Hungarians sat on the doorstep of the Italian plane. Only the Piave river blocked any further advance and if Vienna could cross it, there would be no natural boundaries to prevent them from driving deep into northern Italy and capturing most of the Italian industrial base. Such a strike would almost guarantee that Italy would be forced to sue for peace. Read the rest of this entry »
This video’s been making the rounds. I’ve had at least a half dozen people refer it to me. It’s Brad Taylor, speaking last week at the Rosemount School Board, on how his education has already been given over to indoctrination:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zM1YWxff_4Y
I give speaker points: the kid is excellent.
All you folks moving to the third-tier burbs looking to escape the lunacy? The lunacy is following you. Running away ain’t gonna work. You’re going to have to stand and fight.
And a few thousand more like Mr. Taylor and his like (I’m looking at you, Kyle Kashuv, wherever yo88u are) it may be a fair fight.
As re getting him on the NARN? My people are already calling his people.
I dislike federal holidays as partisan political propaganda but I’m rethinking my position. I’m willing to support Juneteenth, if this becomes the official advertising poster.
It gets better.
After the Yanks freed the last of those slaves, a number of black freedmen who’d served in the Federal army settled in Galveston, bringing their training, and guns, with them.
So when the Klan came a-calling, they were met by a bunch of battle-hardened former Union grunts. They sent the Klan reeling…
…all the way to Austin. Where they pushed the Democrat government to ban guns in the hands of Negroes.
Litigation over which (thanks, NRA) went on to become one of the driving bodies of litigation behind the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.
By the standards of the Great War, the Turkish army that was encamped near Sardarabad in Eastern Armenia was an after-thought. 13,000 Turkish and Kurdish soldiers, with 40 pieces of heavy artillery (albeit many outdated cannons), sat waiting to continue the Ottoman Empire’s invasion of the rapidly disintegrating Transcaucasian Democratic Federative Republic on May 21st, 1918. With the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk having effectively broken up the Russian Empire, the fate of the Caucasus lay in a state of political flux, with the Turks, Bolsheviks, Armenians, Azerbaijanis, Georgians and even Germans vying for a measure of control of the oil-rich region. The political vacuum had emboldened the Turks to invade and the fledging Transcaucasian Republic lacked the resources – and political will – to challenge it. By May of 1918, most of Western Armenia had been conquered and Eastern Armenia looked ripe to fall as well.
The call to defend what remained of Armenia echoed throughout the countryside. “Carts drawn by oxen, water buffalo, and cows jammed the roads bringing food, provisions, ammunition, and volunteers” as thousands of Armenians rallied at the capitol of Yerevan. For the civilians of Yerevan, defeat would not just mean a loss of political independence but very likely the loss of their lives. The Turkish invasion had continued the Ottoman policy of Armenian genocide which had already claimed up to 1.5 million Armenian lives. For in the words of one British historian, if the Armenians failed to stop the Ottoman invasion “it is perfectly possible that the word Armenia would have henceforth denoted only an antique geographical term.”
The remains of Armenian victims
“Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?” – Adolf Hitler
The fate of the Armenian people had been part-and-parcel of Europe’s general concern of the treatment of Christian minorities within the Ottoman Empire since the mid-19th Century. Having defended the Ottomans against the Russians, including fighting for the Turks in the Crimean War, Britain and France began to question the relative wisdom of propping up a regime in Constantinople that so plainly repressed the rights of fellow Christians. As subsequent revolts occurred throughout the Ottoman Empire, freeing Christian populations like the Serbs and Greeks, while prompting even greater restrictions and cruelties from the Turks in response, Western Europe began applying pressure to the Ottomans lest they lose support in their wars against the Tsar. Read the rest of this entry »
One of them was never “Matt Taibb as a principled dissenter from the main stream media is narrative”.
And yet, here we are. In this case, discussing his collection of Cold War Soviet newspapers:
Reality in Soviet news was 100% binary, with all people either heroes or villains, and the villains all in league with one another (an SR was no better than a fascist or a “Right-Trotskyite Bandit,” a kind of proto-horseshoe theory). Other ideas were not represented, except to be attacked and deconstructed. Also, since anything good was all good, politicians were not described as people at all but paragons of limitless virtue — 95% of most issues of Pravda or Izvestia were just names of party leaders surrounded by lists of applause-words, like “glittering,” “full-hearted,” “wise,” “mighty,” “courageous,” “in complete moral-political union with the people,” etc.
Some of the headlines in the U.S. press lately sound suspiciously like this kind of work:
— Biden stimulus showers money on Americans, sharply cutting poverty
— Champion of the middle class comes to the aid of the poor
— Biden’s historic victory for America
The most Soviet of the recent efforts didn’t have a classically Soviet headline. “Comedians are struggling to parody Biden. Let’s hope this doesn’t last,” read the Washington Post opinion piece by Richard Zoglin, arguing that Biden is the first president in generations who might be “impervious to impressionists.” Zoglin contended Biden is “impregnable” to parody, his voice being too “devoid of obvious quirks,” his manner too “muted and self-effacing” to offer comedians much to work with. He was talking about this person.
Forget that the “impregnable to parody” pol spent the last campaign year jamming fingers in the sternums of voters, challenging them to pushup contests, calling them “lying dog-faced pony soldiers,” and forgetting what state he was in. Biden, on the day Zoglin ran his piece, couldn’t remember the name of his Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, and referred to the Department of Defense as “that outfit over there”:
The whole thing is worth a read, unless you want to cling to any illusions that the “elite” media is anything like what you were taught in Journalism 101.
I had one of those moments at something like 2AM, when the cat woke me up and I checked thje news.
I read a news story that I thought was either a weird dream at best, or a not-especially-deft bit of satire by some Babylon Bee knockoff at worst. I went back to bed.
Victoria’s Secret is replacing its supermodel angels with seven high-profile women known for their accomplishments rather than their figures in its evolving brand to help “inspire women.”
The lingerie company announced on Wednesday that its new VS Collective campaign aims to “positively impact the lives of women” with its products, experiences and initiatives.
The campaign also includes new partnerships with professional soccer player Megan Rapinoe, actor and producer Priyanka Chopra Jonas, world champion free skier Eileen Gu, model, refugee and mental wellness supporter Adut Akech, body advocate and model Paloma Elsesser, journalist Amanda de Cadenet and LGBTQIA+ activist Valentina Sampaio.
Look – I kind of got Viotoria’s Secret’s 2019 decision to ditch the “Angels” and their annual cheeseca; not being a marketer, I’m not sure what the net pros and cons of “pelting your target demographic with images of women that were mostly fantasy objects for men” versus “selling the idea that you kind of are that fantasy, for that special someone, if you buy our unmentionables”.
I suppose it’d be more or less like having Wilt Chamberlain endorse an Erectils Dysfunction remedy; half of the audience might think “THAT’LL HELP ME BANG 20,000 WOMEN TOO!”, and the other half could get…inteimidated?
I guess I’ll let the marketeers market.
So while I can intellectually understand the idea that Victoria’s Secret might shy away from their harem of supermodel “Angels” (complete with some of the more Hefner-y aspects of that image), and simultaneously the idea of feminists wanting companies to use more examples of female empowerment in marketing…
…I guess I’m struggling to see where or why a business and industry that produces lingerie, a milieu which ostensibly exists to make women feel sexy for their significant others, sees itself as a vehicle for that sort of empowerment.
Especially given the role models they’ve selected. The linked article lists :
…actor and producer Priyanka Chopra Jonas, world champion free skier Eileen Gu, model, refugee and mental wellness supporter Adut Akech, body advocate and model Paloma Elsesser, journalist Amanda de Cadenet and LGBTQIA+ activist Valentina Sampaio
…most of whom fit fairly squarely into the modern current western notion of “beauty”…
…and probably the most “controversial” of the picks…
…Megan Rapinoe, a woman whose entire claim to fame is successfully chasing a ball around a field and stridently proclaiming the dominant social narrative on cue in front of cameras, and who also matches the current western notion of beauty, if you have a secret thing for Reinhard Heydrich.
Beiing neither a lingerie buyer, a second-wave feminist nor a Heydrophile, I am probably not the one to comment.
I’m still trying to figure out if Victoria’s Secret, the brand, is…:
terminally beset by executives under the spell of “woke” culture
trying to “shock” its way out of a market doldrum
Either way, I think I’m gonna buy stock in whatever VS’s more traditional competitors might be. It just seems…market-prudent.
It’s been a longstanding issue — how does the Catholic Church deal with politicians who are Catholic, but who actively support policies inimical to the faith? Especially now, since Joe Biden, a lifelong Catholic, is in the Oval Office? The nation’s bishops are meeting this week and the matter is coming to a head:
This week at their annual spring meeting, the bishops of the U.S. Catholic Church — the largest faith group in the country — will debate the meaning of Communion and whether Catholic politicians who support abortion rights should be barred from receiving it. The conversation and a vote among the church’s top clerics could have significant ramifications because it centers on one of the most intimate moments of Catholic worship and binds it uniquely to a specific political and policy position.
Intimate moment isn’t quite right; rather, the Eucharist is central to the faith. And within the Church, the centrality of the Eucharist means the stakes are high. But if you’re going to rely on the Washington Post to explain the matter, you’re going to get dogma of a different sort:
The vote comes after two decades of deliberate, passionate focus by Catholic political and theological conservatives to make abortion a litmus test for the sacrament, while church teachings on poverty, climate, racism and authoritarianism, among other things, become more subjective to follow. It also comes after years of hardening toward abortion opponents within the Democratic Party.
Much of that description is doubletalk, frankly. We have 2000 years of history with the Church and arguments about politics have been part of that history from the outset, but poverty has always been an ongoing concern. The default position of Catholicism is faith and works, which is why Catholics build hospitals and schools everywhere they go. And ascribing passion as the prevailing emotion for conservatives is cute, when you consider the behavior of the pro-choice side.
I, like Joe Biden, am a lifelong Catholic. Biden is an ostentatious sinner, but so am I. Understanding my faith has been an ongoing effort for me, especially since the Vatican II teaching I received was equivocal on many issues. I am a graduate of a well-regarded Catholic high school in Wisconsin (Top 50 in the country — just ask them!), but the quality of the religious instruction I received wasn’t very good. Scarcity applies not only to economic matters, but also to clear moral instruction. And in this Archdiocese, which harbored monstrous priests for decades, even the clearest moral instruction is tainted. Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi and many other Catholic politicians benefit greatly from this loss of trust. But Biden is a Catholic in a secular world. And I cannot know the condition of his soul; assuming that I do would be a sin as well.
Biden is also a symptom of a larger malady. As time has passed, Catholics in the West have been following the same dismal path that mainline Protestants have followed — the buildings remain, but the people aren’t coming. We still get decent attendance at my parish, but the faithful parishioners are aging rapidly and many young families are otherwise engaged on Sunday.
Still, hope remains. COVID has actually helped our parish school, which remained open while their public school counterparts were on a year-long Zoom call with cameras off. Parents who would not have considered enrolling their kids in a Catholic school gave Catholic education a chance and many of them are returning this year. And there is tremendous energy in the Church, mostly in places that were once missionary lands. It wasn’t a coincidence that the current Pontiff came from South America, even though his worldview is decidedly European, but there is a decent possibility that the next Pope will be from Africa or Asia. A revival is not guaranteed, but the Holy Spirit hasn’t left the building.
There are two drive-through lanes at McDonald’s. One should be labeled: “I know what I want,” and the other should be labeled: “I need to read the entire menu board to see what sounds good, then negotiate with the order-taker to ask if I can have my Big Mac made vegan on a gluten-free bun and I don’t want my fries cooked in peanut oil.”
Might be a little wordy. Maybe shorten it to: “Idiot.”
I wonder if they have that problem at In-N-Out Burger?
Joe Doakes
Back when I still ate bagels, I wanted Bruegger‘s to come up with a separate lane for people who just wanted a couple of bagels to go, and let the people who wanted those godforsaken sandwiches to take 20 minutes to make, each, have their own lane.
The world has become too absurd to be satirized – G.K. Chesterton
When live imitates satire – why write satire?
Pinky swear – when I started writing the various “Berg’s Laws“, something like 17 years ago, they started out as wry quips. Sarcastic bits of bemused satire.
I didn’t expect every last one of them to turn out to be iron-clad descriptions of modern political and human behavior.
It’s made things a little…difficult? It’s no doubt thrown a monkey wrench at satirists like the Babylon Bee, who no doubt didn’t set out on their mission intended to become America’s best actual news source.
The Bee’s edtior, Seth Dillon, comments on not only how often, but how quickly, the arc of the news turned toward exactly what the Bee started by mocking:
As to “Berg’s Law” – the more I think about it, the more I think I’m onto something.
