Hunting the Bisbee Thunderbirds – YouTube
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The Civil War: Brought To You By The Dread Shot Decision
by Mick Zano •
Here we go, kids! Mark your calendars. Hundreds of thousands of troops are currently refusing to get vaccinated, we have China poised to ‘reintegrate’ Taiwan, and we have global supply chains slowing to a crawl. Smoke ’em if you got ’em, unless they’re moored off the coast in a cargo ship. As for the pandemic, in a functional society the WHO would make the recommendations and we, as adults, would follow those guidelines. After all, you can’t be on a plane with TB, but where do you draw the constitutional line in these trying times? If you haven’t noticed, this is clearly not a functional society. I was against the vaccination mandate for precisely this reason: trust in the government is at an all time low and polarization is at an all time high. Am I vaccinated and did I want us to reach herd immunity? Yes. Did I think it was ever going to happen, or was worth the trouble? No. Are things as bad as 1860? Tough to say, because I was a very young blogger then, but I have been watching and reporting on this particularly malleable and potentially volatile demographic for decades. The GOP’s steady involution is kind of like reading Origin of Species backward. If huge swaths of our troops and police force refuse to get vaccinated, we have a problem. What do you do you do with these folks? I’ve been asking myself this very question for a long time. Of course, top republicans and the former president himself recommend getting vaccinated, but the monster the right-winger’s created, as predicted, has broken through the chains and is heading for the windmill again (which we now know causes cancer).
The Rise Of The Leftwaffe And Why Comedian John Cleese Is Right: There’s No Hope
by Mick Zano •
A lot of folks are asking me why I keep harping on liberal authoritarianism. Kidding, one of you is. Look, we know what the rightwing is and stands for, so there’s zero mystery there. They are irredeemables. And, yes, the only group who hasn’t figured this out yet—on the entire planet—is our republican friends themselves. Further proof comes from comedian John Cleese’s recent diatribe, citing the Dunning-Kruger effect as the main culprit (or see my related coverage from the early Pleistocene, here). Cleese said, “If you’re stupid, how could you possibly know how stupid you are? …this explains, not only Hollywood but almost the entirety of Fox News.” Rightwingers, nixed the Fox News part and repackaged the Cleese quote to make it look as if he was solely directing scorn at liberals. Laughably, this reworked meme rifled across rightwing social media, eventually arriving in my box as well. This only proves Cleese’s point, in a rather spectacular fashion. So I understand why liberals are so angry. In 2021, republicans have a lot to atone for and yet seem to be the only ones wholly oblivious to this fact, but that doesn’t mean we can lose sight of the Constitution. The Atlantic is finally covering this rising leftist version of fascism, which means, yeah, it’s happening.
The Compassion Police Are Now Hiring: To Observe And Detect
by Mick Zano •
Neo-liberalism, as best personified by Reagan and Thatcher, is officially dead. Amen. But I’m not here today to bitch about zombie politics, although I loved Trickle Z and 30 Days of Right. Lately, it’s this Maddow-level-green version of liberalism that is really getting my goat. The issue with identity politics and all of its joyous facets isn’t new, but our society’s culture-warrior rot runs far deeper than I imagined. Today, a dysfunctional progressive movement is not in its infancy but has reached its misinformative years, which at least matches the emotional maturity of the average canceler. Cancel is an infection across the industrialized west as highlighted by Canada’s well-established racism tribunals and Japan’s Olympic committee’s recent decision to banish anyone who farted in public since 1972. If you don’t want to read my blog for sensitivity reasons, fine, but please spare me the fines. Look, I both understand and predicted an overreaction to all the horrors of MAGAville—or Brexitville, or all of the current global nationalistic horrors abound—but such a response must be grounded in constitutional principles. There’s no wiggle room here. It certainly seems like some libs want to ditch our founding documents because “Jefferson owned slaves, man.” You’re cancelled. I identify as an Ubermensch, but the term ‘Superman’ is acceptable. Mensch is German for ‘people,’ so use the word ‘Superman’ at your linguistic, or cancel-vulnerable, peril.
Take The Discord Rock & Roll Survey
by Mick Zano •
The Daily Discord: All The Missing Dark Matter In The Universe And More!
by Mick Zano •
Rome Wasn’t Buggered In A Day
by Mick Zano •
This post is a response to a James Fallows article over at The Atlantic. Fallows has published a series of articles comparing the fall of Rome to the US’s current trajectory. I called the US’s point of no return a couple of years ago here on The ‘Cord. Although Fallows started his US- deathwatch around that same time period, he falls short of any direct prediction surrounding our fate. He is still waiting for that point of no return—or some Ceaser crossing the rubicon moment—as if it’s still somewhere in the future. I think Fallows has the right idea, but I am not sure why he has to see a guy fiddling in front of a burning city to climb out onto this particular eschatological limb.
Don’t Buy All The Bull About Kabul
by Mick Zano •
My goal for this piece was to find an insightful article about this twenty-year plight. I failed. This is, in part, due to the hijacking of our search engines as a whole. Back in the day, one could search Aghanistan War or Taliban back to the table and actually get somewhere. Today, since the first 1,000 pages are sold to the highest bidder, you end up with: You want to buy a comfy afghan? and Towels? We have lots of towels! Great stuff. Ultimately, I settled on one article from nearly a decade ago that really nailed this schitznik …my own.
How Liberals Will Flunk Their Midterms
by Mick Zano •
Three days after my Illiberal Hillbilly post, Bill Maher took up the Olympic ‘Woke’ torch by focusing on the same firing of the Director of the Olympics for a joke he uttered in 1998. Maher mentioned two more incidents that I missed involving another dismissal for ‘bullying in grade school’ and yet another for a private ‘fat’ joke. As per my last post, everyone goes through a bullying stage during their own development, some in kindergarten, others in the third grade, and still others during their first administration. Kidding, he never moved beyond that. Again, denying consciousness growth or basic child development is a mistake on the liberal’s part, potentially a costly one. Maher calls this an ongoing purge. Ya think fat jokes are in bad taste? Wait for Donald Trump’s Grover Cleveland impersonation, because that could be the next act on the docket, kids. Yeah, there’s a lot at stake here. You forget that many red states are shifting blueward. Why derail that trend for crap like this? These examples are from Japan, but it’s the same mindset here that needs addressing.
The Illiberal Billies And The Cultural Hill We Will Die On
by Mick Zano •
Liberals are proof that you can come from a place of compassion, yet still do a lot of damage. No easy trick. For all my pomp and circumrants, I remain a moderate liberal and my ideological drift leftward can be wholly attributed to a reactionary GOP-repulsive force. Electo-MAGAtism? The growing danger the GOP poses to humanity is why I blog, however, today, I’m officially calling out the cultural-warrior-faction of my own party, in Fatboy Slim style, aka Right Here, Right Now. My chief concern with the rise of the Language Police is how the coming Sayless Witch Trials could hand the GOP another underserved victory in the midterms and beyond. Woke, as it relates to supporting diversity is a good thing, but Woke as it devolves into some racist chasing tribunals …well, let’s defund those police before we ever hire them. Language penalties and jail time may well be on the horizon for such offenses. You don’t believe me? It’s already happening in the Great White North. Cancel 2.0 must be kept in check in the good ole US of A. We must encourage a societal shift toward acceptance, diversity, and a more conscientious discourse and yet there’s nothing liberal about punishing people for less than stellar usage issues. What next, the IRS doles out syn-taxing penalties? Does this mean I am rallying outside schools that insist on teaching a more balanced and accurate account of American history? No. In all-or-none thinkingville, many of you have already switched my brand to card-carrying member of Team Batshit, but that is false. I’m just issuing another warning: we have one legitimate political party left in this country and if you fuck this one up, too, there’s nothing here worth fighting for. As I move to post, the head of the Olympic committee over in Tokyo was just fired for a joke. Kentaro Kobayashi was dismissed for using the phrase, “Let’s play holocaust” during a comedy act the same year the X-Files movie aired in 1998. Personally, I am a holocaust joke denier. I don’t think he ever said it, but the truth is out there. In the western world, the green dragon has awoken, sooo how do we slay this beast?