I have no idea why Latin American countries have such a deep and abiding love for satanic symbolism and evil faith – but they do. Some of it stems from African voodoo, brought to the West by slaves. I ran into it at work and wrote about it in Bloody Mexico and The Old Whore (shameless plugs) because it is so entwined in the drug culture there. It’s challenging to try to unravel the worship of Santa Muerte, Santarilla, and the connection to the drug cartels. (good luck trying)
Palo Mayombe
Palo Mayombe is an Afro-Cuban religion with roots in the Kongo people of Central Africa, brought to the Caribbean during the transatlantic slave trade. It is centered on the veneration of spirits, particularly those of the dead, and works with the natural world through rituals and divination. A key ritual vessel is the nganga, an iron cauldron containing a sacred mixture of earth, bones, and other items, and practitioners are known as Paleros.
My good friend Claudio brought up the Cuban connection and their spin on that old theme in their intelligence service the other day and asked, “Is this real?” I replied that it’s dumb enough to be real. Despite their formal grounding in Marxist-Leninist doctrine, many members of Cuba’s intelligence services have long maintained a deep and paradoxical attachment to Palo Mayombe, an Afro-Cuban spiritual tradition of African origin. Within the shadowy world of intelligence and counterintelligence, this faith evolved into something more than personal belief—it became part of the culture of secrecy, power, and survival. To many operatives, especially those deployed in Latin America and Africa, Palo Mayombe offered both a spiritual armor and a psychological compass. Its rituals, symbols, and ancestral invocations provided not only protection but also a shared language that transcended ideology—one that enabled them to connect with guerrilla leaders, local warlords, and criminal organizations that also revered the invisible world of spirits and fate.
This syncretism—uniting revolutionary pragmatism with African mysticism—reflects the deeper tension between Cuba’s militant atheism and its cultural roots.
Ernesto (Che) Guevara, ever the rationalist, rejected such practices as incompatible with the scientific worldview of Marxism. During his conversations in Havana with Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir in 1960, Guevara reportedly spoke with contempt about “the African ghosts still haunting the Revolution,” expressing his conviction that spiritual fatalism weakened revolutionary discipline. Sartre and de Beauvoir later recalled the passion with which the Che defended the purity of revolutionary materialism, as if exorcising any trace of mysticism from the Marxist temple.
Yet others within the leadership felt differently. Camilo Cienfuegos, a man of magnetic charm and instinct rather than ideology, carried his Palo Mayombe amulets—small talismans believed to offer protection from harm—throughout his campaigns. They were said to be blessed in secret ceremonies by practitioners in Havana and Matanzas, and Camilo himself often spoke of them as sources of strength and luck. But in the end, those amulets did not save him: his aircraft disappeared mysteriously over the sea in October 1959, and his body was never found. Among the faithful, whispers persisted that his nganga had failed him—or that someone more powerful had intervened in both spiritual and political realms.
Fidel Castro ultimately absorbed Palo Mayombe completely into his personal mythology. Where Guevara saw superstition, Fidel saw an instrument of influence; where Camilo sought protection, Fidel sought dominion. His cadence in speeches, his invocation of destiny, and his aura of invulnerability all bore traces of Afro-Cuban cosmology. By fusing ideology with mysticism, he transformed himself into something greater than a statesman—a kind of spiritual sovereign, a revolutionary high priest presiding over both the seen and the unseen Cuba.
Santa Muerte
Santa Muerte devotion among Mexicans is a post-colonial tradition. This is no different from Nazareno Negro and Santo Niño devotions among Manileños and Cebuanos, respectively.
I’ve known Mexicans who worship Santa Muerte to refer to the evil saint as “Skinny Girl” because it’s based around skeletons, and once the flesh rots off, they’re definitely skinny.
From an article earlier this year by Beck: Perhaps the most terrifying sign of Mexico’s collapse is the rise of the Santa Muerte cult, or “Holy Death.” This cult venerates a skeletal figure—often robed in red or black, wielding a scythe and scales—promising protection amid Mexico’s harsh realities. Since the early 2000s, Santa Muerte has grown to seven million followers. Once a fringe belief, it’s now a mainstream force, filling the void left by a government too weak to shield its people.
While this mass embrace of death worship is alarming, its adoption by cartels is horrifying. Rather than seeking protection from violence, cartels offer bloody sacrifices to Santa Muerte—pyramids of burnt heads, ritual disembowelments, and grisly rites—to embolden their atrocities.
Temples and altars honoring death dot the landscape, signaling the decay of Mexico’s soul. This isn’t just superstition—it’s a dark religion fueling a nation’s descent into chaos.
h/t WSF
The Gunpowder Plot
November 8th, 1605: Acting on Guy Fawkes’s confession under torture at The Tower of London, Robert Catesby, the ringleader of the Gunpowder Plotters, was hunted down and killed by musket fire, along with several of the other conspirators at Holbeche House*, in Staffordshire. Those killed were buried nearby, but the bodies of Catesby and fellow plotter Percy were exhumed and decapitated. Catesby’s head was brought to London and piked upon Westminster Hall.
Bullet Points:
** What should we do about the government shutdown?
1) End the Filibuster and pass the Clean CR on a party-line vote.
2) Before the vote to reopen, have an election integrity bill written and staged that requires validated citizenship, purges voter rolls, and ends vote-by-mail for Federal elections.
3) Have the votes whipped and locked in ahead of time
4) Pass this instantly after the government re-opens. It can’t be filibustered because there is no more filibuster
5) Rip through as many other wish list items as possible before the midterms
6) Run a hard-core ground game for the midterms. Act like Democrats. Take no prisoners.
** Fossilized pizza from the late crustaceous period. (left) It’s an elegant proof that people who lived in ancient Arizona invented pizza, not the Italians—settled science.
** Will this ball explore the Moon?
** Congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) is absolutely right. No one in Congress or holding an elected or cabinet position in the federal government should be allowed to hold dual citizenship with another country or sovereign state. By its very definition, any person holding dual citizenship owes allegiance to two sovereign states and should be prohibited from serving in an elected or cabinet-level position in the federal government. When members of Congress who hold dual citizenship are tasked with making life-and-death decisions, drafting foreign policy, and handling sensitive intelligence, the risk of conflicting interests is deemed too great and should be prohibited!
** Will the Snake return to the silver screen? When John Carpenter and Kurt Russell appeared together, casually holding Snake Plissken’s eye patches, fans immediately caught the hint. The duo teased the possible return of the one-eyed antihero with Escape from Chicago, the next chapter that could follow Escape from New York and Escape from L.A.. That simple gesture, two icons holding a symbol of rebellion, was enough to send waves of excitement through decades of loyal fans who have long awaited Snake’s comeback. For Carpenter and Russell, the Escape series was never just another action franchise; it was a statement. Each film reflected its time: New York’s grit, L.A.’s chaos, and now, possibly, Chicago’s cold concrete heart. The idea of Snake navigating another dystopian city sparks nostalgia mixed with anticipation, promising a darker, sharper take on the world that first captured audiences in the 80s.
** Europe is bracing for a cold winter. It’s a good thing that they changed the model from “global warming” to something that can be anything like “climate change” and still get billions of dollars thrown at it (where it’s subsequently laundered into various neo-Marxist war chests).
** Wall Street Journal: “Two startups aiming to produce an American supply of rare-earth magnets have sealed a $1.4 billion deal with the U.S. government and private investors. It is the latest sign that the Trump administration is moving to build out a domestic rare-earths supply chain and thwart China’s sector dominance—and is willing to pay large sums for it. Led by Vulcan Elements, the deal involves a $620 million loan from the Defense Department’s Office of Strategic Capital to build and operate a U.S. magnet facility capable of producing 10,000 metric tons of magnets each year, the company said Monday. The Commerce Department is chipping in $50 million, and private investors are putting in another $550 million. Rare-earth magnets are essential for the construction of motors needed in AI data centers, electric vehicles, and consumer electronics, as well as missiles, drones, satellites, ships, jet fighters, and other defense systems. China has long dominated the supply chain, from mining to processing.”
** Americans have lost faith in their institutions. They don’t trust the government. They don’t trust doctors. They don’t trust the “science”. They have been lied to for a very long time, and they are done with it. That’s why Americans voted for Donald Trump in 2024. That’s why they flocked to the MAGA movement across the country. They voted to send somebody to Washington who would take a baseball bat to the status quo and deliver radical change. They weren’t asking for someone to tinker around the edges. They were asking for the breaking of a great deal of china. Do you think that he is delivering?
** It’s a struggle.
** (Fox News) A Somali restaurant in Minneapolis took $12 million in federal child meal payments. They said they were feeding 4,000-6,000 kids a day. They only averaged 40 people during 6 weeks. They created fake names and invoices, and the Minneapolis Department of Education was aware and did nothing.
“The FBI installed a surveillance camera overlooking this building just off Lake Street in Minneapolis. At the time, it was Safari Restaurant, which overall took in $12 million in federal child meal payments — Safari claimed to feed 4,000 to 6,000 kids a day. Its invoices and meal counts were shown to the jury alongside the video. An FBI agent testified that an average of 40 people came and went during the six weeks it was surveilled. The FBI set up a total of 12 cameras at sites claiming to serve extraordinary numbers of meals.
Another was at a deli in Saint Paul, also registered by defendant Salim Sayyed, which claimed 1,800 meals per day. The video shown to the jury showed an average of 23 people a day coming and going. The jury was shown dozens of invoices, meal counts, and emails seized from Feeding Our Future’s headquarters in Saint Anthony. Some showed links to websites that randomly generated names and ages to create rosters of children who were served meals.
— And the kicker? Minnesota’s own Department of Education had red flags. Massive spikes in reimbursement requests, impossible, impossible meal counts, and they still rubber-stamped the paperwork. Now, this new audit proves what everyone with a brain has been saying for years: incompetence starts at the top. When the governor’s own office is sloppy with receipts, how can he possibly keep his agencies in line? — It’s the same pattern. Inflated invoices, nonexistent oversight, and zero accountability.” So Tim Walz personally knew and did nothing…. Where is the accountability?
** Planning to Immigrate to Canada?
** Reparations?
Frank bought a Tank
In New York, under the new regime, they won’t send the police to investigate a crime. They’ll send a social worker with a box of tissues, and you can weep together. Tanks, for the memories, Franks.
Russian Operational Diplomatic Philosophy
Andrei Gromyko’s maxim — “Ten years of negotiation are better than one day of war” — encapsulates the ethos of classical diplomacy, and the operational creed of those who operate within diplomatic circles. Traditional diplomats seek consensus; fixer diplomats seek control of the narrative—the power to shape outcomes by mastering both the visible dialogue and the unspoken choreography behind it. Gromyko’s phrase thus becomes a doctrine of containment through persuasion: wars are not avoided by goodwill, but by exhausting the opponent’s will to fight through sustained engagement and calibrated ambiguity.
The “Kremlin school of negotiation,” as Ryzov describes, aligns with this pragmatism. It treats negotiation as a contest of perspectives rather than facts. The battlefield is psychological, and every silence, delay, or concession is a tactical move. To a fixer diplomat, this resonates deeply: one negotiates not for peace itself, but for position, for access, for influence that endures long after the signatures have dried.
Like Ryzov’s “street fighters,” he moves fluidly between formal frameworks and improvisation, between protocol and pressure. His greatest weapon is not rhetoric, but strategic patience: the ability to let time and uncertainty become his silent allies until the other side folds or seeks refuge in compromise. Negotiation is the art of controlled conflict — the elegant alternative to chaos, where victory is measured not in territory or treaties, but in preserved options and invisible influence.
Typical Warlord B.S.
(h/t Claudio) On November 4, 2025, several videos from Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin appeared on social media, broadcast through its new propaganda channel Minbar al-Bayan. Though to people young and vulnerable enough to consider the appeal to jihad to be novel, it’s exhausted, well-worn, and from any circumspect view, stupid. A desert dweller wants people to follow him to death so he can enrich himself at their expense.
In these messages, various leaders and spokesmen called on the populations of Burkina Faso and Niger to join their ranks, using multiple local languages to reach different ethnic groups and expand recruitment — particularly targeting the Volunteers for the Defense of the Homeland, the pro-government militias fighting alongside national forces. This growing reliance on multilingual videos and audio communiqués has become JNIM’s new trademark, signaling a deliberate evolution toward information warfare and psychological operations.
The surge of such releases in recent weeks, now spanning all countries within the Alliance of Sahel States, illustrates the group’s ambition to extend its influence and territorial control across the region. Founded in 2017 through the merger of several jihadist factions linked to al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, JIM has since developed a strategy of propaganda, smuggling, extortion, and control of artisanal gold mining as tools of governance and recruitment.
Back to the Regular Sermonette
A Direct ‘Rebate’?
President Trump says that rather than extending ObamaCare, spawned during the days of Obamanation, the government should send a $2,000 check out to people and let them decide whether to spend the money on health insurance or any other way they choose. Naturally, the measure is opposed by democrat politicians and the mainstream media. I’m not sure that I favor the idea. The money comes from tariff revenue. Why not apply the funds to pay down the deficit? Maybe I’m writing that because $2,000 won’t materially change my life. I’m among the 300 million Americans who don’t receive SNAP. I’d drop it into the savings account or use it to help pay my federal/state income tax in 2026. However, it is definitely better than a jab in the butt with a sharp stick.
In any event, it’s time to end Obamacare. It would be good if trade barriers were removed for insurance companies and if all health insurance could be sold in all states to increase competition and lower prices. There are a lot of (bribes) contributions to politicians to oppose that sort of national marketplace.
Identify the Ship
1
Identify the Aircraft
2
3
125 Built
4
151 Built
End
1 is Louise-Marie a Karel Doorman-class frigate of the Belgian Navy bought from Holland.
2 is Handley Page Harrow Mk.I
3 ?
4 is Handley Page HP.67 Hastings a retired British troop-carrier and freight transport. Used in the Berlin airlift.
That was fast, RCC!
IDS:
1. BNS Louise-Marie (F931), a Karel Doorman-class frigate of the Marine Component of the Belgian Armed Forces.
IDA:
2. Handley Page H.P.31 Harrow, a British biplane designed in the 1920s.
3. Handley Page Heyford, a British twin-engine biplane bomber.
4. Handley Page Hastings, a British troop-carrier and freight transport aircraft developed for the Royal Air Force (RAF).
STA LETHAL
You’re very lethal today HogsbreathSS
Hell that first picture I thought was Claudia Shinebaum. That vato who tried kissing her the other day sure did cop a good couple of feels before her security or lack thereof pulled him off of her.
1 – Belgian Navy BNS Louise-Marie
2 – Handley Page H.P.31 Harrow
3 – Handley Page Heyford
4 – Handley Page Hastings
Very good
What should we do about the government shutdown? – Yes to all of your list – And More
The dem’s are going to nuke the filibuster and pack the USSC, grant statehood to DC and Puerto Rico as well as give voting rights to any group they think will vote for them. They will rule for decades and probably until the end of this republic.
I would prefer that the filibuster remain but that is a pipe dream we all must give up as the left has gone fully radical.
You can always bring the filibuster back. For now, it needs to be removed, and we need to move on.
We need to move on and we really shouldn’t pay the democrats the $1.5 trillion dollar bribe they want to let the government open!
No, don’t give the neo-Marxists a shekle.
A lot to unpack in this Anti-Sermonette:
Snake Plissken – I say Hell Yeah – It’s time for Escape from Chicago!
Feeding Our Future Fraud – The Minnesota Dept of Education was afraid of looking like Islamophobes when they discovered the fraud and then were threatened with lawsuits by the perpetrators. That board and anyone in the Minn. Govt. connected to the fraud should be charged and tried for their dereliction of duty. 75+ people have been charged in this. If you are not familiar with this massive fraud committed by the Somalians up north go to Power Line blog and search “Feeding Our Fraud”
Obamacare – Yes it’s past time to end it. Unfortunately the massive damage has been done to our health care system and cannot be unwound.
Obamacare Rebate – I agree the money would be better spent paying down our debt but since I think we are looking at the end of this republic give the money to the citizens.
Buying Votes? Absolutely. Would be money well spent IMO.
The timing of the vote buying is important because people forget. Even the lowlife scum democrats occasionally bite the hand that feeds them.
+1
Do I think he is breaking china: Yes.
.
Do I think he is breaking enough china: Oh HAIL no.
.
Do I think he should be breaking more china: Oh HAIL yes.
.
Do I think it remotely possible he could break more china than he is now: The sad answer is, given the resistance of Deep State and obstruction by the courts and The Stoopid Party and lethargy of gubmint in general, probably not.
Pres. Trump continues to push the Deep State. And yes, there is a limit short of “extreme prejudice”.
Trump deliveries; The Bull is in the Antique shop. As you have stated, “Americans First ” imho will be somewhat skeptical until they see the establishment shelves R and R as well. Can Constitutional structures and frameworks be up and running efficiently in the next 2-6 yrs?
Identify the Ship:
1. Belgian frigate Louise-Marie
Identify the Aircraft:
2. Handley Page Harrow
3. Handley Page Heyford
4. Handley Page Hastings
Well done!
Politics is the war of ideas, which carry over to the war of violence. At this time, one side has allowed foreign mercenaries to amass under the veil of mercy. The violence has started, and one side is ignoring all the warning signs. Both sides have little understanding of what is now in motion, and too many are ignoring the obvious solutions. The winner, as in the past, will probably be neither, and those with most resources to manipulate will increase their power.
Your crystal ball is clear.
Rant below and if you don’t believe in Jesus Christ and the Great Commission, skip this comment.
*****
If Americans really want a change in government and how our lives are disrupted Christians must:
-Start praying fervently, not just on Sunday morning or at meals
-Pray for God to forgive us for our national sins such as abortion and other abominations celebrated here; America is one or two steps away from the widespread Satanism LL wrote about here
-Read through the Bible every year In the beginning to Amen; believe the Bible is the Word of God; read the Bible to your family too
-Start worshiping properly and that means singing Psalms, hymns and spiritual songs in four part harmony; no more dancers sliding down ropes from the ceiling, no more smoke for dramatic emphasis, no more witches and singers dressed as skeletons; but corporate prayer of thanksgiving, petitions, a sermon from the Bible rather than the internet, taking wine at communion every week, and be happy in Christ
-Stand for Christ in government, business, schools and home instead of keeping Jesus inside as a personal talisman
-Pray for the Christians in positions of influence that they might be like Obadiah who was able to hide those who feared God from an evil king
**
-Work locally as our elected officials in D.C. are unresponsive to any requests, work to have good men elected at the local level instead of bums
-Keep in mind that at all levels elected officials or those working for the government are being bribed, threatened or otherwise coerced to vote in a particular manner or to do that which they shouldn’t
-Start tearing down the false alters in your area
*****
It is God who raises up rulers and takes them down, not the RNC, not Turning Point, not filibusters, not anything else except the Holy Spirit moving in men’s hearts
*****
Repeal of the ACA is necessary to stop the fleecing and skimming of medical bucks for everything else. The medical skimming goes back into the 70s with the establishment of Health Maintenance Organizations allowing Medicare/Medicaid to dictate the overwhelming designations for every issue from hangnails to heart attacks and cost of each designation. Check out Justice dot gov to see the doctors and organizations skimming millions even in tiny towns
**
Just like every other government operation, repeal of the ACA would not create the end of first world health care.
*****
Yes, many would say that I take strange view of things today. I should be dead many times over without anyone shooting at me. All of us who served in the military know that it is easy to be dead in training even on nice, clear days.
*****
It is God who gives every breath and allows us every step of every day. You don’t have to have some communist or jihadi shooting at you to understand the protection given to us every day. Thank the Lord for everything including the Islamic jihadi elected in NYC or elsewhere and for all the good, fun things given to us. Think like Christians not like the pagans.
_
To be a free people, we must be a righteous people. It was always thus.
Dave
If you run for office,
I will support nd vote for you.
If you have a blog/substack/website (anything non socialist media)- I will be there.
o range man is Not our savior.
voats won’t get it done.
we are IN
not OF the world.
nd on nd on.
*****
Yes, many would say that I take strange view of things today. I should be dead many times over without anyone shooting at me. All of us who served in the military know that it is easy to be dead in training even on nice, clear days.
*****
Who said, paraphrasing,
don’t be astonished if the world hates you. after all, look how much they hated me.
Think like Christians not like the pagans.
👍🏻
think and LIVE as Christians…
Juan
You had me until “including the Islamic jihadi elected in NYC”.
X2 ” giving thanks in everything ” needs to be contextual. NYC is going to get what it voted for. I can only pray deliverance from evil, not ask for it.
–
“Your American Heritage” podcast opening prayer gave me words i couldn’t find for all 3 terms of the Obamanator. All my respect for Dave sharing his faith and convictions. We ALL have our differences though.
Ed, take a peek at the Islamic videos letting everyone know that they will no longer be working under cover. There are plenty of videos including those of Mamdani being chummy with high powered terrorists and shilling for Hamas. Some of the clips are typical boasting similar to sports teams, but parts are quite serious.
I got that. My meaning was I won’t be thankful for it.
Spot on Dave.
I Love your list but would like to suggest a couple of things to add:
1. Term limits for Congress and the Senate, I would like 3 and 2, but ANY limit at this point would help.
A. We the people will End retirement pay (since with term limits it will End the lifetime Political career track) I suggest a large stipend that will ensure that members do not go broke during service (except by their own actions), and provide free military housing and free healthcare using the finest VA facilities and staff (but only during active service of our country).
2. This one is a pipe dream and I despair of it ever becoming reality:
“I do wish the repeal of the Amendment that made the election of Senators a popularity contest instead of the Founders well thought out check and balance of powers between the Federal Gov and the States.”
As far as the squishy Rino’s getting the Filibuster killed, I am for that only if they get your full list passed.
(and my additions too since now we are talking day dreams!).
The Founders never wanted an Nobility Class to rule over our country, now we have them and their resistance to any change shows. We have people who spend their entire lives inside the Political machine (both D and R) and consider they and their children are Entitled and Deserving of the positions of Power.
We see the results of this Entitlement in both how far we have fallen from the original framework the Founders designed, to the 30+ Trillion in debt, and the Bloodthirsty fight that ensues whenever the Nation attempts to return to a Constitutional Republic.
If you lump term limits into any bill, it will fail. If you propose to reduce the pay to Congress, the bill will fail. State legislatures used to elect the Senate and the 17th Amendment killed it. A Constitutional Convention to remedy that could be dangerous.
LL, +1. No constitutional convention.
I just visited Silicon Greybeard and he had a funny article that illustrates the dangers of legislation for legislation’s sake without regard to consequences, hence my trepidation about ending the Filibuster without ALL of the other changes that are needed…
To quote from SG: “The article isn’t very long, and it’s another shining example of how when legislatures pass laws to address a problem they apparently never think, “…and then what happens?”
https://thesilicongraybeard.blogspot.com/2025/11/the-headline-of-week.html
MSG Grumpy
Thanks, MSG Grumpy. I was writing my comment while you were posting yours.
I honestly want to see how they make those rare earth magnets. They stick to each other really well, so how do the machines measure out just the right amount of the metal mix and not isolate it from everything else in the world. It seems like everything that touches the mix has to be poly-something-or-other plastic to keep the system from being shut down by everything sticking together.
~~~
Re: Americans have lost faith in their institutions… A problem I’m seeing is that the distrust is so broad that it honestly looks to be based entirely on the idea that “natural” things are entirely safe while “chemicals” are bad. Don’t test that idea with wild mushrooms. Everything can have a chemical name; so you can say “everything is a chemical.” Saying you don’t want chemicals in your food is saying you don’t want chemicals in your chemicals. The first law of toxicology is “the dose makes the poison” and too much of anything can be bad. The most common example is oxygen, which is poisonous above some partial pressure as every scuba diver knows.
I had a friend die from an O2 hit using a Drager LAR V off the California Coast. Yes, oxygen becomes toxic and your example is dead on.
Absolutely eliminate state to state insurance barriers. This setup morphed into a system created to benefit those in the game, so we’d gain the added benefit of eliminating state insurance commissioners who make the backroom deals that residents ultimately get to pay ever increasing premiums. Time to return insurance into a proper ‘for the people’ business (sounds a little Bernie-esque, but in reality market forces are better to maintain quality through supply and demand versus edict or regulation.)
***
“For the weekend”: About spit out my coffee once the brain caught on. Heh.
I hope that you’re having a good weekend, PAULM.
I would suggest “eliminate all insurance, it’s a scam”, instead.
*
If the market determined healthcare costs, they would drop precipitously.
– Kle.
X2
@LL…we are…church was great and easy day for once.
👍
Latin American Death Cults:
*
I suggest 2 causes for the popularity – these things are vastly melodramatic,
and melodrama seems to be the lifeblood of everyone south of the Rio
Grande (and tragically large numbers north of it). Also, these various cults
support the concept of “what’s wrong in my life is not because of me, it’s
someone else’s fault, or the fault of Fate”, which seems to be a big part of
the general failure of every nation in that south of the Rio Grande region.
So the cults are an excellent cultural fit.
– Kle.
Voodoo Vampire cults like sacrificing cats and having homosexual orgies. I think that’s it. If you’re into one or the other, you have found your people.
**The surge of such releases in recent weeks, now spanning all countries within the Alliance of Sahel States, illustrates the group’s ambition to extend its influence and territorial control across the region. Founded in 2017 through the merger of several jihadist factions linked to al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, JIM has since developed a strategy of propaganda, smuggling, extortion, and control of artisanal gold mining as tools of governance and recruitment.**
The difference between a WarLord and a national leader is success, look at Syria.
From your mouth to God’s ear.
Shame on Ana Paulina Luna. Everyone knows that “dual citizenship” is an anti-Semitic dogwhistle. How DARE she bring this up. The ungrateful witch.
>By its very definition, any person holding dual citizenship owes allegiance to two sovereign states
Having allegiance to BOTH states would be an improvement in some cases.
—
> Americans have lost faith […]They don’t trust doctors.
And who could blame them? (That was rhetorical: Lots of overeducated, condescending, smug idiots with planks in their own eyes do, duh.) Anyway, to take the Covid vaxx example, most doctors truly believed The Party Line. My strong opposition was maybe 1 in 20; probably less. (There was no deliberate malice on the retail level of doctors prescribing the mRNA poison, nor were we getting financial incentives from Novartis or Pfizer [1].) Now bear in mind that my “usual crowd” of doctors are faculty at or affiliated with some of the US’s top medical schools and research institutions. I don’t know what the “average doc” in say, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, much less Caribou, Maine, thinks. What they think is important, but they are not policymakers nor advisors to policymakers. Anyway, while I regret the loss of trust in physicians, MDs were NEVER the paragons of virtue and fidelity to ethics that we-as-a-society wanted to believe. MDs are “much like any other man, only more so”. Most want to do the right thing, so long as it doesn’t inconvenience them too much. The selection process (getting into Med School) and the training process (med school, residency, fellowship; and in the case of high-IQ morons like me, additional fellowships) do NOT encourage independent thought. Group think and knuckling under to the title/rank not the man are pillars of medical education and training.
—
[1] financial incentives: To my knowledge, the working MD did not get cash or stocks or whatever from the makers of mRNA vaxx. There WAS however a financial THREAT from our hospitals (our employers, for the most part; the independent practice is all but dead). You’d get dinged for every patient of yours who was NOT vaxxed. And if you wrote medical exemptions (which most employed patients needed to keep their OWN jobs if they refused the vaxx), you’d be “investigated” and threatened and in no few cases, fired.
—
> They’ll send a social worker with a box of tissues, and you can weep together.
You’d be lucky to get a social worker to commiserate with you. More likely you’ll get berated, lectured about your whytte privilege, your cis-het privilege, and so forth. You’ll be Educated on why your rapist is the Real Victim and how you oppressed and continue to oppress him. Should you speak up in your own defense, expect to be charged with Hate Speech, and possibly assault on the social worker (remember, Speech is Violence; ironically, actual violence apparently is NOT violence). THIS is what you get when you allow your society’s values and ethos to be taken over by persons whose self-image [and often, cultural identity] is based on their self-proclaimed Victimhood. The West is no longer Greco-Roman-Germano-Christian. Sure, many many individuals hew to those traditional values, but much of FedGov, most of Academia, and nearly all of the Hollywood-Ideological Complex, are wholly opposed to the ideals of the West.
I had a primary care physician in private practice who took over from his father who’s also my primary. In the midst of COVID, I damaged my knee and went to see him. He spent 45 minutes arguing with me about why I should take the shot. How in some communities, people like me would be taken outside the city limits, shot and buried without a marker for endangering the community.
I asked him if he felt pressure to see that the show was administered and he said yes.
I then asked him if we could actually talk about my knee instead of the shot.
I was the last doctor I saw except for the surgeon who worked on my knee and did not insist I wear a mask.
Until 5 years later when I decided I should probably have a primary care physician for insurance purposes. During the 15 minute interview with her nothing was said about me having any tests and as I left I asked if I shouldn’t have blood work done. See then ask if I thought that was important. I told her yes and she ordered the tests.
Of course that’s how we found out I had leukemia.
Then the first hospital I went to misdiagnosed the type of leukemia I had and wasted full month on their treatment.
Now I’m at University of Michigan, and after the chemo, I was supposed to have blood work scheduled to see the progress.
Well they scheduled me for weekly tests instead of a test every other day.
And my platelets ran low, and I ended up getting blotches on my skin because of that.
When we called the hospital that’s when they admitted they had made a mistake in the scheduling.
It’s an act of faith I even let them work on me now but I don’t believe I have any alternative except for some internet recipes for ivermectin for cancer.
Sorry for the typos. I thought I reviewed before hitting enter.
Always be your own doctor first…relying on what passes for MDs would make Dr. Bells, our old family physician when growing up, who worked out of an office in his home and would make house calls, furious over what has been done to what should be medical advancement. Then again, half (maybe more, maybe less) the MDs and hospitals work for insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies, often grift from government misappropriation.
I wonder if some of the china that Pres. Trump is breaking could serve as platelets. Maybe the smaller plates could pass for platelets.
You’ve been through the wringer, Ed. As if cancer itself isn’t bad enough, but to have to keep tabs on whether the hospital is doing the right thing? Ridiculous.
And this is at one of the top medical systems in the US (Michigan). And “the first hospital” isn’t bad either. This makes a person wonder what sort of crap care is out there in “regular America”. (Ann Arbor is not regular America in the same way that Berkeley, Cambridge, Boulder, you get the idea, are not regular America.)
—
Our medical system is capable of some amazing stuff, but is also amazingly broken. And we are making it worse by importing physicians with degrees and training from non-US, non-Western countries, who have little in common (in terms of culture and ethos) with normal Americans. Culture makes a HUGE difference. Even worse, we are importing persons to “care” for us who not only do not share American values, but are actively hostile to Western ideas and ideals.
Given that most universities don’t have agendas in common with “Flyover Country” Americans, how can we promote the education of medical professionals who will graduate without having been “wokened” by the system that instructs (or brainwashes) them?
Short answer: I don’t know.
—
Longer answer: I still don’t know. But several thoughts.
1. Med school is already too late to anti-woke-ify. I’d say that Defense Against the Dark Woke-isms (h/t JK Rowling) has to start from practically birth. Certainly by junior high school. (When I was a child, home schooling was “for crazy people”. Now I’m starting to think that NOT homeschooling is the crazy option.)
2. Despite #1 above, decrease the weighting (for “admission points”) of “elite” schools. Try for TRUE diversity by considering students from lower-tier colleges including community colleges. [1]
3. Give preference for students who have actual life/work experience. The typical pipeline is HS, college, med school. So people are entering med school at age 25 or 26 without ANY work experience. [No few people have played the game of “getting into med school” their entire lives (volunteering for the “right” (i.e. leftist) causes; some “research” for a summer in the lab of one of dad’s friends where you did jack shit and certainly never really thought about research; and especially, getting added as a co-author to some abstract or manuscript that you contributed zero, zilch, bupkis to intellectually (or even you get made first author on some project that some poor Chinese postdoc actually did 98% of the work on, and your mentor wrote the actual report for you, but you get the credit because you grew up in Scarsdale or Brookline and have the right family connections).] Maybe med schools should pay more attention to those who have at least 5yrs of work experience, health-care related or not [2].
—
[1] “But if we admit people from Podunk State, the quality of med students will be lower. And we need the smartest people to be doctors!”
a1) Affirmative action is already pissing (and diarrhea-crapping) in the med school talent pool. How could admitting persons from more humble academic backgrounds possibly be worse than admitting someone with test scores literally 2SD (not to mention IQ 2SD) lower than the average white or Asian student? If I need a high-risk surgery, I don’t give two tugs of a dead dog’s d*ck if the surgeon “looks like me”. I want a person with good hands who can think on his feet and keep cool under stress.
a2) post-med school, i.e. for residency, affirmative action is not the major source of crap in the talent pool. For residency and fellowship, especially at “community” (i.e. not major academic centers) programs, foreign medical grads from the subcontinent and MENA are the major source of crap. (I know, and have the privilege of working with, some VERY good Indian and Pakistani MDs, but these are persons like 3SD out on the right of the curve. Also, I’m implicitly assuming a Normal distribution by talking of SDs. The actual distribution is probably very much NOT the classic Gaussian shape. But I digress.)
b) We do NOT need the smartest persons to be MDs. All you need is normal intelligence, a really good memory, and enough stubborness to get through the process. I’d say that (above the low threshold of a 3-digit IQ, 100 will suffice), being ethical and a decent human being who can talk to you like a normal person are way more important than another few points on the MCAT.
[2] Requiring prior work experience in healthcare would be “the Starship Troopers solution” wherein you need to be prior service to get into med school. I actually fall into this category of essentially being a mustang, so my objection to this idea is not because I’d “fail” this criterion. But not all nurses (or techs) would make a good physician. They are overlapping but different skill sets. Analogies are dangerous, but here goes: The MD/non-MD thing is like officer/enlisted. Some people are great chiefs, or sergeants or what have you, but might not be good officers, nor would they enjoy being officers vs being senior NCOs. Contrarywise, some people become good officers directly through the academy or ROTC pipelines, but would not necessarily have been good enlisted. We should probably weight “prior service” in something medical more highly, but I don’t think it should be a major factor.
If you’ve been working 5 years at something other than med school, figuring a way to finance the change when you’ve started a family unless you have family money to float the change might be nearly impossible. That’s part of the problem, IMHO. I have a nephew who is now a practicing dentist at 40, and his employer is paying off student loans as are New Hampshire State Grants, but his journey through dental school in his thirties was tortuous – two boys and a wife living like rats.
>people are entering med school at age 25 or 26
Gaah! Failed to proffrede. Graduating med school at 25 or 26. Entering at 21 or 22.
—
Yes, good point about financially swinging med school if you already have family responsibilities. And that goes maybe even moreso for residency where the hours are long (at least in my day [1]) and the pay is low [2]. You can get loans for med school, but not really for residency.
[1] No, I was not in “the last hard class”. I was actually in the “first easy class”. But at that point the culture was unchanged, so if you tried to get out of work by claiming the max 80h/wk or max 30h/shift limits you not only were mocked, but also marked as “lazy” or “not a team player”. (Those are my polite attempts to NOT say “you were marked as a shitbag”. Because this is a family blog and all.)
[2] people used to bitch about “we’re functionally getting paid under a dollar an hour!” Shameful hyperbole. Our actual hourly pay (it was a salaried position) worked out to about $7 to $14/hour depending on the workload of the particular rotation. I ate a LOT of ramen with an egg cooked-in for supper. (Not just from being poor, from being too tired to cook.) At least our lunches were subsidized. And frankly life was easy then. As an intern, you were expected by everyone to be stupid. All you had to do was show up, pay attention, and give it a good effort.
If you near a direct primary care doctor that you trust, you will get good medical care even in fly over country. That option is closer to what America used to have before all the health care insurance, HMOs and other bundling directives were mandatory.
Joseph’s tomb meme is spot on!
God bless you sir.
👍
The British actor Kit Harrington, of Game Of Thrones, is a direct descendant of Robert Catesby by his mother.
Harrington played Catesby in a movie called “Gunpowder” in 2017.
Kle, I’ll second your suggestion based on a Podiatrist’s ” ideal” answer to me as a contractor. He explained the racket of their pricing vs pay rates and delayed payments and such. “Single payer” preference would streamline all their red tape for authorization’s of us as cattle in the insurance herd plus payment at time of service / payment plans.
–
I do understand the schematics of insurance = helping others out with my premiums. I’ve been on the receiving end twice. Do ins. companies profit from investing finds from premiums?
–
Cost reductions as a result of pure capitalism and “free markets”, that’s a right principle but with the size of our regulatory agencies I’d be surprised if that played out fairly for WTP.
LL … lots of good writing, interesting topics, in the last couple blogs. Keep it up. I need to actually read the last three days a second time.
*
$2k from .gov would help pay for the new Civil War book series artwork/covers…. Just saying…
*
The Santa Muerte, Santarilla blog information is highly educational. Keep up the good blogging on such important yet not well known topics. Hopefully it will not significantly spread to the USA or other S. American countries. I fear it could become not just a religion but a political platform that a number of left crazies could embrace.
*
Having read both Bloody Mexico and The Old Whore I can highly recommend reading both. Some of the humor is very dark but it’s ok to laugh out loud even though it’s mixed in with the cartel overt violence. Buy both as it’s really a two part story. Be sure to start with Bloody Mexico.
I asked a friend of author, Larry Correia, to reach out to him and see if he’d provide a lead to somebody he uses for his covers. I haven’t heard back yet. Thanks for the plug. Yes, Bloody Mexico is Part 1 and The Old Whore is Part 2. Part 3, The Mountain was never written and is almost completely non-fiction and deals with Joaquin (Chapo) Archivaldo Guzmán Loera and one of his headquarters operations that was run out of a mine that “hollowed out” a mountain. I may work on that at some point. It’s in my head since I managed the case that involved The Mountain. It will connect with Part 2 of the series but will also stand alone. I originally found out about the mountain when speaking to a lady who was a cook at the mountain. Her husband (sort of a sad sack character) was a guard at the mountain. He (husband) had four wives and the cook was the least attractive of the lot, but was renowned for her culinary acumen as a ‘camp cook.’ It’s the little people who trip you up.
Typical Warlord B.S.
More and more of the radical Islam movements are using social media for what Aaron Cohen, among others, is calling 5th generation warfare. Doing a good job of it, IMO.
X2
How much, do you suppose, of these modern cults are due to half-forgotten holdovers of the various pre-Columbian religions and beliefs that had been subsumed by Catholocism over the initial decades and centuries of the Spanish conquest?
Clearly, it started when Catholic faith met African animism and morphed over centuries into the mess it is today. Santa Muerte has a lot of Catholic elements incorporated into the death cult. Sort of Medieval Europe Goth meets voodoo vampire.