Lauren’s Corner

 

Retro Meme of the Day

 

Green Meme-of-the-Week

 

A Bequest?

 

Ok, one more meme

 

Bullet Points:

** Representative Matt Gaetz’s bill, H.R. 374, would completely abolish the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and needs our support to gain traction in the House.

** File it under “That’s how it goes” -If my theory of relativity is proven successful, Germany will claim me as a German and France will declare that I am a citizen of the world. Should my theory prove untrue, France will say that I am a German and Germany will declare that I am a Jew.  – Albert Einstein

** A Florida university has been accused of preventing a white student from attending a mental health meeting on campus last fall because of his race.

According to an exclusive report from Campus Reform, officials at the University of South Florida prevented Andrew Davis, a white male USF student, from attending one of the “Understanding Self and Others” meetings last October because it had been designated for BIPOC — or, black, indigenous, and people of color — students only.

–Since I self-identify as both young, female, and black, I’d have fit right in…

** The last drop…

Some say, “Hanging is too good for ’em.” But, hanging might just be enough.

 

Identify the Aircraft

 

One of these guys MIGHT be Beans (honorary VM Lord High Executioner)

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

51 COMMENTS

  3. Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives
    Except for the agency that controls them, I don’t see the connection.
    Except for the rare guy that smokes, drinks and blow stuff up simultaneously.
    And if they are there to enforce federal law, we already have a corrupt agency to do that.
    And the only federal interest should be the ICC.

    • They started out as Treasury agents enforcing the Volstead Act/18th Amendment in 1919. Then when the act was repealed, they moved to stills that sold untaxed alcohol and tobacco that was sold without a tax stamp. In 1934, enforcing the National Firearms Act was tacked on but they were still Treasury agents, which meant, essentially revenue agents. ATF started in 1972 under the Treasury Dept.

      In January 2003 the law-enforcement powers of the ATF were transferred to the Department of Justice, whereas the agency’s tax and regulatory functions remained within the Treasury Department under the newly created Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau.

      So why wasn’t ATF simply folded into the FBI? The answer is, that the FBI didn’t want them.

      When ATF became BATFE in 2003, I ran a joint agency operational task force that included 5 ATF Agents. There was a lot of discussion in the ranks about the future of ATF in those days.

  4. The ATF was designed by those who believe we need regulating to undermine 2A and self-protection, or certainly has morphed into that mode.

    Ex: Waco is still a mystery to me…Koresh was a pedo nut running a religious cult who needed to be arrested in town. How “gov’t” did that looked like a bunch of camo’d yahoo goons with tanks and flash bombs looking for a fight…what did they think would happen? But just like Ruby Ridge those involved received zero consequence for murdering people on live TV then blame the victims.

    Gaetz is spot on. Maybe the bill passes and he can then move onto those other criminal enterprises, the IRS and FBI.

    Beans- Cannot imagine being in the middle of that melee trying to maintain visibility…I have a hard time seeing a full range thru my ski goggles while on the tractor.

    • There were a number of ATF/BATFE epic blunders in that time period. You failed to mention a few. (Ruby Ridge was an FBI operation) The ATF people who worked with me were wildly critical of WACO. Many of them were staunchly 2A supporters to be fair about it. Much of ATF is regulatory in nature and their actual hands-on law enforcement experience was somewhat weak across the board. Those weak tactics lead to the Waco debacle. Rather than arrest Koresh when he was in town, walking his dog, they attacked the fortified compound where the Branch Davidians drilled endlessly against just such an attack.

      When BATFE went to DOJ, the FBI became primarily a domestic intelligence agency. Most people failed to take note when that happened because it wasn’t publicized. Their training scenarios were all something like: A group of white ranchers plan to blow something up. Even after September 11, they persisted in seeing white, Christian people as the big threat. It’s true today as well. It’s the scenario of January 6 – the big insurrection and we all know how that went.

      • Appreciate the clarification. I am starting to lump the agencies together, can’t keep straight who is doing what to whom anymore. However, I don’t include the local personnel in with the leadership, who have clearly gone off the rails with self-importance and persecution of the easy low hanging fruit.

        • Having spent the bulk of my adult life swimming in that fetid pool, I lived it. I always got along well with the ATF guys and still work with DEA people to this date on projects of mutual interest. FBI is a different animal and though I have friends who worked there (some of whom spy on this blog officially – you know who you are), my relationships with that agency were almost always strained. We could discuss why over a steak and a Diet DP, but I can’t work with them primarily because I can’t trust them. Even today. I still run into things that could be fairly reported in their direction, but if I mention them, I go through other channels. They’re unreliable and untrustworthy.

      • So, are the decent people in BATFE being driven out? Either explicitly or through policies that result in them leaving “voluntarily” out of disgust?

        • I’ve been out of that mix for some time now. The BATFE people I knew have retired from the government as I did. I still do business primarily outside of the US and so I do interact with USGOV people. In the law enforcement realm, usually with DEA on money laundering matters. I still do criminal defense consulting on money laundering matters as one of my several pursuits. I cherry-pick the cases that I handle.

          • C’mon man…age is a white construct and is racist. (I hear the AMA is eliminating “Birth Date” on the Cert, like they did with “Sex”.)

            What if Ed B decides he’s younger than you? Case in point, I currently identify as an 80 year old, especially when getting out of bed first thing, yet I have spurious moments thinking I’m 18…80-18=62, where God has me.

          • I identify as 26.
            It’s easy. I hear the music that I listened to at 26 everywhere.
            I don’t fear the reaper, but although I was an early BOC fan, (a friend of mine who is a judge in Florida recently told me that his son was listening to BOC and it reminded him of me), I find Don’t Fear the Reaper to be a tool of Satan to trick people into not fearing a fate they are ill-prepared for, or worse, egged on to hastening that fate.
            Now Seven Screaming DizBusters doesn’t have that same effect on me.

        • When I was dealing with BATFE representatives in 2010-2017, they were as useless as, well, your typical government agents. Same with FBIs and Postal Police and most of DEA.

          The DEA analysts I dealt with were good. Their agents not so much.

          From my sources, it’s only gotten worse.

  5. Re the Einstein quote: let’s see what Wikipedia has to say about Karl Marx, shall we?

    “Karl Heinrich Marx FRSA (German: [maʁks]; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, critic of political economy, and socialist revolutionary.”

    German, eh? Does that mean that Marx’s theories are therefore correct? Hmmmm.

      • I suspect Marx was more PERSONALLY resentful than anything else, and the “class envy” thing was an attempt at concealment / normalization through projection.

  6. I once read that the BATF lost a substantial amount of their money during failed sting operations on a given year. I don’t remember the amount, but it was a substantial windfall for the drug cartels.

    • BATFE had a deep cover classified element that I also interacted with. It was run very professionally in my experience. I knew the operators personally and was familiar with some of their ops. It was a very small but well-funded component of ATF. The operations they did were legal, well-managed, and integrated.

      The Gunwalker bullshit was directed by the White House specifically and a lot of the ATF people who were caught up in that were acting under orders from Pres. Obama and SECSTATE Clinton. I know “they were only following orders” but it wasn’t a rogue operation within ATF. At the time, I was working with CNTPO in Latin America. Many of those walked firearms ended up in the hands of the CJNG Cartel (at a time when it was transitioning from the Guadalajara Cartel under Nacho Coronel to Cartel Jalisco New Generation). They were stored in a warehouse in Guad. It was reported to USGOV but they didn’t want to touch that tar baby.

  8. USF: Not surprising one would see that there.

    Two of my daughters went there (great math and computer science programs actually).
    my middle daughter had issues with some courses due to the leftist mentality there (this is about 25 years ago). She fought it with facts and actually had to petition the school as to a really horrible grade form a Prof who dinged her for not toeing the leftist line. (She actually won that one as the entire school hadn’t gone batty yet.

    Unfortunately my oldest daughter came out of there a flaming lib which she is to this day.

    The indoctrination by these schools is real and getting worse

    • “a Prof who dinged her for not toeing the leftist line”
      I remember the same from high school, though I wasn’t dinged back then (1980s) in terms of grades. But it was made quite clear that I was not with the program. Amusingly (among other things) I was sarcastically awarded the “Klemens Von Metternich Prize” at the end of the year. (Needless to say, this “prize” did not exist. It was made up just for that year because I’m special. 😀)

      In college I didn’t have to deal much with that because back then engineering wasn’t contaminated with DEI, and I’d passed out of all my humanities requirements through advanced placement testing. So I audited history and arts classes (I knew I’d be dinged if I took them for grades).

      It must be terrible these days.

      A sad tale about the downstream effects of university programming:

      https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZK1ICCBWUmQ

      • The Klemens Von Metternich Prize? For diplomatic achievement, one must presume.

        Given that this blog is “virtual” and a “mirage”, it may be appropriate to hand out virtual and vanishing awards of acclaim. In doing so, the editorial staff suggested that I give myself the VM DJ Trump Prize for humility.

        • Should I also give myself a voucher for a lap dance from Stormy Daniels, or would that be taking matters too far in the wrong direction?

          • You realize even suggesting that – whether it happens or not – means you might get served a payoff request from Ms. Lilly White Daniels to “maintain silence” (well, for a time anyway), which will trigger Reprobate Bragg to come after you with a made up felony charge. Once the arrest happens you’ll be infamous.

        • “Diplomatic achievement”.
          Heh. I wondered about that, so I asked. Nope, it wasn’t a sarcastic comment on lack of diplomacy. (For one thing, I’m quite diplomatic IRL. Though less so with age.) They (it was a group class taught by a panel of English and history teachers) thought that I was a diehard Conservative unthinkingly supporting the status quo. Which is funny because at that time I thought I was a libertarian and close to an Objectivist. (Then I went to college, attended a bunch of Libertarian (Party) gatherings, and swiftly realized that was not for me. But I digress.) In addition to the politics, I was not shy about preferring, say Corelli or Lully over some 20th century atonal noise, or eg Flemish Masters over Rothko or Chagall.

          • Chagall had seven fingers on his left hand. I don’t know whether that makes him some sort of mutant. I knew a Chinese lady who owned one of his works. I don’t know which one. It was some time ago. She drew it like a .45 Kimber being proud of her ownership. I teased her about the seven-finger thing and she ended up selling it due to my chiding.

            I knew a British scientist who had six toes on each foot. What does one make of the extra digits?

          • If all seven were his own fingers, then yes, mutant. If some had belonged to someone else originally and then were sewed on after a change of ownership then he was a character from a schlocky horror movie. But I thought “seven fingers” was an expression that he was referencing in his self-portrait. Did that woman really sell her Chagall because you teased her about it? Very Overseas Chinese, in that case. Sigh.

            Incidentally, I don’t strongly object to Chagall, I just don’t care for most of his paintings. But I do object to Egon Schiele’s works, which are abominations. PKG does not understand, “why do you even care? Just don’t look at them!” I am appalled, not by the existence of the paintings, but that there was a human who could and did create such things. Turned out her friend A. also has a visceral objection to Schiele. Hearing the name, A. made a face, looked like she was about to spit, and ground out, “There was something very wrong with that man.” Now PKG thinks both of us are “over reacting”. Back to the original topic, it’s been suggested that the capacity to feel disgust is associated with conservative political views. (That said, A. is not at all conservative….)

      • Fortunately our Governor, DeSantis, is working hard at de-libbing the university system. Which is why I want DeSantis to stay as Governor and not be worried about the rest of the country.

        He’s hit hard on Nova University, gotten a semi-conservative seated as UF president (and, boy, there was lots of pants-shiiting hysteria over that) and has worked hard to pack the Board of Regents with smart and right-thinking people.

  9. Brother sent this over the transom:

    “Bee’s do not waste time trying to convince Flies that honey is better than s$$t. Be a bee.”

    I responded: “Yet the 20% that are Flies are forcibly trying to convince the 80% who are bee’s that s$$t tastes better than honey.”

  10. Nice fight pictures. Love that “White Company” painting, good grab of what a medieval battle really looked like.

    Nothing hurts like a point-blank arrow or bolt. And about the only way to really punch through a good jack or plate.

    Love the Hound’s visored… bascinet? Not an armet or a sallet, kind of hard to identify, so bascinet it is. Surprisingly, just started watching GoT. I know, I know… But the hype and GRRM kind of pissed me off. At least it’s not Robert Jordan’s “Wheel of Time” dogsqueeze. Been relatively happy at the arms and armor so far (except for the half-naked horse barbs. What a bunch of wankers, in a world where heavy armor, crossbows and spears exist you don’t want to ride around like a bunch of Comanches trying to imitate the Mongol Horde (who did have heavy armor, heavy horse, medium armor and medium horse and their light cavalry still wore armor (several layers of silk and a leather coat works wonderfully.)

    • Started watching GOT? Well, so long as you know going into it that the series will break your heart in the end. Speaking of which, saw a certain woman for the first time in nearly 10 years yesterday. Still looks good. But if had known back when how it’d end, would I have just kept the hell away? Hmmm. That said, she got me through a very bad time in hospital. There I was with three chest tubes in, among other problems, and feeling very sorry for myself. Then I thought, “this is still not as bad as what I went through with Her.” And that perked me right up. Hah!

      Bascinets: “Is my bascinet a widow’s kurch? Is my lance a willow wand? Is my hand a lady’s lily hand, that this English lord should lightly me?”

    • HE Beans, how would you “see” from the Hound’s closed helmet? I use “helmet” because it’s sort of one-off fantasy headgear.

      Regarding GOT, Martin has a habit of killing off a character as soon as you like them. I stopped reading his stuff for that reason. He can write, but I don’t like that in a plot.

          • Or through the mouth.

            Now here’s a bit of dry pedantry. When doing lance charges, all you need to see is what is directly ahead of you. Thus ‘heavy’ helms often have narrow vision ports, slits, pierced work (little drilled holes) and such. Want to see side to side? Turn your damned head.

            Once the initial charge is over, get rid of the obstructing helm. Either by, yes, literally removing the outer helm to expose the inner helm, or remove the faceplate, or lift up the visor (as in the Hound’s helmet.)

            You can fight quite easily in either one-on-one or in a line formation with limited vision, as long as the vision is clear before you.

            And, of course, it’s also related to how far the vision holes are from the wearer’s eyes. Imagine a vision cone, boundaries of the cone are from the eye to the edges of the vision port. If the vision port is small but close to the eye, the vision cone is surprisingly large. Large vision port gives the same cone if farther from the eye.

            To add to the fun, a lot of heavy helms for jousting or first lance charges have an angled vision port such that if you lean your head forward, the vision slit gives good visibility. Tilt your head back and the vision slit goes to minimal to none. Thust the line in “A Knight’s Tale” (starring Heath Ledger) that basically says the knight(Heath) is either very brave or very stupid as he doesn’t tilt his head back (at point of contact.) Kind of hard to get a broken piece of lance in one’s eye if there is no hole for piece of lance to go through. Henry II of France (well, his ghost) can attest to how bad having a sliver (or the whole lance as he may have been assasinated during his last joust by a fake lance end that was not a jousting one but a disguised war point.)

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