Ruby Ridge
It’s an interesting moment in American history. More here.
The FBI lied about their role in the incident and the US Postal Inspection Service had to do the final investigation so that there would be integrity associated with the findings. Most reports including the one from Ammo.com (above) neglect to mention that. I only know how it goes because I know J. A., the Postal Inspector who did the internal investigation at the request of the US Senate. The FBI has a long history of coverups and lying to defend their reputation in the face of reprehensible conduct. The matter of the FISA abuse and the Russian Hoax is coming to a head. It will make interesting reading in coming days.
The Mail:
Jim – Now that’s one fine looking boy and I’m sure you’re looking forward to spoiling him. One of the downsides of getting old, I reach my three score and ten next year, is the increasing number of funerals one has to attend. None lately for me, but I imagine another will happen soon. +1 on the civilization comment.
I would like to avoid weddings and funerals, but I still attend. Too many friends have died, too many weddings start with good intentions and end up as train wrecks.
Fredd – Political humor: pretty funny, in a hostile kind of way.
Some not-so-hostile political humor: Recently elected Democrat governor of Illinois, J.B. Pritzker, is the largest serving governor in the U.S., currently, at roughly 360 pounds, depending on what he had for breakfast.
J.B. was cruising around in his limo, checking out on his constituents in and around Chicago, when his chauffeur got confused as to where they were, and he needed to get back onto Interstate 290.
J.B. asked the driver to pull over by the next constituent they saw, and the driver pulled up to a man walking his dog. J.B. leaned out the window and asked, ‘how do I get to 290?’ And the constituent, ever helpful, replied ‘drop about 70 pounds and you’re in the ball park.’
Keep it up, Fredd. It’s open season on politicians. I saw a video of Beto, the Fake Mexican, trying to change a tire. I’m sure that will pull in a couple of votes.
WSF – China has other problems that have nothing to do with the USA or the Hong Kong situation, I’ve been reading. Seems their pig population is in peril to the point of losing 80% to Asian Swine Flu. In addition, plant diseases are hurting their crops. Any thoughts/insights?
China has a lot going for it, but there are huge endemic problems like having a population comprised of 75% men, the swine flu and grand blunders in agriculture. They’re tough people and they have a hope that they can muddle through. I’m sure that they will. But it’s far short of what they want. Bungling Hong Kong is an epic political miscalculation that is still playing out. I think that they’re going to end up killing almost all of the pigs. Hopefully they don’t treat the citizens of HK the same way.
Greenland
I got a kick out of the US bid to purchase Greenland. The Danish PM got frosty with the president in the media and he simply postponed (maybe forever) the visit to Denmark.
“Denmark essentially owns it,” he said. “We’re very good allies with Denmark, we protect Denmark like we protect large portions of the world. So the concept came up and I said, ‘Certainly I’d be.’ Strategically it’s interesting and we’d be interested but we’ll talk to them a little bit. It’s not No1 on the burner, I can tell you that.”
With global warming, Greenland may be green once again…or maybe not. Anyway, the deal is off the table for now.
They certainly need some decent hotels in Greenland, and tourism, I guess. If that’s the case, the Greenlanders would find a champion in President Trump.
Oh, man – they called in the Mail Cops!
That not only makes perfect sense, it had me laughing so hard I couldn't talk or see. The Feebs must've LOVED that…
Greenland might think it isn't for sale, but I bet the people in the US Virgin Islands didn't think they were for sale either, before we bought them from Denmark.
It's a decent strategic location, I'm pretty sure we already account for most of the economy, and we absolutely already account for 100% of the defense of the joint.
-Kle.
When China instituted the one child policy, and given their cultural preference for boys, it was easy to see that one day they would be a nation with many young men who see no hope of finding a wife. Gee, a large army of discontented men who think they have no hope for the future. What could possibly go wrong?
What I didn't see coming was that Americans (and others, but largely Americans) would adopt Chinese girls. In the end, they exported many of their girls. That's preferable to killing them, but still damaging to the country.
I think that I mentioned it before, but the story is worth repeating. Circa 2000, I was in Southern China traveling by train. There is or at least there was one single place/city in China where children could be adopted. A thug from the Ministry of State Security traveled with me to keep an eye on me.
There were a number of families who had boarded the train with their adopted children. All of the families were (racist) white Americans, who were delighted with their new babies. There was a lot of love in the air. It was incredibly touching.
The thug had gone on and on about the Japanese and how cool they were and I pointed around. "I don't see Japanese families adopting Chinese babies that are are otherwise unwanted." That shut him up.
But yes, the ratio of men to women in China creates HUGE social issues that will only get worse as they continue to age. The one child policy has passed, but the pressure remains. The one child policy never applied to the elite or to minorities living in "tribal areas".
Family is everything (or it should be). It is in China and it is here. And government meddling and false narratives currently in play in the progressive community where career is more important – making killing an inconvenient child very progressive – is impossibly destructive to culture.
The Postal Inspection Service doesn't have the ego of the FBI, but they are for the most part, very hard working, sincere, well trained, and are under appreciated. They fit in the same place in terms of ethical conduct that I put the Secret Service and the US Marine Corps.
I for one look forward to the day the regime in Greenland hands over the island to US.
And when Ruby Ridge blew up in their face, they doubled down at Waco.
Sitting at Janet Reno's right was Eric Holder.
Looks like you can comment on your blog again. Excellent!
Kle, I didn't know that USVI were once under Danish control; I learn something every day here, either from our host, or the commenters. As an aside, some Silicon Valley friends retired in their early 50's (they were in early enough to do well from stock options, but were not in the 8-figure payout range, alas) and moved to the USVI. Personally I did not (and still don't) see the appeal. Two type A, driven, and very very white people moving to a tropical island which is something like 75% Afro-Caribbean seemed like a suboptimal match to me. They lasted three increasingly-less-idyllic years, then the hurricane was their excuse to move back to the States. (Their property escaped damage, but it was the excuse to get out without admitting failure.)
But speaking about the Caribbean, I had the happy inspiration of wondering if the Danes could be persuaded to take Puerto Rico in exchange for Greenland. I think we could toss in the sweetener of forgiving PR's debts. Let's compare PR to Greenland: population 3.3 million vs 58k; GDP 130 billion USD (2017) vs 2.4 bUSD (2015); GDP 39.4k USD vs 41.8k USD. What a deal, Danes! My only reservation is that I don't hate Danes enough to do that to them. In fact, I don't really hate Danes at all. Apart from a tendency to smugness about their hygge and talking as if their mouths are always full of hot potato, they're not bad folks.
Maybe someone who has more experience about this can comment, but this struck me as curious. Some (mostly Irish) friends have an adopted daughter from China. She is very pretty. It turns out they have "classes" of same-aged girls who were apparently adopted at the same time, and the adopting families keep in touch. Recently they had a reunion, and the group photograph of the girls (all teenagers now) was remarkable in that each had a pretty face, was slender, and for Chinese, long limbed. Now out of a dozen-plus random Chinese, you'd expect at least a few stocky short-legged ones, and a few moon-faced (regardless of fat or not fat) ones. All these girls were remarkably attractive.
*Has anyone else noticed this, or had a similar experience?*
Okay, Mike you deplorable conspiracy theorist, you say, adopting families tend to be well off (it is NOT cheap to adopt a Chinese baby), so the girls will have nice clothes/grooming and tend to not be fat because that's the socioeconomic correlate, but this was beyond that. These were all remarkably pretty girls. Which makes me wonder about whether there is something additional going on, almost a sort of physical propaganda as it were. (As another example, the "hot IDF girl" photos highly prevalent in the gunblogosphere and the conservativeblogosphere are NOT by accident. There is definitely at least one "American propaganda" unit — though they don't call it that of course — within the IDF. I know this because a friend's son was assigned to one when he enlisted in the IDF.) For those who have not had their coffee or stimulant of choice, obviously the goal is to set up a condition in the viewer's mind where "Israel" in general and "IDF" in particular automatically triggers the association with "pretty girl". Men are not particularly wired to leap to the defense of "Israel" or the "IDF" but we sure as hell are wired to do so for a pretty girl.
+1 LSP. Some of us connect the dots. Was the OKC bombing some FBI scheme that got out of their control?
Very interesting post, LL.
Glad to see you commenting again. Hope it continues.
LL, I did not mean to impugn the Postal Inspection Service. As you say, they are the sort of government agency that I wish more of our agencies modeled themselves upon. I've never heard anything bad about them, they seem to be very serious, smart, hardcore pros.
It's just that I don't imagine the FBI (for all that they have many good agents) thinks of them in those terms of comparison, and I doubt took their investigation in good humor. Indeed, I hope not – they deserved at least a slap in the face for their stupid, reckless failure.
-Kle.
Comments are closed.