On a dark desert highway,
cool wind in my hair
Warm smell of colitas,
rising up through the air
Up ahead in the distance,
I saw a shimmering light
My head grew heavy, and my sight grew dim
I had to stop for the night
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Yes, it’s another moment in time on Virtual Mirage when you’re invited to express yourself. Try not to burn the place down or frighten the children because it’s a family blog (sorta).
The Lost Liberal Dominion
By Abe Greenwald, Commentary Magazine
“What do multiple federal agencies, the Ivy League, PBS, NPR, and Stephen Colbert have in common?
They’re all parts of the liberal establishment that understood itself as an eternal fixture of the national landscape.
And then came 2025.
We’re now witnessing the political and cultural equivalent of grand geological change.
Erosion, tectonic shifts, volcanoes, deposits, and continental drift are remaking the country at various levels and in diverse spheres. As with geology, culture can endure for such a long time that one tends to mistake its present configuration for something permanent. But, aside from the laws of the universe, there’s no such thing.
It’s been widely noted that many federal workers seemed to have assumed lifetime employment. In this, they were reassured by their unions’ collective bargaining efforts and reading of the law. But, as the Supreme Court ruled more than once this month, the Trump administration is within the bounds of the Constitution to proceed with the wholesale reshuffling of the civil service. This means gutting left- and liberal-leaning agencies that have been ineffective for years, morphed into unapologetic engines of social justice, or both.
The Ivy League, similarly, felt impervious to forces outside the campus.
Flush with multibillion-dollar endowments, perennially infused with additional sums from the government, and thoroughly stoned on their reputation, elite universities thought they could continue to teach anti-American radicalism, encourage anti-Semitism, grow their administrations, and charge a fortune to those being indoctrinated, without consequence. But Donald Trump woke them up, too. Harvard and Columbia are now facing withheld federal grants, potential new taxes, and other impositions unless they can get their houses in order.
PBS and NPR have been around for about 55 years, but it felt as if they’ve existed since the dawn of broadcasting. Whatever they once were, they now function as liberal messaging platforms. There are few good arguments for taxpayers footing the bill of any media organization, let alone those with aggressive political agendas. Congress has rightly voted to cut $1.1 billion from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Nationally, PBS and NPR get most of their funding from corporate sponsors and direct individual contributions. If their supporters can keep the lights on, good for them. If not, they will have demonstrated their superfluousness.
Stephen Colbert is hardly an institution. But this week, he serves as a good stand-in for one: commercial media. Since 2015, Colbert has hosted The Late Show, part of the surge of left-leaning late-night talk shows that emerged in the Trump era. These are shows aimed at creating anti-Trump social media moments instead of delivering TV entertainment. And so, TV audiences became less than entertained. Puck News reports that The Late Show was losing CBS more than $40 million a year, so the network just pulled the plug.
Meanwhile, the leader of the late-night pack is Fox News’ Gutfeld!, a lighthearted comedy show that, while right-wing in nature, actually strives to be funny. The end of The Late Show will undoubtedly have interesting consequences for TV Land. Liberals are learning that there’s no such thing as lifetime tenure, eternal cultural dominance, and unending access to audiences or the levers of power.
Many of us outside the liberal establishment are learning it too. I’d become half-resigned to the endurance of the liberal Pangea. But the ground is now shaking beneath everyone’s feet.
***
Raw Human Liver (for lunch)
We’ve discussed this before, but some of these characters from the annals of the Old West were larger-than-life.
In Alder Gulch, Montana, he became a gold prospector, using the name John Johnson. Later, he worked as a lumberjack, a town marshal in Telluride, a trapper, and other more or less legal jobs. It was hard not to notice him because of his six feet seven inches height, his 260 pounds of muscle, and his frequent outbursts of anger and fury. Yes, he had what would be known today as anger management issues.
In 1847, he married a Flathead Indian. Shortly afterward, his wife was killed by the Crow, an enemy tribe. Johnson began the hunt for the Crow. His revenge continued for 25 years. And it was terrible. According to historian Andrew Southerland, “He killed and scalped more than 300 Crow Indians. And he ate the liver of each one.” Hence the nickname. Johnson’s is a disdain: the Crows believe that without a liver, you can’t go to the green pastures.
“Liver Eater” became the terror of the Crow. In 1863, he was captured by the Blackfeet and was about to be sold to the Crows. But he escaped after tearing the leather ties with his teeth. After killing his Indian guard, he cuts off the Indian’s leg with a large knife. He took it with him and ate it during the long escape in the snow (a man has to eat): 100 miles to a friend’s shack.
He enlisted in the Union Army, where he fought bravely during the War of the Southern Rebellion. He made peace with the Crows, who became his “blood brothers.” But in the Indian wars, “Dapiek Absaroka”, the Crow killer, as he was known among the Indians, massacred Sioux and Blackfeet. He had proven skill sets. In the 1880s, he was elected sheriff in Red Lodge, Montana. Johnson died in 1900 in a veterans’ hospice in Los Angeles, California, and was interred in a cemetery there.
Bullet Points:
** If you’re going to track just one piece of economic data, make it the 10-year Treasury yield. Set by market forces through competitive auctions—not dictated by politicians or bureaucrats—it essentially reflects the price tag on America’s ability to borrow for its long-term endeavors, from infrastructure to defense. That single number silently narrates the entire story of the U.S. economy—growth expectations, inflation outlook, investor confidence, global capital flows, and even the credibility of fiscal and monetary policy. The 10-year yield is the economy’s heartbeat. When it rises, it can signal fears of inflation or a shift toward tighter monetary conditions. When it falls, it can reflect recessionary concerns, deflationary pressure, or a desperate global hunt for safety. It influences everything from mortgage rates and corporate borrowing costs to equity valuations and the strength of the dollar. In short, if you’re ignoring the 10-year, you’re flying blind. Everything of consequence is reflected in that one number—quietly, but with ruthless precision.
** In Florida.
** Sound advice for young people.
** In Russia, Irina Podnosova, head of the Russian Supreme Court, has died suddenly in Moscow. She was appointed to this position just over a year ago, following the equally sudden death of the former head of the Supreme Court. She was personally nominated for the position by Putin.
** A religious enterprise (Peterson).
** Earl offers an opinion.
** Justice – President Donald Trump believes the Department of Justice (DOJ) should go directly after former President Barack Obama following the recent revelations from Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Tulsi Gabbard showcasing the true origins of the Trump-Russia collusion hoax.
** (NY Post) “Former Transportation Secretary Pete (The Butt Guy) Buttigieg failed to replace outdated air traffic control systems while in office — with his agency instead shelling out tens of billions of dollars on a DEI agenda, according to federal spending records and airline industry insiders.”
** (zerohedge) Chinese Hacking – Hackers believed to be linked to the Chinese government used a zero-day exploit targeting on-premises versions of SharePoint to infiltrate over 50 organizations, including the agency responsible for the Navy’s nuclear submarine reactors. China denies the charge. The NNSA oversees both the production of nuclear reactors for submarines and the maintenance of the US nuclear arsenal. Cybersecurity experts are currently describing what’s known as an advanced remote code execution (RCE) attack. It’s believed the hackers were able to gain unauthorized access, steal data, collect login credentials, and potentially move deeper into connected networks; however, the Department of Energy has claimed no classified or sensitive nuclear data was compromised in the breach.
***
Identify the Aircraft
1
As it arrived from the factory
2
3
4
202 built – 3 are still flying today.
Parting Shot
“Greedo”
End
“It’s been widely noted that many federal workers seemed to have assumed lifetime employment.” The irritating part of that is most federal employees also feel their positions should be held for their progeny; imma looking at you, Congress in particular.
Yes, there are no hereditary rights to federal positions. It’s not a fief.
Identify the Aircraft:
1. TBD
2. Handley Page Hampden
3. Vickers Wellington
4. de Havilland Dragon
You’re going to kick yourself when you figure out #1. An early model of one of the most iconic aircraft of all time.
North American A-36.
Yes! The A-36 Apache (also known as the A-36 Mustang) ground attack aircraft mounted machine guns under the engine. Specifically, two .50 caliber Browning M2 machine guns were mounted in the lower nose (often referred to as the “chin”) to fire through the propeller arc. These were in addition to four other .50 caliber machine guns mounted in the wings. This setup required a synchronization gear (also known as an interrupter gear) to ensure the machine guns fired between the propeller blades, preventing them from being damaged by the bullets. The use of both nose-mounted and wing-mounted guns provided the A-36 with a formidable armament package, well-suited for its intended roles as a dive bomber and ground-attack aircraft. (500 built)
The A-36 project was a stopgap measure intended to keep North American Aviation (NAA) assembly lines running during the first half of 1942 despite the US having exhausted its funds earmarked for fighter aircraft.
Note the HO Hampden pilots are wearing their No.1 uniforms. Neatly pressed pants, dress shoes and jackets under the cold weather jacket and Mae West. Standards must be upheld …
John Johnston was indeed an interesting character. While the film with the the Milius script is a good watch, they cleaned things up considerably. Redford ate no livers. While he was originally buried in the LA area, in 1974 his body was exhumed and reburied in Cody Wyoming.
https://images.findagrave.com/photos/2001/222/johnstonjohn3.jpg
https://images.findagrave.com/photos/2001/222/johnstonjohn2.jpg
I know, it was disappointing. They may have demanded an NC-17 rating if Redford kept slitting dead Crow abdomens open and chowing down on livers…but the authenticity would have been extraordinary.
Raw Crow liver? They must have been fairly healthy if Johnson didn’t catch anything.
The all-knowing AI Summary sez:
Health risks of liver cannibalism: Consuming human liver can lead to various health risks, some of which are potentially fatal:
* Prion Diseases (Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathies – TSEs)
* Other infectious diseases [MC edit: e.g. various forms of viral hepatitis, for one thing; also, parasites]
* Hypervitaminosis A (Vitamin A Toxicity)
* High Cholesterol
—
High cholesterol. Hahaha! Yes, THAT’s what a frontierman with an entire nation wanting to kill him (probably after excruciating torture), needs to worry about.
—
“Irina Podnosova was personally nominated for the position by Putin.”
Take back, or someone getting at Putin’s support and allies?
—
“DOJ should go directly after former President Barack Obama”
Morally, yes. But it sets a bad precedent for future misuse. (I know, even though I’m not a Republican, I’m talking like one. “We’re better than that!” Morons. You’re up against the Alinskys and the Yagodas and their ilk. Reason, moral suasion and “the high road” will never work. Those people utterly despise you and they DON’T want you dead. They want you alive, terrified, and repeating what you know to be lies to please them. They want you offering up your daughters for rape by their imported invaders, and your sons to their eternal war machine, in the hopes that you’ll be spared their Sauron eye for just one more year, one more week even. They want to break you spiritually, because their hatred is ancient and bottomless.)
TL;DR I’m hesitant to endorse going after former Presidents criminally [1]. John Brennan on the other hand is ENTIRELY fair game.
[1] Not that BHO shouldn’t be thoroughly investigated and the results made completely public. (And that WILL happen, just like the Epstein files and the JFK files. JUST like that.)
Geez, Mike, yer such a cannibalism party-pooper. No matter how mom cooked liver (bovine to be clear)…always with red beets…while singing the praises of said cut of meat, whether breaded, fried, whatever…it sucked. I made a couple of hotdogs for myself. Depression era foods grandpa and grandma ate weren’t always stellar, regardless the fancy plating (on Corelle of course). If I want a load of B-vitamin I’ll drink a beer.
I think that BHO enjoys presidential immunity. Brennan was pardoned by the autopen as was Gen. Clapper.
Pass on liver, thank you.
I dont know i like liver a lot. Especially venison liver sautéed with onions and garlic in butter and bacon fat with a big side of Münich style potato salad made with red potatoes.🙂
I’ve taken to liking liver. Sauteed in onions and with a side of bacon and hash browns.
I’m with Ed & Klaus.
Liver Eater; If the graphics would be produced true to the story, they would certainly be frightening to the children. We’d see an anthropophagous mountain man motivated by nutrition, revenge, and survival. The climatic conclusion could be how one could possibly make peace with the Crow’s who had taken the love of his life. In “Revenant,” Dicaprio likewise looses his half breed son, an Arikara ( Pawnee) to one of their war bands. Simularly he uses skills of survival by sleeping nude in a horse he dressed out. With stealthy witt he mounts his dead best friend on his horse as a decoy to draw out the antagonist. Final revenge, taken by the “Creators hands” is enacted by an Arika Chief.
–
Continuing on past the days of being a union soldier and Indian fighter; An amazing sequel could continue the story as a family friendly TV show. Would it show a reformed Sheriff and a model citizen living out his days in the small city of 100k to a ripe old age of 76?
Bird picture is how sharing fries or pizza often goes … “May I have? Sure, you can have one.” Clears out the basket. Or my favorite. You cut open and butter and jam the last hot biscuit. As you lay down your knife someone calls your name. You turn, look back and both haves of the biscuit are gone the culprits scampering away.
*
I knew the A36. Last few days it’s been tough figuring the plane IDs.
*
They should plant some improperly designed stuff, buried so hard but not impossible to find, in the databases for the bad guys to find, and designed so after about a year of use some critical components catastrophically self destructs. Gee those bad guys submarines keep vanishing… curious isn’t it. Then Israel can offer to help fix the problem.
Stealing a man’s hot buttered biscuit should result in severe punishment, particularly if it was the LAST biscuit.
Severity would iff’n it’s a proper suthun buttermilk biscuit or store bought from a tube.
Intentionally-buried invalid code? Like was done to the USSR when they stole software used to control pipelines. Embedded code triggered big kaboom.
https://www.smh.com.au/world/cold-war-hotted-up-when-sabotaged-soviet-pipeline-went-off-with-a-bang-20040228-gdifyv.html
There’s reports that this wasn’t actually what happened, but then, who knows.
OK, now quite the premise but close. Other examples cannot be shared.
After watching the rampant ignoring of legal protocol, prosecution with laws that don’t describe the supposed crime, outright created evidence, and an obvious agenda to destroy a man getting in the way, Trump learned the best of methods to destroy his enemies. May his paybacks happen soon, be glorious, and the traitors be given the death penalty for their actions.
Columbia University agreed to pay the Federal Government $200M to make the “Trump fight” go away. I’ll take the win (on top of Japan et al making tariff deals).
“the rampant ignoring of legal protocol”
There is nothing new about this. In fact, it’s not only been formalized at least once, but held up as a shining example of True Justice. An entire mythos, long in gestation, was birthed into the Real World by this process.
Nuremberg Article 19: The Tribunal shall not be bound by technical rules of evidence. It shall adopt and apply to the greatest possible extent expeditious and non-technical procedure, and shall admit any evidence which it deems to have probative value. [italics mine]
Article 20: The Tribunal may require to be informed of the nature of any evidence before it is offered so that it may rule upon the relevance thereof.
Article 21: The Tribunal shall not require proof of facts of common knowledge but shall take judicial notice thereof. […]
—
Art 19 speaks for itself. Art 20 says, “We will decide a priori if your evidence can be presented, or arbitrarily banned as ‘irrelevant'”. Art 21: and who decides what is “common knowledge”? If the New York Times, and Jon Stewart, and Stephen Colbert all say the same thing, and it’s subsequently repeated by a few tens of millions of the credulous and the stupid, then It Must Be True, yeah?
—
I’d note that USSC Chief Justice Harlan Fiske Stone called Nuremberg “a high grade lynching party” and “a fraud”. This despite Stone being a Liberal Justice who among other things objected to deportation of illegal aliens administratively [without full legal due process — sounds familiar, eh?], was a former Dean of Columbia Law School, and generally aligned with Louis Brandeis.
😳
Of course Jeremiah Johnson’s body was moved to a grave in Old Trail Town in Cody, Wyoming after the movie made him famous. The drive between there and Red Lodge, Montana, where he lived can be an amazing drive or fairly boring, depending on the route you take. His Hawken rifle is in the collection of the Buffalo Bill Heritage Center of the West, about a mile from his grave. I’ve seen in on display once, a few years ago.
Jeremiah Johnson: If these stories of the guy are true…what a “character”, to put it mildly. But the times were very rough back then. What comes to mind is how many of these stories of the guy are true versus conjecture or embellishment like a lot who are portrayed to city folk? But there’s a guy I wouldn’t want to meet in a dark forest, like a rabid grizzly.
***
Parting Shot: Federal Government personified.
***
Sidebar Adder (slight rant but a cautionary tale that gov’t does nothing well while spending a fortune to make things worse): USPS is working hard (again) to prop up it’s lackluster image…but it’s not working any better. Large packages used to be UPS delivered in short order, now (us rural folks with stanchions) have to run the 35 mile r/t to the Post Office as they made a better deal with Amazon (likely subsidized on WTP’s nickel) yet can’t deliver large packages to rural spots. Last Friday sent my Dodge Ram TIPM to get repaired to an outfit in Texas (fuel gauge signal not getting to the gauge, traced to TIPM). Thought Priority would be fine, figuring – worst case – 3 days from CO to TX (you could drive it in 15 hours). USPS Tracking ONLY indicates it left the Denver Regional Disty Center Monday at 8:03am and is – STILL – in Transit. No other updates. No ability to see where the hay my package is…could be in Chicago.
Pro-Tip: Use UPS Red, or Fed-Ex (even Ground is better for the same $30). So this is how it goes; USPS works to prop up their image only the service gets worse.
Trickle down theory
“We’re now witnessing the political and cultural equivalent of grand geological change”.
This is at the federal/national level. Let us hope it trickles down to the state levels.
>>BREAKING NEWS<< Terry Gene Bollea, better known by his ring name Hulk Hogan, died today. He was a famous professional wrestler and entertainer, and patriot. He will be missed.
Transformed that particular [highly athletic] entertainment industry, Vince McMahan enjoyed the largess of Terry’s era. But yeah, 71, way too early for a guy who worked at being in shape a good chunk of his life. RIP Mr. HH.
(Best scene…Rocky III…”Thunderlips” standing presses Rocky and tosses him into the crowd like a rag doll…can’t get any better than that.)
When I watched Rock III and I saw ‘Thunderlips’, I went, ‘that’s Sterling Golden!’
Tossing Rocky is one thing, but Hogan body-slammed Andre the Giant. Sure it’s semi-choreographed, but my point is that Andre the Giant weighed 520 lbs, and to body slam the guy, Hogan had to pick him up first.
Elsewhere someone was wondering whether Hogan was vaxxed. Probably. But anabolic steroids do a number on the heart too.
ISTR that Hogan was born again and baptised last year. Any road, yes, he will be missed.
This posting’s lead tune altered:
“On a dark desert highway, Cool Whip in my hair…”
Wait, what?
(https://i5.walmartimages.com/seo/On-A-Dark-Desert-Highway-Cool-Whip-in-My-Hair-Vintage-Tee_0fd82022-e81f-46e0-9ef7-5f4f67c189e9.7d8d42058b8bd2ae7a977ad18eee3d92.webp?odnHeight=640&odnWidth=640&odnBg=FFFFFF)
Heh…
Never understood how Colitas (MJ in this case vs. the slang term) a “warm smell”? It stinks…especially driving with the top down (sorry, can’t help being an engineer-type analyzing the lyric).
You obviously don’t have an addicts love of that particular narcotic.
Nope…never saw the attraction of being chemically addled.
Never attracted to “non-prescription meds” and having a variety of clearances since 1986, can’t afford to use them.
And agree, there’s a reason it’s called “skunk weed”.
Wheee-doggie! I’ve had some really spectacular bonzo trips. All thanks to just prescription drugs. And it’s turned me off of even being tipsy from alcohol.
–
Used to, as a kid, have some truly horrendous and bloody altered state events. I thought it was normal and then they went away. Seems that they were caused by an allergy med I was on, actifed. I founa out about this because I was switched to another drug that worked really well and then some stupid jerks found out they could really trip on pyrabenzamine and sleeping pills (tripping fatally so) and so that drug went away and back to actifed. Which I used, twice, and blood coming out of the walls, the pictures of the kachina dolls (Navaho idols) came alive and chased me into the bloody river of the Persian rug that was on the floor and the pattern pieces of said rug came alive and bit me over and over.
–
Other really great trips as a kid on other drugs, apparently. Of the “I’m going to walk out into the road and let the car hit me because the dreams are worse” variety.
–
The one time I took oxycodone, prescribed after surgery, five minutes after taking it, the room tilted like in the Batman tv series, a countdown started from 20 and I realized that I had that many seconds to make it to the bathroom. Whereupon the walls folded inwards like a collapsing tesseract while my body rejected everything I ate for the last year or two, plus my toenails.
–
Yeah, that and being allergic to marijuana, which everyone in my city seems to smoke because it’s medicinal. Gah.
–
Not to mention, there’s a tad bit of angry envy involved. Why should they get drunk and stoned and eat takeout and rent cars weekly and use Uber and meanwhile I’m scraping by and being responsible in paying my bills and taking care of the family.
–
I friggin hate stoners and drunks. Not tipplers, drunks. There is a difference.
@Beans: So what you’re saying is that you’re a cheap date?
Never saw murder kachinas or anything on drugs, but I did hallucinate so bad from a high fever (thinking that someone was kicking my door down) that I called the cops. My fever broke while the cops were en route and I “sobered up”. And then I get to answer the door drenched in sweat, shaking slightly from now being cold, hair standing on end, looking like I was coming down off of a three-day multidrug bender. That could have gone extremely sideways.
Oh, I take that back. I took a T30 (Tylenol with codeine) after having all my wisdom teeth taken out in one go. For some damn reason I decided to take a walk afterwards, and I hallucinated the neighbor’s rottweiler jumping over the fence and coming after me. A girlfriend hallucinated a polar bear standing at the foot of her bed after taking percocet after having her wisdom teeth taken out. Her friends on hearing this later were all “You saw a bear? How cute!” GF was enraged. “It was a POLAR bear! Apex predator. Everything is a snack to them. Do you not watch nature programs!” Anyway, the lesson I learned from all this is that it’s dangerous to have your wisdom teeth removed.
You guys are a bunch of lightweights… i rode my horse backwards through the spirit-world after drinking some peyote tea😉
Hey, cut me some slack. The bloody Murder Kachinkas and evil bloody Persian Rug was when I was 11. For an 11 yo, that was a mega trip episode. Truly frightening. Messed up my whole grasp on reality for years, flashbacks and all. LSD only wished it could be as bad ass as Actifed.
–
Though the Oxycodone incident was in my 30’s.
–
And, yes, I am a lightweight. Can’t do most tranquilizers or anesthesia as those will do a very good job of trying to kill me. Allergic to opiates so I get to use ibuprofen and tylenol to ignore the pain of major injuries or swollen infected jaws and such.
–
Though one of my brothers did try to get me drunk one summer. On vodka and orange juice. All it did was put me to sleep with no hangover. And apparently it was a fifth of vodka that I killed.
Speaking of Badasses
https://youtu.be/NJ7n-uYSVkA?si=2B-XuO9hN5RajQTj
Hotel California – one of the things I’ve seen in an interview that has stuck in my head better than 99.999% of all interviews was Joe Walsh being on a local news show when the Eagles were in town (I saw it as a highlight film). The News Babe gushed about the song and how nobody ever tires of it. Joe said, “we do.”
~~
That was in the last 10 years or so, but I remember thinking about a career in music back in my 20s and thinking about how a successful musician might get one or two really big hits and their reward was to play the same song in every concert for the rest of their lives. Somehow, an office job didn’t sound so bad. Especially if you’re constantly designing new things. Then there are those saying they teach kids learning instruments, “you don’t practice until you get it right – you practice until you can’t get it wrong” or “you don’t practice it a thousand times, you practice it a thousand times a thousand.”
“Hackers believed to be linked to the Chinese government used a” […] “remote code execution (RCE) attack.”
Har de har har. Just go ahead and say it: “Chinese hackers used a rice attack.”
Do you even understand how hurtful this is? This blatant Hate Speech is naked anti-Sinotism and it should be illegal. Making fun of the Chinese is like the Great Leap Forward all over again. Do you want another Great Leap Forward? Because noticing a pattern of Chinese people doing bad things will inevitably lead to the murder over 30 million people. Why are you advocating for the murder of 30 million Chinese? Huh?
This is why we need strong laws against Noticing.
Mike_C what are you taking? What kind of weird hallucinations are you having? Are they throwing rice at you?
Another Long March – bring lots of cats. Marching makes you hungry.
I know this is a family blog so I’ll temper my language.
Noose meet Pitchfork, please, right down the Mall.
Then there’s the UK, where everyone’s so very pleased with the Sceptered Isle’s experiment in rainbow tyranny. Becky wonders, “There’s big protests scheduled for September, where’ll we be?” Good question, answer? “On the terrace of the dam club, cheering ’em on.” Problem, solution.