A tune as we pause for the cause…

Come out ye Black and Tans.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day

I would normally celebrate the day at Muldoon’s Irish Pub, but there is a long list of things to do like pick up the Honda Passport from the repair facility after the trash truck crunched it. And because I’m in Northern Arizona there aren’t many places to eat a more traditional Irish meal. So much for the day.

As some of this blog’s readers may recall,  I lived for some time in Northern Ireland as a younger man. Only half of the population thought much of St. Patrick’s Day –  back then in what is now the dim and distant past.

 

FJB

 

Bullet Points:

** Queer Diva Don Lemon threatens to quit CNN – According to the CEO of CNN, “None of that ever materialized. Instead, the show has become a spectacle. Thanks to Lemon, “CNN This Morning” is known more for the drama between its hosts than for its programming.”

** How Corruption Destroys Armies

From the author: My big caveat for this one is that trying to get details on Corruption in Russia is always murky and difficult. Much of the whistleblowing that makes it into English is put out by opposition figures who are probably telling the truth in most cases, but it’s hard to verify the stories. I’ve tried to rely on academic papers and Russian statements for this one, but just make sure you understand the limitations and difficulties of being precise here.

The second caveat is that there is a lot of corruption that falls into the categories I don’t talk about. Legal but immoral manipulations of procurement processes at the top for example. There are also cases where the profit may not even be the goal. Troops may strip down spare/stored vehicles for parts just to keep theirs running and avoid disciplinary action for example, the end result is the same. And yes, on the Pyotr Velikiy slide, there is a typo on the amount seemingly stolen. And one final comment – because it seems to come through on all my videos. I often see comments that say that any critique I make of the Russian armed forces is propaganda because they’re inserted claims about Russia winning the war here and so the critique can’t be true.

I want to stress that Russia making gains and also suffering badly from economic, budgeting, or corruption issues is entirely possible. It’s entirely possible to have a Russian force that poorly allocated its budget and suffered from corruption still achieve some goals. The reason I focus on corruption, budgeting, or whatnot in a given video is that each video needs to stick to a topic, and can’t be on the progress of the war in general. When I get to myth-busting again, I will try and filter out some of the propaganda from both sides to assess performance to date as best I can, but for the moment, this video is on corruption.

** Gov. Ron DeSantis’s administration is making good on its promise to target facilities allowing children to attend sexually explicit drag shows and is seeking to revoke the alcohol license of the Hyatt Regency in Miami over a drag show that took place in December, which allowed children to be in attendance. from Breitbart News https://ift.tt/FsDE0Ob

** Dr. Jordan B Peterson and Magatte Wade discuss how economic freedom dictates the success potential of countries, and how Africa’s fixation on colonialism being the cause of their modern-day struggles, rather than bureaucratic red tape, is what’s locking the continent into abject poverty.

** Medicare Advantage Plans – A recent investigation by STAT News found that AI algorithms have influenced how Medicare insurers deny insurance to patients. In some cases, insurers cut off benefits for elderly patients because the AI says they should be better, ignoring what human doctors have to say about the patient’s condition.

Medicare Advantage plans are the favored plans many seniors opt for because they were sold on the added benefits and lower premium costs versus traditional Medicare parts AB and D.  And, traditional Medicare offers zero coverage for dental or vision.  The catch with Medicare Advantage plans is patients are required to work within a prescribed network which can be tricky during emergency care or in-hospital stays due to hospitals’ use of contractors.

The private for-profit insurers that manage those Advantage plans follow a new world order recommended protocol which entails culling the herd of useless eaters,  This concept was actually articulated by  0bamacare architect Ezekiel Emmanuel MD who stated that persons with terminal comorbidity and, those over age (75) should be relegated to comfort care, not treatment care.  That is the same protocol used by Hospice.  Only, government-funded Hospice care has a deadline of only 6 months to produce the desired result of comfort care: death.

 

A World Without Men

h/t Claudio who brought up the 4B Movement in the Republic of Korea.

“4B is shorthand for four Korean words that all start with bi-, or “no”: The first no, bihon, is the refusal of heterosexual marriage. Bichulsan is the refusal of childbirth, biyeonae is saying no to dating, and bisekseu is the rejection of heterosexual sexual relationships. It is both an ideological stance and a lifestyle, and many women I spoke to extend their boycott to nearly all the men in their lives, including distancing themselves from male friends.”

I encourage you to read the article completely and offer your reactions here if you’re moved to. My personal experience with Korean culture is limited to my military service in connection with Joint activities with ROK Squadron 56 (ROK SEAL Teams), and with Korean Organized Crime in the US and to a lesser extent in Mexico. I know that within the culture close to 100% of marriages are arranged by family members and it’s not uncommon that they are loveless.  As a result, infidelity by men is often overlooked. Infidelity by women is the social equivalent of an axe murder.

 

Identify the Aircraft

1.

2.

 

If you want to get away from it all…

 

To the Woke:

 

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

35 COMMENTS

  6. on j6 i watched the whole thing on a sight with 9 camera angles. it was easy to pick out the antifa fakers in the crowd. one, dressed in all white except a red trump scarf, climbed the scaffolding where they were doing repairs in order to tear through the tyvek cover. besides the white skinny jeans and skin tight white t-shirt and inappropriate shoes for climbing, he gave himself away when he had to call back to the crowd for a pocket knife to cut his way in. otherwise i noticed the “insurrectionists” orderly staying between the tour ropes and even stopping to pick up trash while smiling and greeting the cap popo’s. i also saw ashley babbitt’s murderer leading antifa film crews up the steps of multiple floors while he paused to pose with his gun drawn at their request, then held the door for them. ashley didn’t break the window, but was hoisted up by people in the crowd and shoved thru it while the film crew egged them on. i think it was a negligent discharge, not that officer’s first, that killed her. the film crew hovered over her blocking people from helping her for a bit. disgusting. of course that website no longer exists, and i think i wasn’t supposed to be able to access it at the time. but i’m sure they have it all at the fbi.

  7. The Medical profession is in near complete disarray, went more nutzoid with that piece of manure ObamaCare. When you aren’t used to “going to the doctor”, and you enter that fray with an objective brain, it becomes clear the system is seriously screwed up. The hierarchy looks like this:

    Doctor | Insurance “Provider” |…and waaay down the list is the Patient, basically at the bottom. The system cretins dictate what they choose to “provide”, and at some screwy “negotiated” price.

    Ran into this the other day after waiting for two months for the “doctor” to act even when told what’s up…UCHealth denied (??) my bride seeing an endocrinologist because the – either clueless or arrogant – primary doesn’t think it’s necessary (thyroid got fried in Vet School). Don’t question the doctor, ever! MrsPaulM knows better, but they weren’t budging. When pressed they said “October”. Gee, sucks to be you, go ahead and suffer for 8 more months and we might get back to you. I about went on the warpath (think Tristan in Legends of the Fall).

    Denying necessary care is flat out criminal (unless you are an Illegal of course). Yet – like a host of other personal freedoms under siege – I fear this is only the beginning of what is to come. The medical profession acts like they own you once in the door, and they are openly spying on people (HIPPA be damned): “For some reason you aren’t in our system, did you get a Covid shot?” “No.” “Oh, that explains it.” WTF!

    If I had a loved one in a hospital with the China Crud and was told I could not see them despite them being on deaths door I would have been a raving lunatic…likely end up on the nightly news staging a rescue Op.

    America under The Manchurian Obama and a pile of other POS’s, like Kevorkian Emmanuel, has become Socialist by the back door…everything we are witnessing is a means to that end. Got news for them, you do not own us…now “Get off my lawn!”

    Rant over.

    • Trust me, doctors are nowhere NEAR the top of the hierarchy in USAian Modern Medicine. Bureaucracy and mostly unnecessary administration are growing faster than any other sector of MM. One of the reasons I got out. These last two weeks I’ve had opportunity to speak at length with a trainee (equivalent of US resident) from the UK. This guy is from a small Eastern European country originally, so NHS is new to him — meaning he’s a relatively impartial observer without many preconceived biases about the NHS. Anyway, his take is that much as the UK is fucked now, healthcare-wise, it’s only going to get worse. He had lots of personal anecdotes supporting that. (Yes, the plural of anecdote is not data, but an intelligent observer’s, well, observations, are not without value.) My take is that the US is headed that way, albeit on a somewhat different path. But the end result will be the same. It was a pleasure to host this guy, incidentally. Not often that you meet a based person in academic medicine. Bought him a nice steak dinner upon completion of our mutual project. He ordered it well done! So there are still some rough corners that need to be knocked off. But promising. 🙂

      “ Denying necessary care is flat out criminal (unless you are an Illegal of course).”
      Not sure I understand that. So far as I can tell, illegals seem to get preference over actual Americans. My buddy in the Bronx says that they are overwhelmed by Dominicans and Puerto Ricans who have no insurance. (And don’t live in the US. They fly here for their medical care, give a relative’s Bronx address as theirs, and claim to be living here when they aren’t. After racking up huge bills, they go home; the bills are never paid.) And some are flat out scammers even worse than that. Buddy is not American, but he is freaking furious at what is being done to the US and to American citizens. We compared notes with a guy in Orange County (CA). CA guy says they have non-citizen scammers too, but the ones he deals with are mostly Iranians. The Iranians apparently have much better manners and more polish than the Dominicans and Ricans, so while the scamming is annoying, at least you don’t go home personally angry. Back in the day I dealt with a lot of persons from Russia, but who did not consider themselves Russian, nor even Slavic. Most of the older ones were pleasant enough, some of the younger ones were flat out thugs. Waaay too many of them used ambulances (paid for by us) as their personal taxi services. This even though we (the US taxpayer) gave them literal taxi vouchers. Why did they spuriously call for ambulances? Because you have to meet the taxi at the entrance of your apartment building, and the taxi drops you off at the entrance when you go home. But the ambulance guys go to your apartment door, and they wheel you down the elevator on a gurney. You get taken home the same way. Literal door-to-door service. These not-Russians didn’t give a crap that each of their ambulance there/back jaunts cost the system at least $600. Most docs just signed the damned vouchers rather than risk getting a complaint from these not-Russians from Russia. But a friend of mine (same ethnicity) flat out refused to do that. He could get away with it because he was a) from the same group so they couldn’t claim anti-non-Russianism, b) was fluent in Russian. It was rare to have a clinic day where my friend didn’t get into a argument with one of those non-Russians over ambulance vouchers.

      • Your view from the inside out is even more damning of “the system”. America has THE BEST healthcare in the world (politics aside, but even that we saw overrun “care” with the Covidiocy). It’s the admin & delivery system that’s screwed up…especially the AMA who don’t believe in a baby’s sex anymore. And agree, doctors are way down the list, but for simplicity that’s where “we the new patient” started. At least going thru the drive-thru they tell you what it’ll cost before you get your food, whereas health care cost is a nebula never to be understood by anyone except those who created it…and that’s on purpose.

        My point with that statement was…”unless you are an illegal” true American’s can get denied needed medical care if it is deemed “unnecessary”. We are a sampling of ‘one’, however the UCH person was adamant MrsPaulM (a brilliant DVM who knows this stuff) was not ever going to see an endocrinologist. Low thyroid, as I am sure you know, can generate secondary hypertension, which developed in the last few months and has been a stupid roller-coaster ride for her despite being very healthy with clean bloodwork. Primary doctor believes it to be ‘primary’ and is throwing every ace-inhibitor variety at it with zero [lasting] affect, and the cardiologist (the 2nd opinion we decided to do) is doing the same. Useless, and potentially harmful…which is seriously asinine and reprehensible in this day and age.

        This “condition” should have been dirt simple to resolve, which MrsPaulM ultimately did the research on her own but needs the various T-baseline levels checked before med adjustment…yet they simply won’t do it. Heck, follow up is not even happening. Hence my “warpath”. We’re going back in next week, and I’ll be in the room this time. Oh, it seems they never do “please come in this afternoon” anymore like my childhood doctor would. We’re just another billing number (you pointing to “admin”).

        The real question is who’s pulling the strings and turning medicine into a political weapon?

        Apologies to LL for spewing on the blog…maybe it’ll let others know they aren’t alone in this morass. It needs to change or else we’ll get Canada’s approach that okay’s killing people. (well, we got some of that under Covid, didn’t we.)

        • In 1986 / 1987 when I had my first (and so-far only) real hospital visit, the US medical system was top-notch, absolutely brilliant.

          Now we’re down to the quality of Euro socialized medicine at that previous date. Soon to come: 3rd World medicine.

          Hooray. All the people who want to destroy everything must be pleased.

          -Kle.

  8. If you guys really want to know who is pulling the strings I suggest you request the white house visitor logs. https://www.whitehouse.gov/ I requested a two month period last April when Pedo Joe had to be led off by the easter bunny on the white house lawn. His W-2 is a joke and no the white house will not let you see the results of his physical. Can’t say that I was surprised at the comings and goings of the people listed but scary nonetheless. Took a month to get the logs back to me.

    Sta Lethal –

  9. On a more appropriate for the day lighter note…a joke:

    An American, Frenchman, and Irishman walk into a pub and order whiskey’s.

    A fly lands in the American’s drink, he picks it out, tosses it away, and drinks his whiskey down.

    Another fly lands in the Frenchman’s glass, he looks at it and says to the barkeep, “Mon Dieu! I cannot drink this! Bring me another!”

    Yet another fly lands in the Irishman’s drink, he picks the fly out, holds it up to his face and yells, “SPIT IT OUT! SPIT IT OUT!”

  10. Well, I got a first-person report on ROK culture (govt ministry, health sector) from the Pretty Korean Girl a couple of weeks ago. She’s been in ROK for a while (family stuff) and after over a decade in the US (and hanging around me), it’s been made VERY clear to her that she is “too American”. Meaning too direct, too independent minded, and unwilling to do the things needed to fit back in. PKG reports the soy-ization of both males and females, and overall lack of ambition among young people.

    It’s worse than wanting to be paid a lot to do little. It’s willingly accepting little so they don’t have to grow up and act like adults. Yet pressure to conform is also huge. Between these two pulls/poles, lots of 30 and unders are dispirited and unmotivated. So that’s the PKG report.

    As to appearances, plastic surgery is really prevalent in the ROK. Men as well as women. Some/few girls get all the enhancements done and then pay it off by working in the US as “K-girls” (escorts). Mostly on the west coast, much better looking than the typical Asian (ie Chinese) rub&tug “girl” (who’s probably in her 40s). To the best of my knowledge, the majority of these higher end K-girls are NOT trafficked. They know what they’re getting into, do it willingly, make money, and eventually go home, get married, and lead a normal life. (Not PKG report.)

    As to St Patrick’s Day. Couple of weeks ago PKG and I were in Manhattan for a night and day. Wandering around midtown waaay too late we spotted an “Irish pub” with a neon sign that said “ right”. (The first letters were burned out.) I took “right” as a hint from above and we went in. Got the best table in the house by sheer luck: in the back corner with a view of the entire joint and front entrance, and you could see the back entrance if you turned your head 45 deg. Solid wall behind us. Food was okay and drinks reasonably priced (for NYFC). In the middle of dinner some local comes up and asks “can I photograph your table?” WTF? “You can photograph the table if you want, but not us.” And so he did (we got up). Weirdest damn thing. I have no idea. Then he started telling us about his adventures buying a second home in Vermont. I countered with, “Good for you! Hey, lemme tell you about the time I was denied service in Montpelier for making fun of a lesbian dance class.” (True story) The local announced he had somewhere else he needed to be and took off. PKG was highly amused. “You haven’t changed, have you?”

    • No, the K-Girls are not (or rarely if ever) trafficked and it also applies to the rub and tug massage parlor girls. Many years ago when working on organized crime matters on the West Coast I learned that to be the case and I don’t think that has changed. There are a LOT of Korean massage parlors and they pay gangs and OC for protection, but the girls are there to make money (paying mamasan, of course) and more often than not to send it home.

      • The pattern of country girls going to the cities, working as prostitutes, helping mom and dad buy a cow or two, coming home, marrying, and having a family is just about as old as time. Westerners associate prostitution with sin in a way that is not part of the traditional mindset in Asia. Because of the arranged marriage situation, prostitution is a social safety valve poorly understood in the west. I’ve seen many Korean men sit in the bars with a bar girl and pour out their hearts, while she cuts up fruit for him and feeds him, and pours overpriced drinks for him. It’s not all about sex.

    • You don’t want to tell gay jokes in St. Elmo’s steakhouse in Indianapolis, especially if there are several of you, each trying to outdo the others. Do not ask me how I know this. On the other hand, who am I to try to stop you? But what I can tell you is, that it was entertaining, but not necessarily appreciated by some of the customers, or the help. Oh well. Apparently, some people have no sense of humor.

      • If you offer to help somebody seated at the bar by pushing his stool in, it’s likely to be taken as an invitation?

        How do you fit three homosexuals on one barstool? Turn it upside-down.

        And if you order a Brandy Alexander — just don’t.

        Stay thirsty.

      • Okay, I won’t ask. (But I’ve a powerful hankering to hear the story….)

        I misspoke. It wasn’t a lesbian dance class, it was a lesbian basket weaving class. Seriously. While waiting in line to be seated at this organic/locavore restaurant (yeah, I know) we saw this flyer for an LBWC and started laughing at the absurdity. The staff noticed and refused to serve us. It’s a cautionary tale of some sort, but I’m not sure what exactly.

        • What I don’t understand about the story is: why do they go back home?

          I mean, yeah. The US is going to shit, full-speed. But Korea doesn’t seem like it would be a step up?

          -Kle.

          • Lemme answer that in part with Galadriel’s words:
            “ If our folk had been exiled long and far from Lothlórien, who of the Galadhrim, even Celeborn the Wise, would pass nigh and not wish to look upon their ancient home, though it had become an abode of dragons?”

            Plus, it’s what you know and are comfortable with. Friends and Kin are back home. And (here) there’s language barrier, weird food, etc. A thousand things. Oh yeah, also virtually no diversity in ROK. One very common question (from East Asians in general) is “why do you put up with Those People?”

            The US is hardly as shiny as it was in, say, the 1980’s. Between the stupid demographic doing outrageous amounts of violent and stupid crime (and being allowed to get away with it), and the smart demographic getting away with unconscionable amounts of financial crime and societal destruction (guess which is worse), why would someone from a generally high-IQ population who is culturally accustomed to ethnic homogeneity want to live near inner city people? And worse, under the thumb of predatory, sanctimonious, hypocritical, and aggressively self-pitying eternal victims? Also, life in the ROK has gotten much better since the 80’s.

  11. One of the things I love best about our beloved rulers is their benevolent equity program.

    There you are, like me, a poor negro sitting on the streets of San Francisco selling cut-price crack, and the next moment? BLM MILLIONAIRE.

    Hey now. Follow the money, Mr Wolf.

  12. St Paddy Day.
    Never was much for the day being Irish 24/360 whose Irish ancestors supposedly were persecuted by both the Roman Catholics and COE; they were some variation of Christians. More likely, they were escaping a noose. They kept their anti-authoritarian attitude in the New World and continually pushed westward and freedom. May be genetic.

    Now the day is a reminder my youngest son died in the late hours of St Patrick’s day four years ago.

    Since I still, at 78, work and pay taxes perhaps I’m spared a “useless eater and resource consumer” label by the young snots. Retire? Maybe when I croak if Satan doesn’t put me to work in an outbound call center located in Wamsutter, WY for eternity.

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