The Gormogons

Hey, high schoolers! Graduation is just a couple weeks away (or so), and you valedictorians are probably getting your speeches ready for the big day, right?

Well, stop, because your speech is awful. Let the Czar help you out.

“Hey, remember that time Donny Hernandez stole Caitlin Prescott’s panties and hung them from the Prometheon projector? Dude, that was so funny! Caitlin, why are you crying? You didn’t know it was Donny?”

(Original photo by Richard M. Hackett of the The Longmont Times-Call)

You should also be aware “The Road Not Taken” has been taken so many times that it’s officially the Road Way More Traveled. It makes all the diff-er-ence. A made up study confirms that more Americans have this poem memorized from high school graduation speeches than any ever before. If you read this poem to us, you’re a stupid conformist who plays it safe.

Not to say you couldn’t read a poem to the assembled masses. But when you do, please don’t read it in a sing-song lilt. All that shows is you have no sense of how to read poetry and are just trying to sound artsy. You wind up sounding like a toddler.

Glad that you’re a religious person. But that doesn’t make you a pastor: lengthy psalm recitations, or original prayers asking for some unfocused blessing, is like jamming needles under the audience’s fingernails. Thank God and get it over with: nobody wants to watch you pray anymore than they want to watch you brush your teeth up there.

Also, and this is pretty important—you’re not the only one graduating that day. So when you talk about how much high school meant to you, and how much you got out of your teachers, and how you’ll treasure them always, bear in mind that the crowd will either disagree with you or they’ll have no clue what you’re talking about.

Don’t make woo-woo-par-tay references. You are the valedictorian: you weren’t invited to any of those parties and everyone staring at you knows this.

Whenever you give a speech—now or in your future career—remember that the primary thought each audience member will have is “How much longer is this going to take?”

And leave your politics out of it. Just because you got a 3.87 on your GPA, you are not remotely qualified to lecture people three times your age on your politics, especially since five years ago you still believed in Santa Claus. If your political views in fact are correct, it will be more by coincidence than by anything you learned in the mean streets.

Your funny personal anecdote? Yeah, probably a stupid story that’s going to embarrass two teachers, the principal, and five students who will hate you forever. The audience will not share your whimsy, but they will share the awkward discomfort of the people you just humiliated.

Instead, suggest that everyone there thank their parents or guardians for all the patience and sacrifice they exhibited solely for your benefit. Putting a kid through school isn’t just a matter of money, but time and very often terrible frustration. Adults who live around high schoolers spent a disagreeable amount of time biting their tongues, or taking deep breaths. Freshmen think their parents don’t know everything. Sophomores believe they know it all. Juniors realize maybe nobody knows anything. Seniors begin to sense maybe their folks know more than they do. It all comes around—so thank your parents for, if nothing else, not beating you in your sleep with an aluminum baseball bat every night.

Offer your fellow graduates some advice about accepting responsibility for their own words and actions. Show them that the world out there is actually pretty nasty, and they might not be ready. In fact, they won’t be. But if they take a moment to remember just a little of what they learned in high school, maybe they can squeak past the real trouble and learn how to teach themselves to be smarter. Wisdom can start at any age; high school graduation is a great time to begin.

Little known fact: Baltimore’s official mascot isn’t the Baltimore Oriole, it’s the flaming police car, which better symbolizes the city’s prospects.

‘Puter’s been drinking and thinking, which is never a good combination.*

Baltimore’s mayor (one Ms. Stephanie Rawlings-Blake) and President Obama both referred to Baltimore’s rioters as “thugs.” ‘Puter applauds both Ms. Rawlings-Blake and Mr. Obama for speaking the truth.**

Baltimore’s as yet nameless rioters (except for that one kid, whose medal-worthy mother pimp-slapped his bitch ass and dragged him off by his ear) are thugs, plain and simple. What else to call cowards who use the tragic and preventable death of a young man at the hands of police to loot and burn their own community?

Yet just as surely as the rioters in the streets are thugs, there’s another class of thugs who are every bit as responsible for Baltimore’s riots as the rioters themselves: Baltimore’s ruling class.****

‘Puter’s often ranted it’s single party control per se, not the party in charge, that causes massive government corruption and dysfunction. Baltimore’s helpfully provided yet another definitive proof of ‘Puter’s latest theorem.

Baltimore’s been under the iron fist of Democrats for decades. Its last Republican mayor sat in the 1960s. Hell, Baltimore’s so corrupt Nancy Pelosi’s father Thomas D’Alesandro was mayor (for life) from 1947-1959, eventually leaving elected politics after being implicated in taking kickbacks.

Baltimore’s so in the tank Democrat it elected the rain tax guru and soon to be presidential candidate Martin O’Malley mayor not once but twice.

Baltimore’s so corrupt its last mayor Sheila Dixon was convicted of corruption (for taking kickbacks and stealing gift cards, of all things) and forced to leave office.

Baltimore’s so corrupt, half the city’s represented by Elijah E. Cummings, shameless race huckster and perhaps unethical defender of the IRS jihad against conservative groups.

Baltimore’s ruling class has been on the take and in the tank Democrat as long as ‘Puter’s walked this Earth. And what have Baltimore’s citizens earned for their loyalty? Nothing.

The life of a poor Baltimorean has, if anything, gotten profoundly worse as decades of uninterrupted Democrat hegemony pass.

Baltimore’s inner city school kids can’t read, do math or do science at anything approaching grade level.

Baltimore’s unemployment rate is 8.4%, nearly three points higher than the state’s rate.

Baltimore’s Black families make $30,000.00 less annually than a White family in Baltimore, and $40,000.00 less than the Maryland state average.

Baltimore’s Black men aged 20-24 suffer a 37% unemployment rate, compared to just 10% for Baltimore’s White men of similar age.

Despite decades of abject failure, Baltimore’s elected thugs continue proposing the same, failed programs that accomplish nothing other than lining their pockets. Meanwhile, Baltimore’s already poor Blacks get poorer as the city literally and metaphorically burns.

Baltimore has two sets of thugs, the citizens who riot and the politicians who maintain the status quo. While we’re busy condemning the former, let’s not forget to also condemn the latter.

* N.B. Contrary to Czar’s claims, ‘Puter isn’t a morning drinker. ‘Puter simply has GorT advance the Earth’s rotation upon ‘Puter’s awakening so it’s afternoon. Problem solved.***

** Now if only Mr. Obama would refer to Islamist terrorism as Islamist terrorism we’d be getting somewhere.

*** By the way, Fifi and Belinda, the bartendrixes at the Leaping Peacock, make an awesome Lavoris and Leinenkugel shandy, perfect for a summer eye-opener.

**** For the definitive treatise on How Democrats Effed Up America’s Cities and Learned to Love the Graft All in Five Groovy Decades, see Kevin D. Williamson’s piece in National Review. Really. Read it. It’s awesome.

The NightFly writes in from our mobile command unit:

Yes, the Czar just said that. Anyway, that’s some Monk-level OCD detective work, there, big guy. Nice work. The Czar is curious where Ghettoputer obtained the copy of Norton’s sweater, although if there’s blood on it, it’s probably not a copy. Anyone seen Mr. Norton lately?

Also, thanks for pointing out the ferret guards’ uniforms. The Czar expected red, but did note they were in gold and blue. We didn’t think much of it until your letter. Dr. J.! Is there no evil of which he is not capable?

Finally, yes, the good doctor publicly admitted his Predators did not perform as he expected, and Shea Weber, as you know, is recovering from lightning burns. The Czar fully expects to see them next year in the playoffs—awesome team.

Meantime, Operative BJ asks about the rioting in Baltimore:

BJ has read us for years, and knows full well the Czar’s assessment of riots—they are all professionally organized by factions of the Left, ever hungry for their next October revolution. Hey, not only do the police know these agitators are from out of town, but know their names and addresses.

The problem is that you can’t always just arrest someone for showing up in a town before a riot. The known out-of-town elements are not the ones throwing the rocks, setting fires, or even passing out fliers for the riots. They are good at what they do, and hole up in some motel on the outskirts and mind their manners. But they are calling all the shots, absolutely. These folks lose nothing if the locals they agitate burn down their own neighborhoods.

And the locals, who believe the crap about Broken Windows, believe the Man will weep in pity and buy them all new, shiny businesses and homes for this neighborhood once the smoke clears. Remember—a lot of these folks believe they’re doing good for the community, and another big chunk believe they’re owed compensation. Both forms of violent seduction originate from the folks in those motel rooms.

Incidentally, you may not remember, in 2004 the New York City Police Department trumped up charges on these out-of-towners at the Republican National Convention, arresting most of them with the result being no violent protests. Unfortunately, the NYPD overstepped their idea by arresting a heap-ton of innocent people, some of whom weren’t even protesting but just going about their business. They were held for the duration. In Minneapolis-St. Paul, in 2008, the police did much the same strategy by arresting the known violent thugs while they were assembling on the charge of violating their scheduled protest window. This worked, and the protests were almost completely incident free.

So yeah, these guys are well-known to law enforcement, and yes—sometimes they’re detained as soon as they arrive. But no big deal: with no real charges, they’re free to go. And they’ll be back—somewhere, waiting for the next event to call them out of the gloaming shadows of Leftism.

The subject of academic reformation is truly an ongoing debate, given each generation’s increasing dislike for the pedagogic methods of those preceding it, and each generation’s intolerance for those that follow. The Czar has wondered what, exactly, has gone wrong wtih modern universities, and has found an answer.

Miss Mayfield? I’m experiencing meaningful cognitive adhesion.

Were we to consider such mainstreaming inclusion methods like chunking, balanced or discovery reading, or even flexible grouping, the rigor of academic direct instruction compounds the extrinsic motivations of individualized methodology. Any reasonable portfolio assessment reveals that inquiry-based learning (i.e., asking questions) manipulated life-long learning outcomes for a majority of everyday student engagement.

Only by this method can we hope to appreciate the dangerous extent academia has on today’s college students.

Thank goodness for Miss McGee, ‘Puter’s personal secretary, who is the only Castle employee able to calm ‘Puter when he’s ranting, usually with a Michael Jackson sized dose of Propofol.

‘Puter said he felt a rant coming on. He’s pretty sure it’s here. ‘Puter’s not sure if this rant will rise to the rarified level of ‘Puter’s past epic rants, but he’ll give it his best shot.

So, where were we? That’s right. Discussing the ne’er-do-well social justice warriors running the insane asylum that is ‘Puter’s local school district and their crapweasel response to state required Common Core tests.

Why so angry, ‘Puter?

Well, ‘Puter’s in full tirade mode for a bunch of reasons. Here are a select few.

• The SJW school board jerks* encouraged parents to violate state law by refusing required testing for their children, thereby violating their oath of office. You’re not defending the New York Constitution by encouraging parents to violate laws duly passed by the legislature and signed by the governor you’ve sworn to uphold.
• The SJW school board jerks who believe against all evidence that the teachers’ union gives a crap about anything other than maximizing the comfort, pay and benefits of teachers regardless of impact on the students and taxpayers. Banding together with a group dedicated to enriching itself on the taxpayers’ dime(s) and perpetuating their no-fire, little-required-work lifestyle doesn’t exactly scream “It’s for the children!”
• The SJW school board jerks who, despite clear statutes indicating otherwise, insist that refusing state required testing does not endanger state funding, which compromises nearly one-third of the district’s $110 million annual budget. It can’t be that Education Law §306(2) actually says what’s clearly written on the page: The Commissioner of Education “may also withhold from any district or city its share of the public money of the state for willfully disobeying any provision of law or any decision, order or regulation ….” ‘Puter leaves aside for the moment that Education Law §306(1) provides the Commissioner of Education with authority to remove all of the SJW school board jerks (including the superintendent) for willfully violating state law. That’s for another day, when ‘Puter’s back in a hanging mood.
• The teacher who in front of the class who read a list of students in that class who were refusing the required testing, then asked leadingly if any of the other students would like to be included on the list, in clear violation of state law. ‘Puter’s son (who is sitting the tests) was in that class, and felt singled out. As a result, said son pressed ‘Puter and Mrs. ‘Puter to refuse testing for him. The ‘Puters refused to do so, and Mrs. ‘Puter emailed the school principal to report the shenanigans.
• The SJW school board jerks that don’t care about the broken, divided district they’ve created, all in the name of pressing for changes to the tests primarily designed to aid the teachers, not the students. Anecdotally, ‘Puter can tell you that his son’s friends have self-divided into those whose parents refused to have them tested and those who didn’t. Nice job creating division where there was none before, asshat SJWs. Nothing screams “we’re a competent, caring school district” like purposely destroying unity to push a political agenda.
• The teachers’ union specifically, because they’re usually at the bottom of anything that causes enormous harm to everyone except them. Any time the teachers’ union starts wailing “It’s for the children!”, hold on to your wallets. The teachers’ union has never, ever taken a stand solely for the benefit of their students. Here, the teachers’ union is incensed that student test scores may comprise fifty percent (50%) of their annual evaluations. Tough tits, Slap Radish. Welcome to the real world, the one in which the people who pay your gold-plated salary and gilt-edged benefits work.
• Every frikkin’ member of the squadron of addlepated, intellectually stunted helicopter parents who refused testing on the theory that requiring their Precious Q. Snowflake to suffer any difficulty or sit through inconvenient tests will better prepare them for the rigors of an unforgiving and often cruel work world. ‘Puter will slake his fiery thirst on the sweet tears of your children who suffer nervous breakdowns upon experiencing failure for the first time as adults. Not quenched in your children’s schadenfreude-licious tears, ‘Puter will greedily chug down the your tears, as you dipstick helicopter parents slowly realize your singularly misinformed and dumb-assed parenting techniques created children unable to succeed in the real world.

Here’s the point in the rant when ‘Puter specifically singles out two contemptible individuals for well-earned scorn: the superintendent and the teachers’ union president. Sit back, kick off your shoes and enjoy a complimentary adult beverage from the Castle rumpus room’s well stocked mini-fridge/apothecary as ‘Puter tells you of these execrable humans.

The superintendent who picked this fight and has pressed it beyond all possible advantage is an interim superintendent. He was formerly superintendent of the district, but came out of retirement last year as a place holder while the SJW school board jerks looked for a superintendent daft enough to come to this madhouse. The superintendent has his cushy pension. He’s currently pulling down north of $200,000 annually in addition as interim superintendent. The superintendent wanted to make a political point using the students and taxpayers as unwilling participants, and now he’s leaving everyone else to clean up his mess. You, sir, are a selfish, arrogant prick with sociopathic tendencies. “Screw everyone else, I made my point,” he’ll say as the mushroom cloud rises behind him. Just the sort of hothead psychopath who should be running a multi-million dollar business to which you entrust your children and their education.**

Since it takes two to tango, you just know the superintendent had a dance partner. Enter the teachers’ union president. This gentleman is by all accounts a good teacher, but since he’s union president, he only has to teach 60% of a full time teacher’s schedule, yet receives full pay and benefits. Nice work, if you can get it. The union stooge president has taught for over 37 years, meaning he’s currently eligible to retire at nearly 70% of the average of his best three years’ salaries, until he dies. Our friendly neighborhood agitator also lives outside the district, so he feels free to shit all over it since he doesn’t eat here. Fifty percent tax increase? “Who cares, I don’t live there.” Massive state bitch-slap to the district for being law-breaking jerk monkeys? “Meh. I’ll just retire.” Ass.**

Our fantabulous duo banded together to push a political agenda to aid teachers hidden in a “do it for the children” Trojan horse. None of this is about helping children or bettering their educations. It’s all about making teachers’ lives (even) easier. For these gentlemen educators, in honor of their wise, beneficent leadership, ‘Puter has but one response.

Burn. In. Hell.

Oh, ‘Puter’s got plenty of more contempt for plenty more people, but that’s sufficient for now. Maybe after he’s recovered from his high blood pressure induced transient ischemic attacks, ‘Puter will submit a markup of the SJW school board jerks’ resolution for his readers’ amusement.

By golly, ‘Puter’s fired up today. ‘Puter may have to break early for lunch and a deserved tankard or two of Bud and Bath Salts down at the Leaping Peacock with Miss McGee.

* For purposes of this rant, please include the following individuals or groups in the definition of “SJW school board jerks”: the superintendent of schools, the school board, the teachers’ union president, certain of the district’s teachers, lunatic fringe parents convinced testing is just like TEH VACKSEENSES!!1!, and anyone and everyone else who contributed to the shit storm now enveloping ‘Puter’s tiny, local school district.

** N.B., ‘Puter sued the superintendent and the teachers’ union president after he ran for school board (and lost). ‘Puter claimed the superintendent illegally permitted the teachers’ union to use school resources to campaign against ‘Puter, to ‘Puter’s detriment. ‘Puter did not ask for a revote, though he could have, since ‘Puter’s the bigger man. The Commissioner of Education found for ‘Puter, and issued an opinion publicly shaming the superintendent for being a petty, vindictive bitch and the teachers’ union president for being a greedy, vindictive bitch. (That last part is ‘Puter editorializing about the Commissioner’s opinion, but it’s pretty accurate).

If you want to look all smart and knowy at your next vodka tasting, thermodynamics is a pretty solid way to go. First, it’s viewed as one of the hardest sciences there is, and second, in about ten seconds, you can have the entire room fooled into thinking you know a lot about it because your audience will only be able to follow you for about four seconds.

Thermodynamics is the easiest science to pretend to understand because unlike other areas of physics with their crazy rules and theories, thermodynamics has only a couple or so really simple laws.

This will come as a surprise to many experts in thermodynamics, who spent lifetimes trying to grasp the implications of these rules, but really they have wasted an awful lot of time doing so because (a) nobody at cocktail parties understands more than the basic laws anyway and (b) there is no (b), because (a) is so damn right.

All right, first things first: thermodynamics is all about heat. Heat is a form of energy; this means, when we talk about thermodynamics, we never talk about cold: cold is merely the lack of heat. Thermodynamics isn’t interested in that. This would be a good paragraph to memorize because it already sounds smart.

Because thermodynamics occur pretty much in every process, the Czar can take a photo pretty much at random and confidently boast that this demonstrates thermodynamics in action.

Here are the three four laws:

Zeroth: If you put objects together of different temperatures, they’ll eventually kind of meet in the middle. So if object A has a temperature equivalent to object B, and object B has the same temperature as object C, then A and C must also be at the same temperature. This is kind of obvious, and might even get you through seventh-grade algebra. Maybe not.

First: Energy can’t be created or destroyed, but it sure can change its form. So your car stores energy in the form of gas; when you burn the gas, it converts to power and exhaust. That power converts to torque, which is opposed by friction on the road surface. Which heats up when you drive on it. And so on. This is sort of a big deal in physics, and it can be interesting to try to map out all the ways energy changes its form as you go through a process. This law, by the way, is why you can’t have perpetual motion machines: you can’t create energy out of nothing; it has to come from some other form of energy.

Second: Entropy always results from any process. This means the house always wins in physics: you can’t create something that’s 100% efficient; you always have to pay a tax. No matter how many regulations the government puts on car manufacturers, there will always be inefficiencies in car engines. If you drive an electric car, you always create wasted energy recharging the batteries for it. Often, that wasted energy is in the form of heat. Know how your cell phone battery gets warm when you use it? That’s entropy. Know how it always takes longer to charge the battery than it takes to wear it down? That’s entropy.

Third: Entropy decreases with temperature. In other words, the colder something is, the less entropy it releases. Naturally, because the more heat you generate, the more entropy you generate. Note that you still lose out: if you try to prolong your battery life by putting your 9-volt batteries in the fridge, you waste more energy by running the fridge than you save in batteries.

One of the best summations of the three laws of thermodynamics ever: you can’t win, you can’t break even, and you can’t get out of the game.

Now you know more than most people about thermodynamics. Oh, there’s some other stuff about conjugate variables, absolute zero, and potential energy, but none of that is important today. Heck, scientists figured out all that stuff just from these laws, so it ought to be easy for you to do so as well.

At your next cocktail party, as you see that jerko Dan Hesbitt impressing some chick with his mindless chitchat about resonant frequencies, merely walk up and say “Danny, you know when you swirl your ice cubes in your drink, you’re imparting a lot of entropy into the drink and changing its thermodynamic content? Seems like a waste of good liquor.” And enjoy the rest of the evening with the lady to whom he was previously speaking.

You’re welcome.

With all the hubbub about Indiana’s (not-so) new Religious Freedom Restoration Law, ‘Puter thought he’d take a bit of time to share a personal story.

As we all know by now (especially seeing as how ‘Puter’s been banging on about little else for days), Indiana passed a law stating state actors may not interfere with an individual’s sincerely held religious belief unless that interference is necessary to support a compelling state interest. Basically, if a government is going to engage in religious discrimination, it’d better have a pretty damned good reason for doing so.

Opponents of this law characterize it as anti-gay, even though the statute nowhere mentions any member of the LGBT community. Based on national commentary and the content of my Facebook feed, it appears to me many are insistent that religious practice must make way for LGBT rights in all aspects.

In short, in order to make up for very real past wrongs committed by society against the LGBT community, we now need to discriminate against religious practitioners who may or may not have participated in such discrimination in the past.

This is a dangerous viewpoint, and based on past experience can have unintended and equally discriminatory impacts perpetrated in the name of righting past wrongs.

Here’s ‘Puter’s little personal anecdote.

In 1991, ‘Puter was a college senior, sending out law school applications. ‘Puter did well enough in college, graduating with a 3.3 GPA and a bachelor’s degree in philosophy. ‘Puter sat for the LSATs, and did very well, scoring in the 99.8% percentile. Based on his LSAT score, ‘Puter decided to apply to top tier schools rather than the second tier and lower first tier schools that comprised his list before.

‘Puter applied to and was accepted at Washington University in St. Louis, a top 20 law school. ‘Puter was rejected by the University of Michigan and the University of Texas, both top tier law schools ranked higher than Washington University. ‘Puter would’ve attended the University of Texas or the University of Michigan had had been accepted, as they were better schools with better future job prospects (on paper at least) than Washington University. ‘Puter doesn’t regret for a moment attending Washington University, where he received an excellent legal education.

Later, as a result of two separate cases involving the admissions processes of both the University of Michigan and the University of Texas, ‘Puter learned he would have been accepted to either school had he been anything other than (1) White and (2) male.

During discovery, both law schools were required to turn over admissions data, including test scores, GPAs, class rank, race, gender and other factors for the year ‘Puter applied. Based on these data, ‘Puter’s aggregate scores were well in excess of the average admitted individuals who were women or minority, and were right about the average for admitted White males.

In essence, ‘Puter was prevented from attending the University of Texas and the University of Michigan for no other reason than the color of his skin and/or his gender in order to make up for centuries of discrimination (and other horrible crimes) against minorities and women in the United States. So much for  Martin Luther King, Jr.’s request to judge individuals on the content of their character (merit) rather than the color of their skin. But, “Progress!,” ‘Puter guesses.

That’s where this debate on LGBT rights versus religious freedom is headed, back to a place where it’s considered acceptable to discriminate against a class of individuals as some sort of twisted notion of reparations. That is, “it’s OK to discriminate against other people today because in the past they (or their views) were favored.”

Well, if it’s not acceptable to discriminate against one group of people (minorities), why is it acceptable to discriminate against a different group of people (Whites) in a vain attempt to make things right for the first group of people (minorities)? It’s not.

We’ve had affirmative action (i.e., legal discrimination against Whites generally, and White males in particular) for nearly 50 years now, and it hasn’t meaningfully affected minorities, many of whom still suffer poor educational outcomes and diminished opportunity. If reverse discrimination were going to work, surely we’d have seen signs of it working by now.

Affirmative action’s primary legacy is bitter feelings. Blacks were promised the world’s riches and received the ghetto’s poverty. Whites were told to quit bitching about being punished for the sins of their fathers, because they’ll do just fine anyway, thank you very much.

Does anyone truly believe affirmative action worked as promised? And if you think so, why aren’t we done with affirmative action yet after two generations of trying?*

And that’s where ‘Puter’s personal anecdote ties back into today’s kerfuffle about LGBT rights.

People worked up about Indiana’s Religious Freedom Restoration Law are on the same path as affirmative action’s creators. “It’s just fine to discriminate against this group of people we don’t particularly care about, so long as it benefits a group of people we do care about.”

Constitution be damned, we know what’s right. Religious crazies must bend the knee before the unassailable (political) correctness of modernity. This position isn’t pro-LGBT, it’s pro-religious discrimination, plain and simple.

Today’s “screw religious rights, LGBT freedom for all” would do well to remember the lessons learned from affirmative action’s failure: those discriminated against in the name of ending discrimination will remember, and respond accordingly when afforded the opportunity.

‘Puter was on the receiving end of affirmative action’s reverse discrimination.

‘Puter hasn’t forgotten.

* ’Puter’s betting the Left’s response will be we just haven’t tried affirmative action hard enough yet. If only we had more affirmative action, surely we’d have a racial Utopia right here on Earth.

The Czar regrets his recent absence on the site, but he has been traveling for hundreds of miles, and dealing with sickness. Unfortunately, both these instances happened at the same time when the Царевич brought home something (curse you, school science fairs and your four or five identical exhibits on common household molds made worse by indifference). Within two days, the Цесаревич got it, and then the Czar came down heavy with it.

This is Jasmine, born September 1, 2014. Arrived in the US on March 2, 2015. In our home March 29, 2015.

Thursday, as the Czar suffered with a 138° fever and something suspiciously like tuberculosis, we received a message that a dog had become available and that we would be the ideal family for her, given that we have an excellent track record with rehabilitating terrified animals into outgoing, happy family pets.

Indeed, on Sunday evening, we were able to take home little Jasmine. She turns 7 months old on April 1st, and comes with a whole book of international stamps and licenses. Jasmine was rescued off the streets of Beirut, and was identified as a “Lebanese shepherd,” which doesn’t seem to exist outside of somebody’s imagination. Google that and you get pictures of unwashed, scruffy-looking men with beards and sheep. She looks like a saluki with Anatolian shepherd markings, though.

She’s been doing exactly what you expect a dog to do in a new home—she went from room to room sniffing everything, exploring an inch at a time. She has already become quite attached to the boys, and has taken possession of her new bed and toys (pictured). She cried for about ten minutes last night when the lights went out, but if you’ve ever been through the First Night with a puppy, you know that’s like ten minutes with your head in a bucket of lava. Fortunately, she cried herself to sleep—until about 20 minutes later when the Czar coughed up his own pericardium, and she woke up and cried for another 10 minutes.

أنا أحب أمريكا!

Jasmine received her name over in Beirut, and even though she doesn’t seem to know it yet, we have elected to keep it because it obeys the generally good practice of giving dogs a two-syllable trochee name, is geographically correct, and lends itself well to the obvious Jazzy nickname. She’ll probably learn her name in the next two weeks though, as the boys are very careful to say it a lot when talking to her.

Smart? Well, so far, so good. She’s curious, and her propensity to stare makes her prone to keen observation. The Czar, who likes smart dogs who understand all sorts of commands, is big on training and sees a lot of potential here. She’s also quite hungry and food-motivated, meaning a half-hour and a handful of treats can get her doing all sorts of things.

She’s also very soft, and likes to cuddle. This is important to the Царица, of course, and not to the Czar, who really doesn’t mind either way if a dog snuggles up on a cold night to watch the Blackhawks on television, and kind of burrows her butt into your side to make sure you’re warm. Really, this sort of thing is not that important to us. Even when she whips her head around to make sure you’re still awake, and then dab her tongue on your cheek to make certain you know she appreciates you. Not important at all.

The Czar has always been fascinated by really deep, scary underwater places like the bottom of the ocean, or like…well, that’s pretty much it. Millions of us have wondered about, like James Cameron. Although, to be fair, he built his own ultra-deep sea submersible and went there. The Czar has not been there, but likes to imagine it by Cameron’s description: “like a desert. More Reno, though, than Vegas.”

When GorT heard we were doing a piece on life at the bottom of the ocean, he was nice enough to set up a high-pressure web cam down there. Enjoy this live feed of the floor of the Philippine Trench! Keep watching: you might see something swim past.

From what the Czar can totally imagine, the ocean bottom is not the same in all places. In some places, it’s got really deep, soft sand. In others, it’s sorta rocky. Sometimes it’s barren, other times it’s got an amazing variety of life. Again, this is totally how we imagine it, but there’s probably someone smart out there who will say this is pretty much the case. We’ve been right about these sort of things before. Odds are good, here.

Deep ocean life is kind of cool-looking, with vampire fish who glow, and weird little eels with tons of razor-sharp needle teeth. The Czar also imagines bat-like creatures, but he doesn’t restrict his imagination to the ocean depths. Many of these things live around you, too.

Also, there are lots of crabs and shrimp, even at depths that would squish you into jelly, and then squish your jelly into jellier jelly. Science is like that. Oh, also cool: if you suddenly were to grab a vampire fish on your 6,000-foot Bass Pro fishing line, and pulled it up real fast, the change in pressure would make it explode violently when hitting the air. Of course, that’s impossible, but it’s fun to imagine it anyway.

Another thing to remember about the ocean floor is that it’s totally jet black dark. You can look at photos of it all you’d like, but those submersible craft all have lights on them. You would be better off picturing just a black square like we have up there.

So that’s all there is to life at the bottom of the ocean! If you are a Boy Scout and working toward your Ocean Biology merit badge, please submit your blue cards to the Czar for signature.

Mrs. Clinton explains her pact with her presumed running mate, Lucifer. Clinton’s pact with the Antichrist guarantees her the presidency in 2016 in return for her immortal soul and the eternal damnation of the Democrat party.

‘Puter took Mrs. ‘Puter to a play this weekend at Geva Theatre (sic) Center. We’re season subscribers because we’re all cultured and fancy like that. ‘Puter and wife attend these shows with a group of three couples, including them. Among this group are four public school teachers, a government agency employee and ‘Puter.

To say the group leans Left would be accurate. To say the group leans Left so badly the entire group is in danger of taking on water and sinking to the bottom of the political swamp is even more accurate. ‘Puter enjoys the company of these folks because, while very liberal, they are thinking liberals who ably defend their positions with facts and data.

Better, the group isn’t dismissive and mocking of ‘Puter’s conservatism, treating him like the fat kid in high school who was a dork, but whom the cool kids still let hang around. (We all know liberals are the fat kid dorks that the cool conservative kids let hang around, but ‘Puter lets the liberals have their delusions.).

Anyway, after the show, ‘Puter’s group went to dinner at a local Belgian beer restaurant for moules et frites. And beer. We mustn’t forget the beer. Except for ‘Puter’s, who’s on the wagon for Lent.* Over the course of dinner, we discussed Mrs. Clinton’s most recent email scandal. All agreed: (1) Hillary Clinton was dead wrong; (2) unnecessary scandals are par for the course for the Clintons; and (3) Mrs. Clinton will probably get away with her most recent transgression.

Conversation naturally turned to Mrs. Clinton and the 2016 presidential race. To a person, none of ‘Puter’s liberal friends wants Mrs. Clinton to run for president. The reasons varied, but all agreed they were tired of the Clintons and their never ending parade of scandals. No one, not even the most liberal member of the group (which is saying something), wanted to vote for Hillary Clinton.

The two most liberal members of the group also thought Sen. Pocahontas Warren would be a totes awesome president, to which ‘Puter replied, “Sure, if a cratered economy and a potentially worse foreign policy are your goal. The other three were simply tired of the Clintons and wanted someone new.

However, after Sen. Pocahontas Warren, the group was hard pressed to name a serious contender. Former Maryland governor and fervent rain (and millionaire’s) tax advocate Martin O’Malley was met with either “Who?” or “Meh.” Al Gore was soundly rejected. The liberals grudgingly agreed the Democrats’ national bench wasn’t very deep.

So, what’s ‘Puter’s takeaway? Two things.

First, despite the Clinton machine and Democrats’ wishes, Hillary Rodham Clinton is no more inevitable in 2016 than she was in 2008. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s support among Democrats is a mile wide and an inch deep. Democrats are looking for a reason to abandon ship.

Second, the Democrats have no bench. When your emergency backup candidate is a shrill, progressive, ultra-liberal, faux-Indian, Harvard academic who only plays well in faculty lounges and newsrooms, you’re screwed.

‘Puter knows the plural of anecdote is not data, but ‘Puter’s anecdote highlights a very real and growing problem for both Mrs. Clinton and the Democrats.

* Going on the wagon for Lent sucks, so that’s why ‘Puter does it. That said, ‘Puter usually drops several pounds during Lent. This year, ‘Puter may keep it going past Lent until he gets back to his fighting weight.

A good way to stop that annoying beeping coming out of your smoke detectors is to remove the batteries completely.

With that out of the way, the Czar wanted to remind you—and the media, really—that today is also the start of the semi-annual bad advice: the reminder to change your smoke detector batteries.

Back in the 1970s, when smoke detectors were getting commonplace in homes, some local fire department came up with a great idea that—in the lingo of the 1970s—“went viral.” When you change your clocks, change your smoke detector batteries! After all, if you went more than six months on the same battery, you were risking quite a bit.

Of course, that was based on disco-age battery technology: today’s 9-volt batteries can last a long time, but that isn’t what has the Czar concerned.

In the 1970s, Daylight Saving Time went from April to October—about six months, exactly. Perfect for changing batteries.

However, since 1986, this hasn’t been the case: Daylight Saving Time is now longer; and since 2005, the duration was extended yet again: early March to early November. This means, math heads, that you are changing your smoke detector batteries in four months, but then not again for eight months.

This means—if smoke detector batteries aren’t good after about six months—your smoke detectors are at risk in September and October, and you’re chucking out still useful batteries in March.

The Czar’s advice: change your batteries in July and January, say New Year’s Day and Independence Day, and ignore the drones on the local news channel. The Czar changes all the household batteries on those days: the garage keypad, the emergency weather radio, all alarm clocks, the thermostat, the television remotes…everything. Indeed, we keep a list on hand of all the batteries that need changing and what cell types are required for each device. Saves a lot of time, which is why the Czar is clearly superior to most people you will meet.

But back to smoke detectors: cheap 9-volt batteries—usually identifiable by bright neon colors and helpful manufacturer names like スーパーハローキティバッテリー—have a capacity of 100 milliamp hours. Alkaline and especially Lithium (something ‘Puter should really be on) batteries can last multiple times longer, but let us look at a worst-case scenario.

A modern home photoelectric smoke detector operates in standby mode—sipping a tiny 200 milliwatts at most. This means that a cheap 9-volt battery can last up to five or six years before it went low. Longer, indeed, if you buy nicer batteries like lithium cells.

The Czar will likely continue to change his batteries every July and January, but really, he could change them much less frequently. The point is that if the fire departments across America were serious about 6-month battery changes, they’d disassociate the clock-change = battery-change gimmick.

And no, fire departments across America are not serious about changing your batteries every 6 months: they’re serious about people who forget to change their batteries at all. Based on the Czar’s numbers above, you can see how much effort it really takes to have a dead smoke detector in the home; but being that stupid does take a lot of effort. Alas, millions of Americans are up to the task.

A bit of newer music than you’re used to from the Czar; it’s The Heavy, with “The Lonesome Road.”

Just like liberal “Christians” who worship Hippie Jesus, you can always count on teachers’ unions to push bad ideas for their own advantage.

‘Puter promised a response to the local teachers union president’s response to the Democrat and Chronicle’s responsive editorial to the teachers’ union led rally held in response to Gov. Cuomo’s proposed education reforms. Got all that?

As promised, here goes. ‘Puter cannot promise that his response will be free of petty name calling, outright mockery and shaming because, well, because that’s what ‘Puter does best.

‘Puter watched local media coverage of the rally, read supporters’ commentary on Facebook and discussed the rally with several individuals present. Further, ‘Puter is thoroughly familiar with the local teachers’ union president and the district’s current interim superintendent, both of whom are true believers in maintaining the status quo as related to teachers’ unions, tenure, pay structure and work rules. ‘Puter understands the issues and knows the players.

Rally Composition, or “White and Suburban Enough For You?”:

As the D&C correctly notes, the vast majority of participants in the rally were (1) white; (2) upper middle class; (3) suburban, (4) anti-testing and/or (5) union members. Mostly number five, plus their kids to use as props. There’s nothing wrong with any of this. However, ‘Puter and most rational adults aren’t interested in pretending a union-led, partisan rally isn’t partisan.

The local teachers’ union is Hell-bent on defeating any objective measurement of teacher performance. God forbid anyone mention real consequences be tied to objectively measured teacher performance. It’s almost as if teachers have no clue as to how the world of private sector employment works, where nearly all jobs are at will, no matter how long you’ve been there. Worse, it simply be that unions are aware of how the world works and simply don’t care so long as their members aren’t inconvenienced. Sadly, ‘Puter’s betting it’s the latter.

Anyhow, back to ‘Puter’s local union rally and its lily-white attendees. The local teachers union cobbled together a group of union die-hards and parents to protest Gov. Cuomo’s reforms by convincing the parents testing is harming their children. Most parents in attendance are unaware they are being used by the teachers’ union to push positions that will actually damage their kids in the long run. Who benefits from unaccountable teachers? Certainly, children and parents aren’t the beneficiaries. Only teachers and teachers’ unions benefit from unaccountable teachers.

The rally’s real message: “Preserve the Status Quo, Your Kids Be Damned”:

The union president claims the rally did in fact press positive ideas, yet conspicuously changes the subject to “the big lie” that “America’s schools are in crisis.” ‘Puter assumes that the union president’s positive ideas involve deny the obvious (America’s schools are in crisis) and changing the subject. This is par for the course, and straight out of the teachers’ union’s playbook, which to its credit has worked well for the unions for decades.

The union president alleges the rally had a positive message, namely “Public Schools: the Essential Institution.” The rally could’ve just as accurately been titled “We’re Not Going to Do Anything to Help Your Kids and There’s Not a Damned Thing You Can Do About It.”

The union president rages against The Man (and all available facts) claiming “public schools are working, remarkably well.” The union president states since parents are pleased with the public schools, and students are achieving well, there can be no further discussion of public schools, their teachers and their operating methodologies.

This, dear readers, is the union equivalent of “the science is settled.” Or, if you prefer, “shut up, the union explained.”

Contrary to the union stooges, parents aren’t enraptured with the substandard quality of their kids’ educations:

When given the opportunity, parents opt out of public schools in droves.

Witness the voucher program in Washington, DC, or the voucher program in Milwaukee, or the “parent trigger” program in Los Angeles. Each of these programs arose to address chronically failed or failing schools. Each of these programs was welcomed by most parents. Each of these programs succeeded to a greater or lesser extent. And each of these programs is under constant attack by teachers’ unions in those localities. It’s clear parents are not as pleased with the quality of their kids’ “free” education as teachers’ unions claim.

Public schools are not performing well, leaving aside whether teachers, parents, students, administrators, taxpayers, legislators, or some, all or none of the foregoing are to blame.

The city of Rochester in ‘Puter’s own Monroe County, New York has no fewer than 15 failed schools. In the most recent U.S. News & World Report rankings, ‘Puter’s local public school district finished in 636^th place, not exactly lighting up the academic world, despite our union president’s claims otherwise. ‘Puter would argue in many cases, suburban public schools are succeeding despite the current leadership, not because of it.

‘Puter also states emphatically that not every parent in the union president’s local district is thrilled with the quality of education her child receives. ‘Puter knows Mrs. ‘Puter and he have had to push and prod to get appropriate educational opportunities for our child, as public schools are currently geared to ignore two types of students: (1) male and (2) above-average. ‘Puter’s son would be better off if he were a transgendered psychopathic student of color. Then ‘Puter’s son would get all the attention he merits. But being white and male, ‘Puter’s son can be safely ignored. After all, ‘Puter’s son’s white privilege will save him.

No, Mr. Union President, Rochester area schools (starting with your own) aren’t the bee’s knees:

Hopelessly deluded (or outright lying), the union president stated “[s]ome of the best public schools in the country … are right here in the Rochester area,”

‘Puter LOLed, he did. As noted above, in the city of Rochester no fewer than fifteen schools are currently failing under New York’s ridiculously low bar, and five of those fifteen have been failing for the last ten years. Really. If ten or more years of consistent failure is what the teachers’ unions label success, ‘Puter would hate to see what the unions would call failure.

As for inconvenient truths, ‘Puter would note that his local school district, filled with predominantly white, upper middle class students, cannot manage better than a 636^th place finish nationally (not counting private schools which would surely push the district’s ranking lower), despite the union president’s “37 years” of continuous service. If things were as super-dee-duper awesome as the union president would have us believe, wouldn’t his own district’s national ranking be higher?

‘Puter guesses in the union’s warped view of reality saying something’s true over and over again really does make it true. This should scare the Hell out of parents. It is a damning indictment of the teaching corps’ intellect and ability when teachers unions insist a demonstrably false proposition is true.

Yelling at usually sympathetic media for pointing out the emperor is butt-assed nekkid isn’t a reform proposal, despite the union’s most fervent wishes otherwise:

The union president is incensed that the D&C’s editors called out the unions, challenging the teachers’ unions to put forth substantive reform proposals rather than to bitch about Cuomo’s proposals. How dare media question educators! It’s not as if an entire generation of so-called “educators” cratered New York’s once-competent public schools, pushing esoteric, feel-good hippie ideology (e.g., ecology, environmentalism, LGBTQWTF?LOL!XYZPDQ rights, etc.) instead of math, science, literature, language, grammar, writing and critical thinking.

Yes, Mr. Union President, public schools are a monopoly. Worse, they are a monopoly consumers cannot refuse to fund, as your politician cronies helpfully tax money out of an unwilling populace’s wallet at the point of a gun. ‘Puter’s betting that many teachers’ union members are anti-bank, anti-Wall Street and anti-monopoly in the private sector. Hypocritically, most of these anti-monopolists are perfectly fine with the public education monopoly since it enriches then, student outcomes be damned.

And yes, Mr. Union President, public schools have been metaphorically “beating their wives” for decades, despite your unsubstantiated assertions otherwise. Nearly every measure shows American students’ average performance has declined against the world’s students. Teachers unions have fought against changes that could have prevented generation after generation of inner-city poor minority kids from being sentenced to a lifetime of ignorance. The teachers unions have blood on their hands. If the teachers unions are not wife beaters, they are most certainly child abusers, damning children to poor outcomes out of self-interest and avarice.

“Oh, yeah? You think that’s a toxic assumption? Well, get a load of the toxic assumption I’ll make, while remaining blissfully ignorant I’ve been more toxically assumptive than you!”:

The union president claims the D&C’s editors make a toxic assumption: poor city schoolchildren’s only chance is to flee city schools.

The union president makes an even more toxic assumption: the inner city schools’ conditions are acceptable, so long as union work rules, union pay scales and union benefits are not altered to teachers’ detriment.

Teachers unions, again, are perfectly content to damn poor minority children to a lifetime of uneducated poverty so long as they get paid.

The teachers union bravely proposes major systemic reforms, roundly endorsing the continuation of the failed status quo:

The “fair, sustainable teacher evaluation system” the union president claims exists in his district? That’s the same system ‘Puter’s school district (the union president’s lifetime employer) used to try to run a teacher out of the district for purely political reasons.

The union president prefers a system completely contained within each district, and even more parochially within each separate school within the district, because it allows the union to protect subpar teachers who are big union supporters far more easily. A local union can exert far more pressure on a locally elected school board (which the union essentially appoints, elections being a mere formality) to set favorable evaluation standards than it can on a state board, and the unions want to keep it that way.

Leaving teacher evaluations solely under local control is to accept the unacceptable status quo. After all, if local-only teacher evaluations worked, public schools would be functioning perfectly, right?

The teachers’ union nobly deigns to permit administrators to fire bad teachers at any time during their careers, so long as it’s during the first three years of such career:

The union president’s notion that a three year pre-tenure period is sufficient to adjudge a teacher permanently competent to teach is sorely flawed. Not to mention, there’s nothing “new” about the teachers’ union’s new proposal. Basically, the teachers’ union tells us it’s going to insist on the old rules no matter how badly the old rules affect students. If parents and taxpayers don’t like the union’s position, then we can just shut our cake holes and continue meekly shelling out tax dollars to subsidize failure.

Limiting meaningful performance consequences to a teacher’s first three years on the job is stupid for any number of obvious reasons.

First, new teachers suck, and suck hard (not usually in the female on male student child rape-iness we’ve seen lately in our Glorious People’s Public Education Collectives) for a few years after starting work, no matter how good they later turn out to be. Precious few individuals in any job are good right off the bat. It takes years of experience in any field to become truly proficient, much less to excel.

Further, the union president makes no attempt to deny the most pernicious creation of lifetime tenure: the teacher who phones it in. Such a teacher may be competent, but either by disposition or the toll of years on the job, simply gives up, doing the bare minimum necessary to avoid notice for poor performance. These teachers exist, they exist in numbers, and currently there is no way to get rid of these teachers that’s not costly and lengthy.

‘Puter’s Conclusion, or “You want a response? Here’s my response. *teachers’ union president hands D&C a blank sheet of paper*”:

The local teachers’ union president’s response wasn’t. That is, the teachers’ union president ignored the D&C’s entirely legitimate request for a proposal in favor of issuing an untethered-from-reality Alice in Wonderland-esque defense of the status quo.

In sum, the teachers’ union response is today what it was yesterday, and what it will be tomorrow: “It’s the status quo or war. It’d be a shame if anything happened to your kids’ education. So shut up and pay us, you miserably ungrateful taxpayers.”

‘Puter promised his proposed solutions to the very real and difficult questions posed by public education’s current state and proposed reforms. ‘Puter will provide his thoughts later.

Well, here it is the First of March, and it feels as if yesterday was only the 28th of February. The Czar dislikes February for one reason: as the shortest month, you get the lest value from monthly services and subscriptions. Seriously, divide your monthly bill by 28 and then by 31 and see which one is higher. February.

Any Operative BJ drops in a note to ask about humanists who hate religion:

The Czar smirks when he reads that displays of the Ten Commandments endorse a particular religion. He is curious as to which religion is being endorsed, since by his count two religions embrace them—three, if you count Mormons as a separate faith from Christianity. Four, if you include the running summary in the Qur’ān’s sura Al-An’am 6:151.

Offended? If so, you probably have a long, selfish and ultimately uninteresting story to tell us about your childhood.

First, obviously, they are only after Christian symbolism. To be fair, there isn’t a whole lot of non-Christian symbolism in play, but these groups fall oddly quiet when it isn’t explicitly tied to Christianity. Seriously: try to have a Christmas party at a school or a musical montage that includes “Silent Night.” Now propose an inter-faith Ramaḍān fast at the same school and you won’t hear a peep.

The Czar will go one further: find us an atheist who is behind an effort to remove a Christian element from a public event and the Czar will not need to scratch deeply to find a disaffected child who is rebelling against a particular faith. It’s the ex-Catholics who want to eliminate the nativity scenes for the most part, and it’s largely the ex-Baptists who want to see the Decalogue stricken from every courthouse. We have no facts to back us on this claim, but few doubt us correct here.

Also, let the Czar point out that he has known many atheists over the years, and found them uniformly nice, respectful, understanding people. The Czar’s encounters with the other kind are limited, but he has identified them as humanists, more than atheists. In addition to being loud-mouthed, surly, and litigious over religious Christian icons, they are firebrands at their other beliefs: climate change, pro-socialism, and pro-infanticide as well. Basically they hate anything with which they disagree at present, but lack the numbers to effect change in any real way. So they sue the crap out of everyone.

And that leads us to our second point: it’s an extreme minority behind all this. Despite monthly polls that say Americans are less spiritual than ever, there are more polls that say Americans are more religious. If you and we were not so busy, we could play a game: you find a poll that says Americans are less spiritual, and the Czar will counter with a different poll that says they are. All afternoon.

Why the disconnect? Because the media are unable to weed out the bad polls from the good ones and report this correctly. Morons. Anyway, if you dig into it—and you might the next time this occurs—you will find that the polls concluding American religion is on the way out are really polls about something else.

On Monday, perhaps, there is a headline that says only 30% of Americans believe in God. On Thursday, another headline that says 60% of Americans believe in astrology. What are the odds these come from the same poll? Hint: they do.

And there’s the problem: the pollsters stop asking religious identity questions once they get the answers they need on quackery. Yes, among people who believe in astrology, perhaps only 30% are religious. See the point? The poll is rigged against the religious believers, because if you answer “no,” to the astrology question, they stop asking you questions on religion.

Conversely, another poll will ask the person to identify their faith up front: on these polls, the results are dramatic. About 84% of Americans are religious, according to the Pew poll that conducted a more honest survey, but 92% of Americans believe in God. So you can urinate conclusively on the thought that religious Americans are a minority.

In the same Pew poll, by the way, true Atheists represent less than two percent of the population, and religious “drifters,” who make up a lot of the woo crowd, are only 12% of the nation. That’s a far cry from the other headlines trying to convince you that America is done with religion and is ready for some government intervention on formerly spiritual matters.

The Czar’s own position is mixed: just as the Czar would be uncomfortable with a judge quoting the Qur’ān as the basis of his decision, he understands that almost 20% of the country might not be a fan of the Ten Commandments being on display in that courthouse. But removing these bas reliefs from court house walls or destroying priceless frescoes on state building walls or removing crosses from village water towers will cost tax payers a hell of a lot of money for less than one percent of two percent of the country (humanists within atheists). Having tax payers pay for your atheist attitudes is like you asking tax payers to pay for your religious views. No way. Maybe we did back in the 1940s and 1950s, but we don’t now and that includes humanists as well.

Village nativity scenes are harmless and fun, and largely non-denominational. When humanists get bent out of shape about this, we know they’re bent out of shape about a lot of things that happened to them long ago.

The Chicago primaries were yesterday, with a couple of interesting outcomes. One is fascinating the nation, justifiably. The other is no less important, but is missing from most radar screens.

First and foremost, incumbent mayor Rahm Emanuel—chief of staff under Obama for a long time and most visible proponent of the no-crisis-going-to-waste philosophy that dictated the President’s first term—spent millions of dollars in ads touting his expertise in politics. He didn’t win.

Emanuel didn’t lose, either: he failed to get 50% of the vote due to the surprising number of challengers that came from his own party. As a result, the top two finishers will have a special runoff election—Mr. Emanuel, with 45% of the vote, and Jesus “Chuy” Garcia.

Emanuel is a national celebrity of course, and is still close to President Obama. Emanuel received millions in donations from big business (they like this propensity to use lower taxes as an incentive to move business into Chicago), and is tied to many of Chicago’s elite.

Absolutely all of this was used by Mr. Garcia in his campaign; apparently, enough Chicagoans agreed. By most accounts, Mr. Garcia is a frivolous candidate: he’s openly tied to labor and socialist groups, has not indicated any ability to understand the city’s complex finances, and seems to think he can win by promoting large tax increases. Nevertheless, this got Garcia a third of the votes and he acknowledged this in his speech to his supporters last night when he said Chicago voters are simply sick and tired.

So here are your two takeaways.

Obviously, this is another body blow to the Obama legacy. Most Chicagoans—even those who nominally support their home town hero—realize Obama has been a bust. Every effort in which Obama engaged to bring attention to the city has failed. From the 2016 Olympics to the inane NATO conference, the President seems to be unable to do anything to help Chicago; there is a good chance his library will be located elsewhere.

Mayor Emanuel is such a legacy, and the City is tired of him. Emanuel never fit into Chicago politics—he was seen as a Springfield man long before he became branded as a Washington man. His cold, analytical, and tactical style of leadership alienated him as someone who didn’t really care about the City (which is not true). But compared to the egregious, affable mayors in Chicago’s past, and the Obama-style leadership rubbed everyone the wrong way.

President Obama is allegedly obsessed over what history will make of him. The answer is clear in last night’s rebuke of Rahm Emanuel. There is every good chance Emanuel will win election, but as Mr. Garcia’s flag flies higher in the next month, it could well be a 55%-45% result, with Mr. Emanuel winding up without a job. Emanuel’s own speech to his supporters seemed tired, lost, and frankly defeatist.

The Czar has repeated time and again—and only a few of you seem to listen—that neither President Obama nor Rahm Emanuel are part of the Chicago machine. Obama is exceptionally disconnected from Chicago politics, even though most of America dismisses him as a Chicago politician.

Trust us, Obama’s not the office photocopier, but the guy who makes personal copies on it as often as he can. He’s a pain to the machine, if anything.

The machine is done with him and Emanuel. But here’s the second takeaway that isn’t getting much attention: the Chicago machine is cleaning itself.

In other primary elections around the City, incumbent members of the machine and new grist for its mill either failed to win or are headed for runoffs themselves. Even a Daley relative couldn’t walk into the job. Ten years ago, everyone of these putzes would have been either elected or re-elected without a campaign. The Machine would have taken care of it.

But last night, many politicians—some of whom have last names that have been in Chicago politics for decades—were not handed easy wins. The voters actually seem to be irritated with the state of the City, and are making it known.

And what a great thing that would be for the future of Chicago.

Here’s Miss P, the 139th winner of the Best in Show competition. Her proper name, of course, is Miss Urine. You know why. Actually, this might not even be her. Who can tell.

Did you watch the AKC dog show last night? The Czar and his family did! This was the 139th annual dog show, based on the age of the judges. What a great event to watch, as a bunch of matronly plus-sized women, twerps dressed like it’s 1940, and whackjobs less smart than their dogs parade the canines up and down so that a judge can pick the ones New York City audiences like best.

Seriously. Each judge has to look at every dog and determine if it comes closest to its official standard. This is why some dogs never win and some dogs almost always win. For example, here’s a portion of the standard for the Tibetan Lower Highlands Water Spaniel:

The dog's eyes shall be no more than 3.5" apart at pupil center, with any spotting on the forehead forming an isosceles triangle. No hair on the muzzle or withers shall exceed 3.5" in length, with the angle of the fetlock forming a 60° bend when the dog is at attention. No horizontal element of the dog's surface anatomy shall exceed a 1:2 ratio relative to its vertical component, unless there shall be an offset between the two not to exceed 45° between the two.

And here’s the entire specification for the perennial favorite, the Toy Poodle:

A dog.

That’s why the poodle keeps winning. In fact, the entire history of AKC victors can be broken down like this.

Isn’t that sad? It’s also the truth. So when you see a dog you recognize and like—a boxer, because maybe you had one—you already know it’s going to lose to a yap dog like a Toy or some trendy dog like the Havanese. And it sure won’t be some new breed, like the Slighter Bernese Wetland Spaniel.

And what the heck. The Czar remembers when the AKC recognizing a new breed of dog was earth-shattering news. Now, they add like 18 every year. By 2024, the Czar estimtes, the AKC dog show will consist of 4,823 breeds and take three weeks to judge. Never before has the AKC been accommodating to dog breeders who write a standard for a pooch that was, just last week, a mutt. “Hey, isn’t that a cross between a pointer and a Lab? My brother just got one at the pound for $150.” “No, uh, that’s my Lower Welsh Toller Hound, and it cost me $3,500.” Okay. Right.

The worst part about the dog show is now that the beagle has won, everybody will be running out to buy over-priced and over-bred beagles. Well, if you’re looking to upgrade your dog, allow the Czar to review with you the most popular options.

Dogs are a lot of fun to have around, but not always. When you’re done using your dog, consider a convenient storage case. This one, in fleece, offers the dog plenty of rugged protection. Avoid the foam ones, as they start to smell bad from the cheap, Chinese rubber, and your dog can get pretty hot in there if you’re away for a long weekend. Many of them feature convenient carrying handles and USB charging ports, for those dogs who run on battery. Metric sizes available, too.

Does your dog hate deep water? All the hipsters are getting dog snorkels these days. Available in a wide variety of sizes, your mutt diver can plumb untold depths as he or she explores the submarine life. Imagine the look on your best friend’s face when he finds the elusive clown fish, or a school of tetras. Watch him bark at a stone fish! Although, really, he shouldn’t bark because if he does, the snorkel will come off and he’ll find himself in deep water.

Just like no uptown apartment is without bistro lights, your dog needs to get his party on. Low voltage bistro lights, available in a variety of colors, can flash or glow steady to show your dog is ready for the fun times. LED strands are a lot more expensive, but last a lot longer. Possibly longer than your dog will.

Why should your dog have to lay on the floor when he’s taking it easy? This dog hammock is perfect for indoor or outdoor lounging. Soft padding is ideal for your weary hound, and the washable padding is an extra treat for you! Of course, there’s the added entertainment of watching your four-legged acrobat try to get into a swinging hammock. You think it’s hard for you? It might be best if you just picked up the dog and put him in there for the time being. Three sizes available.

If you are the overly paranoid type, consider a dog gas mask. Last year alone, over ten million dogs survived chemical weapons attacks from friends and neighbors, often right in their own home! With an active charcoal filter and adjustable strap system, your dog will never have to breathe foul odors. Let’s be honest, if you have a dog that decided to spend the day rolling in its own vomit, you might be better off putting this thing on yourself. Yes, the straps are that adjustable. Yes, the Czar has tried. Yes, dogs do this sort of thing, and yes, dogs are generally the source of the worst odors you find in any room. Yes, the Czar is familiar with ‘Puter.

You can hardly visit a dog park these days without noticing the large number of dogs that have their very own archbishop. As dogs weaken in their faiths, thanks to an increasingly lay society, it can be vital to bolster their religious convictions by giving them their very own archbishop. If you’re especially proud of your dog, may we recommend their very own Pope? The one featured here, raised in a papal mill, is a West Highland White well-suited for Roman Catholic temperament. Other denominations can benefit from an Archbishop of Corgi, an Anglican West Minister, or a Parson Russell. And you knew that last one was coming, didn’t you?

With Boston buried under thirty-feet of snow and volcanic ash, and New York not far behind, the Czar has already spotted the increasingly useless media interrupting soft-promos for shows on their respective networks and Democratic-party talking points with bizarre attempts to be helpful.

The media want you to know that they are pathetic little babies who can’t survive for very long outside an air-conditioned, well-lit studio.

How about the Czar beats them to the punch? And believe us, we’d very much like to punch them. Yes, the Czar has actually seen these recommendations on the main stream media.

Tips to Survive Cold Winter Weather

Dress warmly. Most people exposed to the cold find that warm clothing seems to mitigate the cold though some non-intuitive, slightly magical process.

Drink plenty of fluids. Nearly all cold fatalities are caused by total dehydration, and not some obvious form of exposure.

Be careful of ice. Media types are amazed that ice seems to increase the local gravity in the area and encourage people to fall down.

Limit your time outside. This is astonishingly good advice from your media betters. Being outdoors is one of the leading causes of exposure.

Watch your extremities! Media types have recently discovered that gloves are good at protecting your finger tips. And for goodness sake, don’t wear open toed sandals outside.

Dress in layers. Consider a pasta layer, followed by a soup layer, and even a nice mulch to finish. Add butter for a nice finish.

If you become stranded and elect to stay in your car, do not leave it. Yes, the Czar spotted this obvious piece of binary realization. If you don’t leave your car, stay in it. Alternatively, if you elect to leave your car, feel free to exit it. Apparently Schrödinger disagrees.

Apparently, the 2016 NASA budget involves sending a probe to the Galilean moon of Europa. Because of its frozen oceans, it has been speculated that organic material maybe present, and by extension, the conditions for (unintelligent) life to exist, and by further extension, new Democrat voters.

President Obama didn’t get the memo from the Monolith, the alien technology that drove Arthur C. Clarke’s 2001 series:

In all seriousness, it sounds like a cool project, however Dr. J. pines for the day when we, again,  are the leaders in manned space travel. We need a visionary President and a visionary NASA chief.

‘Puter’s boss is one of the sharpest men (in all senses) ‘Puter has ever known. He is savvy, tough, sharp-elbowed, thorough, driven and demanding. He is also introspective, merciful and kind. ‘Puter’s boss is also a registered Democrat.*

Imagine ‘Puter’s surprise when in 2008, his boss offered this simple statement: “Obama hates America.”

As our loyal minions know, there is no love lost in Castle Gormogon for Obama. To a Gormogon, we all dislike Obama’s policies and prescriptions for America. But ‘Puter’d never believed Obama hated America. That is, ‘Puter never believed it until this year.

Obama was raised in the fever swamps of a radical, left wing family. Obama’s father was a post-colonial Kenyan Marxist, unrepentantly arguing for redistribution of income and Whitey T. Mann’s guilt for every minority’s difficult, real or imagined. Obama’s mother was a flaky hippie, weaned on the post-modernist horseshit of the 1960s.

Obama grew up in squishy liberal Hawaii, attending rich kid Punahou School (tuition a mere $20,700 per year for kindergarten). ‘Puter’s fairly certain Obama didn’t receive the same classical liberal arts education ‘Puter received from the Jesuits. From there, Obama smoked a lot of weed at Occidental College (not exactly a bastion of conservativism) before transferring to hard Left Columbia University.** And, of course, Obama made his obligatory stop at Harvard Law School, America’s second oldest, a routine jumping off point for politicians.

Obama is the product of his environment. A half-Black liberal, steeped in Marxist ideology (post colonialism, critical race theory and liberation theology to name a few), carefully taught to be bitter about the riches America’s given him. Obama is certainly well educated, as believing Marxist fairy tales about the miracles of socialism, social justice and wealth redistribution is considered well educated these days.

Obama doesn’t like to admit it, but he knows (as does every American) that his melanin content bought him special favors in the academy and in society. Anyone remember then Senator Biden complimenting Obama for being clean and articulate? The Left just loves a good house Negro.***

Obama then moved to Chicago, got involved in Chicago politics, and associated with a rogues’ gallery of the Left. From 1960s Weather Underground murderous bombers Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn to backwards assed militant racist “pastor” Jeremiah Wright, Obama rode circuit.

From there, Obama moved into community organizing, then straight into politics. We’re familiar now with Obama’s meteoric rise from do-nothing state senator, to do nothing United States Senator, to Constitution shredding president. It’s a remarkable achievement for a man whose single claim to fame is giving a rousing speech to the 2004 Democratic National Convention. But it’s not surprising as Democrats (and, sadly, many Independents and Republicans) are incapable of seeing what is rather than what they wish were.

So what is Obama? He’s the product of his environment. He’s a hard-Left, neo-Marxist, America-hating, asshat. And, like so many on the Left, he’s a smirking, bullying, chicken shit. Strong words, ‘Puter knows, but ‘Puter can defend them.

Obama believes America is today and has at all times been a force for evil in the world. All Obama’s foreign policy actions are consistent with this belief.

• Early in his first term, Obama went to Cairo University in Egypt to speak. Obama spoke for over an hour, running down America and enabling Islamic fundamentalism. Obama claimed it is not Islam that causes terrorism, but rather unaffiliated “violent extremists.” Obama also alleged America and Islam “share common principles – principles of justice and progress; tolerance and the dignity of all human beings.” Islam sure is tolerant of women, gays and Jews, of that ‘Puter is certain.
• Obama received the Nobel Peace Prize, again for his amazing ability to … well, to be the first Black president, ‘Puter guesses. In his speech, Obama validated other nations’ “reflexive suspicion of America” and to call for America’s unilateral disarmament. Sure, Obama didn’t say unilateral disarmament, but what do you think he meant by “all nations – strong and weak alike – must adhere to standards that govern the use of force.” Obama wants Gulliver America tied down by hateful and puny world Lilliputians.
• Obama throughout the course of his presidency has been dedicated to shutting down the Guantanamo Bay detention center housing some of the world’s worst terrorists. Obama has released 115 terrorists, and 6.8% of them (an al Jazeera estimate, so it’s light) returned to the battlefield. Obama releases prisoners over the objections of military and national security professionals.
• Obama precipitously pulled all United States troops out of Iraq on an artificial schedule, more interested in his political standing than the hard fought and blood bought freedoms of the Iraqi people. We’re dealing today with the logical consequences of his fickle, anti-American decisions as the vacuum gave ISIS space to grow.
• Obama drew a line in the sand on Syria, insisting America would impose dire consequences on Syria if it used chemical weapons on the Syrian rebels. Syria did once, and Obama ignored it. Then Syria gassed its people again, but this time there was irrefutable proof. Obama again did nothing. Assad, emboldened by Obama’s cowardice, has since slaughtered tens of thousands of Syrians and made hundreds of thousands more refugees.
• Obama (with the able assistance of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton) declared a “reset” with Russia early in his first term. From this, Vladimir Putin correctly deduced that Obama was an empty suit, naïve in world affairs and unable to see plain facts. Emboldened by Obama’s childishly simplistic world view, Putin moved into Georgia, then Crimea and now Eastern Ukraine, basically telling Obama he’s a do-nothing bitch. Score one for Vlad the Invader.

Obama believes White Americans are racist. Many of his domestic actions are consistent with this belief. ‘Puter’s waiting for Obama to condemn Oreos since institutional racism makes Americans like the white, creamy center more than the more prevalent and deserving chocolaty wafers.

• Obama inserted himself into the arrest of a Black Harvard University professor by a White Cambridge police officer. Professor Henry Louis Gates got mouthy with Sgt. James Crowley, wouldn’t stop, and was arrested. Obama determined this was a matter worthy of the most powerful man in the world’s undivided attention, and called the infamous Beer Summit. ‘Puter guesses the correct response isn’t “boy, I’m glad no one got hurt in this cop’s reasonable misunderstanding and the professor’s understandably angry response.” ‘Puter guesses “let’s pillory the White cop for his reasonable actions” is cool, too.
• In 2013, America was shocked to learn Obama’s son had been gunned down by a Florida vigilante. Wait. No. That was Trayvon Martin. America was shocked to learn Obama thought this local issue required a federal response and a presidential address. Mind you, Florida had already arrested the shooter and charged him. But Obama thought America needed a lesson on the travails of being Black in America, regardless of the case’s facts. Our prissy Lecturer in Chief strikes again.
• Most recently, Obama sent his race-baiting Attorney General Eric Holder to Ferguson, Missouri after supporters of Michael Brown glorified his memory by peacefully rioting, torching and looting Ferguson’s business district for two weeks or so. This, over a young man who robbed a convenience store and assaulted a clerk while stoned out of his gourd immediately prior to bull rushing a cop who stopped him for walking down the middle of a busy road. Not to be outdone, Obama’s fellow traveler Bill de Blasio allowed ignorant OWS leftovers to shut down many of New York City’s major thoroughfares while calling for retaliatory killing of cops. Days later, a deranged Black man obliged the protestors, executing two cops sitting in their squad care. In Obama’s intellectual circles, racism’s fine so long as it’s directed at the right (meaning White) people.

Obama thinks capitalism is evil and will ruin the world. All his economic actions are consistent with this belief, calculated to destroy the greatest economy the world has known. Ignorance of private sector economics and ivory tower induced hubris are a toxic combination.

• Obama used the 2008 financial crisis to get Congress to pass an $800 billion stimulus. Obama promised to use the stimulus funds for infrastructure improvements. Instead, Obama found there were no shovel ready projects as he had insisted due to the tangled web of archaic and arcane federal and state regulations. Rather than use his executive power to cut the red tape, Obama instead say to Hell with it and showered cash on his base.
• Do you remember Cash for Clunkers, Obama’s plan to rescue the auto industry? Obama gave out tax credits to everyone buying a new car, alleging that doing so would revive the moribund US auto industry. Not so, say economists who’ve reviewed the program. All Obama’s program did was push demand forward, not increase demand over the long term.
• The GM bankruptcy showed Obama’s true colors. Pressured by Obama’s lackeys, the bankruptcy court crammed down bondholders so pension holders could keep their exorbitant benefits, all in violation of federal law. No one has yet answered for this crime.
• ObamaCare made every employer reluctant to hire, as no one is certain what the regulations are going to look like, still. Obama knows the impact of a fully implemented ObamaCare will be so negative, he’s put off most of the painful tax increases until after he leaves office. What a brave soul.
• Standard & Poor’s correctly downgraded the United States’ bond rating as America racked up ever more debt (currently north of $18 trillion), saying unless America’s entitlement programs changed, there’s not enough money to pay America’s debts going forward. For telling the truth, Obama unleashed federal regulators and the Justice Department on Standard & Poor’s. In the last few days, word has leaked Standard & Poor’s reached settlement with the government, agreeing to pay $1.4 billion in fines.
• JPMorgan’s chairman Jamie Dimon – a lifelong Democrat and vocal Obama supporter – was a darling of the Obama administration. In fact, in the depths of the 2008 fiscal crisis, federal regulators came to Mr. Dimon and begged him to purchase Washington Mutual, a dead-man-walking massive consumer mortgage lender. In return for saving the economy’s ass, Obama’s regulators promptly charged JPMorgan with violations related to the origination of mortgages. Fine, you thing, right? Wrong. Obama’s goon squad charged JPMorgan for loans originated by Washington Mutual, the failed bank. That’s a great way to encourage public-private cooperation in time of national crisis.

‘Puter could, but won’t, go on and on about Obama’s deeply flawed policies and beliefs. And, taken single, that’s all any of ‘Puter’s above examples are: proof of a man with no practical experience, in over his head, applying the wrongheaded socialist policies he deeply believes. But at some point, the overwhelming number of these examples indicates something more than a small man with deeply flawed beliefs. At some point the sheer weight of evidence, across all areas of policy, becomes proof of a deeper pathology.

At some point we all, like ‘Puter’s boss, have to admit the obvious: Obama hates America.

* ‘Puter’s boss isn’t what most of us think of as Democrat these days. ‘Puter’s boss is the youngest kid in his extended family (he’s 48), and his father and uncles on both sides were all WWII veterans. He’s a (John) Kennedy Democrat, strong on national defense, fiscally responsible, but with a bit of a New Deal collectivist streak at times. Racist, he is not.

** This is the “university” permitting a lying sack of dung woman who falsely accused a man of rape to torment him across campus with her “senior art project.” The evil woman’s project consists of carrying a mattress around campus claiming she has been raped by the young man, even though the man has been cleared by both the university and the local constabulary. ‘Puter’d say it’s a good thing for the “woman” to carry around a bed, since she’s obviously so familiar with f*cking people over. Were ‘Puter the young man or his parents, he’d sue the snot out of both the psycho female and the university.

*** Yes, there are dumb-assed racists on the Right, too, but this is ‘Puter’s post so shut up. The Right hews far closer these days to Martin Luther King, Jr’s ideal of judging a man on the content of his character, not the color of his skin.

Operative BJ is a bit more optimistic than the Czar. But here are some points to ponder.

Yes, public support for unions is at an all-time lower, with the exception of next year when they will be lower…until the year after that. In fact, support for unions is so low that it seems to be inversely tied to support for firearm carry: not too long ago, only a few states allowed it. Now all do in one form or another. Likewise, support for unions has been tumbling like crazy. You can read about it all here.

But despite this lack of support, it doesn’t necessarily follow that a bonehead move by one union will provide leverage of any kind to a Republican candidate. It would be nice, but unlikely.

And it isn’t because of any lack of talent in the GOP pool of potentials. The Czar just doesn’t think that any Republican candidate (even Coolidge) would be able to overpower the media narrative that higher gas prices are due in some large part to the fact Republicans continue to exist despite all science to the contrary.

What would help is disturbingly simple but proven. You would need a President who would end the responsibility of the government to collect and track union dues payments by members on behalf of unions. That doesn’t sound like much, does it? No—not band unions, nor even force right-to-work laws. Simply state that if any union wants to collect its dues, it has to do that itself rather than let.

This is what Scott Walker did in Wisconsin, and it positively hurt the public sector unions. Yeah, the trade unions have been collecting their own dues for decades, and whattaya know, they remain one of the least awful unions.

This is causing a ripple effect in Wisconsin and the effect, while large, is not being covered. If anything, it’s being suppressed. The public and private sector unions who depended on the State of Wisconsin to collect dues through paycheck deductions lack any means to do so. Suddenly, it became necessary for union members to pay their own dues with their own personal checks. And about 18% of them are—the rest of these union members aren’t paying their dues at all and have effectively voted to quit the union while keeping their jobs.

Simple, subtle, and powerful.

Of course, the Czar has no idea whether the United Steelworkers Union expects government to collect their dues—probably not. But the best thing a Republican candidate can do is to step aside and let the unions continue to destroy themselves.

The Czar was puttering through our awesome Twitter feed (which you should join and follow anon, if thou hast not done so hence), and spotted this eye-catching question from, of all groups, the New York Times: “How Did Politics Get So Personal?”

Well, this is either brilliant satire or…no, it’s just the stultifying effects of living in an echo chamber, it seems. Within, author Thomas B. Edsall reflects on a study that shows how much parents would despise the notion of their kids marrying someone of a different political party. He has a nice graphic showing how the percentages have increase from 4% to 33% (among Democrats) and from 5% to 49% (among Republicans) over the last 50 years. Interestingly, there may be a clue as to why in the graphic, showing a donkey facing to the left and an elephant facing to the right.

The graph also shows that the biggest upswing happened (surprised?) since 2008.

Anything interesting happen in 2008?

Yes, that’s right: America elected its most polarizing president ever. Sure, the Left will say it’s all about race, but the poll doesn’t reflect anything in that direction: it merely shows that since the Progressive takeover of the presidency, people are being forced to choose. The Left declared a culture war, and if you’re not going to pick a side, one will be chosen for you.

But this a political piece in the New York Times, so of course the author is going to reassure its uptown liberal readers that there’s nothing wrong whatsoever with being an uptown liberal reader. In a bizarre non sequitur, Mr. Edsall jumps from a discussion of how married couples now tend to belong to the same political parties to a study that “liberals think more analytically than conservatives.” What a shocker: it’s okay, libs, because you’re still smarter than Republicans.

Because this is science, and after all, liberals—who feel and sense and just opine—are way more analytical than their conservative cousins who reason and rely on spreadsheets, bank statements, tax forms, and numbers. Got it.

This is, of course, another variation of the long-debunked “liberals are pragmatists, conservatives are ideologues” meme. It gets better, with Mr. Edsall copiously quoting this study’s authors, reflecting that liberals—who predominantly live in populated cities—are more individualistic and independent—whereas conservatives—who frequent suburbia and rural America—are more community minded. On what is this based? Who knows—Mr. Edsall has his pull quotes and he’s not inclined to second-guess the sources of a study that agrees with his views.

The Czar thinks the entire study—even the parts of it that say nice things about conservatives—is questionable on its face. The study isn’t available for free, so the Czar is not about to pursue it in order to review its full claims. Whether accurate or not, Mr. Edsall has picked the quotes he wants to prevail, so the Czar—who is reviewing Mr. Edsall’s piece and not a peer-reviewed paper—is reflecting purely on the quotes submitted and whether they explain increased polarization in national politics.

And they do not. Rather, one suspects, Mr. Edsall delighted to find a social psychology study that appeared, in its introduction, to claim that liberals are analytic thinkers and conservatives are more emotion-driven. Of course, there is a fair amount of research disputing this, so Mr. Edsall is certainly not going to get a full editorial essay out of one paper without having to do that additional research. That would be dispassionately rational. Instead he found, one further suspects, a valuable study that shows Americans are being forced into polarizing camps, and simply banged the two together as if they flowed logically.

And they do not. But let us propose a different second half to Mr. Edsall’s reporting of the polarization study.

Perhaps it is reasonable to wonder if the monstrously sized public relations campaign put out by the Obama campaign helped increase support among liberals for the Democratic party. Remember, if you were young and voted for Obama, you were one of the savvy, cool, techno-generation. If you were older and voted for Obama, you were proving to America that you, personally, were not a racist. If you opposed Obama on any of his many glaring faults, you were a racist, something ugly, and a dinosaur with no teeth. Taking a page from September 12, 2001, you were either with us or an enemy. Fox News was shut out as often as possible; investigative journalists had their emails stolen and scanned; Democratic registered voters were reminded that their addresses were on file and that they should continue to vote, otherwise we would know.

Isn’t that an awful lot to swallow? But swallow they did, and suddenly thousands (if not millions) of non-voters or non-affiliated voters were declaring themselves Democrats. And boy howdy, were they rewarded: praise-filled emails, reminders on popular television shows that Democrats were great and Republicans were stupid, and reassurance from the president that you weren’t some bitter clinger. An attorney general threatened he was out for his own people’s interests, and communities were organized, and the president even had his own logo now! And naturally a website where you could submit the names and statements of friends or relatives who were saying bad or hurtful things about him.

But it takes two poles. On the conservative side, people got angry. The Tea Party arose almost immediately after serious discussions about Obamacare, and radio shows began to take on the sound of Radio Free America. And conservatives, whom polls revealed greatly out-numbered liberals, discovered they weren’t alone. There were more than hundreds of you. More than thousands. In fact, there were millions and millions of you, and—right around 2009—conservative America discovered it could actually fight back.

Conservatives discovered, in short order, they didn’t have to take this anymore. The liberal cousin who mouths off during dinner about dumbass Republicans was shocked to hear other family members telling her to shut up. The town hall Democrat praising himself on stage was driven off with boos and demands to explain his hypocrisy. A congressman, inappropriately, found himself calling the President of the United States a liar, right in the middle of a lie he was telling. Each act emboldens the other.

The polarization started a long time ago on the Left. But as each of these defiant acts on the Right strengthened the rest, the Right caught up quickly. The Right has learned that the Left lost its monopoly on public righteousness. The Emperor has no clothes, and it’s a good thing to point that out to your friends and neighbors. All this increases polarization.

So the Czar repeats himself: you might not care about politics, or Obama, or socialism, or Tea Parties. But you are being assigned a side anyway; you will either be drafted by the Left or you will volunteer for the Right. And history knows—through simple analysis even a liberal uptown New York Times reader can do—which side fights harder.

As most of you know, the Czar was born in the last third of the 13th Century, and had the fortune to meet many people who either were famous or soon became famous. Many of these people were fun and exciting, like Jane Austen, Fats Waller, and Zog I of Albania.

Some of them were less pleasant, and the Czar even took a strong dislike to many. For example, the Czar did not like Sun Tzu—who was China’s losingest general. He was so bad at military planning that he even wrote a book about everything he learned the hard way. “Too little, too late,” muttered King Helü as the axe whomped down on his neck. Of course, you are welcome to say this is fantasy, as Sun Tzu lived almost 1500 years before the Czar was born. This is your error, as the Czar was able to meet him well after his death.

But you know who else drove the Czar cray-cray? Henry Clay. The Czar met him a couple of times during the 1800s, and can not begin to explain what an insufferable pain in the neck Clay was. Here’s a picture of the two of us sharing a lunch outside the Capitol in May, 1836. The Czar was planning a royal feast with suckling pigs and fresh lamb brains; Clay brought a Nutella sandwich. Classy.

Anyhow, Clay was obsessed with becoming President. He wanted nothing more, and indeed, nothing else. He made terribly disparaging comments about being a Senator, which he hated nearly as much as a Representative.

He ran for president in 1824, 1832, and 1844…officially. Unofficially, he also ran in 1828 but couldn’t get enough nominating votes.

He tried in 1840, too, but the party decided William Henry Harrison was more exciting by that point. Heck, John Tyler—who was so unpopular that his own party threw him out, easily beat him in the convention votes.

So naturally, at the end of his political life, he decided to retire with dignity. Kidding! He tried one more time in 1848, losing the nomination to Zachary Taylor. Come to think of it, Clay repeatedly lost to some of our most meager presidents.

God called him home in 1852, rather than see him try one more time for the presidency.

If you are sorting all this out, you probably noticed that he didn’t run in 1836. Ironically, the Czar thinks that Clay actually could have beaten Martin Van Buren, and others agree with us. Thank goodness he decided to sit that one out.

Why? Okay, forget about Clay’s Nutella sandwiches and his hypocrisy about slavery (he was a slave owner) and his endless plotting and scheming (for example, he backed John Quincy Adams in 1828 in exchange for being made Secretary of State—in hopes that this would fast-track him in the next election when he double-crossed Adams*).

The thing that annoyed the Czar the most about Clay was his insane obsession to be president, at any cost. Clay was consumed with the desire to be commander in chief, and while a little ambition is a good thing, Clay thought about nothing else.

And anyone who wants to be president that badly usually winds ups being a bad president. Keep that in mind when you hear that Mitt Romney is scratching his chin over a third run. That’s only half the number of Clay’s attempts, but it’s enough. If you lose an election, dust yourself off and get back to it: your second run will be that much better since you know now how bad it gets. But if America says no to you twice, fair enough. You tried, and that’s a great thing.

But when you go for a third try, well, you’re kind of saying the problem is with America and not with you.

No, Governor…because no. Listen to history, not your ego.

So Mitt Romney said he was done, and God bless him for realizing it. A guy like Romney can be awfully effective behind the scenes, and he was adamant he wasn’t running.

But then this poll comes out that says if the 2012 election were held right now, Romney would win by a landslide. Really? Well, howdy hey: may be we should re-think this 2016 thing.

This is his mistake: in 2016, Romney wouldn’t be running against Barack Obama. Of course, you know this, but obviously Mitt Romney doesn’t. All he heard was “you’re a shoe-in in 2016.” And this is a disastrous condensation of pride worthy of a fall.

Clay never got the message that America didn’t want him near the presidency; Mitt needs to hear that same message, too.

*More trivia you wouldn’t know but the Czar would because he met the guy? John Quincy Adams pronounced his middle name “Quin-zee.” No, he wasn’t affected. No, he didn’t have a lisp. That’s how his mom pronounced it, so that’s how he said it.

‘Puter watched part of President Obama’s State of the Union address last night. Upon seeing Mr. Obama wink knowingly at the assembled Congress, ‘Puter turned off the television. Obama has no respect for the dignity of the office he occupies.

Not having watched Obama’s “too cool for school” delivery, ‘Puter spent the morning sifting through the “as prepared” text of Obama’s address to provide you his thoughts. Obama’s State of the Union Address can be found here.

The president’s speech was an insouciant mélange of progressive fantasies, liberal tropes and policy asks with no hope of enactment. And that’s the best ‘Puter can say about it. President Obama’s speech covered three main areas: the economy/jobs, foreign policy and political unity. ‘Puter will briefly touch on each, and then conclude with some thoughts of his own.

I. Economy

Will we accept an economy where only a few of us do spectacularly well? Or will we commit ourselves to an economy that generates rising incomes and chances for everyone who makes the effort?*

Mr. Obama’s economic policies are break-the-bank bad, and would surely punish rather than help the middle class. How can any rational human with any business experience believe radically increasing the minimum wage and forcing businesses to provide seven days of paid sick leave a won’t negatively impact employment? If it costs more to hire employees, fewer employees will be hired and prices will rise.

‘Puter also marveled at the laundry list of new programs Mr. Obama requested: a $3,000 per child, per year child care tax credit; the aforementioned seven days of paid sick leave per year; the recycled and untrue “pay women the same as men” position; a higher minimum wage; free community college; a massive and undefined infrastructure plan; the undefined and scary sounding “Precision Medicine Initiative; free internet for everyone; and last but not least, MOAR GREENE JERBS!!1!

And how is America going to pay for Obama’s Never-Ending, Magically Always Full Gravy Train? With higher taxes on “the rich,” of course. Obama stands in the well of a new Congress, recently elected to stand against and undo the Democrats’ many debacles, and Obama’s got the audacity to propose more taxes. Here Obama stands. He can do no other.

‘Puter’s pretty sure that insulting the newly elected Congress by taunting them with programs and taxes Obama knows darned well Congress will never enact isn’t a way to make friends and influence people. ‘Puter’s also pretty sure Obama doesn’t give a damn

II. Foreign Policy

Will we approach the world fearful and reactive, dragged into costly conflicts that strain our military and set back our standing? Or will we lead wisely, using all elements of our power to defeat new threats and protect our planet?*

Here’s the fundamental unseriousness of Democrats and Obama on foreign policy distilled down to two groovy sentences: “The Pentagon says that climate change poses immediate risks to our national security. We should act like it.”

Oh. OK.

We’re too dumb to realize it, but the Islamist terrorists running around the Middle East beheading our fellow Americans and destabilizing the entire region aren’t America’s most pressing foreign policy problem. Nor is a revanchist Russia, led by a sociopath bent on restoring the never-were glory days of the Empire, a serious problem, never mind Putin’s little adventure in Ukraine.

It’s global warming that poses an existential threat to America. It’s global warming that demands our military’s full attention. It’s global warming, all day, erry day to these no-talent ass clowns.

It’s seldom a leader commits his country to national suicide, but, hey, Obama’s going to Obama. May God have mercy on our souls.

III. National Unity

Will we allow ourselves to be sorted into factions and turned against one another — or will we recapture the sense of common purpose that has always propelled America forward?*

In the last portion of his BESTIST SPEECH EVAH!!1!eleventy!!!, Obama returns to familiar territory, alleging he is above reproach and it’s those dirty, nasty Republicans who continue to prevent America from becoming the best America it can be.

Barf. This indigestible and spew-worthy rhetoric may excite low information voters and the Democrat base (‘Puter repeats himself), but it’s laughable coming from a man who crammed ObamaCare down the throats of an unwilling nation using parliamentary trickery, thuggish tactics and outright lies without a single Republican vote. Let’s take a gander, shall we?

Imagine if we broke out of these tired old patterns. Imagine if we did something different.

Understand — a better politics isn’t one where Democrats abandon their agenda or Republicans simply embrace mine.

A better politics is one where we appeal to each other’s basic decency instead of our basest fears.

A better politics is one where we debate without demonizing each other; where we talk issues, and values, and principles, and facts, rather than “gotcha” moments, or trivial gaffes, or fake controversies that have nothing to do with people’s daily lives.

It’s interesting Obama accuses Congress of his own crimes. Obama’s the one who for six years has done nothing different, preferring strong arm tactics to compromise, insisting it’s his way or the highway, pandering to voters’ basest fears to secure election twice and reveling in “gotcha” moments. It’s his stock in trade.

In conclusion, ‘Puter finds Obama’s 2015 State of the Union address a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

* ‘Puter finds these three quotes especially telling. These occur early in Obama’s speech and set up the framework for his discussion. Notably, each of these quotes presents a false choice, another favorite Obama speech device. Our president’s an empty suit, long on rhetorical devices and short on accomplishments.

This is one of those awesome stock photos that savvy economics colums use to look serious. We are using it here in the hopes you think this essay is the result of real research.

Some money terms are used a lot by the media, and it might benefit some of you lesser mortals to understand what they mean.

Inflation—an increase in monetary supply which has the effect of weakening the dollar, causing an increase in prices without a decrease in buying power. For example, ten years ago, a yard of beer might cost you $6. Because there is more money available now than there was 10 years ago, it might cost you $9 for that same yard of beer. The cost of beer hasn’t gone up: just that the dollar value has weakened.

It’s like this. Let’s say you live on an island with ten other people, and you agree to use the junonia (Google it) as your unit of currency. There happen to be 100 of these on the island. That means the total value of everything on the island is 100 junonia shells. A small item might be worth a thousandth of a junonia; a large item, like a house, might be worth five junonia shells. Make sense?

But let’s say that idiot friend of yours, Jaroslav, finds a cache of 50 more junonia shells. What’s your house worth now? Becuase the monetary suppy has inflated to 150 shells, your expensive house is now worth about 7.5 shells. Costs go up, even though nothing else changed. So while you might think, if you were an islander named Paul Krugman, that you just made a pile of money, everything else has gone up another 50% as well. You’ve made nothing.

Inflation increases the cost without increasing the value. If Jaroslav finds another 50 shells, now your home is priced at double what it was…and you haven’t increased its actual value because a gallon of coconut milk now costs twice what it did.

Deflation—But if we decrease the available money supply, that would be a good thing, right? After all, wouldn’t that have the effect of lowering costs without lowering the intrinsic value of those items?

Over time, some line graphs go up, while others go down. It’s important to understand that all trends may change over time.

But what happens if Jaroslav took out a loan for $100,000 a month ago? Now, it’s harder for him to come up with the cash to pay that loan off. As a result, he will be encouraged to default on repaying that money. The bank that loaned him the money will suffer a loss of income right away. The bank has less money coming in.

If the bank offers savings accounts, what happens? The money you have in your account increases in purchasing power, meaning the bank has to pay proportionately more money in interest. So the money the bank pays out to its savings account increases, while the money coming in decreases.

The banks start folding up. And when that happens, the amount of money businesses have to invest and spend goes down. Result? Lots of layoffs. Businesses close from lack of demand. Japan’s economy in the 1990s was hurt by just this problem.

Disinflation—A decrease in the rate of inflation. This is different from deflation, although disinflation often precedes deflation. Disinflation, though, can be good if it means that inflation is slowing down and purchasing power is returning. It can be bad, of course, if it signals a shrinking in the economy.

Pie charts reveal that things often come in different portions, although if you cut a pie like this at even a lousy diner, you’d lose your job.

Subflation—when the cost of the dollar goes under the cost of goods. For example, you buy the DVD for The Crow because it was so much cheaper than the Blu-ray, but then you realize the movie isn’t that good in either format and feel bad about it.
Conflation—if the amount of the money supply increases with the value of the goods. For example, a gallon of milk is worth $3, but then zooms to $6, but the value drops in half so that it remains $3. You wouldn’t even notice. In fact, although this happens all the time, you never notice it at all so it isn’t even worth thinking about.

Exflation—the dollar value drops just after you assess its value. For example, you know how you bought a full tank of gas at $2.25 a gallon, only to see it drop the next day to $2.03 a gallon? You feel exflated.

Rotasubteriflation—when the value of the dollar is thrown under bus.

Interflation—when the value of the dollar stays the same, but the value of the quarter and nickel increase, even though the value of the dime and penny decrease.

Preflation—the value of the dollar goes up just before anything else does. Even though the Czar made this term up, even he can’t think of an example.

Postflation—the opposite of preflation. You figure if you can have preflation, it follows there must be postflation. Your guess is as good as ours.

It’s not uncommon to associate ecnomics with math, requiring calculators, charts, spreadsheets, and pens. Be ready for this, and be certain to stock up on pie charts.

Heteroflation—nothing, but it sounds really smart. Imagine you, at your next cocktail party, saying something like, “The real concern in the money markets is heteroflation, and its anodyne effect on long-term debt.” Jeez, doesn’t that sound awesome?

Unflation—when you come up with a list of gags, and realize the list has gone on way too long and you better end it right here.

America is the best country in the world. Just ask an American. We’ll tell you. But America’s currently doing its darndest to squander more than two centuries of exceptionalism.

It’s not America’s nearly embarrassing wealth that makes America great. Nor is it our overwhelming military power.

America’s greatness has, since its inception, lain in its classically liberal traditions and values. From America’s concept of limited, democratically elected government to its enshrinement of individual freedoms, America created the required conditions precedent for its massive success.

Yet today, America’s rapidly tearing down the foundations of its success, and conservatives are every bit as much to blame as liberals. We’ve ignored the Constitution and denied reality for too long.

America’s once-limited government has turned into a writhing, chthonic, multi-tentacled beast of destruction, metastasizing with predictably awful consequences into private lives and private businesses. One need only look as far as ObamaCare or Dodd-Frank for proof. Limited government is dead and gone because no one stood up for it.

Extensive government redistribution programs have made Americans into beggars, and angry ones at that, voting again and again for the politician promising to steal more from their neighbors to give to them. Large numbers of Americans, many over multiple generations, prefer to live off the backs of their neighbors rather than on the sweat of their brow. Our work ethic is damaged, perhaps beyond repair, because Americans succumbed to the false promise of a free lunch.

Colleges and universities have stood the cherished concept of freedom of speech on its head, punishing those who dare speak against the accepted wisdom of modern liberalism’s orthodoxy. Our once great colleges have destroyed themselves, hewing to insipid intellectual fads rather than Truth. And yes, professor, there is a capital-T Truth.

Law enforcement agencies have abandoned the quaint notions of serving and protecting the public, resorting to civil forfeiture and excessive militarization. Due process is an outmoded concept only dead White male oppressors and crazy civil libertarians believe.

Our president refuses to acknowledge reality, claiming the heinous attack on Charlie Hebdo by two Muslim men claiming to have avenged Big Mo the Prophet are not “Islamic extremism.” Educated in America’s “elite” schools and universities, who can blame him? These schools adopted radical moral and cultural relativism as their lodestar, and Obama is the natural result.

And two days ago, scores of Washingtonians cowered on a smoke-filled Metro subway train, meekly obeying orders to stay put, for over 40 minutes until firefighters deigned to mosey in to rescue them. One woman obeyed these counterintuitive orders to her death, such is the power governmental authority holds over the average American’s psyche.

America’s disregard of its foundational principles and its embrace of radical moral and cultural relativism have created the world we have today: meek citizens unwilling to take care of themselves choosing subjugation by weak-willed leaders promising illusory safety unable to tell truth from fiction.

America continues on this course at its mortal peril.

Operative BJ swung by the Castle lobby bar earlier this week and gave the Czar some of his thoughts on something the Czar has, coincidentally, been giving some thought independently. The Czar has sobered out enough to remember them.

As you have heard time and again, the lower cost of gasoline has resulted in a drop in revenue for the states and federal government. Lower the cost of gas, and we lower how much money is collected in associated taxes.

Ever wonder why gas is sold with prices like $2.129 a gallon? Because not so long ago, gas was selling for pennies a gallon. To compete, stations began selling for tenths of a cent as a marketing ploy. Today, they continue it because most people will think $2.139 is less than $2.14 a gallon, which is what it actually would sell for. Basic sales psychology. People am stupid that way.

Whatever. But BJ pointed out something interesting: New York state charges 50.25 cents per gallon in taxes. Add to this the 18.4 cents per gallon the feds slap on, and this means New York state residents are paying 68.65 cents per gallon in taxes; if gas costs about $2.23 at the pump, New York state residents are being gouged 30% at the pump…higher than their federal and state income taxes combined.*

Assuming that poor folks buy as much gas as rich folks do (a reasonable assumption), the poor are being killed by these gas taxes.** BJ adds that unlike sin taxes, which you can avoid by neither drinking nor smoking, you can’t avoid the gas tax.

Well, sure you can—you can avoid it by not driving. That’s one of the hallmarks of liberal thought: if we all took mass transportation and biked everywhere, we could avoid any and all gas taxes. Of course, this is a farce: if you use mass transportation, you pay for the gas taxes in the form of increased fairs. Unless you go socialist and the state subsidizes everything.

But of course, then we all pay gas taxes, even those few who can survive biking everywhere. If you have a family of four, good luck biking home with $180 worth of groceries. Alas, then, liberals will remind you that if you didn’t have a family at all, you can avoid that, too.

So the concept is that gas taxes hurt everybody, but eat up a higher percentage of the poor’s income. They can’t bike everywhere or take a bus or train to their two jobs. This is how stupid it all is: in theory, if everyone could bike or train everywhere, only then would gas tax revenue drop to zero—then the statists will complain about a loss of revenue.

Gas taxes are a sin tax—the sin of not being a green eco-nut who walks everywhere in his tiny, lonely life. We can’t forget that environmentalists who want us back living in caves and starving to death on grapes are one of the liberals’ big constituencies because no one else can stand them.

BJ is forgetting one thing, though: there’s a lot more tax paid on gasoline than this. Don’t forget that the gas you buy at the pump was purchased by the owner/operator of the station. He’s paid a fair amount in sales tax for it. And he doesn’t buy his gas from the refineries: he purchased it from a distributor. That distributor? Yeah, she paid a bunch in sales taxes buying from a variety of terminals.

Don’t be fooled: gasoline generates an inconceivable amount of income for local, state, and the feds. It’s doubtful anyone will step up and fix that, or we’d all be paying about eighty cents a gallon again. Liberals think they’re saving the world by discouraging people from buying gas; the reality would make them pissed off, too.

* California pays almost a buck per gallon taxes, federal and state combined.

** Forty cents per gallon go to earmarks unrelated to road and highway maintenance. So if anyone tells you that gas taxes are needed to pay for infrastructure, remind them that very little of the revenues make it to the infrastructure. And gas taxes account for only about a quarter of the revenues going to such maintenance! Most of the gas tax money is going to cowboy poetry festivals.

Anyone can learn to play the harp. Here’s someone who looks suspiciously like a Shemp-era Larry Fine playing the harp. With two hands, no less.

Ever attend a really swag-time event, like a nurse’s cap ceremony or a fraternity initiation, or ever walk into the ladies room by mistake, and fall in love with the wonderful harp music filling the air? Bet you have, and wouldn’t it be awesome if you—yes, you, Jerry Morgan of 1511 West Adamsley of Lake Perch, Iowa—could play the harp like that?

Playing the harp is easy! Basically every harp performance boils down to these three steps:

1. Look at the music for the song you want to play
2. Match the appropriate note on the sheet music to the string on the harp
3. Pluck the appropriate strings in the order they appear on the sheet music

That’s easy! Gosh, even a moron with no musical sense at all could do that instead of always being the drummer. With this essay, the Czar will show you how you can play the harp.

First, you need to understand the parts of the instrument. The harp is generally a big golden yellow frame with a bunch of vertical strings. If your harp has only horizontal strings, turn it 90° upright. If your harp has no strings, you should entertain the idea that whatever it is you’re holding at the moment may not be a harp.

See the different colored strings? Jamming your fingers into them might not be the best way to play. Also note that playing the harp apparently makes your hands really ugly.

There are two types of harp: the pedal and the lever harp. There may actually be several more types of harps than this, but that would require substantially more research than the Czar is planning to do on this post.

Longer strings produce deeper notes, and shorter strings produce higher notes. Using measuring tape, carefully measure out all the strings to be certain the longer ones are at one end, and the shorter ones are at the other.

You wouldn’t know it to merely look at pictures of a harp on the internet like we did, but actually the strings on a harp are different colors. This is because professional harp players with decades of experience have no clue how to tell the strings apart, either. You think you’re dumb? Anyhow, all the red strings are C notes, and all the blue strings are F notes. The other strings are similar colors, often the natural color of whatever the strings was made out of. ‘Puter, we learned after he fell asleep in the Castle lobby, has a leopard-print G string. Imagine how that sounds? Sure didn’t smell all that great.

Okay, you’re asking no one, so that means after the red string comes a D and an E, then the blue string (F), and then the G, A, and B strings. So how do you do sharps and flats on a harp, or are harp players eternally cursed to play “Yankee Doodle” over and over in a C major scale like the harp is some $20,000 wood and brass Flutophone?

Be careful when playing that you don’t get your head stuck in it. This poor professional (most harp players are destitute) has been dragging this around for weeks now, claiming it’s an earring. We know better.

Well, the lever harps fix this by having you stomp on a lever. This causes the strings to stretch or slacken by a half step or so, so that you can do your damn sharps and flat. In a piece with a lot of sharps and flat, heck, this can be a lot of work. And the pedal harps can change all the strings to a new key entirely. Feel free to mess around with this until nobody understands what the hell you’re doing.

So if you have a piece written in D♭, you better learn to read music in C♯ on the fly because there is no different setting between the two. Which brings up a point: having really good knowledge of music might be a good thing to have when learning to play the harp.

That’s about all there is! As a result, the harp is probably among the easiest of all incredibly difficult instruments to play. The Czar is quite confident you can play a harp as well as he can, even though he’s never actually touched one.

‘Puter promised there’d be a Part II to his exegetical study of the New York Times lead editorial When New York City Police Walk Off the Job. In Part I, ‘Puter roundly denounced the NYPD for their not-so-sub-rosa strike.* In Part II, ‘Puter will break up the intellectual circle jerk that is the editors’ suite at the New York Times.

Where to begin? How about with this with this gem: “…the reasons for the plunge [in arrests for petty crimes] are not entirely clear. But it is so steep and sudden as to suggest a dangerous, deplorable escalation of the police confrontation with the de Blasio administration.”

‘Puter’s never been to a fancy pants journalism school. ‘Puter’s just an ordinary, run of the mill unfrozen caveman lawyer, but he does know this. Using the editorial page of arguably the nation’s largest daily newspaper to attack a city’s police force based on what one admits is a wild-assed guess is journalistic malpractice.

Yes, ‘Puter knows you put a disclaimer in there. Yes, ‘Puter knows (and agrees) it’s more likely than not the NYPD is ceasing law enforcement in protest of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s near-communist world view. But for Pete’s sake, editors. You have a duty to the public – even on the editorial pages – to make sure you’ve got your facts right before impugning an entire class of city workers.

The editors go on to accuse the NYPD of “a public act of extortion,” claiming the NYPD is overreacting to the perfectly sane, reasonable acts of a benevolent mayor. The editors then list Mayor de Blasio’s beneficent and/or innocent acts:

• Ended stop and frisk, which “victimized hundreds of thousands of innocent young black and Latino men”
• Called for an inspector general to oversee NYPD and ending racial profiling
• Gave alleged reverend Al Sharpton a seat at the table with the NYPD commissioner after the death of Eric Garner
• Told his multi-/bi-racial son Dante to “take special care” in encounters with the police
• Supported anti-police protests (and condemned violent protests), using the so-called movement’s catch phrase “black lives matter.”

On stop and frisk, the editors lie through omission. The prior administration had appealed an ill-considered and generally piss-poor federal court decision on stop and frisk’s legality. In fact, the court’s decision was so bad, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit practically begged New York to file an appeal of the decision so it could be corrected before it did greater harm. The editors conveniently omit telling readers Mayor de Blasio on taking office pulled the appeal over the NYPD’s vociferous objections before the Second Circuit could reverse a liberal, biased lower court decision.

As to the victimization of “hundreds of thousands” of minorities, ‘Puter simply replies “shenanigans.” First, you’re not a victim if a cop legally stops you and frisks you. Stop and frisk is a vitally important law enforcement tool, but one that needs to be judiciously applied so as to avoid racial discrimination. You are not a victim if no harm comes to you, and assuming police properly apply (and applied) stop and frisk, you’ve suffered no constitutional harm. Second, “hundreds of thousands” is up to about 15% of New Yorkers getting stopped and frisked. If we limit the pool of stop and frisk “victims” to youngish male minorities, we’re talking a much higher percentage. Again, ‘Puter calls shenanigans on the New York Times’ wishful thinking.

‘Puter’s cool with an inspector general over the NYPD, but the last thing New York needs is more do-nothing, unionized government workers. There’s already a process in place for reviewing police actions, up to and including criminal indictment for malfeasance. Layering another useless process on an already too complex system only harms accountability.

The editors and Mayor de Blasio, in claiming to “end racial profiling,” accuse the NYPD of racial profiling. This is a false accusation. Do some cops impermissibly racially profile? Yes, and those police violate law and the Constitution and should be fired. But the NYPD does not condone racial profiling. It does not teach racial profiling and it does not racially profile. The NYPD’s racial makeup closely mirrors that of the City itself. For Mayor de Blasio’s unfounded accusation to be true, we must assume that nearly half of the NYPD that isn’t White goes along with unwritten, double-secret NYPD orders to violate the rights of their own racial groups. To say this is unlikely is to be polite to Mayor de Blasio and the New York Times.

Al Sharpton is a bigoted, racist, smarmy, tax evading, criminal bastard whose biggest contribution to American society would be to toss himself off the Brooklyn Bridge. To invite Sharpton to sit at a table with the NYPD’s commissioner to discuss racial issues would be equivalent to inviting the Klan’s Grand Dragon to a meeting with the NAACP’s president. It’s so strikingly, obviously incendiary that no sane person – much less the frikkin’ mayor of New York City – should ever consider doing so. Yet that’s exactly what Mayor de Blasio did. The NYPD was rightly incensed at the mayor’s provocative act regardless of whether the mayor’s act was intentional or stupid.

It’s common sense for a parent of any child to tell them to “take special care” when interacting with police. ‘Puter, a middle-aged White father of two teenagers, has had the same danged discussion with his children. ‘Puter tells his sons to always be polite to cops and obey their orders, regardless of the legality or reasonableness of such orders. The time to have the fight over constitutional issues isn’t in the heat of the moment, especially when your opponent: (1) is armored and armed; (2) can call in many other armed friends; and (3) has the authority of law on his side. Cops can be wrong and stupid, but telling them so isn’t going to get you anything but arrested if you’re lucky, roughed up if you’re unlucky and shot if you’ve got ‘Puter’s luck. It’s fine for Mayor de Blasio to have this discussion with his son. What’s not alright is for Mayor de Blasio to have the same frikkin’ discussion at a press conference. It’s irresponsible, and the mayor’s ill-advised words painted the entire NYPD as thuggish bigots. The mayor should’ve known better, and it’s telling he didn’t.

Mayor de Blasio’s words and actions gave succor to allegedly peaceful protestors. In ‘Puter’s small mind, it’s not a peaceful protest when you block traffic in an effort to grind America’s financial capital to a halt. It’s not a peaceful protest when “protestors” chant about wanting cops killed, and right now, dammit. It may have been prudent to not call in the riot squad to break up these protests, but it’s not prudent to refuse to denounce the illegal acts of the so-called peaceful protestors. Mayor de Blasio’s sympathetic words and inaction emboldened protestors, and may have inadvertently encouraged the deranged man who gunned down two cops in cold blood. For that alone, the mayor deserves our contempt.

The New York Times editors are so biased and blinkered they’re willing to throw the entire police force under the bus in support of a unprepared, unprofessional and cowardly mayor. And for what? A return to the New York City of the 1970s and early 1980s?

‘Puter remembers those days. Anyone who wants to go back there is an idiot. Or, perhaps, an editor for the New York Times.

* ‘Puter thinks Shakespeare put it best when he wrote “A strike by any other name is still a strike, now get back to work, you shiftless, overpaid, gold-plated benefit receiving public ‘servants.’”**

** ‘Puter really, really hates public sector unions. Has he mentioned that recently?

By now, everybody should be familiar with JournoList, a social media group of leading left-wing journalists who effectively conspired to control the narrative of news; they had over 400 members (founder Ezra Klien claimed the actual number was almost twice that), and when the group’s messages were exposed, boy, was there a lot to clean up.

Various social media groups like this still exist, although obviously the members are smarter about getting exposed. That certain news stories are exposed, repressed, dismissed, ignored, or intentionally misreported according to predictable templates is evident.

A recent example of this is the meteoric mediocrity of Jeb Bush.

Today, all the pictures of Jeb Bush are like this, showing him smart, capable, and confident. Yeah, you could see this guy as President, right?

Who wants this guy president? Not the GOP voters, who have an interesting and varied selection of potential candidates ranging the Christ Christie to Ted Cruz spectrum. Heck, not even the GOP Establishment, who are considering re-running Mitt Romney ever since clipboard poll numbers show he would easily beat Barack Obama if the 2012 election could be held today. In case you missed it, the 2012 election was actually held two years ago, and Mitt Romney didn’t beat him, Karl Rove whining on live television to the contrary.

So why the flurry of media attention on Jeb Bush? For one practical reason, he’s one of the very few candidates who is making clear signs of running. In fact, his entire playbook is from the old school GOP playbook: resign your positions, write books and articles about economic and foreign policy decisions, line up backers, announce your candidacy nice and early, and sit back while the liberal democrats destroy you in popular media.

The GOP candidates most likely to run aren’t doing this anymore. Under strong encouragement from Reince Priebus, who seems to have bothered watching the trends for lessons, potential candidates are working very quietly. Diversions are popular: candidates who have no chance are making vague comments and signals about running, drawing fire and criticism from liberal media who have no idea what’s going on anymore with these Republicans.

And there’s more to come: when candidates do declare, they will participate in very few debates; those that do will ensure the moderators are pre-approved in friendy venues. No more Candi Crowley corrections (“Governor Romney, I’m sorry, but that’s not our current narrative right now.”). No more lengthy opportunities for new publications to paste out-take photos of Michele Bachmann on magazine covers, showing her seemingly dazed and bewildered by simple questions. No more opportunities for outlets to quote Tina Fey as a first-hand source for Sarah Palin.

Now, if you were the media and you were writing the script for what you want to happen, what would that be?

For starters, you want Senator Warren to be your candidate. She’s so awesome: a hard-core leftist, anti-business, extremist who never met a dumbass academic theory she didn’t like. She’s like Obama, but better, because she’s not as stuck up.

And after Bush decides maybe the media are right, maybe he could win, you’ll see pictures of him like this. What a dork. Why would you vote for this guy?

Certainly not Hillary Clinton. As Mandarin said yesterday, what’s going to happen to her when the media decide she’s a threat to Warren? Odds are good, he theorized, we might finally find out what happened with Whitewater. After all, she resents the way the media treated her in 2008, and resents the way they treated her husband in his second term (remember, when he decided to capitulate to Republicans, and suddenly he was a shitty president who molested an intern?). Clinton loathes the media; she is not for them. They are certainly not for her.

All right, but here’s the problem: Senator Warren is a very weak presidential candidate. Voters see her as the same as Obama, but whereas has legitimately black ancestry, Warren is a stone-cold liar who continues to insist she’s got an American Indian fingernail despite all evidence to the contrary. Why on earth would America vote for her?

Well, you know, they might if the alternative is Jeb Bush. He’s the weakest of the candidates most likely to run: Rubio and Walker are popular, Christie is a bulldozer when he wants to be, and Americans are starting to grok Cruz and Paul. Romney is insistent he’s through. So yeah—Jeb Bush is the guy who runs the hobby shop on the corner: nice enough and all, but not the guy you want making tough decisions.

All right, so if it’s Jeb Bush, so be it. Now: how do you get him to run? Because, let’s not forget, he hasn’t said he’s running. That’s easy: the media will draft him. They will exaggerate or over-report every story about his candidacy. Editorials: is Jeb Bush inevitable? Why Jeb Bush could be the next president! Say…what’s Jeb Bush up to, anyway? Eventually, like Mitt Romney, he might actually believe in his own legitimacy. Heck, he could do it!

Of course, look at all these pictures of Senator Warren being tough and decisive. Maybe, the media hope, you’ll vote for tough and decisive instead of dorky and putzy up there. It’s your choice, the media tell you. They certainly aren’t going to choose for you. Would they? Photo courtesy a very friendly and classy Tim Pierce, who wrote us a pleasant note.

Next, run Bush against a whole bunch of imaginary monsters. This is called hero building, and the media are already doing it. Of course, these are called “straw polls,” and they are solely used for this. Did you know Jeb Bush came up first in a recent straw polls against all other potential Republican candidates? Of course you did: the media have been chanting it.

By the way, who were the other candidates? No one has declared. Well, in the absence of actual candidates, the media picked them for you. Chris Christie. Ben Carson. Rand Paul. Mike Huckabee. See anything odd about these guys? That’s right: none of these guys are who Republican voters are really talking about.

Sure, they’re talking about Christie and Paul, but Christie is not likely to go far because he’s viewed as off-putting outside the mid-Atlantic. Rand Paul is great and all, but he’s running what the Czar believes is a very flawed campaign with erratic results. Ben Carson and Mike Huckabee? Seriously? The media should have run Jeb Bush against Robin Hood, Miss Piggy, Ed Grimley, R2-D2, and the Muffin Man.

But this won’t matter. Already you are seeing headlines like “Jeb Bush Dominates Straw Poll!” Want to know why? Because this worked to get Mitt Romney—who was way behind in 2011—to the top of the pile. The guy who practically started the idea of Obamacare. You don’t get more flawed than that.*

Americans don’t like to vote for likely losers. If a flawed candidate is leading the polls by a large margin over a better candidate, most voters will choose the guy in the lead.

The media is urgently drafting Jeb Bush because he is the Mitt (“Obamacare”) Romney for immigration reform. The media has done enough research to know that, of all possible GOP presidential candidates in 2016, Jeb Bush supplies the most material to destroy him in the popular media.

And by doing so, independents will likely drift towards voting for Senator Warren. After all, they’re hearing nothing bad about her in the news, as social media groups agree not to talk about her crazy economic theories based on a professor she met in 1976, or her ridiculous claims of ancestry, or her embarrassing business relationships.

If you want to get Elizabeth Warran elected in 2016, you do whatever you can to promote the idea that Jeb Bush is leading the GOP.

*Well, Donald Trump, obviously. But for a long time, the media was pushing him as well.

This (and this) is why middle class Americans can’t have nice things.

“But ‘Puter, why should we care about consumer mortgage servicing companies? They’re the rat bastards Sen. Pocahontas Warren wants to shut down for being meanies who make us repay our government guaranteed home mortgages! And what the hell is an Ocwen, anyway?” you cry.

First, you should care about Ocwen, boys and girls. You should care very much. Ocwen’s the big, fat, 12 foot tall, 1,400 pound home mortgage servicing canary in the consumer lending coal mine. And this big, fat canary’s being asphyxiated by government regulations’ toxic stank.

Second, “Ocwen” is simply “New Co.” spelled backwards. “New Co.” is legal slang for a new company (see how tricky lawyers are?) formed for a specific purpose, frequently to insulate a parent corporation from liability associated with the assets to be held by the New Co. Some joker at Ocwen probably thought the name inversion was a cute idea, so we now have Ocwen.

New York’s execrable regulators, in this case New York’s Superintendent of Financial Services Benjamin Lawsky, jawboned Ocwen into a $150 million settlement over 283 misdated letters.* You read that right. New York beat up and forced a publicly traded company to shell out $150 million to the state for getting some dates wrong.

Lawsky claims the improperly dated letters prevented these homeowners from receiving mortgage modifications to which they would otherwise be entitled. “Why would anyone be entitled to a mortgage modification if they’d defaulted on their mortgage in the first place?” you sensibly ask. Well, because of overweening federal and state regulations dictating in excruciating detail the actions a lender must take before it can foreclose on a homeowner in default.

And there’s the problem. New York didn’t come forward with people actually harmed by Ocwen’s error (or purposeful act, according to Mr. Lawsky’s white-spatted thugs). New York simply claimed Ocwen’s error ran afoul of regulations, leaving Ocwen to choose between fighting its regulators for years at a legal and reputational cost of millions of dollars or settling quickly and perhaps saving its skin. Ocwen chose to settle.

What’s the fallout been like for Ocwen? Well, Ocwen’s longtime CEO William C. Erbey “agreed to step down,” which is corporate speak for “forced out like the Klan at an NAACP meeting.” More tellingly, Ocwen’s new CEO announced last week the company “will withdraw from the business of servicing mortgages backed by the U.S. government.” No more VA or FHA guaranteed loans for Ocwen. This also means one less servicer for government guaranteed mortgages.

Ocwen looked at the lay of the land and made the business decision that cutting its regulatory exposure and forgoing significant revenue was a better choice than living with the ever-present regulatory Sword of Damocles arbitrarily (whimsically, ‘Puter’d say) threatening its existence.

So we’re back to ‘Puter’s original point: government regulators harm America’s middle class.

New York’s thuggish know-it-alls (aided and abetted by their Sen. Pocahontas Warren approved CFPB big brothers) sent a clear signal to all servicers of consumer mortgage debt. If mortgage servicers run afoul of even the most esoteric regulation in the slightest manner, New York will punish you out of all proportion to your alleged crime.

Ocwen is, ‘Puter’s certain, one of many financial industry companies limiting risk to shareholders by exiting heavily regulated markets altogether. When service providers (consumer mortgage servicers here) exit markets, prices rise. If it costs banks more to service your mortgage over time (whether in house or through a third party provider like Ocwen), those costs get passed on to consumers in the form of higher interest rates, increased fees and charges or both.

In the aftermath of the Ginormous Financial Meltdown of 2008, regulators took “something must be done, and we’re just the idiots to do it” to its logical extreme. In the name of making the lending world safer for average Americans, regulators have decreased the availability of credit. Lenders view (rightly) increased regulations and heightened scrutiny as both an increased cost and an increased risk, so lenders shut off the tap to all but the best credit risks with generous down payments until the dust settled. The mortgage pipeline still hasn’t returned to normal.

New York’s treatment of Ocwen will do nothing but compound lenders’ and servicers’ rational fears of regulatory bullying and giant potential liabilities. Credit for middle class Americans will shrivel further and you can thank shortsighted, politically motivated government regulators and their Democrat enablers for it.

Reap the bitter fruit you’ve sown, America.

* Nota bene: Ocwen has more than 2.8 million loans in its servicing portfolio. According to ‘Puter’s Piss Poor Math^TM, the loans at issue equal a whopping 0.01% of its total loans under management. Clearly, $150 million (about $500,000.00 per loan) is a fair penalty to levy for a date error.

At the very least, you can bet that Mark Spahn (did you know he hails from West Seneca, new York? We did!) stimulates no end of discussion among the Gormogonorati. A couple days back, he asked the Czar about the nature of Christmas songs, and whether they really are so specific to Christmas or just generalized Winter songs.

The Czar indicated that he, um, goofed off for a short while with Christina Rossetti, as well as Emily Dickinson (not at the same time, although that might have been a blast). The Czar mentioned he found Ms. Dickinson—at least in the 1860s—to be a bit of a party animal. This alarmed Nightfly, who hurriedly wrote in:

Two minor points of interest. First, the Czar was hanging out with Ms. Dickinson in the summer of 1861, when she was just thirty and the Czar was just 594 years old. So that was after the setting of the story, which would explain it. The Czar thinks she remained a bit carefree and wild well after her summer of cray-cray with us, but whatever.

Second, your story is just fiction. The Czar, of course, really knew her. Did you know she couldn’t stand the thought of pickled herring? Bet you never found that written anywhere else.

Wait, what’s this, now?

Excellent research as always, even down to identifying that Mark Spahn is from West Seneca, New York.

The Czar might add a song from his childhood, «Ноги Мула есть Бородавки», or “The Legs of the Mule Have Warts,” which is not specifically a Christmas song, but the lyrics were changed to account for the animal carrying Mary had to stop at that particular manger.

The Czar enjoys receiving messages from Mark Spahn, of West Seneca, New York, because they invariably start in medias res.

The Czar is of course much relieved that Mark Spahn, of West Seneca, New York, wrote him about this, rather than GorT. When one speaks to GorT of scanning meters, one usually receives precise laser measurements to a variety of distant objects. The Czar of course understands what Mr. Spahn’s concerns are in real time, given the Czar’s deep knowledge of literature and music.

Of course, when analyzing the meter of songs, one should be looking more toward the beat. Describing the prosody of “I Want a Hippopotamus For Christmas” is forced and complicated: a repeating iamb trochee pentameter combination ending in a bacchius. However, there are so many variations from verse to verse that you hurt yourself trying.

Rossetti had it going on in her early days. Take our word for it.

Easier to describe it in musical beat terms, though, and you have one of the basic reggae rockers beats, even though these tunes were set down well before Burning Spear was around. ♩.♪♩.♪♩.♪♩.♪, and so on, with emphasis on the first two notes of the measure, and eighth notes on the even counts. You hear pieces of it in songs ranging from the “Don’t Get Me Wrong” to “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” to the Doctor Who theme, as it’s a simple syncopated beat. Add a polka beat to it, and you have everything you need for an entire Lawrence Welk special (“A-one and a-two and a-three and a-four!”).

As for the timeliness of songs, well, that’s commercialism for you. But when the Czar says commercialism, he means it: the song’s lyrics were penned for cash by one of the Czar’s favorite poets, Christina Rossetti—who was far more the party animal than is generally portrayed. She wrote it for Christmas, and when turned into a song by no less than Gustav Holst (who also used a variation of the syncopated beat described above in 5/4 time for his classic “Mars, the Bringer of War”) the piece was assumed to be a Christmas tune and nothing more. She was well past the Czar when she wrote that in 1872, of course, and perhaps that’s why she was so bleak about the holidays.

By the way, Rossetti was not the only poet the Czar has known in his many years, by the way. In a stranger phase years later, the Czar used to, shall we say, hang around with Emily Dickinson. She was quite the frisky one and had a crazed fascination for the song “Yellow Rose of Texas,” which she sang to us constantly, and why every single one of her poems can be sung to its tune. She made no secret of this, as you will see by idle Googling, but the odds are good most readers heard this from the Czar, first.

That you can sing it to other tune is a shocking coincidence to be sure. She watched very little television in the morning, if you get our meaning.

Is this you? Sure it’s you. It’s totally you. You can admit it. Go ahead. Own it.

It’s a well-known fact in technology circles that all i-devices, like the iPhone, iPad, iPod, and PudThaI, are virtually identical devices that all do exactly the same things and have precisely the same parts in size.

it’s also true that eventually your iPad (or whatever) will suffer damage—a drop, a kick, a well-aimed .50 caliber round finally and deservedly put through the center of it. And as you know, Apple will happily charge you up to several hundred thousand dollars just to sneer at it and remind you that you should have bought the current model which prevents exactly that sort of thing.

Well, don’t throw your money away! Of course, no one actually really does that, do they? But even figuratively or literally, don’t throw your money away! The Czar will use his copious experience of smashing iPads into pieces to show you how you can repair your own iPad for little money.

It’s as easy as opening the device, fixing the broken parts, and closing it back up again! 1-2-3! Anyone can do this.

The second thing to do is get it open. You can’t fix much on an iPad from the outside, so come back into the house and open her up. To do this, use a reciprocating saw and cut right down the center of the iPad housing.

Remove the central processor taking care not to nick the aorta.

Once the iPad is open, carefully peel away any of the layers of fat. As an aside, you can count the rings on the inside of the glass front to determine the exact age of your iPad. Thicker rings account for fast-growth years, and thinner rings reveal a time of less water. Interestingly, this exact sort of science is behind climate change study proposals.

Remove the central processor of the iPad by unlatching it. It’s easy to recognize: it is a large, thirty-foot-tall structure with plasma bolts shooting from it. Be sure you do not decouple the Krell safety latch marked in orange or you will unleash a psychic beast from the id.

With the processor off and in your hand, blow any dust or debris away from the base. Some debris, especially if it is very ancient, can be valuable so vacuum with care.

Now is a good time to change your iPad’s air filter if you use it outdoors. Upgrade the air intake, too.

Twist the hood cover bolts counter-clockwise (lefty loosey), and raise the hood. The engine block is accessible easily. On iPad Airs, the clamshell hood opens from left to right; all other iPad hoods raise from right to left.

Detach the muffler and blow into it. If the muffler is clean, it should emit a low, soothing trombone-like sound. Experiment with placing your fingers over the various holes. Some iPad repair experts can do chromatic scales up and down quite rapidly; the Czar has never managed this feat and at best can honk out “Mary Had a Little Lamb.” Or the alphabet song; you never can tell.

With the spark plugs exposed, now would be a good time to change them. The iPad uses CJ8 plugs, available at any home improvement store or automotive store. Don’t buy the Apple spark plugs: they cost twice what they should. Like Hello Kitty apparel. By the way, if you can get Hello Kitty spark plugs, a portion of that goes right into the Czar’s pocket.

IPad repair can be done with standard household tools, provided your definition of standard includes reciprocating saws. And it oughta.

Change all fluids in the iPad at this time. Apple has made this easier with the iPad: you can now just pour a cup of water into it and the fluids will all go right where they are supposed to. Blot up any excess.

Rubbing bow string wax carefully between your fingers to soften it, apply a light coating of the wax to the string. Be sure to work the wax into the individual fibers of the string until any fuzzy pieces are smoothed away. Your string should look shiny and new. Do not apply wax to the serving. If you elect to replace the string, note the iPad only uses synthetic strings. Rather than busy yourself unnecessarily with the Cupertino knot, yes: you can use a regular Flemish knot to reattach the string.

All right, that’s about it. Replace the central processor and muffler in the reverse order and latch it all down. Seal the case with WD-40 to keep rain out of it, taking care to ensure no WD-40 gets into the rubberized Wifi port. Boot up your iPad.

Apple often gets a bad rap for being difficult to troubleshoot, but basically all their devices work the same.

At the Apple logo, be sure to recalibrate the digitizer panel by refreshing the cache configuration settings, and renew any licensing lease on the DMS applet by releasing the SSID. That’s pretty much all there is to it.

And enjoy your like-brand-new iPad. For best results, place it back into its original box, and set it on a shelf for the next couple years.

Operative TexasAggie (who is obviously some sort of Longhorns fan with a perverse sense of destiny and ritualized self-humiliation), asks an interesting but easily answered question:

Nada is correcto. And readers, there is nothing to wonder about or argue in this case.

When armed Libyan citizens attacked the Benghazi compound, which was American soil, and murdered the ambassador, that was an overt act of war. The President did nothing.

Given the Sony hack was much less catastrophic in terms of lives lost, the President will again do nothing. Since he blamed the compound attack on a YouTube video, perhaps he will blame the Sony hack on the popularity of Korean barbecue places.

Well, the Czar needs to get these out of his inbox and up for the readership before they get any more out of date:

And…

The powerful pug is more than capable of eating a crocodile from the inside out.

The Czar refers all questions directed to Dr. J. to, well, Dr. J.

Regarding the Sony hack, the Czar’s official position is that it was an illegal action, and the Czar is not happy to hear about all of Sony’s property being dumped on the market. The Czar would take no delight in a member of the neighborhood having her home invaded and personal assets dumped onto the street, either.

That said, the news that a couple of Hollywood executives were exposed as jackasses? Not news in anyway. The Czar will clue in the MSM, here: Hollywood jackasses have been jackasses for over a century.

Ἡ γλῶσσᾰ ελληνικά ἐστί γλῶσσα ἂπεφθα, ἂξιος σἑβασως καἱ μᾰθηως, and you know it.

The Czar left the Castle day room, mildly bothered by the smell of Dr. J. using Force Lightning to raise the thermostat and Leng clouds brought a chill on the moor. Yes, we now have a moor; Volgi put one in just before the first Fall frost. It’s coming along nicely. A bit more fog would be nice, but nothing Mandarin’s advector ray couldn’t whip up.

Meanwhile, the minion in charge of the moor implant had this to say:

Hard to believe, no, that this is even a subject of debate in some circles? Organized police forces, sorry to say, have always suffered problems with corruption and bad (if not evil) cops. But you know where in history we’ve had the least problems with law enforcement? That’s right—today. We have fewer bad cops on the streets today than ever. Estimates from difference sources put the “problem” cop percentage in single-digit numbers. Maybe 8-10% of cops have issues, which is a woefully high number—but that number is much lower than the number of dangerous civilians out challenging them. In other words, cops do a better job of weeding out morons than society does. Creepy, when we put it like that.

But yes—there is, for want of a much better phrase, a social contract between cops and civilians. The former seems to be understanding it more and more, the latter less and less. But of course, the bigger governments become—at any level—the worse the law enforcement abuses become.

And naturally, here is a rambling screed from Operative BJ, who (a) apologized for its length up front, and (b) suggested the Czar should break it up into smaller chunks. Screw that. We had to read it; you can read it. BJ needs his own blog.

Well, only a couple of thoughts.

The document released by the Senate is a serious blow to American foreign policy. It may be one of the most bone-headed, ant-American ideas ever. Of course, the Czar has this nagging, persistent suspicion that the Democrats have come to believe they will lose the presidency in 2016. And they have decided to screw the next president. Badly. Why else would you release this now, of all times?

Interestingly, the press isn’t actually biting. Indeed, the main stream media is in a bit of a tantrum right now, following the President’s profanity-laced admonition last week. Didn’t hear about this? Well, it happened, and the word on the street is that they are ever so annoyed with President Obama scolding them that they have decided not to cover him on this one. In fact, an increasing number of reports are criticizing the report’s veracity.

One guesses if you’re going to put out an ill-conceived, barely factual, mostly fictitious load of crap, maybe giving it to the media the week after the Rolling Stone fiasco proved the media haven’t been doing their jobs was bad timing.

Speaking of which, no—heads will not roll at Rolling Stone. They will have learned nothing from this because they never have. Ask David Petraeus. A bunch of potheads doing responsible reporting? That doesn’t even occur at WaPo.

Letters, letters. The Czar is like a magnet for these things, and wonders whether his Castle Colleagues are as sufficiently bugged. But then, the Czar suspects the responses would be something along these lines:

Fan: Just a quick note to say how much we all love you guys.

‘Puter: Thanks back, asshat. Hey, you want to have a serious vomit sometime, try equal parts chili garlic sauce and cinnamon whiskey. Guaranteed up chuck. I’m drinking one now!

Volgi: Sigh. I got a rock. No one ever writes me.

Mandarin: Obey me. You’re welcome. Obey me.

GorT: Contrary to the Czar’s satire, this unit does indeed receive a significant amount of fan mail. However, quick analysis shows that none of it is worth re-publishing. The editing alone would take precious nanoseconds. End of line.

Dr. J.: Hey, what the heck? I answer all my fan mail, too, jackass. Just like you.

That out of our system, we received an email from JAB. Yes! She from the Double-Wide, who writes of differential equations:

Not much left for the Czar to comment here, as JAB hsa done her usual thorough job. In point of fact, as of this writing, Rolling Stone has not retracted, the story, but merely issued a statement that they no longer stand behind it. In other words, “Yeah, we decided to do our job after the fact and none of the facts checked out. But we’ll leave it up there because it still serves the narrative that white college kids are rape-happy.” Or some such.

Meanwhile, the main stream media has done what needed to be done: they made this a story about themselves. Look how many online editorials, columns, and think-pieces are now revolving around the same theme: “Our publication would certainly checked the details first, and would never have run with such a fabrication. Tut-tut, Rolling Stone, not that we ever considered you a legitimate news source since your kid reporters all went to the wrong schools.” In other words, “Rolling Stone is proof our publication is better.” The MSM is capitalizing on this story for self-marketing purposes now.

The real story here is that, from what we can tell, only the leftist MSM outlets believed this story at first; the American public shrugged and reminded themselves that no one seriously believes the media anymore about anything. If there was truth to this story, Jon Stewart would have ambushed some fraternity kids in a mock interview for comedic effect.

Yeah, yeah. Intelligent people are sick and tired of Jon Stewart being confused as a real news source. It isn’t his fault. The American press is so bad right now that people would rather get fake news from The Daily Show than sift through pages of undergraduate crap from the big names. The Daily Show is the product of the overall MSM failure, not an example of it.

Rant over. On another point, the Czar is well aware that some women…how to put this…promote rape stories about themselves. They often follow a pattern: they claim (falsely or not) to have been victims of sexual abuse as a child, and then tell a lurid, weirdly detailed story about being raped as an adult. The details are more consistent with a fantasy—colorful dialogue, bizarre sexual practices, descriptions of clothing and sights and sounds and smells—more appropriate for fiction than reality. Think about this: if you have ever been involved in a horrible tragedy or attack, your narrative description is totally unlike fiction. You don’t remember details like dialogue or what people necessarily wore. You remember small, odd details that present themselves, yes, but not detailed descriptions. You remember gross motions, not fine details. Know what we mean? The tone of her account was off, and no doubt the cops were wise within seconds that she was fabricating the story. It’s an attention-getting device, usually to gain unwarranted sympathy. This seems to be another such case here, which indeed—as many have pointed out—detracts from real accusations. But what are ya gonna do? Men do it too (“Dear editor….I never thought this would happen to me…”), and both men and women have made up these stories for thousands of years. It isn’t going to stop now.

Given that enrollment and UVA is allegedly down over this story, and the otherwise decent fraternity ΦΚΨ has been ruined forever, she will certainly be sued. She wanted to be a victim—well, there are expensive attorneys now about to make her a real one.

On a totally different note, Operative BJ writes in:

Not much to say. The Czar does not recall if he is on record or not for this, but let him forever be so now: Al Sharpton, like his close competitor Jesse Jackson, are nothing more than professional con men. They have never been honest with themselves or others, and look out only for themselves. They are deceitful, unpleasant, and very small men. Yes, the Czar has encountered Jackson personally and found the reality matches his opinion too well.

Mr. Satan Santa Claus
The Claus Haus
North Pole (and not the stripper kind)
Arctic Ocean, Some Country 3.1415

Dear Satan Santa,

‘Puter has been really, really, extra-special good this year.

‘Puter feeds Sleestak nearly every other week, often before Sleestak collapses from starvation. Mind you, it’s difficult to tell when Sleestak’s hungry, since all he ever does is wander around hissing, but ‘Puter tried his best. ‘Puter also clipped Sleestak’s claws after Sleestak unintentionally (‘Puter thinks) disemboweled Volgi’s white Persian cat Mephistopheles. Fortunately, ‘Puter was able to replace Mephistopheles with that slightly rabid opossum that bit Dat Ho before Volgi noticed.

‘Puter let Dat Ho hide in ‘Puter’s Rumpus Room (conveniently located next to the Castle’s laundry facilities and fusion powered boiler room in the seventh sub-cellar) that one time when Czar was hunting Dat Ho with a blowgun for short sheeting Czar’s bed. Sure, ‘Puter immediately went and told Czar where Dat Ho was hiding, but it’s the thought that counts, right?

‘Puter even tipped the restroom attendant at the Leaping Peacock $2.37 (that’s all the money ‘Puter could shake out of the UNICEF donation bucket) after ‘Puter and Czar ruined the place during the ill-conceived “All You Can Eat and Drink Bean Burritos, Sauerkraut and Ipecac Irish Coffee Night.” Never issue a challenge like that to ‘Puter and Czar. It will not end well for anyone, especially the poor restroom attendant.

Anyway, ‘Puter knows Satan Santa Claus is a busy man, so down to business. ‘Puter would like, at a minimum, the following items:

• Eleven kegs of 16 penny nails, 522 pounds of ground glass and 15,000 ball bearings. ‘Puter is almost out of grapeshot for his punt gun, and it’s nearly duck season.
• One SA-21 Growler battery and sufficient missiles to down a squadron of the United Nations black helicopters that Czar says doesn’t exist. Stupid Czar.
• One Hello Kitty Digital AM/FM Clock Radio with Night Light like this one. Czar took ‘Puter’s old Hello Kitty night light because he said ‘Puter was too old to sleep with a night light. Stupid Czar.
• A Remington 1911 R1 Carry Commander and a Hello Kitty tanker holster. ‘Puter likes the upgraded features, and he needs a round a bit larger than the 9mm to keep Dat Ho out of ‘Puter’s stash of Hello Kitty animé. That scamp has a tough hide for a small Asian boy. Pew! Pew!
• Meat. Your choice, Satan Santa. ‘Puter knows that a fat guy must know his way around a meat locker.
• A Leaping Peacock gift card in the amount of eleventy gajillion dollars. In the event you don’t have eleventy gajillion dollars, just pay off ‘Puter’s bar tab instead.
• A handmade Black Watch, 3^rd Battalion, The Royal Regiment of Scotland (3 SCOTS) No. 1A ceremonial dress uniform, lovingly crafted by the finest military tailor in Edinburgh. ‘Puter’s not sure if you’re down with the British Military uniform regulations or not, so check out page 9 here.
• A Great Highland Bagpipe, to go with the aforementioned dress uniform. ‘Puter’s really been wanting a good set of bagpipes so he can make Czar’s dream of rerecording The Beatles’ White Album in Russian and Scots Gaelic using only balalaikas and bagpipes. Czar’s convinced it’s how John would’ve wanted it. Stupid Ringo.
• A hot tub, a tanker truck full of Diet Coke and fifteen pallets of Mentos. ‘Puter’s trying to get lucky with Fifi, the local bar wench down and the Leaping Peacock. Or is it Belinda ‘Puter’s trying to get lucky with? Hard to know. ‘Puter’d better ask Czar which one it is.
• Fifty ampules of penicillin, in case ‘Puter manages to get lucky with either Fifi or Belinda.
• A French maid’s outfit for ‘Puter’s personal secretary, Miss McGee. What? It’s what she asked for. ‘Puter guesses she’s got some dusting and cleaning to do around the rumpus room. Mrs. ‘Puter refused to pick one up for ‘Puter to give to Miss McGee. Someone’s going to have to get it, and ‘Puter’s too lazy to shop, so you’re up, Satan Santa.
• World peace. Ha! Fooled you! ‘Puter likes the world as messed up as it is now. It gives him something to get fired up and write about.
• Scale wax for Sleestak, along with a new set of claw clippers. The rascally bastard stole the last set of claw clippers and won’t tell ‘Puter where he’s put them.

So anyway Satan Santa, thanks in advance for all the presents ‘Puter’s sure you’ll get for him this year. And please make sure to bring all the other Gormogons everything they ask for, too.

Or else.

Merry Christmas,

‘Puter Gormogon

New York Democrats and their public sector union cronies hector us relentlessly, screeching “the rich”* should pay their “fair share.”**

‘Puter sat down and did himself some thinking on the topic. ‘Puter decided he hates hypocrites, and that he hates New York unionized public sector employee hypocrites more. So ‘Puter developed a simple two pronged plan to make sure every New York public sector employee pays his fair share.

First, repeal in its entirety the Retirement Credit for Union Officers on Leave of Absence Act of 1984 (see page 168 of linked booklet).*** Under this statute, teachers union officers can take leaves of absence (which seems to include release time) to work on union business provided it’s negotiated in a contract. Such employees receive full pay and full health and pension benefits. Unions are supposed to repay the school district the full cost of any such employee’s salary and benefits.

‘Puter has asked, but has never received a satisfactory answer as to whether his local school district charges back the union the full cost of the local union president’s release time at his full rate including pension and benefits costs.

If a teacher wants to be a part-time teacher and part-time union leader, by all means, let her do so. However, taxpayers should not be paying part-time teachers full time salary, full time health insurance benefits and full time pension benefits for work done for another employer, even if such other employer reimburses a school district in full.

‘Puter wonders in his artless Japanese way how many public sector unions are reporting income earned from two different employers, the school district and the union. Sure, the school district agrees to flow through salary and benefits to the teacher/union officer, but the school district is actually only the employer when the teacher is teaching.

Regardless, it is fundamentally unjust for public school teachers to accrue public pension benefits for time spent not in the classroom or helping kids, but spent in service of a private entity dedicated to concocting rules that harm children and fleece taxpayers. There is no rational basis for permitting a school teacher to work a part time job during school hours for a private employer. There is less of a basis for permitting such a teacher to accrue pension benefits in service to a private employer, his union.

If New York is dedicated to the notion private sector employees should receive public pension benefits, ‘Puter’s happy to join up for his big, fat pension. There’s no difference between allowing union employees to accrue public pension benefits and allowing Wall Street hedge fund multi-millionaires to accrue public pension benefits. Both union employees and hedge fund employees are serving private employers, not the public, and certainly not the children.

Second, repeal the exemption from state income tax on pension distributions to teachers (currently, tax rates are around 6.85% for a teacher rocking a full 30 year pension benefit). Why should teachers’ pensions be treated any differently than ‘Puter’s 401k distributions?

‘Puter must pay full state and federal income taxes on any distributions taken from his 401k. Yet ‘Puter’s wife gets a nearly seven percent kicker to her pension benefit funded by private sector retirees and current workers.

Keep in mind New York State Teachers Retirement System members in Tiers I and II paid nothing toward their pension. Those in Tiers III and IV pay in three percent of their salary for 10 years. Note, however, that the 10 years requirement is 10 years of membership only, not 10 years of payment. If, like Mrs. ‘Puter and many female teachers, you take unpaid leaves of absence to have and raise kids, you can pay for substantially less time. Mrs. ‘Puter paid in for only three years and met her obligation.

As a reminder, NYSTRS Tier IV members can get a full pension benefit of 60% of the average of their best three consecutive years of salary (including add-ons like coaching, club monitoring, etc.) for life. NYSTRS Tier IV members can collect this full benefit after 30 years of credited service and attaining the age of 62. They can get a reduced but still significant benefit pretty much any time after 20 years in service. ****

Unlike teachers, private sector employees must put aside substantially more than three percent of their salaries over the entirety of their working lives, not for 10 or fewer years, in order to have a decent retirement income.*****

Retired teachers are citizens of New York. Retired teachers receive the benefits of living in New York. Retired teachers should share the burden of providing those benefits, just as all other retirees in New York must. In fact, it’s increasingly clear to ‘Puter that the only retirees who can afford to stay in New York after retirement are state employees, thanks in no small part to their untaxed, overly generous pensions.

Teachers and all New York state and municipal employees should pay their fair share before they start lecturing the private sector.

* “The rich” is loosely defined as “anyone who makes more money than your average public sector union employee.”

** “Their fair share” is clearly defined as “as much as it takes so that (a) no unionized employee ever gets laid off and (b) no gold-plated union health and retirement benefits are ever diminished.” Like social justice, “fair share” calculus only considers benefits to the unionized employees, not costs to the taxpayer. Public sector unions don’t care if “fair share” bankrupts you or the state.

*** New York’s legislature helpfully squirreled away this beauty of a law not in the Education Law with the bulk of teachers’ retirement system statutes, but in the Unconsolidated Laws, making it nearly impossible to find. ‘Puter’s certain there’s no intent by New York’s deep blue legislature to hide a sweetheart deal for a public sector union that annual recycles tens of millions of dollars into Democrat campaign coffers.

**** Assuming you retire with a best three consecutive years average salary of $90,000.00 (not unthinkable under current salary scales), you’d get an annual benefit of $54,000.00. This calculation counts neither the value of the eternal, low cost, gold plated health insurance for retirees, nor the effect of the state income tax exemption. Last year, Mrs. ‘Puter’s school district paid over $16,000.00 for her (and ‘Puter’s) health insurance. Add in the 6.85% tax exemption benefit and you’re looking at a very generous annual benefit of at least $73,500.00. And don’t forget the pension benefit is indexed for inflation. NYSTRS members also paid into and are thus eligible for Social Security. Mrs. ‘Puter’s school district also has a 403b plan, similar to the private sector’s 401k plan, which Mrs. ‘Puter maxes out each year.

***** Note that NYSTRS members in Tiers V and VI pay contributions over their entire career, but currently this affects very few teachers, only those entering the retirement system on or after January 1, 2010.

The Czar usually gets stuck with the annual Thanksgiving Day message to you all. So today, he will toast you and yours with warm greeting. Literally: Sleestak has brought the Czar a variety of nice bourbons and a glass.

Our first toast goes out to our families, without whom we would be sad without even ever knowing it. The Czar especially likes to remember our family members who will not be joining us this year. Take a moment to remember those you have lost, as the Czar drinks a bourbon to their memory.

Our second toast goes out to you, our readers, who have stuck with us ever since we did this website in pencil. Without you, we fnord would be writing endless letters to ourselves which is absolutely frightening. Even though not as many of you write in as you should, we love every letter we get (even the ones we don’t publish). We are grateful to all of you that we should matter in any way to you. And remember, when reality throws you a curve ball, remember that there’s a wizard, a multidimensional mad scientist, a time-traveling robot, a Sith Lord, a psychopathic technophobe, and a psychotic axe-wielding 13th Century czar who live in a space-shifting castle who have your back.

Our third toast goes out to the brave men and women of our country’s fighting forces, as well as all emergency workers who have chosen to spend the day protecting strangers than cuddling with their family. How powerful a sacrifice is that? They defend us from threats that may never come, or risk their lives battling enemies closer than we know.

Our forth toast is for the animals of the world who live in tough places. Not just the dogs and cats we rescue, although God bless them too, but the crazy critters. Like goats. They don’t know that they’re stupid. Thats so funny right? They run around in the little circles and you just want to punch them and knock them over. god thats so funny.

Our 5th toast is for the who knows the birds maybe. Here’s a bourbon to the birds! Keep flying, dummies. God, if the Czar had to fly like that he’d probly throw up and ruin everything below. Still laughitng about the goarts.

Our sixt toast if for Dat Ho who is a punk little kid who has been steeling again. Bet he steels from the bourboun supply. gShould have sleestk cut off his thieveing little hands the dirty punk. wheere does he even go thanksgiviinhg

Our 7thh tosast fos the garbage collectors shinc foor the nothing but $$6 in change but f oo enoughj ii no havf the butter but look in the closet nxt time puter not EVERYTHNG is in the front row

Our 78tth tost idd bbu sleepy gbiii jcant see strigjt vy lynpoa kybord keeps movng b room spinning & flor tilting like Batman villain lair should drink watr and hey there is sho nuff the shogun of haarlem!!!!

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Your Mandarin went to the range today and fired a variety of plasma, x-ray, and conventional propellant-based weapons. However, there are two firearms your Mandarin decided on a whim to try out, and he thought a review was in short order.

Ruger LCR Double-Action Revolver

This one was the .38 Special +P model, which Ruger calls the 5430. This, as you see from the picture, is a concealed carry revolver.

The weapon is quite small, with a comfortable ergonomic grip. It certainly should fit well in your hand, claw, tentacle, or whatever pseudopod your dimension allows. This is a five-shot revolver, so if you’re looking for six-shooter, do the math.

With any concealed carry weapon, you expect a shorter barrel; as a result, you can expect more recoil. The recoil on the LCR however is punishing—even for your Mandarin’s experienced hands (you ladies know)—and indeed, the weapon transfers all its energy right into the radial nerve between your finger and thumb.

This will make the LCR a difficult weapon to master, and too fatiguing for prolonged practice sessions; it takes hours of continuous practice to really understand the feel of any gun, and after about ten minutes, you’ve had it with the LCR.

Oh, and for the guy who thinks he’s getting a small purse gun for his girlfriend, this is not doing her a favor. This will turn her off shooting even faster than your drunk cousin Eddie showing up with a rifle at the New Year’s Eve cotillion. Your Mandarin suspects you didn’t think he knew about that little incident, but there you go.

Boy, that Mandarin just gives and gives.

Kahr PM9

This is a 9mm, 7-shot pistol evidently designed for the Borrowers. It’s tiny. And given that it is designed for concealed carry—probably concealed-in-a-ladybug-carry—this means there have to be compromises.

With that said, your Mandarin didn’t like anything about this gun.

A magazine extension allows for more purchase on the weapon: this lets you close your hand around the grip, but alas it is all too easy to pinch the little finger in the gap between the magazine well and the grip.

Worse, its long, pendulous trigger pull is off-putting; the trigger has far too much travel compared to other weapons (even larger weapons: your Mandarin threw about 50 rounds from a borrowed 1911 today and found its trigger pull simple and direct compared to the one-third-size Kahr). Bottom line: the trigger doesn’t break when you think it should. And that throws off everything.

Accuracy on the Kahr was surprisingly good: even firing single-handed, your Mandarin hit what he was looking at. But a more serious trigger would have been a big help.

The Kahr, from a construction standpoint, is inferior to my everyday Springfield XD9. My XD9 has a much more comfortable feel and balance, easier to fire, has better mechanics, and to be blunt, would be much better than the Kahr for concealed carry because of it.

Really. And this is something your Mandarin says a lot: if you have a propensity for concealed carry, simply wear a larger, looser shirt and carry a full-sized weapon.

What follows is a piece on immigration reform ‘Puter wrote way back on 31 January 2014. ‘Puter thinks it has held up well, particularly those portions detailing ‘Puter’s immigration reform package. Read on, and enjoy.

Conservatives are uptight, and rightly so, about immigration reform.  Based on past experience, conservatives know two things. First, Democrats will never, ever enforce immigration law or close the border unless Republicans make Democrats do so before implementing Democrats’ wish list. Second, Washington’s Republicans have no problem selling out the base on an issue that benefits them directly, regardless of harm to the nation.*

But too many conservatives are unrealistic about immigration.  They’re unrealistic about what’s possible, and they’re unrealistic about their footing. Extremist positions (e.g., round everyone up and send them all home) make bad law. Just look at ObamaCare.

There are estimated to be 11 million illegal aliens in the United States.  The number has been relatively stable because President Obama and the Democrats have managed to do the near impossible: keep America’s economy in the crapper for five straight years.  Since the economy sucks, some illegals gave up and went home and fewer illegals are sneaking into America.

America doesn’t have the resources to find, arrest, try and deport 11 million anything, much less humans.  Furthermore, a large majority of Americans are going to be sympathetic to the sob stories Democrats and their media henchmen dredge up about jackbooted ICE thugs breaking down Abuela Maria’s door and dragging her out of her wheelchair in front of her United States citizen grandchildren. Uncomfortable comparisons to America’s internment of Japanese Americans will arise, rightly or wrongly, and public opinion will turn.

Shorter, conservatives can forget about deporting 11 million illegals. It’s not going to happen, no way, no how.  The political will to do so is nonexistent, and public opinion will not support mass deportations. The question becomes what is conservatives’ best option to make the best of a bad situation.

Here’s ‘Puter’s plan for how to deal with these 11 million people: **

• Set a cutoff date. Illegals in America on or before the cutoff date can stay, provided they can prove they were here and meet basic eligibility criteria. All other illegals must leave the United States.
• Make illegally returning to the United States after deportation a federal felony for which illegals must serve a minimum 10 year prison sentence. Illegal presence in the United States after passage of immigration reform results in a mandatory one year prison sentence and immediate deportation thereafter. Allow states to opt in to enforce this law in state courts without federal intervention.
• All illegals in the United States must register in person with the government. Illegals will be photographed, fingerprinted, provide DNA samples and retina scans. Illegals must also submit to a criminal background check both in the United States and in their home country. Any felony charge or any violent history results in immediate deportation without hearing.
• Registered illegals will be issued a biometric identification card which they must carry with them at all times. Tampering with, selling or fraudulently creating such identification results in immediate deportation. Citizens who do the same commit a felony with a minimum 10 year prison sentence.
• Registered illegals must produce identification on demand to law enforcement officials. Law enforcement officials may request identification from a presumed illegal on an articulable suspicion of illegal presence rather than a probable cause standard. Law enforcement officers are subject to personal damages and jail time if it is found after trial they use this new power to unnecessarily harass or intimidate illegals.
• Registered illegals may work and travel freely within the United States. Employers must run the identification cards through a federal database (because the government is so good with websites) before hiring, and report the illegal immediately if he is not in the database.
• Registered illegals may not travel outside the United States for any reason. After all, if they want to be here so badly, they can stay. ‘Puter doesn’t care if they want to go home for a parent’s funeral. Once out, never back in. If a registered illegal leaves the country, he will not be readmitted. It’s that simple.
• Registered illegals will not be considered permanent residents. Registered illegals will not have a pathway to citizenship of any kind. To those who will whine that it’s not fair and it’s dehumanizing, tough toenails. We’re letting registered illegals keep what they stole: life in America and knowledge that their children born here will be United States citizens.
• Registered illegals will be subject to full taxation, but ineligible for federal benefits of any sort. This includes welfare, food assistance, housing assistance, Medicaid, ObamaCare, unemployment, Social Security, etc.***
• Registered illegals may not vote in federal or state elections. Registered illegals may not own firearms. Registered illegals may not sit on juries. Registered illegals may not hold government jobs of any sort.
• Registered illegals may attend school, if otherwise eligible. Registered illegals may own property. Registered illegals may get state licenses (e.g., driver’s licenses, professional licenses) on the same terms and conditions as citizens.
• If states wish to provide welfare benefits to illegals, they may do so, but are not required to do so. No federal funds of any sort may be used by states to provide benefits to illegals.
• So called DREAMers will be permanent residents with all appurtenant rights, except they will never be citizens. Like illegals, their reward is their children will be full United States citizens.
• If illegals or DREAMers are convicted of or plead nolo contendere to a felony or violent misdemeanor, they will be deported after serving their full sentence.
• Government will provide English language instruction free of charge to registered illegals.

‘Puter’s plan accomplishes two important goals: determining exactly who is in the United States and normalizing without reward illegals America’s never going to deport.

If you think ‘Puter’s program’s harsh, you’re wrong.  Illegals simply have to choose whether they want to stay in the United States under the conditions America’s offering or leave. Beggars can’t be choosers.  America’s not forcing illegals to stay against their will.  Illegals get to choose their own destiny, just like when they chose to ignore our laws and sneak in (or overstay) in the first instance.

And before you write to ‘Puter with your all caps rant about how he’s a RINO sellout and not a “true” conservative because he thinks we have to deal with 11 million illegals, don’t bother. You can suck it, you shortsighted, dim-witted bitter ender. Being a big boy means recognizing reality sucks, sorting through the shit to find a few pearls and making the least bad choice available.

You’re not being a True Conservative^TM by pretending choices are available when they aren’t. You’re being a true moron.

* ‘Puter thinks this assessment of Washington politicians is a bit harsh, but there is a grain of truth to it.  Establishment Republicans are the establishment precisely because they have a better read on what’s possible on a national level and what’s detrimental to the party on a national level. You can rant and rave all you want, but 95 times out of a hundred, the DC dealmaker knows better than the guy or gal figuratively screaming in ‘Puter’s Twitter feed about RINOs.

** ‘Puter’s plan assumes as a condition precedent America’s southern border is effectively closed prior to any other portion of the plan being implemented. Fool ‘Puter once, shame on you. Fool ‘Puter twice, he publishes the 127 hours of uninterrupted footage he has from spycams Sleestak installed in your house.

*** If Democrats want 11 million poor illegals in the country so badly, fine. Let Democrats donate to charities formed to provide for this new population. Republicans as a general rule are already donating to charities, because they don’t view paying taxes to have the government do stuff as meeting their moral obligation to do charitable works personally.  And shut up already, because studies show that Republicans donate to charity at a far greater rate and in far greater amounts than do Democrats. Even liberal New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof admits it.

This was the teaser website. I kid you not.

Having caught Christopher Nolan’s very worthy Interstellar last week, I’m interested to see that a lot of the (very good) discussion of the film’s effectiveness is taken in terms of the accuracy and faithfulness of its science. Perhaps because I’m not much of a fan of hard science fiction as a genre, I lack the enthusiasm for wrestling with the large-scale philosophical problems it excels at explicating, but I find this approach a little obtuse.

Just as I think one misses the central point of The Dark Knight by treating it as a comic-book movie rather than an examination of the moral problem of what to do in the face of evil that refuses to instantiate the post-modern wish that all “issues” are negotiable, I think one misses the point of Interstellar by examining the hows of the astronauts’ galactic peregrinations, fascinating and amazingly depicted though they are. I’m going to write a little elliptically here, in case anyone hasn’t seen the movie, whose twists and turns are worth experiencing first hand.

Interstellar (“between the stars”) seems to me to be about a topic that no one ever mentions in the movie. A central mystery in the movie—never solved, so no spoilers here—is why an escape-route wormhole has appeared near Saturn to help humanity flee a dying Earth.

The closest guess anyone provides in the movie is a super-evolved race of future humans who’ve mastered time and exist in five dimensions. Ok, fair enough, and we can’t rule that out, though there’s no direct evidence for it.

What I find very interesting about the movie is that the events clearly do rely on the existence of a being or beings outside our three dimensions with whom all time is either coterminous or instantly accessible (one astronaut experiences an extremely cool, if disorienting, version of what such an experience might be like for a three-dimensional being like ourselves to experience). So, that’s Clue #1 as to who opened the wormhole.

Second, a character argues forcefully that love is a reality that, while unaccounted for by traditional science, similarly possesses being and efficacy outside time and space. The character’s argument is received respectfully but the decision is made on more formally logical grounds. However, the movie repeatedly validates the character’s intuition, and in the end it turns out the argument from love would have achieved better ends than that from reason and authority. In Interstellar at least, love appears to be an integral part of the ground of being, though outside the scope of science, much like the beings in Clue #1. Love foundational to reality becomes Clue #2.

Third, the being or beings’ interest in saving humanity is not merely general. Nolan clearly disapproves of such utilitarianism: one character is described as having lost his humanity in coming up with a technical solution for the species that leaves billions to die. The beings, it turns out, are intensely interested in particular human beings, shown dramatically with their long-term attention to one who ends up as an unlikely savior of the world when receiving and interpreting scientifically unobtainable data through an extremely unlikely act of revelation by the medium of a self-sacrificing parent. And the beings go out of their way to carefully return to the three-dimensional universe of the living another character who has left it and should by all rights be dead, returning him, moreover, in an exact moment and place where he will be discovered and rescued. So, Clue #3.

As Gormogon readers and minions, you see what I’m getting at. Nolan’s gripping sci-fi adventure points, however indirectly, towards the existence of Intelligence(s) outside time and space (though able to enter and affect it); Love as a similarly constituent part of the universe and therefore the Intelligence(s); and Loving Intelligence(s’) caring very deeply about humanity—and individual people—for unfathomable reasons and in unimaginable ways. (One does not even have to mention that, other than the aforementioned character’s utilitarianism and Despair—signaled by the famous poem he keeps quoting—the only genuinely, profoundly evil, indeed potentially mass-murderous, actions in the film are by ‘man’ fighting a self-imposed exile.)

So what’s going on here in Christopher Nolan’s apocalypse? Perhaps a reimagining of the reality in this very old poetry also set within on the convulsions of a dying Earth:

And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, by reason of the confusion of the roaring of the sea and of the waves; men withering away for fear, and expectation of what shall come upon the whole world.

For the powers of heaven shall be moved; And then they shall see the son of man coming in a cloud, with great power and majesty. But when these things begin to come to pass, look up, and lift up your heads, because your redemption is at hand. [Λουκας]

The Czar answers all your questions on the comet landing. We apologize if this gets slightly technical for the average reader, but bear with us.

Did we land on a comet or just crash into it and are calling it a landing?

A Comet

Actually, we didn’t do anything: the European Space Agency (or AΣĘ) sent a spacecraft up like 10 years ago, and the spacecraft spat out a lander at the comet. The spacecraft is called Rosetta, the lander was called Philae, the assistant mission director was named Niklosz, and the instrument package was a series of Es with various umlauts.

So this was a European mission? They must be proud.

That’s not a question.

So this was a European mission? They must be proud, no?

Indeed, the head of the European Space Agency went on a rant boasting about the technical and engineering superiority of the Europeans, and how they totally smoked the Americans’ asses on this mission, and how they did it for a fraction of the cost, and thanks to good old-fashioned European know-how, they succeeded where we would have failed.

So what happened?

Comet

The whole thing screwed up seconds later. The Philae lander misfired its landing harpoons, the lander bounced hard into the comet, flipped up, and landed in a darkened crater pitched at an angle so badly that it isn’t getting any solar power to its batteries and is expected to die today. Also, Germany swung through Belgium and sacked France.

What are things like on the comet surface?

Basically, it’s a big pile of…well, you know when you’re driving your car in winter, and you see that Honda Civic with the missing windshield wiper and broken tail light, and the dude driving it has this massive chunk of inky black ice filth hanging off his rear wheel well, and you just know it’s going to drop off and slide into your car and damage the front of it? That chunk’s basically a comet.

So comets are basically chunks of filthy ice?

Yeah, but conveniently big enough to destroy Spain. Which in response to the Philae landing, threw out its government, established a pro-communist dictatorship, and is throwing the Jews out again.

Given this is the first ever landing on a comet, how much scientific data are we expected to obtain?

Comet DH-106/de Havilland

Take an original Xbox from 10 years ago, and jam it into a huge pile of dirt and ice in some abandoned parking lot very far from your home, and try to play the original Halo without using a controller. Know how fun that would be? Now switch out the word fun from that sentence, substitute it with the word scientific, and you have your answer.

What’s the difference between a comet and an asteroid?

Possibly very little. Many comets can establish themselves in stable orbits, and their surface compositions could be similar to some asteroids. Likewise, many asteroids can break loose from their orbits, get close to the sun, and burn out like icy comets. There are definite distinctions, but the two objects basically have the same origins: they’re the clods of bullion left over at the bottom of the soup pot.

What’s the difference between an asteroid and meteor?

Comet 64/Rankin-Bass

This has nothing to do with comets. A meteroid is a chunk of rock drifting in space that’s headed for a planet. A meteor is that same chunk of rock when it burns up in the atmosphere. A meteorite is anything left that hits the ground. Contrary to popular belief, when meteorites do bounce into the ground, they rarely leave a crater, and they are almost ice-cold to the touch. They cool off rapidly when meteors, as the earth’s atmosphere slows them down a lot. A lot. When they slow down to a stop, they are at high altitudes that are extremely cold. As they plummet like a baseball to earth, at regular falling speeds, they continue to cool until they are icy cold. Meteorites are worth big money by the way, so grab a baseball mitt and sit out in your yard and wait for one all night. You could make a fortune.

The names are so cool! Rosetta! Philae! What’s the name of the comet?

C67/P Churyumov-Gerasimenko, named after the Greek goddess of melodic rapture, C67/P Churyumov-Gerasimenko.

Now that the Midterm Elections are over, we can finally start wasting time wondering about 2016 Presidential candidates.

The Czar has previously said the Democrats are tapped out, and basically have no choice but to run Hillary Clinton. Joe Biden is a non-starter and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA)—the media’s clear favorite—is not welcome among non-Massachusetts voters. As Barack Obama proved in 2014, no amount of media protection can cover a lousy Democrat forever.

But what of the Republican possibilities? Well, clearly we do not know everything in everyone’s hearts, but the Czar has some broad-brush thoughts on possibilities. Rather than provide a full, detailed analysis of each, we will make reading easier for you by just belching out reactionary thoughts.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY)—He’s not his father, by any means, and the Czar sees considerable potential in his managerial approaches. He’s improved a lot over the last two years in how he speaks, answers questions, and promotes foreign policy. However, his supporters can be polarizing (and ironically many of them don’t grok what Paul is really saying, and secretly hope he’s a moonbat like his dad), and will provide ample fodder to a hostile media and Clinton campaign. He may not survive the first few months; if he does survive, though, he’ll be formidable.

Jeb Bush—Highly unlikely. If anything, he is playing the role Sarah Palin has done so well: give the Left a decoy target that scares the crap out of them. He knows full well the dicey legacy of his brother among voters, as well as parental pressure to stay out of the Presidency. A cabinet position? Perhaps. A presidential run? Unlikely.

Gov. Chris Christie (NJ)—Most insiders seem to agree he’s a likely candidate. However, he will surge early and fade fast; if you look back at 2012, he’s more of a Michele Bachmann: initial popular support and recognition, but soon he will be unable to rectify previous statements and will begin to fizzle out among voter interest.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX)—Cruz is a genius: he has the entire conservative camp eating out of his palm, scaring the liberals badly, and making the Establishment Republicans very nervous. He also will not run—or will not seriously run for long. He sees himself perhaps as Senate Majority Leader, and deeply influential among the Republican party. Heck, he’d probably like to be the new establishment. But he’s smart enough to know that becoming a presidential candidate puts too much of this at risk; at heart, Cruz is a calculator, not a gambler.

Mitt Romney—No matter what you hear, he isn’t running. He has put out carefully coded messages stipulating this. Only the media, who have a hard time remembering more than a couple things, seem to think he’s a possibility.

Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH)—2016’s Tim Pawlenty: smart, executive, and decisive with good plans. Yet a completely gray character to the public. He’s more a Republican in the 1948 mold: 2016 will require a powerful, colorful, attractive figure to win votes away from the Democrats. Sorry: Portman isn’t it.

Gov. Bobby Jindal (LA)—He’s a maybe. Jindal makes the Czar nervous because the governor has made some pretty bizarre statements in the past that will serve as excellent ammunition for liberals (such as his belief in demonic possession happening everywhere). While voters care almost nothing about these comments, they will dog him again and again. However, Jindal is a powerful intellect who seems to understand everything going on around him; this is a very desirable quality in a leader, and Jindal will certainly do well if he decides to run.

Gov. Scott Walker (WI)—Walker is a masterful communicator who knows how to get the most undecided voters to tilt toward conservative viewpoints. There’s really no reason he wouldn’t be a Reagan-like president, and hell, he could hit the full Coolidge. Unions hate him, but proved at all levels they’re a non-threat in 2014. Really, the only valid concern we have heard is that Walker may not be ready for the severe hatred he and his family will receive from Democrats. Not because of anything inherent to Gov. Walker, but because he scares Democrats so badly they will have no choice but to get personal. He’s a decent guy, and he may not be able to stomach the negativity certain to follow about his wife and family.

Dr. Ben Carson—Who doesn’t like this guy? Unfortunately, he shares a lot more than skin color with Herman Cain: Dr. Carson has all the charisma and ideas of Cain, but also lacks the experience, the knack of smart politics, and the ability to convince voters he’s the guy you want calling the shots when Russia flies a bomber over Poland. A president is never defined by what he promises, but by how he responds to the out-of-nowhere threat. And Dr. Carson has a dangerously short list of issues he likes to talk about. He’s already running, one gathers, but will have a hard time being more than a sideshow.

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL)—Rubio has taken a lot of flack for his immigration work: he had his George H.W. Bush moment of mistakenly trusting the Democrats on the committee to back his ideas and wound up being stapled to a pro-amnesty bill he didn’t actually support. But Rubio is slick, polished, and constantly learning. The Czar is less enthusiastic about a charismatic senator with no executive experience (Obama, anyone?), and isn’t sure whether he would make it to November of 2016 or not. He’s a real risk, balanced between potential brilliance and incompetence. The Czar believes there are safer candidates in this list.

Rick Santorum—The Czar liked Rick Santorum in 2012 and voted for him during the primary. But he’s rapidly becoming something the Czar cannot abide: a politician who won’t take the hint that the public is done with him. Rather than helping behind the scenes, writing policy, or guiding candidates, Santorum is like the party guest who just won’t go home. Yes, he will probably run. Yes, he will last mere weeks before disappointing voters again.

Gov. John Kasich (OH)—Kasich is a conundrum. He isn’t a conservative by any means, and he certainly isn’t very establishmentarian, either. But he will definitely play into the “rich, white guy” template that Democrats will happily unroll for him. His Lehman Brothers background is going to hurt. If he runs, he will probably lose.

Rick Perry—Perry is a powerful, smart, tough guy. The more he talks, the more he convinces people he’s the real deal. However, his dreadful 2012 candidacy will be a millstone around his neck forever. No matter how smart a campagin he runs in 2016, the media, pop culture, and therefore the public will associate him with being a good-natured dope. The Czar thinks the world of Rick Perry, but is doubtful his 2016 candidacy will last more than a few months before he quits in frustration. Cabinet level position? Totally.

Mike Huckabee—Non-starter. He’s finished.

Democrats are delusional. After suffering an historic drubbing in the midterms, leading Democrats have completely broken with reality.

Witness the New York Times editorial board psychosis. With near historic Republican majorities in the House and the Senate, the editors urge President Obama to usurp the legislative authority and act on his own. In unusually candid verbiage bordering on the deranged, the editors advise thus: “Do it. Take executive action. Make it big.”

And here ‘Puter thought he’d taken one too many pucks to the head.* Not content with opening their mouths and being thought fools, NYT’s editors set out to dispel any doubt whatsoever. The editors made the following claims about Obama’s possible executive action: (1) it honors the law; (2) it helps the country; and (3) it cuts to the heart of the debate. Let’s take a look at each contention.

It honors the law.

The editors claim refusing to enforce duly enacted laws actually honors the law. This is akin to arguing selling your mother to a Guatemalan sex trafficking ring honors the Fourth Commandment ** Or, in words our Vietnam era hippie, bleeding heart, near-Communist friends can understand, “we had to destroy the village in order to save it.”

What a load of manure. Enforce the laws as written or don’t. But don’t pretend that Obama’s lawless, destructive behavior is virtuous. It’s not. An executive order of the breadth the editors argue for would be a clear violation of Obama’s oath of office. Not that anyone on the Left would care.

It helps the country.

“Having such a large immigrant population living here outside the law also undermines the law.” Nice argument, geniuses. Permit ‘Puter to rephrase it for you. “A teenager who viciously murders his parents is an orphan, so the judicial system should let him go.”

You read that right. The vaunted minds on the NYT’s editorial board actually believe that people who commit criminal acts (illegally entering the United States) should be allowed to keep their ill-gotten gains (presence in the United States).

Thank God these idiots don’t set the agenda for a leading political party or anything. That’d be downright dangerous, as divorced from reality as the editors are.

It cuts to the heart of the debate.

“If Mr. Obama acts, he will be declaring that [illegal immigrants] ha[ve] a stake in our country’s future.” ‘Puter for one is glad liberals think non-Americans should have a say in how America governs itself and enforces its laws. Heck, let’s just outsource our entire government to the murderous kleptocrats at United Nations and be done with it.

The editors also note evil conservatives “take their cues from anti-immigration pressure groups that embody the country’s old strains of nativism.” Memo to the editors: it’s not nativist to insist that one co-equal branch of our government charged with enforcing duly enacted laws actually enforce those laws. It’s constitutional government, not nativism. If liberals think our immigration laws are vicious and racist, fine. Convince enough Americans your position is correct and change the laws. Until then, Obama can do his damned job and shut up.

Last, the editors lecture us “[m]illions of Americans-in-waiting need an answer. It should be a welcoming one.” If you are present in the United States illegally, you are not an “American-in-waiting.” You are a deportee-in-waiting, and the editors can kiss ‘Puter’s ample, hairy butt for suggesting otherwise. You know who the true “Americans-in-waiting” are? They’re the five H-1B workers at ‘Puter’s company, dutifully jumping through the byzantine hoops our crazy-assed immigration laws set up, paying taxes, not voting and waiting sometimes in excess of 12 years for the chance to get a green card. Those are “Americans-in-waiting,” you addlepated, liberal asshats. The people who undertook to break our laws and squat in our country, biding their time until social justice warrior liberals would recognize their self-inflicted plight (and pronounced tendency to illegally vote Democrat) and badger America into admitting them as citizens.

Here’s ‘Puter’s immigration plan, as he’s put forth on numerous occasions.

• Secure the border immediately, sparing no expense. It’ll create jobs both in construction and enforcement. Until the border is secured, no further action will be taken.
• Step up enforcement against employers using illegal laborers, shutting violators down and jailing them. Do not deport the illegals unless they’re criminals. For those released, give them identification cards clearly identifying them as illegally present.
• Do not actively seek to deport illegals currently here. However, immediately deport any illegal immigrant involved in any criminal activity greater than a speeding violation.
• Limit due process rights for deportation hearings. Spend more on administrative law judges. Have hearings within 24 hours of detention. Clarify there is no right to counsel at a deportation hearing. Immediately deport illegal immigrants.
• Any person deported for illegal presence in the United States will not be eligible for a visa of any kind for the remainder of their lives. They can’t visit family. They can’t work here. That’s it.
• Make it a class A felony punishable by 25 years to life for a second illegal presence in the United States.
• Allow illegal children to attend school, provided their families register as illegal immigrants. No in state tuition for college.
• There will be no right to work (no social security numbers) for illegal immigrants.
• There will be no right to federal benefits for illegal immigrants, and no portion of federal monies used to fund state programs will be permitted to be used on illegal immigrants.
• Illegal immigrant children will be eligible for Medicaid, school lunches and limited food assistance through age 18. After that, they’re on their own.
• Illegal immigrants who self-deport after registration with the United States will be eligible for future entry visas provided they comply with immigration laws and quotas then in effect.
• Streamline the H-1B visa program, especially as relates to STEM areas and medicine. Take the best the world has to offer.
• Eliminate the visa lottery. It’s a garbage holdover invented by Teddy Kennedy to benefit the Irish. Really.
• Require all visa holders to carry visa documents at all times and produce them to law enforcement officers on demand, no probable cause required. Remember, visa holders are not Americans, nor are permanent residents.
• Require visa holders to check in quarterly at a local law enforcement office for verification of identity and presence. If you miss a scheduled appointment without excuse, you will be subject to immediate deportation.

That’s a start, although more needs to be done. ‘Puter and many of his fellow conservatives have no problem with immigration. We simply want immigration to be done in a sane, manageable fashion. America needs to know who is in our country and for what purpose. If America requires 5,000,000 Mexicans to pick our crops, so be it, but those 5,000,000 Mexicans are going to be documented and leave after the harvest.

The NYT editors are correct that immigration is a problem government must address. However, the liberal solution is to capitulate, allowing foreigners to self-determine their immigration status. The editors’ proposed solution isn’t a solution, it’s chaos unleashed.

The NYT editor’s bleeding heart, unrealistic and unconstitutional immigration stance stinks of desperation. Voters looked at 6 years of liberal rule and the disaster it’s become, and were disgusted. Democrats, instead of examining their core beliefs and adjusting, are convinced it’s all the stupid voters’ fault.

Nice plan, guys. Go with it, at least until the 2016 election season’s over.

*Hence, Czar always telling ‘Puter he’s pucked in the head. Wait, what? He didn’t say “pucked?” Then what exactly did Czar say?

** Fifth Commandment, if you’re a heathen Protestant. Kidding. We Catholics love heathens. The Protestants, not so much.

GorT works in the tech industry (surprised?) and this topic comes up periodically.  It usually goes something like this: there is a lack of representation of (insert sub-group of population here) and companies are evil because they aren’t doing enough to address that.

What is generally ignored is the contributing factors and the focus stays on the end situation.  Add to this groups like Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow PUSH Coalition and their attempt to become some sort of monitoring and enforcement bureau over commercial companies.  Case in point, they are attacking Amazon for their recent disclosure of their workforce demographics:

The lack of inclusion at AMAZON mirrors their industry peers: No Blacks or Latinos on their Board and an all-male management.    Data released by the Rainbow PUSH Coalition last week indicated that of 183 board members of 20 tech companies surveyed, there are just 3 African Americans and 1 Latino.

…

The virtual lack of inclusion in Silicon Valley and other tech companies like AMAZON is a systemic problem.   It’s time to go beyond the rhetoric of “doing better” and turn high-sounding words into concrete action.   At its best, technology can be a tremendously positive change agent for the world; at its worst, it can repeat old patterns that exclude people of color and women from opportunity and advancement.   Silicon Valley and the tech industry must transform itself to resemble the America it depends upon for talent and customers.

…

African Americans and people of color “over-index” as users and consumers, but “under-index” in their representation and inclusion in the boardrooms, and executive suites, the workforce and as business partners.

There is a lot there to take apart there.

First, the problem of minorities (by any category) begins in early stages of education.  There are plenty of studies, reports and statistics show that many minorities fall out of STEM areas in the K-12 range…and many times its before the 9-12 high school grades.

Second, the problem is compounded by factors like the ones pointed out in this study: where minorities are recruited and encouraged to attend colleges that are more difficult program than what their academic credentials support (the report refers to this as a “mismatch”).  It is likely that these students perform poorer in college and get frustrated and change majors away from STEM majors.  Remember, this recruiting is in large part an attempt by colleges to be seen as diverse and supportive of various minorities.  By no means should the reader infer that I am arguing for any sort of segregation.  You’ll see what I’m recommending later.

Third, 75% of STEM majors go on to work in non-STEM fields leaving only 25% of them in the same industry.  Even if you make the assumption (which is likely incorrect) that that percentage is equally spread out over minority segments, it doesn’t eave many.  “The statistics show that women are less likely to major in engineering and computer sciences, which may reduce their STEM employment options unless they go on to graduate school,” Landivar said in this article.

Fourth, if this were a “lack of inclusion” problem as pointed out, there should be evidence of racial bias and discrimination…on a broad basis to get to these numbers.  I can’t recall seeing any such reporting by the media and I doubt these companies could so effectively hide it that we wouldn’t heard.

Finally, the last section I want to take exception with is the “Silicon Valley and the tech industry must transform itself to resemble the America it depends upon for talent and customers” and final comparison between minority “users and consumers” and executives and workforce members.  If we extrapolate that argument, are we saying that companies make up should mirror their consumers’ demographics?  So if company X’s customer base is 80% black, their workforce, executive board, etc. should be 80% black?  How far do we take this?  Race?  Religion?  Gender?  Education level?  It makes no sense.  Period.  I challenge anyone to put forth an argument why a company’s demographics should match its customer base.

I’m all for diversity but we need to address the problem and not a consequence.  I’ve been a part of organizations, companies and conferences that support Code.org, GirlsWhoCode.com and other groups encouraging earlier adoption and focus on Computer Science work.  Our culture is part of the problem.  Look at what Hollywood puts out there – two of the main female characters on Bing Bang Theory are not portrayed in a smart light and the third is part of the show’s jokes and pokes at nerds.  I enjoy it as entertainment but one could argue that the subtle message is that “nerds aren’t cool”.  And yes, sure, because there is a show featuring nerds that somehow counters it…but that’s pretty weak.

Operative BJ writes in with a then-timely but just-barely-by-the-time-we-got-to-it letter:

The Czar is indeed aware of this, and so are people generally. No, not so much the entire “Where is Sullivan County” question, but the fact that many debates are being held on hostile ground, with questions asked by heavily partisan media types intent on ridiculing Republican candidates.

Making Republican candidates look stupid is essential to them, for some reason. Perhaps the candidates should be asked what being hoisted by one’s own petard means: the news of the public apology and the page 46 correction by the so-called moderator will never generate the same interest as “Scott Brown got it wrong.”

What a waste of time—probably a vast majority of New Hampshire residents have no clue where Sullivan County is, either, and if anything this generated sympathy.

Three paragraphs ago, the Czar mentioned that people, generally, are aware of this new trend: try to humiliate the Republican candidate while protecting the Democrat. The Brown v. Shaheen debate was by no means the second of these, nor was Romney v. Obama the first. Head of the GOP, Reince Priebus, has been particularly aggressive about this, basically taking the position that debates help Democrats more than they help or hurt Republicans. As a result, he mandated a while back that Republican candidates should not be participating in debates until the facts are known about how they will be presented. Not surprisingly, Democrats howled at this, but ultimately capitulated for the most part.

For example, here in Illinois, gubernatorial candidate Bruce Rauner refused to participate in any debate—an empty podium was left for him—except for a very few. And not surprisingly, the debates he stayed out of were using far-left journos as moderators. The few he in which he agreed to participate were moderated by respectable, even-handed, not evidently partisan presenters.

In other states, you will note this year, the same strategy played out. And in many of these debates, the Democrats looked terrible, with audience members bursting out in laughter at some of the inanity. There literally are too many examples for the Czar to backtrack and list. But Priebus’ strategy seems to be working effectively.

Republicans too often are the Stupid Party, but they don’t stay stupid for long.

Awesome Operative SW writes in about political ads, just before Election Day:

Indeed, the Czar mentioned that you can often decide for whom not to vote based on the presentation competency of the ad. Were it more often the case: if so, Illinois Governor Quinn would certainly be thumbing through the want ads this weekend. His ads against his opponent are laughably bad.