On Kyle Rittenhouse

 Colion Noir -- a lawyer -- has a good break-down of the legal situation, as of the current date.

If your legal degree is from Google U, you should watch this.

LawDog

Not family friendly.

Thought for today:

LawDog

FAFO

In biker and inmate slang "FAFO" is a useful term. It is a low-level warning, a general statement about the Nature Of Things, and a kind of Zen philosophy.

It stands for "F(ool) Around and Find Out", understanding that the first word isn't "fool". The past tense is: "F(ool)ed Around and Found Out".

As a warning, it also implies that the person should accept responsibility for the consequences.

The best example of this was when I was walking through Intake, and spotted Waldo the Wonder Biker leaning against a corner of the holding tank, both eyes swollen shut, nose broken, and blood from his waist to the back of his head. Blinking a bit from the surprise I asked Waldo what happened.

Hocking a bloody lump the size of a kiwi fruit in my general direction, he growled, "I [deleted] around and found out, LT."

Whole bunch of folks who have been fooling around in far-Left Democratic strongholds are taking their foolishness into less-Leftist areas ... and finding out.

The latest is in Kenosha, Wisconsin, and seems to be a pretty spectacular example of "Finding Out", and while I won't speculate on the legal details of the shooting, some of the pictures are probably going to wind up in trauma lectures.

Folks f(ool)ed around, they found out; and now the million-dollar questions are: 1) Will they take responsibility for their [deleted]ing around that led to the finding out? 2) Will everyone else learn from this, and modifying their future fooling around?

Survey says:  Probably not.

Sigh.

LawDog

Clown shoes all the way down.

Well, the Democratic National Convention has been ... interesting.

So far the capper has been Bill Clinton finger-wagging at Donald Trump regarding how the Oval Office should be treated: 

“At a time like this, the Oval Office should be a command center. Instead, it’s a storm center. There’s only chaos. Just one thing never changes — his determination to deny responsibility and shift the blame. The buck never stops there.”

~Bill Clinton, address to the DNC 18 AUG 2020

Blink.

Goodness. It's not like his famous quote: "I'm going to say this again: I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky." was a determination to deny responsibility.

His other famous quote -- to a Grand Jury, attempting to do ... something ... with the blame -- is even more famous: "That depends on what the meaning of 'is' is."

And I'd like to know just who signed off on a speech regarding how the Oval Office should be treated by the former President who used a 20-year-old female intern as a cigar humidor.

Really, folks? This was a good idea?

It's a maxim that mockery ends political campaigns. You can survive scandals, -- hell, you can even drown a woman in a car -- and go on to have a lengthy political career; but the moment you become a laughing-stock you're done.

I'd say that someone needs to point out to the "Progressives" that if the jokes write themselves regarding your convention and your candidates, things might be a little rocky; but, as Le Petit Caporal once allegedly said, "Never interfere with your enemy when he is making a mistake."

Ah, well. At least the memes coming out of the Democratic National Convention should be brutal.

Carry on, "Progressives".

LawDog

No, cupcake. Now what?

Whole bunch of Pantifa, (Some) Black Lives Matter, random anarchist/Marxist/nihilist groups getting their tenders all up in a cramp because people are posing pictures and videos of their nightly exploits on the InterToobz, the constabulary are using the pics to snatch up up their buddies; and they would like folks to stop posting such.

This wee tearful lass is an example:

I am, as the man said, disinclined to acquiesce to your request.

And, truth be told, I really don't care if your little dacoit buddies are getting turfed into the hoosegow. Matters not one whit to me. Matter of fact, if your Progressive allies in office want to get your felonious buddies out, and drop charges altogether, that's fine. Get on with your bad selves.

How-some-ever, I want the public to see what your "progressive" movement is actually like. I want the voting public to be spoon-fed your "progressive" antics until they are sick unto nausea about it, and then I want that same voting public's (metaphorical) nose rubbed in your "progressivism" until it gets through their little heads that some of them voted the politicians in place who have fostered this bushwa, who tolerate the violence, and who endorsed the anarchy.

I want the voting public to finally get tired of paying the salaries of university professors who spark-plug this mess.

I want the voting public to be so ashamed of their complicity in voting for those idiots, and so enraged at your antics that they use the polls and their wallets to land on the Progressive movement like the fist of a furious and wrathful god.

So. No, I will not stop posting pictures and videos of rioters. I will not stop adding commentary that makes those pictures and videos stick in viewer's minds.

Nothing but love,

LawDog

Are you not entertained?

The subject I referred to in my last post was the man who got soccer-kicked in the head by a "mostly-peaceful protester" in Portland on 17 AUG 2020. Details can be found here.

Go to that link. Watch the video of an unresisting man, sitting the street as ordered by the crowd that yanked him out of his pickup, soccer-kicked in the head from behind. Listen to the crowd howl and snarl at him.

Let everyone you know see that video.

And, for the sake of various and sundry deities -- stay the hell away from those areas. 

As for the Progressive Democrats:

This is on you.

The "Progressive" mayor of Portland, with his mealy-mouthed kowtowing to "restorative justice", his refusal to even admit that the protests were getting violent, and his hamstringing of the Portland Police Bureau has fostered the atmosphere that led to this.

And the "Progressive" voters in Portland who put him in office, need to take a big, honking bite of the blame, too.

The "Progressive" District Attorney of Portland, with his list of freebie crimes that protesters will not be charged with after they brazenly commit them -- fostered the atmosphere that led to this.

And the "Progressive" voters that put that District Attorney in office -- they share in that blame, also.

To everyone else, I say:

Here is your free, three month trial version of rule by Progressive Democrats.  Portland. Seattle. Minneapolis.  All run by "Progressives".

You liking what you see so far? Are you enjoying the Twitter videos of "mostly-peaceful" rioters burning, and looting, and destroying, and terrifying everything they can get their slimy little claws on? Are you titillated reading the reports of the rapes, and the thefts, and the assaults, and the shootings inside their "peaceful" little Occupied Zones?

Are you not entertained?

The Democrat Party has bought into this "Progressive Democracy" lock, stock, and barrel. Some of them publicly approve of it.  Those that don't tacitly approve of it.

Might keep that in mind when you go to the polls in November.

Just saying.

LawDog

The long game.

Today brings video of yet another  Reginald Denney moment: (yet another) rampaging mob yanks a dude out of his pickup and (yet again) beats him into brain damage, and (yet again) celebrates it.

A whole lot of scary people are starting to make that (metaphorical) low-in-the-throat growling sound, and I'd like to talk to y'all for a moment.

My buddy SwampRabbit has been saying that the Left is desperately looking for their "Kent State moment", and he is correct.

The only way that the Media, and their Democratic handlers, can salvage this Antifa/BLM mess is through the Ballistic Beatification of a rioters (or a group of them). So I'm asking you: stay out of it.

For a little while, at least.

I'm not saying ignore it -- forward every video of mobs committing criminal acts, and remind folks which political party controls that area. If the elected officials in that area have been supporting the riots, remind people of that, too.

Let the mobs burn, and assault, and steal. And let the Democrats own it.

Because they do:  in spades.

You only have to do this until the week after the election.

If you're bloody sick and tired of this, and you're of a mind to do something about it -- and I've talked to several folks who ARE DONE -- I understand, but I'd prefer you let things shake out on their own.

But if you can't do that -- if you cant let it go -- don't help the Left.

If you can't just let the locals sort it out -- don't give the Left their bleeding headlines.

Wait until after the election is done.

Please.

LawDog

Support Starving Authors

Friend Rob Reed has a new anthology out. 

In addition to Rob, there are a couple more of my friends in it, so if you'd like to throw some money at them, I'd take it as a kindness.

LawDog

Well, my days of not taking you seriously ...

... are certainly coming to a middle.

Yesterdays rant concerning the tyranny of good intentions managed to generate the following comment from a Nony Mouse: 

 "And then there were the soldiers during WW I who got up on their high horses about being told what to do, and refused to wear their gas masks....."

I actually had to read that one twice, and I probably need a logic check, but it sure looks to me like Nony there is making a case that COVID19 is the equivalent of WEAPONISED PHOSGENE GAS; and that a square of cotton t-shirt fabric is the equivalent of a WW1 Small Box Respirator.

Blink.

If we go with the most pessimistic mortality rate (found here), and using the age range for World War 1 soldiers -- we'll call it "15 to 34" -- looks like a 0.6% fatality rate, or about 6 men out of a thousand.

Oh, yeah. Just like weaponised phosgene.

"Ve vill use gas on the Allies!"

"Ok!"

"500 of zhem vill never even notice it!"

"Wait, what?"

"Maybe as many as 700!"

"Are you serious?"

"Of the remaining three hundred or so, most will have mild to moderate symptoms!"

"That's it?"

"And ze symptoms vill be ameliorated if zhey tie undt handkerchief or dishrag to zere face!"

"... !"

"Undt vun to six might die!"

""We're going to gas this Allied battalion of a thousand soldiers, and half of them will never notice it, while the rest will have 'mild to moderate' symptoms, and a hand-full 'might' die, leaving the other nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-five with symptoms ranging from 'hay-fever' to 'a cold'?"

"Jawhol!"

"Which sodding side are you on again?"

Juuussttt like phosgene.

Sigh.

This wanton hysteria -- and comparing COVID19 to phosgene gas IS absolutely wanton, wallowing hysteria -- isn't doing US Public Health any favours, and quite honestly, has left "Little Boy Crying Wolf" in the dust.

COVID19 isn't 'just like phosgene', it isn't 'like typhoid', or 'pneumonic plague'. 

It's a nasty Influenza-Like Illness with a 99% survival rate, and the majority of deaths clustered in the elderly with comorbidities.

And like I said previously, most (83%) of those vulnerable elders with comorbidities are already in facilities that are under stringent new health rules and quarantine laws, so you screeching that I'm imperiling your grandmother still doesn't hold water.

LawDog

Feeling colonial and pugnacious

Take:

2 ounces gin
5 ounces tonic water
Ice
Lime.

Put your ice in a highball glass, and squeeze in some lime. Add the gin, I prefer Plymouth, but New Amsterdam was all I could find. 

Gently pour in your tonic water -- you don't want to lose too much of the fizz. I like Fever-Tree's Premium Indian, but any good one will do. 

Squeeze in some more lime (Gunsmith Joe recommends "double the amount of lime you think should be in there"), and sip on your front porch while glaring at the neighbors and wondering if they have a flag.

LawDog

On tyranny

“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. This very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be "cured" against one's will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals.”

~ C.S. Lewis

I see little difference between "Omnipotent moral busybodies" and "moral busybodies with the Mandate of Heaven", or to quote another noted philosopher:

"There's nothing worse than a monster who thinks he's right with God."

~ Malcolm Reynolds

According to the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College, only about 17% of adult children in the United States care for their elderly parents "at some point during their lives".

Think about that: of every 100 people you meet at the restaurant, the grocery store, or the park, 17 of them are taking care of, will take care of, or have taken care of, their elderly parents.

The other 83% of the people you meet at the hardware store, the church, or the beach are letting Grandma be taken care of by home health aides, independent living facilities, assisted living facilities, long-term care facilities, nursing homes, or hospitals.

For the elderly living at their own homes, and being taken care of by home health aides -- if they aren't self-isolating and protecting themselves ... that's on them, not me.

For those elderly in some kind of facility -- the government is mandating some kind of protection for these folks ... again, that's on someone else, not me.

To stand in a parking lot, a beach, a boat-ramp, or a restaurant and scream that a random stranger whom you've never met and will likely not ever meet again is endangering your grandmother by not wearing a mask is not only a lie, rude, and a misdemeanor Breach of the Peace, but it is also tyranny.

If you're one of the 17 who are taking care of your elderly patient (we'll ignore the part of that 17% who "will take care of in the future" and the part that "took care of in the past" and just assume that all 17 have an elderly parent at home), gods bless you, and if you're that worried -- stay home.

If you're one of the 83 that are relying on Decubitus Acres Nursing Home, or God's Waiting Room Assisted Living Centre to took care of Grandma -- the State government has rules to protect them.

It is tyranny to demand that I change my ways and habits to provide "protection" to independent people who should be taking care of that themselves, or to provide "protection" to people whom the government is already going overboard to protect.

And if you want to scream at me, and spit, you're about to have a quick lesson in the reality of droplet protection provided by your floral silk mask using OC droplets for the demonstration.

Given that OC droplets are considerably bigger than the droplets your mask is allegedly protecting your from, you're liable to be somewhat disappointed in your mask.

Matter-of-fact, it should even be a lesson to learn from.

Just saying.

Do not bloody shriek at me.

LawDog

Requiescat in pace.

Dr William Aprill died this morning.

He was a former Orleans Parish (Louisiana) deputy sheriff who became a licensed health care professional.

His class "Unthinkable" combined those two elements to give people an insight into the mind and motivations of violent criminals. That class was an eye-opener for me, and for Herself.

We are truly diminished.

LawDog

Hair stabbies

Herself has been teaching courses at a Liberal Arts university in near-by Little Big City, and despite being in Texas, the university is rather Non-Permissive when it comes to defending yourself.

Big on "Thoughts, Prayers, and Action Committees", short on anything -- you know -- effective.

So, when I heard that our friend Ben over at Bjorn Bladeworks was making a run of his Murder Needles, I ordered a set in Jade for her.

These little jewels are fairly simple:  about 3/4 of an ounce of G10, about 9 inches in length, and a diamond cross-section about half an inch thick at its widest.

And the narrow end ground to the wickedest little needle point you can put on a stick of high-pressure fibreglass and resin composite.

The execution is simple elegance:  it goes in your hair. Unless you're Toshiro Mifune (and he doesn't need a hair stabbie), this limits it somewhat to the distaff side of the species -- and I'm okay with this.

For those who aren't familiar with it, G10 is a material used in knife and pistol grips for decades.  It is high-strength (for a fibreglass/resin laminate) and doesn't absorb moisture, or -- important here -- hair oil.

Hair sticks are used by the ladies to hold and/or decorate hairbuns, pony-tails, and other hair-dos, and go completely unnoticed by 99% of everyone. I guarantee you've walked by a woman with pencils, knitting needles, pens, dowel rods, or stainless-steel straws stuck through a bun -- and never gave it a second thought.

Yes, LawDog, but how does it work?

Well, I'm glad you asked. When I ordered the ones for Herself, Ben contacted me and asked if I would like one for testing? 

Hell, yes.

So.

In my backyard is a heavy bag that I've modified over the years. Currently the inside is a couple of rolls of carpet, a metric butt-ton of sand, and a polymer centre core. I wandered out there, and under the supervision of Chuy the Wonder Chiweenie, gave it a flat-footed WTF? stab:

Five inches.

Rather impressed, I gave it a full fencing lunge:

Turns out the polymer core in my heavy bag is about 7 inches in.

Deep breath, and I went full Monkey With A Screwdriver:

Not sure how deep I went during the cycles, but I hit my thumb and index knuckles on the bag most of the time, so 4 - 6 inches?

Yes. These will do nicely.

Now, don't get me wrong -- these are last-ditch, one-incident-use tools for places where the Light Of Your Life isn't allowed to carry anything more substantial. 

Are they as good as a real knife or a firearm? Of course not, but they're a damned sight better than fingernails and harsh language.

By "One-incident-use tools" I mean exactly that. If your Best Beloved has to pin-cushion Joe Critter or Abdul the Moderately Rabid, these little darlings are going to wind up in a evidence bag, an Operating Room floor, or the rubbish bin.

They're $30, plus shipping. If the surgeon winds up pulling her old ones out of her Personal Chew Toy, buy her another set. Ben's email (if you don't like Facebook) is:

bjornbladeworks@gmail.com

These little jewels get the LawDog Paw of Approval.

LawDog

Edit:

Ben has asked me to post a link to the FaceBook Murderneedles page.

LawDog

Edit 2: 

Blogger borked the photos. Should be working now.

LawDog

Brain-cramp Wednesday

... Have some fox memes.

That should do until I can get my bloody muse tracked down.

LawDog

Voting by mail

I have concerns about the whole "vote-by-mail" idea for this November.

It's not so much the idea that "vote-by-mail" is more susceptible to fraud -- although it is. Not as fraught with fraud as the doom-sayers are complaining, but it's damned sure not "negligible", either.

No, my primary concern is with human nature, and the current state of our Nation.

We are a divided house. This upcoming election, and the results there-of, has a pretty good potential to be rather festive -- and needs to be as clear-cut and unambiguous as possible.

I realize that in the current socio-political climate "clear-cut and unambiguous" is difficult, but as many variables that can be controlled, need to be controlled regarding this election.

Mail-in ballots have a nasty habit of being sent, or arriving, past the deadline for being counted -- just ask the military in any election since Carter.

I am concerned that a significant number of ballots this November will be past the deadline. And that will be bad.

When that happens -- and it will happen -- somebody is immediately going to sue to allow those ballots to be counted. And someone else will -- correctly -- counter-sue for them not to be counted.

And the Supreme Court will wind up having to make a decision on who gets to be POTUS.

Do you see what's making me concerned?

If the side that argues from a moral standpoint that all votes -- even late ones -- should be counted, is the losing side ... this election is tainted.

If the side that argues from a legal standpoint that deadlines are there for a reason is the losing side ... this election is tainted.

This is not the time in our Nation's history for a tainted election. Way too many people have their identities wrapped up politics. Way too many people are treating politics like a religion. When one side regards the other side as heretics ... well, religion excuses -- if not glorifies -- a lot of bad acts.

I'm not happy about mail-in voting this year, and I don't think anyone else should be, either.

LawDog

Art History

Dr Travis Lee Clark is a friend of ours, and a genuinely nice guy.

More than that, he's a gifted teacher with a true passion for his subject, a passion which shines through, and drags the listener along.

His subject is Art History, and he has recently launched a YouTube channel of lectures on that subject. 

I would take it as a kindness if my Gentle Readers would have a click on his videos (they're free, they're fascinating, and they're educational!), and get the YouTube algorithms to give him some love.

Thank you.

LawDog