How to Talk Your Way into Prison

Alec Baldwin still seems to be counting on the power of celebrity to keep him off Mugshots.com.

As people who read the news know, Baldwin shot and killed a cinematographer, using a loaded gun that was supplied as a prop. For some reason, a live round had found its way into the cylinder, and Baldwin pointed the gun at the director and pulled the trigger. The bullet somehow hit the director, injured him, and then passed into the body of the cinematographer, ending her life quickly.

Baldwin has behaved very badly, blaming the assistant director and set armorer publicly. So much for courage and loyalty. He seems to think that if he was handed a loaded gun, it doesn’t matter what he did with it, because the assistant director and armorer had a duty to make sure it wasn’t loaded. Of course, this is horse manure. Every person who handles firearms has an obligation to know how they work and what the safety rules are. You can’t pick up a firearm and do as you please with it, based on the assumption that someone else, no matter who, has rendered it safe. It doesn’t matter that the armorer’s job was to make the gun safe, nor does it matter that the assistant director also assumed that responsibility. Baldwin had a duty to check it again when he accepted possession. The last person to hold the gun is the killer, period.

It must be wonderful to know your employer, a person with a great deal more power than you in your industry, is trying to put you in prison for his mistake. Baldwin is not a stand-up guy. Not someone you would want beside you in a foxhole.

Baldwin has given George Stephanopoulos an interview, and his new excuse is that he didn’t pull the trigger.

First, it was someone else’s fault. Now he’s blaming a miracle. Even if the miracle occurred, which it did not, he is still guilty.

Baldwin used a real revolver made by the Pietta company. The Pietta company is based in Italy, which is home to some other companies that make reproduction guns for people who like weapons used in the Old West. Pietta does not make special guns for firing blanks. The gun he used was a faithful reproduction of a single-action Colt in .45 Long Colt.

I assume he chose Pietta because they look like Colts, and they’re cheap. One model lists for $540.

Here’s the thing: revolvers don’t just go off. A single-action revolver has to be cocked before every shot, and once it’s cocked, you have to pull the trigger. It won’t go off just because you wave it at someone.

My understanding–correct me if you know better–is that a Pietta revolver can go off if dropped, provided there is a round under the hammer. Modern revolvers have parts that prevent this, but Pietta makes old-fashioned guns.

My great uncle Rich shot himself off a courthouse toilet with an Italian revolver that didn’t have modern safety features; he sat down with the revolver in his pants pocket, and the gun fired a round into his leg when it hit the floor. Maybe that kind of thing could happen with the revolver Baldwin used, but everyone agrees the gun was in his hand when the shooting occurred.

Either Baldwin pulled the trigger, or he caught the hammer on something, or the gun had a magical defect that somehow allowed it to fire by itself.

It doesn’t matter. Even if the gun shot itself, which didn’t happen, Baldwin was negligent.

When someone hands you a gun, you have an obligation to make sure it isn’t loaded, even if you’re a Tinseltown big shot and your armorer and assistant director and an assortment of other employees and toadies have told you the gun is clear. Then you have to treat it as though it were loaded anyway. You have a duty not to point it at anyone. You have a duty to make sure no one is downrange where they might be hit, even if you’re not pointing it at them deliberately. Baldwin violated all these rules even if he didn’t pull the trigger. That makes him negligent, and negligence is all it takes for him to be found guilty.

His lawyer must be an imbecile. Either that, or he doesn’t have one. Or he has one, but he doesn’t listen to him. No lawyer with enough brains to fill a shot glass would let Baldwin do an interview before trial.

Baldwin hasn’t said anything that would indicate innocence, but he has said enough to prove he was negligent in relying on other people to make the gun safe. He has also said a lot of things that will make him very unpopular in his industry, among people he will need to work with in the future.

Pietta’s owner’s manuals contain the rules of firearms safety. Look:

ALWAYS carry revolvers with the hammer down on an empty chamber to prevent accidental discharges caused by a blow to the hammer or with the hammer set on the proper safety position.

More:

ALWAYS handle and treat your gun as if it were loaded so you never fire it accidentally when you think it is unloaded. NEVER think it is unloaded.

NEVER take anyone’s word it is unloaded. ALWAYS check it yourself with your fingers off the trigger and the gun pointed in a safe direction at all times, including while loading.

More:

NEVER keep or carry any revolver with the hammer cocked. Cocking the gun or pulling the trigger should only be done when you are ready to shoot immediately.

More:

ALWAYS leave your fingers out of the trigger until you start firing. Note: safety devices on guns are extras and do not subsitute for safe handling.

More:

NEVER perch the gun on the half-cock notch as it may fall and discharge, causing damage to property, injury or death. The half-cock position provides only partial security from accidental discharges. If damaged or modified it provides NO safety. NEVER depend on the device to prevent accidental discharge.

More:

ALWAYS keep the muzzle pointed in a safe direction. This way, if it fires accidentally, personal injury, death or damage to property can be prevented. This is especially important when loading and unloading your gun. NEVER let the muzzle of the firearm point at any part of your body or at another person or at anything you do not intend to shoot, even if you think it is unloaded. ALWAYS be certain of your target before firing.

More:

ALWAYS unload all firearms when not in use. NEVER store or transport a loaded firearm.

More:

Keep all persons nearby to the rear of the shooter. Standing beside or in front of the shooter is not safe. Flames, hot gases and fragments might fly from the side of the gun causing serious injury.

If you have any doubts about your ability to handle or use this gun safely DO NOT handle or use this gun. You must seek supervised instruction before doing so.

If the DA and the lawyers representing the people suing Baldwin have any idea what they’re doing, they’ll show the jury the owner’s manual. It will prove Baldwin either didn’t read it or didn’t follow the instructions.

What does the manual say? It says, “NEVER take anyone’s word it is unloaded. ALWAYS check it yourself.”

“Mr. Baldwin, here is the owner’s manual for the gun you purchased. Could you read the highlighted passage, please?”

Baldwin ought to be quiet instead of giving prosecutors and Gloria Allred rope to hang him with. I can’t understand why he would behave so foolishly. I guess he’s so spoiled he can’t believe anyone would charge THE Alec Baldwin with a crime.

My opinion is that the DA will charge him, if not because he’s guilty, then because he’s being sued civilly. Imagine how bad the DA will look if Gloria Allred proves he’s guilty after he is spared criminal prosecution. I doubt she wants that on her record.

Typically, people care much more about themselves than they do about their duties. Unless the DA is unusual, she will not care much about the injustice of letting a guilty man skate, but she will be highly disturbed by the prospect of having her reputation stained.

It’s amazing how many stupid legal opinions I’ve seen since the shooting occurred. This is not a hard case to understand, even for a typical district attorney private-sector firms didn’t find appealing enough to hire. It’s about as simple as it gets.

Baldwin will have to prove his innocence, and he can’t. A lot of people think a defendant never has to prove anything, but that’s because they’re ignorant. When a prosecutor shows you shot someone with a gun you didn’t check, you have to come up with justification, and Baldwin can’t, because he doesn’t have a leg to stand on.

The presumption of innocence is swell, but it goes away once the prosecution makes a strong case against you. After that, the burden of proof is all yours.

If Baldwin isn’t charged, it will be for one of two reasons: the DA crumpled because he’s THE Alec Baldwin, or some astounding set of facts which is completely unforeseeable at this time materializes from nothingness.

I don’t know what kind of sentence he would get, but the maximum is a $5000 fine and 18 months in prison, and I assume New Mexico gives people a lot of time off when they cooperate. It’s not a life-destroying prosecution. Who knows? They might let him plead to a misdemeanor so he won’t be a convicted felon. I don’t know the customs of New Mexico prosecutors, but in Florida, my former pastor raped a little girl over and over and only served a couple of years. Sometimes maximum sentences mean almost nothing.

I am getting more merciful in my old age, and I don’t like to see anyone convicted, but it would be nice to see Baldwin stop making excuses and stabbing other people in the back. I would understand completely if he said nothing, but using your less-powerful employees as human shields is not becoming. It’s like jumping behind your wife during a mugging.

My prediction: a charge or charges will be filed. How severe the penalty will be, I am not qualified to guess. As for the civil cases, people will get paid, and there will be no trial unless someone is really greedy. The money will come from insurers, not Baldwin or his associates, and insurers love to settle.

This isn’t Happening

The wife and I are riding out another wave. The Xi Omicron variant is threatening to keep her in Zambia.

The name of the variant is one of the most interesting things about it. As you probably know, right-wing morons and conspiracy nuts have suggested coronavirus is a politicized disease. Nothing could be further from the truth. It’s purely coincidental that the World Health Organization went through the Greek alphabet and chose the letter omicron, skipping the designation Xi, which JUST HAPPENS TO BE THE NAME OF CHINA’S SLEAZY PREMIER.

Personally, I call him Chi Penguin. Don’t ask me why.

Yes, when you’re concerned about the perception that wealthy, corrupt nations and business leaders are controlling the flow of information and spinning things so severely no one really knows what’s happening, the best way to build trust is to show you’re terrified of offending a slimy despot who is responsible for organ harvesting, slave labor, forced abortions, political censorship, political imprisonments, and the spread of coronavirus to the rest of the world.

I guess it’s a good thing the Greek alphabet doesn’t contain a letter called Joe.

As of this minute, several developed nations have banned travel from countries in southern Africa, where the virus was first detected. Zambia, miraculously, has been spared so far. Only the UK has banned Zambians, which is okay, because who in his right mind wants to visit England in the winter?

Rhodah and I are hoping for France and the Netherlands. I believe we just lost the Netherlands, but France still has not surrendered. Uncharacteristically.

I preferred to stay in France anyway, but Rhodah is still in that stage of life where she wants to cram as many countries as possible into every trip.

South Africans are mad because they’ve been banned. They say they’re being punished for discovering the variant, which was actually found first in a person from Botswana. They say it makes no sense for covid infernos like the UK to ban South Africans, who currently live in a not-too-disastrous covid area.

They seem to be upset because of the stigma as well. With regard to that, I think they’re whiners. Getting your lingerie in a knot over the fear that other countries may think a disease variant started in your country is silly. They start where they start. The Spanish flu started in the United States. Doesn’t bother me if people say so. I have to admit, though, we must have had a good PR team, hanging the pandemic around the neck of a country 3000 miles away.

At first, I thought Omicron was a bad thing, but now I’m wondering if it’s really a blessing. To the world, I mean. Not me and the wife. For us, it’s a royal pain.

Dr. Angelique Coetzee, the lady who informed South Africa’s government about the existence of Omicron, says every case she has seen has been very mild. I’m no epidemiologist, but…what if this is a milder variant that displaces the one that suffocates people?

What if Omicron infects a big percentage of the world, makes very few people seriously ill, and enhances their immunity to real coronavirus? That would be pretty cool, by 2021’s admittedly pathetic standards.

Edward Jenner, the man who first vaccinated people against smallpox, and who, as far as we know, never had his genitalia sliced off or insisted people pretend he was a woman, found that if he infected people with the mild illness cowpox, they became immune to smallpox. He found this out using a brilliant strategy. He infected a lower-class 8-year-old boy with cowpox, waited until he recovered, and exposed him to smallpox. The boy didn’t die, so they probably gave him a dose of the belt and put him back to work in the arsenic mine.

I guess guinea pigs were expensive back then. No use wasting money.

It would be nice if Omicron circled the globe and made us all resistant to real covid. That would be better than killing millions of us and making our vaccines look even sillier than they do right now.

Where will we go if France doesn’t work out? Turkey is still on the table, as one might expect two days after Thanksgiving, and because the lira is worth about as much as a MAGA hat in Detroit, everything in Turkey is very cheap.

Mexico is a possibility, but I am still detoxing after many years in Miami, and Mexico might activate my PTSD. If Miami is smallpox, Mexico must be cowpox.

I really don’t want to go to the Bahamas. If you don’t want to sit on the beach, fish, get drunk, or engage ladies of easy virtue, a Bahamas vacation basically amounts to 10 days of room service in a badly-cleaned room, cooked by some of the least-enthusiastic hospitality employees since The Shining. The people on some islands are nice, but we would probably have to go to Nassau, where I always got the impression that when restaurant and hotel workers saw me and my wallet walk in to pay their bills, it ruined their day.

When I was in Nassau, staying in a marina on PI, the whole area smelled like poop, flies were a big problem, and it was not unusual to see large pieces of excrement floating by with the tide. Trying to get people to wait on me made me feel like Patrick Swayze in Ghost.

All this being said, I would go almost anywhere to be united with my bride. Well. Not Miami. Not until I’ve ruled out destinations like Somalia, Antarctica, Pyongyang, and the active crater on La Palma.

Today I thought about visiting Zambia. The problem with that, apart from the obvious fact that I would be in Zambia, is that our president’s advisors or his certified nursing assistant might tell him to ban flights from Zambia, and then I would be stuck there until Kamala Harris, AKA The Girl with Colonoscope Eyes, took over and revisited America’s paranoia settings.

Here’s hoping that through Omicron, our kind and patient God accomplishes what man hasn’t been able to do in two years: flattening the curve.

Laymen and Their Brilliant Legal Opinions

Today’s disturbing evidence that Americans are subject to supernatural deception: leftists are saying the Rittenhouse verdicts set dangerous precedent.

We keep saying “verdict,” but there were a bunch of verdicts.

Leftists are claiming that as a result of the verdicts, it will now be relatively easy for conservative gunmen to go out in public carrying rifles and shoot whomever they want. Antifers are encouraging each other to buy guns and take them to riots or protests or whatever you choose to call them. The excuse is that they now face hordes of charged-up Rittenhouse clones who think they can’t be prosecuted.

Is there any point in writing about this idiocy? No one will be convinced by what I write, even though I will write truths that are self-evident. You will agree with me if you’re a reasonable person who agreed with me before reading this. Otherwise, there is very little hope the thick bone of your skull can be breached.

Here I go.

The Rittenhouse homicide verdicts did not set precedent of any kind.

In order for a case to set precedent, there has to be something novel about it. It has to change the law, usually by answering some question that hadn’t been answered in the past.

In order for precedent to be binding on a court, it has to be binding within the jurisdiction of whatever court it answers to. For example, let’s say a Florida state court in the Third Judicial District decides it’s illegal to put margarine on waffles, as it should be. Other judges in the same district, or even the same judge, can ignore the decision in other cases. A court in the Fourth Judicial District can ignore it. The Third District Court of Appeal can ignore or reverse it. A court in another state can ignore it. Federal courts can generally ignore it, although sometimes federal courts have to apply state law, and I don’t want to get into that subject, because I would have to Google. In jurisdictions where the decision is not binding, at best, it will be considered “persuasive.”

Rittenhouse was acquitted in the Kenosha County Circuit Court in Wisconsin. There are courts of appeal above the county circuit courts, and there are other circuits. There is no reason to think other Wisconsin circuits would automatically respect a Kenosha County decision, unless Wisconsin laws are peculiar. There is no reason to think the appellate courts or supreme court would feel bound. The federal courts in the area certainly would not, nor would any court outside of Wisconsin.

Actually, I believe Wisconsin courts are famous for decisions intended to curtail the use of margarine. But I digress.

In short, Kenosha County precedent isn’t precedent anywhere else.

Also dispositive: juries can’t set precedent. A precedent is a ruling of law. Juries don’t make those. They look at evidence, compare it with jury instructions, and decide whether the evidence and instructions match up. Jurors are not competent to make legal rulings. No one expects them to. The Rittenhouse verdicts were findings of fact, not law, delivered by a jury, not a judge.

Finally, the Rittenhouse case didn’t change the law surrounding self-defense. There was nothing novel or interesting about it, apart from egregious prosecutorial misconduct. It was cut-and-dried. A young man shot someone who tried to grab his rifle after chasing him down, on the same night the assailant threatened to kill the young man and cut his heart out. An armed mob tried to lynch the victim, and the victim shot some more attackers. Self-defense. Simple. What Rittenhouse did–using deadly force to defend himself, I mean–was legal in every state. It was legal in 1950. It was legal in 1900. Nothing new.

It would have been legal even if the mob had not been armed. There is no jurisdiction in which you are required to let a mob beat you instead of using deadly force.

If you’re a leftist, look at it this way. Imagine Kid Rock, George Zimmerman, Donald Trump Jr., James Woods, and 75 Proud Boys, all unarmed, chased Lil Nas X down and started beating him, and he shot some of them and ran off. Would you have a problem with his actions? Would you seriously complain that an armed gunman had shot unarmed protestors? You would think no one would be stupid enough to blame the victim.

The only interesting legal ruling in the case involved the judge’s refusal to try to enforce Wisconsin’s confusing law regarding minors and weapons. That ruling didn’t save Rittenhouse from a murder conviction, however. It was a separate issue, and the best leftists could have hoped for was a misdemeanor conviction, most likely followed by probation and, eventually, expungement.

So:

1. A Kenosha County Circuit Court ruling of law is not precedent, even in the Kenosha County Circuit Court.

2. A jury rendered the verdicts, and juries can’t set precedent.

3. No novel rulings were made with regard to the Rittenhouse homicide charges.

In other words, the Rittenhouse judge did nothing to make it easier or harder to shoot people.

Apart from the law regarding minors and weapons, which carries a misdemeanor penalty, and which will probably be revisited by the legislature in the aftermath of the judge’s refusal to enforce it, nothing will change.

The conclusions I’ve presented are not wild opinions. They represent centuries of well-settled law. They are irrefutable. They’re about as debatable as a statement that people who work in courthouse doughnut kiosks can’t rule on objections.

It’s really something, seeing leftists stand up for blatant, unquestionable prosecutorial misconduct. When did that become a leftist position? Aren’t they the people who fought for Miranda rights and free public defenders? Aren’t their chosen officials turning thieves loose right now in California and New York?

For centuries, leftists have been telling us the police and courts have to go easier on suspects and defendants and do more to protect their rights. The Bill of Rights is a leftist document. It was written by men who didn’t like all-powerful kings and their prosecutors. Now, suddenly, it’s a good thing when prosecutors run their ethics and their souls through the garbage disposal in order to convict the innocent.

I will never convince anyone, regardless of how obvious the truth is.

What I write here will never establish precedent in anyone’s mind.

Leftists have supported kangaroo courts in the USSR, China, and just about every other socialist country, so I should not be shocked.

The blindness we are seeing now is willful, and it is extreme. It should be impossible for so many Americans to believe things which are clearly, demonstrably untrue, and which have been proven untrue repeatedly all over the web and on global television. The only plausible explanation is that we are duped by evil spirits because most of us don’t know the Spirit of Holiness, who is the one in charge of opening eyes to reason.

Lately, I have been working on prophesying. You could say I’ve been practicing it. It has been getting easier and more fluent.

Sometimes I get angry when I read the news, and I feel like typing comments or fuming in private. I have to forgive people over and over and think about my own sins. I find that when I spend a long time praying in tongues and prophesying, the anger disappears, as does my interest in the news.

For years, I’ve been saying the Internet was going to be the Antichrist’s counterfeit version of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit unites God’s children and teaches them all exactly the same things. He brings peace and harmony by ending disagreement. He cleanses us of evil emotions and thoughts. He also commands us like an army. On the other hand, the Internet fills us with anger and disinformation. It gives different people different versions of facts. It spreads pornography. It encourages us to hate each other. It is being used to command mobs to do evil.

Yesterday I realized it made sense that prophesying and praying in tongues made things better. Doing these things is like surfing God’s Internet. We spend too much time on the web, absorbing filth, and not enough time being cleansed, informed, and refreshed.

I believe my experiences with tongues and prophecy confirm what God told me about the Internet and the Antichrist. There is always symmetry in the supernatural, because Satan has no original ideas. He has to copy God. He can’t create anything like the Holy Spirit, so he made a fake out of chips, screens, and wires.

If surfing Satan’s counterfeit causes problems, you would expect having the Holy Spirit flow through you to fix problems.

One thing I keep hearing goes like this: “Don’t worry about the people who will not listen. They can’t be saved, and they have no future.” Ominous. I also heard, “I am here to reap.” I hope that was God and not my imagination.

God has told us to covet prophecy, so obviously, we are expected to receive the gift. It would make no sense for him to tell us to set our hearts on something we can’t have. After all, he says, “Delight thyself also in the Lord, and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart.”

I hope we don’t have to wait much longer. The thought of me sitting here typing blog entries in 2055, in a world where it is nearly impossible to tell men from women, is a little too much.

The Left’s Justice Crusaders Continue to be an Inspiration to All

Stuff I predicted keeps coming true.

Several years ago, I said flash mob looting was going to sweep the country in the future. Looks like it’s starting.

San Francisco rioters materialized at expensive stores shortly after Kyle Rittenhouse was rightly acquitted. How about that timing? What a coincidence! Presumably in order to rid the world of injustice and establish a fairer society, they broke windows and swarmed stores like Louis Vuitton and Bulgari. They also hit Nordstrom and Neiman-Marcus in Chicago. Nothing says “civic-mindedness” like a stolen $800 baseball cap.

That price is not something I made up, by the way.

Since the first lootings, San Francisco has fallen into a frenzy of store raids. “Dozens” of stores, according to Fox, have been raped. Guess what they’re going after now? Pharmacies and weed dispensaries.

Nothing says “civic-mindedness” like wearing your stolen $800 baseball cap when you go out to steal weed and prescription painkillers.

Of course, they’re also hitting other retailers. Christmas is coming, and shrewd thieves won’t want to give precious drugs and designer clothing away. They’ll need modest gifts for people they care about less than themselves.

I don’t know why the looting wave didn’t start sooner. I suppose God restrained people. They knew how to do it, and they certainly weren’t inhibited by morality. The new lack of enforcement appears to be a factor.

The web says 175 shots were fired at cops trying to stop San Francisco social justice looters, so now it’s not just theft, conspiracy, and RICO violations. It’s attempted murder on a very large scale.

When I said this would happen, I also said the criminals would eventually realize they were stronger than the police. Maybe that’s happening now; the shooting suggests they are confident the police can’t cope with them. San Francisco cops didn’t stand up to them. They retreated and hid. It’s probably not possible for police to engage large groups of killers in the street, due to concerns about stray shots hitting innocent people.

Maybe the choice we face is this: have the police rain bullets on our cities, or kiss stores goodbye.

The Rittenhouse verdict pushed things along, as did San Francisco’s election of an activist DA who refuses to prosecute people. He put outlaws in a position where one could steal thousands of dollars’ worth of things with very little risk of arrest, let alone prosecution. Criminals weigh risks and rewards. It’s why they shoot up gun-free zones, not gun shows.

If I were a criminal, and I knew the worst possible outcome from my actions would be a fine, and that unlikely, I would do the math and go out and loot.

Things should continue to get worse, especially if the men who detained and shot Ahmaud Arbery go free or only receive light sentences.

I’ve also complained that leftists’ deliberate rejection of truthfulness would convince black people they were victims and therefore entitled to commit racist crimes. This was not a brilliant prediction, because to a large extent, it had already come true when I predicted it. Now it’s worse. A black criminal has used a car to murder a bunch of old white women.

The Daily Beast (apt name) is making fun of conservatives for saying the killer, Darrell Brooks, was motivated by the Rittenhouse verdict. Well, let’s see. Brooks is black. He has a history of spewing hatred against the police, just like BLM. He killed people in Waukesha, the state where Kyle Rittenhouse defended himself. He drove into a crowd of white people. The group of elderly dancers he hit was almost exclusively, if not completely, white.

Doesn’t look good, does it?

Any reasonable person would think it was likely that Darrell Brooks thought he was doing justice and fighting white supremacy when he killed his white victims. It’s not certain, but the evidence is very strong. If the murders aren’t linked to Rittenhouse and the fatuous, misguided pursuit of bogus social justice, then what else explains them?

Let’s see. A black man who is not a racist is driving down the street one day, he sees a parade featuring a white dance team, and he is filled with rage because…of what? Because they’re blocking traffic? Because he doesn’t like the music? Because he’s a Muslim and he hates Christmas parades? What reasonable explanation is there, apart from premeditated racist mass murder?

A BLM activist went online after the killings and said, “it sounds possible that the revolution has started in Wisconsin,” referring to the attack. I guess the people at The Daily Beast would consider him a right-wing troll.

I think this guy decided to avenge the acquittal of a white man who defended himself from a lynching by killing multiple white people. I believe the evidence will take us there, because no other reasonable explanation presents itself.

He’s going to be convicted unless the cops or prosecutors make some kind of bonehead mistake. What then? Will leftists start calling him a political prisoner? Will there be blatantly-racist “Free Darrell” shirts? Will it seem necessary to kill more white people to avenge Darrell the hero?

If things get bad enough, black areas are likely to sustain devastating losses. They are in the minority, they can’t match the armament the rest of us have, and the majority is much, much better at violence. Black activists need to think about these things and discourage cultural suicide committed in the name of self-destructive lies. Unfortunately, the most powerful black activists only care about themselves. The worse things go for other black people, the more money they make, so if the majority inflicts heavy casualties in black areas, it will be nothing but helpful to people like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton.

The police are saying the attack was not terrorism. That’s asinine. Of course it was terrorism. A man belonging to one group attacked innocent civilians belonging to another group, for the purpose of advancing his political goals. That’s exactly what terrorism is. The cops must have meant the attack wasn’t related to Islamism.

It’s not good. The swimming pool full of gasoline has been with us for a while, and now people are throwing in matches. The Rittenhouse threw a match in because they couldn’t convict an innocent man. Brooks threw one in because he loves the victimhood myth and doesn’t care about the truth.

Satan is doing a wonderful job, turning people against each other. It’s all so unnecessary. Christians who are full of the Holy Spirit love each other and side with each other without regard to race or nationality. Two Spirit-led Christians of different races will side with each other against the groups from which they emerged. This happens all the time. It’s normal. It’s expected. Well, not by the press. They seem to think Christianity is white supremacy.

If humanity had accepted the Holy Spirit to a greater degree, we wouldn’t see what we’re seeing today. People would identify with the family of God, not races or nations. We wouldn’t say this group or that group was the problem. We would say Satan and sin were the problems.

I’m not prophesying, but I think racist flash mob crimes will increase for the foreseeable future, barring an extraordinary governmental response. I expect the left to continue doubling down on self-righteousness and self-deceit, making more people immune to recovery. Sooner or later, we will probably see a serious increase in armed, mostly-white gangs (“militias”), claiming to be Christians yet spouting racist canards and blaming the Jews for the world’s problems.

The press will treat the conservative gangsters as though they represent all Christians, and they will call them terrorists, but they will continue calling leftist gangsters activists and protestors.

I’m praying for Jesus to come for us quickly. I want out. I do not want to have to carry a rifle when I go to the grocery store, and I certainly don’t want to be shot because I refuse to carry a rifle.

More Acquittals?

I don’t think I’ve written anything about the Ahmaud Arbery case. If I have, I doubt I wrote much. It didn’t interest me, because it seemed like things were going smoothly. At first glance, it looked like several overzealous civilians tried to apprehend a black suspect without authority and shot him when he grabbed one of their guns. I figured they were probably guilty of some kind of homicide, so I didn’t pay much attention to the reactions of leftists. I thought they were going to get what they wanted, so it didn’t matter to me whether they said things that weren’t true.

I’ve been looking at it a little bit today, and I’m somewhat disturbed. We might be looking at 5 acquittals in one month. If that happens, good luck buying Christmas presents at malls this year. They will all be looted and burned.

Ahmaud Arbery was an emotional young man who did not react wisely when challenged. There is a video of him scaring two cops to the point where one tried to tase him. He felt he had been detained unfairly, and he was belligerent and physically threatening. Later, on the day he died, he was detained by several civilians who thought he had been stealing in their area. He had been seen trespassing at a construction site.

The civilians were armed. They parked a truck across a road where Arbery was jogging. When he reached them, one was holding a shotgun. Arbery charged him and began trying to rip the gun out of his hands. The gun was fired three times, and the encounter is on video, but the video doesn’t show the shooting. You can hear the shots, but you can’t see what happened.

My understanding is that Arbery didn’t actually steal things. I don’t know if that’s true. In any event, he didn’t have any stolen items on him when he died.

Here is the problem: Arbery attacked the man who shot him, and, depending on the law and what the jury believes, it’s possible the jury will acquit. If they do acquit, it may be the right thing to do under the circumstances, but there is no way most Americans will believe it.

I know a little bit about the law of self-defense, so I’ll explain it.

If I’m in my house, and I’m holding a gun, and you charge me and try to rip it out of my hands, I can shoot you legally. I would be in reasonable fear of serious harm, and that would trigger the right to use lethal force.

What if I’m in your house because I’ve broken in illegally, and the same thing happens? I go to prison. Why? Because you lose the right to self-defense when you’re committing a crime. If that were not true, burglars would have the right to shoot back at the police. They do not.

Okay, so the question is this: did the man who shot Arbery have the right to defend himself, or was he committing a crime when he fired?

Based on short glances at news stories, the defense is claiming the white men with the guns had a legal right to stop and detain Arbery, using firearms. Either their attorneys are utter morons, or there must be some legal basis for their strategy. If there is, there may well be three acquittals.

I am too lazy to Google Georgia law, but it may be that civilians there are allowed to pursue and arrest suspected criminals while bearing arms. If that is true, it is probably necessary to establish that the suspicion is reasonable, and it may be that the law only applies to felonies, so the defense would have to convince the jury Arbery was reasonably suspected of committing a serious crime. I’m guessing at the law, but this is how the law generally works. If the law entitles you to do something, you have to show you did it right.

Another big problem here is the standard of proof. If the men are acquitted, the public will never understand the standard. Laymen often think a defendant has to prove he’s innocent, but of course, that isn’t true. The prosecution has to prove he’s guilty. That requires evidence. Because the shooting was not on camera, there is no evidence of what the shooter and Arbery did, except for the shooter’s testimony, if he chooses to take the stand. Arbery can’t contradict him, because he’s dead. The defense will present a story, and the prosecution will present a story. If the jury doesn’t know which story is true, it has to acquit even if everyone on the jury thinks the shooter and his friends are guilty.

You don’t convict because you’re pretty sure a defendant is guilty. You have to be very sure. When there isn’t much evidence, it’s hard to be sure.

Maybe the forensics will somehow help the prosecution.

The kneejerk press and the riot-prone masses will never understand if the jury decides it’s not sure what happened. They never understand how it works. They’ll say a racist jury acquitted three racists, just because Arbery was black. Free TV’s and Vuitton bags for everyone.

Anyway, I’m not taking a position on guilt or innocence. This isn’t like the Rittenhouse trial, where the defendant’s innocence was unquestionable. I don’t know whether the law was violated or not.

I will say this: Arbery made a big mistake. You don’t try to wrestle a shotgun away from an armed man. You will put him in fear for his life, and you can expect him to shoot you, legally or illegally. The shooter in this case had a choice between letting a very angry man take his gun or shooting to save his own life and two others and taking his chances with a jury. You don’t want to give another person that choice.

Even if Arbery was afraid they would drive him to the country and shoot him, which might not have been an unreasonable fear, he should have cooperated and waited for a better opportunity to escape. Even if they intended to kill him, and they said so, and they put a post on Facebook saying, “We are going to kill this guy,” it would have been smarter to wait and look for a better opening.

I’m not saying he asked to be shot or that it was okay to detain him. Just that he escalated a dangerous situation unwisely when it wasn’t necessary. If he had stayed calm, he might have been shot anyway, but because he lost his temper, he assured it.

Because the standard of proof is very high for the prosecution and very low for the defense, and because the evidence is subject to spin because of the problems with the video, it may be that we are in for another highly controversial verdict.

Whether the public understands it or not, when a defendant is guilty but the prosecution can’t prove it, the law says he should be acquitted. That’s just how it is.

MORE

Okay, I broke down and read about Georgia’s citizen-arrest law, which has been repealed since the killing. You have to show the person you detained was reasonably suspected of committing a felony. The prosecutor claims Arbery was only guilty of trespassing, which is a misdemeanor. Since evidence that Arbery committed felonies appears to be absent, it doesn’t sound too good for the defendants.

Infantile Looting Sprees Begin

I don’t know why I ever look at the news. Seems like everything I predict happens. Maybe I should just ask myself about the future.

I jest. I draw obvious conclusions lots of other people draw, and sometimes I’m wrong. I’m right a lot, though. I think God tells me how the world works, in general terms. If you know how the world works, predictions aren’t that hard to make. Oddly, this makes the world a place which is simultaneously predictable and disappointing. That sounds like a paradox.

Riots broke out last night. I predicted it. So did the liberal governor of Wisconsin, though. He arranged for troops to be available to fight members of his own party because he knew they were immature and irrational. Says something about his opinion of his base, doesn’t it?

Oddly, the rioting didn’t hit Wisconsin, where Kyle Rittenhouse killed the rap-sheeted vigilantes who tried to lynch him. It hit Portland, Chicago, and San Francisco.

I have joked many times about leftists looking forward to news that displeases them and planning to rob stores they really like. Well, I joked, but I was mostly serious. Obviously, leftists who have no morals have learned that unpleasant news means free stuff, so, yes, they do plan their stealing before the news comes out. Last night they proved it by robbing Louis Vuitton, Neiman-Marcus, and a bunch of other expensive stores.

As always, the connection between stealing status symbols and making needed social change is unclear. A cynic–not me, of course–might say stealing, not change, is the objective.

The thief-activists were generally black, so this is another proud moment for those who dedicate their lives to improving the lot of black Americans. It makes the victimhood myth that much harder to push. It’s also an important day for white racists who want more justification for their militia-centric schemes for purifying America and turning it into a caucasian utopia. Similar ideas didn’t work out too well for the Germans and Austrians, but the great thing about being irrational is that you never have to give up on a bad plan. Ask Bernie Sanders.

It’s a great day for hate.

Of course, many of the people who are supposed to prop up our morals and our respect for civilization are doing the opposite. Mayors and governors are defecating on the verdict, and, by extension, the jury, the judge, the court system, and the Constitution (especially the Due Process Clause of the 5th Amendment).

Soulless opportunists like Andrew Cuomo, New York Governer Kathy Hochul, Joe Biden, Bill de Blasio, NYC Mayor-Elect Eric Adams, AOC, Jerry Nadler, and whoever writes tweets for the ACLU are criticizing the verdict and giving people the idea that it’s illegitimate and that justice was not done. In doing so, they are encouraging simpletons to riot. They’re telling them they were cheated.

It is particularly nauseating to see the ACLU chime in. Here is the ACLU’s statement of its purpose: “to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties that the Constitution and the laws of the United States guarantee everyone in this country.”

The 2nd Amendment is part of the Constitution, and it guarantees a civil right. Leftists hate it when you say that, but it’s true. The NRA is the nation’s biggest civil rights organization. The 5th Amendment right to Due Process is also a civil right. Kyle Rittenhouse shot or shot at 4 vigilantes who were trying to deprive him of the right to live, via lynching, without due process. Then he was freed as a result of due process, i.e., a trial. The ACLU is a farce. Seeing the ACLU oppose civil rights is like seeing the NAACP crusade to repeal the 13th Amendment and bring back slavery.

The upshot: the people who should be trying to explain the system to citizens and make them understand the trial was fair are, instead, blowing dog whistles to encourage them to burn down buildings and steal designer clothes.

It’s no different than Kristallnacht. “These people caused your problems, so go out at night and destroy what they have.” The Nazis wanted citizens to be a pack of pit bulls they could control, so they convinced them they were victims and Jews were their enemies. Leftists are doing the same thing to conservatives, corporations, successful people, Jews, Christians, whites, and Southerners.

The response to the verdict is legitimizing and stimulating violence.

What about the trial itself? Leftists are saying the verdict encourages white people to go out and shoot whoever they like, which is not true. The fact that Rittenhouse was charged in the first place, when all the evidence proved his assailants were the only criminals, discourages all Americans from exercising their right to self-defense.

Leftists have a real problem with self-defense, but unprovoked aggression (by the right kinds of people) doesn’t bother them at all. The aggression is the fault of the victims, because they run the system that oppresses the assailants. If the victims fight back, they’re racists, fascists, gun-lovers, Nazis, and whatever else leftists can think of to call them.

Leftists are crusading against self-defense because most violent criminals are leftists. That’s a fact Democrats don’t admit. Only a small percentage of violent prison inmates are rightists. Leftists would rather see innocent people hurt than guilty people incarcerated. They feel the sacrifice is worth it because incarceration, which is driven by bad behavior, not race, hits minorities disproportionately. They are against fairness for racist reasons.

The view seems to be that innocent victims are expendable training aids, like the rabbits that used to be used to train greyhounds to race. Trainers let them tear live rabbits to pieces so they would be eager to run after stuffed rabbits on dog tracks. If a troubled youth needs to shoot a few innocent people before he gets his life together, it’s worth it, because he’s important, and they’re just props in life’s big play.

The fact that Kyle Rittenhouse’s life was disrupted by trumped-up charges, while the criminals he shot were not even arrested, chills use of the right to self-defense.

I’m happy Rittenhouse went home, but the unjust charges and nearly-inevitable acquittal will bear bitter fruit. Many Americans are just too stupid, emotional, and racist to react correctly, admitting Rittenhouse was innocent and pushing for leftists to end their violence. Others are justifiably afraid they will be destroyed in court if they defend themselves elsewhere. Still others are more convinced than ever that conservative violence is the answer.

This whole string of events may be a huge shot in the arm for the spirit of murder that is taking over the world. If numbskulls on the left ramp up the rioting, the rest of us may be provoked to respond, and America may enter into a period of nationwide violence. I am watching to see whether the spirit sends his troops out tonight. If so, the game may be on.

I don’t know why I’m writing about this. Leftists are immune to reason, as are the relatively few violence-prone nuts on the right. Only the Holy Spirit can open people’s hearts and make them realize they’re being used by Satan.

My long-term prediction is extreme division, hatred, and destruction. All I ask God for is his help in removing his children before our suffering gets too intense or the provocation becomes too great for us to handle. I do not pray for him to fix America, because people, not God, are responsible for that job.

Correct Verdict puts Left’s Shaky Self-Control to the Test

My wife did me wrong today. We were on video chat, and she announced the Rittenhouse verdict to me instead of letting me read about it myself. Total spoiler.

The funny thing about it is that some American Democrat alerted her. He put a post on Facebook, which she had to visit briefly today. The post said the man was disgusted, and it said, “Disgusting, let the streets get him.”

I noted the irony of this incomprehensibly stupid remark. Rittenhouse had been on trial because he PREVENTED the streets from dealing with him. A bunch of apes in clothing tried to lynch him, and he exercised his civil rights and shot three of them.

It’s so strange, how the left tells not just lies, but filthy projections. They’re calling Rittenhouse a vigilante. In reality, he was attacked by vigilantes. A person who sees a shooter headed for the police to turn himself in, and who attacks that person instead of letting him get to the police is, by definition, a vigilante. A vigilante is a person with no authority who presumes to do the job of the police.

You can say Rittenhouse was a vigilante because he helped guard businesses and armed himself, but that would be wrong, because he did it with the consent and gratitude of the police. He was more like a member of a posse. You can’t be a vigilante if you have the approval of the police.

I learned something interesting this week. Rittenhouse didn’t carry an AR-15 because it was his weapon of choice. He carried it because he could not carry a pistol legally. This is what he says, and it makes sense, because he is right about the law. The idea that Rittenhouse showed up with a rifle because he wanted to shoot people has no basis.

Some people say he was foolish to show up in Kenosha that night. I think that’s true, but only because of his age. He may have violated the law by carrying at his age. The law is so badly written, the judge couldn’t make a determination of what it meant, but it’s not a good idea to assume a badly written law doesn’t apply to you. I don’t know if Rittenhouse knew about the law, but he should have.

Doesn’t mean he broke the law. No one knows whether he did or not. It’s not possible to know, because the law is badly drafted.

Was he foolish to show up if you take the gun law out of the equation? I’m not willing to say that. American soldiers considerably younger than 17 have died in combat while doing their jobs with courage and skill, and there is no reason to say no 17-year-old should help defend a city from savages. A 12-year-old joined the Navy and served admirably in World War Two.

Rittenhouse didn’t threaten anyone. He helped business owners. When he was attacked, he ran instead of standing his ground and shooting. He didn’t fire until a bona fide moron and incorrigible criminal grabbed his gun. He only fired until his assailant was down, he didn’t hit anyone else, and he returned to see if he could help.

He immediately tried to turn himself in, and when the lynch mob attacked, he didn’t shoot until he had to. He didn’t hit any innocent people. He stopped shooting the criminals he hit once they were neutralized. He didn’t empty his magazine, which is what many cops have done in similar circumstances.

Seems to me he proved he was capable of behaving responsibly. The assailants, on the other hand, behaved like enraged monkeys.

You can say he should have left when the late pervert Jojo Rosenbaum threatened to kill him and cut his heart out, but if that’s how it works, no one can guard a city with a firearm, because the minute a leftist berserker threatens you, you have to leave. Cities have to be guarded by civilians sometimes, as the Constitution’s “militia” remark shows. You can’t guard anything if your mere presence is considered to be an illegal threat.

If Rosenbaum had not threatened Rittenhouse, chased him, and grabbed his gun, Rosenbaum would still be alive, free to rape more kids. If Grosskreutz, Huber, and Maurice Freeland, the criminal who kicked Rittenhouse illegally, had let Rittenhouse turn himself in, he would not have pointed his weapon at any of them. Grosskreutz would still have more than 1.5 arms, and Huber would still be alive.

1. It’s legal for armed civilians like Rittenhouse to guard property while carrying guns, especially in concert with the police.

2. It’s illegal to threaten to kill people and mutilate their bodies, as the pervert Rosenbaum did.

3. It’s illegal to grab a person’s gun barrel, as the pervert Rosenbaum did.

4. It’s illegal to attack people who are running to the police to turn themselves in. Grosskreutz, Huber, and Freeland did this.

I keep calling Rosenbaum things like “pervert” and “rapist” because so many websites are calling him misnomers like “victim” and “protestor.” He was a filthy pervert who raped very young boys, he went to prison, and while he was there, he got in trouble over and over.

The Washington Post says Jojo was imprisoned for “sexual conduct with children.” No, he was a gay pedophile who molested boys ranging from 5 to 9 years of age, and his “conduct” included anal rape. If you were the father of one of the boys, and you saw Jojo violating your son’s anus, would you tell him to knock off the “sexual conduct”? Somebody at the Post apparently would.

The Bible uses blunt language. I will, too. Rape. Anus. Rape. Anus. It’s important to be graphic sometimes. To appreciate Jojo’s crimes, you need a mental picture, preferably accompanied by a young boy’s screams.

The world is better off without Jojo. It’s too bad he didn’t attack Rittenhouse before he raped all those kids. He should have been executed for the rapes instead of being released while young and fit. Truthfully, if there is any redemption to Rittenhouse’s actions, it is that Jojo Rosenbaum died as a result. If the shooting prevented even one more rape, then what Rittenhouse has gone through has been worth it.

Now we get to wait and see if riots materialize. I don’t know what’s happening tonight. Weekends are prime riot time, and tomorrow is Saturday, so I would think tomorrow night will be the test. My friend Mike thinks rioters are too sorry to loot in cold weather, but I think the allure of free TV’s and stereos may bring them out.

We also get to experience several years of unbelievably stupid and dishonest tweets, Facebook postings, and MSM libels about the victim. Defendant/Former governor Andrew Cuomo and NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio are among the offenders, and Joe Biden has said the verdict made him angry and concerned. Biden also says he will “stand by” the verdict, which is incomprehensible. He himself may not know what he meant. In any case, the usual suspects are busy fomenting unrest with asinine remarks their base is not smart enough to dismiss.

I feel great about Kyle’s acquittal. I felt as though I were on trial with him.

I Know a Prosecutor who Needs an Ethics Course

In case you’re wondering what’s happening with Kyle Rittenhouse, the young man whom a Kenosha prosecutor is railroading for using a rifle to defend himself against at least three armed attackers plus a deranged, child-raping ex-con who tried to yank the rifle away from him, here it is: the prosecution’s star “victim” witness appears to be proving him innocent.

Rittenhouse was at the Kenosha riots…sorry, I mean “mostly peaceful protests”…guarding businesses from arsonists and offering people first aid when he was attacked by Jojo Rosenbaum, a child-raping felon with a history of committing violent infractions while in prison. Rosenbaum threw a bag at Rittenhouse and tried to pull his rifle away, and Rittenhouse shot and killed him.

The mob turned on Rittenhouse. At some point, a leftist fired a pistol behind him. He was chased as he ran to the police to turn himself in. He was knocked down, hit with a skateboard (or, as honest prosecutors call it, “deadly weapon”), kicked in the upper body, and assaulted by one Gaige Grosskreutz, who approached him and pointed an illegal pistol at him.

He killed one attacker and blew off 90% of Grosskreutz’s right bicep. A friend of Grosskreutz later went on social media, posted a picture of himself with Grosskreutz in a sling, and claimed Grosskreutz said he wished he had emptied his gun into Rittenhouse.

So far, the trial has established that 1) Rosenbaum committed assault and battery on Rittenhouse, begged people to shoot him (Rosenbaum), and tried to grab the rifle; 2) a leftist rioter who has been identified fired a pistol behind Rittenhouse while he was being attacked, and 3) Grosskreutz pointed his gun at Rittenhouse just before Rittenhouse crippled him.

Grosskreutz appears to be somewhat stupid, which is not surprising. He had a gun permit, but it had expired as of the day of the riot, and he decided to display his illegal gun and pursue and threaten a man who was not trying to harm him, knowing he was surrounded by cell phones with cameras. Grosskreutz himself says he pointed the gun at Rittenhouse, so there goes his attempted murder claim.

Grosskreutz claims the social media post in which he demonstrated a clear desire to kill (not apprehend) the victim is bogus. So evidently, one of his best buds used his photo on social media and attached a defamatory statement about Grosskreutz, and Grosskreutz didn’t tell him to take it down or otherwise form an intelligent response. Sure.

Someone explain it to me. How did this case ever get filed in America? Why hasn’t Grosskreutz, who clearly committed more than one serious crime, been charged with anything? As for the defendant, how much evidence do you need to convince a prosecutor you can’t be convicted?

It’s as if the Dallas Police had watched the Oswald shooting and then arrested Oswald instead of Jack Ruby.

Grosskreutz, in his brilliance, testified that he didn’t mean to point his gun at Rittenhouse. Being a stupid and dishonest person, he doesn’t realize it doesn’t matter what his intent was. If I point a gun at you while we’re having a dispute, it doesn’t matter what my intent is. You can kill me legally. All that matters is REASONABLE APPREHENSION OF DEATH OR SERIOUS INJURY, with some variations in different states. When a hostile person runs toward you and points a gun at you, the only reasonable conclusion is that you are about to be hurt or killed.

The law does not require you to give your assailant a polygraph.

Grosskreutz is a soulless liar, and he’s not good at it, either. He told the softballing prosecution his hands were down as he approached Rittenhouse. Hello? There’s video! The defense asked the obvious question. They made him admit he eventually pointed the gun at Rittenhouse. We all know this. If the jurors didn’t know it, they would have found out. The videos will be introduced as evidence, if they haven’t already. Grosskreutz can be seen on video pointing his gun at Rittenhouse. He and the prosecutor should have admitted this up front.

Grosskreutz is done. Well, he should be. He confessed to two crimes from the witness stand, and he proved Rittenhouse had every right to shoot him. But if the right prosecutor would put this garbage trial in front of a jury, the right jury will convict. Remember O.J. Stone-cold murderer. Two people dead. His ex-wife’s throat cut all the way back to the spine. A jury of racist black women didn’t care.

Assuming the jury isn’t utterly deranged, which is a big assumption, the Grosskreutz case is over, and that only leaves the other two attackers. A young man is lying on the ground, being mugged by a crowd shouting things like, “Get him!” He hears pistol shots. He has been attacked by a nut case who tried to take his rifle away, presumably so he could use it. The prosecution has to convince the jury the young man on the ground has no reasonable fear of great harm. They would have to be sociopaths in order to go along with it.

Rittenhouse’s only problem, assuming a sane jury, is the gun charge. He was 17 when he defended himself, but he didn’t have the legal right to carry a rifle in Kenosha. Hmm. So the prosecutor is hot to prosecute people who violate firearms laws.

Like Gaige Grosskreutz?

How will she be able to push for a gun conviction for Rittenhouse when the man who threatened him illegally, with an illegal pistol, is being treated like a national hero? Call me optimistic, but I think that may draw attention even in deranged 2021 America.

If he is convicted, what’s a reasonable sentence? Crimes like this are routinely pleaded down to misdemeanors, especially for young people with no previous criminal history. How will this crooked prosecutor get the judge to make an exception in this case, while sending Grosskreutz home with a hug and her sincere thanks?

Grosskreutz already has a 2016 conviction for carrying while drunk. You would think a brazen repeat offender would attract a prosecutor’s attention.

It’s this simple: if the jury is reasonable and the judge admits all the evidence he should, Rittenhouse will walk, and hopefully, his misfortune will turn into a reliable source of income for several years. If the juries are idiots and the judge is a martinet, things will go badly for him.

Simply put, Kyle Rittenhouse fought his way out of one lynching, and the prosecutor is trying to lynch him again.

On the one hand, I can’t wait to see this kid walk. On the other, I’m glad I don’t own a business in Kenosha. The usual suspects will surely work to assure social justice by setting fires and carrying off free TV sets. Nothing says, “I care about justice,” like looting a Best Buy.

Final, distantly related question: has anyone asked why the FBI carried out the ridiculous, press-intimidating Ashley Biden raids on a weekend? Don’t forget: the DC crowd started hiding dirty laundry on weekends when Dick Morris was doing flak for Bill Clinton. He knew the press was too lazy to stay at work and cover weekend stories, so he always had Bill release unfavorable news on Fridays. The FBI, which is supposed to be politically neutral (*cough cough* *Strzok* *Page*) is now playing the same game.

Lavrentiy Beria would be proud.

You Can’t Buy Charm Like This

My golden touch has worked again. I got myself banned from another gun forum.

My first ban was over at Rimfire Central. They banned me for spamming. Having no product or service to offer anyone, I did not spam, but when I contacted the poobahs to point out the mistake, they didn’t reply. I could have done the customary thing. I could have made up another name and registered from a new email address. I didn’t bother.

My second ban took place at The High Road, where I had the gall to suggest that Massad Ayoob, a gun writer and part-time small-town cop with zero legal education was wrong to run around giving the masses dangerous legal advice. Ayoob tells shooters to talk to the police and try to convince them they’re innocent. Unbelievably stupid suggestion. Infinite wrongness.

On that forum, Ayoob calls himself “Kleanbore,” which is a trademark that was used by Remington on ammunition boxes. There are a lot of ammunition-related words I would have picked before that one, but anyway, that’s his handle. If you want some legal advice that can put you on the end of an executioner’s needle, you can Google his posts.

Ayoob and the forum silverbacks are buds, so even though what I said was correct and had the potential to keep people out of prison, I got the boot. I had failed to kowtow to their pal. Ayoob has continued to post Youtube videos encouraging people to do exactly what law schools and nearly all defense attorneys beg clients NOT to do. I have to wonder if any of his fans have been imprisoned yet.

They won’t go to prison over anything that happened in high-school-sized Grantham, New Hampshire, where Ayoob probably spent his time writing parking tickets or manning a speed trap. No one ever gets shot there.

Now I’ve been booted from another forum for talking down to other members. Perhaps I am guilty.

I was writing about the Alec Baldwin killing, and some person who is not a lawyer was writing very irrational things. He was arguing with me, among others, and I was trying to be gentle. He eventually called other members of the forum, which would presumably include me, bigoted, hateful zealots. He said we posted “bigoted, hateful, zealot opinions” because we said we thought Baldwin was negligent. That’s when I told him his legal opinions were worthless and misguided, which was factually correct, if blunt. I also said I had graduated from law school, cum laude. That may be what got me in trouble.

Gun forums don’t attract a lot of educated people. I don’t know why that is, but if you go to a random gun forum, wade into a discussion, and say you’re a lawyer, you can pretty much count on not having any other lawyers join in. I know of one lawyer at The High Road, but cursory Googling suggests he’s a low-level attorney who handles disputes for insurance companies. I don’t see him getting tapped for the Supreme Court any time soon.

My dad, who was a truly superb lawyer, told me that insurance companies don’t hire the worst, and they don’t hire the best. They spend what they think is enough money to get people who are capable of giving them an acceptable return on investment. They settle a lot, so they don’t seem interested in hiring actual litigators who can win trials.

It may be that I offended people when I pointed out that I was educated. That wasn’t my plan. I was trying to make this guy understand that I was not talking out of my hat when I suggested I knew more than he did or that he was saying silly things.

Most people don’t argue with doctors, and they wouldn’t try to tell an engineer how to design a truss, but everyone feels entitled to offer ridiculous legal opinions. It’s amazing.

If I were going to brag about something, it wouldn’t be graduating cum laude from law school. I think it means you broke a 3.0, in a field that attracts people who can’t make it as pre-meds. Getting a law school B is like getting an A in an undergraduate course, but then getting an A in a typical undergraduate course is nothing to crow about.

As I’ve often said, I’m embarrassed that I had to go to law school, because I did it after failing to get a Ph.D. in physics. I got burned out and had to quit. Then I graduated cum laude instead of magna or summa. Admittedly, I spent very little time working, but still. I did not clothe myself with glory. I did a little bit better than okay in my last-resort career field.

I remember when I found out I got cum laude. I was on the phone with a friend, and he congratulated me. I had no idea what he was talking about.

On the forum, I also aired a general grievance about the unpleasantness of being a lawyer and engaging in discussions with people who are not lawyers. It’s stomach-churning. I probably should have kept that to myself. It may have looked like I was belittling everyone else on the forum.

In my defense, I have to say that if a doctor told me it was frustrating to argue with non-doctors, I would not be offended at all. I would understand. It must send a lot of doctors looking for Maalox. If I said stupid things to him about medical conditions or treatments, and he contradicted me and told me why I was wrong, I would not insult him. I have been in that position. If he said my erroneous medical opinions were worthless and misguided, after I had said something nasty about him for disagreeing with me, no fair person would fault him.

The funny thing is that I got banned right after I quit the forum. As I have said here, I am tired of reading the news because it sucks the joy out of me and makes me mad, and I was also tired of responding to astonishingly wrong opinions about manslaughter. I decided not to go back to the forum. Then I went back.

My grandfather had a Browning Hi-Power pistol. I inherited precisely zero of his many nice guns from his estate, and many were never accounted for. I have my suspicions, but my solution to the problem has been to forgive and go out and buy much better versions of the guns my grandfather had, and to shoot them much better, with much more knowledge, than anyone in the family. When I decided to get a Hi-Power, I learned that FN had stopped making them about half an hour earlier. They were no longer in gun stores, and people were asking way too much for guns they had managed to buy at the last minute.

Five days ago, without my knowledge, Springfield Armory released a new version of the Hi-Power. It’s called the SA-35. It’s far better than the old gun, and the price is great. Because I didn’t learn about it until today, of course, every single SA-35 on planet Earth has been bought, and people are trying to sell this $700 gun on Gunbroker for $1400. I can’t predict the future, but I’ll bet I won’t be able to get one for less than a grand, ever, and since I won’t be gouged, that would mean no SA-35 for me, period.

More or less the same thing happened to me, twice. Maybe next month I’ll find out FN is making Hi-Powers again, two days after gun stores run dry.

I felt an urge to visit the forum to see if anyone had written about the SA-35. That’s when I saw I had been banned.

I think this was the first time I actually felt bad about being banned. I could have been more polite, and I liked some of the members. On the other hand, I felt like God was helping me do what I had already decided to do.

I sent the forum police a note saying there were no hard feelings and that they should keep up the good work, meaning they should continue supporting our Second Amendment rights. I don’t expect a response. People who run forums tend to hide behind their keyboards.

It’s good that I’m no longer going over there to provoke myself, but it’s also good to be isolated from that crowd. There had been a number of posts about going to war with the left, and they didn’t seem to get much in the way of negative feedback. I don’t belong to the militia crowd. I think they’re extremely deluded, and they may boil over and cause a civil war that will fail to liberate the country while wasting a lot of blood.

There were also occasional posts that seemed racist, and they didn’t seem to get much opposition. The other day, a woman shot up her neighborhood driving off two or three black thieves, and one of the forum members who saw the video said something about a thief tripping over his lips. There is no plausible non-racist reason for making a crack like that.

I’m not exposing anyone by mentioning these things, because the contents of the forum are already available to everyone. You don’t have to be a member to read.

Maybe I should have quit the first time I saw an unsavory remark go unchallenged, but in this world, you will often find yourself in a large group of people that contains a few bad apples without being so corrupt you find it necessary to leave. If you maintain a zero-tolerance policy, you may end up more socially isolated than you really ought to be.

I went to church with black racists and anti-Semites, and I didn’t let them get to me. I was patient and gave them slack because I knew the social pressures they faced. I worked for a boss who was prejudiced against everyone, including people like me who were born in Kentucky, but I didn’t quit. I worked in a bar where the employees were unquestionably racists, but I needed the work. When I was in high school, some of my wealthy Jewish friends used the N-word without shame. One of my best Cuban friends in Miami sometimes made racist remarks after a few beers, and I took a long time to withdraw from him. Everyone who lives in Miami knows you can’t socialize with Cubans without hearing things like that sometimes. Life is full of social judgment calls.

The weird thing is that I had just gone back to the forum after seven months away. I had left because some people were annoying and others were saying the types of objectionable things I mention above. I had been back for two weeks when I quit and got ejected simultaneously.

I went back because I wanted advice on a potential gun purchase, and I thought the forum was the best source available without joining another forum and complicating my life. I thought I wouldn’t involve myself beyond hit-and-run posts about firearms. Then I saw posts that interested me, and I fell off the wagon.

I should have stuck to my plan. I should have ducked in and out, getting useful information without letting anything unpleasant stick to me. I may have offended some very nice people. I will never know, because the guy who bans people removed me before I could find anything out.

I think the Internet may be a prediction device. If you read blogs, Internet comments, forums, and so on, you can probably see how Americans will treat each other face to face in a few years, when they get brave enough. I’m not sure. In any case, it’s best to try not to get pulled along with the crowd. Anger and unforgiveness send people to hell, so I keep trying to limit what I expose myself to.

As for the Hi-Power or SA-35, I am not crazy enough about it to pay the cost, and I don’t have any practical use for it. They’re too big to carry, they hold fewer rounds than modern full-size guns, they weigh a lot, their triggers are not great, they have delicate finishes, and to me, the only purpose a Hi-Power serves is fun. If I could get one for anything close to MSRP, I would buy it, but that’s impossible, so I’ll let it go.

Must be Nice to Have so Many Friends

Is it just me, or is the press doing its best to keep Alec Baldwin from being arrested?

When you see a celebrity in the news, you should never assume it just happened. It doesn’t work that way. Celebrities have publicity agents who call news outlets to plant stories. News outlets are constantly looking for content, and they don’t have the money or manpower to find enough on their own, so much of what you see comes to you via publicity agents.

Seems like every time I look at the news online, I see another story about Liz Hurley, a faded actress, putting on a bikini and posing provocatively. These stories aren’t news. Other celebrities put on bikinis every day, and we don’t see all of them on the web, because no one cares. Hurley’s career is just about over, so she is paying someone to send her photos around. Either that, or she does it herself.

Today I looked at Yahoo News and found 12 stories about actresses who were exposing themselves or drawing attention to their bodies. Journalists aren’t following these women around, hoping they’ll undress. The actresses start the ball rolling, and the journalists are contacted later.

What did we see in legitimate news stories right after Alec Baldwin shot his coworkers? Claims that he said he didn’t know the gun was loaded. Fair enough, but since then, a large number of stories that look very similar to each other have come out, saying he didn’t know the gun contained live ammunition.

A suspicious person would say media organizations called his publicist, or his publicist called them, and they ran with what the publicist told them.

We’re also seeing the phrase “prop gun” used over and over, as though a bullet had miraculously emerged from the barrel of a toy firearm. You can’t run someone through or cut them with a prop sword, because they’re blunt and dull; many are actually made from soft aluminum. You can’t shoot someone with a true prop gun, because they’re non-functional. Some are solid plastic. Baldwin didn’t use a “prop gun.” He used a plain old revolver that had been called into service as a prop. It’s remarkable that so many different copywriters are using the harmless-sounding phrase, “prop gun.” It can’t be coincidental.

It’s not a prop gun. It’s a gun that was used as a prop, or it’s a prop which is a gun. If Vin Diesel drove a Ferrari in a movie, no reporter would call it a “prop Ferrari.”

It’s actually quite weird that there is no such thing as a true, blank-firing prop gun. It would be simple to rechamber a gun so it wouldn’t accept SAAMI loads and then have a reloader make special blanks to fit it. Given the huge budget of a typical movie, spending a few grand per reusable firearm seem like a bargain. If a movie has a budget of 20 million dollars, doesn’t it make sense to spend, say, $10,000 modifying three pistols?

I don’t run Hollywood, though.

I think Baldwin is mounting a publicity drive, just as he surely has in the past to compete for awards and roles. I think he is under the mistaken impression that telling the world he didn’t know the gun was loaded will influence the police and prosecutor, who are not likely to care.

I think our liberal press wants to protect Baldwin, because he’s a zealous anti-Second-Amendment agitator, so they’re only too happy to take dictation.

Lay people have the idea that it’s smart to say things in your own defense after you commit a questionable act, but it’s not, because lay people generally don’t know whether they’re guilty or not. It’s completely possible to craft an excuse which is really a confession. Baldwin should be quiet and stop airing his excuses. He’s not helping himself, except possibly in the court of public opinion, which does not have the power to acquit him or protect him from civil liability.

It’s true that his efforts might serve to taint the body of potential jurors, but if a criminal case goes to court, the prosecutor will make a good effort to find people who aren’t contaminated, and he and the judge will make sure the jurors have good instructions which render Baldwin’s blame-shifting useless.

It’s sad to see big-time organizations publishing legal opinions from lawyers who don’t shoot or who are way out on the left. One paper quoted Ron Kuby, a famous far-left defense attorney who practices in New York City and used to be the partner of William Kunstler. Kuby backed Baldwin up. What would you expect? If you asked a young, clear-witted Rudy Giuliani the same questions, you would probably get a different answer. If Donald Trump shot someone accidentally, you might get a different answer from Kuby.

It’s this simple: the last person to touch the gun is the killer.

The last person to touch the gun is the killer.

The armor may be guilty of something. The assistant director may be guilty of something. Their guilt has no mitigating effect on Baldwin’s culpability.

Every gun person knows the person holding the gun has 100% responsibility for everything that happens. He’s responsible for checking to see if it’s loaded. He’s responsible for keeping it pointed in a safe direction. He’s responsible for keeping his finger off the trigger until he has to shoot. If there is a safety, he’s responsible for engaging it. You can’t blame the person who handed the gun to you. That person may bear some responsibility for his negligence, but if you shoot someone, you and only you are guilty of manslaughter or murder, and you’re guilty of the full-blown charge. Not murder lite. There is no such thing.

Here is the New Mexico Supreme Court’s statement of the elements of involuntary manslaughter; I stole it from another site:

All that it is necessary to establish for involuntary manslaughter by the use of a loaded firearm is that a defendant had in his hands a gun which at some time had been loaded and that he handled it, whether drunk, drinking or sober, without due caution and circumspection and that death resulted.

It’s not a hard offense to commit.

Yesterday, I listed a bunch of factors that make things look bad for Baldwin. Today, there is a new one in the news: people on the set used the revolver for shooting practice before Baldwin killed his cinematographer.

What possible reason could anyone on a movie set have for possessing live ammunition? It’s like they were hoping someone would get shot. And using the same gun for shooting and playing make-believe in a room full of vulnerable people on the same day…it beggars comprehension.

The news says Baldwin was practicing drawing the gun. That means he drew the gun, pointed it at the victim, and pulled the trigger. The gun is said to be a single-action revolver. If that’s true, he also had to pull back the hammer, because otherwise, the gun wouldn’t have been fired. The hammer is the safety.

To sum up, he accepted a loaded gun and didn’t check it. He pointed it at two people who should not have been in front of him. He cocked it. He put his finger on the trigger. He fired.

You can blame the armorer and assistant director all day, but Baldwin did at least 5 negligent things after they were out of the picture. If he knew the gun had been fired on the set, his negligence is even worse. It means he knew the likelihood there was ammunition in it was higher.

It looks like this to me:

1. The people who used the gun for target practice were negligent because they brought ammunition to a movie set and put it in a gun that was supposed to be used as a prop.

2. The armorer was negligent because she put a loaded gun on a cart she knew would be used to hold it for Baldwin.

3. The assistant director was negligent because he didn’t check the gun when he held it, and because he announced that it was safe.

4. Baldwin was negligent, for reasons mentioned above.

It will be a remarkable thing if no one is charged with a crime. Everyone on the location was depending on the armorer, the assistant director, and Baldwin to protect their lives, and all three of them appear to have failed.

It takes less than two seconds to open a revolver’s cylinder and look for cartridges. A revolver’s barrel has no chamber where an additional round can hide, and it has no box magazine to push new rounds in front of the firing pin.

I don’t want to see anyone charged, but it’s still irritating to see the obvious spin. I do believe it’s spin. I think it’s contrived and dishonest. I don’t think it’s just happening on its own.

The world is extremely unfair, and the press’s treatment of Baldwin seems like a great visual aid to prove it. You can’t trust human beings as far as you can throw them, and Satan looks after people who serve him, at least temporarily.

I’ve been praying for Baldwin to avoid conviction, largely because he’s not a likable person, and I think it’s important for me to pray for people I don’t like. Doesn’t mean I think someone else is to blame for what he did.

The worst things that can happen to Baldwin on the criminal side are an 18-month sentence and a $5000 fine, which make New Mexico sound like a fortunate place to have a tragic accident. I’m assuming there will be no separate charge for shooting the director, but if there were, the punishment would be less severe. A conviction won’t put Baldwin away for good or destroy his golden years, so at least there is that.

The thoughts I’ve had regarding the case seem to be in line with what many actual criminal lawyers say, so I feel relieved. I don’t think I’ve made a complete fool of myself by opining outside of my former fields or choosing not to do in-depth research.

Time to shift gears.

Yesterday I had some interesting experiences. I spent a lot of time with my parrot Marvin. Sometimes strange bird instincts can make him aloof or crabby, but yesterday he was very affectionate.

He loves it when I go to his cage and make the toys move. He likes to entertain at home, and he seems to enjoy thinking I like his toys as much as he does. I swung them around and let him attack them and wrestle with them and so on. I’m making a point of doing this daily.

Throughout the day, he kept demanding attention, so I spent a lot of time in front of the TV, rubbing his feathers. He shook and coughed up half-digested food. That’s how African greys show they’re overcome with emotion.

I thought about what we were doing, and I realized how important it was, even though he was just a bird.

Years ago, God told me he had created the universe for love. This is clearly true, because Jesus said the most important commandments were to love God and to love other people as we love ourselves. Love, not work, raising families, or obeying rules, is supposed to be the center of our lives.

My wife is 8,000 miles away. I don’t have kids. Right now, the only living being I can show love to in person is a bird. I have to make the most of that. If you don’t demonstrate affection often enough, you can get rusty and blocked. You can also forget your purpose.

I was aware of these things already. Before my other bird, Maynard, died, I was trying to show both birds that I loved them. It was important to me that they feel it. It wasn’t enough to just clean cages and serve food. I had to spend a lot of time touching them.

I knew love was important before yesterday, but now I have a fresh appreciation, and I am grateful for it.

Thinking about love and how I have felt it pour from God during his visits, I thought about the state of the world. Churches don’t teach love. They talk about it and fill the air with empty gas, but they’re more excited about money, obedience, appearances, and control.

The world at large is full of hate now. Hate is the red horseman of the apocalypse. A powerful spirit is at work in the world, driving us to detest each other, and it’s working.

Yesterday I learned that Facebook drives hate on purpose. That surprised me. I knew Facebook was evil, but I didn’t know how deep it ran.

I found out that Facebook promotes irritating material more strongly than other content. Facebook has little buttons accompanying content, and you can click and say you liked something or that it made you mad. Facebook gives content points based on clicks, and the more points something gets, the more people Facebook shows it to.

It turns out an angry click produces five points, but a “like” click only generates one.

Someone wanted it that way. Someone at Facebook sat down and decided it should be company policy to provoke people. A machine didn’t do it.

Facebook has devoured the world. It must have addicts in the billions. Imagine the evil influence its point system is exerting.

Facebook is just one part of the apparatus. People are tearing at each other all over the web, and they’re foaming at the mouth at protests.

The protest mentality is vile. Henry David Thoreau, leftist hero, has not helped humanity; he has helped it on its way to self-destruction. He advocated civil disobedience, and it has become so popular, people think it’s always okay to protest and break the law. It’s not. If you absolutely have to do things like that, it should be for a good reason. Your hurt feelings over people using pronouns you don’t like is not a good reason. Your non-articulated rage at undefined, usually imaginary fascism is not a good reason.

We protest over everything now, and many of us have decided “protest” means “riot,” which is like saying, “Bactine” is just like “amputation.” Leftists now openly say, “Rioting works.” No, it doesn’t. Getting in the habit of rioting is like buying a rabid dog to attack your neighbors. Sooner or later, it will do the same thing to you. You can achieve a short-term goal through rioting, but you will end up causing more harm than good. Young people aren’t smart enough to understand this, so rioting will probably increase and consume the world soon.

As Revelation 6 predicts, we live in a world of hate, lack, and pestilence. It’s fatiguing.

A lot of new rapture-dream videos are appearing on Youtube and Tiktok. I’ll tell you what people say in their dreams when they think they’ve left the earth for good. They don’t say, “Oh, no! I’ll never finish barber school!” They don’t say, “Send me back! Give me one more chance!” They thank God. They’re delirious with joy. They don’t want to come back. I understand. I can’t wait to go.

The world is now full of temptation, more than ever. Provocation is temptation. Sexualizing society is temptation. International tension is temptation. Coronavirus is a gold mine of temptation. People are beating each other in the streets over it.

People love it when they think they’ve left Earth, because they think they’re finally done with temptation. One of the big draws of the Messianic age is that Satan and his imps will be locked away, so there will be no army of demons tempting people. Imagine what that will be like.

It will be like the difference between my life in Miami and my life in Ocala, multiplied manyfold.

Why are people forced to live in a world packed with evil? Because God wants us to be tempted. It sounds awful, and we know God himself doesn’t tempt, but it’s true. Everyone has to face temptation. Jesus saw to it that he faced it.

In order for there to be judgment and salvation, there has to be temptation. This is why Satan will be released at the end of the Messianic age. The Bible says so. People who are born during the Messianic age won’t know what temptation is until Satan is released from his septic tank.

Temptation is getting to be more than we can take, and that’s a clue to where we are on God’s timeline. God says the tribulation will be “the hour of temptation that shall come upon all the world.” Things aren’t going great now, but they will be much worse in the near future. Suffering will increase, and people will be told the mark of the beast is the only relief.

China is having a covid outbreak. That’s a big deal. I wondered why China had been spared, given the horrible things that are done in China, routinely. Now I think it may be because China supplies so many things. If China had fallen apart in 2020, the supply chain would probably have gone down almost completely, and there would have been greater suffering than God wanted to permit at that time. Maybe he held China’s outbreak back until he was ready. Maybe we’re about to find out what empty shelves really look like.

Personally, I would like to see the pimple burst sooner than later. I am ready to leave, and I am tired of seeing ignorant, base, deluded people receive power to libel and harm people like me. I don’t want to be here when they rule over us the way they came to rule in places like Cuba and Cambodia.

I saw something in passing the other day. I saw depression characterized as “catastrophizing.” The idea is that you tell yourself things are going to be much worse than they really will be, and you get depressed. I thought that was interesting. I don’t get depressed on behalf of myself, but I expect catastrophic things for the world as a whole. I’m cheerful and full of energy, and I think my future is inexpressibly bright, but at the same time, my hopes for the world are destroyed. It’s like being depressed by proxy, only without the down feelings.

Some texts call the angels “watchers.” They have to stand by and witness the true catastrophes human beings bring on themselves. I feel like a watcher.

When you’re depressed, your expectations of catastrophe are delusional. When you’re a prophecy-believing Christian, they’re much more solid.

One interesting thing about showing Marv unrestrained love is that it makes him vulnerable. If we were a little reserved, he wouldn’t have very high expectations. The more we let loose, the more he gives in and trusts me, and the more he will expect from me every day.

Sometimes we hold back from involving ourselves with others because we don’t think we can follow through. Life is uncertain, and one person may have many creatures who are attached to him and expect him to keep coming through. Nobody wants to adopt a puppy a month before starting military service. No one with cancer would want to adopt a desperate orphan. Once you engage with someone, you have to accept the commitment. It’s intimidating.

I have wondered if I made my pets love me too much. I tried to do the right thing by engaging with them, but maybe I made them miss me more when I wasn’t available. Birds pull their feathers out when they’re lonely, and Maynard sometimes pulled his feathers more when I was giving him more attention.

I try to make my wife feel as loved as possible, and I won’t stop out of fear, but I’m aware that the more passionately we love each other, the more pain we will suffer if one of us is taken away.

One of the nice things about heaven is that no one will die or move away. Commitment in heaven won’t put anyone at risk.

I watched a couple of movies this week. They are part of a series. They’re about a divorced police chief.

In the first movie, he moves across the country, and his old dog starts refusing food. Soon, the cop finds out the dog is sick and has to be put down. In other installments, there are other dogs.

We’re supposed to feel sorry for the cop because he’s a stand-up guy who cares about others and goes above and beyond the call of duty to help them. We’re supposed to feel bad when his dog dies. He puts off euthanasia because he can’t face it. His love for the dog is too intense.

The thing that made me marvel is this: throughout the series, he barely touches the dogs. You never see moments of shared happiness or affection. What dog lover keeps a distance? That’s for cat people. Cat owners get cats in order to avoid intimacy. Dogs are effusive with their love.

I enjoyed the movies a lot, but I don’t see why the protagonist was so reserved. It makes no sense to me. It was a strange way to portray love. The dogs were miserable. The owner was miserable. They lived in the same house. There was nothing to prevent them from being close, but the man sat in a chair, and the dog lay on the floor across the room, and that was about it.

I guess I’m rambling, but I look forward to heaven. This place is getting disgusting.

MORE

It’s amazing how no one listens to me. A story just came out, and here is what the DA looking at Baldwin’s case says:

Ms. Carmack-Altwies took issue with descriptions of the firearm used in the incident as “prop-gun,” saying that the terminology, which is used in some of the court documents related to the case, could give the misleading impression that it was not a real gun.

“It was a legit gun,” she said, without naming specifically what kind of firearm was used. “It was an antique-era appropriate gun.”

Sound familiar? Scroll up.

Not good new for Baldwin, but nothing is settled yet.

Looks Like it Will be Beans and Rice Till Friday

I realized I had to start eating my old survival supplies in order to keep them from going to waste, so yesterday, I made myself a huge pot of red beans and rice. Let it suffice to say I am extremely pleased.

I took a chance on what is purportedly an Emeril recipe. I have nearly no faith in Emeril, for a number of reasons, but he ran the Commander’s Palace, so Cajun food shouldn’t be a challenge for him. After I got into the process, I realized the recipe was actually secondhand. Some lady who probably eats margarine posted it on the Internet, and she said she had made changes. When a woman makes a change in a recipe containing pork, it’s generally an indication that regurgitation is imminent. They’ll substitute turkey for pork or canola for butter. I decided to take a free hand, and things worked out great.

I had two pounds of dried beans to get rid of, so I had to make a big batch. When it was over, 24 ounces of andouille and two ham hocks were in the pot along with the beans. The main thing I did to make it work was adding dry white wine. It’s hard to think of a good excuse for preparing poultry or pork without wine.

My beans are maybe two years old. I forgot to put the buy date on the bag. As a result, it took hours for them to get soft. I had to have a PBJ for dinner, but I made up for it this morning with a big serving of Cajun joy.

You don’t have to spend a lot of money to make good food. Well, actually, you do, during the Biden catastrophe. But you don’t have to spend a lot compared to what you would spend on things like steak and seafood, which used to be expensive but are now downright precious. If you can fix beans a few different ways, you can get good nutrition without being hammered too badly by Uncle Joe’s empty shelves.

I would say it’s best to use one whole cup of dry white wine per pound of dried beans. That sounds like a lot, but it seems like beans blunt the wine’s effect on the pork.

I should have a relatively pleasant couple of months after true famine sets in, getting creative with my prepper cache. After that, unless I’m raptured, it will be time to learn how to eat acorns.

In other news, the Alec Baldwin story continues to get more interesting.

I now think what happened to Baldwin was supernatural. I think God did him a favor by allowing him to be humbled so he can examine himself and receive salvation. It would be hard for random chance to explain all the bad things that happened to Baldwin simultaneously. Let’s see if I can list them all without checking the web.

1. He was producing the movie, so he has more responsibility than an actor would ordinarily have.

2. Hypocritically, for a self-righteous, vitriolic leftist, he hired non-union workers to fill spots vacated by disgruntled union members. This guarantees that many people who worked on the movie will try to make him look as bad as possible.

3. Prior to the shooting, there had been several gun mishaps, and there had been protests.

4. Instead of having the movie’s trained armorer declare the gun safe and hand it to him, he let an assistant director do it.

5. The assistant director has been subject to a lot of complaints. He is said to have expressed resentment over having to hold meetings about gun safety, and he is also said to have done a very poor job at those meetings. On top of all this, men and women who have worked with him have complained about inappropriate touching, which makes Baldwin look irresponsible for hiring him.

6. Forget the universal gun safety rules he disobeyed; he ignored a rule specific to moviemaking. You never point a live gun at a human being on a movie set. There are protocols. Baldwin knows about them. He violated one.

7. The person he killed has a husband and parents, so Baldwin has set himself up for wrongful death litigation from multiple plaintiffs, and prosecutors are sensitive to plaintiffs’ goading.

8. Baldwin has a history of condemning people who have shot others. Regarding a California police officer who shot a man who attacked him and grabbed at his gun belt, Baldwin said, “I wonder how it feels to wrongfully kill someone.”

Let me add that the movie Baldwin was making was to be about a boy sentenced to death for an accidental killing. That can’t be a coincidence.

At least one New Mexico criminal attorney has confirmed that Baldwin may be on the hook for a homicide charge. Under New Mexico law, it’s possible. That pretty much ends the debate over whether he can be charged. Now, the question is what the police and prosecutors will choose to do. A leftist prosecutor committed perjury to indict George Zimmerman, and a leftist prosecutor refused to charge the people who tried to murder Kyle Rittenhouse. A prosecutor has been indicted for failing to properly pursue charges in the Ahmed Arberry case. Prosecutors aren’t vending machines. They are as biased as anyone.

It would be bad enough for Baldwin if he had taken the gun directly from the armorer, on a peaceful set with no prior accidents, and killed a woman. It would be more typical of workplace accidents. His case is exceptional, though. Accidental shootings don’t usually have mountains of additional circumstances that make things worse for those at fault.

The only thing that could be worse for him would be if the prosecutor had voted for Trump.

Baldwin has not behaved well since the accident. He went to Twitter and posted a link to a story that said he had been told the gun was safe before he handled it. It was a desperation move. I’m sure his attorney didn’t advise it. He’s not taking responsibility. He’s throwing other people under the bus. Here’s what he should be saying: nothing. Maybe, “I am devastated by the accidental shooting which occurred on my set today.” Anything beyond that looks like denial of guilt and lack of remorse.

I’m not saying he should admit he’s responsible. Not until after jeopardy has passed. But he shouldn’t feed the public BS.

It doesn’t matter whether he was told the gun was safe. He was supposed to check it personally, regardless of who looked at it before he did. Even if you swallow his invalid argument at first, you have to admit that it was negligent to listen to an assistant director when there was an armorer on the set, especially after several other mishaps.

I’m not trying to condemn him. I just know how lay people think, and I know that if I don’t present things forcefully, people may come back in my comments and play amateur attorney, defending Baldwin with very poor arguments lawyers have already rejected.

I’m not writing about this story to pick on Baldwin, but to connect it to my own experiences. Last night I woke up and started confessing to God and asking for help to be a better Christian. I thought about all the bad things I had done, said, and felt. I thought about two things God had told me.

1. The concealment of a sin is worse than the sin itself.

2. An excuse is a lie.

I’ve done what Baldwin is doing, and worse. I could never begin to recall all the excuses I’ve made for myself.

I started thinking about Adam and Eve. Satan tempted Eve, Eve sinned, Eve tempted Adam, Adam sinned, God accused Adam and Eve, Adam blamed God and Eve, and Eve blamed Satan.

Then all the descendants of Adam and Eve were cursed, and we fight those curses to this very day.

God has also told me this: everything you bury, you also plant.

The sins and lies of Adam and Eve became the seeds that would eventually result in things like damnation and the tribulation, not to mention every evil man has ever experienced. Eve’s sin was a very small seed, but it turned into a tree that covered the world. No wonder God cursed women for what she did. No wonder he cursed Adam PRIMARILY for listening to the voice of his wife.

Until last night, I had never thought about this: Satan didn’t tempt Adam. Eve did. Adam wasn’t the first person to sin. Eve was. Adam didn’t blow it until he abandoned his role as leader and chose to be a feminist. Feminists like to say the world would be a better place if women ran everything, but the only time a woman ran the world, she led mankind into destruction.

Now we live in a time in which masculinity is considered toxic and we are told to let women and even children lead. No wonder the world is disintegrating. We’re living the curse of Isaiah 3. We’ll really feel the pain when Kamala Harris takes over for Biden. Female leadership leads to curses, period. It’s not what God commanded, and there are consequences.

Overwhelmingly, women are the ones who lead us into idolatry. Witchcraft, fortune-telling, astrology, crystals, yoga…you will probably never hear a woman say, “I was a Christian, but my husband convinced me to try Buddhism.” It’s almost always the other way around. There is a reason God requires men to lead.

Eve and Adam should not have sinned, but once they had, they should have confessed. God already knew everything. Baldwin shouldn’t be on Twitter showing he is not willing to be honest.

I don’t want him to be prosecuted. I would rather see him get away with it, just as you and I have gotten away with things. Putting him in prison for a mistake doesn’t seem to serve a valid purpose. But he should not blame others for what he did.

I’m not that concerned about his civil liability, since whatever he ends up paying will not be a significant percentage of his wealth. He’s probably worth several dozen million dollars, so whatever he pays probably won’t affect his lifestyle or those of his children.

I expect the assistant director to get obliterated. He’s a #MeToo magnet, he appears to have done the armorer’s job for her without justification, and he’s lower on the food chain than Baldwin, who will have moneyed interests pushing for his exoneration. The armorer might be okay if she can say she did everything right and the assistant director prevented her from doing her job. She will still have to explain the other accidents, though.

The assistant director, David Halls, has deleted his Twitter account, so we can’t see if he ever said unfortunate things about the use of firearms.

Personally, if I were working on a movie that had had three on-set gun accidents, I would quit. One is inexcusable, and two prove the moviemakers can’t be trusted. After a third, the insurers should cancel the production.

As for Biden and Harris, I see socialist Saturday Night Live has taken the gloves off. Last night, they did a sketch in which 2021 Biden talked to his 2013 self. They made fun of his unpopularity, his false teeth, and even his dementia. When Saturday Night Live turns on a leftist president, there isn’t much hope of redemption or spin. Maybe next time, they’ll do the right thing and hit him for the terrible problems he’s causing. They didn’t mention the Biden energy crisis, the Biden shipping crunch, or his enormous mandate lie. Things will probably be a lot worse in 2022, and Biden isn’t doing anything to prevent it. He’s doubling down on pathological policy.

Biden is turning out to be a replay of Carter, except that Carter still had his faculties. It’s very bad when dementia compounds incompetence and corruption.

Carter is said to have had a nervous breakdown in office. Older readers will remember. He knew the ship was sinking, and he couldn’t fix it. He was temporarily disabled by hemorrhoids, and that didn’t help his image. He knew the public despised him. There was no light at the end of the tunnel because he just wasn’t good at what he did. He has a gargantuan ego, but it wasn’t a thick enough rampart to protect him from crumbling. Biden is a monumental egotist, too. Will his baseless pride allow him to continue confronting the world with mock confidence, or will he fold up one morning and refuse to leave the bed?

I know how dementia and arrogance work together. Arrogant people who know they’re demented don’t admit it. A proud dementia patient can stand in his own excrement and insist you’re the one with the problem. Maybe Biden will go out clawing and accusing.

At his most recent town hall, Biden clenched his fists and held them in front of him for around 20 seconds while receiving a question. It was very odd. Internet commenters have pointed out that dementia patients are known to make this gesture. It indicates anxiety or confusion. I wonder if that’s what’s happening with the president. He also appears to be developing what is known as a “magnetic gait,” which is a dementia symptom in which the feet slide along the floor instead of being lifted.

I don’t know how the left’s lie machine will cope with Biden’s final implosion. My best guess is that they’ll pretend it’s something other than dementia until he has been out of office a long time. “Our overworked, beleaguered president has succumbed to exhaustion.” Maybe they’ll hypothesize that his aneurysm problems have led to delayed issues. They’ll never admit the obvious. They’ll never say they voted for a man they knew was senile because they hated Trump more than they cared about a strong America.

My friend Mike has a golf buddy who used to play with a Trump hater. The Trump hater told the buddy he didn’t care if America was destroyed as long as Trump wasn’t president. I think that attitude is common.

Fauci Fell, and No One Noticed

I should have switched to the shotgun three years ago. I went out for an hour today and plugged two squirrels. Both kicked a little, but neither one was breathing when I got to it, so it looks like they died quick.

I blasted one, walked around the property, missed a good opportunity at a second, and blasted another. Both of the dead ones were near my house, which is great, because those are the ones that need to be killed. By the time I made my circuit of the property, the first one was gone. Hope it went to a hawk and not a coon, possum, or coyote.

I think from now on I’ll throw the dead ones on the workshop roof. That way, I’ll be sure they go to the birds.

It’s really nice not having to find a squirrel in a reticle or worry about how high he is off the ground. With a shotgun, you can get a shot off in a couple of seconds, and you get way more opportunities. It’s also hard to miss. I nailed one of today’s squirrels from about 30 yards, and I would say the other one might have been 40 yards off. It was so far off, I wasn’t sure it was a squirrel. I figured it was best to shoot it to be on the safe side. Worst-case scenario: I kill a stick.

I looked at the news when I got home. I checked to see if anyone was excited to find out that Fauci lied about gain of function research. It’s a surprisingly low-key story. Even Rand Paul, whom Grouchy Fauci slandered while lying to Congress, was not very vocal about it.

I’m not sure why gain of function research exists. My understanding is that they take nice, harmless viruses that could never bother human beings and “fix” them so they can make us sick. I assume there must be some purpose to it, but it sounds really stupid on the surface, especially after two years of a pandemic.

I wonder if Wikipedia can tell me.

Okay, it says gain of function research CAN be “research which could enable a pandemic-potential pathogen to replicate more quickly or cause more harm in humans or other closely-related mammals.”

You know, science can be amazing, in very bad ways unrelated to science itself. Science can be so obscure or so hard for the public and the government to understand that eggheads can be allowed to make incredibly dangerous decisions without legislators or executives finding out about it. I am guessing, but I’ll bet no one ever went to Donald Trump and said, “We’re making a SARS virus much more dangerous to humans, but we have a good reason, and we’re letting the Chinese handle security, so is that okay?”

We all know military people can’t be trusted with policy. The president can’t say, “Go fight a war the way you think best, and tell us when you’re done.” Wars are fought to achieve objectives that may be thwarted when the military does as it pleases. Similarly, it may be that we need to make certain scientists and engineers get permission from Congress or the White House before doing stupid things. Aren’t we doing that already? Apparently not, since it took two years just to get proof we were doing what Fauci said we were not doing. If there was any kind of transparent mechanism for sanctioning insane research, Trump could have called some underling and gotten the facts in 10 minutes.

The Wikipedia article is short, and it’s Wikipedia, and I am not a virologist, but the sense I get is that super-viruses can be useful in developing vaccines. That sounds great, but how are they helpful if you release them on the entire world, before creating the vaccines, through stupidity?

You take a virus which may or may not be a problem if it gets loose, and just to be safe, so you can make a vaccine, you turn it into a virus which will definitely cause a pandemic, and THEN, before you’re anywhere close to creating a vaccine or treatment, you let some butterfingers drop a vial in the lunchroom. And you put the CCP in charge of letting us know China dropped the ball.

Who made this possible? Somewhere, there are some men and women who signed the papers. Who are they? Why haven’t we dyed them green or something so everyone knows not to hire them again?

Isn’t China our enemy? Did I dream that? Isn’t there a country called Taiwan, which we are sworn to defend, which China is currently threatening to take by force? Didn’t China just launch a shocking hyper-sonic missile that made everyone in the Pentagon and at Raytheon soil their pants? Isn’t it bad form to pay your enemies to learn how to develop weaponizable viruses?

Or is this just me, being a deplorable, ivermectin-buzzed hick who doesn’t understand nuance?

It reminds me of the War Room scene where Dr. Strangelove commented unfavorably on the secret Soviet Doomsday Machine, which was intended to deter nuclear strikes by assuring that if one bomb went off, the planet would be cleared of all life. He said, “Yes, but the whole point of the doomsday machine is lost…if you keep it a secret!” Similarly, the whole point of creating a killer virus to save lives is lost if you put the Chinese in charge of containing it AND reporting any embarrassing accidental exposures.

I don’t know if the Chinese created the virus and let it escape, but it looks more likely every day. I mean, sure, the epidemic could have started right beside the research lab by chance. That could have happened. After centuries of Chinese wet markets with no pandemics, in which people bought and sold exactly the same revolting things they bought and sold in 2019. It’s totally possible.

Fauci is a real peach. If he doesn’t turn out to be the biggest public health villain since Josef Mengele, it will be a great testimony to the power of the lying liberal press. It’s bad enough that he lied, but he lied angrily, as though Rand Paul, who was telling the truth, was accusing him falsely of groping toddlers. Paul stood up for us, against the smug, lying press and against many of his peers. He blew the whistle for us, repeatedly. He didn’t quit when the world tried to slap him down. And Fauci shot the messenger in order to save face. Very CCP of him.

Lying to Congress is a crime, at least under certain circumstances. Is it only true when you’re sworn? I’m not familiar with the law. There must be some reason why Fauci hasn’t been indicted. I guess it would be necessary for Democrats to go along, so never mind.

So what else is he lying about? I guess we’ll never know, because he’s the one we question, and he lies. Isn’t there somebody else over there we could talk to?

The Washington Post says Fauci lied, so there is no point in commenting here, claiming he didn’t. When the Post gives up a leftist the right hates, you know it’s a lost cause.

Now they’re saying the definition of “fully vaccinated” is going to change. That’s fascinating from an apocalyptic perspective. They’re saying you may have to have three or more shots. It’s open-ended.

They told an older generation not to worry about Social Security numbers because they would never be used for anything but delivering government benefits. Remember how that worked out?

Nobody has my Social Security number. Nobody except every university I’ve attended, every bank and securities firm where I’ve had an account, every company that has given me insurance or a quote, every company that provided me with a credit card…I’m pretty sure my cell carrier has it. I should have it tattooed on my forehead.

The vaccines do not work well. I’m not saying they “don’t work.” I’m saying they “don’t work well.” We can no longer deny this. Public health officials are saying they may not be very helpful at all to a big, big percentage of the only large groups of individuals who are generally at risk of real problems. In other words, the only groups that were ever really endangered, as a whole, are the fat, the sick, and the old, and now they’re saying they’re also the only groups for which the vaccines work very poorly.

If you have any brains at all, you can see what that means.

A vaccine that has a 95% no-catch rate (to make up a flattering, unrealistic figure) for people who are extremely unlikely to become seriously ill anyway is not necessarily a good vaccine. The purpose of the vaccines is not to prevent the sniffles. No one cares about that. They were developed to prevent serious illness and death. When they came out, we were told THE SCIENCE had hit a home run. A very small percentage of the vaxxed could get something like a cold, but virtually no one would get very sick or die; that was the official line. Dying would be like winning Powerball. Now they’re saying the shots have a pretty high breakthrough rate AND the people who were already vulnerable have a VERY high breakthrough rate combined with high rates of serious disease and death.

So, if I understand things correctly, the vaccines have done a FAIR job of preventing the sniffles and a POOR job of preventing death and serious disease.

Or maybe they did better at the start, and now the disease is changing and defeating the shots. After all, we did see big drops in the stats after the shots came out. Something had to cause that, and we know it wasn’t masks or social distancing. We have a big collection of old graphs showing spikes coinciding with lockdowns, masks, and distancing.

They tell us different things every week. They’ve been wrong over and over. They don’t know what’s going on. Very often, they actually say so. My uninformed guesses may well be just as good as the best conclusions trained scientists can offer. I could be like the famous chimp who beat professional stock-pickers.

Now the Morlocks have decided I’m eligible for a booster. I was thinking I’d get it, because for all I know, it could be of some help, but now I don’t know. I used to think coronavirus was probably a one-time thing, but now I think I’ve had it twice, and I was vaccinated between episodes. I don’t know that another shot will help, I have every reason to believe future episodes will be mild, I have had dramatic improvements after using ivermectin from Tractor Supply, and I don’t feel good about going in for another round of a bizarre vaccination which has attracted warnings from intelligent, informed medical professionals.

To get back to the apocalypse, the redefinition of “fully vaccinated” opens the door to a future of increasing and unending oppression. As long as they can tell us we have to jump through new hoops to end the crisis, we will have to keep jumping, and they will have the authority to create nastier hoops. We will have to get used to life on the salmon ladder.

The first shot wasn’t the mark of the beast. The first booster isn’t the mark of the beast. Isolated mandates aren’t the mark. It has to be something big and global, and it can’t be temporary. What if the mark is something that shows you’re complying with a long-term program of repeated injections, not to mention fascist masking, isolation, AND censorship laws? Wow. That’s the Antichrist’s dream scenario.

Again, “fascist” is the correct term. It’s a value-neutral term. There are people who are proud of being fascists, and they wear hats and shirts that say “fascist” on them. Forcing people to take shots, making them stay in their houses, and deleting their publicly stated remarks about a disease are fascist measures.

I’ll bet it happens. I’ll bet the virus never cooperates. I’ll bet we get variants that really are more contagious than the flu, instead of much less contagious, like the ones we have now. Maybe we’ll get some variants that threaten healthy people. If that happens, kiss the outdoors goodbye, because Uncle Sam will nail your front door shut.

Maybe variants will get so bad, you’ll stand a substantial chance of dying if you’re not vaccinated regularly. Then you would have to obey the government pretty fastidiously, and it wouldn’t be surprising if the government denied unvaccinated people access to food and goods, claiming they were seditious and toxic and unlikely to live anyway.

Leftists love the word “seditious” now. It’s so strange. Maybe young people don’t know it, but they used to hate that word the way they hated Joe McCarthy. Liberal teachers sneered when they said it. How things change.

We could be looking at year after year of new shots and fascist curtailments of our liberty, with the mark of the beast provided as a reward for obedience. You obey, you eat. Just a guess, but it fits the way the disease and our governments have behaved so far.

I have about a dozen unopened tubes of ivermectin, just sitting around. Maybe I’ll buy a few dozen more. Who knows how many times I’ll get sick? Ivermectin may actually be helpful, and it could gain popularity and become hard to find. It may also be useful if I catch something else, and someone else might need it. Can’t hurt to stock up.

If I get really sick, I’ll try to get monoclonal antibodies. I have been told Biden won’t let anyone who has been hospitalized have them. Not sure what that’s all about. They say that if you get sick, you should absolutely refuse to be hospitalized until you’ve received antibodies. Is it a rumor? Is it true? Hope I don’t have to find out.

Every day the mark of the beast seems closer than I thought it would seem the night before. The world’s insanity isn’t just accelerating; it’s jerking.

Acceleration is a physics term. Jerk is sort of a physics term, but it’s used by engineers, not physicists. I never saw it until after I had become a physicist and then quit.

Acceleration is velocity’s rate of change. If a car is doing 10 mph now and 20 mph in 10 seconds, it’s accelerating at 10 mph per second. Jerk is acceleration’s rate of change. If a car is doing 10 now, 20 in 10 seconds, and 300 in 20 seconds, it’s jerking. I guess. Not sure what the present participle is, in engineering. I’m not an engineer. Anyway, the acceleration isn’t constant. It increases with time. Jerk can be constant. I’m sure it’s not, in my example. I would have to do a calculation to come up with a constant jerk. Wait…no, I wouldn’t. Jerk can increase, and its increase can increase, and so on. I’m digressing. Help me stop.

Think of a magnet, moving toward another magnet. It will accelerate slowly, then faster, and then it will bang into the other magnet so fast you can’t see it happen. That’s jerk. Gravity does the same thing, but we can’t see it because we’re all at the same distance from the center of the earth. Where we are, gravity seems constant. If you were to fly toward a black hole, the change would be obvious. Don’t do that, though.

Anyway, the world’s insanity isn’t just increasing, and the rate of increase isn’t just increasing; the rate of the increase of the increase is increasing. I expect things to be a certain way in a few days, based on the way things have been getting worse over the last month, but they will probably be worse than I expect.

Apocalyptic jerk is why I think the rapture is coming very soon. People will try to predict the end based on a relatively smooth timeline, but things aren’t changing smoothly. It shouldn’t surprise Christians. Jesus said he would come at a time when we thought not.

Accidental Shooting Puts Liberal Actor in Undesired Spotlight

It looks like Alec Baldwin has killed someone. He was performing. He fired a gun in the direction of a cinematographer and a director. The former is dead, and the latter is injured.

It’s an interesting story, because the two articles I read say movie prop masters are traditionally given the responsibility for making sure movie guns are not loaded. The writers made sure they included this information, which sounds exculpatory. Did someone working for Baldwin tell them to do it? It won’t help.

When people think they’re in legal trouble, they tend to spout every argument and excuse they can think of. This is very useful to the authorities, because most people don’t know the difference between exculpatory evidence and damning evidence. They will rattle off excuses they think are helpful when they’re really telling the police they’re guilty.

“I knocked him down and fractured his skull because he called me the N-word.” “I told the kids to stay away from the gun cabinet.” “The meter reader let the tigers out.”

If you kill someone negligently, you can be liable both criminally and civilly. I have no idea how the jurisdiction where Baldwin shot these people handles negligent homicides. That varies. I do know how civil negligence works, and the standards are ancient and pretty much universal.

In order to be guilty of negligence, you have to owe another person a duty of care, breach that duty negligently, and cause that person harm. Assuming Baldwin’s gun was functioning normally, he is guilty of negligence.

There are rules to gun handling, and they are well known. They don’t vary from place to place, either. One of the rules is that you always check a gun when you take possession of it. You see if it’s loaded. I don’t care if your dad, your priest, or Santa Claus himself hands it to you. You check. Another rule is that you never point a gun at anything you don’t want to shoot.

Baldwin should have examined the gun to see if it was loaded. If he didn’t, the cinematographer’s loved ones, if any, may be able to sue. They can sue Baldwin, the prop master, and maybe the company or companies that were making the movie.

What if he checked, but there was some defect in the gun or ammunition that caused a projectile to do harm? He’s still negligent. Why? Because he pointed a gun at people he didn’t want to shoot and pulled the trigger. He violated a well-known rule of gun safety.

You may argue that it’s impossible to make a movie without pointing guns at people and pulling their triggers, and that is true, but it’s only true if you’re aiming at an actor or stuntman. There is no valid reason for aiming a real gun or any other dangerous instrumentality at a cinematographer.

Everyone in Hollywood should know that freak accidents can cause guns to kill even when they’re not loaded with normal ammunition. The most famous on-camera shooting involved a gun that had something called a “dummy bullet” stuck in the barrel. A blank drove it out, and it killed Brandon Lee. Every studio’s attorneys and insurers know this, and actors and directors should know it. Studios should have comprehensive documents covering firearms safety measures, and one of the rules should be that you tell the actors never to point a firearm at anyone who isn’t playing a character who should be shot or threatened. Everyone who will be on the set of a movie where guns are used should have to read these documents. They probably exist.

Maybe the victims were shot because they needed to film Baldwin shooting toward the camera. They could have been moved. In 2021, we have sufficient technology to allow a director and cinematographer to film something without standing close to a camera.

What about the guilt of the victims? They’re probably negligent, too. If they sat next to a camera while Baldwin fired toward it, and they didn’t have to, they breached the duty of care they owed themselves. No idea how a court or jury would apportion the liability.

Are there waivers in place? I don’t know. Will they help? I don’t know. Courts don’t like waivers, believe it or not. That’s especially true when one party has more bargaining power than the other. Matt Lauer probably can’t stand on a waiver that says an intern won’t sue if he molests her.

I think that if the cinematographer has loved ones, some money will change hands, either after a trial or, if the studio’s insurance company’s lawyers aren’t idiots, before one can start. I doubt the director will sue anyone. He was in a management position, and the killing happened on his watch. He would look stupid trying to blame anyone else.

In the case of Brandon Lee, various lay sources say the authorities determined that the cause of the killing was negligence. I don’t know whether that’s true, but I do know that an investigator’s finding is not a verdict, so it wouldn’t mean anything in court. Lee’s mother sued and got some money, and the filmmakers were fined for workplace safety violations. There was no criminal prosecution.

I’m rusty because I don’t practice, so maybe I’m wrong about Baldwin’s case, but it looks somewhat complicated to me. I don’t think it’s a simple case.

I hope they don’t prosecute him. He must be miserable. I think our legal system is way too hard on people who make mistakes. I have performed more than one negligent act that could have killed someone else, and you probably have, too.

Oh, you haven’t? Ever text in the car? Better get off that high horse, Jesus Junior.

As readers of this blog know, there was a young man who was like a son to me, and he died two years ago after an accidental shooting. I felt some frustration because I knew the killing was unnecessary and caused by negligence, but I never, ever wanted to see the shooter arrested. I never felt any hostility toward him. People make mistakes, and a prosecution would have made him unemployable for years. Baldwin is a jerky individual, but I don’t think prosecution would serve any purpose. It certainly would not be corrective. I don’t think he’s likely to be careless with guns in the future. He will probably be the most careful actor in Hollywood.

There is some justice in what happened. Baldwin is on the far left, and he mocked Donald Trump after a high school shooting. He loves gun control, but, let’s face it, he does a great deal to promote the sale of firearms. Google “Alec Baldwin” images, and you will see him holding a wide variety of guns, and I don’t mean for trap shooting.

I like to say Barack Obama is the greatest gun salesman ever, because when he was elected, people went nuts, and they went on a gun-shopping binge that still hasn’t stopped. Truthfully, though, Hollywood has probably sold more guns than Barack Obama. Hollywood has done more than any other entity to make guns and knives seem cool and desirable.

Remember Dirty Harry? When Clint Eastwood played him, he used a Smith & Wesson Model 29 revolver in .44 Remington Magnum. A bogus story has circulated, saying it was a Model 57 in .41 Magnum, but according to director John Milius, that isn’t true. I think I’ve repeated the myth myself.

Before the movies came out, you could get yourself a gun like Harry’s. They were in short supply because they had gone out of production due to low popularity, but they could be found. Afterward, they vanished. Everyone wanted one, so they were snapped up. They’re still in demand. I bought a 27-2 in .357 Magnum partly because I liked Harry’s gun. The Model 29 went back into production because of Clint Eastwood. He probably drove the popularity of revolvers from Colt and Ruger, too.

Movies and TV shows sell guns like nothing else. The best thing that can happen to a gun manufacturer is to have a model featured in a movie. It will drive people to stores. Actors make it all happen. They even pose with guns on movie posters. Baldwin appeared on a poster for The Getaway, pointing what looks like a 1911 at the camera!

If actors are going to try to take away our civil rights, they should stop exercising them and making them so alluring in movies. Obvious?

Or they could just admit we need guns. Still, though, they could make a little effort to make shootouts look less enjoyable. They could show what really happens when the hero gets shot in the shoulder. He doesn’t wrap a rag around it and keep fighting. He gets an amputation, maybe. He loses use of the arm due to nerve damage. He loses an entire bicep muscle, like the guy who tried to murder Kyle Rittenhouse. Stuff like that happens.

I’m against Ouija boards and tarot cards. If I were an actor, I wouldn’t accept roles where I made them look appealing to the public. Why can’t actors have similar standards? Believe it or not, it’s possible to make a good movie without firearms or with firearms but without making people want to buy and use them.

My guess is that Baldwin will have a bad year due to stress and legal issues, but I’ll bet there is no prosecution. I feel sympathy for him. This has to be a terrible thing to go through.

I wonder what other conservatives are saying. Probably nothing nice.

Humility Solves Pest Problem

Just blasted a squirrel from the front porch. KERBLOOIE! Lights out, just like that. No .22 kicking and scratching. No guilt.

For the longest time, I’ve had problems killing squirrels quickly with .22 rifles, but I hated using a shotgun because it’s like using a mop to put ketchup on a French fry. No sport. Tonight, I gave in.

People kept telling me I couldn’t shoot! My last 100-yard 6.5mm Creedmoor target had 5 groups. Four were 5 shots each, and one was two shots. The two shot group was the biggest at under 5/8″. PLEASE do not tell me my shooting is the problem. I once shot a squirrel three times in the head, and I had to put one more in him to finish him off. Squirrels are not rabbits or birds. They do not roll over and die easily.

Maybe red squirrels are weak. Maybe the gray squirrels in your area are wimps. Here, you just can’t kill grays hard enough. They are tougher than Terminators on PCP.

I once shot a squirrel that had three legs. Someone else had shot it first, or an animal had torn a front leg off, and the squirrel had escaped, continued to feed and climb trees, heal, and mate. I had to shoot it more than once, myself. I have no patience with the people who say every squirrel they pop with a .22 dies instantly.

The other day, I thought maybe I should start using a shotgun, so I looked for #6 shot for my 16 gauge. I was shocked to see how little there was out there. The industry started starving the 16 gauge a long time ago, and the shortages made things worse. There was very little #6, most of it was overpriced badly, and some vendors were limiting buyers to two boxes. TWO BOXES, with UPS shipping added.

I decided to look at 20 gauge guns. Maybe it was time to get a squirrel gun in a more popular gauge.

I know almost nothing about hunting shotguns because my dad quit hunting before I was born and decided it was better to spend every waking hour in front of the TV. I started making Google searches like “best 20 gauge shotgun.” I had to start somewhere.

It had to be semiauto. This is 2021, and paying semiauto prices for primitive one- or two-shot firearms is idiotic.

I figured I would be looking at $700 for something nice. That isn’t what popped up. I saw Benelli and some other brands. Upwards of $2000. What? Don’t people shoot Remingtons any more?

I saw a Turkish brand: Retay. It was getting great reviews, and it was a lot cheaper than Benelli. The Turks make very good guns, not just for the money, but good, period. I’m sure it’s good enough for me, and I’m also sure I don’t want to spend $2500.

I found out the 20 gauge was around a grand, and the 12 gauge was not that much more. I thought, “Why buy a 20 gauge that will only kill birds and squirrels when I can go big and kill everything?”

I’m pretty sure my grandfather killed birds with a Remington 1100 and the Browning Sweet Sixteen I now have. I don’t know if the 1100 is any good or not, and it looks like Remington’s inept management has made it impossible for me to get one, so that model is out.

While I was thinking about the Retay, I found an acceptable deal on 16 gauge shells, so the new purchase was put on hold. Although I should still do it, because gun.

It is because I was able to secure a few shells that I lost my fear of shooting the Sweet Sixteen, so when I saw a squirrel tonight while I was talking on the phone, I was ready. Using Bluetooth to keep the conversation going, I stuffed 4 shells into the Browning, and when I was free, outside I went.

I filled the bird feeder yesterday. Not because I love birds. I knew what it would attract. While I was on the phone, I saw a big, fat, white belly facing me from beneath the feeder. An insolent rodent was chomping away, looking me right in the face.

He vanished during my conversation, but he returned, and when I went outside later, he was in the same spot. I aimed, pulled the trigger, released the safety, and pulled the trigger again. I have to work on that. BAM! Squirrel down! He had a buddy behind him, and the buddy took off and ran to the base of a tree. I couldn’t see him clearly, so I gave him a temporary reprieve, but next time, I’m going to shoot everything out there, even if it’s on the run.

I left him to rot. He’ll be gone tomorrow. He’s probably gone now.

I should have put the rifles away long ago. They just don’t work. You can’t shoot at anything above the horizon. You can shoot half a squirrel’s head off without killing him. You will find yourself watching wounded squirrels run off, time after time. Rifles are way more fun than shotguns, and using a shotgun makes me feel like a woman, but something has to be done about these rodents.

Rifles are great from a rest, when you have time to aim well and you don’t care whether kill anything or not. The rest of the time, a rifle is the wrong choice.

I’m thinking I should get a good hunting 12 gauge. I have never had one. I can get the gun, a big supply of bird shells, and a big supply of squirrel shells. Then I can relax, knowing all my hunting bases are covered. Maybe they’re covered now, with the 16 gauge, but I’m not sure.

I’m all set for 12 gauge buck. No worries there.

For the rest of the season, I’m going to kill squirrels like Democrats think ivermectin kills Trump supporters. The insanity of tolerating these creatures has to stop.

Next: a Table Saw

It’s important to marry a woman who has things in common with you. Rhodah and I agree on Christian doctrine and conservative politics, so the big-ticket items are covered. As a bonus, she also likes things like meat, knives, and guns. She even likes my waterproof Keen hiking shoes. Suffering with woman shoes while I walked all over Egypt and Turkey in comfort made an impression on her.

Guns are legal in Zambia, where people are still somewhat sane and remain able to tell the difference between 1) a woman and 2) a male head case in a dress. We have discussed the possibility of getting her a firearm, but we haven’t done anything about it.

I did get her a knife, however. She won’t be able to handle it until we’re together again, because shipping things to Zambia is like shipping things to Neptune. I suggested a Spyderco Manix 2 with CMP SPY17 steel, which is supposedly about like S35VN, only cooler because it was made especially for Spyderco.

There are steels that hold an edge better, but they are harder to sharpen. I don’t see Rhodah becoming a sharpening expert any time soon, so I thought I should make things relatively easy. As much as it pains me, I’m giving her a pull-through sharpener with carbide and ceramic guides. It will not win any contests, but her knife will stay sharper than 98% of the knives within a 10-mile radius of her house.

When I picked the knife out, I was happy to see that it had a pretty blue handle. I knew that would help with the sale. She confirmed that it was “cute,” and we were in business.

I made the mistake of saying I could make a belt sheath for it, so now I have to do that.

When the knife arrived, I liked it so much I was extremely jealous, so I ordered a sister knife in M390 steel, which is harder. It’s not here yet.

The Smith Pocket Pal sharpener I ordered has been tested on a stubborn Forschner kitchen knife, and it put a very good edge on it. It looks rough, but it will cut just fine.

I decided to get a real sharpener for myself. I have hones and diamond stones, and they work, but a modern sharpener will give you nearly exactly the edge you want, all the way down a curved blade, without the need for a lot of skill or youth-grade eyesight.

You can blow well over a thousand dollars on a knife sharpener if you have no life whatsoever and give your knives the names of female anime characters, but it looks like you can do very, very well for two hundred bucks. A company called KME makes a gadget which will put a beautiful edge on knives up to 10″ long. I ordered one. True nerds like them a great deal, and that’s good enough for me.

I hope it works out.

I told my buddy Mike about it, and he said he only sharpens his knives on one side. I had to sit down. I shook for a while. He said it saved time.

Maybe he’s onto something. Sushi chefs use knives sharpened on one side, and they do a fine job. Sharpening one side of a knife takes no skill, and as Mike says, it’s fast.

The big knock on Mike’s system is that it can make it hard to make a straight cut.

MAC, a Japanese manufacturer, recommends a big bevel on one side of the knife and a tiny one on the other. They claim it makes it easier to make thin slices, and it doesn’t make the blade drift. That’s interesting. I might have to try that. I could get another chef knife.

Mike didn’t come up with his system after years of study under Hattori Hanzo. He was just too lazy to learn how to sharpen a knife. What if it turns out laziness has worked out better than work?

I usually use a Mundial santoku with a plastic NSF grip. I think I paid $18. This is what real chefs use when they’re not on TV, by the way. A restaurant will hire a company, and the company will come around every so often with a bunch of sharpened Forschner or Mundial knives with thin stainless blades, and they’ll take the restaurant’s dull knives away to be restored. I know some chefs have knife rolls full of overpriced, impractical Wusthofs and Globals, but you’re probably not going to see 35 greasy Wusthofs if you barge into the kitchen at Morton’s on a busy Saturday night. I have never worked in a commercial kitchen, but I’ll bet expensive knives are only seen in the hands of prima donnas.

The Mundial sharpens to a razor edge in about 5 seconds, it loves the dishwasher, it’s springy, and it can’t rust. If you gave me a big, heavy Sabatier that cost $200, I would thank you, put it in a drawer, and keep using the Mundial.

I’m going to spend $15 on another Mundial and sharpen it the MAC way. It will be an interesting experiment. If it doesn’t work, I’ll have one more chef’s knife. If it does, it could revolutionize my sharpening practices.

I would have to come up with a good lie to tell Mike, though.

Knives are so much better than they were when I was a kid, it’s a wonder anyone still has a knife more than 40 years old. Edges last way longer, handles don’t disintegrate, corrosion is no longer an issue, and most pocket knives now have locks to keep them from closing and severing finger tendons. Old knives look really, really bad compared to new ones.

Today I saw a video from a guy who knew T.B. Joshua. His name is Mfon Tommy. He says Joshua’s last message to the disciples was, “Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” Jesus said this on the night he prayed in the garden, and after he said it, he went away and returned to find the disciples were sleeping and ignoring his warning.

I thought this was all very interesting. Jesus left, and he will come back. He will come back to rapture certain Christians, he will depart for 7 years, and he will return a second time to rule the earth.

While he is gone, the world will undergo a period of suffering called the tribulation. In the Revelation, Jesus called it “the hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth.”

It may be that Joshua was warning the world about what was about to come. You don’t want to be here during the tribulation. The government will inflict all sorts of suffering on you to make you take the mark of the beast. The beast mindset is already setting in. Governments are destroying liberty and crushing protestors all over the world.

Rhodah had a rapture dream last night. She had written a book, and she had to pay a man 500 units of some currency in order to have it published. When she gave him the money, he grabbed her and took her to heaven using an escalator. When she arrived, she met people who had died. Some were people she expected to be saved, but some were pleasant surprises.

Her sister and her sister’s new baby, who was still a baby in the dream, were also raptured.

Rhodah said there was a division between the dead and the raptured. They could talk, but they couldn’t merge.

Rhodah hates escalators. It’s something we disagree about. I took a smug satisfaction in the presence of the escalators.

My understanding of the rapture is that the dead will rise first and stay in heaven. The living who are worthy will go to heaven for 7 years, for the marriage supper of the lamb. Then they’ll have to return. One would expect the dead and the raptured to be separated in heaven.

Jesus is a raptured person. He went to heaven in his flesh body. It makes sense that we would be like him. The Bible says the rapture is a harvest, accomplished with a sickle, and elsewhere, it calls Jesus the firstfruit of the harvest. He is the first of many. He will return to live on earth, so the raptured should return as well.

Was the dream prophetic? Rhodah’s nephew is a few weeks old, and he will only be a baby for another year and a few months.

The book seems to be her testimony. She needs to get it out there. Maybe she needs a blog.