Saying It Better Than I Could

Nothing About Everything points out what I've thought for quite a while now, that progressives are the real conservatives:

The progressive movement has always been one of obsessive conservatism, despite their rhetoric and their demand for “change.”  You see, their goal is comfort and safety; assurance, as it were, that they can remove all chance and uncertainty from the world, and live comfortable, safe lives, removed from risk and chance.  Any “change” that they ask for will be to further those goals, and therefore, any “progressive” change will actually be regressive to all of mankind.

My thoughts along these lines usually occur in the early fall, when we take a vacation down to the Outer Banks [1] in North Carolina.  While we're down there, we inevitably encounter - in magazine, in newspapers, on the radio, on television - some mention of environmentalists who have a desperate, urgent need to keep the Outer Banks exactly as they are (or, even better, return them to the Way They Were (TM) 300 years ago).

Keep in mind, these folks aren't just advocating that human development be halted or rolled back.  They want the natural forces at work on the island to be countered.

A hurricane blows through and creates a new inlet?  Fill it!  The islands are shifting inland - as barrier islands naturally do?  For the love of Gaia, man - pin them down!  Drifting sand is starting to dry up an existing wetland area?  Get the Army Corp of engineers in here to excavate that sucker!

Keep everything just the way it is.  Static.  Unchanging.  Perfect.

Progressives love that sort of thing.  Beloved Communist Leader dies?  Can't have that!  Embalm him, give him a nice top coat of shellack, and put him on display!

Your grandfather was a mill worker, your dad was a mill worker?  Obviously, you should be a mill worker too!  There should always be a mill to work at, and your family should be working there, part of the proud proletariat!

Let an automobile manufacturer go out of business because they were Too Stupid To Succeed?  Nooooooo!  You can't let that happen!  Give that dead corporate entity a nice top coat of taxpayer money, put it on display, and now you can pretend that everything is perfect, it always has been perfect, and it always will be perfect!

Forever.

You know, when people do that to their kid's bedroom, we think it's kind of creepy.

When progressives try to do that for everything?  Um.  Yeah.  Majorly creepy.

[1] God's shore, y'all.

Can We Stop Pretending They're Sane? Please?

North Korea sentences US citizen to 15 years' hard labour for 'hostile acts'

A North Korean court has sentenced the US citizen Kenneth Bae to 15 years' hard labour after finding him guilty of unspecified "hostile acts" against the state, in a move possibly intended to force concessions from Washington.

Bae was arrested in November 2012 in Rason, a special economic zone in North Korea's far north-eastern region bordering China and Russia. His trial at the country's supreme court began on Tuesday, according to the official KCNA news agency, which referred to Bae as Pae Jun-ho, the North Korean rendering of his name. The sentence was announced on Thursday.

Bae, a tour operator who lives in the Seattle suburb of Lynnwood, was accused of attempting to overthrow the government, a crime that carries a possible death penalty. In its latest dispatch KCNA did not state the exact nature of his alleged crimes.

You know... there are some people that just need killin'.

Some governments, too.

Just Another Isolated Incident

Woman Prosecuted For Filming Slaughterhouse From The Road In Utah

We've written a few times now about so-called ag gag laws that have been pushed by lobbyists for the farm industry for years now. The bills are pretty ridiculous, often making it illegal to videotape or photograph an agricultural operation...

As pointed out by Mike Eber, a woman named Amy Meyer used her mobile phone camera to video tape what was happening at the Dale Smith Meatpacking Company, which she could see from the street. Dale Smith, it should be noted, also happens to be the mayor of Draper. Another coincidence, I'm sure.

Right.

"... the very best skiing weekend I ever had."

The man who stopped Hitler's A-bomb

Seventy years ago, a small team of Norwegians was sent from Britain to carry out one of the most daring and important undercover operations of World War II - the aim was to prevent Adolf Hitler building an atomic bomb.

On Thursday, the leader of that team and its last surviving member returned to London to lay a wreath at a memorial and receive a flag that had flown over Parliament.

An interesting story, albeit one with less hair-raising action and more "git'r done".

Tony Who?

First Look at ‘Ender’s Game’ Teaser Trailer

Harrison Ford and Asa Butterfield took to the Internet today to announce the premiere date for the first Ender’s Game trailer. The good news for us is that it also includes a small teaser trailer with unseen footage.

I sense a disturbance in the Force... as if a million SF fans were quietly chanting, "please please please please please don't screw this up" over and over...

Burning Bridges

Sometime, it's the absolutely right thing to do.

April is a month of bittersweet anniversaries. 19 April of course marks Lexington and Concord, the Warsaw Ghetto, Waco, Oklahoma City, and in certain drunken ATF debaucheries, the birthday of their patron saint, Elliott Ness. The picture above marks another event, the fall of Saigon in 1975. This photo was taken 29 April. Saigon fell the next day on the 30th. Phnom Penh, Cambodia had fallen about two weeks before.

I missed marking this anniversary this year. I don't know why. The memories always hang heavy on my heart. This is not merely because it was hardly my country's finest hour, but because I bear personal guilt for it. You see, as the NVA gradually overran South Vietnam and the Khmer Rouge overran Camodia, I cheered the fall of every province, marking them on a map...

So when Cambodia and South Vietnam fell, I was one of the happiest traitorous bastards around. I just hoped "the Revolution" would start here in my lifetime. Yeah, I was that stupid.

I suppose I would have continued on being terminally stupid until I became stupidly dead, if it hadn't been for a kindly old ex-Wehrmacht surgeon named Richter who, at the end of his life, decided to wrestle the devil for my soul.

RTWT.

"I am Jean-Paul Sartre, and I approve this post."

I've mentioned this a couple of times.  Borepatch has written on it repeatedly as well.  Now, the DiploMad weighs in on a subject that's glaringly obvious to anyone with half a brain.

Liberals hate people.

Sorry for the long-winded intro, but it brings us to today's topic, for which I provide the following bumper sticker, "Liberals love humanity and hate people." Oh, and by the way, liberals will get you killed. Yes, killed. Modern liberalism kills people, and does so by the millions, all in the name of humanity, of course. It should have a warning label that asks you not to practice liberalism at home, or something along the lines of "I am a trained professional, do not attempt liberalism on your own."

Liberals hate all sorts of people but their special, most lethal hatred is reserved for the poor and the "uneducated." They kill the poor by the bushel, by the ton, by the hectare . . . they kill them at home and abroad. No poor person is safe from the lethal loving embrace of the liberals.

Oh, sure, they love people... in the abstract.  When it comes to individuals, though?  Well, you know. It's a shame that some people have to suffer to make me feel good about myself for the greater good, but after all, you can't make an omelette without breaking eggs.

Or killing some little brown people, or stripping people of their natural right to self-defense, or murdering unborn children, or... you know.  Whatever.

Progress!

RTWT.

"A million deaths..."

The Volokh Conspiracy » Victims of Communism Day

Today is May Day. Since 2007, I have advocated turning this date into Victims of Communism Day...

Happy "Victims of Communism" Day.

You might as well be happy, anyways.  They sure aren't.

Salt, Please

The Daily Mail is the only source reporting this at the moment, so make sure you have your salt shakers handy...

EXCLUSIVE: Saudi Arabia 'warned the United States IN WRITING about Boston Bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev in 2012

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia sent a written warning about accused Boston Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security in 2012, long before pressure-cooker blasts killed three and injured hundreds, according to a senior Saudi government official with direct knowledge of the document.

The Saudi warning, the official told MailOnline, was separate from the multiple red flags raised by Russian intelligence in 2011, and was based on human intelligence developed independently in Yemen.

Citing security concerns, the Saudi government also denied an entry visa to the elder Tsarnaev brother in December 2011, when he hoped to make a pilgrimage to Mecca, the source said. Tsarnaev's plans to visit Saudi Arabia have not been previously disclosed.

The Saudis' warning to the U.S. government was also shared with the British government. 'It was very specific’ and warned that 'something was going to happen in a major U.S. city,' the Saudi official said during an extensive interview.

It 'did name Tamerlan specifically,' he added. The 'government-to-government' letter, which he said was sent to the Department of Homeland Security at the highest level, did not name Boston or suggest a date for his planned attack.

The Most Transparent Administration in The History of the World (TM) is, of course, denying any knowledge of this warning.  Indeed, they have refused to admit to the existence of a country that may or may not be called "Saudi Arabia".  They have also denied knowledge of any American city named "Boston", claim only a vague understanding of what "running" is, and when asked to find their rear ends, reportedly asked for a flashlight, a map, and a five minute head start.

In other words... "What difference, at this point, does it make?"

Reply Hazy, Try Again

Taking the dogs out the evening, I was buzz-bombed by some of the first June bugs of the season.

June bugs.  And it's barely May!

If this isn't a sign of global thermonuclear warmination, I don't know what is.

Hold on, got to turn on the furnace.  The warmination seems to be sucking all the heat of the air.

I hear it can do that, y'know.