Month: May 2020

Why I Need a Long Telephoto Lens

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So here’s the kind of lousy pictures you get when you use a 90mm macro as your wildlife long telephoto lens.

Actually the frog picture wouldn’t have been much better with a long lens but I wanted to use it today.

I’ve been vacillating between whether I need a long lens or just lust after it.  I think this embarrassing display proves I really do need one.  I’m thinking of renting the Sony FE 200-600mm f/5.6-6.3 G OSS E-Mount Lens and the Sigma 150-600mm f/5-6.3 DG OS HSM Contemporary Lens and doing a very close comparison.  The Sport version of the Sigma is a really good lens too but it’s a couple of pounds heavier and I think that makes it less versatile.  The Sigma is half the price of the Sony so if they’re really close in IQ I think I’ll probably let sanity prevail but we’ll see.  When it comes to photography I’m not highly rational.

Politico Thinks the Rebounding Economy Will Be a Disaster for Biden

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When I see an article from Politico I usually avoid it like the plague.  But when the title is “The General Election Scenario That Democrats are Dreading”  How can I resist?  It seems that the rebound of the economy will come along just in time to make the November election a bad time to be Joe Biden.

The upshot is that a V-shaped recovery will relieve the anxiety people have suffered under the COVID-19 crisis at exactly the right time to convince Americans that President Trump knows how to handle the economy best.

“On Election Day, we Democrats need voters to ask themselves, ‘Are you better off than you were four years ago?’ Republicans need voters to ask themselves, ‘Are you better off than you were four months ago?’”

And knowing how humble the President is I hope he remembers to remind Americans that he was the one pushing to re-open the economy while the Democrats wanted it to remain shutdown for up to a year.

My Fellow Americans

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One of the things that separates me from the Dissident Right is their perspective on the United States.  They correctly point out that many unconstitutional laws have been enacted that deprive us of our freedoms supposedly guaranteed under the Bill of Rights.  But from this condition they deduce that the United States no longer exists.  Now to me that’s defeatism that seems unwarranted.  And I say this because reversing some of these infringements of our rights would only require the Supreme Court to recognize that the harm that these unconstitutional laws cause outweighs any supposed social benefits they provide.

I admit that all these problems have endured for an enormous length of time.  Going all the way back to the 1960s the affirmative action agenda has afflicted us.  But it’s fair to mention that for almost all this time both political parties have contributed to the support that these laws flourished under.  It’s only since the Trump Administration that the Supreme Court has come close to a working majority of constitutionalist justices. Even now John Roberts is an unreliable conservative vote with nothing in the way of actual courage to address unconstitutional laws.  But assuming that nothing can be done about present circumstances seems very short sighted.  What is necessary is electing presidents that actually want the country to be conservative.

Look at the difference between George W. Bush and Donald Trump.  W was supported by the whole country going into Afghanistan.  Even going into Iraq, the country still put their trust in him.  But after he had done all that could be done to eliminate the threat of a militant Iraq, W decides to go on a democratic nation building crusade in a primitive hell-hole filled with our worst enemies.  He bled our military of the finest young men on the face of the earth.  Then he tried to put Harriet Miers on the Supreme Court but settled for saddling us with John Roberts.  And finally, his multiple national disasters guaranteed that Barack Obama would torture us for eight years.

Compare this with President Trump.  No foreign wars, a tax cut, low unemployment, high economic growth, reduced illegal immigration, manufacturing jobs returning to the US.  And finally, on the Supreme Court he gave us Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh.  Not to mention the tough fight he had to wage to get Kavanaugh confirmed.  And that’s the key point.  Fight!  Expecting to gain any ground without fighting our enemies is delusional.  But what you notice is that if you do fight, it improves things on all fronts.  The progressives aren’t all that tough, they’re just in charge.  If you push them hard enough, they give ground.  They’ll shriek about it but they’ll give ground.  That’s what’s so amazing to watch with the Trump Administration.  They’ve been harassed at every turn and started out with no reliable allies but through sheer dogged determination they’re finally bringing the fight to the Deep State and even something as staggering as the COVID-19 crisis hasn’t broken their spirits.  Can you imagine if every Republican administration showed the same resolve and courage?

So that is my rationale for not giving up on America.  Abandoning a thing as great as the United States to weirdos and bureaucrats seems cowardly and lazy.  Getting involved and knowing who you’re nominating is how a republic works.  It’s going to take a coordinated effort to vet the ambitious men who want to run this country.  They need to prove that they are willing to get results and ignore the Left when they call them racists, homophobes, misogynists, etc., etc., etc.

All that being said, that doesn’t mean I think that the United States is functionally the same country it used to be.  I won’t pretend that I feel that everyone walking around are “my fellow Americans.”  There are a few ideological tests that I administer to determine if someone is an American or just a pod masquerading as one.

  • If someone tells me that America is a racist country, he’s a pod.
  • If someone thinks that restricting immigration is racist, he’s a pod.
  • If someone thinks that free speech isn’t our right, he’s a pod.
  • If someone thinks that guns should be banned, he’s a pod.
  • If someone thinks that the government should tell me who to associate with, he’s a pod.
  • If someone thinks that the government should tell me who not to associate with, he’s a pod.
  • If someone thinks Barack Obama was a better President than Thomas Jefferson, he’s a pod.
  • If someone thinks Barack Obama was a better President than Donald Trump, he’s an idiot.
  • If someone tells me that women need to be advantaged in college or industry, he’s a pod.
  • If someone thinks Michael Brown was an innocent young man targeted by the police, he’s a pod.
  • If someone tells me that I should have to pay money to people whose distant ancestors were oppressed in the United States before my ancestors even got to this country, he’s a pod.
  • If someone tells me that marriage can be between anything other than a man and a woman, he’s a pod.
  • If someone tells me that there are more than two sexes, he’s a pod.
  • If someone tells me that a man in a sundress is a woman, he’s a pod.
  • If someone tells me that a mother should be allowed to put her little boy on hormonal therapy prior to castration because she thinks it will hurt her ex-husband, he’s not a pod, he’s a monster.

Any of these tests will identify people walking around the United States that are in no way my fellow Americans.  They are dangerous people who have rejected the Constitution of the United States as the valid law of the land.  They are working to undermine the best designed government that has ever been devised by the minds of men.

So, in this sense I agree with the Dissident Right that the United States as formerly understood doesn’t exist.  It has been overrun by people who are hellbent on destroying it and should not be considered Americans no matter what their ancestry says about them.  Some of the most dangerous of these are people whose ancestors came here on the Mayflower.  To me there are legal first generation Chinese and Mexican Americans who love this country and believe in all the things that make this country great and are therefore more American than these degenerate descendants of the Standishes and Bradfords.  Sure, there other immigrants who don’t appreciate the great gift they’ve been given to live here.  But I’m talking about the ones that do.  They believe in American exceptionalism and want to be Americans in every sense of the word.  They’re not looking for America to become Mexico or China.  They left those countries for a better place.  They never heard of white privilege or patriarchy or transgender anything.  They just want to raise their families and live in peace.  To me they’re more American than some Boston Brahmin whose family descends from the Pilgrims but disparages America as a racist, sexist, homophobic place that must be taught a lesson and deconstructed to suit the multicultural tastes of his fellow Cloud People.

But I disagree with the Dissident Right in the sense that we can fight to restore this country.  We are not outnumbered and we are on the side of common sense.  Our mistake has been to follow behind some other of these Cloud People who claimed to be on our side.  The Bushes and the Romneys are no different from the Clintons and the Obamas.  All of them are the enemy.  We need to find competent men who will fight for us and use them to change this country back to what it was.  We don’t even have to change the rules.  The Constitution hasn’t been changed.  Only unconstitutional laws have been allowed to stand.  Knock those laws down and we get back our country.

And the first thing I’d do is go after affirmative action for women.  There isn’t even a bad excuse for it anymore.  There are now more women than men in colleges and graduate schools.  Women have been advantaged for so long in corporate America that claiming they need affirmative action is a joke.  Ending the protected status of women needs to happen now.  Women can be shamed into admitting that they are taking advantage of unfair laws.  It’s an easy win and would be a good first step in cleaning up our unconstitutional mess.

Well my fellow Americans, that’s enough ranting and raving for now.  I hope you had a pleasant Memorial Day weekend.  Hopefully by the Fourth of July we’ll be past most of this COVID-19 nonsense and enjoying a real barbecue instead of the cut rate version we’ve had today.

25MAY2020 – Memorial Day Quote

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I have one sentiment for soldiers living and dead: cheers for the
living; tears for the dead.
Robert Green Ingersoll

If you had seen one day of war, you would pray to God that you would never see another.
Duke of Wellington

The bravest are surely those who have the clearest vision of what is before them, glory and danger alike, and yet notwithstanding go out to meet it.
Thucydides

Memorial Day isn’t just about honoring veterans, its honoring those who lost their lives. Veterans had the fortune of coming home. For us, that’s a reminder of when we come home we still have a responsibility to serve. It’s a continuation of service that honors our country and those who fell defending it.
Pete Hegseth

The Glorious Paradox That is Biden

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In 1 Corinthians 9:22 St. Paul says “To the weak became I as weak, that I might gain the weak: I am made all things to all men, that I might by all means save some.”  To some extent, a presidential candidate must do that.  He must be all things so that all the various special interest groups can buy into his story.  And for a Democrat candidate that’s a very diverse group of special interests.  He’s got the black vote and the feminist vote and the Latino vote, the gay vote and the lesbian vote and now he even has the trans vote.  Well, that’s their shtick after all.  But this year threading that needle is going to be extra tricky for Creepy Uncle Joe.  Take for instance the feminist vote.  Tara Reade has made that sale interesting.  Although several feminists have openly said that even if they believe Joe Biden sexually assaulted Reade back in 1993, they would still vote for him in November.  Columnist Katha Pollitt puts aside all doubts about whether morality is involved in her election calculus.  She stated, “I would vote for Joe Biden if he boiled babies and ate them.”  Well that’s refreshingly honest.  Another woman, Lisa Bloom, flatly states that she does believe Reade’s claim but she’s endorsing Biden anyway.  And she’s a women’s rights attorney!  Ain’t that a kick in the head!

What all this tells me is that Joe is not going to energize the feminist vote.  And if the feminists aren’t feeling it, they’re not going to be very effective proselytizing their less strident sister in the next cubicle over.  I mean how persuasive is an argument that ends with, “So you see Joe Biden has many fewer rape allegations against him than his opponent.”  I think a lot of women will feel that argument leaves them a little underwhelmed.

Now let’s look at the black vote.  A few days ago, Biden had a video interview with a black social media personality who calls himself, and I kid you not, Charlamagne tha God (CTG).  On his radio show called the Breakfast Club he tried to pin down Biden on what gimmees he would promise to the black community.  But Biden resisted saying “You got more questions, but I tell ya, if you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump, then you ain’t black.”

Now this comment raised howls of anger from the African Americans on both the Left and Right.  But Biden’s supporters aren’t actually offended by the patronizing remark.  But they want him to know they haven’t signed on the dotted line.  They want a black woman as his running mate and they want money.

CTG stated, “If you created legislation that hurt [the black community], then you have to create legislation that helps. It’s just that simple. Like, the whole system needs to be dismantled and rebuilt,” McKelvey said in a Friday interview with CNN’s Erin Burnett. “He’s been a very intricate part of that system, whether you’re talking about in ’84 with mandatory minimum sentences for drug dealers, or you’re talking about ’86 with crack laws that gave you more time for crack cocaine than powder cocaine, or you’re talking about the ’94 crime bill, like he really was one of those people on the front line when it came to the war on drugs and mass incarceration.”  “If he wants to be president, he needs to fix that. He needs to really, really help the people that have helped Democrats all of these years,” he added.  And on another interview, he added he wants details on Biden’s “slavery reparations” stance.

To me it’s pretty clear that Biden’s support in the black community is extremely conditional.  To tie it up he will have to promise some extremely expensive programs.  And chances are he really can’t deliver on those.  And even more problematic, if he makes those promises it is going to jeopardize his support from other parts of his fractious coalition.

Now the final piece of the puzzle has less to do with the special interest groups and more to do with self-preservation.  Over the course of the last six months Joe Biden has made so many verbal gaffes that everyone including the republicans has stopped paying attention to them.  He not only commits factual errors like forgetting what state he’s in or what office he’s running for but he has on occasion lapsed into spouting gibberish in an attempt to finish off some thought that he’s lost the thread of.  It’s gotten to the point that even his own constituency has stopped denying that he’s becoming senile.  So, if you’re an independent and even if you’re not a Trump fan you’d have to hesitate before voting to put a man as intellectually compromised as Biden in charge of the largest thermonuclear stockpile on the face of the Earth.

So, there we have it.  The Democrats had to anoint Biden because otherwise Bernie Sanders would have been the candidate and he’s a Communist Loon.  But Joe is essentially a lying, plagiarizing, sex predator suffering from advanced senile dementia.  Oh, and he allowed his son to cash in on his political connections to the tune of about a billion dollars from China and the Ukraine.  It seems to me even taking into account the equivalent of the Great Depression descending on us after the COVID-19 debacle it’s going to be mighty hard to lift Joe Biden into the White House.  Even in these benighted times that may be too much to expect from the American people.  We’re nuts but we’re not Biden nuts.