Many folks marvel at how I have been able to shrug off and be almost completely unbothered by all of the truly evil emails, commentary and occasional snail mail that I receive or read about myself since I went viral nearly three years ago.  Many people – both men and women – refuse to speak forthrightly in the public sphere, or choose stay out of “the public fray” altogether because they are genuinely wounded and impacted by the rhetorical flagellation that comes with any level of public, forthright truth-telling in this post-Christian culture.  And yet none of the insults or even the threats bother me on a personal level in the least.  Let me fill you in on how I not only “deal” with them, but I how I transform them into so many small victories for Christ, in the hopes that you all might start doing the same thing in your battlespaces.

First, today’s example.  Here is a HotAir.com piece on Pope Francis entitled “The Refreshing Sweetness of Pope Francis” which opens with the sentence, “He understands that tone trumps content — that it’s everything, really.”

(Massive, drawn-out eyeroll, followed by a deep, quasi-despairing sigh.)

I am quickly referenced in the comment thread below the piece.  As an aside, I think that HotAir.com went south when Michelle Malkin sold it and it is just too weak and squishy for me, but I still keep an eye on it to see what the pulse and lines of argument are over in squishy RINO land.

Anywhoodle, here are the relevant comments from the thread, and understand that this is actually pretty mild stuff in my world.  Emphases mine.

Can’t wait for Ann Barnhardt to read that.
Xavier on February 9, 2014 at 5:12 PM

Yeah.. sexually frustrated middle aged women like Ann Barnhardt should really invest in vibrators.
And I think that Pope Francis has captured the world’s attention because it is a real life Shoes of the Fisherman or Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. So yes people delight in the “scandal of normality” like they do in the movies. The interesting thing is that Pope Francis is a very astute politician. He knows how his gestures play.
Illinidiva on February 9, 2014 at 5:54 PM

Why don’t you go bang Ann? She could sure use it.
Illinidiva on February 9, 2014 at 8:39 PM

Again, this is relatively mild, but it makes for a great teaching example.  So how do I not only deal with this, but turn this into a little victory for Christ in the battlespace and really stick it to The Enemy and his minions?

When I go to Mass today, I will pray AT THE ELEVATION OF THE HOST for “Illinidiva”, and I will also receive Holy Communion for him/her, and pray that Our Lord give all of the graces of today’s reception of His Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity that would have gone to me to “Illinidiva” instead.  Our Lord knows exactly who “Illinidiva” is, and exactly what “Illinidiva” needs in order to make it to heaven and enjoy the Beatific Vision.  Given the content of “Illinidiva’s” comments on the HotAir thread, I think it is safe to say that “Illinidiva” perhaps needs some specific prayers at this time, and if I can help with that, and if I can offer the graces of my assistance at today’s Mass and my reception of Our Lord for “Illinidiva”, then I am delighted to do so.

And let’s face it.  The odds of “Illinidiva” being prayed for at the Elevation of the Host, or receiving the graces of a reception of the Blessed Sacrament by any other means today, are almost certainly quite low if the coarseness and profanity of his/her comments are any indication.

The way I view this is that “Illinidiva” is in need of prayer, and I happened upon this comment thread so that exactly that would happen, all in accordance and cooperation with the Divine Providence.  And not only that, but in writing this piece, which many, many people will read, not only will “Illinidiva” receive even more prayers, but now some of you will begin doing the same thing when you are attacked, insulted and calumniated.  And the devil, whose bag of tricks is shockingly small, gets his weak-sauce attempt at bothering me not only countered, but gets a good, sound beating with his own weapon.

As you can imagine, I am blessed in that I get to do this fairly often.

Kids, when the devil attacks you with a butter knife, counter with a precision-guided MOAB with the butter knife duct taped to its housing.

Ann,

You have totally destroyed my life.  Thank you.  I am a reserve soldier in [state redacted], and a member of the intelligence community.  I knew deep down in Iraq in 2004-2005 (I was a semi-practicing Baptist) that something was terribly wrong with America. Hell, I knew it when I was in college in the 90s, but it became starkly obvious that we were headed for economic collapse.    To clarify, I was handpicked by my commander to join the Warrant Officer Corps this past summer.  Through reading and reflecting on what you have written I have decided to leave the army that I have loved and served in for 13 years.  Perhaps I am not as brave as you are because I have chosen to wait out the next three years of my contract, then find something else to do.  My story is a long an convoluted one and I won’t bore you with all the details, but for me this decision has been especially harsh.  I am a second generation Cavalry Scout, my father and I both served with the 1^st of the 7^th US Cavalry; he fought in the Philippines in WWII and I served in Iraq.  If you could see my last half dozen NCOER’s you’d probably think that my evaluators thought I could walk on water.  I loved the army, and still do to a certain extent, but I can no longer wear the uniform knowing that I am lending my skills to this government which directly attacks the Constitution that I swore to uphold.  I told one of my friends recently that my ‘problem’ was that I was giving the regime legitimacy every time I put the uniform on.  Every senior person I have talked to about this thinks I am either nuts, anti-social, prejudicial to good order and discipline or something of that stripe.  All of them are waiting on their precious pensions or are too afraid to have THEIR commanders come down on them.  I pointed out that we swore to do this at the cost of our own lives, so what is a promotion, or a career or a pension compared to that?  Is any of those things worth your soul?  I had the opportunity to double my pay and pension and cover myself in glory one more time, but I have chosen to really tork off my chain of command by asking to rescind my application to WO School and not reenlist.  To many of my friends and co-workers, this is a complete 180 and hard to understand.

The last straw (there have been many others) was during an anti-suicide briefing when a young lieutenant stated categorically that the army could NOT hold your mental health status against you if you sought treatment for PTSD because “the government would never do anything illegal.”  Rather than slap him, (mind you this is right during the Snowden blow up) I walked out of the briefing and had a Sergeant Major and SFC berate me for being a jackass. The worst part is, he was probably factually correct, because many now believe that whatever the government does IS legal by virtue of them being the government.

I am not a wise man. I am covetous, lustful, foolish, wrathful, arrogant, lazy, proud… you name it.  But I refuse to fall any further.  [Oooh-Rah, Sir.] 

I ran across your video on the Vendee massacre while researching French while at DLI in 2012 and it really shook me up. I just wish I’d had the courage to make this choice then rather than now.

Je vous remercie beaucoup pour votre courage et votre exemple.

Le Dieu est Roi.

SSG J

(Originally penned and posted on October 28, ARSH 2012.)

There are still people, millions and millions of them, who honestly believe that this nation, economy, culture, society, whatever you want to call it, is salvageable and can be turned around. There are still people who, after all of this, still think that ELECTIONS and Washington D.C. will lead us all to the Elysian Fields and pastures of plenty. These people honestly believe that Mitt Romney can and will “fix everything”, even though Mitt Romney has actually implemented EVERYTHING people are screaming about Obama attempting, such as RomneyCare (which IS ObamaCare), insurance mandates, contraception mandates, zero-copay abortion on demand, sodomite marriage and assault rifle bans, and has yet to even acknowledge the mathematical impossibility of government spending. These people still believe that Darryl Issa and Allen West (and now the new psychopath politician flavors of the month like Ted Cruz) will suddenly re-assert the Rule of Law on November 7th, or something. You know, just like they swore up and down that these same people would “stop Obama” and “turn Washington around” after the 2010 elections.

Anyone who still believes this, very simply, has their head up their wazoo to their shoulders.

Not only will Mitt Romney, Darryl Issa, Michelle Bachmann and Allen West NOT do ANYTHING of any substance if “elected”, they CAN’T do anything. It is already too far gone. The economy is MATHEMATICALLY IMPOSSIBLE to fix. $222 trillion in unfunded government mandates over the next 75 years. At minimum $1.4 quadrillion in global derivatives exposure. Thousands of MANPADS and millions of pounds of American weaponry are now in the hands of the Muslim Brotherhood / al Qaeda thanks to Obama’s Libyan gunrunning. Iran will have an atomic arsenal, if they don’t have one already, either self-produced or procured from Pakistan or the old Soviet arsenal. 60 million babies have already been killed. That blood is spilled. You can’t ever bring them back.

Now to the point of this essay. God’s wrath cannot be assuaged at this point because we, the people of the former United States and Western Civilization, are the most guilty, culpable, iniquitous society to ever exist by many orders of magnitude. In terms of our guilt, we are far, far guiltier than the people of late Rome. There were aspects of late Roman culture that were prima facie worse than our culture, specifically the torture blood sports – not that we aren’t racing towards that at a dead sprint ourselves – but we are far guiltier than the late Romans, and thus deserve far, far worse. And that is exactly what we are going to get.

How can we be orders of magnitude guiltier than the late Romans, or any other culture for that matter?

Because we are willfully ignorant due to extreme intellectual and, especially, moral laziness. If there was ever a group to whom the words “YOU SHOULD HAVE KNOWN BETTER” applied, it is us. And we have absolutely, positively no excuse whatsoever for our ignorance.

I can list five explicit reasons why:

1. We were a free culture. This isn’t Saudi Arabia or North Korea, so save me your bee-ess excuses. We have been free to read ANYTHING, learn ANYTHING, subscribe to ANYTHING. This has been the most licensed culture in all of human history. Male, female, white, brown, old, young, you name it. There hasn’t even been a military draft in this country for forty years. We have had the near-universal societal leisure to pursue and ponder anything and everything. And we have chosen Honey Boo Boo, the Kardashians, and mentally retarded giants who chase balls in stadiums like dogs. We have chosen to be ignorant losers who revel and glory in our own inhuman stupidity, when we could have chosen to be excellent.

 2.  We are wealthy. We are the materially wealthiest culture – across the board – ever to exist. In all other cultures poverty has meant starvation, disease brought on by filth, and daily hard labor just to survive. In this culture, “poverty” means that your TV is under 42″ and that your ObamaPhone is running Android Version 3, not Version 4. No one starves to death here. People don’t die from ingesting human fecal matter in their drinking water. The necessities are totally taken care of, and thus people are free to spend the vast majority of their lives at leisure. Even our jobs are leisure, because we all get to choose what it is that we do for a living. Neither family ties nor the government have mandated, under pain of death, what any of us do vocationally. Whatever it is that you are doing or have done vocationally, you chose it and consented to it, and you were free to pursue your own interests. Since our culture has been so wealthy, most people have been able to support themselves with a 40 hour workweek, leaving in excess of 40 hours per week for pure leisure, free to pursue and ponder anything and everything.

3.  We could have been educated. We are not. Most people in this culture, even though education was possible, are totally uneducated, and contra-educated. I would classify this culture as “barely literate”. People can read and sound out a small core vocabulary of words, but there is very little comprehension of what is read, and that which is read is either ignorant, insipid or morally degenerated. What people are almost universally incapable of and totally unwilling to do is think for themselves – not just to be spoonfed “answers”, but to actually ponder and parse information, to independently synthesize data, make connections, and to think through logical progressions. I don’t care how many bee-ess college degrees you have, because all “education” today consists of is pumping and dumping information onto multiple-choice tests and occasionally faking a short-answer or occasional paper. That isn’t education. That’s beta pack animals learning the gestures of submission to the alpha. This culture is operating just epsilon above the animal plane – and those are the “college educated” people. The inner cities are operating on the purely animal level. But we COULD have been the most truly educated culture ever.

4.  Every single one of you reading this has the sum of human knowledge literally at his fingertips. The most damning aspect of the internet won’t be the pornography, I suspect. How can I possibly say that?  Because the internet pins every single one of us into a moral corner because it completely removes any ability to argue that “I didn’t know – I didn’t have the information.”

I gave a priest a thorough rhetorical beating a few years ago because he said something really stupid in a public and official setting that could have been disproved and illuminated in about seven seconds with a simple google, or any search engine, query. Whether you are a priest or a professor, or a politician or a wild-eyed blogger, there is NO EXCUSE for making incorrect public statements, no matter how trivial. If you speak, you have a grave moral obligation to be right, that is to speak the Truth. The cascading consequences of factual and moral errors are massive and horrifying, and we will only see those consequences at the General Judgment. When you have the sum of human knowledge at your fingertips, and thus the potential to extrapolate BEYOND the sum of human knowledge, thus expanding the domain of human knowledge itself; when you have been given that ability and are still so lazy that you can’t even get the already-known facts-at-your-fingertips right, there will be hell to pay for that sloth.

As an aside, I am at this point reminded of Leon Panetta’s lying excuse that no help was sent into Benghazi because they “didn’t have enough information.” As if a live, real-time video feed from a drone circling directly overhead “wasn’t enough information”. Leon Panetta is lying, and justice will be done upon him in this life or the next, but everyone else in this culture who tries to claim that “we didn’t know” will deserve exactly the same wrath.

5.  Finally, we have far more guilt and culpability than any other culture because we WERE a Christian culture and turned our back on God with full knowledge and conscious forethought. The Romans of the 4th century were pagans who either knew very little or nothing at all of Christ. They had the Natural Law as their only guide. We, in the starkest of contrasts, have Christ Himself, physically present in the Eucharist, with our culture *allegedly* built on Him, and yet we have utterly denied and rejected Him and have reverted and descended all the way back to the worst pagan cultures, and in some ways have plumbed even greater depths of depravity. The only revolt that is worse in enormity and scope than ours against God is the revolt of Lucifer. Even the Jews of the Old Testament in all of their many episodes of falling away from God, didn’t have the knowledge of Christ (obviously, because the Incarnation had not yet happened) and did not have the Physical Presence of God Himself to be taken into their own bodies, in the Eucharist.

We have nailed Christ to the Cross, and when He looks at us and asks us why, we have the unmitigated gall to say, “It’s not my fault. I didn’t see You there. You should have spoken up.”

WE are going to burn like no other culture has burned before, including Rome, because we have, by far, the most guilt. Ignorance due to laziness in the face of unprecedented freedom and license, wealth and leisure time, potential education, technology and availability of information, and the knowledge of and physical presence of Christ Himself is why we must and we WILL burn. No one has ever, ever deserved it more.

From over on the “Disc Jockey Ann” page, here is the second movement (Allegretto) from Beethoven’s 7th in A Minor, which is at once liquid sadness, but because it oscillates into A Major, is also cautiously optimistic. Every key in music carries its own specific emotional correlation – which I find miraculous in and of itself. Why do certain keys and chords in music elicit specific, consistent emotional responses across humanity? It’s just miraculous.

The key of A Minor is sadness, straight-up. The key of A Major was described by Christian Schubart as, “suitable for declarations of innocent love, hope of seeing one’s beloved again when parting; youthful cheerfulness and trust in God.”

Yeah. That’s exactly right. Exactly. Hurts so good.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIxZw6fQOKI

Every article or statement from Catholics I have seen regarding this contraception mandate frames the possible response as binary: either pay the fines or shut down. Uh, excuse me, but this is a TERNARY question.

Q: The Obama regime commands that pay for contraception, sterilization and abortion. What do you do?

Answer 1: Pay the fines.

This answer is INCORRECT. If this is the road you choose, then you will hand a total victory to satan. The revenue from the fines will a.) be crippling and will put you out of business anyway and b.) will be used to slaughter children through the satanic Obama regime, thus resulting in you bending your knee to satan and his instrument of evil, the Obama regime. These fines are directly analogous to the “jizya tax” of submission in islam – yet another commonality between the satanic political systems of islam and Marxism.

Answer 2: Shut down the business in question.

This answer is ALSO INCORRECT. Once again, if this is the road you choose, then you will hand a total victory to satan. In the case of hospitals and charities, this is exactly what the satanic Obama regime wants. They want to have totalitarian control of all health care so that they can control who lives and who dies, and use access to healthcare as a means of coercing loyalty to the regime. Additionally, this option gives the Obama regime a massive propaganda victory, allowing them to claim that the Church refuses to help the sick.

Answer 3: Refuse to pay any fines OR to shut down, and force the regime to engage in physical violence, imprisonment and even assassinations or executions in order to shut down and seize non-compliant institutions.

THIS IS THE CORRECT ANSWER. This is the entire point of the Gospel and all of Salvation History. You will worship God first and only. It’s called the First Commandment. You will render unto God that which is God’s, which is everything you have and everything you are.  You must TAKE UP YOUR CROSS in order to be a true disciple of Christ. You must be willing to LAY DOWN YOUR LIFE and ALL WORLDLY TREASURE in order to have treasure in heaven. You must NOT BE AFRAID. You cannot win this battle if you refuse to stand and fight an offensive battle. If all you do is retreat, capitulate and surrender, you are absolutely, positively guaranteed defeat. The only tactically sound, logically sound and theologically sound response to the Obama regime is total non-compliance and holding the line. No retreat. No retrenchment. Not one inch.  Go on offense, lean into it, and take control of the battlespace.

It is no coincidence that the battle cry against islam is exactly the same battle cry against Marxism and the Obama regime: I WILL NOT SUBMIT (“Lan Astaslem” in Arabic.)

Dear Ann,

Today I sent you a gift to keep you living in style in your van down by the river.  {Indeed!  I am blessed beyond measure.  And “style” isn’t measured in square footage, kids.  It is measured in love, laughter, shared meals, great conversation and the warmth of dear friends and family.  Oh, and also in beautiful Masses/Divine Liturgies, and frequent reception of the Sacraments.}  The gift doesn’t truly reflect my gratitude for what impact you have had in my life.  At the end of 2012, I retired from my 30 year career in the financial planning industry.  Your letter stating why you were closing your business was my inspiration.

I was drinking the industry kool-aid until the 2008 crash.  My views of the market (if you want to call them markets) began to change.  I spent the next 3 years trying to change my planning techniques to address my future concerns.  Also, I worked as a Arbitrator for FINRA for 12 years.  I sat on cases where we issued harsh penalties for small transgressions; yet, Corzine and the Banksters were stealing $Billions.

Nothing made sense.  I looked at every option, but never considered your choice.  I was in my 50s and my plan was to be a financial planner for as long as a could mentally and physically perform the job.  {That’s what I expected for myself, too.  In fact, at 35, I was in my prime and arguably just getting “warmed up”.}  I really enjoyed what I was doing.  Again, nothing made sense.

Finally, on a Sunday morning in December, 2011, my wife and I were sitting at our dining room table reading the paper and surfing the net.  I came across your article.  I sat there with my mouth open and handed the IPAD to my wife to read your article.  My wife told me the person in the article was me.  I decided that moment I would leave the industry forever.

Currently, my life is much more enjoyable and simpler. I have you to thank for my joy.  And as we all have experienced, when we put our life in the hands of the Lord, tremendous opportunities are revealed.  {Preach on, Brother.}  I have ZERO regrets for leaving the industry and I move forward looking forward to new challenges and opportunities that await me.

God bless you Ann, and may He keep you safe to continue His work.  {I pray for all of my benefactors every day, and at least one Mass is offered for you per month.  God bless you!  I will continue to do what I can, knowing that I probably won’t affect a macro-level paradigm shift, but trust in God that He will affect individual results like yours in accord with the Divine Providence.  The fact that I may be in any way attached to that is both humbling and intimidating.  Your continued prayers are most gratefully appreciated.}

We are the times: as we are, such are the times.
(Nos sumus tempora: quales sumus, talia sunt tempora.)
– St. Augustine

The times are evil because men are evil.  Men must become good in order for the times to become good.
(Mala sunt tempora, quia mali sunt homines.  Debent homines fieri boni, ut bona fiant et tempora.)
-Pope Pius XII

-*-

As a condition of using and posting these quotes, the source demanded that I also post the following, which he thinks I stand in the mirror and recite to myself every night before going to bed.

He is wrong.  I recite this to myself in the shower, thank you very much.  (Kidding, kidding.)

inplaceofadarklordyouwouldhaveaQUEEN!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJ1jtwEi0fU

Our Father, Who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy Name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.  Amen.

PATER NOSTER, qui es in caelis, sanctificetur nomen tuum. Adveniat regnum tuum. Fiat voluntas tua, sicut in caelo et in terra. Panem nostrum quotidianum da nobis hodie, et dimitte nobis debita nostra sicut et nos dimittimus debitoribus nostris. Et ne nos inducas in tentationem, sed libera nos a malo. Amen.

St. Peter Healing St. Agatha, Giovanni Lanfranco, ARSH 1614

Meet St. Agatha.  Today is her feast day.  Agatha was a young Sicilian noblewoman who was viciously raped and tortured to death under the Decian persecution in ARSH 251.  St. Agatha is commorated in the Canon of every Mass (the Canon is the fixed prayers from the Sanctus (Holy, Holy, Holy) to the Pater Noster (the Lord’s Prayer).  The invocation of St. Agnes comes after the Consecration, while Our Blessed Lord is upon the Altar.  In the Mass of the Ages, this comes at the NOBIS QUOQUE PECCATORIBUS…  In the Novus Ordo, well, I guess it is hit-and-miss.  The English translation of the Latin is:

To us also, Thy sinful servants, confiding in the multitude of Thy mercies, vouchsafe to grant some part and fellowship with Thy holy Apostles and Martyrs; with John, Stephen, Matthias, Barnabas, Ignatius, Alexander, Marcellinus, Peter, Felicity, Perpetua, Agatha, Lucy, Agnes, Cecily, Anastasia, and with all Thy Saints, into whose company we beseech Thee to admit us, not weighing our merits, but pardoning our offences.

One of St. Agatha’s tortures was to have her breasts cut off.  Hence, she is almost always pictured holding a plate with her two severed breasts upon it.  She endured incredible tortures, and was healed at one point by a miraculous appartition of St. Peter himself (pictured above).  Finally, after enduring more rape, torture with fire and mutilation, St. Agatha died from her torture in prison.

She is very close to Our Lord in heaven and thus has great intercessory sway with Him.  As we move closer to the Counter-revolutionary World War wherein the full demonic power of Marxism, islam and the animalistic and hell-spawned depravity of the rap/hip-hop culture will be turned loose upon the western world, ask St. Agatha to pray for you that you might be courageous in the face of any coming rape and torture, and die an exemplary and holy death, if it so happens that you should meet that fate and be thus martyred.  I know I sure do.

St. Agatha, pray for us!

(A letter just in from a longtime cattleman friend.  MF Global is NOT in the rearview mirror.  The cascading consequences of the theft cannot be quantified, are still ongoing, and will be for a very, very long time.)

Ann,
 
You may recall that my local Co-op got caught up in the MF Global scandal.  That of course led to a HUGE loss of money, which in turn led to a series of bad decisions by the General Manager, such as no overtime hours for employees, and not blowing air on grain that came in during harvest, all in order to cut costs and save money to make up for the millions they had stolen.  Makes sense right?  Well they ended up with a bunch of rotten grain, and are still obligated to pay the farmers for it.  So, that co-op, which is not small by any means, finally announced to their employees yesterday that they have reached a deal to sell out to the mega co-op in our area.  Come September 1 we will have a monopoly here.  The mega co-op will now have all of the grain business around, unless one is willing to truck grain more than 45 miles to an ethanol plant or to AGP or Cargill.  Just the windshield time alone for us will be over an hour one way due to traffic and stop lights. No telling how long will have to sit in line when we get there.  There are just a few small mom-and-pop type fertilizer/chemical places here.  There is only one other place left to get fuel.  And now the mega co-op will have all the farm tire business.
 
I have an account with mega co-op.  I called them for propane a few months back.  They told me that I was going to be charged a $100 drop fee, and a $50 fee per tank that I had them fill.  That gets kinda expensive in a hurry when filling multiple tanks for livestock waterers.  Plus, there was a $100 fee for short notice.  I guess three days was not enough notice.  Never mind my place sits right on the Highway and their trucks run by here all the time.  Heaven forbid they would have to turn off the pavement and drive 100 feet to fill the tank at my house!
 
I never thought this MF Global thing would affect me.  I was totally mistaken by that.  One competitor got wiped out because of it and now customer service will be a fond memory in this part of Nebraska.
 
You aksed me to tell ya how it ended up and there it is.
 
On a different note, I have watched most of your Cornerstone Cattle Marketing Level 1 DVD set.  [Yes, it is still for sale and I have order fulfillment elves standing by to drop ship on a 24 hour turnaround!]  So far I can tell it is WAY better than when I went to your school in person in KC.  [That school which this fellow attended in November of 2005 was the very first school I ever taught.  I opened the school by telling the class of 55 that I was very sorry, but they were attending the weakest-delivered school I would ever put on – because it was my first.]  I’m very impressed with the quality.  I thought you taped it at a school you were teaching, I had no clue it was in a television studio.  My wife has kinda been miffed at me for naming our daughter after you.  All she has ever seen is your wacky YouTube videos.  She couldn’t believe I convinced her to name her daughter after a crazy lady. [I ain’t no lady.]  After seeing parts of your cash cattle marketing DVD, and seeing the Ann I know, I think she’s getting over it.

Signed,
Stanley Sell-Buy

What red-blooded woman wouldn’t want her firstborn child named after THIS?

1.  Yes, I have not forgotten about the whole Podcast thing.  I got derailed when my computer pooped out.  I promise that I will scream at the internet again soon.  It is the oddest thing, but now that I live in a Van Down By the River, I entertain more than I ever have in my life.  Back in the day I had a HUGE house and only had people over a handful of times.  Now it’s a steady stream – and it’s GREAT.  It is such a pleasure to entertain.  I’m telling you guys, DON’T FEAR LIFE IN A PROVERBIAL VAN.  It is great fun.

2.  With regards to the static interference in the podcasts, thanks to one and all who explained what it was.  It turns out it is interference from CB radios, which are certainly from police cars and ambulances that might pass by the general vicinity of the Van, and not mind control beams from the shape-shifting lizard-Jooos.  🙂  Alas, I cannot establish a Faraday Cage as recommended, but we will all survive.

3.  I try to only eat one meal per day, and thus go for the yum-yum.  Yesterday, in keeping with Friday abstinence, was a smoked salmon sammich.  Take a baguette of French-style bread, cut open, slather one face with dijon mustard and then drizzle honey over the mustard, slather the other face with cream cheese.  Apply smoked salmon.  If you can get it, fresh dill sprigs take it to the next level.

4.  KD over at Market-Ticker.org has a post up about Chris Christie and how he is “done” because of this bridge lane closing scandal.  I have to disagree.  Chris Christie has been anointed by the oligarchy and is now, in fact, establishing himself as an oligarch.  He is their boy.  He isn’t going anywhere.  EVERYTHING is forgotten within 36 hours.  That is the news cycle.  Chris Christie could eat a baby on the front steps of the New Jersey governor’s mansion and it would be shrugged off.  Think about it.  When was the last time any member of the oligarchy suffered ANY adverse consequences for ANY crime?  Do you remember that Eric Holder was formally held in Contempt of Congress years ago for non-cooperation in the Fast and Furious inquiries?  Do you remember how everyone was saying that Hillary Clinton was “done” in the wake of the Benghazi murders of which she is a direct co-conspirator?  Hillary Clinton is now, as I said years ago, the universally-assumed 2016 candidate.  Rand Paul has sold out the so-called “conservative right” more times than I can count, and EVERY TIME it is all forgotten within literally a matter of hours BY THE CONSERVATIVE RIGHT.  I tweeted yesterday a piece about how Rand Paul and Ted Cruz, who both ascended to power by winning primaries against incumbents, told Hannity that they would NOT support non-incumbent Rethuglican candidates.  Yup.  You know, like Lindsay Graham or Mitch McConnell, two of the most revolting, amoral fiends in Washington.  It’s all a sickening charade, people.  This business of not remembering or being able to synthesize a dataset that is more than 36 hours old is why I hold out no hope.  As long as psychopath X waves the “team flag” everyone’s still on board.

5.  In the same vein, here is a video of a group of employees of a small business being shown how ObamaCare is going to send their insurance premiums and deductibles through the roof.  One lady’s goes up to over $1300 per month and her deductible doubles.  This is absolutely no surprise, because SIMPLE COMMON SENSE tells us that a system that mandates that people with pre-existing conditions be allowed into a risk pool AFTER the adverse risk event has already occurred, is a system that will see premiums explode parabolically before the entire system implodes upon itself.  How is this a surprise?  Does no one actually understand on even the most basic level what insurance is?  Apparently not.  But what I really want to point out is the glassy-eyed reaction of the people.  I see not a hint of outrage, refusal to comply, nothing.  The people in question you can tell are NOT making six figures, and yet they all seem perfectly resigned to paying the equivalent of an above-median mortgage payment for HEALTH INSURANCE, while having their deductibles double.  Shrug.  Nothing I can do about it.  Oh well.

I look at that and am chilled to the bone, because I realize that it is going to take horrors on a level that many of us can not now imagine possible in the western world to wake people up and get them to the point of actually resisting this crap on any level.  The feedback that is being given to the oligarchy is that of total capitulation, and thus the green-light to proceed with and escalate the theft and tyranny – and believe me, the oligarchs are watching the non-reaction reaction of the masses VERY closely, and they are very, very pleased.  It isn’t the oligarchs that I fear per se.  It is the glassy-eyed apathy and intellectual and moral sloth of the broad citizenry that is the source of night-sweat terror for me.