Random photo

Old school Ford.

Democrat ad

So good to see a truthful one.

Spindly, jug-headed political personality reappears

Just in time to help put the final nail in Democratic hopes for recapturing the House of Representatives, Barack Obama materializes, as if, to borrow from H.L. Mencken, he were "on furlough from some home for extinct volcanoes".

But it looks like the magic may have worn off. Speaking on the campus of the University of Las Vegas, Obama couldn't even fill a small pavilion.

BTW, in addition to a ruinous health care system, the regulatory strangulation of businesses, and the massive deployment of divisive identity politics, we can also thank Barry for helping Iran maintain its involvement in narcotics trafficking (H/T: Roger L. Simon).

That's some pretty fast walking

James Woods is a tad skeptical about the Central American horde "marching" toward our southern border.

Fake news

UK edition.

Big Ben is going to make a very impressive minaret some day.

Sunday funnies

"The cat? No, no, we have no idea where he is."








Spot the Robot busts some moves.


50 ways to say "no".




Nice catch, my man!


Interesting analogy (H/T: David Thompson).





From Powerline's "The Week in Pictures".

Monkey see

Nancy Pelosi reportedly has been grooming Adam "Schiff-for-brains" as a potential successor.

You remember Schiff, don't you? For the first year or more of Donald Trump's presidency he was all about the Trump/Russia collusion yarn, 24/7. Anyway, the grooming story seems to be legit; Paco World News Daily (PWND) has photographic evidence.



"Don't eat them, Nancy, that's gross."

Happy Feet Friday

Merrill Moore was a piano player whose style was influential in the rockabilly genre in the 1950s. He led his own bands, and also performed as a studio musician with Tennessee Ernie Ford, Johnny Cash and others.

Here is is, really layin' into the 88 with a cover of the old Ray McKinley/Freddie Slack standard, "Down the Road A Piece", featuring Jimmy Bryant on electric guitar and Speedy West on the pedal steel.

So, what's it going to be?

Jobs or mobs?



Meh. We'll probably have the mobs in any event, but at least let's hope they're not in charge.

My favorite new fraction

Social Justice Warriors not amused by new meme

I wasn't aware of the NPC meme until I read about it at Ace of Spades. Now, Paul Joseph Watson elaborates...



Anything that upsets the progs, I'm for it.

What would you do with $38 million?

I don't know about you, but I think I'd use it to run for office as a faux "Kennedyesque" liberal in Texas (because a bonfire of money looks so pretty against the evening sky).

Fauxcahontas strikes back at Great White Father

Elizabeth Warren, long beset by skeptics over her claim to Native-American ancestry, released a DNA report that shows that she may be as little as 1/512th "indigenous" (another report suggests her Native-American ancestry may be as microscopic as 1/1,024th). Naturally, she's insisting that President Trump pay off on his $1 million bet.

But as the linked post indicates, most Indian tribes insist on anything from 1/16th to as much as 1/4th Native-American ancestry in order to claim tribal membership.

Frankly, I wouldn't be surprised to learn that I had more Tuareg or Ainu blood than Warren has Indian genetic material.

UPDATE: LOL! Elizabeth Warren may have less Indian blood than the average white american.

UPDATE II: Isophorone, in the comments - "Now I'm going to call her PICOHONTAS!"

UPDATE III: Dennis Miller Tweet - "Oh for god's sake! I'm pretty sure George Custer had more American Indian blood than that."

UPDATE IV: I've submitted Elizabeth Warren's claim to testing, also...

Bullshit Detector Lies GIF from Bullshitdetector GIFs

Oregon barrels toward its dystopian future

Friend and commenter Jeff provided some context on Oregon last week:

Western Oregon, primarily along the I5 corridor, is pretty much lost to the Kalifornia Liberals. Some other parts of Oregon are being overwhelmed by these clowns (Klamath Falls and Bend, mostly) as well. And don't get me started on Governor Kate Brown!

Eastern Oregon would split into another state in a heartbeat, if they could.

Portland, though, has been long in the socialist nightmare. Bush 41 dubbed it "Little Beirut". Recently, the school published a teacher's planning guide that, among other vile things, praises Che.

Recently, Portland's police force did precisely nothing to stop Antifa thugs who were "directing" traffic in the downtown area, and yesterday the same thugs brawled with rightist marchers protesting the mayor's "hands-off" approach.

Liberals are perfectly willing to let their cities turn into hell-holes, as long as they can continue to enjoy their own islands of relative safety in neighborhoods where I'm reasonably certain that the police have been told, emphatically, not to stand down. But the no-go zones are getting bigger, and even previously safe and clean areas are beginning to turn ugly (that's right, San Francisco, I'm looking at you). So-called "progressivism" has shown an unusually strong resistance to reality; we'll see how long that lasts (and the odds are that the acceptance of reality will be a long time coming; Detroit's a wreck, and Chicago's turning into a literal slaughterhouse, but the decline of these once-great cities is showing no sign of reversal).

Random photos

Granddaughter Maggie, relaxing with a hot cocoa.




Old school Chevy Bel Air, spotted down by the Cape Fear River.




Hey, all you Antifa thugs who think you're bad-ass because you wear black kerchiefs and ski goggles, and chase unarmed, confused old men down the street - this is what real resistance looks like...



So, heroes, why don't you do something genuinely impressive, like attack the 82nd Airborne HQ at Ft. Bragg? Go ahead, I'll wait.

Otis Rush, RIP

I'm a little late on this, but Chicago blues great Otis Rush passed away on September 29th.

Here's one of my Rush favorites, "So Many Roads, So Many Trains".

Sunday funnies

Polar bear payola.


If you've got some time, you may want to watch the World Snail Racing Championship.


It's supposed to be satire, but I wonder: "Al Gore Predicts Massive Apocalypse If Billions Are Not Spent On His Books, Films".


From Powerline's "The Week in Pictures".

Haw!

Via Instapundit.

Happy Feet Friday

Jan Savitt was an emigre from what is now part of Ukraine, trained as a classical violinist, and played in the orchestra of the great Leopold Stokowski. But he left that long-hair jive behind and put together a swing band in the 1930s known as the Top Hatters. They had their own radio show and broadcast from the Philadelphia NBC affiliate four times a week.

Here the boys perform a cover of Jimmy Lunceford's "Blues in the Groove". Johnny Austin provides the trumpet solo in what I can only characterize as a style that is simultaneously laid back and frenetic.

Question before the house

Is this whole "support animal" thing being carried too far? Woman and her "emotional support squirrel" kicked off plane in Orlando.

An important anniversary

Tuesday of this week marks the 51st anniversary of the death of Ernesto "Che" Guevara, psychopath and revolutionary doofus.

As always, we respectfully note his passing.

Update: Rebecca, in the comments, offers a short, but sweet, eulogy, which perfectly expresses my own sentiments:

Molder in peace, Che, you communist ratbastard.

Well, maybe they'll eat all those extra mosquitoes

"Tens of thousands of frogs and toads have taken over the North Carolina coast after months of record-setting weather".

Man with face like a ferret preaches violence

Eric Holder, one of the most indisputably obnoxious figures of the Obama administration, says, "when Republicans go low, we kick them".

Well, I think we can do something about that. Take it away, Master Wong!

Stormy weather

Our thoughts and prayers are with those in the path of that monster hurricane, Michael. We're likely to get quite a bit of rain and wind here in Brunswick County, too, so we're going through the drill again (moving plants indoors, etc.). We've contracted with a company to install accordion hurricane shutters, but their backlog is so long, it most likely isn't going to happen for another couple of months.

Arizona's looking better and better! (Just dreamin', of course).

Interesting comment...

...from Ellsworth Toohey Hillary Clinton.

So, if we want civility, we're essentially going to have to accept a one-party state, right? Turn the people into "one neck ready for one leash", isn't that the goal?

More family history

I stumbled across this story which details the arrest of Junior Johnson, the ex-moonshiner and NASCAR driver, by my father (the Joe Carter in the story).

Assortment

Then, by all means, Bob, go find a country where'd you'd be more comfortable. Maybe Venezuela or Nicaragua or Yemen, someplace like one of those.

The 2020 Democrat dream ticket.

At least some NeverTrumpers are starting to have second thoughts.

Michael Walsh: "The High-Water Mark of the Resistance".

President Donald Trump: "You don't hand matches to an arsonist and you don't give power to an angry left-wing mob - and that's what they've become. The Democrats have become too extreme and too dangerous to govern. Republicans believe in the rule of law, not the rule of the mob." Amen, brother!

Breaking news: Search parties are being organized to look for Max Boots' mind.

"Dang! All I smell is RINO musk!"


Hey, dude, actions have consequences, even in Canada.


Isn't that cute! Portland still wants to be San Francisco when it grows up! More about leftist vigilantism in Portland here.




You just knew there had to be a Downfall video about Kavanaugh's confirmation!



Wait. I thought drinking a lot of beer is now a bad thing. Sooooo....





Remember: show your mom some consideration.

Sunday funnies

Ever been photobombed by a stingray?




The swim-through window down at Bojangles.




Humpty Dumpty had a great fall (and I hope you all do, as well!) H/T: Tastefully Offensive.




James "Mad Dog" Mattis says Ricin just like mother used to make.


The test of the presidential alert system occurred this week, and led to a hilarious meme on the internet, with lots of messages that we wish the president had actually sent out. Powerline's "The Week in Pictures" has some great examples, including this one:

The harder the struggle...

...the sweeter the taste of victory. Congratulations to Brett Kavanaugh for surviving the Democrats' brutal gauntlet of smears and lies, and for winning confirmation of his nomination to the Supreme Court.

And thanks to President Trump for standing by him. Keep those victories coming, Mr. President!



Time for a celebratory moment. Come, on, chillun, lez dance!

Lindsey Graham, calm, cool and collected

I love the debonair insouciance exuded by Lindsey Graham in this photo, as he straightens his tie, smiles at the camera, and pointedly ignores a yowling protestor...

Happy Feet Friday

Memphis Slim and Kansas Fields rock the house!

In the wake of the hurricane

"SWARMS OF SUPERSIZE MOSQUITOES BESIEGE NORTH CAROLINA".

Paco World News Daily (PWND) has captured an image of one of these mosquitoes in this dramatic photo...



Update: Looks like friend and commenter Skeeter's mosquitoes may have mine beat.

Recall notice

Tom Perez
Chairman, Democratic National Committee
Washington, DC

Dear Mr. Perez:

Paco Enterprises' subsidiary, Progressive Anti-Conservative Ordnance, Inc., has issued a recall notice for the "Smear Gun One", which was recently purchased in mass quantities by your organization and deployed, most recently, during the hearings on Brett Kavanaugh's nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court. It has come to our attention that the items in question were inadvertently manufactured and shipped with U-shaped barrels, thus yielding results somewhat at odds with expectations.

As you will no doubt recall reading in the warranty, the Smear Gun One is sold as is, without representations concerning effectiveness; therefore, we regret that we cannot offer a refund. The extent of our recall responsibilities goes no farther than to encourage you to return the items at your own expense in order to get them out of your way. We will be sending you, however, a beautifully engraved certificate with the words, "Our bad!", suitable for framing (for the low, low price of $59.99, we will include a faux-hardwood frame with faux gilt).

Hoping to be able to serve your fine organization again in the near future, I remain,

Sincerely yours,

P. A. Cosgrove-O'Sullivan
Vice President, Sales and Returns More Sales

Honoring a real hero

"Retired Army Medic Ronald J. Shurer II Receives the Medal of Honor".

So, what does that work out to per shot?

"A bottle of 'The Holy Grail of Whisky' sold for a record $1.1 million".

Letter from Junius to Senator Jeff Flake

Senator Flake:


History has drawn a veil over the identity of the person who left open a postern gate in the walls of Constantinople, thus enabling the soldiers of Mehmet the Second to infiltrate the city and bring to a calamitous end the thousand-year-old Byzantine empire (and this at a stage of the battle when some of the sultan's own counselors were advising him to lift the siege); however, we've no reason to believe that the deed was anything other than an act of catastrophic carelessness by some supremely irresponsible cloth-pate.

The well-documented defectiveness of your headpiece notwithstanding, be advised that we will not admit a plea of mere stupidity in the matter of your eleventh hour effort to afford your Democratic friends new avenues of attack by suggesting an FBI investigation into the unproven - and, indeed, unprovable – allegations made by Dr. Ford, and perhaps by other like-minded fabulists whom I've no doubt the Democrats will try to produce as complainants. No, sir, yours was an act of calculated sabotage, part and parcel of your fraudulent moral preening for an audience of leftists whose current paeans to your “heroism” you will no doubt be startled to discover , soon enough, are as evanescent as any claim you may ever have had to being a genuine conservative.

At a time when the Democrat faction has deteriorated into little more than a mobile vulgus, baying for the blood of true patriots and threatening to reduce our Constitution to a dead letter, we find you, not in the trenches standing shoulder to shoulder with the stalwarts of your Party, but sitting in the shade of the supply wagons, far from the site of battle, polishing your curriculum vitae in the hope of pursuing some fantastical career that will never exist outside of your own imagination. You could have played Horatius at the bridge, but chose to flee like some cowardly Nomen nescio , some anonymous and craven pressed man, discarding his armor just as quickly as ever he could wriggle free of it.

I do not know that the Flake family possesses an heraldic achievement, or what is generally, but imprecisely, known as a coat of arms. Permit me to suggest one: on a field, jaundiced, two chickens couchant, divided by a bar sinister. Helm: a dunce cap, argent. With far more elegance than you deserve, your character would thereby be smoked as that of a man who is, as my American cousins in the southern colonies would say in their coarse but vivid argot, a stupid yellow bastard.

And for a motto, I can think of nothing more apt than the words spoken by the American robber baron Jay Gould, as he narrowly avoided the clutches of the law. Leaping upon the boat with which he effected his escape, he assured his colleagues, “Don't worry, boys. Nothing's lost, save honor”.


Junius


(H/T: friend and commenter Isophorone, who suggested this letter)

Old Paco

Here are a couple of final mementos from the old homestead.

This is my father at age 18, in 1946 (you know I'm diggin' that tie!):




And here he is in the early 50s as a deputy sheriff at a traffic stop, handing out...I have no idea what those are. Invitations to the Sheriff Department's annual ball, perhaps.

And now, with all of the significance of a possum fart in a hurricane, comes James Comey's latest opinion

Even more contemptible than his corruption and his hypocrisy, it is James Comey's absurd sanctimoniousness that grates the most.

Update: Donald Trump takes down another fraud who had the crust to talk about Kavanaugh's honesty - DaNangDick.

I believe the woman

The ex-Mrs. Michael Moore, that is.

Kathleen Glynn, who divorced Moore in 2014 after a 23-year marriage, filed a lawsuit against him in Manhattan Supreme Court earlier this month claiming that he was ripping her off on profits made from their joint movie projects.

A 23-year marriage to Michael Moore. The mind boggles...

Sunday funnies

Ok, I think I now understand Jeff Flake.


From Powerline's The Week in Pictures...







Fetch, Bossie!




An honest film trailer for "Solo: A Star Wars Story"...




Not sure there would be much of a difference: "Senate To Be Replaced With Room Full Of Monkeys Throwing Feces".

Decline and fall

You wouldn't know it to see the place now, but Grandma Paco's home was, during her entire adult life, an immaculate little Craftsman-style farm house, parts of which were almost a hundred years old when I was a young man, but sound and clean and lovingly maintained.

Unfortunately, after she died, it fell into the hands of my disastrous and ever-impecunious Uncle Jack, whose dubious stewardship has left the place fit only for demolition. He lived in the house for above 20 years, much of that time without power and water due to his casual approach to paying bills. Behold the destructive power of doing absolutely nothing in the way of maintenance!









The chest-of-drawers on the porch is, curiously, filled with Jack's old socks. I believe this piece of furniture may have originally been in the back bedroom; however, when my brother and I went poking around inside the house, we saw that the floor of that room had completely collapsed.

And great was the wonder in heaven thereat

NeverTrumper Jeff Flake, Republican (LOL!) Senator from Arizona, has indicated that he will support Brett Kavanaugh's nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Update: Yeah, that didn't last long. Flake joined the other Republicans in voting Kavanaugh's nomination out of Committee, but then called for an "investigation" prior to a full vote by the Senate. Honestly, I do not know who this guy thinks his audience is. He is despised by conservatives and his only use to leftists is as a Vichy Republican senator, and since he's not running for reelection, that dubious utility is soon going to vanish and he'll simply become another of CNN's "Republican" strategists, loathed by the right and ignored by the left as something less than a true believer. Maybe he's just a coward and an idiot.

Happy Feet Friday

Here's some interesting documentary footage of the Carnival of Swing concert on Randall's Island in 1938, featuring the hard-charging orchestra of Count Basie.



Update: Young men in suits and fedoras, young ladies in modest, but stylish, jackets and skirts. A little different from what I witnessed at a Led Zeppelin concert.

Tag sale!

Among the many interesting, er, high-class items that will be featured at the upcoming tag sale at the ancestral home is this one:

Democrats apparently want another Civil War

Remember, though, donks, the first one you started didn't work out so well for you.

I am beyond contemptuous of the Democrats and their eleventh-hour attempt to sabotage the Supreme Court nomination of Brett Kavanaugh, and it is good to see that even some GOP-e Republicans have had enough (hats off to - get this - Lindsey Graham!) I hope Judge Kavanaugh prevails, and I believe that this complete and utter s**t show will probably negatively impact the Democrats' mid-term election hopes - so, way to overplay your hand, guys.

Update: The Daily Caller has the video of Lindsey Graham as you've never seen him before.

Back in the saddle

Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say, back in my favorite Lazy Boy chair.

It's good to be home again, although we have hardly been roughing it. Mrs. Paco and I went to stay at the house my brother and I inherited from Old Paco. The place is a little run down, but very livable, and the locale offers the kind of bucolic charm that takes the edge off of one's worries.

Here's a view of the house from the other side of the fence dividing the yard from the pasture.



And here's a view from the front porch.



My brother's been in touch with a realtor who has some notion of marketing the place up nawth as a horse property, trying to appeal to would-be gentlemen ranchers in places like New Jersey, I imagine. I dunno. My father did run some cattle and a few horses there, but it was a lot of work. It's a lovely site, I have to admit. I believe I probably mentioned before that the Paco clan used to raise cotton in those fields during the Great Depression, and up into the WWII years.

There's a pretty little pond on the property, and I walked down to it yesterday to check it out. As I got close, I accidentally flushed a mother deer and two of her young from the trees, and they went bounding across the pasture to parts unknown. They were far too fast for me to get on film, but here's a photo of the pond.



My brother is working with a lady who specializes in estate sales to do a tag sale sometime around the middle of October. We hope to be able to liquidate the incredible accumulation of junk collection of fine pre-owned consumer items with which the house abounds. Bro Paco and I agreed that each of us could take whatever we wanted prior to the tag sale. I think he took some boring things like furniture and power tools, but I got the cool stuff. Check it out.



1. A lead musket paperweight
2. A couple of pocket knives
3. Two vintage Cutter snake-bite kits from the late 1950s (unused)
4. A leather-bound cosh (interestingly, the business end has a certain amount of wear on it)

The snake-bite kits particularly appealed to me, because they bring vividly to mind my father's days as a revenooer. He always carried a snake-bite kit because of all the time he and the other agents spent prowling about in the woods looking for illegal stills, and I remember him showing me how the thing was supposed to work when I was about six years old. These days, that particular method of treating snake bites is considered archaic, but the kits were strangely fascinating to me. I opened one and there it all was: the tiny razor with a tiny handle for making incisions around the wound, a little vial of antiseptic, and the rubber pieces that could be used to suck blood and (one hoped) venom from the wound. Amazing how such a simple little thing can trigger so many memories.

We returned yesterday to find the house in good shape, save for some minor water damage to the ceiling in the garage, and it seems that all of our neighbors were similarly fortunate, thanks be to God. Many in our part of the state were not so lucky, however, and we must do what we can to help them.

I shall return

Will return in a couple of days, I hope. Mighty tempting to linger here at the country home, 'cause the livin' is easy, but I guess we ought to be moving on.

Swell

We haven't even been here a year, and now there's a monster hurricane breathing down our necks. Blogging is likely to be light. Feel free to discuss a range of deep, philosophical topics in the comments section.

Here, I'll start you off. If it weren't for bacon, would we really care whether the earth was destroyed by a huge comet?

Forgotten, but not gone

Charles Hurt, uh, "celebrates" Barry's return to the campaign trail.

Pompous, insufferable, self-enthralled, cliched and uninspiring, he picked up right where he left off.

David Harsanyi is similarly unimpressed with the Light Lite Worker.

The ghosts of Brunswick County

When I lived in Fairfax, Virginia, I was constantly making trips down to Richmond, and due to the terrible traffic problems on I-95, frequently found myself taking US 1 part of the way. There are many abandoned houses and commercial buildings along the route which I had always intended to photograph for the purpose of doing a photo series which I was going to call "The Ghosts of US 1". I did, in fact, blog about a couple of interesting sites, but never had a chance to do all I wanted to do.

That's all out of the question, now, since I've moved to Southport, NC, but the basic idea is the same, so I'm putting together photos of various ruins and other sites that I'll be posting occasionally under the title "The Ghosts of Brunswick County". Abandoned places have always appealed to me, probably because they're evocative of people who came before, whose livelihoods, hopes and dreams were once tied up with these now desolate structures. I can't help but wonder who these people were, what became of them. As always, click to enlarge photos.

Here are some long-abandoned silos in a bean field near the town of Bolivia.







Now, here we may be talking real ghosts. These are some shots from a private cemetery (also near the town of Bolivia) about which I have been able to learn almost nothing from internet searches, except that the place is owned and operated by some kind of foundation. It is the David R. Mercer Cemetery, and entry is usually impossible because of a chain that extends between the two brick pillars on either side of the road; however, today the chain was down (possibly to allow for Sunday visitations), so I went in and took a gander around.









Well, I guess I do know what became of those folks. May they rest in peace.