Friday Snark

Images courtesy of Politico's

The Nation's Cartoonists on the Week in Politics.

🎃 Happy Halloween 🎃

I did my share of trick or treating as a kid, although living in a semi-rural area meant some walking between front doors. These days I don't personally make a big deal out of Halloween, though we're invited to a neighborhood gathering later this afternoon and will attend to avoid seeming curmudgeonly. 

Nevertheless I realize I am out of step; every year our society makes a bigger deal of Halloween for adults. It's an excuse to dress up and do masquerade, something humans have enjoyed for hundreds of years, being a little (or a lot) naughty while thinly disguised. 

Halloween-on-steroids is part of the Weimar vibe recently in fashion. There are some indications this overripe era may be on the way out as preliminary hints of a religious revival are popping up here and there. As His Orangeness is fond of saying, "We'll see what happens."

In the meantime, have a Happy Halloween and indulge ... carefully.

A Quote I Like

Stephen Green, posting at Instapundit, shares words of wisdom.

Democrats can be a party of weirdos, sickos, and foreign ideologies, but they certainly can’t be a majority party that way.

Analysis: Obvious and accurate, but devilishly hard to counter when most of the left's political energy is among the victims and their advocates. 

MAGA has monopolized the 80 end of nearly every 80-20 issue (except abortion). This leaves Ds to represent a collection of the 20s plus the (mostly) unmarried women for whom abortion is a single-issue decider.

Sixes and Sevens

A variety of sources have been commenting on the Generation Alpha (born between 2010 and 2024) use of the two numbers 6, 7 spoken as "six seven" as a catchphrase or interjection. Seemingly it is used mostly as an irritating way to say "we're here and with it, while you're not."

A explanation I haven't seen so far is with the phrase "at sixes and sevens" meaning confused, disorganized or in disarray. I made the connection listening to the lyrics of "Don't Cry for Me Argentina" in which Evita sings the following.

You won't believe me, all you will see is a girl you once knew
Although she's dressed up to the nines
At sixes and sevens with you.

Maybe the kids are saying their woke world is in disarray. If so they aren't wrong, although change for the better is coming, courtesy of His Orangeness, President Trump.

Not An American At All

The New York Post runs a story that clearly illustrates this truth. Whatever negative things could surface about people damaging their political future, they will come to light in this web-searchable age. 

Someone tracked down a 12 year old interview of Zohran Mamdani's mother in an Indian newspaper.

Mamdani’s mother, Mira Nair, made the remarks in a 2013 interview with the Hindustan Times when she was asked about her then-21-year-old son’s upbringing. “He is a total desi,” Nair told the outlet, referring to the Hindi and Urdu term used to describe those of Indian descent.

“We are not firangs at all. He is very much us. He is not an Uhmericcan (American) at all,” she continued.

“He was born in Uganda, raised between India and America. He is at home in many places. He thinks of himself as a Ugandan and as an Indian.” The term “firangs” is often used informally in the Hindi and Urdu language to refer to foreigners.

At the time of the 2013 interview, son Zohran was a student at Bowdoin College in Maine. 

Saturday Snark

Missing Wyoming

Images courtesy of Power Line's The Week in Pictures

and its Comments section.

Friday Snark 2.0

Images courtesy of RealClearPolitics'

Cartoons of the Week.

Friday Snark 1.0

Images courtesy of Politico's

The Nation's Cartoonists on the Week in Politics.

The Real America

RealClearPolicy links to a Substack article by Gary Abernathy who makes the point that most of the US supports Donald Trump, if the issue is geography rather than individuals. The map below shows the counties that in 2024 voted for Trump (red) and those that voted for Harris (blue).

To the extent to which there are outliers, those are the Harris-supporting counties, mostly clustered around big cities or indigenous reservations.

The map at the top is not only a reflection of how votes are cast. It’s also an accurate representation of Republicans’ widespread presence and their cultural, social and economic contributions — contributions that help bolster and preserve “the rest of the country.”

The DrsC have driven most of this nation in 51 years of RVing. The parts we end up remembering fondly you see above in red, that is the real America. The parts you see in blue are mostly the unloved "other." 

Apex Predators

A report of new research at ScienceAlert, comparing the sound of lions and the sound of humans to see which inspires more fear among the creatures gathered to drink at African waterholes. Regular readers will know I was not surprised to find humans are more feared than lions which are well-armed, eat only meat, and hunt in packs.

We, dear reader, are the apex predators on this planet, more feared than any other species, and with good reason. Even stone-age tribes utilize primitive weapons to make the killer ape (us) more fearsome. And most of us are light years beyond Stone Age. Hat tip to Instapundit for the link.

Canadian Unity a Mirage

An article at the website Chronicles examines how tenuous the bonds holding Canada together appear to be. It observes Trump’s wisecracks about a 51st state and ‘governor’ Trudeau shook the already fragile tree.

We know of course about Quebec separatism, which ebbs and flows but never disappears. Add in the independence dreams of oil-rich Alberta and Saskatchewan and the manufacturing orientation of Ontario - it doesn’t take much to have different regions pulling in separate directions. Key quotes:

Canada isn’t a real country. Its inherent lack of unity can’t be solved within the existing Confederation.

Canada is afflicted with fundamental regional, economic, linguistic, and demographic contradictions.

The symptoms may be in remission, but the pathologies remain. America’s neighbor to the north is living on borrowed time, and its next crisis may be just around the corner.

Nigel Farage Interviewed

Writing for Chronicles, Nicholas Farrell interviews Nigel Farage who heads the most popular political party - Reform - in today's United Kingdom. If an election were held today, his party would win it. 

You won't go far wrong viewing Farage as the U.K.'s Trump. He concludes, "I believe that the agenda I stand for is the commonsense middle.”

Alien Technology

This is the new, still under construction, Obama Presidential Library in Chicago. Many have made fun of its brutalist architecture. Hat tip to Ed Driscoll posting at Instapundit for the image.

This building reminds me of the villainous alien space ship from the 2011 film Cowboys and Aliens starring Harrison Ford, Daniel Craig, and Olivia Wilde. Not a bad film, by the way.

Update

Tomorrow the high temperature here in NV is predicted to be 85℉, in our part of WY tomorrow's high is predicted to be 47℉. Knowing those two numbers tells you all you need to know about why we live in two locations.

Autumn was almost over in WY, here 500 miles south it has yet to begin. Yesterday we took a Sunday drive to do a bit of shopping and have a restaurant meal. No coats were needed, no autumn leaves were on display. 

We ate at a Cracker Barrel in St. George and, despite what you may have been reading, it was excellent. Their "country green beans" taste just like those my grandmother made when I was a young 'un, too many decades ago. And I do love their "sawmill gravy" on biscuits.

DJT Trolls "No Kings"

Image courtesy of Power Line.

Saturday Snark

Images courtesy of Power Line's The Week in Pictures

and its Comments section.

Sowing Suspicion

President Trump strongly hints he’s authorized CIA anti-cartel activity within Venezuela. He notes we now have the sea lanes off Venezuela pretty well locked down. 

This may be a bluff, with the hope Maduro starts a purge within his ‘government’ of anyone suspected of less-than-total loyalty. This sort of “housecleaning” normally results in less effective government as everyone wastes time on butt-covering. Supporters of those purged become less loyal in fact, if performatively more loyal.

The Darwin Award

Zohran Mamdani is a beguiling pied piper, leading New Yorkers to the same place Hamlin’s guy led the rats. Mamdani bids fair to take New York City down the road to where Detroit ended up.

A Darwin Award awaits. Like the degradation of drug addiction, Mamdani’s ‘medicine’ will be voluntarily taken, thus self-administered, and richly deserved. Let the slow motion suicide begin.

An Unfair Match

Several sources are reporting Hakeem Jeffries' riposte to Karoline Leavitt's criticism of Democrats. She said the Democrats root for "“Hamas terrorists, illegal aliens and violent criminals.”

He responded, “I’m not sure whether she’s just demented, ignorant, a stone-cold liar or all of the above." And he added more drivel that didn't help his cause.

Fair enough, each took his or her shot and caught one in return. Except the fight was rigged from the get go.

Leavitt is a beautiful, articulate, forceful advocate for Cause Trump. Jeffries is a dime-store version of Barack Obama, without BO’s Hawaiian prep school polish but with plenty of what makes New Yorkers unpleasant. Leavitt is major league, Jeffries is farm team, not a fair match at all.

Alert

Just a quick reminder that the other DrC has resumed her "Chronicles of Geezerville" series. It's at her website CruzTalking Two which can be found here. She finds much about which to be whimsical in our slightly tarnished 'golden' years.

Geezerville is her nickname for our little desert city which has maybe seven different 55+ senior developments, each with its own golf course. It bids fair to be "the Palm Springs of the Rockies," minus the latter's Hollywood riffraff and LGBTQ overlay.

A humorous side note about our life here. Having a handicapped parking permit is of little use. The reason? So many oldsters have them that the designated spaces always fill up first. Many of us have an age-related hitch in our giddy up.

Friday Snark 2.0

Images courtesy of RealClearPolitics' 

Cartoons of the Week.