Well This Rocks And Then Some

Senator John McCain has died and so it only seems right to post this video, via Borepatch, to lift everyone's spirits. Do you remember how the media hated, scorned and despised McCain, who lost so disastrously to Obama? 

Now they're lauding him as an "American Hero." Such patriots. Other news outlets dubbed him "No Name."

Whatever, may he rest in peace,

LSP

Mass Immigration

Why do our corporate elites support mass immigration from, ahem, developing countries, asks Peyton Farquar at ROK. Good question, and his short answer is "a deadly combo of greed and virtue-signalling."

In brief, mass immigration drives down labor costs and increases consumption while neatly sidestepping infrastructure investment in countries like Angola, Syria or Burkina Faso. Why spend millions building factories there when you can move the workforce here. Bottom line benefit all 'round and handily supported by the Western taxpayer to boot. And it feels good, enter virtue-signalling.

The article concludes with a reflection on the "mind-numbing hypocrisy" of the elites in question:

It is this last reason—virtue-signaling—that most damns our elites. It is one thing to knowingly do great evil. It is entirely another to convince yourself you are good for doing it.

Despite careers spent singing the praises of open-borders, in their personal lives elites distance themselves as much as possible from the diversity they claim to love. The hypocrisy is mind-numbing. By dint of their enormous wealth they will never live in the ghettos, favelas, and no-go zones sprouting across the West. Their children will not attend schools equipped with metal detectors and knife wands. They will never wait in line at 7-Eleven behind a scowling Salvadoran draped in MS-13 tattoos. Most of them will live out their entire lives without ever once having to face, publicly or privately, the odious reality of their treason.

Strong words and you can read the whole thing here. But what happens if the migrants fail to get work, break the welfare state, don't integrate and cause precisely the kind of backlash the multiculturalists are against? 

I'll leave you with a typically alarmist comment from Zerohedge:

Over the next 15 years as socialism dies populations will become tribal. When that happens the blood of immigrants will flow as they are blamed for the collapse...

If and when that point arrives, corporate greed-driven strategy, to say nothing of de facto vote buying on the part of our politicians, will look short-sighted at best.

LSP

Microsoft, We Scorn You

Do you remember the good old days when you could buy the ridiculously overpriced and bloated MS Office? Sure you do, it was Halcyon, back then. But not anymore. MS Office sells itself as an "app" that you have to rent by the month or year. Not dissimilar to Adobe's incredibly awesome "Creative Cloud." Yeah, creative on the wallet.

Well guess what, NWO software overlords, Team LSP isn't falling for your little game. Bye bye, Illuminati elites, we scorn you.

Open Source,

LSP

Something Better Change

Do you remember America's 2008 presidential election? Sure you do, people went wild for "hope and change" and the libs were out in force, partying in the streets, while trads gnashed their teeth. I didn't grind my few remaining teeth, but I did watch Dallas Democrats whoop up the demise of the hated Bush as they danced, literally, in the leafy boulevards of Bishop Arts. 

You poor, mad, fools, I thought quietly to myself, as I sipped a glass of the right stuff from the vantage point of a street corner outside an overpriced restaurant.

Pull Your Pants Up, Fool

Nearly 8 years later, hope and change mania has turned into a choppy, sometimes explosive, discontent. The black urban poor aren't happy, witness Ferguson and Baltimore; it seems they're disinclined to be bought off with cell phones and food stamps. The pampered, whining, university elite aren't happy. For them, the Frankfort School revolution can never go far enough.

Student Stasi Whineleader

But that's not all. People looking for jobs aren't happy because, unless you're an artist, sorry, waiter, there aren't any, and people with jobs aren't too pleased either, as real income shrinks while prices rise. And it goes without saying that social conservatives are mad at what they justifiably see as an increasing attack on traditional values. Sorry, Christians, bake the cake.

Terrorists? Or Does The Government Just Want Your Land?

In brief, the vast majority of the population isn't pleased, and I'm being polite, with the way things are. Go figure, hope and change has brought us exactly what? Affordable healthcare that the poor get fined for not being able to afford and, wait for it, "Cait." Well thanks a lot, rulers, we may be poorer but at least we've got gay marriage and the awesome liberty to get a sex change.

In the meanwhile, in the public mind, a tiny minority of self-serving,  inside-the-beltway political insiders and their oligarch friends, continue to wax large without regard for the people they govern. I'll leave you with the Jeremiad ZeroHedge, commenting on the recent Oregon ranch stand-off:

This is what happens when people get desperate, when citizens lose hope, and when lawful, nonviolent alternatives appear pointless.

Whether the parties involved are blameless or not, whether they’re using the wrong tactics or not, whether their agendas are selfless or not, this is the face of a nation undergoing a nervous breakdown on all fronts.

Now all that remains is a spark, and it need not be a very big one, to set the whole powder keg aflame.

Behold Your Ruler?

Word to the wise. When you see big lines at the ATMs, get ready to get out.

Cheers,

LSP