Detroit Comeback?

"That's not the Philippines that's Detroit you idiot," Spoiler 216

Are you in the music industry? It was 1997 and I was in a cab, fresh out of London and heading to the Town Pump in what passed for downtown Detroit. It was a neat evening and, long story short, I moved. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

But what a culture shock, London to Detroit. It's hard to describe even now and it was harder then. Miles of abandoned or half abandoned city blocks, criss crossed by highways and an unrelenting ghetto of decaying, abandoned, burned out, crack den dystopia. And I didn't see the half of all 138 square miles of it.

Is there anything like it in England? I don't think so and feel that friends in the Old Country thought my email reports were tall tales. No, they weren't. Then again, no city in England has lost a million plus inhabitants in the last 50 years and gone from being the automotive capital of the world to... not. So you can excuse incomprehension.

Fast forward to today. I visit the onetime Motor City when I can and always have fun; it's good to see the city's downtown and immediate neighborhoods looking less blighted and no wonder. The burned out crack houses have fallen down and reverted to nature, leaving what was once a city open to agrarian white hipsterdom. Hey, go for it kids. And the result?

A small island of central civility in the increasingly empty shell of a once major city. Not dissimilar, when you think of it, to ancient Rome following the breakdown of western imperial authority. But will America's Motor City grow wings and fly again? 

Sometimes a song is worth a thousand words.

Your Old Friend,

LSP

The Ontological Argument

The Selous Scout video came to an end and I looked at Blue Ontology and he looked at me. We were on the porch, the Compound's front office, and it was already getting hot, being March in Texas. 

Blue Philosopher looked me in the eye and softly growled, "Master, I've rephrased the Ontological Argument."

"Oh, you have, have you? Fur head."
"Don't call me 'fur head', your Eminence, I'm excited by modal possibility."

Note Shadow Wolf

So much for a pleasant morning sipping strong covfefe and watching the Bush War, in which a country was sold down the river by the West into the hands of Marxist savages. I prepared myself for a canine discourse; sure enough, it came.

"You see, Parson, Anselm can be re-imagined like this!" exclaimed the four legged philosopher.

"If God exists then he has necessary existence. Either God has necessary existence or he doesn't, and if God doesn't have necessary existence, then he necessarily doesn't exist. "Are you with me?" 

I grunted, idly cleaning the gas block of an FN/FAL (SLR/L1A1). My furry intellectual continued.

"Therefore, either God has necessary existence, or he necessarily doesn't, and if God necessarily doesn't have necessary existence, then he necessarily doesn't exist. Therefore, either God has necessary existence, or he necessarily doesn't exist."

Ontology

The dog paused while I reflected on the pros and cons of gas impingement v. piston, "Carry on." He did, I couldn't stop him.

"Master, it is not the case that God necessarily doesn't exist. Therefore God has necessary existence and if God has necessary existence, then God exists. Therefore God exists!"

He sat back, satisfied with his logic and doubtless expecting an ontological "treat." I looked him in the eye, "So, you've been reading Plantinga again, have you? Well, I must say it makes a welcome change from Jan Hus."

Milk Bone

And for that he got a bone, a milk bone. It seemed necessary at the time.

Your Pal,

LSP

Archbishop Of Canterbury Bows Like A Dhimmwit

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, has been caught on camera, bowing like a dhimmwit before Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman.

Salman is on a world tour promoting his version of a more liberal Saudi Arabia. During an hour long meeting with the bowing Archbishop, Salmon reassured the dhimmwitted prelate that Saudi Arabia is committed to "interfaith dialogue within the Kingdom and beyond."

Two Steps Behind, Justin

What would this "dialogue" look like, in a place where the open expression of any faith other than Islam is banned and conversion to another religion is punishable by death? 

Perhaps "interfaith dialogue" is simply a euphemism for bowing before Islam and servile dhimmitude for all who live in the house of war.

Royal Sheikh

It looks like Justin should fit right in.

Kizmet,

LSP 

Reconnaissance

On Wednesday there's Stations of the Cross followed by a class on the Apostles' Creed. On Thursday there's Stations of the Cross at a different church, followed by soup and salad and fellowship. That's Lent for you but here's the thing, the second church is close to a lake.

So, after a tasty if frugal meal of soup I drove down to the lake for a recce to see what the fish were up to. 

These New Rods Need To Be Broken In

It felt good to clamber down the limestone bluff as the sun was setting and you could smell Texas; cedar and sage blown in on clean, clear air. It smells like freedom and a land that's barely been settled but did it augur fish?

No, not this time. I didn't see anything break the water, despite the golden hour time of day. They were probably sleeping, like Western Civilization itself before the onslaught of fanatical Jihad. Fish are like that, they lie suspended and unthinking in the chill water of the lake, waiting for warmer weather to stir them on.

Where's The Fish?

Still, even though the fish were asleep at the wheel, the heavens weren't and it was good to see the sun set over the lake.

We'll be back and back in force; there's outrageously good fishing to be had in just this spot. I know this from experience.

Texas

Wait 'til the Bass are blitzing.

Your Old Mate,

LSP

Blue Wave Gets Panned In Texas

Peacocks croak and shriek, dogs bark psychotically, roosters crow and a train rumbles through town, almost drowning out the sound of the crazed backyard menagerie. What is this? you ask, some kind of cross between Animal Farm and an industrial theme park? 

A Typical Blue Wave Unicorn in Texas

Good call, but no, it's just the compound and we're celebrating the dismal failure of the Democrat Blue Wave to surge in the Texan Primaries. It's been their goal. Turn Texas, an iconically conservative, frontier spirit state into San Francisco writ large. 

What a massive coup that'd be for the Democrats, in the same kind of way that conquering Rome is for the Jihad. They want it and they want it bad.

Blue Wave To Texan Translation

And they failed. Texans didn't turn out in strength for the trans rainbow utopia  party. In fact, as Breitbart points out, Senator Cruz got more votes alone than the entire Democrat turn out, 1,317,450 to  641,311.

Cronos Frowns On Wendy

The triumphant Blue Wave just didn't happen, fortunately we were able to capture it on video before it disappeared altogether.

Video Evidence

Not unlike Wendy Davis, come to think of it. Remember her? No, neither do we.

Your Friend,

LSP

Release The Video

Is it too outlandish, too bizarre to think that top-level members of our ruling elites are part of a satanic pedophile ring? That's exactly what's being claimed by journalist Liza Crokin, who believes the NYPD is in possession of video evidence detailing the pedophile activity.

According to Crokin, the NYPD has video footage showing Hillary Clinton and Huma Abedin engaging in sex with an underage girl. 

The video was allegedly discovered on disgraced Democrat underage sexter, Anthony Weiner's laptop and features "high-level political figures doing horrible things to children" and that "when NYPD officers watched them, 'it made grown men cry.'”

The New York Times has run an article warning readers about "fake videos." They care that much? Who knows, maybe the Russians did it. 

In the meanwhile, just in case you think the idea of a ruling elite millionaire pedo ring is somehow conspiracy theory and tinfoil hat, ponder this. Jimmy Savile, Jeffrey Epstein. 

If there's a video, let's see it.

Cheers,

LSP

A Monday Sermon

Inspired by the new tradition of giving a Monday Sermon containing Bible tips for successful living and the right-on-the-money observation that we no longer have a moral center, I thought I'd add this grist to the mill:

Destroying the human soul, secularism spreads its lethal poison through saturation advertising instead of saturation bombing and relies on ill-informed public opinion rather than ministries of propaganda to further its deadly message. 

Unlike all previous prosecutions, secularism strikes at the very heart of our humanity, destroying all that is special or unique about us. Proclaiming that we can organize our lives apart from God, it ends up alienating us from ourselves and our neighbors. It then demands that we submerge our differences and forget all that makes us unique. Individuality is sacrificed to fads and fashion and all signs of local and national character are swept away. Everything is sacrificed for the sake of economic and political efficiency.

And let's be honest, for the sake of the bank balances of our Millionaire Socialist Elite rulers. So perhaps strike out economics and replace by greed. I'll pass that on to the Editor.

Domus Aurea,

LSP

The Oscars

Thanks for the helpful infographic, WRSA.

Apart from boycott "Dick's" and the so-called "Field & Stream", that is all.

Your Friend,

LSP

Boycott Big Business Gun Control

Big Business or at least 12 chunks of it, has decided to jump on the anti-gun bandwagon by dropping sponsorship of the NRA in the wake of the Florida school shooting.

Companies like Delta and United Airlines will stop offering discounts and perks to NRA members as will their lesser allies, such as AVIS and Budget car rentals. You can read the list here.

Others, like Kroger, Walmart, Field & Stream and the curiously named Dick's Sporting Goods have also re-examined their firearms policy, with Dick's and Field & Stream banning semi-automatic deadly assault rifles altogether. The others have raised the age of gun sales to 21 years old and all appear to be lobbying for more stringent background checks, excluding the "mentally ill" from firearms purchases.

Sounds sensible, doesn't it. Not so fast, where does "mentally ill" begin and end. With being a vet, someone who once complained to their doctor about depression or a person adamantly refused to vote for Hillary Clinton?

President Trump added fuel to the fire, stating, "Take the guns first, go through due process second." Granted, the quote's out of context and it's unlikely that the President will abandon his base to woo leftist votes and their big money, millionaire socialist sponsors in corporate America.  Still, it doesn't sound good.

But the millionaire socialist corporate combine might want to take note. Trump, and with him an anti-left, anti-globalist, pro-freedom, 2nd Amendment administration didn't get elected because they were unpopular.

Message to market, we're going to boycott your stores and you will lose money. See Delta in Georgia. As a parting shot, why wasn't there a cry for gun control after the Mandalay Massacre in Vegas? Good question.

Reflect on that and the near total media blackout on the Vegas shooting. While you're at it, join the NRA if you haven't already.

Gun Rights,

LSP

ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ

There's a lot of leftist hysteria right now about guns. They want to disarm everyone and replace them with the products of their beta cuck soy boy utopia. 

Borepatch has this to say, proposing a gun rights mind virus:

You meet different sorts of people who advocate for gun control. Some of them are hard core control freaks who just want to crush flyover country, but if you're like me you don't run across them very often. Mostly you run across people who aren't shooters or gun owners, who haven't thought about the issue very much, but who are disturbed about the constant media drumbeat about shootings and who just want to "do something".

We need these people on our side, or at least standing on the sidelines. How do we separate them from the gun control pack.

My last post was how I approach this: I'm not opposed to gun control, I'm opposed to stupid and useless gun control. This is a mind virus that I'm trying to infect them with. I want to sow seeds of doubt in their minds to get them out of the gun controller's camp and onto the sidelines. Hopefully (if the virus really takes) it will begin the process where they actually start to think about things and they may even end up on our side.

It's a battle for the (very large) middle ground. In the long run, we're not viable without it.

My experience has been pretty good with this. Most of these folks are decent people. They want to be fair, and they know that they don't know much about this topic. My mind virus is a challenge to them - is what you're proposing dumb? Will it work? Is it fair? Nobody wants to be dumb, or unfair.

This is especially true with the sentence that has had more impact than any other I've used with folks like this. When they say (and they will say it) "But we have to do something", I reply:

Quite frankly, our choice is to build bunkers or to convince the middle. Building bunkers makes us look like the dumb (and dangerous) ones.

Yes, the people at the heart of the gun control battle are, well, evil. No getting past that. But we don't win without the vast middle. We don't win by starting from "Gun controllers are evil" (they are wishy-washy gun controllers after all). We don't win from "Molon Labe, bitches!" (this seems to make people nervous.

We win from a mind virus that starts to get them to ask themselves the right questions. Truth is on our side; we can lead others to truth if we want.

Do you want to do something stupid and useless? That doesn't sound right.

Well said that man. 

LSP 

Texas Independence Day

What makes this night different than all other nights? That's easy, we celebrate Texas' independence from the tyranny of Mexico.

On March 2, 1836, Texans threw off the yoke of Mexican oppression, declaring their independence as a Sovereign Republic. Almost two months later, on April 21, 1836, the declaration became a reality with the battle of San Jacinto.

After a series of maneuvers, the two small armies faced each other, some 500 yards apart. Then, at 4.00 pm, Texans began a stealthy advance through tall grass to the Mexican lines, pulling cannon behind them. 

At 4.30 pm the cannon fired and the Texans rose up, charging the enemy to the cries of Remember the Alamo! and Remember Goliad! After 18 minutes of ferocious hand to hand fighting, the Mexican army broke and ran.

The slaughter continued long after the main action, with the victorious Texans ill-disposed to give quarter to an enemy that had shown no mercy a month earlier in San Antonio. 

And while General Sam Houston and other officers attempted to stop the killing, their soldiers "continued to chant "Remember the Alamo! Remember Goliad!" while frightened Mexican infantry yelled 'Me no Alamo!' and begged for mercy to no avail."

650 Mexican soldiers were killed and 300 captured, 11 Texans died and 30 were wounded. Santa Anna, "Napoleon of the West," was captured. 

Less than a decade later, the Republic of Texas was annexed by the United States. Mistake?

You decide,

LSP 

Russians Hack UK Global Warming

In a savage new twist on the War on Weather, Russian bots have hacked UK Global Warming, pounding the Sceptered Isle with a freezing blast of Siberian ice and snow. A storm Brits call the Beast From The East.

A Russian Bot braves the snow in St. James' Park

The Beast has dumped centimeters of snow on the United Kingdom, knocking temperatures down into minus figures and bringing the country to a standstill.

The Beast Rolls In

Shocked Brits reacted to Russia's unprovoked act of climate change aggression by deploying units of the Guards Division and Household Cavalry.

Guards

Some rushed to Tesco's, ASDA and other supermarkets to panic buy milk, bread and similar essentials.

Horse Guards

“It’s snowing here and I’ve just been out to watch the panic buying brigade," stated one person on Twitter, "20 milk and 14 loaves  battling it out in those trolleys like chariots and battering rams."

The Long Retreat From Moscow

Others have been left without heat and power, praying for an end to Climate Change and a return to Global Warming.

A Typical UK Road

"I reduced my carbon footprint but the climate changed anyway," said one stranded panic shopper at the Solihull Sainsbury's, "It's this snow, all I could find was a caramel log."

Panic Buyers

The Beast From The East has joined forces with Moscow backed Winter Storm Emma Watson, promising further disruption to United Kingdom.

Arduus Ad Solem,

LSP