Free Republic

Does the marriage have to be consummated?

At the rate we’re going, pretty soon every leftist activist will be executing a pro forma “marriage” to get papers for an illegal.

And since the states enact the laws on marriage, California will probably allow it all to be done online with all fees waived and no records checks or blood tests required. The partners might not even have to meet.

Green card marriages are nothing new but have never been normalized and affirmatively promoted. That will change.

Divorce will be equally easy so that the process can be repeated every couple of months.

But if the author doesn't understand Arrival, it is hard to take it seriously.

Not that Arrival got the paradoxes of time time travel manipulation right either.

I don’t know about these particular cases, but it is a well established trick to do this in the last year before retirement to spike the pension at stratospheric levels. This requires the collusion of supervisors, but since they are all in on the scam, collusion is routine. The federal formula is one percent of an employee’s high three. In Cali, unless it’s been changed recently, it’s based on the highest single year of service, and iirc, it’s higher than one percent.

Bennie Thompson can’t tie his own shoelaces. He is not the mastermind of anything. In this matter, he is either a puppet on a string or simply a clown.

Exactly right. These people live their lives on little screens. Increasingly they are shocked when they get off TikTok or their other drug of choice long enough to encounter reality, and they feel entitled to be outraged when reality is not as infinitely malleable as the PixelVerse. Some of them are now in full fledged revolt against the reality principle itself.

For the last couple of years, I’ve been arguing — only half tongue in cheek — that TikTok is a halfway house in the descent into the incubators filled with the blue pill people in The Matrix. The tech companies have already fielded wraparound headsets for 3D viewing. When those get a little better, the TikTokers will dive in and never come out.

When we reach the point at which their votes no longer need to be harvested, the controllers will pull the plug.

Yes, politics shouldn’t be a lifetime job. I’m all for term limits. The issue here is timing of the announcement. Running for Congress is a big life decision, and if one wins, it is a major change of course. The logistics of running are formidable: getting one’s affairs in order so that one can walk away from anything in the private sector; lining up support in local party circles; running the traplines around the district and state; fleshing out one’s positions on issues; recruiting a campaign staff; setting about the miserable business of raising money, etc. And it’s already April. It’s awfully late for someone else to mount a cold start candidacy.

At this point, however, we don’t know the backstory. Perhaps this decision had been privately shopped well before this and someone is waiting in the wings ready to go. That sometimes happens. The incumbent knows he’s going to step down, but he holds off long enough to kneecap any total newbies, and the succession plan works smoothly.

If it’s not prewired, the default choice slips to a current state senator or state representative or perhaps a mayor, but someone already in the game with an established political base covering a good chunk of the district and a campaign staff ready to go.

But sometimes the wheels fall off and we get a bizarro world primary won by some clown car idiot. This happens to the GOP a lot more than it should because too many Republicans refuse to think strategically and work as a team. Working as a team doesn’t mean one has to be a controlled stooge for the leadership, but it does mean accepting enough of an obligation to the RightWorld voters that you don’t cut them off at the knees with no recovery time.

If someone ran as an independent and has been a freelancer all along, fine. But if he ran on a party label as part of a party ticket with party endorsements, party financial support, and party regulars knocking on doors, he has responsibilities to the rest of the team.

None of this matters if the democrats are basically conceding the district. But if the dems are mounting a serious campaign with a serious, well-funded candidate, it could be trouble.

At this point a year ago, I’d have been for an open primary. At this late date, however, I hope it’s prewired.

“Those reviewers argue that the film is about other things and is meant to be a commentary on current U.S. politics. “

Oops. I should’ve said that these reviewers argue that the movie is NOT supposed to echo current U.S. politics, except insofar as it touches on the danger of polarization running amuck if the center fails to hold. And it’s about the journalists.

Or so they say.

Thanks. I’ve not watched it yet but I’ve read enough reviews to be at least open to the view that the nonsensical alliances depicted in the movie — e.g. Texas and California, and the regional alliances — are deliberately scrambled in order to avoid any direct echoes of our current political divides. Those reviewers argue that the film is about other things and is meant to be a commentary on current U.S. politics. Others disagree. Which is why I will watch it and make up my own mind.

And Muslims in Canada cannot do this for themselves because...?

Sounds like an easy opportunity for Canadian mortgage lenders, realty companies, banks or Muslim self-help cooperatives to step up and do something useful.

The idea of allowing the market to solve a simple problem is of course alien to Justin Trudeau.

I try to stay out of the "prettiness" chatter, as it seems ungentlemanly to be dissecting young women's facial features. They are who they are and I have a great respect for those who avoid plastic surgery. That said, this is Hollywood we're talking about. Almost all of the young women are 7.5 or higher on the standard 1-10 scale -- and kudos to the scattered exceptions who make successful careers, generally as supporting actors, despite rather plain looks. Since I am a gentleman, I will leave the ladies out of it, but Willem Dafoe and Steve Buscemi are two good go-to examples on the male side.

Steve Buscemi famously remarked that the luckiest break in his career was never getting his teeth fixed. He's very upfront about it. With perfect teeth, he'd be just another guy with very average looks; instead, he's distinctive and that has paid off.

Personally, I think the same is true on the female side. Each to his own, but I am bored with "Algorithm Girl," the innumerable clones of the 20-something hotties that producers seem to think are the lowest common denominator chicks to attract the random male gaze.

Florence Pugh gave an interview a couple of years ago about the advice she got from some studio hotshot when she was just starting out. She was still a teenager. The creep told her that she could never succeed in the industry unless she had serious work done: a new nose, new chin, new cheeks (e.g. buccal fat removal, etc.), etc. She didn't mention anything about starving herself or going on meds to shed weight or going in for fake boobs, but it wouldn't surprise me if that those were on the list as well. She said that she was demoralized to the point of almost quitting acting, but she decided to stick to her natural looks and she's done pretty well for herself. IMHO, the best of the young actresses all have slightly off-brand looks that make them distinctive. It's an intangible thing, but I suspect that the gals with slightly off-brand looks have to make it on the basis of acting ability, and that tells over time if they can first get established.

Sydney Sweeney? I had to laugh at this:

Referencing the producing class she teaches at the USC School of Cinematic Arts, Baum added: 'I said to my class, "Explain this girl to me. She's not pretty, she can't act. Why is she so hot?''

'Nobody had an answer but then the question was asked, "Well if you could get your movie made because she was in it, would you do it?"

Every student in that class knew the answer but political correctness prevented them from saying it. Sydney Sweeney has big boobs and she has been by far the nakedest of the current under-30 cohort of rising actresses. That has always been a path to success in the movie industry, but IMHO it is a negative. The fact is, most actresses will never do nudity onscreen -- but as they rise into the breakout zone of becoming a major star, the producers obviously start pushing them to strip off. I have a great deal of respect for those who say no, even though it probably limits their careers in many instances.

Mike Johnson didn’t change his positions. He was elected Speaker, which makes him responsible for managing a coalition in which the brutal reality is that there is no majority for anything. Left to itself, the current House Republican caucus couldn’t agree to turn on the lights.

Rand Paul has a near-terminal case of Libertarian Disease. He is much happier as a Party of One basking before the mirror in narcissistic admiration of his ideological purity than in compromising enough to actually pass anything. In fact, if someone tried to pose in the same mirror with Rand Paul, they would immediately start a libertarian factional fight over who got to strike the better pose. They would end up smashing the mirror and locking themselves alone in their rooms to bask separately in their own purity. This is why Libertarians in politics have never accomplished anything besides fratricide, executed with complete moral smugness and equally complete indifference to the results.

By far the largest vote block in the House is the Democratic caucus, which is a collection of party hacks who vote as a monolith. They do have internal disagreements, but they are dominated by their radical socialist, identity politics, racialist and abortionist faction — and none of the other democrats will put principle over party and break ranks on the floor. That puts Hakeem Jeffries a couple of votes away from becoming Speaker.

The Republican caucus is basically center right with antagonistic RINO and Freedom Caucus factions who now go out of their way to sabotage each other. The RINOs would sooner vote with the dems than yield to the Freedom Caucus. The Freedom Caucus is spoiling for a fight and emotionally thinks in terms of a scorched earth government shutdown as the best way to advance their agenda. They only reason they haven’t done this is that most of them are still sober enough to recognize that this would simply push the RINOS into voting with the dems to pass a budget — and that a Jeffries-Schumer-Biden budget will come bundled with absolute open immigration, a fast track to citizenship, abortion extremism, etc. Most of the Freedom Caucus members are sane enough to understand that enacting the democrat agenda out of spite is not the path forward.

Mike Johnson’s task is keeping the lunatics at each extreme of the caucus in the boat.

If Jeffries becomes Speaker, how long do you think the Senate democrats will keep the filibuster?

And that becomes a question of whether you have faith in Joe Manchin and Krysten Sinema to hold the line on the filibuster ... and whether you are confident that a couple of the RINO Senators won’t break ranks.

This sort of thing is old hat to the Israelis, and it’s the kind of thing we used to make fun of the Italians about. It’s an ugly problem. The solution to it is to elect a majority in the House or Senate, and preferably both, to put an end to the factional doomsday scenarios.

And if we do manage somehow to elect a Republican House, Senate and president — whereupon the democrats will immediately go into full filibuster mode — the question will become whether Republicans should keep the filibuster.

What a faker. If she were serious, she would have showed up in a suicide vest. Win-win.

Iran says it’s over. Which means exactly nothing.

The way this study and report are framed is part of the problem. What is meant by “names that sounded black” is actually “names that are coded ghetto trash.” That is a marker for class and culture, not race.

Most black people that I know have perfectly American sounding names. My current favorite example in the name game is a young man named Nikolai — ok, not a common American name, but certainly not a ghetto trash name — who is black, a college grad, and an immigrant from Africa. My closest “black” friend — mixed race but identifies as black because his much darker mother raised him that way — is named Keith.

Ghetto trash baby mamas give their unfortunate children ghetto trash names that will handicap them. Such a name is an indicator of maternal stupidity. People will make reasonable inferences. It would help to make Thomas Sowell and Walter Williams icons in the black community. If a race conscious parent wants a great black history name, start with Frederick Douglas.

I saw a story elsewhere that said Arizona had passed a statute in 2022 establishing a 15 week limit, presumably with the usual exceptions regarding significant and carefully defined physical health risks to the mother. I presume this would have been done after the USSC ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson.

If that is correct, the Arizona Supreme Court apparently held that an 1864 statute supersedes a 2022 statute on the same matter. Political gamesmanship was the first thought that came to mind, but I don’t know anything about the composition of the Arizona Supreme Court.

The pro-abortion response, however, was entirely predictable. Once again, they have run up a false flag and are using the 1864 statute to drum up support for a bait and switch constitutional amendment with open-ended language intended to abolish not only time limits but parental notification and consent, informed consent, fathers’ rights, counseling on alternatives to abortion including adoption, etc.

From the linked article:

“The announcement also comes after the Arizona Supreme Court released a decision upholding an 1864 law that bans nearly all abortions, ruling it is “enforceable” over a 15-week abortion limit passed in March of 2022.”

So ... the Arizona Supreme Court apparently has held that an 1864 statue supersedes a statute on precisely the same issue passed less than two years ago.

This is an odd result. What is the composition of the Arizona Supreme Court?

On a serious note, do you know if these frescos will be left in place or removed to the museums for better curation?

I’ve only gotten to Pompeii once, seven or eight years ago, and of course most of the surviving decorative arts had been removed. There were just a few scattered examples remaining. We got the lecture about the preservation issues involved, but time, technologies, and standards of curation march on. Protection against direct sunlight and airborne pollutants would be issues, but for all I know, there might be technical solutions available now.

It would of course be nice to see as much as possible onsite, but in addition, museums end up putting a lot of their holdings into storage. Since cost is no object when it comes to archaeological sites (/s), I’d be all in favor of preservation in place if it’s technically feasible.

I am upset at the lack of racial diversity in these frescos. They certainly do not reflect who we are today and should probably be withdrawn from public viewing if not destroyed.

The terminology gets harder all the time.

But anyhow, if the services can't hit their recruiting targets by appealing to anti-patriotism, contempt for country, and sexual deviancy, it will become necessary to open the doors even wider.

Maybe they’re getting ready for The GodKingEmperor Xi’s next visit.