Federal authorities used unmarked minivans to remove Portland protesters from streets: Report

[XenaLee]

If you could walk with me around the gravel lawn surrounding the Castle, you would fine the geology of my acre to be pretty daunting for somebody challenging it.  It's a steep embankment that's 50-60 feet from the streets to the Castle, on 3 of the 4 sides.  I tell people, "Yeah I have an acre, and most of it's vertical." 

You have a nice view from the parapets.   If or when TSHTF.... all you will need is "numbers" to man them.  Sounds like a good plan.

[Cyber Liberty]

You have a nice view from the parapets.   If or when TSHTF.... all you will need is "numbers" to man them.  Sounds like a good plan.

Sounds about right.  It's a good redoubt, but if things got really hairy I'd need some friends to man the parapets.

[DB]

Sounds about right.  It's a good redoubt, but if things got really hairy I'd need some friends to man the parapets.

Burning oil from above does wonders...

[IsailedawayfromFR]

My point is... a lot of non-leftist folks are "stuck" in these leftist-run areas.   Economically stuck, and moreso now than ever.

Financial is just one cost of the situation.

There are other costs to be taken into account, like servitude to zanies, the welfare of your kids, and lately physical safety from the mob, etc.

[Smokin Joe]

Financial is just one cost of the situation.

There are other costs to be taken into account, like servitude to zanies, the welfare of your kids, and lately physical safety from the mob, etc.

At some point, it is like being in a burning building. Getting out alive is all that really, ultimately, counts.

[FeelNoPain]

"parapets," "redoubts" -- that's why I read this board.

Love Vocabulary-building!

[Cyber Liberty]

"parapets," "redoubts" -- that's why I read this board.

Love Vocabulary-building!

Never use a $1 word when a $10 word will do.   

[Smokin Joe]

Never use a $1 word when a $10 word will do.   

Shades of Spiro Agnew and Bill Buckley....

[Cyber Liberty]

Shades of Spiro Agnew and Bill Buckley....

WFB taught me the value of "just the right word," and R. Emmett Tyrell the value of a Rapier wit.  From PJ O'Rourke I learnt the value of clever satire.

[DB]

WFB taught me the value of "just the right word," and R. Emmett Tyrell the value of a Rapier wit.  From PJ O'Rourke I learnt the value of clever satire.

I have brain damage when it come to writing or speaking...

[IsailedawayfromFR]

At some point, it is like being in a burning building. Getting out alive is all that really, ultimately, counts.

So true.  Lots of Jews in Germany found that out the hard way as they chose instead to try to preserve their assets rather than their lives.

[catfish1957]

WFB taught me the value of "just the right word," and R. Emmett Tyrell the value of a Rapier wit.  From PJ O'Rourke I learnt the value of clever satire.

Watching Firing Line, and WFB was my hero at age 11.  Tells you how warped I was. 

Fascinated in seeing someone with the ability to make someone else look that stupid.

[Smokin Joe]

WFB taught me the value of "just the right word," and R. Emmett Tyrell the value of a Rapier wit.  From PJ O'Rourke I learnt the value of clever satire.

You had good teachers, grasshopper.

[Cyber Liberty]

You had good teachers, grasshopper.

And Dave Barry when I need good belly laffs:

Dave Barry on electricity
SCIENCE and ELECTRICITY
by Dave Barry

TODAY'S SCIENTIFIC QUESTION IS: What in the world is electricity and
where does it go after it leaves the toaster?
Here is a simple experiment that will teach you an important electrical
lesson. On a cool day, scuff your feet along a carpet, then reach your
hand into a friend's mouth and touch one of his dental fillings. Did you
notice how your friend twitched violently and cried out in pain? This
teaches one that electricity can be a very powerful force, but we must
never use it to hurt others unless we need to learn an important lesson
about electricity.
It also illustrates how an electrical circut works. When you scuffed
your feet, you picked up batches of "electrons", which are very small
objects that carpet manufacturers weave into carpets so they will attract
dirt. The electrons travel through your bloodstream and collect in your
finger, where they form a spark that leaps to your friends filling, then
travel down to his feet and back into the carpet, thus completing the
circut. AMAZING ELECTRONIC FACT: If you scuffed your feet long enough
without touching anything, you would build up so many electrons that your
finger would explode. This is nothing to worry about unless you have
carpeting. Although we modern persons tend to take our electric lights,
radios, mixers, etc. for granted, hundreds of years ago people did not
have any of these things, which is just as well since there was no place to
plug them in. Then along came the first electrical pioneer, Benjamin
Franklin, who flew a kite in an electrical storm and received a serious
electrical shock. This proved that lightning was powered by the same force
as carpets, but it also damaged Franklin's brain so severely that he
started speaking only in incomprehensible maxims, such as "A penny saved is
a penny earned". Eventually he had to be given a job running the post
office. After Franklin came a herd of electrical pioneers whose names have
become part of our electrical terminology: Myron Volt, Mary Louise AMP,
James Watt, Bob Transformer, etc. These pioneers conducted many important
electrical experiments. Galvani discovered (this is the truth) that when
he attached two different kinds of metal to the leg of a frog, an
electrical current developed and the frog's leg kicked, even though it was
no longer attached to the frog, which was dead anyway. Galvani's discovery
led to enormous advances in amphibian medicine. Today skilled veterinary
surgeons can take a frog that has been seriously injured or killed, implant
pieces of metal in its muscles, and watch it hop back into the pond ...
almost. The greatest electrical pioneer of them all was Thomas Edison. He
was a brillian inventor despite the fact that he had little formal
education and lived in New Jersey. Edison's first major invention in 1877
was the phonograph. It could be found in thousands of american homes where
it sat until 1923 when the record was invented. Edison's greatest
achievment came in 1879 when he invented the electric company. Edison's
design was a brilliant adaptation of the simple electrical circut. The
electric company sends the electricity through a wire to the customer, then
immediately gets the electricity back through another wire. Then (this is
the brilliant part) they send it right back to the customer again. This
means that the electric company can sell a customer the same batch of
electricity thousands of times a day and never get caught, since very few
customers take the time to examine their electricity very closely. In
fact, the last year any NEW electricity was generated was 1937. Today,
thanks to men like Edison and Franklin, and frogs like Galvani's, we
receive almost unlimited benefits from electricity. In the past decade,
scientists have developed the laser, an electronic device so powerful that
it can vaporize a bulldozer at 2000 yards, yet so precise that doctors can
use it to perform delicate operations on the human eyeball, provided they
remember to change the power setting from "bulldozer" to "eyeball".

[Smokin Joe]

And Dave Barry when I need good belly laffs:

Dave Barry on electricity
SCIENCE and ELECTRICITY
by Dave Barry

Barry was always fun, and Art Buchwald, when he was around...

[Hoodat]

And Dave Barry when I need good belly laffs:

Dave Barry on electricity
SCIENCE and ELECTRICITY
by Dave Barry

Thank you @Cyber Liberty.  Shared that one with Mrs. Hoodat.  And the most beautiful sound in this world is the sound of her laughter.

[Cyber Liberty]

Thank you @Cyber Liberty.  Shared that one with Mrs. Hoodat.  And the most beautiful sound in this world is the sound of her laughter.

Just so long as you remember to adjust the power setting from "Incinerate Jeep" to "Perform Eye Surgery."  Mrs. Liberty loves that one too, an oldie but goody.

[Chosen Daughter]

50 years ago while in high school I chose a promising career, electronics. 42 years ago I decided to move to Silicon Valley instead of the Boston or Houston areas because my aging parents lived just 120 miles or so from the San Jose area. Now, decades later, we're on the edge of SF-Oakland-Berserkeley-Crazy, a degree of crazy that was not foreseeable as recently 5 or 10 years ago, let alone 50 years ago when I chose my career path. So, yeah, 42 years of my life - home, family, church, doctors and dentists, etc. - is here. A time may come when we will move elsewhere, but right now I'd rather see this area turned around, away from the crazy. In my low-key way I contribute things that contribute to such a turn-around.

Writing off whole states because of its crazies - CA, NY, WA, MA, IL, OR ... where does the list end ... or more to the point, where does this list of written-off states become dominant over the whole nation - is the path to the whole nation being turned crazy.

"Colorado" was Ayn Rand's place of refuge in "Atlas", too remote for an inept government to affect. Fiction writers create their own worlds to suit the purpose of their book. But in the real world of the US, there are no safe long-term refuges, and the more communities and states written off, surrendered to the crazies, the tighter and stronger the noose that will strangle the places of what will prove to be temporary and brief refuge.

Can't write off the states, I agree.

[Smokin Joe]

50 years ago while in high school I chose a promising career, electronics. 42 years ago I decided to move to Silicon Valley instead of the Boston or Houston areas because my aging parents lived just 120 miles or so from the San Jose area. Now, decades later, we're on the edge of SF-Oakland-Berserkeley-Crazy, a degree of crazy that was not foreseeable as recently 5 or 10 years ago, let alone 50 years ago when I chose my career path. So, yeah, 42 years of my life - home, family, church, doctors and dentists, etc. - is here. A time may come when we will move elsewhere, but right now I'd rather see this area turned around, away from the crazy. In my low-key way I contribute things that contribute to such a turn-around.

Writing off whole states because of its crazies - CA, NY, WA, MA, IL, OR ... where does the list end ... or more to the point, where does this list of written-off states become dominant over the whole nation - is the path to the whole nation being turned crazy.

"Colorado" was Ayn Rand's place of refuge in "Atlas", too remote for an inept government to affect. Fiction writers create their own worlds to suit the purpose of their book. But in the real world of the US, there are no safe long-term refuges, and the more communities and states written off, surrendered to the crazies, the tighter and stronger the noose that will strangle the places of what will prove to be temporary and brief refuge.

A good point. Besides, the crazies will never be satisfied with what they have.

[IsailedawayfromFR]

50 years ago while in high school I chose a promising career, electronics. 42 years ago I decided to move to Silicon Valley instead of the Boston or Houston areas because my aging parents lived just 120 miles or so from the San Jose area. Now, decades later, we're on the edge of SF-Oakland-Berserkeley-Crazy, a degree of crazy that was not foreseeable as recently 5 or 10 years ago, let alone 50 years ago when I chose my career path. So, yeah, 42 years of my life - home, family, church, doctors and dentists, etc. - is here. A time may come when we will move elsewhere, but right now I'd rather see this area turned around, away from the crazy. In my low-key way I contribute things that contribute to such a turn-around.

Writing off whole states because of its crazies - CA, NY, WA, MA, IL, OR ... where does the list end ... or more to the point, where does this list of written-off states become dominant over the whole nation - is the path to the whole nation being turned crazy.

"Colorado" was Ayn Rand's place of refuge in "Atlas", too remote for an inept government to affect. Fiction writers create their own worlds to suit the purpose of their book. But in the real world of the US, there are no safe long-term refuges, and the more communities and states written off, surrendered to the crazies, the tighter and stronger the noose that will strangle the places of what will prove to be temporary and brief refuge.

So true.

My son is thinking of moving to Bozeman, Mt and he told me it reminded him in some ways of Austin, Texas.

That is getting scary.

[Hoodat]

So true.

My son is thinking of moving to Bozeman, Mt and he told me it reminded him in some ways of Austin, Texas.

That is getting scary.

I'm thinking of somewhere in rural Saskatchewan.

[Smokin Joe]

I'm thinking of somewhere in rural Saskatchewan.

Crazy gun laws up there...jus' sayin' 

[mountaineer]

Crazy gun laws up there...jus' sayin' 

And not very much freedom of speech.

[Hoodat]

We should annex it then.  FREE SASKATCHEWAN !!!!

[sneakypete]

Oh, Screw the polls.

You want right, then put the blame where it belongs.

Why did this get out of hand?

Inaction by local police under orders from Town Councils, Mayors, and Governors who not only did not have their backs, but encouraged rioting and looting and 'giving protesters their room to express themselves'--those are the people whose job it was to stop this crap from day one.
 
They not only didn't put the brakes on, they sided with the 'protesters', looters, and rioters over ALL the other people and property they were supposed to be looking out for.
These are the people who enabled and encouraged lawlessness in the areas where they were supposed to be responsible for the law being upheld.

@Smokin Joe

And it was all done as an organized effort by the DNC to try to get Trump to overreact and send the troops in to bust heads.

The Dims were planning on using video tapes of soldiers and cops beating and shooting "innocent protesters" to show how incompetent Trump is!"

I know this pisses off the "law and order" types around here,but this is politics,and you win political battles by letting the other guy defeat himself by losing public support for allowing it to happen and doing nothing to prevent it.

Remember maybe the biggest "truism" in politics states that "ALL politics is local".

And slowly but surely,that is beginning to happen.