www.thornwalker.com/ditch/morley_short_takes_9.htm
February 19, 2024
Short takes, no. 9
By EDWARD MORRISON MORLEY
Editors note: It turns out that Mr. Morley may or may not be back. Reliable sources tell TLD that there are reasonable suspicions that Morleys last Short Takes column (No. 8) was entirely written by AI while Morley lolls around a beach in a jurisdiction without U.S. extradition agreements. That raises the question ... WE INTERRUPT THIS PARAGRAPH FOR THIS WARNING: raises the question is correct here, not begs the question. Bonus Points for Morley. Because at least99 percent of the legacy media think the two are synonyms, this misnomering is now actually considered correct in some online dictionaries. IT ISNT. GOT THAT? Begging the question is the logical fallacy of assuming the truth of the conclusion instead of demonstrating it, i.e., circular reasoning. It is not the same as raises the question as ignoramuses among our elites seem to think. WE RETURN YOU NOW TO OUR REGULAR PROGRAMMING ... raises the question (whether or not anyone cares) whether any of the following was written by an actual human, presumably Mr. Morley, or by an AI Morley. You, or your AI persona, be the judge.
1. Actually No. 2, since the above was clearly a short take. So here goes: 2. More big government in action. According to the Wall Street Journal,January 19, 2024, The projected cost of replacing the aging nuclear missiles buried in silos across the Great Plains [some of them are almost as old as President Sleepy Joe, Orange Man, and Strakon] has soared by ... POP QUIZ TIME: WHATS YOUR BEST GUESS?
A. Millions of dollars;B. Billions of dollars;C. Nothing: theyre coming in under budget;D. Whatever they say, it will be magnitudes larger;E. The Pentagon and arms contractors wont tell us;F. All of the above;G. None of the above. Anyway, to continue, ... has soared by more than a third to$107 billion, the Pentagon said. The37 percent increase is attributed to poor budget forecasting [!!! No! Say it aint so, Joe!], supply-chain challenges [owing to increased shipping costs from Commie China and populist economic theories embraced by Prez 46, who stole the idea from Prez 45, supposedly his mirror opposite. Doesnt anybody read Adam Smith anymore? And, anyway, werent these autarchic populist theories stolen from the real fascists?], and pandemic-driven inflation [that would be the temporary, short-term, dont get your knickers in a bunch inflation that everybody predicted three years ago].The Pentagon said that the upgrading was more complex than anticipated, challenging efforts to make them operational by 2029. Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall (hah! Betcha didnt know who he was 30 seconds ago) said the replacement program was struggling and said a bunch of other things that were a) promptly jotted down by ChiCom military analysts for reasons unknown, and b) promptly jotted down by U.S. defense contractors and congressional hawks in preparation for the upcoming defense budget hearings. So whaddah ya think? A. The ChiCom supreme leader whats his (other pronouns: her, him, its, they, them, zir, zieself) name will give his Air Force secretary the go-ahead, but make sure its before
January 1, 2029; B. The Pentagon knows the job will be done before 2029, say 2025, and the ChiComs will be caught with their pants down if they attack after that; or C. Both the ChiComs (no pronouns: real Marxists dont go for that nonsense) and the Pentagon guys (list of pronouns available on request) just want to squeeze as many simoleons out of their respective regimes to keep the defense gravy train rolling (as Orwell said, Peace is Hell or something like that).3. And even more big government in action. Remember the Neutron Bomb, the capitalist bomb that supposedly kills people without destroying buildings and other valuable real estate? Well, now we have the humane Hellfire R9X missile, which was used to take out Wissam Muhammad Sabir al-Saadi, known as Abu Baqir Al-Saadi, known as Dead Man Not Walking, and leader of the Kataib Hezbollah in Syria (known as the Harvard Alumni Association here in the United States) as he was tooling down the downtown Baghdad Expressway in his car. Instead of blowing up the target, which might risk killing civilians and other innocent passersby as well as disrupting business at the Baghdad Starbuck, the missile utilized, according to the Wall Street Journal,
February 15, 2024, was the Flying Ginsu ... a weapon that employs six long blades to shred its target and minimize civilian casualties, defense officials said. The age of Mr. al-Saadi mysteriously is not given in any news source, so we are unable to determine whether ageism had reared its nasty head here.Apart from not raising the question (see above) of why defense officials would be fabricating offensive missiles, the report tells us that [t]he Ginsu, also sometimes referred to as the Ninja bomb, is designed to plunge more than 100 pounds of metal through the tops of cars and buildings to kill its target without harming individuals and property close by. Instead of exploding, it has telescoping knives that eject out of its nose at the moment of impact.
Speaking of exploding knives, it is believed that Monty Python is suing the Pentagon over the concept, which they say was copyrighted in their skit about the Piranha Brothers and rotating knives.
Some U.S. defense officials, the story goes on, say they believe al-Saadi may have been in a crowded part of the Iraqi capital because he though he was safer among so many civilians. Ha ha, the joke certainly was on him. Meanwhile,
January 7 insurrectionists are kicking themselves over not having availed themselves of such weapons when they were attacking, er, visiting Nancy Pelosis office. For the do-it-yourselfers, the Journal helpfully publishes a drawing showing how the ol Hellfire R9X works. (Note: dont confuse the R9X with the R3J, a bomb that actually blows things up using a low-yield tactical nuclear device that not only neutralizes the target, but everything else within a 10-mile radius and renders an area the size of Indiana radioactive for roughly 3,225 years.) Enjoy! Incidentally, there is also a story on the termination with extreme prejudice of Mr. al-Saadi on the United States Institute of Peace website. Of course, theres nothing more peaceful than a dead guy. For a video, see this, at the Daily Mail.4. News flash! just in from the International Criminal Court. On the heels of the ICCs recent decision on South African charges that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, according to the Wall Street Journal
(February 15, 2024) a group of Israeli families involved in the Hamas hostage-taking caper has submitted a 1,000-plus-page brief accusing Hamas of genocide. We are assured that the ICC will consider this document carefully and without bias. The ICCs chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, is investigating alleged crimes committed by both Hamas and Israel. Glad that this one is under control.5. Guilty of being proven guilty until proven guilty. It was reported by Yahoo News on
February 16, 2024, that Vlad (the Impaler) Putins principal political rival and fiercest foe, Alexei Navalny, age 47, had died in an Arctic Circle penal colony less than a month before Russian elections (hey, you didnt know they have elections over there? Fascist!). Navalny was serving a 19-year sentence for daring to try to run against Putin in a previous election.After initially allowing people to lay flowers at monuments to victims of Soviet-era repressions in several Russian cities, police sealed off some of the areas and started making arrests. [Authorities were concerned that this might create a flower shortage.] About 30 were detained in St. Petersburg, according to local media, and more than a dozen including one with a sign reading Killer were rounded up near a Moscow memorial to political prisoners, according to the OVD-Info monitoring group. It said arrests occurred in several other cities.... Russias Federal Penitentiary Service reported Navalny felt sick after a walk Friday and lost consciousness at the penal colony.... An ambulance arrived but he couldnt be revived; the cause of death is being established, it said. Navalny had been jailed since January 2021, when he returned to Moscow to face certain arrest after recuperating in Germany from nerve agent poisoning he blamed on the Kremlin.
Meanwhile, Fox News ran a video showing Navalny grinning and laughing in a courtroom just hours before Russian officials alleged he collapsed and died. Any takers on a wager as to whether his family will get to do an autopsy?
Several points here:
the guy arrested with the sign reading Killer protested that he hadnt mentioned any names, but was put in his place by arresting officers: Dont give us guff like that, buddy. We know who Killer is.
cause of death being established. Heres a clue: Navalny went for a walk in 40-below-zero temperatures with a wind chill of 100 degrees below.
its the old the prisoner was poisoned while trying to escape trick.
Navalny was pretty old (for a Russian) and in poor health (how healthy would you be after multiple poisonings and an arctic penal colony diet?). And isnt he stopped breathing as I was stepping on his windpipe naturally going to cause death? QED he died from natural causes.
the laughing in the FOX video could just be Navalnys reaction to his recently arrived Babylon Bee subscription.
when will anybody in the U.S. legacy media notice that their most-hated dictator, Orange Man, hasnt bumped off (at least as far as we know) any of his fiercest foes?
6. It had to be coming. We all know that Gen Whatever college students are snowflakes, i.e., incredibly sensitive to perceived insults and less resilient to handling criticism and humor. But it turns out that your average TLD reader (you know who you are and so does the FBI, CIA, DIA, NSA, and Kamala Harris) is blooming into snowflakism. According to the Wall Street Journal,
February 17, 2024, there is a new movement to nix ageist zingers that are part of the birthday-card industrial complex. Im not making this up. Have you gotten one of those cards that says Youre one step closer to the sweet release of death. Happy birthday! Says entrepreneur Jan Golden, founder of the Age-Friendly Vibes greeting card company, That stuff just picks away at older adults. Indeed, says Ms. Golden (her, him, they-all, etc., though the story regrettably didnt provide pronouns), The cards that insult you for getting older in this culture that are so prevalent are actually literally killing your loved ones. Further, a Yale study shows that older individuals with more positive self-perceptions of aging ... lived7.5 years longer than those with less positive ones. Yes, these are the same people who were perhaps pushing euthanasia a few years ago, though actually killing oldsters isnt as objectionable as ageism.A director of the Greeting Card Association, the largest industry trade group, credits this new found sensitivity to millennials: They want the embellishments [sic]. They want the message that is like My condolences that your Chihuahua named Susan had a kidney stone. I kid you not, you useless old geezers. On the other hand, if Kamala Harris is right, said millennials dont really feel bad about killing babies as long as the deed is done before they are able to escape their somewhat restrictive habitats. (OK, sure, well give you several hours more if you need it.)
There is also a Denver-based anti-ageism group called Changing the Narrative that is behind an Anti-Ageism Birthday Card Campaign. On their website you can wallow in a multi-cartoon depicting What a World Without Ageism would look like. Dr. Kevorkian, call your office.
I specify the name here because Dr. Death is a pseudonym for more than one doc. Another is apparently the basis for a recent TV series: Dr. Christopher Duntsch is a neurosurgeon who severely maimed or killed most of his patients. (Cmon, the guy was trying.)
There is a whole genre along this line, but apparently, unlike Dr. Kevorkian who mainly helped the elderly to shuffle off this mortal coil more rapidly than they would have otherwise, Dr. D and others dont age-discriminate. Their role model might be Vlad the Impaler Putin, whose greatest hits have included principally the middle aged. (Nerve agents, poison, and window falls. Kremlin foes have been attacked or killed over the years, AP News,
February 16, 2024.) Ω
February 19, 2024
Published in 2024 by WTM Enterprises.
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