FLASHBACK 30 YEARS: Guns were in schools ... and nothing happened. Same for me -- all the way back in 1960. Except that we weren't lucky enough to have an on-campus gun club/range.

Linked from Instapundit. Be sure to read the comments at both web sites.

THE FIRST MEMORIAL DAY for new Gold Star families.

MEMORIAL DAY 2022: Remembrance in peace.

THEN AND NOW: Thoughts For Memorial Day 2022.

Will the old Memorial Day come back? I'm hopeful but not sanguine.

Still, I flew my flag at full mast. So did my neighbor.

TIME MAGAZINE had his name right the first time....

The only state that deserves O'Rourke as governor is in Mexico (not New Mexico).

MICHAEL RAMIREZ: 'Top Gun' returns.

BECAUSE BEGGARS DON'T GET TO CHOOSE: Why Team Biden might be purposefully grinding down the middle class.

MODERN JOURNALISM: Prostitutes Or Partisan Hacks?

Isn't 'and' available?

THE U.S. ECONOMY shrank by 1.5% in the first quarter of 2022. And my personal economy (savings) tanked 5.74% in the same period.

I AGREE: Cancel early voting.

ILLINOIS GAS STATION OWNERS sue over being forced to post Democrat propaganda.

In lieu of a federal 'Ministry of Truth', Illinois is requiring private businesses to publish its disinformation.

A CHINK IN THE ARMOR of the progressive administrative state.

KURT SCHLICHTER on the progressives' war with Elon Musk: "My money literally remains on Musk."

SUNLIGHT DISINFECTS: State Farm parts way with transgender advocacy group.

"Corporate social responsibility" is nothing more than a way for woke corporate CEO's to support progressive grift with your money. Avoid those corporations like the plague.

NO COOKIES, EITHER: Bedtime for Beto.

Beto O'Rourke is living, breathing proof that Texas should never have closed its insane asylums.

THE ORIGIN of the monkeypox 'pan(ic)demic'.

Apparently 'donkeypox' didn't poll so well ....

It's PowerLine's mid-Week in Pictures. Go see them all.

ONLY IF THEY USE 'WOKE' MATH: Can California really achieve 85% carbon-free electricity by 2030?

And steal electricity from the adjoining states; both of which they'll do.

BUILD BACK BRANDON: shortages, shortages everywhere and not a supply line in sight.

Apologies to the The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.

STANDING UP FOR CIVIL RIGHTS: Nevada county evicts anti-gun judges from county government building.

I would put them in the same building as the county jail (maybe open up a cell or two if overcrowding isn't a problem).

UNIVERSITY OF CENTRAL FLORIDA (UCF) must reinstate professor who was fired over 'Black privilege' tweets.

The professor, who plans to start teaching again next semester, also plans to sue UCF. (I hope he goes for the big bucks; the education apparatchiks need a harsh lesson.)

ZERO IS NO LONGER A LOWER BOUND: How stupid is Whoopi Goldberg?

YOU CAN'T WORK HERE; you're not racist.

LAWLESSNESS TRIES TO GO TO CONGRESS: Washington Democrat Socialist congressional candidate calls for breaking into empty homes.

She'll lose. (I think.) But it's Washington state, home of Seattle....

HERE COMES the mid-term pan(ic)demic....

HEH: Anti-gunners will do damn near anything to prove their point.

THE WICKEDNESS OF WHITENESS: University wasted millions in tax dollars on DEI (diversity, equity, inclusion).

THIS BEATS ALL: Illinois State University students demand to be forced to take a diversity/equity/inclusion (DEI) class in order to graduate.

NANCY PELOSI solves white supremacy.

Stupidly, but that's the Democrat way.

NOT WITHOUT A SIGNED PERMISSION SLIP FROM THE PROGRESSIVES: Can adults no longer consent?

BROWN UNIVERSITY STUDENTS extract groveling apology from working-class watering hole.

The lede is a bit off since the bar is actually on-campus in the basement of a dorm. Still, I'd sure like the Ivy League 'students' go after a biker bar....

And speaking of bars...

Here are some more failures at the bar.

MALLARD FILLMORE brings you Fox News channel....

IT'S A PITY ALL THREE CAN'T LOSE: Redistricting chaos as New York's worst Governor vies to become New York's worst congressman.

PROBABLY WISHFUL THINKING: Justice coming for the ‘Dirty 51’ Hunter Biden laptop liars.

Trump could prevail; he has the motive and the money.

IT'S REALLY NOT FUNNY, BUT...

... Michael Ramirez captures the Biden administration's performance perfectly.

UFO HEARING provides no sign of intelligent life.

Obvious questions: In the hearing? Or in the UFOs?

POWERLINE'S LOOSE ENDS: more climatista lunacy (plus men can get pregnant).

ANOTHER UNIVERSITY self-immolates.

'FATPHOBIA': Woke universities' newest social justice crusade.

Obviously it has to be rooted in racism....

TOLDJA SO: White House looks to be planning for 'wave of infection' just in time for midterms.

Planning? I'd guess they're working hard to create one....

THEY COULD HAVE MADE IT WORSE? What if Democrats had made the economy even worse?

FROM THE WAYBACK MACHINE: Where I was on 9/11.

As for me, I was enroute to my office about 10 miles from the Pentagon, which was struck just minutes after I arrived.

BIDEN'S 'ULTRA MAGA' MARKETING CHOICES: the rejected slurs.

Read the comments too. My guess is that (1) MAGA+ will be picked up by the 2024 Republicans and (2) have a longer shelf life than CNN+ (the latter is a certainty).

EARTHRISE OVER THE MOON from the Kaguya lunar orbiter. Take a quick tour through the comments.

THE INSTAWIFE on MGTOW (men going their own way).

More on the gig economy https://www.thoughtco.com/gig-economy-4588490here. I'm not (yet) convinced it's growing, but it has certainly become much more visible post-COVID lockdowns....

FACTS KEEP INTERFERING WITH THE NARRATIVE: The Buffalo mass shooting is Fox News' Tucker Carlson's fault.

MANDATORY VASECTOMIES? Why one Oklahoma Democrat is talking about it.

Go for the first one, Mickey ... and let me decide if you're mature enough to have it reversed.

In the meantime I'll continue to advocate for the rights of the yet-to-be born....

MASKAHOLICS: Mask mandates and magical thinking.

It's all about control; fearful people are more easily controlled. I will not be the least bit surprised if a 'new' pandemic panic suddenly shows up just in time for the mid-term elections.

Linked from Instapundit.

ECONOMICS TRUMPS (HEH) VIRTUE SIGNALING: BlackRock ditches green activism.

Wokism impoverishes.

YA THINK? Fauci was paid for undermining Trump.

Well, he did stay on in the Biden administration when he should have been sent to Elbonia as medical director there....

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: Imagine the unimaginable.

I hope he's wrong but I fear he's right.

SCANDALS IN THE NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH: "We are crazy to repose so much power in institutions – people – who so little have our interests at heart."

RI-I-I-GHT: Trust 'the Science'.

FROM THE WAYBACK MACHINE, Ayn Rand in 1944:

The greatest threat to mankind and civilization is the spread of the totalitarian philosophy. Its best ally is not the devotion of its followers but the confusion of its enemies. To fight it, we must understand it.

Totalitarianism is collectivism. Collectivism means the subjugation of the individual to a group — whether to a race, class or state does not matter. Collectivism holds that man must be chained to collective action and collective thought for the sake of what is called “the common good.”

Throughout history, no tyrant ever rose to power except on the claim of representing “the common good.”

And yes, I struggled through Atlas Shrugged myself. It took about 20 years.

KEITH OLBERMANN SPENDS MOTHER'S DAY attacking mom for choosing to homeschool her children.

It's a bit late, I know, but I try not to miss an opportunity to punch down at this pompous airhead....

KURT SCHLICHTER: Yet another never-Trump loser sucks up to the media.

DEAR GOD, NO: "The frontrunner for a Pennsylvania House seat is a Democratic socialist backed by Sens. Bernie Sanders, [I-VT]., and Elizabeth Warren, [D-MA], whose political path mirrors that of far-left Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, [D-NY]."

Please, no.

LIBERAL 'EXPERTS' ARE DUMBASSES: Women and people of color will suffer most from Elon Musk's Twitter buyout.

It's almost enough to cause me to return my doctorate so I won't be confused with these self-aggrandizing buffoons.

LIBERALS ARE EVIL: "I don’t think it is possible to observe today’s liberalism without concluding that it is largely demonic."

FLORIDA CITES GENDER DYSPHORIA DEFINITION IN MEDICAL TEXTBOOK; textbook publisher 'updates' definition.

SPRINGTIME 2022, Week 12, the final week until the fall series begins anew. We begin with the usual pair, pond view and barn area, only juxtaposed with the Week 1 views of each:

Summer is almost officially here. There are some trees around the neighborhood that haven't yet fully recovered but are now beginning to aggressively leaf out. We've a few dead pines, and the remaining ones, even now, don't appear to be that healthy.

What is striking about the photos above (to me, at least) is how the ground cover has come back. Just a few short weeks ago my brush cutter and I had cleared the whole hillside.

Here's the fire pit & garden area as of this morning. Still too much raw dirt in the picture -- we were hoping for some grass by now, but COVID, weather, and now supply shortages have delayed us and planting season is nearly over.

Lot 7, across the road from our house is filling out nicely, but you can see gaps where trees in the background that have not yet begun to fill out.

Finally, our road has become a tunnel again.

Until next fall....

WE'RE GONNA CONTROL YOU IF WE HAVE TO START A WAR TO DO IT: Gen. Milley warns West Point graduates of 'increasing' risk of global war.

AND THERE ARE MANY: Here are the nutcases who believe in 'replacement'.

But, but ... they're edjumakated.

ANOTHER FROM DUMBASSVILLE: James Cromwell (dumbass extraordinaire) superglues hand to Starbucks counter in PETA protest.

Unlikely but I can hope the first responders simply cut off a section of the counter top and let him go with the piece still glued to his hand....

WOKE MATH returns to California. Of course. It has to be woke math because real math invariably leads to rational thinking....

Be sure to read the comments. I was amused because one of the early comments I read referred to the financial 'rule of 72' (divide 72 by the annual interest rate in percent to get the number of years it will take for money to double) and only a few hours later my son referred to it in a discussion with his mother.

ABOUT THE DEMOCRATS' GREAT REPLACEMENT THEORY: So what if all those illegals suddenly identify as 'trans-white'?

WHAT? THEY CAN'T CHEST FEED? Baby formula shortags is affecting Pete and Chasten Buttigieg.

TECHNOLOGY just accelerates stupid.

It would be nice if it accelerated smart, but that's wishful thinking....

RANDOM THOUGHT on how the Democrats think: 'We think we think so you won't have to think we think.'

Yes, it's silly, but in demospeak it's called 'nuance'.

WE'RE NOT GONNA DO ANY REAL WORK so let's hold hearings on UFOs.

WHATEVER THAT IS: Michelle Obama is a 'womxn'.

I wonder if Barack knows....

HOUSE SPEAKER NANCY PELOSI [D(umb)-CA] suggests COVID death toll would be
worse than 1 million without Biden in office.

Um, Biden is in office and the COVID death toll as of tonight is 1,026,802.

SPRINGTIME 2022, Week 11: We start this week with our old friend the forsythia, which had bloomed, almost died in the freeze, and has now fully recovered. Note, too, that the trees along the street are now (finally!) full of leaves.

Now on the usual deck and fire pit views:

Here's that dogwood tree that I feared was dead. Even as late as last week you could easily make out the trees behind it; today it's green and filling in rapidly.

The trees along the pond are now completely full, so much so that it's essentially a rain forest below the canopy. Our stairway is barely visible, and the house almost completely obscured. In only one week!

And finally, more spring flowers....

Until next week then, which will be the final post of this series.

AMMO GRRRLL applies for a job.

BERNIE SANDERS: It's time for Medicare for All.

Let's test it out on him....

TWITTER WILL BE A HAPPIER PLACE. Elon Musk announces he will lift Trump's Twitter ban and Leftists stampede for the exits.

If only they really would....

MISINFORMATION IS THEIR 'COIN OF THE REALM': More evidence the Biden administration does not care about misinformation. Except when it's to their advantage.

FOX PAWS (FAUX PAS): The Biden administration in short. Comments on the SCOTUS decision leak, abortion generally, the 'Disinformation Governance Board', and government lies.

One final personal thought. It seems to me that the purpose of the so-called Disinformation Governance Board is not to combat 'disinformation' on the internet, but instead is to deliberately create, coordinate, and distribute government lies on the internet.

Now go read it all.

FRIGHTENING:

Your Biden administration at work....

MALLARD FILLMORE: Now that's frightening....

THE NEW YORK TIMES has enlisted South African history in its all-out war on Elon Musk.

THE DIPLOMAD has thoughts about Madrid (it was a nice place when I was there 50 years ago) and the Democrats' all-out war on children.

SAY WHAT??

Umm, so not killing a baby still in the womb kills those already born? I think these people (to use the term loosely) have a sanity problem....

AMMO GRRRLL has thoughts about Mother's Day.

QUICK! WE NEED TO EXPORT MORE POLLUTION TO THE RED STATES: California officials warn of possible (read as probable) electricity shortages this summer.

POWERLINE has more Loose Ends to discuss. My favorites are (obviously) the 'wokeness' failures.

SPRINGTIME 2022, Week 10: Finally, the green is coming back! Here are my two usual views of the pond and fire pit. Like last week it's a gray and cloudy day, but the leaves are bright green and filling out rapidly. The ground cover is popping up all over and growing so fast that by next week the hill we live on will be all green.

Even the dogwood tree I feared was dead seems to be slowly -- ever so slowly -- recovering. It's hard to see in this picture, but the buds have begun to open. Perhaps by next week we'll see some flowers and/or leaves begin to show.

Here's a view of the pond. The green is dramatic from just last week. There's still a little bit of fleshing out (top left) to come in the hardwoods, but that's about it. Our house at the top of the stair is now just barely visible. We still have a view of the pond, since from our porch it's below the tree canopy but from down on the pond it's hardly visible.

The final colors at the pond. I don't know what the tree/bush is, but it flowered last week in brilliant orange. Unfortunately it didn't last and the flowers are already dropping off. There were several such in the dense growth that is on the back side of the pond

Until next week....

'RUTH SENT US': Pro-abortion protesters lay out plans to disrupt Mother's Non-Binary Birthing Person's Day church services.

Every time you think they can sink no lower, they prove you wrong....

UNCHECKED SPEECH causes racism and censorship somehow.

MMM-KAY: We need to do everything we can to ensure President Biden decides to pay off his constituency of affluent sexually dysfunctional college loan debtors... This is a golden opportunity to raze academia as currently constituted and sow the campuses with salt.

WELL DESERVED: 'Shifty' Schiff gets shit on by former intelligence officials.

ISSUES & INSIGHTS: "The Left has decided that policy will not be made like sausage but through tantrum, intimidation, and riot."

SO STACEY ABRAMS IS A CROOK; who'd have thunk it?

THIS IS APPALLING: home theft.

FORGET STAR WARS; how about chart wars?

AN INTERESTING POST on the infrastructure challenges of electric vehicles: a perfect example of the cliche 'don’t put the cart before the horse' ... preemptively moving forward with a major philosophical green energy paradigm without having even a clue of what accompanying infrastructure (i.e., public charging stations and electricity generation) must be built.

Read it all. You might want to click through to the part 1 exposé; the politics are overwrought but the numbers are accurate.

HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY MAYORKAS' very bad day.

ANOTHER COLLEGE SELF-DESTRUCTS: St. Vincent College seeks to torpedo one of academia’s few remaining jewels.

INSTAPUNDIT on the destruction of the Supreme Court:

Should the leak have come from a clerk, as many are speculating, the Court should probably stop hiring law clerks. The Justices did their own work for the first century of the Court, before clerks were introduced, and arguably their opinions were better. In fact, come to think of it, the Court should probably stop hiring clerks anyway. The original justification was that they would be a transmission belt bringing the latest legal thinking from law schools to the justices. Given the state of law schools today, that’s a bug, not a feature.

And if the leak came from a Supreme Court Justice, that Justice should be impeached immediately.

KURT SCHLICHTER: We can't let ourselves be oppressed by weirdos, losers, and mutations Democrats.

GERMS FOR BREAKFAST, GERMS FOR LUNCH, GERMS FOR DINNER: Save the Earth from global warming climate change.

SO WHAT if a few (thousand) peasants starve?

SEEN ONLINE: "Is it a crime if no one enforces it?" Yeah, and trees don't fall in the forest without someone listening....

IT'S SHELDON WHITEHOUSE [D(umb)-RI], OF COURSE: One Democrat senator doesn't want the FBI to uncover the Supreme Court leaker. I doubt he's alone, but the others are smarter.

I agree with Matt Vespa on this one: "I sure hope Democrats understand the precedents they're establishing because I am not one of those people who will take the higher road."

POWERLINE has some thoughts on the Roe v. Wade leak.

“JOURNALIST” exposes how ignorant he is.

And it's not just Vox; it's every journalist who's never been farther than an Uber ride from his upscale urban highrise.

THE COLLEGE FIX cartoon series:

New cartoons are published on their web site weekly.

NOPE ... NO: Democrats are not the party of unhinged violence.

HEH: "Well, to be fair, Biden’s been a miserable failure, wildly underperforming even my low expectations."

RANDOM THOUGHT: Illegal immigration is the Democrats' way of electing new voters.

Update: Think I'm wrong? Well, I'm in good company.

YEAH, I'M A BIT LATE with my take on PowerLine's Week in Pictures. Two favorites this week: misinformation,

and money well spent.

Now go see the rest.

AMERICAN GREATNESS: Shut up & do what you're told, serfs.

The 'elite' Left is a parody of a clown show of pompous asses.

LIBS OF TIKTOK: The 'adults' are back in charge.

Instapundit chimes in with more on the journalists who report interpret the news.

YES, AN ABSOLUTELY 'MUST DO' TASK: Rep.Lauren Boebert [R-CO] leads effort to defund Biden Administration's 'disinformation' board.

BECAUSE THEY CAN'T DEFEND THEIR VARIOUS INSANITIES? Why does the Left have such a difficult time with the concept of 'free speech'?

AND IT TOOK HIM ONLY FOUR MONTHS: Biden breaks the economy as the DJIA plunges almost 1,000 points in one day.

That was April 29th; as of today the DJIA has recovered only about 100 points; the NASDAQ, which I also track, fell about 500 points on the 29th and has recovered only 83 points.

For the year, the DJIA is down 3200 points (-9%) and the NASDAQ is down 3000 points (-20%). I'm so (not) looking forward to the recession.

Not too shabby, Joe.

BIG CHANGES AHEAD? Elon Musk responds to Russian collusion hoaxer currently working at Twitter.

I understand MSNBC is hiring. Starbucks, too....

AN ANGRY REP. CHIP ROY [R-TX] makes Homeland Security Secretary Mayorkas very aware of his failure on the southern border.

Related: Impeach Mayorkas.

NEW YORK TIMES COLUMNIST: Musk's Twitter purchase 'a good thing'.

Too many on the progressive Left fail to understand that a public square is public only for as long as all the public can use it. When it's taken over by thugs and bullies (think of Venice beach, Seattle parks, etc.) it's no longer a public square.

POWERLINE: The futility of suppression.

[T]he high level of prevalence [of Covid-19], especially among younger age groups, highlights the absolute futility of trying to suppress a contagious respiratory virus. Prominent scientists warned us of this. When you think about what the efforts to suppress the virus cost us in so many ways, only to end up with most of the population infected anyway, it should really cause everyone to demand a complete overhaul of public health authorities.

But it won't stop the authoritarian Left from trying....

MICHAEL RAMIREZ ON ROE V. WADE as seen from above.

HASN'T SHE READ THE CONSTITUTION? Rep. Jayapal [D(umb)-WA] claims Supreme Court justices 'do not have the right' to overturn Roe v. Wade.

Obviously she has not.

A DISASTER OUR ELITES CONJURED UP FOR US, and they didn’t give a damn.

Never let a crisis -- even a manufactured crisis -- go to waste when it keeps the Democrats in control.

MUSKAGEDDON:

Linked from PowerLine.

WINDOW STICKER seen on a pickup truck today:

JOE & HO
GOTTA GO

Crude, but nice alliteration.

CONGRESSIONAL DEMOCRATS mull grilling Elon Musk on buying Twitter.

Do they really want to spar with him? I think it's safe to say that Elon Musk's IQ alone is higher than the collective IQ's of all the Democrats on the Senate Commerce Committee.

NEW BOOK CLAIMS Sen. Kyrsten Sinema [D-AZ] brags about using her cleavage to persuade GOP colleagues.

So let me get this straight: A female Democrat Senator flaunted her décolletage in front of male Republican Senators to convince them to allow her to vote against bills the Republicans were in fact united in defeating?

IT SHOULD BE MORE: One third of U.S. college students consider withdrawing. I wish it was because of the sheer idiocy of the curriculum but I'll take the death of the University any way it comes.

Half a loaf and all of that....

Added: read the comments.

ENTER DUMB, EXIT DUMBER AND $200K POORER: Georgetown University (Washington DC) students say climate change and COVID-19 are top voting priorities.

ELON MUSK BUYS TWITTER; academia hardest hit.

CANADA TO BUILD BORDER WALL, demand Twitter pay for it.

Amusing, but baloney; Trudeau will welcome the Twits with open arms.

SOME LOOSE ENDS from PowerLine. The second item, on inflation, is particularly amusing. It should be standalone, properly titled "Women Left Hanging".

GOOD RIDDANCE: Weather Underground radical Kathy Boudin dead at 78.

THE COMPLEAT ENGINEER'S TOOLBOX:

I have both in mine....

SPRINGTIME 2022, Week 9: Only four pictures this week (I've been busy, and the weather today wasn't great for picture taking).

Here are my usuals - the pond and fire pit views. Though it's a bit more dismal due to the overcast, there has clearly been a lot of growth over the week. The sky, which was still mostly clear last week, is now being concealed by the leaves starting to bud out. Not a lot of green (except for pollen) yet, but it's coming.

The fire pit view is similar. To the right, leaves are showing and hiding the sky; on the left, the trees are still shy, beginning to bud but not yet leafing out.

Here's a view of our road, looking mostly south. Last week the trees were mostly bare; this week they are all budding but not yet showing leaves. I expect that by next week the ridge will no longer be visible from our house.

Finally a view from along the south side of the house. The small dogwood (just above the fence post) has fully come to terms with summer and has fully leafed out. The larger dogwood, not really visible in this picture since it's still bare, is probably dead or dying. We'll know more next week.

Until then....

AND THEY JUST PROVED IT: The elites are stupid, evil, and obsessed with race.

NOW WE KNOW THE NAME of the man with no name.