Presented without comment

 

Proof

 

Mrs ERJ left me the last two cinnamon rolls

Proof that she still loves me!

Fine Art Tuesday

A hunter flirting with a girl who seems a bit uncertain about his intentions. You can see that the hunter's weapon is a muzzle-loader, still in use in the 1880s and beyond.

Emil Rau was born in 1885 in Dresden, Germany and died in 1937 in Munich.

He is best know for his paintings of everyday life in rural Germany. 

Mountains are HARD places from which to grow enough food to survive the year. Multiple types of livestock were the norm.

A rare image of Old NFO from the 1880s.

Scythman enjoying a break with a pretty girl. He is smoking a pipe. The knee of his pants are patched and the toe of his right boot has been repaired.

Unlike the Hudson River School that shrank the human elements in the frame, Rau amplified them. The house and man on the right side of the frame are much larger than the perspective and distance warrant.

Probably hunters. A long-arm is leaning against the bench on the left side of the frame. Chamois horns on left side of frame by window.

Open fire beneath a trivet on far right side of frame. Black ceiling might be soot, it ends at the top of the window in the background.

Clothing (socks?) drying beneath the eves of the roof

William Lawrence: Restoring the Rule of Law

 

Restore the rule of law. DC politicians are letting billionaires, bullies, and corrupt politicians get away with violating our constitutional rights and engaging in criminal behavior. Lawrence will fight to:

• Prosecute the Epstein class for human trafficking & tax evasion
• Hold ICE accountable for unconstitutional conduct
• Ban stock trading by members of Congress & the executive branch   (Source)

Prosecute the Epstein class for human trafficking & tax evasion

This bullet seems like a no-brainer, and it is except for one word: the word "...class..." 

The Marxist/Communist zealot recasts all conflict into a story of class-conflict. Lysenko is famous for saying that common grass seed will produce full crops of wheat if it was treated with all of the advantages that seeds of wheat were afforded.

The deepest danger of class-warfare is that it operates on the basis of guilt-by-similarity. If Jeffery Epstein was rich and born in the 1950s and has a surname typical of Jewish ancestry, then guilt-by-similarity means that all "wealthy" people and/or all people who were born in the 1950s (who typically have greater net assets than people born in the 1990s) and/or all people with surnames that are associated with Jewish ancestors will be prosecuted.

The characteristics used as the basis to determine "class" are flexible and quickly rearranged to create the desired outcome. 

This is probably a good time to point out it is a matter of public record that that William Lawrence's father was a "visiting scholar" in Beijing, China from February, 2005 to July, 2005 when William was an impressionable fifteen year-old. I think the electorate has a right to ask if William Lawrence formed uncritically favorable opinions of Communist China at that time and remains highly influenced by the experience.

Hold ICE accountable for unconstitutional conduct

Lawrence went on record Feb 13, 2026 as saying "They (ICE agents) murdered people in the streets..." That statement presumes guilt and violates the "presumption of innocence" implied by the 5th and 14th Amendments.

He also favors disbanding ICE and closing down the facilities needed to efficiently deport illegal aliens.

From FBI Top Ten Most Wanted criminals, August 10. You can click on the pictures to embiggen them.

In spite of the Progressive rhetoric, not all illegal aliens are peace-loving and productive. In fact, if you look at the names and faces of the FBI's Top Ten Most Wanted, you might come to the conclusion that illegal aliens are over-represented in the tier of the most violent and most dangerous of criminals.

The fact that Lawrence will protect illegal aliens (who broke laws to be here) before protecting citizens who are struggling with the burdens of the crimes committed by those aliens suggests that he has no intention of restoring the Rule-of-Law. Rather, he is using the talking point to promote the same WOKE agenda that normal people always seem to end up on the losing side of.

Ban stock trading by members of Congress & the executive branch

I agree with this position. I have no problems with it...It should also include trading by their family members and other obvious loop-holes.

 

William Lawrence for Congress: Say No to Endless War

From his platform statement August 10, 9:15 AM

Politicians in both parties have said there’s money for war, but not anything for Social Security, childcare, or education. That’s a lie. We need to get our priorities straight: stop bombing kids overseas, start delivering for American families. We need to: 

End the illegal & expensive war on Iran

Stop arms sales to Israel & other human rights violators

Seek diplomatic solutions to global challenges, not more war

End the war in Iran

Sadly, the leadership in Iran have a great deal to say about whether hostilities continue or not. Iran declared war against the US in 1978 and never withdrew it. Their belligerent actions escalated and included proxy attacks on civilian shipping in the Red Sea and declarations that they had nuclear devices.

Meaningful peace cannot be declared unilaterally.

Stop arms sales to Israel & other human rights violators

Seek diplomatic solutions to global challenges, not more war

The State Department will be stunned to learn that they were supposed to send diplomats to other countries and seeking win-win solutions. Maybe somebody should tell them. Or maybe the number of employees in the State Department should be reduced by 90%. I am good with either (or both) solutions.

Regarding diverting the funds used for defense to education, full disclosure on the part of Lawrence would involve telling the public that his parents receive salaries (and benefits) that tot-up to about $250k per year from a public university. And he wants to send more money to them.

William Lawrence for Congress: Environment

The environmental agenda that William Lawrence shares with the public is nothing like the radical, humans-last agenda that dominated most of his adult life.

His published agenda is still pretty radical.

Pass a 12-month federal moratorium on new data centers

Protect Michigan’s water by restoring wetlands & rivers

Preserve game & wildlife areas

Hold polluters accountable   (Source)

 

Data centers

Let's explore how this would play out.

First, it would hand the data centers that are already in-operation a monopoly and destroy any chance of start-ups being bring new data centers on-line. The new data centers would have to eat the fixed costs for 12 months with no revenue. That would tank the economics. That works at cross-purposes with the "wealth inequity" portions of his platform.

Second, very large amounts of public pension funds are invested in AI build-out. A 12 month moratorium on new data centers would jeopardize the pensions of the foot-soldiers the Progressives need.

Third, data centers are key to predicting "thought crime" and are pivotal to the plans of the Thought Control Police.

Conclusion: It just isn't going to happen. It is grand-standing in front of a gullible audience. 

Protecting Michigan waters

This intersects with several themes.

The prime reason given for shutting down the Enbridge 5 Pipeline is the risk it poses to the Great Lakes and inland rivers and streams. Enbridge 5 is a 30" pipeline that carries half-a-million barrels of oil and liquid propane a day from Western Canada to the US mid-West and eastern Canada. Shutting down Enbridge 5 will increase the cost of LP (for heating), gasoline and diesel in Michigan because it will have to be transported by trucks from states with pipelines fed by the Gulf states.

Another theme is the infringement on private property rights. Environmental purists want all toilets connected to sewers and waste-water treatment plants. They don't care how remote your home is from the waste-water treatment plant. The cost of hook-ups are astronomical and they won't be optional. If the cost of the hook-up exceeds the value of the property, then the owner was deprived of his property by the government without due-process.

Preserve game and wildlife areas

In Southern Florida, you cannot cut down a tree on your own, private property without getting a permit. That might make sense in a crowded urban area but is lunacy in rural areas.

The Department of Natural Resources already considers every non-domesticated animal on your private property as "public property". It is not much more reach to include the grass growing in an unmowed field (which you would then need a permit to mow), brushy fence line (need a permit to burn) or a small woodlot (need a permit to collect downed wood on your own property).

Those who like to quibble are likely to point out that Lawrence meant Michigan State Game Areas. My rebuttals is that is not what Lawrence wrote. Secondarily, "State Game Areas" is a proper noun (you can type it into a search engine with lower-case letters and see if the engine returns the term caps or lower-case) and state game areas is a common noun. That is, the text refers to all areas that harbor game and wildlife.

Based on prior behaviors, this can only be seen as an aggressive infringement on private property rights. 

Hold polluters accountable

When has a progressive ever held anybody accountable?

Did the manager of the Flint water treatment plant go to prison?

Did the management responsible for the maintenance of the Potomac Interceptor Sewage line ever have charges filed against them?

Those are both environmental disasters with huge human costs that happened in political jurisdictions with huge Progressive majorities. No accountability. Just sound-bites and free air-time.

It is very difficult to take this point seriously 

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