Proof Positive: July 2020

Friday, July 31, 2020

Epitaph

"Beneath this stone, a lump of clay,
Lies Arabella Young.
Who on the 24th of May
Began to hold her tongue."

On a Somewhat Less than Cheerful Note

It is with great regret that I announce that John Cox will no longer be an active part of Proof Positive. We have all enjoyed John's whimsical look at the world through KiRKWOOD, and for a while, John and I partnered up to make political cartoons. I think I'll personally look back on those days as the Golden Age of Proof Positive. It's been a good seven year run.

John is still cartooning. He is currently partnered with Matt Margolis over at Margolis & Cox, where he still draws some of the finest political cartoons on the planet. John has told me countless times how much he enjoyed being a part of the Proof Positive team, but nothing good lasts forever. Trust me on this. As a final salute and thank you for all the great work he's done over here, at far less than minimum wage, I'd appreciate it if you left him a note in the comments and let him know how much you appreciated him while he was here. We will still keep a link to the work he did here over on the sidebar.

But it won't be the same. *Sigh* Good luck to you John, in all your future endeavors. Fair winds and following seas.

Inkstainedly yours,
-Mike

Quote du jour

"To suppress free speech is a double wrong. It violates the rights of the hearer as well as those of the speaker."

- Frederick Douglass

Thursday, July 30, 2020

Vintage Babe of the Week

Tonight's Vintage Babe* is Olivia de Havilland, who passed away this last week at 104. Some actresses have staying power!
(*a.k.a. Rule Five)

Classic KiRKWOOD

Original art by John Cox. More at John Cox Art

Quote du jour

The goal is to destroy capitalism, and to seek revenge. The Black Lives Matter movement, founded based on fraudulent narratives of the Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown cases, is led by anti-American, anti-capitalist activists. They have concocted a false narrative of mass murder of Blacks at the hands of police, when the statistics show otherwise.

-William Jacobson

Wednesday, July 29, 2020

Barbarians At The Gate?

You know, I think it is long past time that we dust off another good word that has been little used for too long: barbarians. [ bahr-bair-ee-uhn ]

noun
a person in a savage, primitive state; uncivilized person.
a person without culture, refinement, or education; philistine.
(loosely) a foreigner.
(in ancient and medieval periods)
a non-Greek.
a person living outside, especially north of, the Roman Empire.
a person not living in a Christian country or within a Christian civilization.

adjective
uncivilized; crude; savage.
foreign; alien.

ORIGIN OF BARBARIAN
1540–50; < Latin barbari(a) barbarous country (see barbarous, -ia) + -an

The idea of the barbarian is essentially that which is foreign, that which is strange. Barbarism is often posited as that which is foreign to, different from civilization. We who are civilized see that which is foreign and strange to us, that which is outside our experience of treating other people civilly and respecting their property rights. What we are seeing in our Democrat controlled big cities and states is barbarism, in that those who are rioting, committing arsons and assaults are strangers to the founding principles of this nation: individual freedom, individual responsibility and the ownership of private property.

I am not a big fan of public art. Some committee commissions an artist to create something to enhance our lives somehow. Yeah. Right. Have you noticed most of the "art", publicly funded these days, is somewhat hideous? Some of it looks like random piles of rusted junk, salvaged from the nearest scrap yard. I'm reminded of at least one museum exhibit where the "artist" conceptualized a wastebasket, overturned with trash spilling out of it, which when seen, after hours, by the museum's janitorial staff, much like the boy in The Emperor's New Clothes, recognized it for what it truly was and proceeded to clean up the mess!

Art, like beauty, may be in the eye of the beholder, but that doesn't give me the right to hitch a rope or a chain to any public art I might not like or agree with, and tear it down. But we have seen statues of saints and abolitionists, ripped from their pedestals and/or defaced, because they somehow offended the new barbarians. Our Founding Fathers may be next. Some barbarians are threatening to "blow up" Mount Rushmore. If the barbarians have their way, they will eradicate as much US history as possible, tear down our society as it exists and substitute anarchy in its place.

But, anarchy is not the ultimate goal. It is means to an end. We've seen the like before, in 1920s Germany, where the populace became so sick and tired of crime in the streets, and the debauchery of society, that they welcomed a government that promised law and order, if they would only commit to the government the power to make things better.

Coincidentally (?) this was also brought about by defunding the police, so that there would be no domestic force to stop them. The Nazis then substituted community enforcers. From their "community". Beware, lest we fall into the same trap.

Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Barbarians At The Gate? No. They are inside the walls. Inside the city. Where they will be infinitely harder to root out. But, let's at least call them what they are:

The New Barbarians. Foreign to our democracy. Foreign to our culture. Foreign to liberty.

Classic KiRKWOOD

Original art by John Cox. More at John Cox Art

Quote du jour

Based simply upon case and death numbers, Hawaii’s David Ige is arguably the most successful governor in the country. But his mandatory quarantine rules have simultaneously destroyed the state’s tourism industry and his state has 26% unemployment.

-@jimgeraghty

Tuesday, July 28, 2020

Robo-Kamala?

What We Can Look Forward To

Classic KiRKWOOD

Original art by John Cox. More at John Cox Art

Quote du jour

You know who will send you to your dictionary every five minutes? Edith Wharton. In the first few pages of The Custom of the Country, she refers to “the batrachian countenance of Peter Van Degen” and to the “grotesque saurian head” of the same. Animal adjectives are popular with fiction writers, who need lots of them, and with political columnists, who need only a few of them, mainly asinine, mustelid, and ovine. Wharton, probably under the influence of William James’s Principles of Psychology, sometimes takes a kind of physiognomic approach to characterization.

-Kevin D. Williamson

Monday, July 27, 2020

Wheel Of Justice!

I Have a Joke...

“I have a Charles Manson joke and it kills,”
-Nell Scovell

“I have an epidemiology joke but it hasn’t yet gone viral,”
-Gautam Menon

“I have a microbiology joke, but not sure if it is ‘cultured,’”
-Dr. Karishma Kaushik

“I have an IKEA joke, but it needs a setup.”
-A. Whitney Brown

“I have an intern joke and it… nevermind.”
-Monica Lewinsky

“Voting is the cornerstone of our democracy. If only one vote has been illegally rung up or fraudulently stuffed into a ballot box, the integrity of that entire election is undermined.”

- William M. McSwain, U.S. Attorney Eastern District of Pennsylvania

Faith is this extraordinary principle which links man to God; faith is this thing that keeps a man from hell and puts him in heaven; it is the connection between this world and the world to come; faith is this mystic astounding thing that can take a man dead in trespasses and sins and make him live as a new being, a new man in Christ Jesus.

- Martyn Lloyd-Jones

*…that Dave and I have seen all week!

(BTW, if you wonder where any of the links will take you, hover your cursor over the link.)

Political/SocioEconomic
Chicago Mayor Solves City’s Crime Problem by Removing Columbus Statues

North Chicago seeks to revoke pensions of disabled police officers who refused to come out of retirement

Patricia McCloskey’s gun didn’t work, so the corrupt prosecutor had it fixed so she could charge McCloskey

Media Mistakes in the Trump Era: The Definitive List - Sharyl Attkisson

Culture
California State Faculty Union Demands Free Tuition for Blacks -Because sometimes, being equal just isn't enough!

The NFL Is on the Brink - Victor Davis Hanson

Photoshops/Cartoons/Graphics

Cartoon of the Day – NRO

Flopping Aces -Sunday Funnies

Sunday Funnies 07-19-20

Today's Toons 7/15/20, Today's Toons 7/16/20, Today's Toons 7/17/20

Today's Toons 7/20/20, Today's Toons 7/21/20

Linkfests:
Larwyn’s Linx: The COVID Coup

In The Mailbox: 07.20.20

Larwyn’s Linx: Biden: ‘I Wish’ Schools Taught More About ‘Islamic Faith’

In The Mailbox: 07.21.20

Larwyn’s Linx: As Violent Crime Spikes, It’s Local Democrat Leaders vs. Law Enforcement

In The Mailbox: 07.22.20

Larwyn’s Linx: On the #Dementiacrat Scheme for Transforming the Country

In The Mailbox: 07.23.20

In The Mailbox: 07.24.20

Dave's Rule Five Roundup:

Proof Positive - Vintage Babe of the Week - Tonight's Vintage Babe is Julie Newmar. and Best of the Web

Animal Magnetism - RULE FIVE GRAND THEFT AUTO FRIDAY

redpilljew - Gratuitous Rule Five Friday

By Other Means - Tuesday Tap Rack and Bang, BeCos(play) It's Friday and Seeing Red

Evi L. Bloggerlady - Falstaff 🎭

Ninety Miles From Tyranny - Hot Pick, Girls With Guns, Morning Mistress and Blogs With Rule 5 Links

Pitsnipes Gripes- Just a simple tribute

Grouchy Old Cripple - Saturday Boobage

Irons in the Fire - Friday Data and ... Saturday Data Overflow

The Feral Irishman - There is a Monday behind this wall. I'm trying hard to keep it out of my life for the next couple of days!

The Daley Gator - Daley Babe

Diogenes Middle Finger News - A Good Monday Morning

A View from the Beach - Rule 5 Saturday - Two Things to Know about Kat Dennings and Fish Pic Friday

24 Femmes Per Second - Linda Cristal

Knuckledraggin My Life Away - I'm sure she's taken, men And ... I’ll leave you with this

American Power - Lindsey Pelas

Woodsterman - Rule 5 Woodsterman Style

The Other McCain - Rule 5 Sunday

The Pirates Cove - If All You See ... and Sorta Blogless Sunday Pinup

Wired Right - A Beautiful End to the Day

The View from LadyLake - I need a drink.

The Right Way - Friday Babe and ... Rule 5 Saturday LinkOrama

Use the comments as an open thread on any of these topics. Please send links of news, commentary, or choice humor to: Proof.Positive@Hotmail.com

Quote du jour

The corona virus has highlighted problems in our medical supply system. Bringing medical manufacturing back to the US means doing something about tort reform. Which manufacturer in his right mind wants to manufacture vaccines or supplies and assume potentially outrageous liability?

-Mike B

"NFL owners and head coaches are almost all white. But nearly three-quarters of the players are black...Given that about 13 percent of the U.S. population is black, and given that the Black Lives Matter movement embraces concepts such as proportional representation, today’s NFL teams hardly qualify as diverse."

-Victor Davis Hanson

Spain honored its 11th century knight El Cid, who strapped himself to his saddle when he died and led his troops on horseback to victory while dead. So the idea of Joe Biden is nothing new.

- Argus Hamilton

Wednesday, July 22, 2020

Classic KiRKWOOD

Original art by John Cox. More at John Cox Art

Quote du jour

“They feel like they either need to shoplift some bread or go hungry.”

-Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, at a town hall, asked about surging violence

Bill Clinton pardoned his own brother for felony distribution of cocaine. And a key witness in the Whitewater scandal for which he and Hillary Clinton were under investigation. And three others convicted in independent counsel Ken Starr’s probe. And Marc Rich, in what was a straight up political payoff. And his CIA director. And his HUD secretary. And eight people convicted in an investigation of his Agriculture Department...
Clinton also commuted the sentences of convicted terrorists, some of whom hadn’t even asked for clemency. Shameless as he was, though, even he couldn’t bring himself to pardon Oscar Lopez Rivera, the defiantly unrepentant FALN leader...President Obama took care of that.

-Andrew McCarthy

So Roger Stone won’t go to prison for covering up a crime that never happened during an investigation that never should have begun. My outrage knows no bounds.

-Andrew Klavan

“We do not segment our lives, giving some time to God, some to our business or schooling, while keeping parts to ourselves. The idea is to live all of our lives in the presence of God, under the authority of God, and for the honor and glory of God. That is what the Christian life is all about.”

― R.C. Sproul