Random Photo

Harry Houdini- Still there.

Busy today, be back tomorrow.


Donald Cavaioli

Bergen Street Brooklyn late 1940's recolored

Bergen Street and Washington Avenue sometime before July 20, 1947 when the Bergen St. trolley line became the B65 bus. The neighborhood was much less busy and less traffic in the street than today. Looks like a nice place to live. The trolley car is John Stephenson 1907 model still going strong after 40 years in service if a bit worn.

The original B&W photo was from NYC Subway.org because they have a good collection of photos of decent size and good quality for colorizing.


Donald Cavaioli

Divide and Conquer

Since the 1930's, the ruling class here in the U.S., especially the old-money, northeastern establishment WASPs of New York, have been  fascinated by Marxist Leninist totalitarianism.  Although, at first they were horrified at the anarchist and communist bomb throwing and rioting antics as southern and eastern European immigrants used American society as a punching bag in their proxy war of revenge against the rulers of their home countries. It was the twisted emotional satisfaction of after being beaten up by a bigger kid, then going out and beating up another, smaller kid combined with a satanic preference for ruling in hell rather than serving in heaven. After all, the individual liberties and freedoms guaranteed by the constitution were easy for the Marxists to exploit.

Marxism was before the 1930's a dreadful anathema to this clique of staid, well-heeled  blue blooded, heritage Americans who were accustomed to their inherited wealth and government positions. Although these elected and bureaucratic positions had limited powers, they were prestigious enough and provided a comfortable niche for the blue bloods. This all began to change in the aftermath of what historians are pleased to call "the gilded age", a sneering appellation to describe a time of unimaginable horror where any greasy prole with the intelligence, drive and determination could start up a business and become anything from moderately successful to a captain of industry. If not, then many other of the lower orders were becoming part of a burgeoning middle class whose children would have access to better education and themselves may join the nouveau riche. The unspeakable horror of the gilded age that would be later sold to the masses was that some proles got rich and worse, they flaunted their wealth! Honestly, is there no room for breeding and old world courtly manners? What if the bluebloods were driven to bankruptcy and even eventually pushed out of their government sinecures by those new hungry wolves! The real horror of the gilded age was for the old money WASP establishment that they would be toppled from their thrones by these new entrepreneurs.

Eventually, the blue bloods of the northeastern WASP establishment decided that the Soviet model of government with its top-down centrally managed and controlled economy with some modifications would offer the benefit of society under their control- including social mobility of who and how many get to rise up the social ranks. And under Franklin Delano Roosevelt's brain trust would offer academic design and control of the system so that means a scientific system which cannot fail. The problem with the Russian Soviets, in the new managerial planner's opinion, was that it was being run by a bunch of dumb Russian peasants, not by the super-smart elite cloud people of Harvard and Yale. Stalin and his men never even attended Dartmouth, for heaven sake! But in the hands of the right people...

In New York City of the 1930's where anarchists and communists were once despised, Democrat politicians were beginning to play footsie with communists and Marxists of every stripe. What better way to get the masses to support the party machine than to play the friend of the working man and promising to berate their bosses and make those evil rich people pay for the heinous crime of getting rich? Still, under no circumstances should the working man ever want to aspire to achieve more lest they become Satan incarnate by the evil and corrupting influence of even modest success. It is by far more moral and good to remain poor and oppressed. The lesson was victimhood is a blessed state to aspire to and achievement above one's station is evil and will be punished.

But there was something else the Democrat party machine learned from their communist buddies and that was using cultural Marxism to attack segments of the population and then divide and conquer the electorate. After 1965, this tactic was augmented by increasingly open immigration from all different cultures and ethnicities to a sanctuary city for illegal immigrants. The new immigrants legal and illegal were granted the holy sacrament of victimhood by virtue of coming from poorer countries which were oppressed by European and American colonialism. Then entire communities would never be able to unite to oppose the political and managerial establishment's schemes as each group would have its own unique interests, be assigned the status of angel victims (identity victim groups) or devil oppressors (the native New Yorkers) and they would have nothing more in common with each other than residing in the same geographical area. This was intended to ensure the electorate would be permanently divided and forever squabbling amongst themselves.

But our managerial overlords ever fearful of even an improbable servile insurrection can never stop finding new ways to further balkanize us and impose identity bean-counting in every corner of society. From The City: DOES YOUR COMMUNITY BOARD REFLECT YOU AND YOUR NEIGHBORS? FIND OUT. by Rachel Holliday Smith and Ann Choi with additional reporting by Clifford Michel, January 29, 2020

Even the local community council, a toy government created to promote the illusion of select people (picked by the Borough President) in the community having some influence in what their political and managerial betters plan is not free from divide and conquer. No matter how servile the slave foremen, one must keep the whip in full view.


Donald Cavaioli

The Fulton Street El colorized 1940's

Here's a street scene colorized from 1940. The location is Boerum Place and Fulton Street with a train of BMT C cars moving along. Gotta love those 1940's car for their style and trolleys and those old subway trains are cool.

The original B&W photo is from NYC Subway.org



Donald Cavaioli

For Our Friends in China Dealing With the Coronavirus- The Doctor is In

If you need a doctor experienced in treating the plague, I know just the fellow who can help and he does house calls. Can't beat that!

He's kind of an alternative medicine guy, uses leaches, has some good potions and elixirs but you've got to love that hat. If for no other reason you consult this guy, it should be for the hat.

Just tell him the Caretaker recommended him to you, he'll give you a discount on the bill.

And if all else fails, I know a couple of good necromancers. You meet all sorts in my line of work. But calling it coronavirus? I feel a bit slighted here as I come from Corona!
Good luck.


Donald Cavaioli

Counting Made Desperate (but I've got a cunning plan)

It should be an easy matter to count anything from beans to people but not here in the People's Banana Empire of New York where progressive liberals prove they can make any simple task a bureaucratic nightmare. Logical organization and breaking down a large task among smaller, coordinated groups is hard enough but what if you're under the gun to pad out the numbers to hide the fact that people are fleeing the place in droves. This might be one of the reasons our rulers are trying so desperately to ban motor vehicles from the People's Empire to keep them from escaping without the embarrassment of building a Berlin-style wall.

The Gotham Gazette gives us the update on the counting and sorting problems here.

Aside from the usual method of problem solving most often employed by liberals- spending flipping great wads of cash, just throwing it around and hoping something happens other than politically connected people and groups pocket it, there's another suggestion I might offer: Copy names off headstones at the local cemeteries.

This has a time honored tradition among Democrats during elections when every vote counts, including dead people who amazingly vote 100% Democrat after they've shuffled off this mortal coil and presumably have thought the better of it. So why be bigoted against the dead just because they are not exactly alive according conventional definitions? I mean, just because they're dead and buried, in various states of decay, they still sort of reside here, right? Since when does death deprive us of our constitutional rights? If we can define "family" as 2 or more people living in the same domicile regardless of relation and there can be 57 different genders, then why can dead people not be classified as an alternative definition of being alive?  A cemetery then, is the place they live or exist or something. Who are we to judge. So why not just use the cemetery road and plot number as an address and voila! The city and state population jumps by millions! Tens of millions! 5 million alternative definition of being alive people reside in cemeteries in the borough of Queens which would triple the census count in this borough alone.

Ah, think of all the new voters we can register with a 100% vote for the Ruling Party, the extra electoral college votes we can get. No more talk of end runs around it 'cause it works for the Party now! Imagine all the gerrymandering and creation of brand spanking new congressional seats from whole cloth. A jobs program for politicians that politicians can get behind. A dozen more Democrat Socialists of America congress creatures, moar Sandy the Barmaids. moar federal money to spend and pocket. This is truly a cunning plan that cannot fail!


Donald Cavaioli

More old Manhattan colorized

Sorry for another quickie, been busy. Antique radios don't restore themselves and I've got one hell of a backlog to go through. Anyway, I should have part 3 of my strange dream posted tomorrow but otherwise, the news is either boring (like the impeachment show) or been covered to death by everybody and his brother (like the corona virus).  I'm starting to get tired of the multicult and civic nationalism failures and feel like I'm repeating myself too much. I hate repeating myself and being a one note song. That's why there were sometimes long stretches between posts waiting for something interesting to write about or too busy with other things. But my New Year's resolution is to post daily so here's at least something:

This is 9th Street at 3rd Avenue which has the elevated train line in Manhattan ca 1902. The forerunner of the subway was this and other elevated lines or Els as we like to call them. This photo was taken just before the lines were electrified and shows an old steam engine pulling the cars.

This photo may have come from NYC Subway.org but I'm not 100% sure. I am sure I did the color work. Enjoy.



Donald Cavaioli

Turn of the 20th Century West Village in color

This is Abingdon Square, West Village, on 8th Avenue and Bleeker Street ca 1908. Seems like a nice place and probably reasonably priced as H.P. Lovecraft did live around that area or will live there in the not too distant future relative to this photo. One this that would be surprising for 1908 is that there was still a horse drawn streetcar. Shouldn't TARS have gone all electric by then?

I can't recall where I got the original B&W photo but I do recall that I did colorize it and at least that's something.


Donald Cavaioli

What did I tell you- Illegals want the vote and sooner or later, New York will give it to them

First, it was New York State driver's licenses for illegals, then a bill passes in the New York State Assembly in which anyone who goes to NY Dept. of Motor Vehicles for any transaction will automatically be registered to vote, now illegals demonstrate for their right to vote in a country in which they do not have citizenship. Holding signs printed in Spanish and Bengali demanding the vote in the U.S. because most of them sort of pay taxes, sales taxes mostly, when they buy groceries, clothes, furniture and cars. Eventually, any and every non-citizen including every illegal alien and perhaps tourists as well will be able to vote here in our most magnificent People's Banana Empire of New York. Don't you just love it?

See here the latest atrocity in the cultural Marxist's dialectical materialism war on New Yorkers and in general, the American people from The Queens Daily Eagle: 'No taxation without representation'- noncitizens rally for NYC voting rights, by Emma Whitford, January 23, 2020

Daring to use such phrases as no taxation without representation in foreign languages to promote foreign influence in our elections, pissing on our history in pursuit of plunder and is an insufferable insult to the American colonists who bravely fought the British for our independence. Their cynical use of this phrase is a disgrace and an obscenity.

They don't even have the most minimum courtesy, the merest shred of respect, even a paper thin veneer of decency about how this looks in printing signs in their own languages demanding the vote. They demand and we Americans have no other choice than to give these people what they view as their absolute and unquestionable right. Or else.

But let's look for a moment at the completely insipid nonsense part. If legal permanent residents want the vote then they can apply for naturalization, problem solved. If they want to keep the citizenship of their country of origin, then no they cannot vote and why should they as they clearly evince no true loyalty to this country. Pay taxes? If they want to live and work here as a foreigner, a citizen of another country, they pay taxes for the privilege of living and working here. Then otherwise that's a fair exchange. Not happy about that? Nobody told them to come here in the first place nor do we need them. Then they should return to their home country where they may vote as early and as often as they wish. What government of any other country on earth would even dare to suggest non-citizens vote in their elections let alone foreigners who enter their country illegally. Certainly these people protesting would scream bloody murder if a law such as this was proposed in their own country. Hypocrites and obnoxious newcomers should not be welcomed here but asked to leave. But these newcomers are not the real prime movers behind this reprehensible proposed law, it is white liberals and leftist activists- our own people who would betray us.

However as with all things white liberal, progressive left, this isn't a sorry tale of poor immigrants wrongfully denied their sovereign right to vote in a country that is not their own. No sob story of racism and xenophobia by evil Americans. Not people of color cruelly wronged by an unjust, racist system. It is simply another one of their lies. It is one step more towards the end game of we-are-the-world cosmopolitanism in giving anyone from any country the right to vote for simply showing up on our door unannounced and uninvited and then helping themselves to the public purse. This law is just a way of getting the camel's nose in the tent so it can later enter fully, straddle the tent's legitimate resident and shit all over his face.

But for our betters who wholeheartedly endorse this claptrap, it's an amazing new twist on the old slave trade: The illegal immigrant slaves ship themselves in to work dirt cheap as sex workers or for elite corporate vassals and we the citizen taxpayers purchase the slaves and maintain them with free healthcare, welfare and other freestuff as a client voting bloc for the ruling class politicians. Sheer genius and oh, so progressive even if it is treason. And best of all: The slave owners don't pay a dime out of their own pocket for their chattel. Don't you just love it?

Worse still, this demolishes the rights of a people to self determination. New Yorkers will increasingly have their fate determined by people from other countries who have no stake in this city or state, nor any loyalty or love for it in refusing to seek citizenship, other than whatever wealth they can take from it in this new form of colonialism. The vote of the New Yorker as a U.S. citizen exercising the franchise of the vote is diluted and ultimately rendered null and void. This right as well as all others paid for by the blood of patriots who fought this nation's wars to defend them rendered ludicrous.

One might be tempted to gasp in outrage who the fuck do these people think they are but that is the wrong response. The correct response is what the fuck is wrong with us as New Yorkers to permit those odious cretins of the elected political class (hi Danny Dromm!) to even dare promote this abomination without fear of being thrown out of office if not bodily thrown out of this city.



Donald Cavaioli

When cowboys and steam locomotive trains ran in the streets of Manhattan

There never seem to be enough hours in the day or enough spare time to finish a draft post or two...
But for a quickie post to keep the proverbial pot boiling something you'd never expect to see in Manhattan but a colorized B&W photo tells no lies...

A cowboy on horseback does the flagman job to clear traffic along 10th Avenue and 28th Street for that steam locomotive hauling some freight in the early 1920's.

Can't recall where the original black and white photo is from otherwise credit where credit is due but the colorizing is my own handiwork.


Donald Cavaioli

Another interview with Josh Philipp on YouTube

"A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself from within."
Ariel Durant

YouTube channel China Unscripted has another interesting discussion with Josh Philipp on the subject of Marxist material dialectics. A good video, audio really, that puts weaponized cultural Marxism into perspective and understand it as a strategy for destroying a society and culture.

A bit long at 1 hour and 40 minutes but well worth the time.



Donald Cavaioli

Somewhere in downtown Brooklyn past

Where this was is a bit of a mystery. It's somewhere in the downtown Brooklyn end of the #12 Dekalb Ave. line. Nothing along Court Street matches any of these buildings which presently has buildings from around the time this photo was taken. Could be along Cadman Plaza west in what is today a park and the buildings in this photo long since disappeared by eminent domain. Then this could be a colorized tribute to a vanished neighborhood.

Original B&W photo from NYC Subway.org, colorizing it is my own work.



Donald Cavaioli

YouTuber Brandon F's Farbtastic Woke Sermon

Indeed, one would be hard pressed to find a YouTube content creator more eloquent and verbose the Brandon F. His channel usually features military history subjects which are interesting even if he tends to sperg out on the "farb" he finds regarding his subject du jour. Farb, of course, a word Brandon tends to perhaps overuse, is a historical reenactor's term for anything not exactly historically accurate down to the molecular level in terms of uniforms and weaponry. But as they say, spergs are gonna sperg.

So we come to his recent upload of the second part of his grand review of the movie The Patriot and here he not only waxes eloquent but feels compelled to pontificate a grand sermon on the evils of slavery in the colonies but to spend and entire 57 minutes and 2 seconds of being repeatedly kicked in the groin by gassing over scenes that were probably all said about 10 or 15 minutes or so of the 2 hour and 45 minute movie. For most mundane mortals, myself included, a 5-7 minute oration on the immorality of slavery and the positive depiction of it at a prima facia glance as somewhat callous and in poor taste would suffice. However, Brandon, are you not familiar with the term poetic license or the concept of suspending disbelief in fiction or how about chill out, man, it's only a movie, not a f&#*@^% historical documentary, you tool?

However, we do learn soon enough that the black men and women on the farm of Benjamin Martin (played by Mel Gibson) are in fact freedmen and women working as hired hands. Something over which Brandon proceeds to beat his chest in outrage as he does not believe slaves were ever manumitted. I suppose in all his research on the proper way to wear a cocked hat, which mundane dullards erroneously refer to as a "tricorn hat", the correct pronunciation of "huzzah" as "hoo-zay" he somehow missed that even Thomas Jefferson had freed his slaves in his will as had some other slave owners. Something known to any school child.

That the other character, Charlotte (Joely Richardson) has a well dressed house slave, has two homes or how the extras playing the field slaves are dressed and stand has no deeper significance as a social statement and is not the main plot of the movie. They're just extras acting as background characters, of course they don't have lines and neither do the white extras. And Charlotte is herself a secondary character and only part of a sub plot, you pretentious twit.

Further, I should hate to see the apoplectic fit that would be induced were I to inform him that there were even black men who owned black African slaves. Or that horror of horrors, slavery has been practiced all over the world by all races and civilizations since the dawn of H. Sapiens and even still is today in some places in the world *cough* North Africa, Islamic State *cough*. The little fellow might have a stroke for heaven sake!

Moreover, Brandon takes particular umbrage at Benjamin Martin working his own fields! Next to a black man as if they were on friendly terms! Brandon, old bean, I do suggest you consider the image of manhood prevalent at the time not only of bucks and blades but of the American yeoman who worked his own fields with a latent Cincinnatus homage there. Sure there were gentleman farmers who never touched a plow but there is some historical references to landowners who would occasionally do some of their own work in the fields or around the farm if only for appearance sake. The actions and attitudes of Benjamin Martin may be unusually progressive for the time, extremely rare, but not wholly impossible. Not everybody thought slavery was a great thing in those days and perhaps only a relative few, but not all white people looked down upon black people. And by the way, the character of Benjamin Martin, although based on the historical person, Francis Marion is not meant to exactly be Francis Marion, based on being the operative term here. Recall, it's only a movie, you twit.

Although Marion Francis' deeds in life both good and bad are matters of historical fact, his misdeeds may be noted as such and rightly condemned but still they now belong to history. For all Brandon's posturing, it is a false dichotomy to claim it is moral relativity for recognizing it as such. A cheap way of instilling guilt in all who refuse to continually flog the shade of Francis Marion for his long dead sins and to make modern Americans continue to wear the hair shirt of slavery that ended 154 years ago. Besides, who Marion Francis was and whatever dark and malevolent nature he was possessed of is utterly irrelevant to the movie The Patriot or the protagonist. Benjamin Martin. The point of the movie was the story of a man seeking revenge during the American Revolution, not about rehabilitating Francis Marion and the institution of slavery. Focus, Brandon, focus.

Here I might add Brandon's mention of the historical Marion executing slaves found guilty of carrying provisions or gathering intelligence, working or fighting for the enemy (the British). However, even a white American colonist found guilty of the same would likewise have been executed because this was called being a collaborator, spy or traitor- something of a no-no in wartime. A little factoid Brandon seems to have overlooked during his witch hunt for racism which eclipses his previous exhortations of not judging the past when he demonstrated a commendable measure of probity. But when the topic of slavery and racism rears its ugly head, the liberal narrative of the evil white man over truth bursts forth, denials of the same not withstanding and topped off with feigned display of dismay at being impaled on the horns of a moral dilemma. Medice, cura te ipsum.

However, one must keep up appearances and burnish our goodwhite anti-racism credentials, of course. Respectability amongst one's fellow Bay Staters is of paramount importance, you know. So who wouldn't accept the word of an activist non-profit, the Equal Justice Initiative whose stock and trade is race baiting as to be kinda unreliable and claims of lynchings and their causes as being because a black man simply smiled at a white woman may, er, be somewhat exaggerated(?) as to be blowing smoke up your ass makes no nevermind. Maybe the Equal Justice Initiative is sorta full of bullshit and not a objective source of information? No! Forward, comrade forward! Good Sir Brandon has a holy crusade to fight and a noble sermon to preach! African Americans are most fortunate to have such a white wordsmith and master of righteous indignation speak out for them on the horrors of white people and black people getting along with each other at an improbable wedding.

Oh and by the way, old sport; what do lynchings between 1877 and 1950 have to do with colonial era slavery and racism? Just thought you'd throw that in to further gild an already badly over gilded lily? Or just padding out the content?

Be that as it may, Brandon rests comfortably in the singularly liberal notion that only, only in these United States of all places on earth past or present was the absolute worst form slavery ever employed with only black Africans of all humanity ever placed in bondage. And presumably all these Africans captured and placed in chains by white Europeans and Americans only according the the leftist holy Gospels of Alex Haley and Howard Zinn. I am sure that were Brandon to read these words, he would sniff disdainfully that he never said exactly those words and technically, he would be correct. But his statements about the horrors of American slavery without any comparison with other instances of contemporaneous slavery demonstrates either ignorance of the subject or a willful attempt to create this impression by lifting it out of context.

But not Brandon for whom political correctness ultimately supersedes historical facts inconvenient to the modern progressive narrative should he find the two crossing paths. For Brandon F is truly a most servile courtier to the great Woke Zeitgeist, ever watchful for even the spectral evidence of racism. And as ever sensitive to the insidious attempt to cynically hide it behind a facade of faux friendliness towards black people, or to note the appalling scene of a white landowner plowing his fields, blatantly displaying toxic masculinity to the horror and dismay of liberal goodwhites.

In the end, this video was an extravaganza of insufferable virtue signalling, a colossal neon sign surmounted by bright flashing lights announcing in blinding letters: "I so totally denounce slavery as a very bad thing and I am implacably against racism in all its forms and manifestations no matter how trivial". 57 minutes and 2 seconds of being figuratively beaten over the head by bloviating platitudes, pointless digressions and tiresome non-sequiturs such as the percentage of the population who were slaves and endless repeating of the same scenes and same histrionics ad nauseum. 7 minutes at most would have sufficed if Brandon stayed on point. However, the depiction of slaves or black extras in the background in the movie were not germane to the plot and it would be understandable if the director and producers would like to avoid controversy and so tread lightly on the subject. Something an overly literal Aspie cannot fathom any more than he could poetic license. Thus the witchfinder general digs deeply far and wide to dredge up all that can be sarcastically stretched beyond the break point as evidence of racism which he presents in excruciating detail.

Finally it seems clear after 57 minutes and 2 seconds of my life which I will never get back, that the base motivation for this spectacular of historical filibuster is as much Brandon F's being an Anglophile deeply offended at the bad guy depiction of the British soldiers, which even when I watched this movie found to be rather over the top and silly, as is his penchant for insipid hand waving virtue signalling. If so, I would more respect the intellectual honesty of Brandon starting his rant in high dudgeon with a statement of his taking deep umbrage at the beastly portrayal of his beloved redcoats. Then I might better tolerate the pedantic, long winded, cringe inducing sermon about the evils of slavery and racism. Yeah, slavery was morally wrong and it's a good thing that it was abolished. I get it.

Believe it or not, I actually like Brandon F's other videos. I'm just a bit disappointed with this particular clunker and hope in future he confines himself to nit-picking about uniforms with his characteristic erudite sarcasm and calling everything farb. Huzzah!


Donald Cavaioli

Single Image

Still working on a few things, other projects and such but I will have something to write about tomorrow. I always have something to write about. Taciturnity is not one of my faults or virtues as the case may be. The above photo is my own and this angel graces Lutheran All-Faiths cemetery in Middle Village, NY.



Donald Cavaioli

More colorized photos

Been busy so just this quickie post today of a recolored photo.

A PCC car in the bottle green livery of the NYC Board of Transportation, of the 7th Avenue line at its terminal at 20th Street and 7th Ave ca late 1940's to early 1951. Due to wartime shortages of building materials and supplies, the buildings around the city got a bit shabby looking as did the city's trolley fleet. The original B&W photo was from NYC Subway.org.


Donald Cavaioli

Civil War Generals in color

Union General Daruis N. Couch looking a bit pale. But as previously noted when colorizing mid to late 19th century photos, the negative emulsion has some issue reacting to some colors of light, blue I think it was, which affects the gray scale and in turn the colorizing app. Original Brady-Handy B&W photo from Wikipedia.

Will New York's Off-Shore Windmill Program Break Records or Just Break Wind?

If a group of people lack the ability to engage in abstract thought, the intellectual acumen for new and innovative ideas and the individualistic creativity to pioneer new technologies or are just corrupt grifters all that's left to them is to take already invented older, obsolete technologies and claim them to be exciting new inventions. Either that, or in their re-invention of the wheel, they breathlessly announce that they have succeeded in making it rounder than it was before. Such people not of the grifter mold typically end up as bureaucrats, politicians or professional activists as they're not intelligent or talented enough or simply too much a borderline personality for any meaningful, productive form of employment.

But as always, the reality of these fabulous new/antiquated miracle technologies almost never lives up to the hype which is the grifter's stock and trade and leaves the other idiots to make feeble excuses for their failures while still pretending their perpetual motion machines can really work. But the grifter, crony capitalists and activist/NGO honchos profits, the rank and file SJW activist gets his good feels, the bureaucrats and politicians declare success and move on to another great idea. So as far as the ruling class and elite are concerned, it's a win-win even if we the proles get stuck paying for their fiasco and see our quality of life further decline. But as our rulers hate us, we count for nothing so they really don't care what happens to us except that we pay their taxes and obey their speech and thought codes.

So we come to this opinion piece from the Gotham Gazette by Liz Burdock and Jay Borkland entitled: "As New York's Ambitious Energy Plan Breaks Offshore Wind Records, Report Identifies Challenges and Opportunities" published August 7, 2019

That windmills as a power source for machinery was long ago replaced as inefficient due to the losses involved in converting wind energy into usable work energy makes no impact on our mastermind planners. The salesmen of General Electric and Siemens thinks wind turbines (which they happen to manufacture, by the way) are the thing, everyone should buy them (with generous government subsidies, thank you very much) and our politicians, after accepting some nice campaign donations and other under the table goodies heartily agree (please clap). They work as long as the wind is blowing within an operational range or the temperature isn't too low otherwise they're just useless, gargantuan monuments to liberal imbecility and ruling class perfidy.

Just as the solar panel, the first commercially available version of which was patented in 1885 has not and may never will exceed 10% or 20% efficiency directly converting sunlight to usable electricity. There are physical limits to the photoelectric effect. That and solar panels appear to have trouble providing electricity at night (or overcast days) for reasons enviro-liberals and greenies have yet to explain. Don't panic, more government research grants are on the way.

But just say the word "free" like "free energy" or other free stuff and lefties and liberals go into a swoon then storm the manufacturers, eager to buy with other people's money.

The main problem with these "renewable" energy sources besides being expensive, not cost effective, lagging behind in energy density compared to fossil fuel driven source and needing government subsidies to be economically viable is that their power output cannot follow the load. That is, the generated power from wind turbines and solar panels when at maximum output cannot be increased to keep pace with consumer demand. And it must be noted that their maximum output can vary even being somewhat lower than average. So unless there is some other steam driven generator as a backup or some other place to buy electricity from in a pinch (which drives spot power prices through the roof), there could be more than a few blackouts. The to add more fuel to the fire- If we replace all internal combustion engine cars to electric vehicles, even if a small percentage, there are no magical electricity elves to upgrade the grid or provide more power for all the extra appliances loading the grid.

However, if one were to pose this question to the compos mentis of the green left, they would be certain that the laws of physics were struck down by the Supreme Court as unconstitutional and racist. Greenie watermelons appear to believe perpetual motion machines are entirely possible if scientists and engineer were given enough grant money. Moar money always fixes everything in progressive liberal land, ya know.

But hold on now! Batteries! That's the ticket! So there's this physicist guy, Mark P. Mills who did the math for how long it would take Elon Musks' Gigafactory to build the batteries that would store energy to power the entire U.S. for 2 days and that would be, according to him, about a thousand years. So maybe not batteries then.

Ok, wait, there's other schemes like pumped storage although how much water and tanks to hold it that would take and how much energy would be lost in the process of conversion doesn't make it look any better. So if anyone realistically wants to believe we can completely do away with all hydrocarbon and nuclear power without returning to a 18th century lifestyle, then pull up a chair and make yourself comfortable as we're in for a very long wait.

But all will not be lost. The elite city of  Manhattan, the grand luxury product city of Bloomberg's wet dreams (and parts of that chic designer label called by mortals Brooklyn) will have sufficient power as our ruling godlings and elites, unlike the masses of unwashed plebes and slaves in the lower order outer boroughs, are too "woke" and too important to do without.

However, back to the real world with its real presently technology and real physical laws.

It's a fool's errand to bet on some future technology that will solve all the present shortcomings of so-called renewable energy sources based on a presently unknown paradigm and that is impossible to know if it will ever be invented or not. Just as it is simple minded and naive to accept the doomsday scenarios being spun not by scientists, but activists, NGOs, politicians, bureaucrats and corporations who stand to make a lot of money from it.  And idiotic beyond description to believe the liars, hypocrites, and grifters with their perpetual motion machine solution in search of a problem to solve.

How can anyone take seriously the calls by UN bureaucrats and their pet government scientists that we the unwashed masses must accept the denigration of our standard of living, having scarcity foisted on us by a hoard of people who jet off in an armada of airliners to different exotic locales for COP meetings every year. People who demand we give up eating meat and becoming vegans or eating bugs to ostensibly save the planet but never miss a good cheeseburger themselves, even at fast food places they malign like Burger King. Or famous politicians and activists who never miss an opportunity to read us the riot act about our massive "carbon footprint", profligate energy consumption or rising sea levels but who buy very expensive and high energy consumption ocean front homes. Hypocrisy never wore such an insufferably smug and ingratiating mantle.

No, Liz and Jay, aside from the record amount of tax dollars that will be wasted in a fraudulent scheme, no new ground nor records will be broken here but only the wind broken from your unctuous and insipid work of propaganda.



Donald Cavaioli

Immigration Laws in New York Nullified 2: It's almost official, Illegals may get to vote in our elections

A followup from a previous post, Immigration Laws in New York Nullified: Laws Are Only Obeyed if it Suits Our Political Ruling Class' Interests.

Yes, it's unofficially official, the bill that would allow illegal immigrants to be automatically enrolled to vote when they apply for a New York State driver's license was passed by our most glorious, benevolent, gift-bestowing betters of the New York State Senate:

State Senate passes Automatic Voter Registration Bill (again), by Victoria Merlino, January 10, 2020, Queens Daily Eagle 

Passes it again! And thank the Identity Marx god that they finally got it right, typos fixed and did it. It was a short article that didn't go into whether or not the State Assembly would pass it or if Our Most Dear Leader and Revered little tin god, Andrew Cuomo would sign it or not. Considering the State Assembly is about 70% Democrat factotums of the great progressive hivemind and Andy is a real nasty piece of work, it should be passed into law very soon. 

Of course we don't want to publicize it too much and there had to be a bit of time separation between enacting the the law that allowed illegals to get NYS driver's licenses and the law that automatically registers them to vote so the peasant masses don't catch on. Yes the peasantry are a reliably servile lot and will slavishly parrot all the progressive liberal taking points their betters order them to assimilate. They have been obediently crawling off on their bellies to what outwardly appears to be democratic elections for generations, but are really a periodic affirmation of their loyalty to their masters yet still, one can never tell with the peasants.

Slavish devotion to the political ruling class, swallowing their lies and propaganda like so much kool aide can suddenly give way to angry mobs in yellow vests or waving umbrellas as they suddenly take offense at whatever the new law their masters enact to further debase the plebes. With such goings on in places like Paris, Santiago and Hong Kong, one should perhaps play it safe and keep this latest outrage against the very concept of U.S. citizenry and the ruling class using their tax paying chattel as human urinals on the down low.

Now why, one may ask, is it so vitally important, that our fantastic democracy and our very way of life are gravely imperiled should illegally undocumented immigrants (notice again the discipline I employ in not using the illegal term "illegal aliens") should be denied NYS driver's licenses and the franchise of the vote? Just as how it was absolutely paramount that the question of citizenship be left off the census. The answer is simple: To answer the latter first, New York state is losing people such that it may lose a congressional seat or two and the population count must be padded to the max or Sandy Ocasio Cortez might have to go back to being a barmaid. 

Where would New York City be if the 14th congressional district that starts in the Bronx and includes the Whitestone Bridge to cross over into central and northwestern Queens, a prodigy, a masterpiece of gerrymandering, were to disappear? What would happen to the voting rights of anyone who happens to live on the Whitestone Bridge? Every vote matters and must be counted! Something had to be done and done it was! Illegals are counted in the census just as citizens.

To the matter of illegal aliens, sorry, our most wonderful undocumented immigrants who have nobly graced us with their presence and generously work such jobs for below minimum wage off the books (saves a bundle on payroll taxes to boot) that businesses refuse to pay Americans a fair wage to do should be welcomed with open arms. And all the yummy ethnic foods they bring that makes "foodies" and hipster bugmen squee with delight. And where would elite uber pimps like the late Jeffrey Epstein be without a fresh supply of nubile, young human sex toys for the pleasure of our ruling class and elites. Or low cost "comfort women" for hard-working proles. Human trafficking and prostitution jobs lazy American people simply won't do.

These undocumented comrades are the hard-working people who pay their taxes, sort of- sales taxes on groceries and clothes, 70+% paid for partially or totally with tax payer public assistance simply deserve the vote, dah-link. And more, these folks will overwhelmingly vote the correct and proper way, for the Democrat Party who shall rule supreme as the one and only party in New York.

To gainsay this plan to be a one party universalist cosmopolitan dictatorship of the proletariat is to be racist, xenophobic, divisive and an insufferably partisan boor. And to endure such pointing and shrieking of these epithets would simply be mortifying.

On a more serious note, this does greatly cheapen U.S. citizenship by giving away the franchise of voting to non-citizens who really have no stake or interest in this country and bitch slaps naturalized American citizens who earned their vote by waiting on line and following the laws. I would feel bad for these new Americans but as about 70% of them are reliable Democrat voters they must like the abuse.

Donald Cavaioli

A Critique of the American Right Strategy (or Lack Thereof) Part 2: Cranks and Bad Ideas

Part 1- A Critique of the American Right Strategy (or Lack Thereof): The Problem

To start to change American culture, we need to gradually sway the majority, the great middle of the population over to our side. To do so we not only have to convince them not only that the left has consistently lied about and slandered the right, nor only the right has the better ideas but that the right's ideas are palatable to Ozzie and Harriet Normie. To even start on this task, the right needs to get its act together first.

First, what are we on the right offering as an alternative to the present authoritarian managerial state and globalism.

Mainstream conservatism has so far only ran away from confronting the left when these so-called conservatives are not gradually accepting leftist and liberal ideas. In the last 25 years or so, there has been an increasing number of "the conservative case for" various liberal social and cultural cause du jour be it same sex marriage, open border immigration, globalist "free trade", etc. emanating from sites like NRO and the like. The bright boys at the American Conservative have even managed to concoct a "conservative" case for Andrew Yang's Universal Basic Income. So Conservatism Inc. has finally managed to outdo themselves transcending being mere mealy-mouthed moderate sophists and 1960's vintage liberal Democrats into going to the left of Hilary Clinton. Closet leftists like these should just come out and say 'hi' to Bernie, comrade fake American Conservative.

Then there's the other guys. When will some in dissident righters and alt-righters ever give up on this ludicrous dream of establishing some kind of hereditary aristocracy presumably to include the middle class Izod set due to their superior genetics that can perpetually supply descendants likewise with superior genetics? Yes, all available data shows IQ is strongly correlated with heritable genetics and the average IQ of a population determines the success or failure of a modern technological/industrial state. Yes there is such as a thing as race and there is a difference in average IQ between the races. Natural selection and bio-diversity is as real for us humans as it is for any other life form on the planet. But as the old saying in breeding thoroughbred race horses goes: Breed the best to the best and hope for the best.

In Europe and North America, the hereditary aristocracies as absolute rulers model failed and did so for reasons that would still hold true today. A dynasty can produce a philosopher king Marcus Aurelius in one generation and then can produce a decadent Commodus or Caligula in the next. There is no guarantee how good the monarch would be from one generation to the next. Worse is that a bad absolute monarch with no check upon his power can do much harm to their nation. They cannot be voted out of office or removed short of overthrow with a new dynasty established usually only after a messy civil war. Further, a hereditary aristocracy over time will develop the same attitude of contempt that gradually develops into fear and hatred for the commoner masses over which they rule just as the ruling class has for us today. The same dynamic of the aristocracy growing socially and culturally isolated from the people they govern would happen again as it did in late 18th century France. Just as our ruling class here today is. Only now there is still a remote possibility of forcing change through elections over some election cycles and a remote possibility is better than no possibility.

More, an aristocracy really does not care about their peasant masses as anything more than dray animals that perform menial tasks and contribute to their better's wealth the romanticized polemics of Mencius Moldbug and other supporters not withstanding.

The aristocracy has personal ownership and interest in his country and nation more like a farmer has over his land. But like the farmer, the aristocrat in the end is interested in the profits for himself, not in the welfare of his livestock beyond basic maintenance and their utility. The aristocrats of the early 20th century first world war had no qualms about sending thousands of peasants over the top of the trenches in mass human wave assaults knowing most of them would be slaughtered by opposing machine gun fire. And they continually used this meat grinder tactic over and over during the course of the war as that's what their dray animals are for- to either be used up in service or to die for King and Country. The old, forever colonialist wars in the "Great Game" of yesteryear are the same as the never ending wars started by the ruling class today and we should think a new master monarch will be better than the old master.

Further, the supporters of this idea never seem to have any clue as to how to implement it. Do we vote for our king or will someone graciously step up to fulfill the role after the great cataclysmic economic and political crash and the survivors then vote on it or just accept the pretender to the throne and bow to their new master? Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

It's a bad idea that Joe and Jane Normie will never support even if they are peasants who want a master. Normies of today in the U.S. still want to feel they have some kind of control over the system through the ballot box real or imagined and are loath to give up their illusions. Besides, we already have virtually a hereditary managerial aristocracy and it looks like the dissident and alt right supporters of aristocracy are only complaining that it's not them in charge of it.

The peasantry normally prefers the devil they know to the devil they don't know so for the foreseeable future, normies are not going to flock to your neo-aristocracy banner. So let's drop this aristocracy thing already because the idea completely sucks.

To take another tact of declaring no plan, blueprint or even hinting at some vague suggestion of what comes next should the left cause political and economic collapse will convince nobody of the wisdom of this nihilistic lack of strategy but other right anarchist loonies. Who, with even half a brain in their head, can take seriously anyone who suggests that after the train wrecks, they'll jump out of the wreckage unscathed and will somehow rebuild...something or other...and everything will somehow turn out just fine. It's a silly rehash of the Underpants Gnome business model of
               1) let society crash and burn or actively promote it by supporting the most insane leftist                           Democrat
               2) ???
               3) Create a better society.

Even the most deluded leftist has a plan, bad as it is, and anyone with even half a brain in their head could see just how inane this is. Normie will stay the present progressive course even if he realizes how bad it is for him because even a bad plan is easier to sell or follow than no plan at all.

But hold on! Some on the right do have a sort of plan! Secession! The dissolution and breakup of that big bad United States of America! Or plan 'B' of scampering off to rural or suburban safe spaces where they may peacefully live a version of Galt's Gulch or Galt's Abby for followers of the Z man. Well, it would be a sort-of Ike's America but the U.S. constitution has to go because it failed like democracy so something or whatnot that will be perfect and ideal will somehow appear to replace it. What, you may ask? If you gotta ask, then you're just not "with it" and the details will be later worked out in an ad-hoc meeting of the secret handshake society whose assemblage is in the process of being planned.

All this is motivated by what's essentially a puerile wail of "mommy, the constitution and democracy aren't perfect! They're broken! take them away !" combined with a pythonesque "run away!" strategy without a blessed clue as to what to do next. Once again, libertarians, the dissident, and alt-right (both libertarian or Randian apostates or heretics if not simply disgruntled liberals) are back to using the Underpants Gnomes as consultants. What could possibly go wrong?

Let's take plan 'B' first:
One would need to be denser than lead not to understand that if people on the right were to form their own enclaves that the left would see them as dangerous covens of witches that must be destroyed before they summon the White Supremacist Satan and conquer the world and do some sort of bad stuff. Waco, Texas  anyone?

Guys, the left will never let this happen if not with active attack then by forcefully imposing diversity or by gradually having liberal refugees from blue cities sleaze their way in and bring their progressive voting patterns with them. Oh, so you think you can stop this from happening? Look what's happening to Texas, it'll happen to all new Galt's Gulches too. They'll even demolish the Z man's Galt's monastery as well. Nobody will be immune. You can run but you can't hide and eventually, there will be no places left to run to. Muh non-aggression principle will not save you.

No fight was ever won by retreating in the face of the enemy and ceding territory to the enemy. That's the definition of losing that even the most apathetic dullard can clearly see and understand and nobody ever supports a loser. White flight has already left urban population centers in the hands of the progressive left and their ever growing legions of foreign mercenaries which was and is a serious and possibly fatal mistake. A mistake that should not be further exacerbated but rather reversed by moving to and re-taking the cities. That is, if some inferiority complex addled neurotics on the right can pull their heads out of their provincial asses long enough to realize it can really happen to them too.

Now there is the secession thing dreamed up by the curmudgeonly neo-confederate wing of the right. Besides being a pathetic attempt to re-write the causes of the civil war as not being over slavery so to prove great-great-great grand pappy wasn't a racist (whether he was or wasn't doesn't matter anymore). It ignores that the federal government or the American people at large will permit this to happen or what the actual odds of success are. The neo-confederates, libertarian apostates in their own right, believe that in civil war, part deux, other world powers will honor the non-aggression principle and not intervene overtly or covertly in backing one side or the other. Foreign intervention would just be immoral and plain wrong. Only the big, bad United States of America, that most evil empire (unlike Vox Day's good People's Republic of China empire) with it's failed constitution is mean and wicked enough to violate the NAP.
Some people really need to get out more.

But to the true believer in secession, it will be a glorious fight with one shot to a power plant transformer that will end with the total destruction of the hated Yankees and their stadium. Then Robert E. Lee will return, riding over the rainbow on a unicorn that pisses mint juleps, and lead them to an antebellum southern utopia. Not a people, economy and country devastated by war where any system of government that would form in the aftermath would most likely be much worse than anything we can have today as is usual in such situations.

That and the foreign government that backed the winner would, of course, expect something in return for their help. The citizens of the newly split apart Neo-Confederate States may not like what their new foreign overlords might expect of them. Meet the new boss, worse than the old boss.

Yeah, okay. Ozzie and Harriet middle American, the people who believe in America as founded and the constitution would just love to get behind that plan. Not! Besides, it's doubtful that most Americans today know much about the civil war other than Lincoln freed the slaves and that to them was a good thing and they would resent any neo-confederate cranks trashing him.

In fact, aside from some neo-confederates, nobody else cares about some war that ended over 154 years ago and could care less about trying to re-fight it. Claims that the present managerial/nanny state was created by Lincoln because he wouldn't let southern 1%er oligarchs take their toys and go home in a hissy fit is unhistorical and false. That and there is no appetite in the general population for even a Hong Kong type of mass protest let alone a civil war. Anyway, this is all academic and history is just boring to normies. You'll never win them over this way by being a history nerd and an obsessive crank.

If anything, this abrasive provincialism and monomanical fixation on single causes for all our troubles (like "it's all the Joos fault") and making enemies of anyone outside of one's own town, the grouches whose country goes no further than the tip of their noses or favorite cause fetish is not only counterproductive but a sure-fire failure. Just as with the "I hate the poh-leese" types where cops are all to be considered the enemies of all the true right crowd, the supporters of 4GW/CW2 would have to be some kind of super ninja warriors to single-handedly defeat all those enemies all by themselves. Although the vast majority of them shy away from any form of public demonstration that might mean a direct confrontation with antifa which would be "bad optics" and they would get into trouble with the law. So these characters most likely only super ninja warriors of the keyboard distinctly lacking a real pair of balls.

Capturing the moral high ground, gaining at least the tacit approval the majority of white middle America should be the primary goal. Not alienating them with crackpot ideas. Then allies are necessary even if we have to make some concessions to agree to disagree over minor differences of opinion, where they live or what job they have. Understand that the enemy who is actively working to destroy you is on the left of the political spectrum, not to the left of you on the right side of the spectrum.

Now a trip to fantasy land:
Even secession (a bad idea but a real possibility) as an idea surpasses the white ethnostate which a single nation/tribe of generic white people which has never existed will be created. Generic whites are cheaper than buying name brand whites I suppose.

That the United States could split apart is a possibility. But this ethnostate nation of white only comes equipped with a virtual plan to plan the final plan to peacefully remove all non-whites from designated white states and create a new, fully assimilated pan-white nation. The exact means by which this is to take place are yet to be determined by Spencer's Underpants Gnome consultants who are still working on setting up step 2 question marks.

Although proponents of the ethnostate are correct about it being more politically and socially stable than multicultural empires, assuming a population with an average IQ over 95. But Spencerian magical thinking has not yet conceived of a means of uniting American whites who come from a number of different European national ancestries which many still cling to. The European Union is having a good deal of trouble doing this now which is why they gave up and began implementing a population replacement plan.

So barring some incredible and as yet unimaginable occurrences, the American white ethnostate is unlikely to come into being without a virtually impossible assimilation into a pan-white monoculture  and some serious bloodshed any time soon if ever. However, considering recent release of Spencer's megalomaniacal rantings in the aftermath of the Unite the Right Charlottsville debacle, the alt-right would appear to be finally dead and buried.

Finally let's look at a revamped, re-imagined constitution 2.0 because you know, constitution 1.0 wasn't perfect and failed to make government people obey it. It boggles the mind how people on the right are quick to accept leftist thinking that if one law or set of rules aren't being followed, the solution is to implement another set of rules or laws. But then again, there are some voices on the right that unthinkingly accept the left's post-modern ambiguity about the left-right spectrum (a previous post on the subject here) as where they come to define themselves on the right as the not-left. Brilliant, no? Leftists use this ambiguity and fuzzy definitions of words and phrases to always tilt the game board in their favor as always being on the right side of history so rightists who fall into the trap of gnostic thinking are inevitably doomed to lose. The right must firmly and logically define itself as a basic principle of attracting more adherents and fellow travelers.

To get back on topic, the reason constitution 2.0, 3.1, etc. is nonsense is that it is naive to think that a political and bureaucratic establishment who didn't follow the old set of rules will now follow the new set of rules. Even with a complete replacement of the political and bureaucratic establishment.

People who espouse this idea are incapable of getting their heads around the fact that it is the human element at fault, not some words written on a piece of paper no matter what font is used or how large the print. Rules and laws only have meaning if first, they are followed or obeyed and second, if violators are caught and held accountable. Demanding new laws or constitutions because the old ones are not perfect and are not being obeyed is too simplistic and utterly childish. More on this can be found in previous posts here and here.

For the dissident right and the alt-right to point out conservative failures is correct and justified. Conservatism has indeed failed. If the conservatives have in fact even failed to conserve the women's bathroom then where are the successes of the dissident right or the alt-right that proves theirs is the better path? Has Vox Day or the Z-man and the dissident right successfully purged the lady's room of men in sundresses yet? Perhaps people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones after all or at least get one win on the boards first.

Lawful means of political, social and cultural change and support of the constitution is essential to gaining the moral high ground by exhausting all possibilities of peaceful redress of grievances and if unsuccessful, ensuring this is visible to one and all before more extreme possibilities are suggested.

The cranks need not be completely read out of the movement as long as it is made explicitly clear by them that the kooky ideas they espouse are just ideas being explored, intellectual exercises in debate and what if or simple fun with trolling in the comments section. That these are not serious proposals meant to be real-world, working solutions. But the real disaffected and alienated weirdos looking for someplace to belong should be excluded. Here the Z man makes an excellent point that the right should not just accept anyone who'll join but should take the time and effort to vet newcomers in an effort to weed out the weirdos.

In matters that conservatives must address:
What should be read out of conservatism (and the right in general) are the 1960's type liberals, moderates and leftists who delude themselves that they are on the right. Such characters include the neo-cons, the for-hire conservative inc. grifters and national socialists respectively. What conservatives should also avoid is carrying water for Israeli concerns where they will give their full-throated support for Israel as the Jewish ethnostate and Israeli nationalism then to hypocritically deny and condemn American nationalism and heritage Americans. The Israeli people are more than capable of looking out for their own interests and their own nation and American conservatism should be first and foremost American nationalists.

Whereas it is acceptable and in American interest to view the State of Israel as a United States ally, the sycophantic chants of America's greatest ally and support for American involvement middle-east wars for only Israel's benefit is both nauseatingly unctuous and a waste of blood and treasure.

Overall, this is a matter that the rank and file conservatives who in the comments section condemn the liberal impostors should be better organized at boycotting those publications that publish that sort of drivel. However, the recent groyper rebellion has been having some success in unmasking such liberal wolves in conservative sheep's clothing and other assorted conservative inc. grifters and opportunists. It is a good sign that conservatives are starting to take the initiative in cleaning up the conservative brand and being a youth movement shows it will hold in the long run. But the groypers should be directly labeling neo-cons as liberals and people of the left.

Further, conservatives should let owners/editors of these publications know they get no subscribers or readers unless they clean up their act and read more nationalist, dissident right or paleo/tradcon publications that better reflect their views. For the conservative, this means being more tolerant of views that they may view as too extreme or crankish. If the conservative gives them a fair read with an open mind, then the views expressed might not really be as extreme or crankish then at first blush. If you can agree on at least 80% or 85% with what other bloggers and authors write, then they're worth following.

The right must have a clear definition of itself and needs to be unified in purpose and goals if it is to act as any sort of opposition to the left. The left already has those attributes and that is the primary reason why the left has been so successful in its long march through the institutions. Final political victory still eludes them but while we on the right dither away with silly plots and ideas, attacking one another, the left is still marching towards final victory. But hey, we're the American right. It's what we do.



Donald Cavaioli

Summer of 1914 in color

A fine looking summer day in 1914, 2nd Avenue and 59th Street in Sunset Park Brooklyn...

The motorman of Briggs 1899 model streetcar has his right hand on the brake and his left hand on the throttle as if he were undecided if he should hit the brake and let the fellow in the brown suit and straw boater hat cross or push the throttle and take a chance on not hitting the pedestrian. The Briggs car is in the green livery of the Brooklyn City Railroad and this being prior to 1918 would be in the good old days of the BRT. It's days worth of work to get the colors right and a challenge to get details like the sky reflected in the Briggs car front window but I do think I got that detail right. Colorizing B&W photos and making them look good is sometimes in little details like that.

This one is a bit more color saturated than I would like and I probably should have put more work into getting the color of the building in the background just right but it does sort of have that 1970's Kodachrome look to it. Just like an old photo should.

As usual, the original B&W photo is from my favorite source for colorizing candidates, NYC Subway.org.



Donald Cavaioli

Do You Believe in Science?

Should I believe in science as pop culture would define it?

No. Nobody should believe in science any more than anyone should simply believe in math.


Now, would this imply that Custodia Sepulchrum goes in for promulgating a 4000 year old flat Earth over which the sun, moon, planets and stars orbit around? Or that the Apollo moon landings were not only hoaxes but there are no rockets launching astronauts into space? Nope.

This sort of caricature is the sort of false dichotomy that grifters and idiots use to discredit anyone not buying into either their scam or their imbecilic view of the world and what they fear.

It's just that science is not a belief system. We do not accept what scientists tell us as an article of faith, just trust that they're right. It's that scientists prove theories through repeatable experiments or with models that make predictions that are verified empirically. If you want to believe in something, find a religion. Science is based on accurate and precise measurements of the physical world around us, theories are always open to dispute and are often replaced by new theories that better explain observations and measurements. Skepticism and questioning and debating theories old and new are the very heart of science. Otherwise, science would never progress.

To say something is "settled science" just as to ask if one "believes in science" is not science but a pop-culture religion that bastardizes the word science so that I'll denote as "SCIENCE!".

Let's look at the latest "settled science" blaring headlines of imminent doom "SCIENCE!" fad: Climate change!

So do I believe in climate change?

This latest incarnation of apocalypse porn to either sell us more crony capitalist goods and services nobody wants or needs or to justify the further expansion in size and power of the managerial/nanny state. Of course climate changes over time and it's been happening since this planet was formed. In fact, the Earth has had four different atmospheres since its formation and has been for the most part hot house Earth interspersed with periodic ice ages. To think that humans contributing 10% of all carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is going to send the planet into a fiery death spiral after surviving 5 major extinction events with the last one most likely caused by a 10 Km asteroid impact. Read what a mess that caused here and honestly tell me CO2 going from 380 ppm (that's parts per million) to 400 ppm, which is .04%, 4 hundredths of one percent, has caused anything even within less than several of orders of magnitude as bad. Show me anything bad that's happened because of CO2 and I mean real things not some computer model based on maybe or could be. Computer models, by the way, like the GCM models of CMIP that haven't gotten any predictions right yet. Prove it, that's real science. Further, I doubt we humans can top the environmental damage of the Chicxulub impactor even if we try.

So 400 ppm CO2 is horrifying? Well, after the unbreathable primordial atmosphere of the Hadean Eon 4.5 to 4 billion years ago, through a still unbreathable atmosphere of mostly CO2/nitrogen to the breathable carboniferous period of 358 million years ago, the world didn't end. Even with 800 ppm to even 1700 ppm CO2 up through the end of the Cretaceous period 65 million years ago . Faint young sun? That's only a hypothesis- prove it.

So, no I don't "believe" in climate change, I accept that climate changes over time and life adapts and goes on as fact. But I don't accept the hyperbolic ravings of green neo-puritans with their fire and brimstone sermons based only on fear mongering. Greta and her "how dare you" can go shove it. This isn't science but "SCIENCE!". I accept science when it shows proof.

Science, insist on the real thing with provable facts,  never settle for cheap imitations.


Donald Cavaioli

Nothing Much

Nothing much to write about today as I've been kind of busy with other things so I'll leave you with this some photos from Flushing Meadows Corona Park known by the locals as The World's Fair and these are my own photos, by the way.
Back tomorrow hopefully with something better.

The Unisphere theme center of the 1964-65 New York World's Fair, Peace Through Understanding. The world is big but you can see through it and an impressive engineering feat of design and construction. Especially cool is how the three orbital rings are held in place by such thin wire lie the spokes of a bicycle wheel.

And at night:

The New York State Pavilion from the 1964-65 New York World's Fair. The Tent of Tomorrow (the future and the space age being big things back then) and the three observation towers.

I sure wish I was born much earlier than I was so I could have seen the Fair for myself instead of just looking at the slowly decaying remains and some old photos. But I suppose watching over the remains of a more optimistic and forward looking past is what it means to be the Custodia Sepulchrum. I suppose somebody's gotta do it and it seems I'm the only one interested in taking on the job. If only there was a paycheck in it....



Donald Cavaioli

Yesterday and Today II: Around the corner 17 years later

 Back to yesterday at Seneca Avenue and Dekalb Avenue trolley terminal and Dekalb repair shops in old Queens on the border of Brooklyn for a peek around the corner.

Here is a photo of a Peter Witt car at the Seneca Avenue terminal of the Dekalb Ave line as the photo appears in the collection of NYC Subway.org. The photo is dated September 22, 1935. Yesterday but 17 years later than when that BRT Tauton repair car was parked around the corner on the right.

But let's add some new life into it:

The scene colorized and probably very close to how the people waiting inside the car would have seen this view. The Peter Witt car turned out to be dark green. A bit of a surprise as a pre-1940 NYC Board of Transportation takeover and the light bottle green livery. So I expected it to be in the usual B&QT red livery. But no, the red didn't look right, a bit over saturated and didn't blend naturally with the other colors. Recolored's usual way of saying you picked the wrong color. So the red was removed and the colorize button was clicked and the streetcar uncolored took on a greenish hue. That was it- the color is green.

Turns out after a bit of research that the old Dekalb Ave line was operated in the 1920's and 30's by a BMT/B&QT subsidiary of the Brooklyn City Rail Road (BCRR) whose livery was dark green with yellow trim. So recolored did not steer me wrong. For the flowers I picked a flowery color of lavender because it looked to me what a flower should be colored even if I know nothing of flowers, plants and stuff. I'm more a machine and electronics guy- especially antique and vintage electronics.

So if the ghost of that long dead Peter Witt car and her passengers were to appear to us today in the spot on which she sat on September 22, 1935, she would be blocking the rear parking lot entrance of here:

The front of the Peter Witt (on the left in the above recolored photo) would be facing us from the Associated supermarket parking lot (on the right). This photo I clipped from Google Maps I should add. I should make it a point to do my grocery shopping there in the hopes of better prices than Stop n Shop and perhaps to run into one of yesterday's apparitions. I want to ask what color those flowers planted in the 20's and 30's were.

Too bad they didn't keep the old B&QT office building and put the supermarket in it. This might have helped out with having the ghosts hanging around there for me to pester with such banal questions.


Donald Cavaioli

The Americans

What makes an American and their culture, the original post-colonial era Americans what they were. Just to spitball some theories, some of which are pure speculation based on certain observations. Thinking out loud, so to speak, to follow the line of reasoning and see where it takes us on this long, somewhat rambling post. It is something of an off-shoot of my previous posts, the peasant mindset and the peasant mindset II (as even a servile subject can have enough), as the concept of what is an American would appear to be intertwined with that as well as blood to some degree and culture.

We could say they were or are fundamentally based on British with its Magna Carta and rights of Englishmen with the white Anglo-Saxon protestant morality and work ethic. But it is more than that. It was a spirit of independence where one could rise as far and as high as one's talent's, energy and ability could lead them, differing from their brethren back in the motherland. And not to be overlooked was their rejection of a hereditary based social caste system. People who could not tolerate a master or betters.

This independent attitude and refusal to acknowledge the innate superiority of their rulers would appear to be a problem for an orderly strong man European monarchy. But what, in seventeenth century Britain, is to be done with these malcontents who may desire liberty, but obviously, simply do not want to grovel to a master and obey all his betters tell him just as the majority of the population willingly do. The solution for this sort of independent, go it alone type of weirdo (as any sensible peasant or nobleman would have viewed them) was to have them shipped off to the colonies in the new world and let them hack out towns and cities from the wilderness. It was a good way for the aristocracy to get rid of these malcontents, caused less anxiety for the good peasantry, and put their restless energies to good colonial and mercantilist use.

Then the colonists wanting for complete independence from the mother country was inevitable, finding even minimal obedience and servility to an aristocracy even if they were across an ocean to be extremely distasteful, and the spat over a relatively small 2 percent tax issue and demands for a parliamentary representation was just as good as reason for independence as any. Even if representatives of the colonists and King George III had come to some sort of agreement, the type of people who lived in the colonies likely sooner or later would have pushed for independence and wouldn't have it any other way.

It must be noted that the citizens of the 13 colonies and later the new nation, those who lived in the thirteen colonies prior to July 4, 1776 were not of a single nationality. As well, the revolutionary war was not popular with the majority of colonists, estimated at not quite half, about 40% to 45% supporting (which was enough a critical mass to fight for independence) and a vocal Tory remainer contingent estimated at 20% to 25% with the other 30% to 40% not saying much, going along to get along.

When independence from England was formally recognized after their defeat, the new ethnicity called Americans then formed a system of government according to their nature. Or at least to the nature of the New England descendants of the puritans who weren't not the only Christian sect but also not the only European nationality in the newly formed United States.

When the colonies in the new world declared their independence from England in 1776, the population were mostly English, Irish, Scots or Scotch-Irish, along with Germans at about 30% of the population, Dutch, French with a few freed black slaves, a smattering of Poles and Jews among others. It was not a single ethnicity but a mixed bag of different European nationalities which may or may not include Jews depending on one's view of the subject. Aside from the Germans, I could not find any good demographic numbers for any of the other European ethnic minorities in the mid-18th century. Nor could it be found the percentages of Scotch-Irish and English WASPs.

It should be noted that these different European nationalities were in the past, often rivals or at war with each other. So smoothing away old differences and forming a new national identity and unique culture would take time and isolation to develop. A difficult task considering the colonists couldn't even come to a majority agreement on whether or not to declare independence from the British Empire.

In light of this, it may be legitimately asked exactly what is an ethnic or heritage American beyond anyone alive in the 13 colonies prior to the American Revolution and their descendants? If one were to say a white Anglo-Saxon Protestant, or rather an Englishman, New England puritan or descendant thereof, they may or may not have been a majority of the population in the colonies even though their culture predominated. The Scotch-Irish colonists were Celtic people and although closely aligned with the English, still a different people with their own history and culture and were at times even hostile to the English.

But what of the Germans of Pennsylvania of whom Benjamin Franklin expressed doubts as to their assimilation into or compatibility with the dominant WASP culture and even today as the Pennsylvania Dutch maintain a unique culture of their own? They are, as any proponent of the heritage or ethnic American concept, just as much a heritage or ethnic American as anyone of English descent and whose ancestors fought in the American Revolution and every subsequent war the United States has been involved in. Yet they differ in culture both ancestral and present day. Just as much as anyone of Dutch, Belgian or Huguenot descent.

That is unless a purity spiral were to start among those who would discuss the topic which should include true WASP blood, how many verifiable colonial era ancestors the heritage American can lay claim to and what the minimum number should be for real bragging rights.

In any event, a new country needs a new government. First was the Articles of Confederation intended to protect popular liberty with a weak central government but the founders discovered roughneck individualist types quickly set on each other such that there was political and economic chaos between the states which threatened collapse. Our present constitution ratified on June 21, 1787 was a carefully balanced series of compromises, based on a gentlemen's agreement to obey it. This allowed for a stronger federal government but still respected the American citizen's natural individual rights and property rights as well as an unspoken freedom of association. This emphasis on individual and property rights, Protestant work ethic, and a gentlemen's agreement on the citizen's natural rights that the constitutionally limited federal government would respect would be the core of what could have been the culture of the ethnic Americans. That is, had they been able to fully amalgamate the mix of people already there and develop and clarify this culture without letting in waves of new, more servile peasant-minded immigrants comfortable with traditional old-world, strong man monarchies and later socialism to further muddy the waters.

Here it might be tempting to invoke the nation of immigrants as previously noted and ethnic/cultural homogeneity is important to form a cohesive nation. The now former colonists and newly minted Americans were still mostly united in a more what we could describe today as a classical liberal outlook with libertarian overtones. It was this general view of things, in my opinion, that helped paper over cultural differences making part of this nation based on a general agreement on certain principals and which the sub-cultures are close enough alike to make it all work.

Eventually it would have formed the American which over time should have eroded away or absorbed ethnic and religious differences and amalgamated into an authentic, new heritage or ethnic American had they remained isolated from newcomers. But for a new and growing country in the early to mid nineteenth century with dreams of manifest destiny and an industrial revolution needing more workers, waiting for the ethnic American founding stock to raise enough children on their own was not enough. Immigration was necessary even if the founding stock WASPs found it distasteful but for the some who held sway, politically advantageous and for others, profitable in cheap labor.

If it is true that subsequent waves of different European immigrants did gradually alter the political, social and cultural landscape of America, it is equally true that this was with the general agreement of the ruling WASP Americans and thus the heritage American of that era was complicit in these changes. It was a precedent that like a machine once set in motion began to accelerate along the direction it was initially set on coming to its logical endpoint of the Nation of Immigrants rhetoric, the 1965 Hart-Celler Act ending up with now virtually unrestricted immigration both legal and tacitly accepted illegal immigration. If the heritage American WASP is rightfully unhappy with the current state of affairs, most of the blame for starting it lies with his ancestors.

In conclusion, most of what is an American can be seen in the sense of the heritage American with ancestry going back to the founding ignoring whether those ancestors were English and/or Scotch-Irish or Germans, Dutch, etc. more or less united in a set of preferences and attitudes. This is a function of the culture of European non-preasant mindset outliers and should not be confused with the concept of a nation founded on ideals.

So the ethnic American is not really a nationality in the strict definition of the word as the U.S. was not founded by a single tribe or confederation of closely related tribes creating a country and civilization built on the ruins of previous ancestor civilizations.

So heritage American would be a better term describing present Americans with pre-revolutionary ancestry and with traditional WASP culture.

This is a whole new country carved out of a wilderness, displacing the previous immigrants who settled here from Siberia anywhere from 12,000 to 18,000 years ago. This makes the concept of an ethnic American tricky unless painted with a very broad brush. The composition of the former colonists at the founding used as justification for the present nation of immigrants narrative would be a gross oversimplification and wrong. It must be noted it was mostly immigrants from similar European Christian cultures and most importantly, mostly of people with an individualistic, non-preasant mindset.

Given a thousand or so years, a collapsed civilization or two, taking in almost no new immigrants going forward, a true ethnic American will develop. But for now, it's just too new of a country.


Donald Cavaioli