Requiem For a Viszla

Dana Perino’s eulogy for “America’s Dog”, Jasper the Viszla:

Jasper was first on “The Five” in June 2012, a tiny puppy that I could easily hold in my arms. I think he slept through that first appearance, but a star was born.

I couldn’t help bringing up Jasper and his antics on air. Greg Gutfeld loved to tease me about it, which made me do it more. He even came up with a fake dog of his named Casper. No one knows what happened to Casper. Somebody check Greg’s basement, please.

I would post photos of Jasper and all his antics and adventures. People got a kick out of his “lil’ ear” – half of his left ear was missing – perhaps bitten off by a sibling when they were fighting for room in the womb. It gave him real character.

A viewer of “The Five,” FiveFanPhotoshops (now a good friend and my illustrator for Let Me Tell You About Jasper), created incredible pictures of Jasper in all sorts of places – the U.S. Open, the World Cup, presidential debates, and even space.

They were remarkable, made people laugh, and even fooled people “Is that real?”

His following grew. Soon, people were asking about Jasper more often than about politics. And that suited me just fine.

TSA agents would ask if I’d packed Jasper in the suitcase. Police officers would ask me, “How’s Jasper today?” Fans visiting New York City would be on the lookout for him as well. Once, a jogger in Central Park stopped us.

“Oh wow, is that Jasper?” Yes. Would he like a photo? Absolutely.

So, I asked Peter to take the picture with the man’s camera, and went to get in the shot.

“Oh….um, just Jasper.”

Oh. Yes, of course. My star was happily eclipsed.

This weekend we heard from a woman who was visiting Manhattan last winter with her sister. She made her get up early and dragged her to a certain spot in the park at 7:15 a.m. where she hoped to catch a glimpse of Jasper. To their delight, there he was with Peter, looking for fish in the pond. She got pictures with the dog she knew through social media and Fox News. She contacted us this weekend to send her condolences and said that meeting Jasper was the highlight of her trip.

I’ve heard from friends and strangers who said they’d never been dog people until Jasper. Some became dog owners because they wanted to experience that special bond as well. Others had just followed him because he was nicknamed America’s Dog on “Red Eye” (that was the show before Gutfeld Exclamation Point)– not because we thought he was better than any other dog, but because I said I’d be happy to share Jasper with everyone. I’d do all the work, and they could claim him as one of their own.

When the pandemic shutdowns started in March 2020, I added a Facebook Live reading for kids every afternoon for 15 minutes. I didn’t plan on having Jasper be a part of them, but he insisted on sitting next to me. He’d look at the camera or at the book’s illustrations, and the kids (and the parents and grandparents watching alone) loved it. I got a note from one of those parents this weekend – their kids still remembered Jasper’s readings and considered him their dog, too.

At Fox News, everyone knew of Jasper – and even though he didn’t come to work with me, his presence was felt there as well. The producers of “The Five” knew him his entire life and have indulged me with his appearances. Jasper gave us a lot of material to work with.

Staff throughout the building would ask about him, and they’d post his funny photos and videos to the website. One of the best was when Peter and Jasper rode a Harley and sidecar in a Fourth of July parade in Batman and Robin costumes, Jasper wearing his Doggles (no eye protection, no ride – Jasper knew the rules and never tried to take them off). We won “Best Dog” that year at the parade. America strong indeed. I was so proud.

RIP Jasper. Viszlas aren’t just the most beautiful dogs, they are the best dogs. Their earnest expressions, combined with their boundless, but dignified liking for everyone, makes them irresistible even to people who usually don’t like dogs. And they’re always up for anything, so long as it involves doing it with their family.


The Mark of the Australian Beast

Australia returns to its penal colony roots:

The Australian state of Victoria will “lock out” unvaccinated people from participating in the economy, Premier Dan Andrews has announced. Victoria is currently under draconian lockdown restrictions, with residents of Melbourne – who make up the vast majority of the state’s population – living under a 9pm to 5am curfew, forbidden from leaving their homes except to work, buy groceries, or get a Covid-19 vaccination. When the lockdown is lifted, Premier Dan Andrews said on Sunday, future restrictions will apply only to those who are unvaccinated.

“There is going to be a vaccinated economy, and you get to participate in that if you are vaccinated,” Andrews stated. “We’re going to move to a situation where, to protect the health system, we are going to lock out people who are not vaccinated and can be.”

So much for the once-vaunted courage of the ANZACs. What a lot of feeble sheep they are turning out to be! Historically they went to war for considerably less egregious violations of the rights of foreigners. Then again, on the plus side, this is sound encouragement for sane Australians to leave before China takes over the continent.

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Monday Arktoons

EMBER WAR Episode 17: The Crucible

SAVAGE MEMES Episode 13: Female Empowerment

ECONCOMICS Episode 11: The Grey Rainbow

GUN GHOUL Episode 18: God’s Hand of Vengeance

Gun Ghoul Episode 18

CALL FOR VOLUNTEERS:

Arktoons has grown substantially, with nearly 2 million views since launch, and is regularly setting new records for users and visits per day. We have a bunch of exciting new projects in the works. However, we could use more help taking these ideas from the drawing board to reality.

So, if you have Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator, and you can commit six or more hours a week to fight with us in the front lines of the culture war, then please contact ArkhavenComics-AT-outlook-DOT-com.


Means vs Ends

A programmer rightly condemns the code-first approach to programming:

There are two kinds of programmers, generally speaking. There are programmers who care more about code, and there are programmers who care more about product. The former – I’ll call them “code-first” programmers – are obsessed with how code is architected, what tools, libraries and languages are used, how much test coverage there is – stuff like that. Code-first programmers are psyched when they check in the perfect abstraction, when they get to use the latest language-feature, when they delete dead code. That is, they love the code they write – the code is the thing.

The product-first programmer cares about that stuff too, kind of, but only as a means to an end. For product-first programmers, the code is the scaffolding, the support, the steel beams in the building, but not the end product. The end product is, well, the product, not the code, and what matters to them is how well that product actually solves the underlying problem. Does the building stay upright? Do the elevators work? Is the A/C functioning? Do people like being there? Product-first programmers love building and launching and seeing users use what they’ve built. The product is the thing.

Anyone who has worked at a place like Google has met plenty of code-first programmers. They are the teammates who are always refactoring code and nit-picking spelling in your function comments. They are in the micro-kitchen complaining about “spaghetti code,” “technical debt,” and the lack of rigor in other teams’ code review processes. They are probably not fixing bugs or launching features. You can probably tell I’m not a huge fan of the code-first approach.

When I interview programmers I’m always amazed at how many of them seem to think the code-first approach is what I’m looking for. Trying to impress me, they ask: “What’s your unit test coverage like?” Pretty close to zero; this is a startup. “Do you guys use hot new technology X.” Not yet, no, how would that help us build the right thing faster? “Is there a lot of technical debt?” We will have to rewrite everything at some point, but it doesn’t matter right now because we haven’t even figured out the right thing to build.

They have an understandable but fundamental misconception of what programming is all about. Programming is about building products that solve problems for users not about writing beautiful code for its own sake.

It can be remarkable how difficult it is to convince people, in a wide variety of activities and occupations, that it is the ends, and not the means, that are the actual objective. Whether it is businessmen planning new ventures, people getting involved in politics, or sports teams taking the field, the confusion of means with ends and process with results almost inevitably results in eventual failure.

Process is important, but only with the context of achieving the desired results. It is not important in and of itself.

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Evil Britain Seeks to Vaccinate Kids

And they’re even planning to evade any requirement for parental consent. Of course, those wise 12-year-olds who have “enough maturity” to elect to get vaccinated won’t be paying the bills for the medical treatment they’ll require for the adverse effects. And neither will the British Medical Association nor the British government that is now pushing the worse-than-useless shots on children:

Some 12-year-olds have ‘enough maturity’ to decide whether to get a Covid vaccine, a British Medical Association chief claimed today amid a row over jabbing children.

Dr David Strain claimed youngsters aged 12 to 15 were capable of weighing up the benefits of vaccination against the small risk of serious side effects.He claimed they should be able to overrule their parents’ wishes and get the injection if officials sign off on the plans this week.

Vaccines minister Nadhim Zahawi said yesterday that children would be able to get the vaccine against their parents’ wishes if it is made available for the age group.

The awful consequences of this evil attempt to sacrifice the children for the benefit of keeping Britain’s Boomers alive can already be observed.

An FA Youth Cup match was abandoned Thursday evening as a young footballer was rushed to hospital after suffering a ‘cardiac arrest’ on the pitch.

Fans have been asked to leave the stands after the match between West Bridgford Colts and Boston United was abandoned on Thursday evening.

The game was being held at Regatta Way Sports Ground, the home stadium of the West Bridgford Colts in Gamston, Nottinghamshire.

Eyewitnesses reported a player remaining unresponsive after receiving ‘multiple’ shocks from a defibrillator.

The player, reportedly a member of West Bridford’s team, has been taken to Queen’s Medical Centre in Nottingham as paramedics battle to save his life.

Three ambulances, including the air unit, attended the scene as emergency services rushed to revive him.

UPDATE: The BBC has confirmed the death of the 17-year-old player.

This is pure and unmitigated evil. There is no scientific or medical justification for injecting these awful poisons into children. None whatsoever. These vaccines are murder by medicine.

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From Theory to Reality

We have no plans to introduce vaccine passports. We have vaccinated, as of yesterday, 2,431,648 first dose and 412,167 second dose. No one has been given or will be required to have a vaccine passport

Vaccine Minister Nadhim Zahawi, 10 January 2021

Mr. Zahawi, presumably of the Oxford Zahawis, who is obviously every bit as British as any Angle, any Saxon, and any descendant of Alfred the Great, has unaccountably changed his tune of late.

Nadhim Zahawi today confirmed vaccine passports will be required to gain entry to large venues, arguing the documents are the ‘best way’ to avoid winter Covid closures. The Vaccine Minister said the Government is concerned large venues ‘could end up causing a real spike in infections’ because of groups of people mixing in close proximity.

Minister Nadhim Zahawi confirms vaccine passports WILL be required for entry to large venues from October to avoid winter closures, Daily Mail, 5 September 2021

Nine months is all it requires for conspiracy theory to become conspiracy reality these days. In a more honest and accurate word, conspiracy theorists would be described as spoiler alerts.



ER Doctor Lied About Ivermectin ODs

The Vaccine Nazis must be running short on crisis actors since they’re now hiring actual doctors to publicly lie about the state of the hospitals. Oklahoma ER doctor Dr. Jason McElyea very publicly claimed that people overdosing on ivermectin were causing emergency rooms to be “so backed up that gunshot victims were having hard times getting” access to health facilities.

As always, anything you read in the mainstream media is the one thing you can be certain is not true. Of all the things that never happened, this never happened the most.

The hospital McElyea worked for, NHS Sequoyah, located in Sallisaw, Oklahoma – just issued a statement disavowing McElyea’s claims.

Although Dr. Jason McElyea is not an employee of NHS Sequoyah, he is affiliated with a medical staffing group that provides coverage for our emergency room.

With that said, Dr. McElyea has not worked at our Sallisaw location in over 2 months.

NHS Sequoyah has not treated any patients due to complications related to taking ivermectin. This includes not treating any patients for ivermectin overdose.

All patients who have visited our emergency room have received medical attention as appropriate. Our hospital has not had to turn away any patients seeking emergency care.

We want to reassure our community that our staff is working hard to provide quality healthcare to all patients. We appreciate the opportunity to clarify this issue and as always, we value our community’s support.

Forget being “overwhelmed”. They haven’t even treated ONE SINGLE PATIENT for an Ivermectin overdose. Not one! Please, for the love of God and all that is Good, Beautiful, and True, please keep this incident in mind the next time you see an anecdotal report provided by a doctor in the media. The medical community is corrupted. Many of the doctors speaking out publicly are liars, when they aren’t fake doctors in the first place. Their statements cannot be trusted to even the slightest degree. And if their statements are in line with the Vaccine Nazi regime, they should be assumed to be lying in defense of the Narrative.

Do not EVER believe anything reported in the mainstream news. Be deeply suspicious even if they report that water is wet or that the sun rose in the east this morning.

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Prove the Damages

Remington isn’t rolling over for the lawsuit against it related to the alleged Sandy Hook school shootings:

Gun company Remington has subpoenaed the report cards, attendance records, and disciplinary records of five kindergarten and first grade students murdered in the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, according to new court filings in a civil lawsuit filed against the company.

“In mid-July, the defense served a subpoena on the Newtown Public School District seeking: ‘Any and all educational records in your possession including but not limited to, application and admission paperwork, attendance records, transcripts, report cards, disciplinary records, correspondence and any and all other educational information and records pertaining to’ each of the five first-graders whose Estates are plaintiffs in this case,” according to the motion filed today that sought to protect the victims’ families from further subpoenas. “There is no conceivable way that these [records] will assist Remington in its defense, and the plaintiffs do not understand why Remington would invade the families’ privacy with such a request. Nonetheless, this personal and private information has been produced to Remington.”

In addition, Remington subpoenaed employment records of four teachers who were killed in the shooting, in which a total of 20 children and six adults died.

Of course there is a perfectly conceivable way those records, or rather, their sudden and comprehensive disappearance, will assist Remington in its defense, and the response of the plaintiff’s attorneys proves it. Because it is obvious that Remington’s lawyers are aware of the possibility that those “murdered children” did not even exist in the first place, or that they were crisis actors who never actually attended the school. And the burden of proof that they did attend the school lies squarely with the plaintiffs.

Unless the whole thing is just a show trial run by a corrupt judge, no amount of “invasion of privacy’ is going to prevent the plaintiffs from having to prove they suffered the damages they claim to have suffered.

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