Tag Archives: travel

Minnesota Vikings are not changing their name to the Minnesota Somali Pirates – yet

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The Babylon Bee – America’s unofficial newspaper of record – said they are indeed, but it turns out to be satire.

I think.

The Bee’s piece was in the heavy wake of a story that Somalis in Minnesota bilked the government out of something like a billion dollars. I say “billion” not in the way I say “gazillion.” The figure is actually, literally – and by “literally” I don’t mean figuratively – something like . . . a billion dollars.

Their scheme was to send bills to the Minnesota state government for providing various forms of welfare relief to the public. It took off during Covid when the government all but legalized fraud because the best way to defeat a pandemic is to close the schools, print money, and drop it from helicopters.

Somali groups would set up phony organizations pretending to provide whatnot, from affordable housing to food for children, and send the government fake invoices for it.

Which the government happily paid.

There were lots of clues for a long time that the whole thing was a scam. The Wall Street Journal reports “The massive fraud was an open secret. Merrick Garland, who served as U.S. attorney general under Joe Biden, called it the largest pandemic-relief hustle in the nation” (emphasis added).

But this was Minnesota, full of “nice” Minnesotans and especially full of a governor who was very full of himself and fulsome aspirations. His name was Tim Walz, aka the 2024 Democratic Vice-Presidential candidate.

Rather than pursuing the abundant clues and whispers – nay, the smoking guns and shouts – of fraud, Walz waltzed on, out of deference to a key Democrat constituency – Somalis.  

Today’s Somalis in America, you see, are the descendants of Somalians who were enslaved in America three hundred years ago and discriminated against ever since and so they deserve special favors like legalized fraud.

Well, no, that’s not quite right. Today’s Somalis in America arrived in just the last decade or two. They fled a bloody war-torn Somalia to come to American in order to earn a piece of the American Dream.

Well, no, that’s not quite right either. They fled a bloody war-torn Somalia, alright, but they came to America to be beneficiaries of the modern American welfare state which flowers in nice Minnesota.

Well, no, even that’s not quite right. They fled a bloody war-torn Somalia and came to America to rip us off – while accusing us of racism all the while.

Two lessons can be learned from this. The obvious one is that the modern welfare state is out of control. It all but begs to be ripped off. The people paying for the rip-off are you and me, and it’s not pennies – it’s billions.

The second lesson is more controversial. Here’s a good summary of it:

[R]adical Islam has shown that their desire is not simply to occupy one part of the world and be happy with their own little caliphate; they want to expand.  It is a – it’s revolutionary in its nature.  It seeks to expand and control more territories and more people. 

And radical Islam has designs, openly, on the West – on the United States, on Europe.  We’ve seen that progress there as well.  And they are prepared to conduct acts of terrorism – in the case of Iran, nation-state actions, assassinations, murders, you name it.  Whatever it takes for them to gain their influence and ultimately their domination of different cultures and societies. 

That’s a clear and imminent threat to the world and to the broader West, but especially to the United States, who they identify as the chief source of evil on the planet.  

That statement was by Secretary of State Marco Rubio (whose parents were legal Cuban immigrants) in a recent interview.

Americans like to think that their diversity is a strength, and, up to a point, it is. But that strong diversity consists of groups such as Protestants from England, Catholics from Italy, Huguenots from France, Amish from Switzerland, and Jews from Poland. It even consists of Buddhists from China and Hindus from India.

Something that all those groups have in common is tolerance for other religions and, mostly, tolerance for other cultures. The concept of “infidel” is foreign to these groups.

Muslims are often different. The concept of “infidel” is alive and strong in Islam. They’ve sought to conquer Europe since the seventh century, and nearly succeeded several times. Even now – maybe especially now – many publicly name-call America “the Great Satan.”

Even Nazi Germany, imperial Japan, the Soviet Union and today’s communist China never called us “the Great Satan.” We Americans are semi-amused by that moniker, but the Muslims flinging it are dead serious.

They see the indigenous religions and culture of their adopted nation as evil. That’s a clever feat since, after all, their culture and religion failed in the place they fled, they came here voluntarily, and we welcomed them – complete with their religion and culture that looks down on us. But that’s how they see our cultures, our religions, and us.

Maybe part of the reason for their contempt for us is that they see us as suckers.

Muslims therefore tend not to seek assimilation into American culture, a culture they despise. They seek, more than the Irish, more than the Asians, more than the Jews, to maintain their particular identity and distinct culture.

And to impose it on us.

We’ve already seen what happens when Islam reaches a critical mass in a Western nation, as it has in France and is nearing in England. Within our lifetimes, it is likely that the Notre Dame and St. Paul’s will be converted into mosques.

You think that’s ridiculous? Bear in mind that the first great Christian cathedral was in Constantinople – the incredible Hagia Sophia. When Constantinople fell to the Muslims, they eventually changed the name of the city to Istanbul but they immediately mutilated the Hagia Sophia into a mosque by ripping out the altar and burning the Christian crosses and all other Christian symbols and art. The Hagia Sophia remains a mosque to this day. (BTW, where’s the Pope on this?)

Muslims conquer and they convert, at the point of a sword if necessary, and sometimes even if not.

Like most Americans, it goes against my grain to think we should discriminate against a particular religion and particular regions of the world in deciding who can immigrate into our nation. But this is an exception, and a very important one.

Rubio is right. We ignore him at our peril.

Ohh noooo, den-mark is mad at us!

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Nuuk, the capital of Greenland

Turns out, this is an actual country, not the name of a Cub Scout troop. And it’s not den-mark. It’s Denmark. And they don’t call themselves “Denmarkians. They call themselves “Danes.”

Anyway, the Danes are mad as hell. Or at least heck.

You see, back when the Spanish were looting the locals in South and Central America, and the Portuguese were lucratively, if inhumanely, trading slaves in what’s now Brazil, and the English were accidentally planting the seeds of a great republic in North America, the Danes were . . . [drum roll] . . .

. . . stealing ice from the Eskimos. Here’s the story.

But first, change “Eskimo” to “Inuit.” The word “Eskimo” went extinct in favor of “Inuit” about the time the predecessor word to “Black” went extinct in favor of “Black.” You see, “Eskimo” is the Inuit’s own word for “eater-of-raw-meat.” Which they were. (Have you ever tried to start and build a campfire on a glacier?) But they don’t like to be reminded of that fact.

To, um, engage with the Inuit people, the Danes (back when they were called Vikings – a demographic not known for being kind and gentle – and later the “Norse”) stole the home of the Inuit. They took what’s now Greenland.

The Danes got many of square kilometers that nobody but the Inuit wanted. After all, Greenland is roughly 50 times the size of Denmark. But the land is not exactly the Fertile Crescent. It’s not even the potato farms of Ireland. It’s mostly covered with ice year-round. (See, “eater-of-raw-meat,” above.)

Choosing the name “Greenland” for this icebox-in-need-of-defrosting was a nasty joke. The Danes named it that to encourage their fellow countrymen to colonize the place. Imagine their disappointment after a month at sea in the North Atlantic when their “green” new farms turned out to be glaciers.

Even so, the Danes’ colonies in Greenland survived, due in part to a climate that was warmer than today’s. Like most of the world, Greenland did better back when the climate was warmer, not colder, than today.

All this happened well after the greatest Dane in history, Laurence Olivier, also known as Hamlet, gave the answer, “to be.” (And then, he was. For a little while.)

“To be,” however, was not the fate of Greenland. They were never meant to be, even for a little while. There was no gold rush, no taming of the West or even the North, no railroads, no cattle ranches, no saloons, no nothin’. They didn’t even have slaves.

The icebox cruelly called Greenland still has a population of fewer than 57,000 people. That’s roughly the population of Bothell, Washington. There’s a reason you’ve never heard of Bothell, Washington.

Spread over a landmass, or rather ice mass, that is four times the size of Texas, this place called Greenland is one of the least-inhabited places on earth – second only to Antarctica, which the Danes would also have stolen from the Inuit except there were no Inuit there.

In WWII, Denmark declared itself neutral in an obvious attempt at appeasing Hitler. In a matter of days, Hitler’s armies marched through zero resistance in Denmark on their way to Paris. History tells us more about Danish pastry and Danish collaborators than Danish resistance.

After Denmark was overrun, Greenland was rescued by the Americans from the Nazis and their U-boat submarines. The Americans went on to rescue Europe and the world, then gifted Greenland back to Denmark. The Americans further gifted to Denmark – and the rest of western Europe – a massive rebuilding from the ruins of the war.  

Apart from those few years under the umbrella of America’s protection, it’s fair to say Greenland’s fortunes have been like her winters – endless darkness.

But in Greenland’s latitude above the Arctic Circle, the summer brings endless sun. Greenland may now be embarking on her summer, or at least her spring.

You see, the North Atlantic Ocean was unappealing to yesteryear’s conquistadors, but it is strategically important to today’s would-be conquistadors such as Vladimir Putin. Also, the ice sheets of Greenland show signs of shrinking due to Global whatever-they’re-now-calling-it. Greenland could wind up almost as warm as, oh, northern Alaska, in which case you could do all the things in Greenland that you now do in northern Alaska.

Like eat raw meat.

This literal and metaphorical turning of the seasons in Greenland has not gone unnoticed by the Americans. We have a National Weather Service, you know, which is on the lookout for such things when they’re not asleep at the flood-warning switch.

And so, our Troller-In-Chief told the Greenlanders that maybe he’ll just, you know . . . invade.

President Trump is not afraid to think and talk outside the box. Sometimes it seems like he lives there.

Greenland is still technically part of Denmark, sort of. They’re something like a colony, but without the success of one. So, the Danes took offense to this suggestion that America might liberate and protect the Greenlanders, as we did 84 years ago while Denmark was appeasing the Nazis.

That suggestion sent the popularity of America among the Danes south faster than a thermometer in Nuuk in November. The Wall Street Journal announced that this has “ended Denmark’s love affair with the U.S.”

Sheesh, can we still be good friends?

Building on the media’s typical everyone-hates-America story, the Journal interviewed some Danes who indeed do. They all had names that are unpronounceable and often unspellable. Suffice to say they’re real sad and kinda mad about their unrequited and now undone love for us.

But, they warned, if we make good on our threat to take over Greenland, they’ll . . . they’ll . . . they won’t talk to us anymore.

I admit I’m exaggerating their feebleness, but it’s for the noble purpose of mockery. The Danes’ real warning was more threatening, but just barely. Here’s the actual quote from a Danish military analyst (though I’m a little surprised such a job exists):

“I guess the rules of engagement would be, hand over the keys and take the next plane home, because there is very little we could actually do about it, and it would be sort of pointless to fight it because we have four dog sleds and some civilian police there, that’s it.”

In Greenland itself, they see this as more comedy than tragedy. Many of them have wanted to separate from Denmark for years, much as the Basque want to separate from Spain, the Welsh from Great Britain, and the Californicators from Earth.

In fact, I suspect the Greenlanders are pleased with the inordinate and unusual attention they’re receiving. On a per-person basis, Greenland’s icy escapade is more attention than Americans received when our 1980 hockey team performed the Miracle on Ice.

Maybe now we should troll the Greenlanders with a tweet and a smirk that we’ve found some other country, a younger and warmer one – maybe Fiji – to invade. But we can still be friends.

Aspen newspapers bury Aspen Skiing Company’s hateful diatribe against Trump

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Democracy dies when it gets buried

Right after the election, the CEO of Aspen Skiing Company, which runs Aspen and Snowmass resorts (known as “SkiCo” locally), was grieving. And he wanted everyone to know.

He sent a memo to all 1,500-some employees instructing them on “the gravity of what just occurred.” (This is all he knows about gravity, believe me – I’ve seen this guy ski.)

The memo CEO-splained that the election decision made by over half the nation was “openly at odds” with SkiCo’s values of:

“Equality, democracy, civility, compassion, tolerance, sustainability, open-mindedness, gratitude, freedom, integrity, and justice.”

When the biggest company in Aspen and the surrounding area, serving the public on public lands under favorable Forest Service leases, condemns over half of America – including many of its own employees and customers – for their purportedly undemocratic, uncivil, intolerant, unsustainable, close-minded, ungrateful, tyrannical and unjust election decision, that seems like news.

But the local newspapers didn’t report it. So I wrote a piece about it. My piece received significant attention.

I also sent a letter to the editor of one of those local newspapers that allegedly reports the news (in those few pages that are not devoted to real estate ads). It’s called the Aspen Daily News. My letter strictly observed their word limit and other rules.

They’ve been brimming with Trump-is-Hitler letters ever since the election, and before then too. I figured they might strike a bit of balance by publishing my letter calling out SkiCo for condemning as fascists half of America along with many of its own employees and customers.

I was wrong. The Aspen Daily News utterly ignored my letter.

 In their defense, their refusal might have been for reasons of money – it might have been because they’re whores to SkiCo as one if their biggest advertisers (apart from the ubiquitous real estate ads).

But it’s more likely that they’re just whores to the political left. Pitkin County went 71% for the Democrat, which is approximately 28% less than the political composition of the Aspen Daily News.

If it’s any consolation to me, and it is, the circulation of my piece far exceeded the circulation of the Aspen Daily News. But still, it rubs me wrong that a so-called newspaper is so blatantly biased in burying news.

And so, I’ll publish my letter here, where it will get substantially more readers than in the Aspen Daily News. (Now if I can just figure out how to accept real estate ads.) Here it is: 

In the wake of last week’s election, the CEO of the SkiCo companies circulated a “For Internal Distribution Only” memo to all 1,500-some of its employees bemoaning “the gravity of what just occurred.” He went on to complain that the election result was “openly at odds with some of the values [SkiCo] stands for.”

Those SkiCo values with which last week’s free and democratic election is at odds, the CEO said, are “equality, democracy, civility, compassion, tolerance, sustainability, open-mindedness, gratitude, freedom, integrity, and justice.”

SkiCo easily employs the largest number of people in the Roaring Fork Valley, its payroll is the largest in the Valley, and its customers are the Valley’s biggest source of revenue. Moreover, SkiCo enjoys leases of public lands at very favorable rates for the purpose of serving the public – all of them, regardless of race, color, sex, religion, or political beliefs.

Like anyone else, the CEO is entitled to his opinion that a majority of the country does not share his vaunted “values.” But foisting that opinion onto 1,500 employees that he has the power to fire, and onto hundreds of thousands of customers to whom he can deny lift tickets, is a tad heavy-handed. To use his own terminology, it’s not particularly tolerant.

I should mention that an esteemed friend who is prominent in the Aspen area also sent in a letter to the editor – to the other Aspen newspaper, the Aspen Times – objecting to the CEO’s coercive memo to his employees. (No, there’s not enough news in Aspen to support two daily newspapers, but there’s certainly enough real estate to advertise.) Her letter was similarly civil, and similarly unpublished.

Next time you drop $20k for a week in Aspen, consider where that money is going.

Aspen Skiing Company joins “The Resistance”

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Your correspondent has reviewed a memo labelled “For Internal Distribution Only” from the CEO of the company that owns and operates the skiing operations at Aspen and Snowmass (referred to locally as “SkiCo”).  

It’s a doozy.

Everyone knows that Aspen is rich and liberal. The billionaires crowded out the millionaires decades ago. What passes for “thinking” by think-tanks like the Aspen Institute is the notion that “balance” means hard-leftists like Madeline Albright and Jonathan Capehart on one side and soft-leftists like David Brooks and Liz Cheney on the other.

Years ago, SkiCo decried Donald Trump’s enforcement of America’s immigration laws. Enforcement of those duly enacted American laws, they declared, was un-American. (Coincidentally, enforcement of the immigration laws also impacted SkiCo’s supply of low-paid workers.)

So maybe it shouldn’t be a surprise to see SkiCo’s reaction to the election. Still, it’s worth noting, especially if you happen to be one of their customers.

The memo from the CEO to employees begins by bemoaning “the gravity of what just occurred.” A majority of voters, he said, chose “a vision that can be viewed as openly at odds with some of the values [SkiCo] stands for.”

In case you don’t get the drift, the CEO helpfully spells it out. SkiCo’s self-declared “values” with which he contends over half of America is “openly at odds” are:

“Equality, democracy, civility, compassion, tolerance, sustainability, open-mindedness, gratitude, freedom, integrity, and justice.”

In short, in the public opinion of the CEO of SkiCo, the election represents a triumph of the opposite of all that. It represents a triumph of inequality, anti-democracy, incivility, unsustainability, close-mindedness, ingratitude, tyranny, and injustice.

He fails to explain how an open election, in which a candidate won a majority of both the people and the Electoral College, is anti-democratic. Perhaps he meant anti-Democrat.

Oh, and intolerance. With no sense of irony or self-awareness, the CEO of SkiCo – the leader of a prominent company offering services to the public with the power to fire employees – declares to those employees that half the country with whose votes he disagrees are intolerant.

In closing, he muses, “Clearly, the approach of trying to model, speak aggressively, and ‘teach’ others is not sufficient.” (The scare quotes around “teach” are his.)

That sounds slightly threatening. After failing in his effort to “teach” the deplorable, unteachable garbage that constitute half of America, is he perhaps considering limiting access to the gondolas to card-carrying Democrats?

I can see the gondola operators to the line of skiers:

“Papers? Papers? No, I don’t care about your lift ticket, I want your voter registration papers!”

The First Amendment probably does not protect the employees of SkiCo who happen to be Republicans (yes, there are some) and have received the CEO’s coercive political memo, since SkiCo is not an arm of the government. On the other hand, SkiCo does enjoy numerous leases of Forest Service lands owned by the government. Also, its gondola and chair-lift operations could make it a “common carrier.”

And some states offer state law protections that could be implicated. If SkiCo has any employees in California, for example, the memo could be in violation of California state law. (Talk about irony.)

But the legalisms are a column for another day. Today’s point is that the operator of Aspen and Snowmass considers you persona non grata if you’re in the half+ of the country that voted for Donald Trump. Maybe you should consider them resorta non grata.