Well written analysis of how the First Amendment is being attacked and why. His discussion of social media is good but I want to go a step farther. If Google and Facebook are already in bed with the FBI and the CIA then they are already a utility and need to be held to the same First Amendment requirements government is constrained by.
Month: January 2018
What is He Waiting For?
There are articles in both the MSM (here and here) and the blogs (here and here) about the various nefarious activities by the FBI and Justice Department now coming to light. Those by the bad guys (e.g., CNN) assure us that this is a tempest in a teacup and Mueller will continue his crusade to rid Washington of Trump and his people. Those by the good guys assure us that Trump and Sessions are merely marshalling the resources needed to perform a clean sweep of the whole swamp at one fell swoop. Well, you know who I’d like to believe. But who do I believe?
I think I believe our guys more. Now, I’m not saying I think they have it all correct, far from it. But I do think the Trump Administration is coordinating efforts to mesh with certain other calendar considerations. And I won’t claim I actually know which of the outside factors are the most important factors. But I can take a guess at which factors are in the running.
- The Midterms
Trump knows it is vital that the Republicans not lose the Congress, especially the Senate, if he is to have a strong hand in reshaping the Government. To that end he probably knows that he must time any move against Mueller and the Deep State so that it does not give the MSM a chance to panic the voting public. Whether that means acting earlier this year or closer to November is a very difficult question to answer. But it seems to me to be a big part of the puzzle.
- The Supreme Court
When the Supreme Court has decided the major cases in June I suspect that Justice Kennedy will announce his retirement. Will this allow a replacement before the mid-terms? If so, maybe this is what is delaying other major actions. Perhaps getting this done before attacking the Deep State is a tactical decision.
- John McCain
Could it be that John McCain’s imminent retirement from the Senate is a factor? If McCain is replaced with a more Trump-friendly vote would it aid in dealing with a paper thin majority in the senate? Possibly.
- Mueller
Could Mueller actually be on our side? I know, this is an incredible longshot. But there are some very strange things going on. Even if he’s not on our side possibly pressure is being brought to bear to force his hand on some of this Clinton stuff.
So, these are some of the things I’ve been wondering about. Because, to be totally honest I’m getting mighty tired of Mueller. I think Trump should fire him tonight and tell the country tomorrow morning why it had to be done. And then he should fire almost the whole Justice Department starting with the senior leadership of the FBI, CIA and NSA. I don’t think it would hurt him at all.
He should probably take some of those military men that the Obama administration forced out and put them in the Justice Department. And then he should fire the whole IRS and declare a one-year moratorium on taxes and send all of our withholdings back to us and really amp up the economy. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
Mr. President drain that swamp and make it snappy. I need some more winning.
Vox Day’s Alt-Hero Gambit
Vox Day is an intriguing figure. He is literally putting his money where his mouth is. His right-wing entrepreneurial activities include (among other things) commercial endeavors in book publishing, video games and now comic books. In just a few years he has impacted the cloistered and SJW infested world of the Hugo awards and spread the gospel of confronting social justice thugs with his books on SJWs.
His latest venture is the comic book kickstarter that garnered a quarter of a million dollars and has allowed him to hire some of the best talent from the pre-SJW converged past of DC Comics. (Chuck Dixon, the creator of Bane and Frank Fosco, a talented artist who has worked for DC and Marvel). The effort will involve several separate imprints. One imprint is called Alt-Hero and is explicitly aimed at combatting the politically correct conventions of modern SJW converged Marvel Comics with in-your-face right-wing heroes. In addition, there is an imprint called Avalon which will be an entirely original work of Chuck Dixon chronicling the super heroes in his imagined city Avalon. Dixon has said that Vox has given him free rein to create the Avalon universe according to his own creative vision. And that is why I am very excited about this venture.
As I have stated previously, I’m in no way, shape or form a comic book enthusiast. But I recognize how employing talented creators to work without the disabling effects of politically motivated orthodoxies has the potential of attracting the customers who have walked away from comics because of these very problems. That is exactly what needs to be tried. If it succeeds even on a limited basis it can act as a template for other areas of the culture that are currently strangulating under leftist control. Vox’s Castalia House publishing business produces fiction and non-fiction that is unaffected by politically correct ideology. I’ve enjoyed a number of these books. And even though I don’t follow comics I did enjoy the Bane character in the third Batman movie (Dark Knight Rising). He was wonderfully evil and an amazing agent of chaos. I have to assume that Mr. Dixon has some amusing things to share in this Avalon story line so I intend to try it out when it becomes available.
My larger point is that Vox is demonstrating what needs to be done. Look at the niches the converged industries provide for a right-wing alternative and give it a try. The internet is the great leveler of all things entrepreneurial. If you can imagine a thing that has a market you can market it there. I’ll add Alt-Hero and Avalon to my list of Right-Wing Businesses.
Vox is an enormously polarizing figure. But he is a trailblazer for anyone on the right who wants to be part of the solution to the vacuum that is all that’s left of right-wing cultural institutions. Don’t like left wing news, then blog. Don’t like the left-wing NYT Best Seller’s List, then patronize right wing publishers and authors. Don’t want your kids to have to read about or go see a movie about gay Spiderman or transsexual Thor, then maybe buy a few of Vox’s comics for them instead. To be consistent, I guess I’ll have to put my money where my mouth is. Comic books? Who woulda thunk it?
The Girl on the Train – A Movie Review
This week Camera Girl picked a Netflix movie. She remembered seeing commercials for the movie back in 2016 and so she had the impression that it was a good mystery. Well, we watched it tonight. Camera Girl will not be recommending movies for a very long time.
To say that this movie was awful would be understating just how bad I found it. The star is an actress named Emily Blunt. Along with the seven other main characters I can’t remember feeling even a twinge of empathy for any of them. Even in the extreme case of one character discussing the accidental drowning of her infant daughter all I could think of was that she should have been prosecuted for negligent manslaughter. The movie seemed to be a vehicle for building one of the male characters into a monster. Apparently, all the women were either too stupid or too beaten down by the evil patriarchy to recognize this man for the ogre he was.
But even putting aside the anti-male strawman plot line, the movie is just a train wreck of other problems. The first and most annoying problem is that the action is constantly jumping back and forth between different scenes in the past and the present. It’s today, then it’s two years ago, then back to today and then four months ago, then last Wednesday, then Bastille Day (okay, I made that one up but you get the picture). Eventually you lose track and finally you lose interest and in my case consciousness.
In addition to the flash backs, two of the actresses are very close in appearance. So much so that at certain critical points in the plot you’re not sure who you’re looking at. And this is even before the characters have been identified. Basically, you really don’t know what the hell is going on. So, the plot unwinds and slowly and painfully all the other explanations are exhausted and you’re left with the most hackneyed setup since “the butler did it.”
I will go out on a limb and say that most people will find this movie to be poor. The movie is intentionally tinged with misery and psychosis. In this environment none of the characters displays endearing or attractive or even admirable traits. Even the victims come off as unlikable zombies. I know it’s a cliché to say you want that two hours back but in the case of The Girl on the Train it’s entirely accurate.
Verdict: This movie sucks. Don’t watch it.
Legionnaire (Galaxy’s Edge) (Volume 1) by Jason Anspach & Nick Cole – A Science Fiction Book Review
I read one of Nick Cole’s earlier books (CTRL ALT Revolt!) last year and liked it. So, when I heard he was involved in a mil-sf series I figured I’d check it out. It turns out it’s a dual authorship arrangement with Jason Anspach. I ordered it (I like to read books on paper) and read it last week.
I like well-written mil-sf. This is well-written. The story chronicles an elite military unit involved in a supposedly routine diplomatic mission that devolves into a catastrophe. It melds the feel of modern American military in the middle east (ala Black Hawk Down) with lineage going back to Rudyard Kipling’s India stories and translates it into a futuristic landscape of alien creatures, energy weapons and space cruisers. But the technology is definitely beside the point. The story is the camaraderie of men attempting to complete their mission and keep each other alive in an environment where bureaucratic amateur officers are just as dangerous as the enemy.
The protagonist (first person narrative for the most part) is an NCO in the “Legion.” Through his eyes we see his comrades display various strengths and weaknesses and we observe the “regular army” that are combined with the legionnaires on this mission attempting to adapt to a combat role they are unprepared for. And we observe non-combatants and the alien inhabitants of this planet at the “galaxy’s edge.”
If you like military science fiction you’ll probably like this book. If you even just like war stories you might like this book. It is volume one of a series but this book is sort of a stand-alone story. The series chronicles the saga of the Galactic Republic through the eyes of the Legion as an elite force cleaning up the messes being perpetrated by an increasingly autocratic state over its subject worlds at the periphery of the galaxy. Basically, it sounds like the Roman Republic devolving into the Roman Empire. Or is it the American Republic?
As you can probably guess from my comparison with Black Hawk Down, it’s not a happily ever after kind of tale. It’s a down beat story but if you like mil-sf then that’s probably no surprise. If not be warned.
So, here’s my opinion. This is a good stand-alone story. The story develops and the action and the sub-plots unfold in natural way. The characters are interesting and have enough development to allow you to cheer and boo the appropriate actors. I can definitely recommend it. For me the question is do I go forward with a longer series? From what I understand the individual books are separated in time. They document the history of this galactic civilization. Implicitly this means none of the characters will carry over to the next book. Can the authors generate enough new people to populate the series? I think I’ll try the next book in the series and see how that works out. I’ll report back on the next installment when I do.
Galaxy’s Edge – Galactic Outlaws – A Science Fiction Book Review
Greetings Web Denizens: The Slowdown is Over!
Huzzah! I have survived the dreaded “work.” Don’t those people know I must be about my website’s business? Well anyway, I’m back and I’ll get back to my stuff.
Converged Comics
Vox Day has been called the most hated man in science fiction. Well now he wants to be the most hated man in comics. He’s publishing comics with a >$250K kickstarter and he’s pushing a right wing comic called Alt-Hero among other more mainstream fare. A DC comic creator had an on-line discussion with Vox (see link). I found it very interesting and includes Vox’s synopsis of his battles with sci-fi, game and comics SJWs. Pretty interesting.
The Zman has a very measured post, “An Immoderate Age”
The Zman is a pretty plain spoken fellow but I thought this was a very moderate and well-spoken appraisal of us and them. It’s a good read.
Where Can Trump Do the Most Good?
As the various pieces of the puzzle that make up the American Government System oscillate around and the calendar moves steadily toward the November reckoning that is the Mid-Terms I was thinking what positive actions President Trump can perform to improve our condition. Surprisingly he already seems to be doing most of what I can think of. Appointing good judges, fixing immigration and purging the bureaucracy of noxious rules and noxious employees is most of what I think he needs to do. But one other priority occurred to me. He needs to purge the military of those same poisons. Every week during the Obama administration I can remember hearing about some officer forced to retire because of some failure to genuflect to the narrative of women or homosexuals or transsexuals being the bedrock of our military. The destruction of morale implicit in the kind of environment that is being perpetrated by the SJWs in the military is one of the most serious problems this nation will face in the future. Reversing this situation is critical.
What President Trump needs to do is first purge the military of the regulations that are causing these problems and then purge it of all the individuals who have been causing the problems. Any officer and especially any JAG who is known to be an SJW should be transferred to some cordoned off department where he can be monitored like some kind of radioactive waste product and jettisoned from the service as soon as humanly possible. And most importantly, any policies that have been put in place to allow physically or mentally unqualified individuals to serve and especially serve in elite units have to be eliminated. And finally, the United States government must be prohibited from paying for idiots to sexually mutilate themselves.
With respect to the whole question of transsexuals in the military, I know the liberal judges are trying to keep them in. If this becomes law then I suggest they be treated and addressed by the identity of their birth sex, required to wear the appropriate clothing of and use the bathrooms for that sex. If their excretory equipment no longer allows them to do this normally then they should be discharged as physically unfit. If any of these conditions make them unhappy they can leave.
In addition to the benefits to morale and competence implicit in removing these destructive rules and insane individuals there is another dimension that is possibly more important. A military that eliminates normal men from the command structure is a military that would turn on the American people if a Leftist President declared martial law. Considering the weaponry possessed by the American military arsenal, that is not a possibility I would want to contemplate.
So, President Trump, along with all the other good swamp-draining you are going about, don’t neglect the very important swamp-draining that needs to be done in the Army, Navy, Marines and Air Force. I’ll leave the Coast Guard up to your discretion. They’ve always seemed a little ambiguous anyway.
Website Slowdown 1-13-2018 – 1-18-2018
The next six days are going to be very busy for me personally. As a superhero with a secret identity I am sometimes called on to save the world or put together engineering reports (kinda the same thing). Because of this you will (and probably already have) noticed a slowdown in my output here on OCF. Never fear. It’s very rare. Usually I’m able to slough off the boring minutiae of every day life to pontificate and bloviate to my heart’s content here in the real world. Persevere and I’ll try to link to good external content to tide you over until I can concentrate the full weight of my philosophical gravitas on the urgent priorities of the day. Thank you for your patience.