Month: November 2018

Can We Move the Needle?

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So, the mid-terms are over.  Pelosi or some other moonbat will be obstructing the House and raving on the front page of the Times and Post for the next two years.  Soon the Democrat candidates for the 2020 race will begin foaming at the mouth.  Nothing legislative will happen for the next two years, except approval of presidential appointments in the Senate and the budget farce to produce continuing resolutions from both bodies of the Congress.  President Trump has his work cut out and will have to use all his wits and resources to clean up the Justice Department and remove as many illegal aliens from the country as he can.

What should we be doing?  It seems to me we need to make some progress on our own.  There’s all kinds of talk about building our own platforms and I agree with that idea.  But it seems there’s more talk than building going on.  Well, in the spirit of being part of the solution I’ve been putting my money where my mouth is.  I’ve been investing in advertising on various conservative sites.  I’ve used both an advertising company and also contacted directly with a couple of sites that place the ads directly.  And I will say that although the company that can put your ads on big sites like Drudge gets lots of traffic the direct advertising gets plenty of traffic too and is a good value on a per click basis.  I plan to continue investing in advertising and also attempt to broaden my content by partnering with other writers who have similar points of view to my own.  As an experiment I requested some content from one of our viewers last week and thought the results were excellent.  I think providing a broader range of content, including non-political subjects is a necessity if I intend to grow the site.  I also intend to start running contests to encourage more comments and participation.  As an example I am accumulating all these paperback books from the sf&f reviews I’ve been doing.  I could bundle some of these and make them a prize for some contest.  And similarly, for a photographic contest I can make some camera equipment a prize.

Basically I’d like to expand the site to build up a community of people mostly on the right who enjoy the experience of communing with like-minded individuals on subjects that they enjoy.  Not to be grandiose, but it can be a social media locale on a much smaller scale than a Facebook but with a lot more satisfaction in the interactions.  And I don’t minimize the probability that I’ll run into the usual problems with trolls and cyber-attacks that go along with anything on our side of the political divide.  But I think it’s important to actually make the effort to get going on it.  Talk is cheap.  Organizing is a lot of talk but it’s also time and money and I’m encouraged already that with a little bit of both I’m already seeing some results.

Thanksgiving.  Short work week and then the Thursday and Friday family gatherings.  I expect posts may be a little sparse those two days.  But most folks will be equally busy with their own doings.  As a consolation I’m off most of next week and will use up all of that turkey and pumpkin pie typing away feverishly at OCF content.

Here’s to hoping 2019 will be the year when the right starts doing its own thing and stops waiting for the government to do it for us.  Here’s hoping that the New Year will start to look like a new world.  But it will only happen if we ourselves individually make it happen in large and small ways.

Stay tuned.

Vox Day has a Link and an Excerpt to a Climate Change Refutation

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This would be funny stuff if it wasn’t so sad.  Now that global warming has turned into a joke the alarmists are trying to do damage control.  A recent paper by the alarmists tried to refute the fact that back in the 1970s most “climate scientists” believed we were heading into an ice age.  The real reason for the papaer is that if the public realized how confused the conclusions of climate science really are it would only make the present Alarmists appear even more delusional.  This article is a study to show that the majority of scientists did indeed think the planet was drastically cooling.

http://voxday.blogspot.com/2018/11/global-cooling-was-not-myth.html

 

Trump vs the Acostafication of Press Corps Nation

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Dramatis Personae: President Trump – (PT);  Jim Acosta, CNN – (JA);   Major Garrett, CBS News – (MG);  Hallie Jackson, NBC News – (HJ);  Cecilia Vega, ABC News – (CV);  Al Drago, New York Times – (AD)

 

White House Press Corps Briefing Room; Wednesday 3pm

(President Trump is at the podium and is flanked by Secret Service Agents holding cardboard boxes.)

 

PT – Good afternoon Fake News Corps and welcome to the first White House news briefing since I’ve instituted the new rules.  I will now walk you through them.

First, each of you will be issued your own personalized microphone.  This microphone is only active when you hold it and the President or the Press Secretary has authorized your turn to question.  Your biometric information has been programmed into the unit.  It will only act as a microphone if you yourself are holding it.  Utilizing sound isolation software it will only broadcast your voice.  Also, if anyone else attempts to use your microphone within this room or if you attempt to use it out of turn, it will administer a significant electric shock to the holder.  Each subsequent attempt at unauthorized use will increase the voltage significantly until it reaches the legal limit.  After that point you probably will drop into a fetal position and call for your mommy.

Bob and Mitch will hand out the microphones and we’ll get started.

(Secret Service hands out the microphones and return to the dais)

PT – Okay let’s see who’s first.  How about you Major?

MG – Sir, Major Garrett, CBS News.

PT – Yeah, I know Major, I said your name.  What’s your question?

MG – Mr. President, don’t you think this demeans the dignity of the White House Press Corps?

PT – You can’t demean that which does not exist.  You next Hallie.

MG – As a foll… (suddenly screeching and swearing) YEEEAAAHHHH, son of a bitch!

PT – Major you weren’t next.  Bet that stings though.  Hallie, you’re next.

HJ – Uhhh, no questions at this time Mr. President.

PT – Oh, okay, how about you Cecilia?

CV – Mr. President, aren’t you afraid that this will send the wrong message to the American people?

PT – No Cecilia, I’m generally not afraid.  Al Drago, any question?

AD – Mr. President, why are you resorting to these draconian measures?  Don’t you trust the fourth estate to maintain decorum?

PT – Those are two questions but just this once I will answer them both but in reverse order.  First, hah!  Second, I have resorted to the use of dog training equipment because Jim Acosta has shown that he has the manners and the intellect of a fairly dull-witted chihuahua.  You have a question Jim?

JA – I protest such a vile characterization of myself.

PT – That’s not a question.  Major you’re next.

JA – How dare youuuuuuuuuuuuuuu!!!!!

PT – That was a question Jim, but it wasn’t your turn.

MG – Can I give my question to Jim.

PT – No, but that was a question so Hallie we’re back to you.

HJ – Still no question sir.

PT – Cecilia?

CV – Uhhh, how are you enjoying the fall?

PT – Excellent, I’ve taken a couple of strokes off my golf game.  And that brings us back to you Jim.  Care to take another crack at it?  But please try to follow the protocol, we just got the rug steam cleaned.

(Acosta looking nervously around and holding the microphone in his left hand)

JA – Which reporter do you consider the enemy of the American people?

PT – Certainly not you anymore Jim.  You’re such a good boy!  Catch the treat!

How Many Possible Paths-Forward Are There?

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Science fiction writer L. Sprague de Camp has been quoted as having said “It does not pay a prophet to be too specific.”  He was right.  Seeing into the future is a fool’s errand.  But it is also what we have to do every day of our lives.  And the farther into the future you can see the more successful you will be.

Here at Orion’s Cold Fire, prognostication is a scientific endeavor utilizing all the latest technology and the most powerful data crunching systems to make our forecasts the envy of Nostradamus.  Sure.

We live on the knife’s edge.  Everything we’ve seen in the last few years shows us that the fate of the United States and indeed the world is balanced on a teetering point and the smallest breath of wind has the capacity to save us, at least temporarily, or tumble us into the abyss.  Sucks to be us.

Lately I have been trying to figure out what are the most likely directions the future may take.  Let me number them here.

  • The clearest and in fact, the most likely future is the complete victory of progressivism. Under this scenario, political control of the Unites States and also the rest of Western civilization shifts irreversibly to the Left.  All the tenets of progressivism, feminism, LGBTQ orthodoxy, anti-white quota legislation and socialist economics prevail.  Free speech, gun rights and freedom of religion are abolished.  An all-powerful, all pervasive state control settles over the lives of the citizenry.  Basically slavery.  I think this has a very good likelihood of occurring.  And the method will be a gradual tightening of all the policies that will lead to this endpoint.  It won’t be necessary to legislate any of these things abruptly.  Gradual is better.  How’s that for grim?
  • Another possibility I can think of is a branch off of the first scenario. The progressives win a big election.  They start initiating their agenda and someone does something.  Let’s call it a revolt.  Some kind of resistance that incorporates individuals taking action that becomes a rallying point for local or state government action.  This grows into a larger movement and this requires a response by the Federal government.  To make this a distinct case from scenario 1, we have to assume that it isn’t suppressed and leads to a split in the country.  At least two distinct geographic entities would occupy what is now the United States.  For this scenario let us pick the case that a successful path forward is arranged and both (or more) daughter states move forward along independent paths with more or less cooperation between them.
  • The third possibility and the least likely scenario is that the progressives lose. Somehow President Trump successfully manages to turn the American project back into the direction of freedom and sanity and reasonable men follow him in reversing the outrages of the last half century and putting us back on the path of freedom and healthy social relations.  This is my idea of the happy ending.
  • The fourth scenario is a full-scale civil war of the type seen in Yugoslavia. If this occurs, I assume the likeliest outcome is a divided country with an eventual armistice and population shifts to allow people to choose between two very polarized and hostile camps.  This would be an extreme version of Option 2.
  • In option 5 our enemies around the world see our weakness and division and nuke us into oblivion. This is also a slightly less likely scenario but far from improbable.

I’m sure there are several other cases that I’ve neglected.  If you have your own idea for a different version feel free to leave it in the attached poll or comments.

 

[socialpoll id=”2527608″]

18NOV2018 – American Greatness – Post of the Day – The Bells Toll for Theresa May or Brexit?

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Being an American I understand not at all what goes on in England.  The once mighty British Empire of Henry V and Elizabeth I, is now better understood as the land of Basil Fawlty and the ever insipid, Prince Charles the Dolt.  So, if Christopher Gage, an Englishman and the author of this piece doesn’t know whether that troubled realm is about to throw off the shackles of indenture to the EU or tuck tail and beg for re-admittance, then how should I?

Being at heart an optimist.  I want to believe they’ll escape.  After all, the hard work is done.  They’ve won the vote, they’ve run out the clock with the EU, all that remains is walking away and picking a new direction.  But being the globalist that she is Theresa May is determined to snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory and shackle Britain to the moribund corpse of the European Union.

Gage claims that the Brexiteers are about to pull the plug on May with a no confidence vote in the next week or so.  Let’s hope this happens.  Otherwise anything is possible, up to and including a re-vote on Brexit.  To paraphrase the “Iron Lady” come on Basil don’t go wobbly on us now.

Supreme Court Will Decide if the Census Can Ask You if You Are a Citizen

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Here is the clearest indication of how bad things are.  It takes the Supreme Court to say it’s alright for the U. S. Census to not count fraudulent census data.  The census is constitutionally necessary function of the federal government, needed to measure the representation a state get in the House of Representatives and the regional Federal Courts are fighting the Trump Administration over getting an accurate count.  The other advantage of this is it allows ICE to pick up anyone falsely claiming to be citizens.  Falsifying census info is a federal felony.  And it will probably put a damper on illegal aliens answering census information.  That will hurt sanctuary states like California when it comes to federal funds.  And that is good for the rest of us.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2018/11/16/census-2020-supreme-court-hear-case-adding-citizenship-question/2026725002/