Category: Current Events

Suing Surgeons and Hospitals Over “Gender Affirming Surgeries”

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Even in California I wouldn’t be surprised if this girl convinces a jury that she was the victim of medical malpractice.  A minor being duped by the transgender propagandists and now mutilated by medical personnel who were paid for the work could be expected to garner a lot of sympathy from a jury.

Hopefully there will be more of this happening in the future.

If This Goes On … Then What? – Part 4

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The next aspect of the mess we’re in that I’ll touch upon is the surveillance state.  For generations, but much more severely since the 9/11 attack, the intelligence agencies; the FBI, Justice Department, CIA, NSA, etc.; have been surveilling the American people and punishing anyone who speaks against them.  And lately they’ve taken it a step further and now have an effective veto on any elected office holder in the federal government.  What they did to Donald Trump when he was elected president shows that they can disrupt the activities of the President of the United States to such an extent that they effectively nullify his ability to select his own personnel and carry out his agenda.  And now they even prosecute candidates for high office to rob the electorate of their only effective means of control over the federal government.

Unlike the earlier installments of this series of posts there is only a binary choice.    And of the two paths forward, the preponderance of evidence indicates things will only go one way.  But I’ll lay out the two scenarios.

The first choice is that we solve this problem.  And what would have to happen to fix this?  The first step would be for the Congress to refuse to re-authorize the Patriot Act and the FISA courts.  And this would be an enormous action.  After the 9/11 attacks the American people willingly acquiesced in allowing the government to spy on us to prevent further terrorist actions occurring within the United States.  But just as some people on the Left warned us back then, the intelligence agencies have used these weapons against us.

The next step involves de-weaponizing these agencies but especially the FBI and Justice Department.  In plain language what it means is removing from power the whole upper echelons of these agencies.  These people would either have to be fired or transferred from their present positions into jobs where they effectively have no control over law enforcement responsibilities.  They would have to be given make-work positions and left to rot until they retire.

And the budgets of these agencies would need to be severely reduced so that we no longer have a situation where the NSA can afford to spy on all Americans simultaneously in real time and effectively controls the internet and the economic activity on it.

And finally, the agencies in question would need to have their charters rewritten to reduce their capacity to do harm.  And robust oversight would have to be built into other agencies and the presidency to more easily step in if criminal activity resurfaced.

So that’s scenario one.

The second scenario is simple.  Nothing gets done.  We continue on the present track where the Justice Department is the de facto enforcer of the banana republic junta we presently have running the country and by extension the whole western world.  What we’ve already seen of this thugocracy will only increase in scope when it becomes obvious that nothing can be done to correct the problem.  Who knows, we may even cease to go through the charade of elections and instead go to a permanent martial law basis where some committee “appoints” a dictator for life who will be rubber stamped by the Senate or whatever other clique of ruling class apparatchiks emerge.

I have to confess.  I’m pretty pessimistic about this.  The Deep State enjoys enormous power.  It seems more likely that the United States itself could unravel than for the intelligence agencies to be ripped out by the roots.  I think the bureaucracy in general and the intelligence agencies in particular are the Achilles heel of our republic.  They’ve become our masters and we don’t have the wherewithal to throw them off.

What do you think?

Will the Deep State be Toppled?

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Southern Baptist Convention Ejects Churches With Female Pastors

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Hat tip to Vox Day for this news item   Who would have thunk it?  A mainline protestant denomination is taking a stand on churches that defy biblical authority.  What’s next, closing down the parishes in Sodom and Gomorrah?   Hey, maybe things are starting to happen.  Finally.

“The Southern Baptist Convention on Wednesday upheld its expulsion of two churches for having female pastors in a move that reaffirms the conservative leanings of the largest Protestant denomination in the United States.

The expelled churches were found not to be in “friendly cooperation” with the convention, according to the Baptist Press, a news website that covers the denomination.

The decision was made to expel the churches based on denomination’s doctrine that scripture reserves the role of pastor for men, the Baptist Press reported.

The expulsions reflect a conservative drift among many American evangelicals in recent years, though there are several other Baptist conventions that welcome women to pastors.

Linda Popham, who has served as a Fern Creek pastor since 1993, addressed the convention on Tuesday.

“We believe the Bible allows women to serve in ways in which all of you do not agree but we should still be able to partner together,” she said”

If This Goes On … Then What? – Part 3

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So, after the rainbow crusade the next most important article of the woke faith is the climate change crusade.  And the real-world consequence that this delusion engenders is the energy crisis that we are currently suffering under.

Starting in Europe but now picking up steam here in America, the Left is attempting to criminalize the use of hydrocarbon fuels.  And especially they’re trying to take them away from private citizens.  So even though the bulk of electrical generation is powered by natural gas in this country, the federal government and states like California are legislating against the use of gasoline powered cars and other equipment like lawn mowers and at the same time, against the use of natural gas for cooking and eventually home heating.

And indicating to the oil companies that they are going to be phased out has had the predictable effect of curtailing their efforts to keep the price of gas and oil stable.  Instead, this plan has unleashed the OPEC cartel’s efforts to maximize their profits in the short term and ignore Washington’s pleas to help it along with making the transition quiet so that it becomes a fait accompli.  And even though the adoption of electric vehicles is already becoming a nightmare for the power grid in California, the feds have doubled down on making this all happen by 2030.

First a word on the technical aspects of this plan.  As a chemical engineer I can say categorically this is a stupid and wrong-headed plan.  Charging electric cars from a grid that is basically powered using fossil fuels is incredibly wasteful.  Over a third of the energy that even reaches the grid is wasted as heat during transmission.  That’s not even taking into consideration the difference in efficiency between the internal combustion engine versus the combination of the turbine electric generators and the battery charging and discharging efficiency.  It’s absurd.  And they call it “green.”

So how does this end up?  Well, you know the drill.  Let me throw out some scenarios and I’ll make my guess and then you follow up on the poll.  Here goes.

The worst-case scenario is that this whole thing is accomplished.  The people of the United States act like good little sheep and just acquiesce in this whole stupid plan.  And in order to compensate for all the inefficiencies and fallacies in the plan we all end up losing a whole lot of freedom and affluence.  With much more expensive electricity and with the supply insufficient to allow everyone to recharge their cars every day, trains and busses will become the mandated form of transportation for ordinary people.  So, forget about auto trips and vacations.  Probably car ownership will become too expensive for anybody not in the upper middle class.  Even home heating will become a real problem.  Expect that people will walk around their homes in coats and hats in the winter and insulation will become a matter of life and death.  And enjoy living in the desert southwest without air-conditioning.  And the cost of food will also increase drastically and the variety of foods will go away.  No more fresh fruits in the winter except for the very well off.  The peasants will make do with whatever can last from the fall.  No more meat.  Unless you consider crickets meat.

The middle scenario is a much slower rollout and the realization that nuclear power plants can be sold to the climate zealots as “green energy.”  Having a reliable and economical high density power source could ameliorate some of the sins that battery cars create and leaves open the scenario where hydrogen fuel for cars is affordable.  And likewise, affordable energy could prevent the other problems like expensive food and home heating

The best-case scenario would be the American people revolting against the stupidity of the green agenda and voting for a combination of fossil fuels in the here and now and research into long term energy solutions like nuclear and other more exotic sources like geothermal.

For once I’m not guessing that the middle scenario will occur.  I think the American people are sheep that will be led to the slaughter.  I’m guessing we’ll get the whole green agenda and we’ll be eating bugs and taking the train in the future.  The ultimate humiliation for a once free people.

Leave your guess below.

If This Goes On … Then What? – Part 2

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One of the most distinctive aspects of the Left’s agenda is their devotion to deviant sexuality.  The so-called LGBTQ agenda has become the most important cause for the global elites around the world.  And the extremes to which this agenda will go to silence dissent knows no bounds.  Currently deviating from the new rules on “pronouns” can get you fired from your job, thrown off the internet and in certain states hauled into court.

Worse still, in places like California there are laws that will allow the state to sexually mutilate your children against your will.  Pediatric transitioning is a multi-billion-dollar industry that is based on the premise that pre-teens can know that they need to be changed into members of the opposite sex based on an innate feeling that they were born into the wrong body.  So, kids who aren’t assumed to be responsible enough to drink beer or get a tattoo somehow know what it will be like to be an adult of the opposite sex and can judge that the horrific surgeries needed to simulate this transition and the pain and suffering that they will experience for the rest of their lives, will be a reasonable course of action.

Needless to say, this is a revolutionary movement that flies in the face of sanity, decency and the rock bottom human instinct to preserve children from harm.  And finally, a reaction against it is beginning to appear around the country, most powerfully in Florida where Governor Ron DeSantis has led the charge against grammar school teachers and school board members grooming children for acceptance of the LGBTQ madness.  And Florida and some other states are even outlawing so-called “gender-affirming medical procedures” or more accurately, puberty blocking drugs, trans-sex hormones and sexual mutilation of children.

So, there is some hope.  Things could turn around and other aspects of the LGBTQ agenda could be reversed.  One possibility for this involves the Supreme Court reversing the gay marriage decision and even reversing the finding for a constitutional right to homosexual behavior.  But none of these things are clear one way or the other.  Once again, we are in a gray zone where things can go either way.  What are the possible outcomes?

The worse case scenario is the complete victory of the LGBTQ movement with pediatric transitioning becoming the law of the land and even pedophilia decriminalized.  This is the eventual victory that the deviants have been working toward all along.  This would render America an abomination that would cry out for the biblical reckoning that Sodom earned.

I think the middle scenario is the establishment in certain states of laws protecting children from the LGBTQ agenda.  The banning of pediatric transitioning and the strengthening of parental rights to prevent schools and other surrogates from proselytizing children into these deviant lifestyles would represent a specific line in the sand that could provide some sort of brake on the race to the bottom that we currently see going on in our society.

The best-case scenario would be a combination of several fortunate occurrences.  If the Supreme Court were to reverse the decisions on gay marriage and the constitutional protection for homosexual behavior this would provide the red states with the basis for rolling back a whole host of problems that plague our current society.  For me one of the best results would be not having to see the acronym LGBTQIA used everywhere I look.  Also, the term drag queen story hour would disappear from the lexicon except among weirdos in places like California and New York.  In other words, life would become a little like a paradise, relatively speaking.

Alright, here’s the moment of truth.  Which future do I think most likely?

Once again, I think the middle path most likely.  Protecting children is a pretty basic instinct.  I think in most places it will put a stop to the worst excesses of the sexual revolution.  At least that’s my guess.

Which one do you think will happen?

How Will the LGBTQ Culture War Be Resolved?

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I’m Back Baby!

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From approximately 1am to about 8:30 am the site was down.  It had to do with the hosting service changing an IP address and my firewall not being in synch with it.  And because my pitiful web skills are pitiful it took me an hour to get things back up after returning to consciousness this morning.

Everything should be copasetic.  Please forgive the interruption.

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If This Goes On … Then What? – Part 1

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A plethora of disturbing phenomena envelop our world.  You know the list of problems.  Cultural, economic, psychological, medical, legal, military, academic, artistic, esthetic issues, even the definition of what a man or a woman is have become areas of societal turmoil.

And these are not just ideological conflicts.  We have almost every major city descending into mayhem and rampant theft.  The stability of our largest corporations is threatened by turmoil in the banking industry caused by enormous shifts in interest rates.  Intentional government targeting of hydrocarbon fuels has caused the price of fuel to increase substantially and with it the price of almost all commodities has also increased drastically.  And going along with these economic upheavals the personal finances of ordinary Americans have been severely negatively impacted.

And yet nothing happens.  At any other time in our history a mid-term election during such a crisis would have severely punished the incumbent president’s party.  Both houses of Congress would have flipped and a mandate would exist to fix these problems.  But the House barely went to the Republicans and the Senate stayed with the Democrats.  I won’t address the why of this anomaly.  Whether it’s hatred of Trump or changing demographics or voter fraud, the reality is the Democrats are running things in Washington.

The question I’m asking is, how does this end?

Of course, I don’t know the answer.  But I can look at the trends and extrapolate.

As an example, let’s look at the urban crime problem.  What are the possibilities?

The worst-case scenario is that nothing changes and crime is allowed to increase along the current lines.  At some point it will reach a threshold where the majority of working- and middle-class citizens are forced to flee out of fear for their lives.  That is the Detroit scenario.  But imagine this is all of the big cities in the United States.  It is almost unimaginable.  And yet I consider it one of the actual outcomes.  This scenario would lead to great changes in the social fabric of this country.  The urban/rural polarization would mimic the Left/Right divide in the populace.  And witnessing such an outcome would harden the opinions of both sides as to the blame for such a catastrophe.

The middle case is a slight moderation of the crime problem.  This entails a partial restoration of law and order.  But not back to the heyday of effective policing that held sway in the 2000’s and 2010’s.  Instead, it would be similar to the criminality that existed during the mid-1990’s.  This is imaginable because we’ve already seen it.  It’s possible that this outcome could be a stable situation with cities able to attract enough immigrants willing to brave the hazards of urban life to keep the whole show going.

And finally, the best-case scenario has the Democratic voters caving in to fear of crime and voting in a Republican “law and order” administration.  This would mimic what progressive New York City did in the late 1990s by electing Republican Rudy Giuliani as mayor on a platform of restoring law and order to that crime-ridden metropolis.

My guess is the second scenario.  I can see Democrats learning to live in fear as long as they can consider themselves good people for rejecting the law and order of the evil racist Republicans.

But which scenario do you think will prevail?

How Will the Current Urban Crime Wave Resolve Itself?

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I’ll address other facets of our current crisis in subsequent installments of my “If This Goes On … Then What?” series.

Another Discussion on Living in a Banana Republic

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Recent events have provided clear evidence that we no longer live in a representative democracy but rather in a bureaucratic oligarchy.  Some people have dubbed this the “managerial state.”  They control the executive branch agencies and control the real power that runs this country.  And not even an elected president can control them.  A close affiliation of Department of Justice personnel and Democrat appointed judges have the power to destroy anyone they want to.  That even includes a former President of the United States of America who is also a highly popular candidate for the upcoming election to that same office.

Now as distressing as this is, we gain nothing by continuing to shriek at the skies about this being the case.  Practically everyone now knows this.  Sounding the alarm no longer serves a purpose, or at least only a minimal purpose.

But what is purposeful is identifying new ways to live in this changed environment.  So, what is the mission?  Well, basically to maximize your quality of life within this regime and provide solidarity for others like you.  One thing it doesn’t include is providing the regime with an excuse for locking you up in a gulag.  The example of the January 6th protestors is a template of what not to do.  And the first thing to pay attention is where it was done.  Washington DC is literally the in belly of the beast.  In that jurisdiction the chance of a conservative protestor getting equal treatment under the law is nonexistent.  In fact, chances are most of the leaders of the protest were FBI agents leading the lambs to slaughter.

In general, trying to fight against the federal government in a blue state is suicidal.  But that still leaves plenty of leeway for constructive action.  There are many places in this country where conservative legislatures and governors are attempting to hold the line against the madness that Biden inflicts on us every day.  These are the places to flock to.  But even in these enclaves of freedom it’s wise to look at what you can do to reinforce your quality of life.

All the usual warnings about protecting your family from the public schools and selecting a career that eschews the woke corporations and the professions like law and medicine that have been hopelessly captured by the Left apply of course.  These things almost go without saying.  But don’t neglect them.  They have an enormous impact on your life.

But just as important is attending to the social aspects of your life.  “Man does not live by bread alone.”  And work isn’t all there is.  Cultivate a network of like-minded friends in your community.  Spend time with them and their families.  Find out who is reliable and who is not.  Be helpful to them and in this way build up a support system and a community of people you can trust and who trust you.  Hopefully some of these people will be your friends and maybe their children will be your children’s friends.

In a way we have to form communities within communities.  All of the normal social avenues; fraternal orders, church societies, even hobbies have been colonized by the Left and made unwholesome.  We have no choice but to start anew with ourselves as the only standard by which to select membership.  But at the same time, we also get to provide the rules and the content of the associations.  Maybe you’re a gun nut and enjoy going down to the range once a month.  Well, then that tells you what activity you’ll center your social club around.  Or maybe you enjoy a weekly poker night out with the boys.  Well, what’s better than that for camaraderie?

You might be asking what this has to do with being part of the resistance.  The answer is simple.  We’re the party without power.  We’re not going to win back this country anytime soon.  If we’re not going to just give up, we have to have a way to preserve our culture and also maintain morale.  To do that we need to create a network of people like us to provide the social cohesion that will keep our culture alive.  That’s why forming a community is crucial.  Without it we will become isolated, alienated and simply disappear.