Category: Current Events

Guest Contributor – War Pig – 03FEB2023 – Bioweapons Security

photog Current Events, Guest Contributors , , ,

Actually, all US bioweapon defense research is supposed to happen in US secure labs, and the really hairy stuff is supposed to be contained on an island (there are more than gets in the press) with very strictly limited access (use of deadly force authorized level security). Think S4 or Area 51, except these guys are faster on the trigger. Imagine trying to walk up on the loading of nuclear weapons on a B-52 holding a protest sign and waving a hammer. Hope you have your life insurance paid up.

Of course, allied nations do such research as well and discuss it over VERY highly secured means of communications. Sort of like a one-off cipher but digital. Think the US president and the UK prime minister discussing nuclear weapons policy in an emergency. If they have to actually share pathogens you can imagine the security involved. Supposedly (and this is rumor) there is Andromeda Strain contingency to destroy the lab and all pathogens in case of a major leak. Nukes? Possibly but more likely large incendiary charges to reduce all to ashes using temperatures in the thousands of degrees Fahrenheit.

When I retired, I had to swear a blood oath not to reveal operational details, even to medical personnel or clergy, for 80 years. So, I will be 114 before I can talk about them in detail. It took me almost 30 years to get the Department of Energy and the DoD to allow me to tell doctors that I was irradiated and how much, but all other details are classified such as where, when, one or multiple doses, specific kinds of radiation, etc. Drives the Dr’s crazy but that is tango sierra.

 

 

Why Did COVID Happen?

photog Current Events , ,

Lately there have been all kinds of stories coming out about how COVID happened and even discussions about how to prevent another lab leak.  What hasn’t been explained is why it happened.  Maybe you’d say it’s because the United States was paying a Chinese virology lab to experiment with gain of function on bat corona viruses.  But I’d say why were they doing it?

I think the answer is that this is the American germ warfare program.  After the United States signed on the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) in 1975 we were supposedly out of the germ warfare business.  But the CIA doesn’t take no for an answer.  So instead of being in the business of making bio-weapons, instead we’re in the business of protecting against bioweapons!  And how do you do that?  Why by making bioweapons!

And just to make sure that the whole world can get in on the fun we farm out the tinkering with viruses and bacteria to fun new places like Wuhan, China and Kharkiv, Ukraine.  Places that are far from the prying eyes of regulators or responsible government oversight.

The way I figure it, the US government is in the germ warfare business and intends to stay at the forefront of it no matter what we think or even what happens.  If they were able to get past responsibility for the COVID outbreak then nothing short of a full-blown world-wide small pox epidemic is going to make a difference.  And even that will be blamed on Russia or an “act of God.”

When more details of the “warp speed” roll out of the mRNA “vaccines” become known I wonder if we’ll find that they were just another part of the biolabs program that we run.  If so, we’re not getting our money’s worth.  The auto-immune responses that are causing things like myocarditis are awful.  If this is the level of competency we can expect then we are probably doomed.

I guess my only question is what pathogen will they unleash on us next?  Neo-bubonic plague?  Hyper-transmissible ebola? Or something more fun like gorilla pox?

Whatever it turns out to be we’ll know that our tax dollars are hard at work keeping third world virologists gainfully employed and CIA spooks out of trouble.  After all, while their minding their gardens of deadly micro-organisms they’ll be too busy to spend time spying on American citizens.  They’ll have to leave that to the FBI, IRS, ATF and the rest of the busy civil servants that we pay so handsomely and who earn their daily bread by keeping us squirming under their thumbs.

But it does make you think.  Wouldn’t it be easier to just let the Chinese or the Russians or the North Koreans attempt to murder us on their own and let Pfizer start from scratch on the vaccines they’re going to kill us with too?  I don’t want to sound unpatriotic but the pretense that we’re not creating the bioweapons ourselves is a dreary exercise.

Mob Rule or Oligarchy; Potato, Puhtatuh

photog Current Events , , , , ,

Going all the way back to Plato and Aristotle, Europeans have theorized and even attempted to set up the optimal form of government.  Aristotle divided all governments into one of three forms, each with its deviant version:

“The distinction between correct and deviant constitutions is combined with the observation that the government may consist of one person, a few, or a multitude. Hence, there are six possible constitutional forms (Politics III.7):

 

Form                     Correct                 Deviant

One Ruler             Kingship               Tyranny

Few Rulers           Aristocracy         Oligarchy

Many Rulers       Polity                     Democracy

I suppose we could make a case that our government has slipped from a polity into a democracy that Aristotle would consider a deviant form of government in which mob rule corrupts the correct governing of a state.  But many contend that we had long ago slipped into an oligarchy that is controlled by the combination of the managerial class inhabiting the federal bureaucracy and corporate boardrooms.

Be that as it may, the outward form of government is portrayed as a democratic republic or representative democracy.  But if an oligarchy has effectively captured permanent control over the federal government, then regardless of appearances, we are living under a regime that will not respond to our wishes or protests.

And this is not a surprising occurrence.  Every historical instance of democratic rule has eventually devolved into some form of tyranny.  Athens was overthrown by an oligarchy and Rome became essentially a military monarchy.  I guess it was inevitable that eventually a powerful faction would decide to impose its will on a state as rich and powerful as the United States of America.  The vast wealth was just too tempting.

But for us who remember the almost paradisical conditions that existed while the oligarchs had not yet consolidated their control over the levers of power it is problematic to know what to do going forward.  Many have just given up and now adopt whatever dictates and fashions the oligarchy and its servants dictate.  They do what is necessary to survive in the hive.  Some people call these individuals “bugmen.”  It’s a galling existence.  At any point it might be necessary to allow yourself to be denounced because of your sex or race.  You may even have to take a demotion in order to satisfy the diversity, equity and inclusion caprices of your employer.  But you’ll do it to keep the stock options you’ve been given and the connections you need to get your kids in a “good school.”

Of course, your children are also at the whim of the weirdos who run these good schools.  If things go poorly your son or daughter may end up as your daughter or son.  Which is another way of saying psychologically broken, sexually mutilated and permanently sterile.  And there is a very high probability that they’ll be taught to hate you and your ancestors for being the wrong color.

As you can see joining the hive is not without its sacrifices.  And perhaps in the long run is a dead end for all but the true aristocracy.  Then, the question is are there any alternatives?

Currently, the workaround most people resort to is moving to a Red State that resists the worst of the Left’s interference.  Ron DeSantis in Florida has of late become the champion of Red State resistance.  And consequently, hundreds of thousands of people have moved to Florida over the last couple of years from places like New York.

Another alternative is leaving for another country.  This is a much riskier proposition.  In most cases other countries are unsatisfactory to Americans because of economic and cultural concerns.  And in fact, few places provide even the freedoms we still seem to enjoy here.  Places like Hungary or the Czech Republic seem promising.  There are signs that they value freedom and traditional culture.  But it would still be making yourself a stranger in a strange land.

And finally, you can do nothing and hope that the country will somehow free itself from this subjugation we find ourselves living under.  There are no historical precedents for this.  But there are some circumstances that might provide some hope.  Poor management and incompetent leaders are contributing to a relative weakening of the United States with respect to the other larger powers in the world.  If America’s economic position should seriously deteriorate then it is very possible that the coalition that keeps the oligarchy in power could disintegrate and that would leave open the possibility that a different coalition could gain power and restore the freedoms that made the United States a desirable place to live.

Of course, this weakening could just as easily destabilize the country just as the military weakness of Rome destabilized that empire’s borders and allowed the Germanic tribes to overrun the western half of the empire.  Our ruling elites have flooded the country with tens of millions of refugees and by delegitimating their police forces they have reduced the big cities to free-fire zones, where chaos reigns supreme.  This environment may make it impossible to restore competent authority in large swaths of the country.  If that happens leaving these areas for safer locales or even different countries may not be a choice but necessity.

It’s pretty hard to know which choice to take.  Maybe the best advice is, keep your options open and wait for a tipping point to know which way to turn.  But one thing for sure, don’t depend too much on any government.  Have some good friends who have your back in an emergency.  You’ll need them.

So, we may be living through another laboratory experiment in the devolution of a democratic society.  Aristotle would not have recognized the trappings of our system as related to the Athenian experiment (although the Greek columns standing in front of our federal buildings would have looked familiar) but he would understand the transition from republic to oligarchy.  Maybe he would have blamed it on giving women the vote.  He mentioned that they shouldn’t be allowed to do that.  Apparently, he was ahead of our time.

Could We Make This Permanent?

photog Current Events ,

Could you imagine if Hollywood shut down for four or five years?  Actors and actresses would have to subsist on what they could make using their other skills.  I guess prostitution would about sum it up.  Older actors would be completely unable to earn money and would starve to death.  And some Americans would notice their IQ’s slowly rising into double digits without the stupefying effects of Hollywood making them morons.

I sanction this movement.

 

 

 

Gawker To Die Once Again

photog Current Events , ,

After being gutted by the celebrity lawsuit that Peter Thiel paid for back in 2018, Gawker will die a second time.  The bankrupted media property was resuscitated by a company called “Bustle.”  Bustle rebranded as BDG Media but in the current recessionary environment it has decided to pull the plug on Gawker, hopefully for good.  Gawker was a sleazy site that traded in human misery.  It’s death or re-death is a sign of hope for the digital world.

 

 

ArthurinCali’s Essay, “The Holy Ghost of Racism”

photog ArthurinCali, Current Events, Guest Contributors , , ,

ArthurinCali has a very well-written article on his substack about the witch hunts that take place throughout our society to incriminate anyone who happens to have white skin.  Lebron James is the primary villain in this piece but you could replace him with any one of a huge number of dimwitted hypocrites that try to set themselves up as moral arbiters.

A good read.

Renewable Energy Comes to Dunwich

photog Current Events, Humor, Life in Dunwich, My Fiction, OCF, photog's Corner, Science Fiction / Fantasy , , , , ,

The Town of Dunwich was recently ordered by the Colony of Massachusetts Bay to show progress in eliminating the production of greenhouse gases by switching over to renewable energy sources.  As the only engineer in town, or for that matter, the only person familiar with the decimal point among the denizens of this benighted hellhole I was ordered by First Selectman Cthulhu to, “make that happen.”  And since, as in all things ordered by Cthulhu, the penalty for failure is being eaten alive by a 100-foot-high squid-headed flying dragon, I got to work right smartly.

What I discovered was that currently 100% of our electrical energy supply is generated by burning sperm whale oil.  It’s a little known fact that Dunwich, along with certain Inuit tribes is  allowed under treaty to hunt sperm whales and since the market for whale products long ago dried up we utilized the carcasses as a source of fuel.  The carcasses are hauled up on the shore and trucked to the power plant where the oil is drained off.  Then the meat is turned into Dunwich’s world-famous blubber chowder.  And the bones are packaged for resale to Dunwich’s werewolf (or for the politically correct term, lycanthrope) population.

I contacted the DEP to see if this treaty allowed for our whale oil to be grandfathered in as a green energy equivalent but, alas, there was a whale-lover on the staff there so, no soap.  I began to get panicky so I called in a consultant to see what other towns were doing.  The consultant described the latest scams that currently passed for “green” energy.  The favorite was “converting” natural gas to hydrogen to use in a fuel cell.  After looking at the material balance I could see that this process produces almost the same amount of carbon dioxide as combustion does.  When I questioned him about this inconsistency, he waved his hands around for a few minutes while claiming that the science was settled.  Anyway, the price tag for the installation was so high I realized there was no way we could switch over to this particular scam.

I asked him if he had a cheaper scam that we could invest in.  He looked disappointed.  I guess most of his clients aren’t as primitive and poor as Dunwich.  Finally after dejectedly checking through his inventory he noted that he had several generators that were reclaimed from some wind turbines that had fallen down and been carted away as scrap.  He could let us have those for a pittance.  Out of desperation and to buy time I ordered the parts and sent him on his way.

Then I had an inspiration.  We had some old caterpillar treads left over from some heavy machinery that had broken down and some other odds and ends.  I had the maintenance crew rig these up into a gigantic treadmill and hook it up to the generators.  I had the highway crew dig a pit out near the bicycle path that runs through the scenic area of the ghoul haunted forest.  And I had them catch and imprison the biggest shoggoth they could find in town.  It was a big, ugly, smelly, hungry one.  I think we might have lost a couple of the crew that caught it.  Oh well.

The next part of the plan was the good part.  Along the side of the bicycle path, I put a sign leading over to the pit that said “Contribute to Green Energy.”  Over the pit I had built a sound-proofed shed with a revolving door that led into a dark room with a pit trap.  When someone falls into the pit it raises a panel that separated the shoggoth from its dinner.  Once the shoggoth starts moving toward the victim it turns the caterpillar track and begins powering the generator.  As long as the green power enthusiast is able to run on this treadmill and stay ahead, the shoggoth continues to pursue.  But when the friend of Gaia tires, the shoggoth will get its lunch and the treadmill will stop and the power will go out in town.

Of course, this is a problem.  I’ve come up with some improvements.  To improve the reliability, we now run a bicycle race daily in town.  And I’ve hooked up a battery system as a form of uninterruptible power supply (UPS) for the town between shoggoth meals.  But uninterruptible is probably an overenthusiastic claim.

But the important thing is the First Selectman is pleased.  He’s grown fond of the project and has named the shoggoth Tesla.  He’s tasked me with setting up a similar treadmill for his personal use.  He says he needs the exercise and donating some energy to the town is patriotic.  Also, the town is making a nice profit reselling abandoned bicycles found along the road.

Who knew going green would be this much fun.

Guest Contributor – ArthurinCali – 31JAN2023 – Check the Menu First

photog ArthurinCali, Current Events, Guest Contributors , ,

https://arthurincali.substack.com/

Adventures overseas.

Many a young man has had a yearning for adventure, and I was no different. Eager for travel and new experiences I jumped at the chance to be stationed overseas after joining the US Navy. That wish was granted when after boot camp when I was assigned to a helicopter squadron on the south pacific island of Guam. At 30 miles long and only 10 miles at her widest point, Guam was to become my home between deployments for the first 4 years of my naval career.

Guam has been continuously inhabited for over 4000 years starting with the migration of Austronesian people, known today as Chamorro Peoples. With the arrival of Ferdinand Magellan in 1521, this began a 300-year period of heavy Spanish influence which can still be seen on the island through the remains of forts, missions, and architecture. Language, food, and religion of local island culture still reflect the Spaniards traditions that were imprinted. After the Spanish-American war of 1898, Guam became a territory of the US, a status that remains to this day.

At the outbreak of WWII the Japanese occupied the island until being defeated by American forces in the Battle for Guam campaign of 1944. The war had lasting effects on the island, with many relicts still visible such as sunken ships, tanks, and airplane wrecks. One Japanese soldier, Shoichi Yokoi, fled to the jungle in 1944 during the battle for control of the island. He survived undetected for nearly 30 years until being found in 1972, still believing that the war was not over.

(This is only a quick overview for the fascinating history of Guam. I highly recommend furthering one’s knowledge through the links provided.)

How do I describe the feeling of arriving to a new country? It may as well have been a new planet. To go from the pine forests of East Texas-to a tropical island with endless blue stretching out to the horizon was almost visually unreal. I recall that the airline arrived late at night so the trip to the base did not give me much clue as to what the surroundings were like. Waking up and stepping outside of the barracks to the sight of palm trees and blue crystal water was a shock. The ocean depths surrounding Guam are some of the clearest in the world, attracting many divers to explore the pristine coral reef.

With over a century of American influence, many things on the island were similar to what one would find on the mainland, but with a twist. There are plenty of US restaurants as dining choices; from Outback Steakhouse, to McDonald’s. Major hotels line the shores of Tumon Bay, and tourism makes up a significant part of the economy. Yet it is the little differences that are interesting. One example is that you can order local dishes at major franchises like Spam & Eggs at McDonald’s. A popular local ice cream is literally packed with a vegetable medley including carrots, potato, and beans. Yes, beans. The story goes that this was invented to encourage island children to eat more veggies. The blend of culinary diversity gave one ample choices.

Not long after arriving I was able to purchase a ‘Boonie’ car. This description is for an old vehicle that has seen numerous owners, mostly due to military personnel transferring off-island. So, essentially a beater car. Mine was a well-loved 1980s something black Camaro that set its own schedule as to if and when the A/C would work, which was seldom. She also had semi-electronic windows that refused to roll up when it rained…which was every day. Great combo for an island that gets an average of 95 inches of rain a year. At one point I kept more towels in the car than in my bathroom for these occasions. Did I mention the roads? Can’t forget that. Having limited building materials, Guam incorporated ground-up coral reef into the asphalt road construction. Not too big of a deal…unless it rains. This forces the oils up to the surface of the roads making them slicker than an ice rink. Even with most posted speed limits at 35 MPH this doesn’t help when everyone ignores that speed limit. The major road, Guam Highway 1 ran north to south of the island and was menacingly nicknamed ‘Guam Autobahn.’

Even with these transportation challenges I enjoyed exploring different parts of the island. Most weekends were spent checking out the latest place of interest I had read about or heard from someone who had visited. Swimming in underground cave pools and visiting 17th century Spanish Forts were a highlight of my time spent in Guam.

The villages held festivals for saints and holidays throughout the year. It seemed that every weekend a different village held a fiesta so myself and a few guys from the base decided to check one out. The best comparison would be to a small town county fair atmosphere, with carnival games and attractions. The friendliness of the Chamorro people cannot be overstated and we soon found ourselves invited to get something to eat from one of the local villagers. He had an elaborate setup in his front yard with a large canopy that shaded a set of folding tables and chairs. The food was arranged on a couple of tables to one side that reminded me of Sunday dinners after church back in Texas. After getting a plate of ribs and vegetables, we found our seats and dug in. After a while, our host came over and inquired if we were enjoying the food. He was especially interested in what we thought of his ribs. When I told him they were good he asked, “Would you like to see my stock?” I replied sure and he motioned for us to follow him around to the back of the house. Now, being from Texas, I was expecting to see a pig pen, or possibly an enclosure with goats. Instead, we were greeted with a large kennel…of dogs. The realization of where the ribs had come from was interrupted by one of my companions saying, “So that’s why they were so tender?” Always check the menu became my new motto that day.

Guam is a special place to me, even after traveling to 20+ countries during my naval career. It was the start of my world travels and was the first experience of how vast this world truly is. But remember: Always check the menu.

 

Links:

Dunwich in the Depths of a Non-Winter

photog Current Events, Humor, Life in Dunwich, My Fiction, OCF, photog's Corner , , , , ,
Swamp in Fall 2

Here we are at the brink of February and Dunwich looks like early December.  There’s no snow cover and the ground is soggy with all the rainfall.  There are serious consequences from this warm weather.  Mange has broken out among various species.  Werewolves, zombies and the Mi-Go (those winged fungoid crustacean creatures) have all been observed uncontrollably scratching themselves against tree trunks to relieve the itching.  And the smell from these festering wounds has made the forested areas around the swamps almost unendurable for residents there.  First Selectman Cthulhu complains that tourism is way off and he blames it on this blight.  I don’t know.  I think it could be a result of the new advertising slogan they came up with.  I mean, “Dunwich, smell the history” might need some work.

Luckily for me I took the precaution of planting the perimeter of my property with wolfsbane a year or two back and the only local inhabitant that hasn’t fled is a shoggoth that lives under the rock overhang at the edge of the swamp.  He’s a really old and decrepit example of the species and he probably would have already succumbed to the infection if Camera Girl hadn’t started putting out scraps for it to subsist on.

As is her habit, she has sort of adopted it and calls it by a pet name, shoggy, which I find annoying.  I’ve explained many times that it is a loathsome man-eating nightmare, the very sight of which can shatter the sanity of any human being.  She claims it just needs scratching under the chin (wherever that is), some warm blankets and leftover fried chicken to make it a “boopa.”  Women are mostly insane.  I’ve resorted to poisoning the chicken but all that accomplished was to make it thirsty.  It drank down the pond and swelled up to a hundred times its original size.  It’s about the size of a city block and about three hundred feet tall.  It seems to have either the hiccups or some kind of rhythmic flatulence.

Next Friday is supposed to be a quick freeze.  Forecasts call for nighttime temperatures dipping down to minus fifteen Fahrenheit.  I believe that after absorbing that much water the shoggoth will freeze solid overnight.  My plan is to rent one of those construction vehicles with the industrial strength jack hammer attached to a robotic arm and use it to chop up the shoggoth into bite size chunks.  I figure I can probably transport them to a fishing port and sell it as chum to the commercial fishermen.  Anyway, that’s the plan.

With the cold weather coming I expect the more traditional winter activities to resume.  Once Lake Bishop freezes the annual ice fishing derby will be announced and all experienced fishermen will partake in the night before drinking binge to shore up their nerve for the event.  And whoever draws the short straw that morning will need every bit of that alcohol to get the nerve to make the run across the ice.  After all, running across a half mile of open ice dressed as a giant “kivver” with the First Selectman coming after you from under the ice with only a ten second head start is pretty heady stuff.

Last year Tanner Featherstone came within twenty feet of the shore and maybe three seconds of winning the contest and the $100 Amazon gift card.  Not to mention keeping his life.  It’s this kind of town-spirit and bone-headed stupidity that keeps this amazing tradition going despite the unbroken history of failure and the terrifying sight of a man being eaten alive by a one-hundred-foot-tall squid-headed flying dragon.  The screams and the sound of the crunching bones really makes you think.

Well anyway.  I’ve got to do some research on that whole jack hammer rental thing.  Busy, busy, busy.  I hope your winter is going well and I’ll be back soon to describe what looks like an early spring and the return of the “colour out of space” to the local foliage.  Ah those unearthly colors.  They make Dunwich the garden spot it is.

America’s Pandora’s Box – The Ukraine War

photog Current Events , ,

In 2001 when the United States was preparing to invade Afghanistan Vladimir Putin reached out to George W. Bush and agreed to provide logistical aid and political clout to convince the Uzbeks to let their country be a staging ground for the invasion of Afghanistan.  Bush made some statement about looking into Putin’s soul.  Whatever that meant there has never been any indication that we ever considered a way to have a positive relationship with Russia.  And after the numerous CIA color revolutions in the former Soviet lands and now with the existential threat that we have handed the Russians in Ukraine I think we must consider we’ve made them permanent implacable enemies.  And that’s not a good thing.  The Russians are not the Iraqis or even the Iranians.  In addition to a nuclear arsenal, they are intelligent, resourceful and highly vindictive.  That’s not a good combination in an enemy.

I’m not thinking ahead to nuclear Armageddon.  Let’s leave that scenario for another day.  But what Russia might do is make us pay a price at home.  What occurs to me is our porous southern border.  And come to think of it, all of Europe’s borders.  The United States and Western Europe have spent the last two decades saying that the world is welcome to traipse into their countries at will.  Well, what if the Russians start sending some of our middle eastern “friends” with some munitions they provide and direct them to those borders.  That would be a very frightening thing.  Or how about men who claim to be Ukrainian refugees?  Could we really know that they weren’t Russians?  I kind of doubt it.

There hasn’t been much in the news lately about Al Qaeda or any of the other crazies that used to be in the news 24/7.  But I believe they’re all mostly still there and now we’ve left them several billions of dollars’ worth of war materiel in Afghanistan and all that’s lacking is a little seed money and plans.  And let’s not forget the Mexican Drug Cartels.  They aren’t our friends.  They have already set up shop in the border states and elsewhere and certainly wouldn’t object to some arms smuggling if the price was right.  Things like infrastructure sabotage and downing airliners seem like no-brainers.  How exactly would we find a needle of determined saboteurs when they’ll be hiding inside of a haystack of millions of illegal aliens that we’ve allowed to flood our country.  I think the answer is we can’t.

We’re providing the Ukrainians with top-of-the-line American arms and we are assuming that the Russians won’t pay us back.  Somehow that seems absurd.  We’ve attempted to starve the Russians out with sanctions and we give the Ukrainians real time location of the Russian senior staff for missile targeting and we think they’ll just sit back and take it.  That seems incredibly naïve.

In fact, I really wouldn’t want to be Joe Biden, Lloyd Austin or General Mark Milley.  They’ve made this very personal for Vladimir Putin and his government.  I don’t think they’re the kind who think of it as impersonal and just “business.”  I remember reading about the prosecution of the Chechen war.  It was a dirty, nasty slog where vendettas and revenge were an integral part of winning.  I would not be surprised to hear that kidnapping and torture became a part of this war.  The Ukrainians have already declared a blacklist of American civilians that they consider targets for assassination.  It would surprise me not at all that the Russians have something similar.

So, the neocons have their war.  They hate the Russians viscerally and now the Russians hate us too.  Brilliant.