Category: Current Events

These Are the Things I Think About

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Tim Walz has been dominating the left-nutjob news cycle for the last week or two.  But his compatriots in the “Gopher State” (also sometimes nicknamed more accurately as “New England of the West”) decided to provide him with some cover so they decided, “Let’s just go insane and force ICE agents to shoot us!”  Someone named Renee Nicole Good decided to menace ICE agents with her car and when they ordered her to get out of her car she drove toward the officer standing in front of her car and got herself shot.  She subsequently died and now she is a martyr for stupid leftists everywhere.  But refusing to be upstaged Walz has declared that he is going to call in the National Guard to repel the ICE agents.  Now that is what I call dialing the stupid up to eleven.

Things seem to be accelerating.  Well, why not?  I hope Trump is preparing to send special forces into the Minnesota Governor’s Mansion and provide Tampon Tim with the cell next to President Maduro.  And while he’s at it he might as well add Mayor Frey to his collection of annoying political losers.  Now some people are worried this stuff will boil over into civil war.  I’m not.  Now if we are talking about war, then we can find better things to worry about.  Russia, China even Iran have some dangerous military assets and a track record for war.  But Tim Walz does not have a history of fighting.  He is willing to allow rioters to burn down various urban centers in his state as is Mayor Frey.  But personally get involved in war?  No, he resigned from the National Guard when his unit was scheduled to go to Iraq.  So no, Walz doesn’t do war.  I read that Trump declared that he has proof that George Soros is funding the Antifa violence and he’s going to go after him for it.  Well, what has he been waiting for?  Don’t tell us, show us.  Give Soros the cell next to Walz.  I’m sure listening to Walz for even a short time would drive Soros to suicide.

But things definitely seem to be reaching some kind of crescendo.  Maybe I was wrong about Iran.  It’s starting to look like the anti-government protests are reaching some kind of critical mass where the mullahs might actually flee the way Assad did in Syria in December, 2024.  Imagine if the Iranians actually end the Islamic republic and go back to just being a normal country.  Suddenly Hamas, Hezbollah and half of the other crazies in the Middle East would lose all their funding.  Maybe all those terrorists would have to get jobs and work for a living.

But I will miss the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei chanting Death to the Great Satan!  Of course, the previous Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khomeini chanted the same thing.  And you know, their names are really similar.  Coincidence?  I don’t think so!  And they look a lot alike.  I think they had the same beard.  Hey, maybe they’re really the same guy!  Maybe he just made believe he died to get the life insurance money.  Well, it’s too bad Jimmy Carter couldn’t have lasted a few more years.  He could have lived to see the guys who lost him his re-election bounced out of Iran.

These are the things I think about.

Ancient European History – Part 3

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In H. G. Wells’ “The Outline of History,” He writes a couple of paragraphs at the conclusion of his description of the Fall of the Roman Empire.   He discusses the phenomenon of “Caesarism.”

“But while the smashing of the Roman social and political structure was thus complete, while in the east it was thrown off by the older and stronger Hellenic tradition, and while in the west it was broken up into fragments that began to take on a new and separate life of their own, there was one thing that did not perish, but grew, and that was the tradition of the world empire of Rome and of the supremacy of the Cæsars. When the reality was destroyed, the legend had freedom to expand. Removed from the possibility of verification, the idea of a serene and splendid Roman world-supremacy grew up in the imagination of mankind, and still holds it to this day.

Ever since the time of Alexander, human thought has been haunted by the possible political unity of the race. All the sturdy chiefs and leaders and kings of the barbarians, who raided through the prostrate but vast disorder of the decayed empire, were capable of conceiving of some mighty king of kings greater than themselves and giving a real law for all men, and they were ready to believe that elsewhere in space and time and capable of returning presently to resume his supremacy, Cæsar had been such a king of kings. Far above their own titles, therefore, they esteemed and envied the title of Cæsar. The international history of Europe from this time henceforth is largely the story of kings and adventurers setting up to be Cæsar and Imperator (Emperor). We shall tell of some of them in their places. So universal did this “Cæsaring” become, that the Great War of 1914-18 mowed down no fewer than four Cæsars, the German Kaiser (= Cæsar), the Austrian Kaiser, the Tsar (= Cæsar) of Russia, and that fantastic figure, the Tsar of Bulgaria. The French “Imperator” (Napoleon III) had already fallen in 1871. There is now (1920) no one left in the world to carry on the Imperial title or the tradition of Divus Cæsar except the Turkish Sultan and the British monarch. The former commemorates his lordship over Constantinople as Kaisar-i-Roum[274]; the latter is called the Cæsar of India (a country no real Cæsar ever looked upon), Kaisar-i-Hind.”

 

Mr. Wells had his finger on something.  There is a fascination, not with the reality of the actual Roman Empire, but with the fantasy of it as this just, omnipotent, supremely competent and efficient ruler and government.  Now as any student of that era knows this was an almost polar opposite of what the empire actually was.  The oligarchs who reaped the lion’s share of the benefits from the empire’s permanence were heartless creatures who thought of the poor (slave or free) as nothing but animals to be harvested in every way imaginable.

And maybe this gives us a clue as to what kind of government we’re supposed to have.  We’re looking for a system where the humans aren’t treated like animals.  The first thing that comes to mind is the evolution of Socialism and Communism as secular stand-ins for the Christian church.  The “love your neighbor” part of it puts us in mind of the utopian brotherhood that Marx and the other socialists touted as their goal.  But of course, we all remember how those experiments end; death camps, oligarchs (commissars) and bread lines.

The opposite is capitalism with a capitol K.  And we’re currently living through that right now.  And once again we get oligarchs.  But this bunch just send our jobs to China and tell us to stop having children to “save the planet.”  So somehow, we’ve got to figure out a third way.

 

Different thinkers have tried to come up with different ways to allow representative government to more satisfyingly express the needs and will of the people.  Robert A. Heinlein thought that the vote should be restricted to veterans of the armed services.  Some have thought that only people with children should be able to vote.  And, of course, women think they’re the only ones qualified to vote.  There have been schemes whereby the number of votes you have should be based on things like how much you pay in taxes or receive in government benefits.  In other words, the more you pay into the system the more you get to decide.

There’s one guy named Curtis Yarvin who believes we need a monarch who should be chosen and overseen in the same way that a company selects and oversees a CEO (Chief Executive Officer).  In some ways this is an interesting idea.  The concept becomes a little fuzzy when he tries to describe what the equivalent is to the Chairman and other members of the Board of Directors.  But he’s right in the sense that the leader of this country needs much more authority in order to get things done.  It seems pretty clear that our system of checks and balances between the three branches of government have failed to produce good governance.  The bureaucracy has become bloated and arrogant and need to be pared back radically.  The judiciary is a hornet’s nest of special interests and influence peddling as are the Houses of Congress.  And the stalemate between the Left and Right is maddening to anyone who wants this country fixed.  We seem to be at a dead end.

What’s the answer?

You Won’t Have Tim Walz to Kick Around Anymore

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Tim Walz, that hero of the George Floyd Riots (I mean protests), the only politician stupid enough to make Kamala Harris look like the smart half of the ticket, is not running for re-election.  Well, well, well.  How the knuckleheaded hath fallen.  Okay, now things will get interesting.  The ongoing investigations into Somali scams that ate up billions of dollars should be very interested in exactly what Tim knew and when he knew it.  Who knows, maybe Tim might have to defend himself in court against charges that he was complicit in the large-scale fraud that occurred in the state he ran as governor.  Or maybe he wasn’t part of the fraud.  Maybe he really is as stupid as he says he is.  If that’s the case then it’s the voters of Minnesota who are at fault.  They elected and re-elected this guy.  After all he was the one at ground zero when the George Floyd riots were getting started and he did nothing to stop them.  In fact, he enabled them in every way he could.  When some National Guard troops could have put a stop to the looting and arson, he let it happen and even justified it as “peaceful protests.”

And during the COVID fraud he went along with the school and work shutdowns and the mask mandates and all the other nonsense that crippled this country and deprived kids of their education.  Yes, at every turn Tim’s been a rolling disaster of a nincompoop.  Whether it was putting tampon dispensers in the boy’s bathrooms in the high schools or resigning his military position right before the Iraq War, Tim has been at the forefront of unmanly behavior wherever he was.

And yet the interesting thing is that Kamala Harris selected him, not only because he was almost as stupid as she was but because they thought he would appeal to white male voters.  As a white man I find this incredibly insulting.  They must think we really are idiots.  What normal man thinks Tim Walz represents him?  Even a cursory glance at his history or his statements would clearly show him to be a radical progressive with a clear hatred of traditional values and white men.  He is the antithesis of J. D. Vance and this was openly apparent in the vice-presidential debate during which Vance made Walz look like a low-grade moron (which he is).

So just a little over a year after Tim Walz helped Donald Trump become president of the United States again, Tim will be helping Trump show the country just what dishonest and incompetent politicians the Democrats are.  California, Minnesota, New York and Illinois are all floundering in debt and dysfunction.  Tim will be a symbol of how the leaders of that party are personally responsible for the fraud and waste that went on during the Biden presidency.  Walz may be lucky that he’s leaving now.  Even his incompetency may soon be eclipsed by the spectacle of Mayor Mamdani turning the largest city in the nation into a third-world hellhole.  But even so Tim Walz has earned himself a spot on the Wall of Shame.  Adios Knucklehead.  We hardly knew ye.

05JAN2026 This ‘N’ That

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Sunday January 4th is the end of my vacation.  So, I’ll be busy with a bunch of stuff; work, book launch and various chores and repairs.  So today I’m luxuriating in a trifecta of “Christmas Carol” viewings and so I’ll be steeped in “peace on Earth, goodwill toward men” right before I go back to despising the citizens of Dunwich on a face-to-face basis.  Honestly, the bureaucratic nightmare that is unfolding has me questioning my current status and I may decide to walk away from all this nonsense but we’ll have to see.  Ethically I’ll have to give notice and let them find someone as stupid as me to volunteer to suffer through all this.  And I’d have to train my replacement so relief would still be delayed by weeks.  But it is fun to contemplate escape.  Even this short venting has lifted my spirits.  Okay, enough for now.

The world stage is becoming increasingly troubled but for now I’ll restrict myself to Venezuela.  Now this crisis is actually the most manageable.  Essentially letting the US military eject the Cubans, guard the oil fields and end the drug shipments to the United States might all be within the abilities of the Trump administration.

Theoretically the oil infrastructure that was nationalized by Maduro’s predecessor could be returned to the western oil companies and very reasonable arrangements could provide enormous money for Venezuela’s people and also flood the American market with cheap oil and gas.  This would have the effect of lowering American transportation and energy costs and thereby lowering the cost of living here.  Now actually making this happen without major problems is a different question.  But I think Trump sees this as an opportunity to attack the cost-of-living problem head on.  If nothing else you have to admire his guts.  I’ll take a wait and see attitude (since I don’t have any choice anyway).

And finally, it’s only seventeen days until the publication on Amazon of my magnum opus, “The Sniper” I’m hoping everyone who has friends that might be interested in a right-wing, alternate history, techno-thriller will let them know about this great event.  In the run-up to the launch, I will become increasingly annoying with my constant shilling and repetitive praise of this product of my literary labor.  I apologize in advance to everyone but I must do my best to drum up business.  So, if hyperbole makes you break out in hives be warned this will be ground zero for such stuff.

Alright, that’s enough of that.  On a local weather note it has been snowing either a little or a lot every couple of days for the last couple of weeks.  Now I’m pretty used to this but lately it’s been getting mixed up with freezing rain and ice.  That’s a lot less fun.  So, I’ve been spending a lot more time on driveway surface preparation.  Because of this I haven’t had as much time for thinking up stuff for my posts.  So, I hope after this weekend things will be better for the next couple of weeks.  Thank you for your patience.

Be Careful, Donald

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Well, Trump is definitely disrupting things.  The question is can he keep the whole machine from shaking itself apart.  Venezuela doesn’t bother me.  That’s not even a real country.  It’s a mafia neighborhood with a money-printing machine in the basement.

Iran on the other hand is a much bigger and more dangerous neighborhood.  Their economy is in tatters and the middle-class is so starved that they dared to face off in the streets against the thugs that Khamenei employs to silence all protestors, with a crow bar.  Trump threw in a threat against the mullahs if they start murdering the protestors in the street.  And that is his place as leader of the “free world” I guess.  But is it just an idle threat?  And will these protests really go anywhere?

The last time protests accomplished anything in Iran was 1979 when the Islamists overthrew the Shah of Iran and brought the Ayatollah Khomeini out of exile to begin the Islamic Republic.  And that kicked off the Islamic Revolution by holding Americans hostage for over a year.  Is it possible that enough Iranians are angry enough to risk torture and death to kick the mullahs out of power and turn Iran back into a modern country?  I guess it’s possible but why now?

I read that inflation in Iran is currently at 43%.  That is definitely getting close to some kind of breaking point.  But standing up to men with machine guns and torture cells takes a lot of guts.  I’m far from convinced that anything will come of the Iranian protests.  Now maybe it will soften up the regime into cutting a deal with the West.  Maybe they’ll agree to end their funding of terrorist groups and in that way begin to have economic sanctions lifted against their oil exports other commercial enterprises.

Now, all of this going on at the same time that Ukraine and Russia are battling to the death may not be a coincidence.  Both Venezuela and Iran are Russian allies and trading partners.  These situations may be an attempt to destabilize the Russian economy.  Sanctions against Russia have been skirted in part by using oil tankers that trade outside of the western countries and this is the same strategy that Iran and Venezuela have used.  Perhaps Trump is ratcheting up the pressure on all of these “shadow fleets” to destabilize the economies of all three of these countries.

And maybe it will work.  Iran is badly hurting and Russia is beginning to suffer from the combination of sanctions and war fatigue.  And Venezuela was a sitting duck for US military and covert attacks.  Maybe Trump will get a trifecta of victories.  He might even get his Nobel Peace Prize.

But I’ll have to say it’s an exceedingly dangerous game he’s playing.  There must be dozens of Iranian sleeper cells that snuck in during Biden’s open border policy.  What if the mullahs grow desperate and decide to spread some chaos in the land of the “Great Satan” before they lose control of their own country?  I get so tired of these places on the map that are nothing but misery for their own people and anyone that gets involved with them.  Donald, be careful.

Ancient European History – Part 2

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In the first part of this essay, I stated that the Greeks and Romans utterly failed in their attempt at democratic or even representative government.  And that is demonstrably true.  Athens lasted less than a lifetime as a democracy and Rome was never anything but an oligarchy masquerading as a popular government.  Even when the emperor was the supreme power in the state somehow the plutocrats still got all the laws they needed to bleed the poor dry and prevent any least benefit for the people who made up the bulk of the empire.  So, yeah, Rome was a slave camp for everyone but the rich.

But how about us?  Have we improved on what the ancients had?  Well, we at least have eliminated slavery.  That is one absolute advantage.  And theoretically we have representative government.  In some sense I have a chance of someone who thinks the way I do writing the laws and enforcing them.  Okay, there’s something like that going on.  After all, look, Donald Trump is president for the second time.  He’s even been able to eject large numbers of Deep State ringers out of the federal government.  And he’s even been able to primary Republicans who vote against the reforms he’s pushing.  He has made some headway toward populist outcomes to some of the worst situations we live under.  He has been attempting to reverse unconstitutional laws and rulings like anti-white and anti-male discrimination.

But what we’re seeing is only the first steps.  And this is Trump’s last term.  Will more progress be made.  After all, even under the Roman Republic there were attempted reforms.  Tiberius Gracchus was a famous example.  He attempted to stop the patricians from robbing poor farmers of their land every time they were forced to fight in a war.  While they were in the army their families got into debt just to feed themselves and when they got home the government refused to forgive these debts in gratitude for their military service and these families ended up losing their farms to the greedy moneylenders who added these acres to their already obscenely large landholdings.  Gracchus attempted to bring these protections to a vote and was murdered by a mob for his trouble.  Interestingly Trump has already dodged two assassins already.  When J. D. Vance and the other republicans run for president in 2028, I hope their secret service protection is a lot better than what candidate Trump had in 2024.

So, yes, we have improved somewhat on the fairness of the government we have over the ancients.  But many of the same problems haunt us.  Graft, influence peddling, complete indifference for the working and middle classes and a bloated bureaucracy that swallows up enormous resources that should go to useful government projects like infrastructure and industrial planning that make it possible for businesses to expand and hire more people.

In the next part I want to look at whether the current method we use for selecting leaders which at least nominally is supposed to be based on Greek and Roman models is really the best method or whether some other structure would be better.

New Years Day 2026

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Here we are on the first day of a year that is bound to be a roller coaster ride.  The world is poised between plunging into chaos or shaking off the poisonous effects of the woke nightmare we’ve been subjected to since 2008.  Which one wins is anyone’s guess.  But just having the Bad Orange Man there in the White House is proof to me that all hope hasn’t disappeared.  All of his words and deeds rankle the enemies of normalcy whenever he speaks or acts.  He’s a constant source of rage for all of the people I despise so much.  And hopefully this year he’ll up the voltage even higher and burn out all their circuitry in splendid fashion.

As I said, there’s no guarantee that he’ll win.  There are an enormous number of horrible people in this country.  And they’ll stop at nothing to restore the Obama/Biden team in Washington.  And this team is composed of both Democrats and Republicans.  They’re creatures of the Deep State that profit obscenely from the constant siphoning off of the country’s lifeblood into NGOs and other fronts that profit the Left and attack normal people wherever and whenever they can.  But they have been hurt and hurt badly by the DOGE initiatives and Trump’s executive orders and even that law that the House got passed that ended the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and by extension cut off the funding for PBS and NPR.  And this proves that fighting these entities is possible.  And if it’s possible we need to give Trump all the help he can get to win the fight.

So, I’ll start the year with a realistic but positive outlook.  Trump won’t win every fight.  He might even lose one or two houses of Congress in the mid-terms.  But that’s nothing new.  It’s almost expected.  But what he has shown is that he can get a hell of a lot done with the right team and the will to make things happen.

Normally people write New Year’s Resolutions.  Instead, I’ll make a list of things I hope happen in 2026.

  • Tim Walz resigns from the governorship of Minnesota.
  • Mayor Mamdani crashes and burns in his first year as Mayor of New York City. By that I mean that he has to renege on all his campaign promises (free busses, frozen rents, city-run grocery stores) and comes begging to Albany and Washington to keep him from being run out of town on a rail.
  • ICE deports several times more illegals in 2026 than in 2025. They’ve been ramping up and I think they’re figuring out the pain points for illegals.
  • The Ukraine War will end. Will Trump get a Nobel Peace Prize.  Nah!
  • Maduro will flee Venezuela for Cuba. The drug traffickers will shift over to Mexico and American oil companies will return to restore their oil industry to some semblance of efficiency.
  • The guy who shot Charlie Kirk will be found guilty and sentenced to death.

Okay, that’s enough.  Happy New Year.

ShatnerKhan X

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Today I spoke to my fellow initiates in Advanced Shatneriana and it was decided that ShatnerKhan X will take place on January 17th at the Compound in the heart of Dunwich.  Now you may ask is this really the tenth ShatnerKhan.  Well, I tried to look back at the records and discovered that in November of 2024 I mentioned ShatnerKhan VIII.  But before that the highest number I could find was III.  So, something seems wrong.  I went farther back and found that ShatnerKhan I occurred on November 1st 2019.

That was over a year after my initial decision to celebrate all things Shatner in my groundbreaking post. “William Shatner a Demigod of Bad Acting.”  It’s required reading at Starfleet Academy.

The actual agenda is not as structured as in ShatnerKhans past.  Will we watch the two Twilight Zone episodes?  Will we review the various Star Trek episodes where Kirk performs his signature shoulder roll?  Will we rate the various alien women he groped?  Will we analyze his interactions with Lieutenant Sulu for any telltale animosity?  Will we do a survey to decide in which episode Kirk looks fattest?  The only thing I’m certain is we will play “Rocket Man.”  After all it’s a short performance and it combines all of Shatner’s signature tics in one package.  It has the weird pauses, the meaningless syllable stress changes in dialog and his truly embarrassing facial expressions trying to convey inappropriate emotions.  It is a masterclass in bad acting with bad singing thrown into the bargain for free.

And it is important to have a ShatnerKhan.  As we all know Bill Shatner was born in 1931.  He will be ninety-five in 2026 if he makes it to March 22nd.  And honestly, he’s starting to look a little raggedy.  So now is definitely a good time to review his many achievements and mock him relentlessly.

In addition, it’s also an excuse to eat extremely fattening foods and sit around and shoot the breeze with my old friends.  We’re not getting any younger either and it’s time to catch up on what’s gone on over the last year or two.  There are milestones and family stuff and plans to make for the upcoming year and now is the best time before we all get swamped with work and other commitments.

So it is with a light heart that I announce this incredible event.  Will we wear the Shatner masks from the “Halloween” movies (probably not, they’re really uncomfortable and would stop us from continuously eating)?  Will we watch any of the Star Trek movies like parts of the Wrath of Khan with the famous “Khaaaaaaaaaaaaan!!!!!! Moment (probably not, too much work to tee up)?  Will we eat and drink way too much food and dessert?  There I can answer categorically and emphatically Yes!!!  Of course, there is the danger of bad weather upending our plans and causing a cancellation.  This is after all Dunwich, a cursed land with endless evil bleeding into everything including the weather.  But we are intrepid individuals and fear no evil.  So SHATNERKHAN X !!!!!!!

Now You See it, Now You Don’t

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After any significant snowfall we now experience an obligatory freezing rain follow-up.  So, I wake up this morning to both driveways essentially skating rinks.  For fun I took a shovel as a rudder to keep my balance and stepped onto the steep top of the lower driveway and allowed gravity to propel me forward.  It was smooth as glass and by the time I got to the bottom, I was moving pretty fast.  So, I leaned over and headed for a snow bank.

I spent about two hours sanding the top driveway (the bottom one was hopeless) and then went out to buy another 360 pounds of sand for the future.  Of course, after lunch it started raining hard and the 45–50-degree temperature melted most of the ice on both driveways.  Well, what can you do?  Basically, I’m damned if I do and damned if I don’t so, “Yay New England!”

So that put the kibosh on my plan to get finished with the marketing chores I need to perform for the book launch.  But I’ll get going soon.

I read some more news items on-line.  This is a seriously mixed-up world both domestically and internationally.  But I remain optimistic that the Trump administration can make a substantial difference in the lives of Americans if he keeps his eyes on the factors that are limiting the ability of young people to marry and have children.  If he finds ways to address this; some kind of Marshall Plan for this country I think he can get the Zoomers solidly in his camp.

And I’m not saying that will be easy.  Our economy is seriously distorted by the off-shoring of manufacturing.  But Trump has a lot of levers he can push to force business to do his bidding.  And I think he should use every last one of them to restore the middle-class.  Everyone since Aristotle has known that only countries with a large thriving middle-class are worth living in.  I think he should build houses and pay women to stay home and have kids.  If enough incentives are offered, I think it would change the direction of our demographic collapse and at the same time make this a much more human and interesting place.

Well, we’ll have to see if Donald is up to the challenge of “making America great again.”  And without a doubt I’m rooting for him.  I hope he doesn’t get too wrapped up with his Venezuela project or spend too much time refereeing the Ukrainians and Russians.  I’m satisfied with leaving the Europeans to muddle through that disaster on their own.  There’s nothing but death and misery happening there.

So, as we approach the New Year, I’m still mostly optimistic about 2026.  I think the economy is starting to show signs of life and that could make a big difference for the mid-year elections.  If by some stroke of luck, we hold onto the House and Senate it’s possible Trump will talk the Senate into abolishing the filibuster and just pass a bunch of laws that will make this country normal again (like having a balanced budget!).

Well, that’s enough for now.