Category: Current Events

02APR2022 – OCF Update – A Nice Quiet Day

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This morning’s post was kind of depressing.  Talking about the awful situation we’re in is always grim.  But today was a beautiful day.  Chilly for sure, but bright sunlight and reasonable breeze.

Camera Girl and I took our morning walk in the woods.  She was a little feistier than usual but being a man of even temper and enlightened disposition I resisted the impulse to cut a switch and administer a husbandly correction as is my right by biblical pronouncement.  But it was a close thing.  Instead I gave her a lecture on the mistakes of allowing women to vote, wear shoes, learn how to read or talk back to their fathers and husbands.  She was sullenly silent but I’m pretty sure I got through to her.

There were lots of folks out fishing from the shore and on boats on the pond and on the lake.  There was some kind of public service sign asking fishermen to catch and release the stocked trout.  Well, this seemed kind of silly.  Sure, some people do this.  But the people who want to eat fish are going to keep them.  After all, they’ve paid their license fee and go through all the hoops needed to have the tackle and bait and drive to the lake and maybe own a boat and all that entails.  And then they have to read how the fish are filled with lead and mercury and probably viruses only known to Lord Fauci.  But then they still have to be harangued by tree-huggers because they want a fish dinner.

When I saw a guy throwing a pretty small fish into his bucket I gave him the OK sign and a conspiratorial smile.  He looked perplexed and maybe slightly annoyed.  Well some people are slow.  On the walk back to the car I opined at considerable length about this fishing do-goodery to Camera Girl.  She didn’t seem to hear me.  Probably some hearing loss going on there.

So today was a good day to take care of some annoying paperwork that needs doing.  And I planted some seeds in an indoor planting tray contraption.  We watched a tv show (an episode of Amazon’s Jack Ryan series) and listened to some music.  All in all a quiet but satisfying day.  And not once did I worry about that moron in Washington and the awful stuff he’s working on.  I took care of my own life and enjoyed the beautiful world that God gave us all day.

There’s plenty of time to fret and bellyache about the pod people next week.  For now I’m living large and enjoying the good life.  Have a good Saturday night.

Russians End Gas Supply to Europe

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Russia announced a week ago that after the economic sanctions that had been levelled against it would demand to be paid in rubles for all gas deliveries into Europe.  After the Europeans refused it was assumed the Russians would back down.  It appears that was mistaken.

“After European nations imported the most gas from Russian sources yesterday in months, scrambling to stock up on supplies as Russian President Vladimir Putin’s deadline to either pay for gas in rubles (or be cut off) came and went, Russian gas giant Gazprom has officially halted all deliveries to Europe via the Yamal-Europe pipeline, a critical artery for European energy supplies.”

This is a very interesting situation.  Will Germany back down and pay Russia in rubles?  Will this signal the beginning of negotiations between NATO and Russia?  Will Biden advise Zelensky to negotiate a quick settlement?  We shall see.

Goodbye to All That

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Robert Graves is probably best known today for his historical novel “I, Claudius.”  He was a British officer in World War I and after enduring the horrors of trench warfare he became completely disillusioned with patriotism and in fact British civilization in general.  As a declaration of this rejection, he wrote an autobiography called “Goodbye to All That.”

By this he implied that he rejected the social structure that had defined British society before the war.  To him that whole way of life, that way of looking at the world, and what it stood for had been invalidated and rendered absurd.

In a way, the Left is saying a similar thing.  They’ve rejected the basis of traditional American life.  But they’ve done more than that.  They’ve rejected the basis of all traditional human life.  They no longer recognize things as fundamental as the difference between a man and a woman.  They deny the objectivity of science and even mathematics.  They reject meritocratic principles.  Essentially, they desire to reject reality and order the world according to some fantasy that they have concocted in their heads but that doesn’t seem to have any permanent rules.  So, the Left has said goodbye to all that.

But by the same token it is necessary for us to say something similar.  The concept of the United States of America as a cohesive, unified nation has now been invalidated and rendered absurd.  America is a geographical and political entity that contains multiple, and in some cases, hostile segments of the population that no longer see each other as countrymen.

Worse than that, the Left uses the patriotism they no longer believe in to bamboozle traditional Americans into sacrificing their self-interest when it benefits the Left.  So, we’re “fellow Americans” when the Left wants us to fight a war or share the wealth with underprivileged minorities.  But when it’s time to celebrate anything of ours, well, that’s just white supremacy.

It’s time for us to say goodbye to the idea that everyone living in the United States of America is an American.  It’s simply not true.  Worse than that, acting as if it were true is counterproductive and sometimes even dangerous.  We’re going to have to start separating from the Left in important ways.  We’ll need to send our children to different schools.  The public schools will be too dangerous.  And because of the discrimination that’s already apparent in woke corporations we’ll need our own businesses.  So, we’ll need to be able to identify each other in order to hire our people for these companies.  How we’ll do that is something I’m not sure of.  Probably recommendations will be the best way to know someone is one of us.

But the first step and the most important step is to start distinguishing in your own head between the different kinds of people living in the United States and do everything in your power to maximize your dealings with real Americans and minimize your dealings with Leftists.  I’ll admit this was a hard realization for me.  I’ve always been a flag waving patriot.  But I know now that the Left has destroyed many organizations and institutions like the public schools.  We don’t have the luxury of thinking that these are our institutions.  They’re not.  We just can’t assume that everyone believes what we believe and is our friend.  We have to stick together and boycott the rest of them.

Maybe someday things will go back to normal and we’ll all be one country again.  It’s possible though doubtful.  But for the foreseeable future it’ll have to be, goodbye to all that.

How Could I Not Read an Article Called, “Germany’s Energy Fiasco?”

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The author is a German professor named Hans-Werner Sinn.  His bio says he is a German economist who served as President of the Ifo Institute for Economic Research from 1999 to 2016. He currently serves on the German Economy Ministry’s advisory council.  He is Professor Emeritus of Economics and Public Finance at the University of Munich.

What’s refreshing is he writes using facts when he discusses the realities of energy production.  Germany has almost completed its program of shutting down both its coal powered and nuclear-powered electrical generation facilities.  But since wind and solar account for 6.7% of the total energy requirements for the country it uses gas to heat most of its homes and businesses.

And even though 29% of electrical generation comes from wind and solar, whenever these resources fail (which is often) the full load of the electrical grid is powered by gas powered plants.  Therefore, Germany has built a large number of gas-powered plants to supposedly allow the transition to 100% renewables.  So currently, Germany is hopelessly dependent on Russian gas for heat and power.  And even if the whole German land mass was covered in solar cells and the sky was filled with wind turbines they would still need a large amount of gas to heat their homes and run their industry.

Germany’s posturing about boycotting Russian gas is just that.  Posturing.  If Russia were to cut off gas from Germany the country would grind to a halt in less than a week.  And several other European nations are in a similar situation.  This makes Biden’s threats especially hollow.

Reading Sinn’s essay, I am struck that the Greens in Germany have slit their own throats.  Germany had 17 nuclear power plants and an abundance of coal in the ground.  They threw these things away to pay the Russians for gas that produces more of the “dreaded” green house gases than they used to produce.

Good.  Let them stew on their current situation and possibly discover wisdom.

Personally, I hope the Russians do shut off gas to the West for a few weeks.  I think it’s valuable for people to get what they say they want.  It has a clarifying effect.  Sometimes it’s even educational, depending on the intellect of the recipient.

31MAR2022 – OCF Update – This’N’That

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Today was a down day.  Camera Girl and I were out and about on errands.  She needed to buy a replacement hamster and I needed to get some angle iron for temporary fence supports.

A few months ago our intrepid hamster Jellybean left this mortal coil.  Because he was an especial favorite of Princess Sack of Potatoes Camera girl told her that Jellybean was sick and had to go to the hospital for medical care.  And in due time he was apparently forgotten.

But this week she remembered ans seemed very sad that he hadn’t returned from the hospital.  Feeling terrible for the little girl, Camera Girl told her that he’d be returning very soon.  But after checking with her animal seller she was unable to obtain one of the same color.  Jellybean was black and the only available replacements were brown and white.

The discrepancy will be explained thus.  The new hamster is Jellybean’s cousin and because he has no home, Jellybean has agreed to switch places with him and go back with his family.

Then to move the process along we asked her to name the new hanster and she quickly settled on Terret.  At least that’s how I’m spelling it.  It sounded like it rhymed with ferret so Terret it is.  I told Camera girl that I will field any additional questions concerning Jeelybean and Terret going forward.  Camera Girl is just not a convincing liar and I am something of a natural born storyteller.

So angle iron is a lot more expensive than I remember it.  A four foot length of 18 gauge angle was twenty two bucks!  But I bought a couple and I’ll see if it’ll do the trick.  The first semi-decent day I’ll go out with the angle, a sledge hammer and some screws and put an end to one of the broken posts on the fence.  Ah, the joys of home ownership.

So I hear Dopey Joe is going to release a million barrels of oil from the strategic reserve every day until the election.  What a genius!  Next thing I guess he’ll release a million cows a day and ten million chickens a day from the strategic livestock reserve.  And to finish it off he’ll be releasing a million tons of wheat a day from the strategic grain reserve.  We really deserve a better grade of psychopaths from our ruling class.  Well, you get what you pay for.

Anyway, I’ll get back to work now and pound out some high quality outrage.  Enjoy the night.

DeSantis Versus Pence, a Contrast Worth Looking At

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Lately everything that DeSantis has been doing strikes me as right on target.  He’s passing laws to restrain the Left in multiple arenas.  And even beyond the kind of laws he champions, his interactions with the press and the corporate Left have been spot on.  He refuses to be intimidated and he pushes back at them and even attacks their motives.

And that made me think of a comparison between what DeSantis is doing with outlawing the sexualizing of very young schoolchildren and what Mike Pence did when he passed a law to protect religious freedom in Indiana.  This law was meant to protect wedding service providers; like the photographers and cake bakers from anti-discrimination lawsuits by LGBTQ advocates.

Indiana Gov. Mike Pence Says Religious Freedom Law ‘Absolutely Not’ a Mistake

Here’s a link (above) to a video of Pence being grilled by George Stephanopoulos on the bill and repeatedly attempting to get Pence to say yes or no as to whether the bill allows wedding service providers to “discriminate” against gay people getting married.  If you watch it Pence looks like a weak, whiny, wimp afraid to just say openly that religious freedom is the aim of the bill and if preventing religious people from being forced to violate their religious convictions is discrimination against the people trying to coerce them then it is justified discrimination.

 

Now compare this travesty with these three examples of Ron DeSantis dealing with the press on the so-called “Don’t Say Gay” bill.

‘Does The Truth Matter Or Not?’: DeSantis Lashes Out At Reporter Over Question On Bill

 

Gov. DeSantis signs controversial ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill into law

 

Gov. Ron DeSantis responds to leaked Disney comments about parental rights bill (on Tucker Carlson show)

In each case he counterattacks against the media narrative and hammers his point home that the truth is completely different from the version being represented by the media.  And in the second and third videos and goes farther to say that those attacking these bills aren’t trying to protect LGBTQ individuals.  They are trying to impose indoctrination or “grooming” of small children into deviant sexual practices.  They are trying to introduce to very young children extremely harmful sexual and psychological ideas that can lead to irreparable harm to their minds, bodies and even end their lives.

Is it any wonder that Mike Pence has proven to be such an ineffective representative for conservatives?  He can’t defend the things he believes in in a forceful and convincing manner.  One week after the interview with Stephanopoulos Pence amended the bill to prevent it from protecting the wedding service providers that it was meant to aid.  He is useless.

I believe Ron DeSantis is just the opposite.  He is smart and he is strong.  He can think on his feet and he can push back against the twisted logic that the Left uses to make the attackers look like the victims.  I believe if we have a man like this as president, he will find ways to reverse many of the evil laws and regulations that afflict us.  Someone with strength would even be able to push the awful people we have in Congress to follow his lead.

I don’t know whether DeSantis will be running for president or vice president in 2024.  But in either case he looks like the right man in our future.  Could the Deep State do to him what they did to Trump?  Maybe, but DeSantis has significantly better governmental experience and would bring his own team from Florida into the executive branch with him.  Trump had no team.

So, this is my case.  We’ll have to see what actually happens in 2024.

The ZMan Has a Very Good Post on “The Crisis.”

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Basically his thesis is that when a government collapses during a crisis usually the external crisis is just a stressor revealing the internal crisis.  And that internal crisis is usually a long standing erosion of some quality that eventually will fail during an external crisis.  So for instance, in the Roman empire, the long term rot in the legions allowed the invading Germans and Huns to knock over the façade of military might.

It’s a very well written essay and might give people an idea of how we might see the Global American Empire begin to come apart.  America’s dominance on the world scene was predicated on the combination of American dominance in military, industrial and financial matters.  Now all three of those areas have been undermined by its own doing.  The Ukraine crisis may be the stressor that reveals America’s decline and maybe collapse.

It’s Unanimous, Biden is an Idiot

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Yesterday I read a bunch of articles by both the Left, and the Right.  And they both agree that Biden is a gibbering idiot and a menace to the survival of the world.  All I can say to that is … duh!  But for me all it reveals is the Left’s inherent cowardice.  There is no greater disaster than their own deaths.  So, when they contemplate a bumbling into nuclear war, they immediately see their own deaths in the almost certain targeting of Washington D.C. by Russian ICBMs.  Well, at least something got their attention.

And the rest of the world is starting to understand just how truly enfeebled the President of the United States is.  He reads answers to pre-screened questions off cue cards he holds in his hands.  He fumbles half the words he says and looses the thread of his arguments if he says more than a few sentences.  Everyone always knew he was a liar but now he’s become an incompetent one.

Importantly, as the leaders of the European Union start to understand just how hopeless he is they’ll have to reconsider whether to follow this man down the path he is laying out.  Russia provides them with the majority of their energy.  What if Russia shuts the spigot?  Will Joe Biden magically provide them with oil and gas?  When the price of wheat skyrockets will Joe Biden sell them discount bread?  When the price of fertilizer goes up an order of magnitude will Joe Biden produce any other fertilizer than the bs he spouts?

We may be entering a new era.  Biden’s incompetence and disastrous policies are tanking the US economy and the Democrats’ midterm prospects monumentally.  If things continue on the road we’re on things may get beyond uncomfortable.  They may become disastrous.  What I wonder about is whether the puppeteers controlling Biden will consider reversing course and attempt to save the country from a new depression.

I tend to doubt it.  I think they prefer harming Americans, especially the working class.  But this time it may extend a lot higher than the working class.  I think there is a real chance the middle-class may essentially disappear.  We don’t manufacture much anymore.  And with the new efficiencies that AI provides I can see the overlords dismissing most of their white-collar minions in order to save on the salaries they represent.  When the lower echelons of Ivy League graduates can’t find cozy sinecures any longer we’ll know we’ve reached the end of the line for the middle class.  We’ll be Mexico or Brazil.

I can’t claim to have any accurate insight about what’s about to transpire.  I tend to think no one does.  Things are a lot dicier than they’ve been in a very long time.  And the people running the country are significantly stupider and more awful than their predecessors.  Compared to Joe Biden, Bill Clinton is Pericles.  Compared to Kamala Harris, Al Gore is Einstein.

But it does seem to me that we’ve reached a point where we’ll have to make changes.  We can’t go on this way.  And that sounds good but then I always return to the fact that our side is Mitch McConnell and Kevin McCarthy.  We need honest and smart men to make the changes but even more than that we need brave men.  And instead, we have greedy, cowardly fools.

Well, roll the dice.

DeSantis Signs the Young Schoolchildren Anti-Grooming Law

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What the Left calls the “Don’t Say Gay” Bill is now law in Florida.  DeSantis makes a very eloquent statement about why this bill is needed.  And he accuses the Left of supporting the sexualization of kindergarten children and he says he doesn’t care what they think of him saying it.  He’s standing up for the rights of parents to control the things taught to their children and to restrain activists from trying to recruit their kids into sexual madness.

This guy hits all the right notes.  Someday he will be President.  If not in 2024 then in 2028.

The Oscars Become a Commercial

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I heard this morning that at the Oscars last night Will Smith slapped Chris Rock in the face for making a joke about Smith’s wife’s hair problems (apparently she’s going bald).  I watched the clip of the incident.  The two entertainers cuss a bit and seem upset.  You know I have a very hard time believing it wasn’t staged.   So little about the world nowadays isn’t fake that I have to assume everything about Hollywood is fake.

It’s not that I couldn’t imagine that a man would react with anger over his wife being the subject of public ridicule.  But Will Smith was probably the strong favorite to win the best actor’s award in a film that featured the theme of a strong man empowering his daughters.  This kind of an event at the awards ceremony sounds like just the kind of publicity stunt that Hollywood would come up with to generate box office for their property.

Who knows, maybe I’m wrong.  But at this point I think most of the country is in the same boat I’m in.  We’ve lost all belief in the tainted institutions like Hollywood and we’ve lost all interest in supporting their products and programs.

Sure, it’s possible Hollywood could make a movie I’d watch.  But it’s now on a case by case basis and I’ll have to have the evidence of someone I trust to tell me something is worth plunking down hard earned cash to see.  I have nothing in particular against the Williams sisters or their family or Will Smith.  But if it isn’t something that specifically aligns with the things I stand for then it’s just one more thing I don’t have the time or money to support.

When they make a movie that portrays Kyle Rittenhouse as the hero, I’ll go see that.  When they make a comedy that’s actually funny, I’ll go see that.  Until then I’ll stick to the classics.