Category: Current Events

Christmas Day 2021

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King James Version

Luke:  Chapter 2

And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed.

2(And this taxing was first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria.)

3And all went to be taxed, every one into his own city.

4And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judaea, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem; (because he was of the house and lineage of David:)

5To be taxed with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child.

6And so it was, that, while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered.

7And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn.

8And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night.

9And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid.

10And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.

11For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.

12And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.

13And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying,

14Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.

15And it came to pass, as the angels were gone away from them into heaven, the shepherds said one to another, Let us now go even unto Bethlehem, and see this thing which is come to pass, which the Lord hath made known unto us.

16And they came with haste, and found Mary, and Joseph, and the babe lying in a manger.

17And when they had seen it, they made known abroad the saying which was told them concerning this child.

18And all they that heard it wondered at those things which were told them by the shepherds.

19But Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart.

20And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things that they had heard and seen, as it was told unto them.

Christmas in the Woke World

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Christmas Cooking, Sony A7 III, Sony 90mm f\2.8 macro lens

If you have very religious friends then you know that many people have always felt that the public face of Christmas has always been tainted by the commercial nature of the holiday in our culture.  They are outraged that the secular elements of Christmas overshadow the sacred nature of the holiday.

Maybe from their point of view what is happening in the culture now is no worse than the former commercialism.  Well, now it’s everyone else’s turn to be outraged.  Of course, the present outrage isn’t confined to commercialism.  We’re dealing with the destruction of a whole civilization and its replacement by nihilism.  But maybe the course of action everyone will be forced to adopt is basically the same as that taken by religious people living in a secular society.  The religious communities have to provide analogs for all the secular institutions around them.  They send their children to religious grammar and high schools.  Their churches sponsor children’s sports teams and fraternal organizations and social occasions where families can get together and young people can find friends.  And these organizations can act as networking opportunities for professional advancement and community projects.  Even politics can be centered around church membership.

If you don’t happen to be religious this may pose a problem in today’s woke society.  Outside of churches the Left has exerted massive pressure to warp and control the other organizations existing in the world today.  Public schools are hotbeds of homosexual recruitment and even stranger things like the indoctrination of middle-school kids into the transgender delusion.  The Boy Scouts have been co-opted, the large corporations are saturated with diversity, inclusion and equity programming and the federal government is an occupying army.

So, there’s only one way forward.  You have to do it all yourself.  Anything you want to preserve about Christmas, you are going to have to sponsor personally.  So, let’s say you want to encourage the religious aspects of Christmas.  Then you are going to have to make sure you bring the kids to church and tell them what you believe.  And if there are cultural traditions or family traditions you want to preserve then you better take the time to teach the kids and the grandkids about them and why they are important.  And let’s face it, if you don’t really believe in the importance of these things, you won’t be able to convince anyone else that they are important.

Luckily for me, I love old fashioned Christmas.  I love getting together with the family and eating a great big meal and passing the time together playing games and telling stories about the old days to the kids and talking about the minor news and events in the family and the community.  I love to put on some old movie like “A Christmas Carol” or “A Christmas Story” and introduce it to another generation.  I love to spend time with my kids and grandkids and hear about their lives and maybe provide a sympathetic ear to someone who needs to talk or make the encouraging noises that everyone likes to hear and sometimes really needs.  And if the talk turns to things going on in the larger world state your opinion honestly and fearlessly.  Don’t mince words about the Democrats and especially not about the truly insane fringes of the Left.

And Christmas is just one chapter of what needs to be done.  Every aspect of normal life and Western Civilization needs the same treatment.  Be vocal and comfortable about cheerleading for the good things in the old culture that need to be defended and nurtured.  Encourage the kids to think about important parts of their lives that they will have to attend to.  Finding a job, finding a spouse, raising a family.  These are things that don’t go without saying.  Say them.  Provide practical help for things like career counseling, finding activities, even providing them with help like a lift to a job or an activity.  After all most parents are stretched pretty thin.  If a granddad has the time, he should make himself useful.

So that’s enough talk.  We’re headed out Christmas Eve in the afternoon to one of my daughters.  That’s going to be fun.  And then Christmas dinner is at my house and that will be grand.  All the grandkids will be there and I will be in my glory.

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night.

23DEC2021 – OCF Update – Pre-Holiday Catastrophes

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Here at the Compound we have threats and invasions on all sides.  A critter has gotten into the basement and the heating system is staging a revolt.  I woke up this morning to Camera Girl informing me with wide-eyed terror that she could hear footsteps in the basement.  There’s a dropped ceiling down there and a lurker in the darkness was making its presence felt.  I went downstairs with a flashlight, a rickety ladder, a two handed ax handle and steely determination but the invader escaped my every attempt.  I’m glad I watched Alien a few weeks ago.  I knew not to enter the air ducts without at least a flamethrower.  I have contracted with big game hunter Frank Buck to “bring ’em back alive.”  Actually I would prefer if he brings it back dead but whatever the prevailing animal ethics are I just want to restore Camera Girl’s joie de vivre.  I will confess that I hope it’s at least a racoon.  If somehow it could be a fisher cat that would provide me with some kind of rollicking adventure story for Christmas but the space is kind of limited.  More likely it’s a chipmunk.

The heating problem has been an ongoing saga.  On December 7th (a day that now does live in infamy) we had the power venter replaced.  This is a fan that exhausts the high temperature exhaust gases from a house without a chimney.  The unfortunate tech who performed this waged an unholy war against cramped space and dimensional constraints of the new unit.  But since the replacement it’s been one problem after another.  Yesterday we had an emergency visit at 9pm to correct a number of heating outages.  Today they continued and I exhorted the service provider that I needed his “top man.”  I envision a sort of Indiana Jones of HVAC technicians coming on the job and battling the forces of entropy to restore my heating system to alignment with Truth, Justice, the American Way and the Second Law of Thermodynamics.

So while I hold down the fort in anticipation of these rescue missions I look out on the wreckage that is Dementia Joe’s America.  Harpies threaten to have Joe Manchin burned at the stake for refusing to cough up some multi-trillions of dollars of spoils from our great grandchildren and bureaucrats threaten to fire anyone who refuses to capitulate to weekly vaccine injections.  These truly are the days of miracles and wonder.  One day soon we will look back on this period and wonder how in the world we allowed ourselves to be abused so badly by such evil men for so long for no good reason.

Well, I’ll have more interesting things to yammer about later but Indiana has arrived and the battle for combustion supremacy must be fought and lost before sundown.

Merry Christmas.

 

Could a Permanent Solution Emerge Out of Chaos?

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Of all the most discouraging aspects of the breakdown of civilization we have been living through the single worst was the orgy of violence and destruction that the Blue State and City governors and mayors unleashed on their cities.  Forcing the police to stand down and allow the mobs to terrorize and victimize the innocent people of these places was horrifying.  And the consequence of this decision has been the ascension of criminal urban gangs to dominance over the streets of these cities.  The consequences of this have been unsustainable for law-abiding people trying to raise families and make a living.  Businesses are subject to random and overwhelming attack by mobs of smash and grab thugs stealing everything of value and threatening violence or even shooting and killing the patrons and employees of businesses.  And every city dweller is subject to random violence at any time.

This state of affairs is similar to what went on during the Middle Ages when marauders and pirates would descend on a coastal town and rape and pillage and burn whatever they wanted to, leaving the inhabitants terrorized and devastated.  The threat was only finally ended when the local nobles figured out that building walled towns and recruiting a standing army was the only way to defeat the Viking incursions.

Now we already know that the only way to suppress crime is to have a strong and effective criminal justice system.  You need a professional police force and a carefully calibrated court and prison system.  It can be neither too draconian nor too lax.  Too strong and the citizens will feel enslaved, too weak and the criminals will rampage across the countryside.  But once you break that system you can’t just click a switch and reactivate it.  It will require an effort and a conscious decision by both the government and the people.  By necessity the people will have to empower a champion whose job it will be to reconquer the areas that have fallen to the barbarians.  And that will of necessity require that the actions be severe and possibly exaggerated.  Death penalties may have to reappear in order to make an example of the worst offenders.  But none of this will happen until the people despair of fixing things by half measures.  The police won’t take the risk of prosecution for using deadly force unless the people signal their desperation and their clear agreement to the use of drastic measures.

I do not imagine we are anywhere near this point yet.  Idiots like the mayor of San Francisco will talk about empowering the police to stop crime an restore order.  All that talk is just noise.  It means nothing.  Even Eric Adams who was elected in New York to be a law-and-order mayor has already signaled by his choice of a black woman diversity candidate for police commissioner that any talk of law and order will be lip service.  I’ve often facetiously talked about cannibalism breaking out in the blue cities.  Well, it may be a joke but I think things will have to get a lot worse before they get better.  Maybe once some billionaire has his child kidnapped for ransom the rich people will realize how close to third world banana republic we’ve sunk.  Or maybe a gang lord will shoot up a school yard and the sight of fifty dead kids will bring people to their senses.

But whatever the exact circumstance, I think it will be crime that finally snaps this country out of its stupor.  When that happens whoever has the courage to lead that crusade will find enormous leverage to make big changes to our government.  And hopefully he’ll be smart and wise enough to make them.

Guest Contributor – Chemist – Reclaiming Christmas

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Mrs. Chemist and I are still working but plan to take the week between Christmas and New Year’s off.

One of the things I loved the most about Christmas vacation as a child was the lack of responsibility – the absolute immunity from having to do anything. It was glorious!

Then, as I got older, responsibilities started to inject into my Christmas vacation. First it was term papers and other assignments over “Winter Break”. Later, my brief career in retail required I work harder that week than any other week of the year. (Retailers call the week between Christmas and New Years the “Thirteenth month” because they do as much business that week as a typical month through the year. After that it was graduate school when the lab and the instruments were barely used and I could get more work done. Then, early in my professional career, I worked through holidays and weekends to prove myself.

I’m done with that.

Mrs. Chemist and I will spend at least one day doing absolutely nothing: No chores, no shopping, no work, no news – nothing a responsible adult “Needs” to do. We plan to sleep late, enjoy each other, watch movies, eat bad food and just enjoy.

We are really looking forward to it.

Ah, Distinctly I Remember It Was in the Bleak December

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Today was a sort of busy day.  Family matters and also, I got a couple of thousand words done for my book.  So, the day was over quickly.  I read through the news and didn’t see anything compelling to rant about.  I watched “The Holly and the Ivy” tonight and that got me back in the spirit of the season but it was late and with the sun gone so early this close to the Winter Solstice I find my energy fails earlier.  So here I am pondering weak and weary upon a midnight dreary.  It seems very quiet tonight.  Possibly that’s just my own stillness but I still want to puzzle out something about the day.

I think what I’m sensing is the contrast between the sacred and the profane.  But maybe it would be better saying good and evil.  I’m thinking about all the positive, life-affirming things tied up with Christmas.  Family, benevolence toward your fellow man, celebration, community and a sense of the holiness of the season.  And then I think about Joe Biden, Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi, “The Squad,” the awful people in the media, George Soros, all the monsters in the FBI and the Justice Department, the psychopaths in Antifa and BLM.  The idea that these people can exist in the same society that honors Christmas seems inconceivable.

And the answer is that it is inconceivable.  We do not exist in the same society.  Sometimes when it’s convenient, they pretend we are one people but that is patently false.  They believe in none of the things we do.  Every action they perform is to destroy that world that we inherited and love.  Christmas is at the epicenter of all they despise and envy.  Parents and children enjoying time off from work to visit grandparents, aunts, uncles and especially cousins are an indictment of their failures as normal human beings.  Producing and supporting a family is a heresy for them, a sin against Gaia.

So, it is at this time of the rolling year that the stark contrast between my personal world and the official goings on of post-America clash most severely.  Joe Biden is a monster who has lived such a horrible and phony life that he has produced Hunter Biden as his replacement in this world.  And Biden is emblematic of what we see all around us.  Something as moronically named as TikTok had a campaign on it to call in threats to middle schools all over America.  School Boards all over America are threatening concerned parents with arrest if they dare complain about malpractice in the schools over propaganda they are teaching the children.  This is a broken world and it’s not accidental.  It’s a concerted effort to destroy anything that is healthy and good.

So that’s the thing I sense.  It’s the disconnect.  Christmas was always a special time of the year but now it’s an anomaly.  It’s this island of joy and happiness in an ocean of dysfunction and malice.  But because of this very difference and rarity it must be enjoyed and cherished almost desperately.  You have to drain the experience down to the very last drop.  Maybe because it has to last a very long time every minute needs to be put to good use.  And as much as possible exclude the outside world and all its horror from your sight and mind.

So, when you make your plans for the holiday do your utmost to leave the newscasts and the social media far from your eyes.  Concentrate on family, food and fun and recharge those batteries as best you can.  It comes but once a year.

Democrats Declare Manchin “Hitler.”  Actual Hitler Sues for Identity Theft from Hell.

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Ah, Democrat butt hurt.  There’s nothing like it.  Listen to these howls of pain and fury:

  • Mehdi Hasan

What’s worse – that Manchin is killing the Biden legislative agenda, and perhaps the future of American democracy too, or that he wasted most of this year dragging this whole thing out to do it *and* wasted half of the time that Dems control Congress and the White House.

  • Jennifer ‘pro-voting’ Rubin

If Manchin is no on both BBB and voting, Biden is done. Democracy is hanging by a thread. Hard to think of anyone more destructive

  • Wajahat Ali

Entire nation of more than 330 million hijacked & screwed by corporate greed & lobbyists who own a man whose represents a state of 1.8 million people. I hope all of this reflects the need for massive structural reform and change. In its absence we’re a shell of a democracy.

 

That bald-headed black Congresswoman from Massachusetts, Elvis Presley or whatever it is, was shrieking about Manchin moving the goal posts and not bargaining in good faith and failing Joe Biden.  She looked like she wanted to roast him on a spit and eat him for lunch.  When Mehdi Hasan, Jennifer Rubin, Wajahat Ali and the bald black chick tell me that, “Democracy is hanging by a thread,” then I’m all in baby.  All I want to know is where is the thread?  I’ve brought my scissors.  Because if this is American democracy then I’m ready to try what’s behind door number two.

I have no idea whether Manchin is as honest as the day is long or as crooked as a corkscrew but he’s ruining Christmas for the evil party and that’s a wonderful gift for me.  They adjourned for the year and Joe Manchin made Bernie Sanders sad.  He looked and sounded like that old man on his porch yelling at those darn kids who put the bag of flaming dog crap on his welcome mat.

And speaking of crap, Dementia Joe is giving a speech on Tuesday to warn us that omicron will get us if we don’t watch out.  Well, he’s too late.  Christmas is upon us and he won’t have time to ruin my holiday.  After Dr. Jill gets the secret service to clean Joe off with a fire hose, he can be strapped down all snug in his psych ward and electroshocked into catatonia until Valentine’s Day.  Sure, we’re stuck with this loser for another three years but at least everyone knows he’s a degenerate crook and we don’t have to pretend we respect him.  We can hope that the rest of his agenda is stymied and he’s reduced to yelling at the invisible audience in his virtual West Wing office where he makes the speeches that no one listens to.  Hopefully Kamala has a hit put out on him soon and we can start driving her crazy right after the mid-terms.

So maybe Manchin gets panicked and gives in on January Second.  Nobody knows.  But right now, I’m happy and they’re miserable.  I call it a win.

Hat Tip to the Conservative Tree House for this Quite Powerful Vaccine Interview

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The Conservative Treehouse has teed up the part of this broadcast that includes Neil Oliver interviewing  Dr. Robert Malone who is an expert on the mRNA technology used in the vaccines that are being used for COVID.  It’s a pretty straight forward warning about the inadvisability of children being given these vaccines.  It also describes the problems that these vaccines pose to anyone that isn’t elderly or at high risk from COVID.

It’s only a few minutes for the interview in a much longer broadcast.  I’d recommend everyone watch this.  I was impressed by the background that this scientist brings to the discussion.  Of course it’s possible he’s being overly cautious but it doesn’t sound crazy to me.

19DEC2021 – OCF Update – This’N’That

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You may have noticed a definite lull in posting yesterday.  I had my two older grandsons over for a Marvel Universe Marathon.  We had copious desserts and Camera Girl’s best spaghetti and meatballs and sausage dinner.  I voted for the original Iron Man movie and they added Thor: Ragnarok and Avengers: Endgame.  Now, considering that “Endgame” clocks in at three hours long, that’s a lot of movies for one day.  But we filled in the time with much witty banter at the expense of the on-screen “heroes.”  The most egregious of the diversity and equity “improvements” was Girl Captain Marvel.  Basically she is Superman with estrogen.  But in addition, the whole girl power agenda was on open display.  And I railed against it most vocally.

But there was still a lot of fun in the movies.  And it was really great to have the kids over for dinner.  We talked about their school situations.  The older fellow is preparing for college and the younger is in high school too.  They have two weeks off for Christmas which is pretty good.  But they were good company for their old grandad and I felt like one of the kids myself.

Omicron continues to look like the variant that couldn’t.  South Africa is a month into the spike and the deaths just haven’t happened.  Based on the new cases data the spike may already be past.  If that is so then I’d say by New Year we will be able to infer that omicron is the endemic benign end state of the COVID-19 virus.  Of course Dementia Joe is desperate to keep this thing going.  And unfortunately, the Sixth Circuit Court just gave him the green light to force large companies to implement the vaccine mandate.  Ah, the horrors of the administrative state.

The train wreck that is the American economy continues to struggle along with “supply chain” holes and rampant inflation punishing the public in a way that is sure to make outrage the dominant emotion in 2022.  And the breakdown in law and order completes the dysfunctional reality of the Biden regime’s profile in a way that is sure to make the midterms truly awful for the Democrats.  Whether the Republicans will be smart enough to use this to their benefit remains to be seen.

Christmas is upon us.  I’ve so far indulged in three of my various versions of the “Christmas Carol” movies.  Highly satisfying.  Camera Girl is serving roast beast this Christmas, her butcher describes the cut as a “spoon roast.”  This is some cut of sirloin beef.  Last time she made one it was very, very good, so I am anticipating “another triumph.”

So have a good day.

Christmas Cooking, Sony A7 III, Sony 90mm f\2.8 macro lens

 

Nancy Pelosi and Mayor London Breed Are Shocked to Discover Crime is Going on In San Francisco

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If two of the biggest phonies in America have been forced to admit that they’ve turned San Francisco and by extension all of America’s cities into Mogadishu maybe the reckoning has already begun.  Nancy Pelosi and San Francisco Mayor London Breed almost simultaneously came out with statements decrying the madness of smash and grab robberies at the major upscale shops in San Francisco and vowed that it must be stopped even if it hurts the feelings of the thugs committing the crimes.

I’m aware that these statements are performance art intended to redirect blame away from Pelosi and Breed.  After all everything that these two creatures have done during their careers has aided and abetted the chaos that has now overtaken America’s cities.  And even if they are not the actual architects (after all these aren’t masterminds we’re talking about, more like stooges of the real brains behind all this), then at least they are fully culpable in this rolling disaster.  Any statement they make now seems laughably late and hopelessly inadequate.  What exactly is Breed going to do to get the police to arrest black criminals.  After all black lives matter.  And “black lives matter” means never interrupting black criminals when they’re in the middle of crime.  This is what Pelosi and Breed and all the rest of the mayors and governors in blue jurisdictions created in 2020.  They legitimized black mobs along with their Antifa and BLM handlers to riot, burn, beat and loot their cities and citizens.  They forced the police to stand down under threat of imprisonment.  How exactly do you switch that back to 2019?  You can’t.  The cops don’t believe their bosses anymore.  You can’t undo what the mayor of Minneapolis did when he gave a police station to the mob to burn down.  Portland, Seattle, Atlanta, Chicago, New York, Philadelphia followed suit and now the gangs run those cities.  Soon all the people who can, will flee.  Those left behind will have to fend for themselves.  Maybe at some point if the country hands control over to the Republicans and there are any brave men left running things, they’ll send the army in to shoot it out with the thugs.

But hearing those two moon bats in San Francisco act shocked and outraged about crime in San Francisco reminded me of Louis, the police chief in Casablanca declaring that he is shocked, shocked to learn that there is gambling going on at Rick’s Cafe, just as the croupier hands him his winnings.  Maybe they are scared.  I never thought I’d live to see the day when the residents of San Francisco got too much social justice.  But maybe they finally have reached their limit.  I’m not sure and I wouldn’t bet the house but it does seem that the stooges are feeling a little exposed right now.  But I hope no Republican white knights show up to clean up the mess.  Let the moon bats soak up all the loathing that the residents of these places are going to excrete.  There’s nothing like having the side windows of your BMW broken for the tenth time to make you reconsider electing an intersectional, anti-cop mayor and city council to run your city.

A lot of people say that three years is a long time and could provide enough time for things to turn around and get Dementia Joe re-elected.  I think three years is a long time.  But I think it may be just long enough to get Democrats ridden out of the cities on a rail.  It may be just enough time for them to lose control of even some of their strongholds.  I think they let the genie out of the bottle.  And now I don’t think they know how in the world they’ll ever get it back in.  Let’s watch what happens.  But be smart, watch from a good distance.