Category: Current Events

24NOV2021 – OCF Update – Holiday Hours

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Well, we’ve reached the brink of the great feast and Camera girl is buzzing around like a bee cooking pies, cleaning here, there and everywhere.  Obviously I’ll have to try to appear busy myself or she’ll recruit me into this madness.

That being as it may, I anticipate a slowdown of output by me today and tomorrow.  If anything occurs that I just can’t resist ranting about I’ll pound something out but most of the nonsense going on currently can wait until I’ve had my turkey dinner and socialized with my descendants.

So I just want to wish all the readers a happy Thanksgiving.  I hope you have the chance to make the most of the long weekend and if it’s possible that you get to spend time with the people in your life who mean the most.  Enjoy the food!

NYC Proves There’s No Cure for Stupid

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The New York City Council is preparing to pass a law allowing 800,000 non-citizen residents to vote in municipal elections.  Even that drooling moron Bill  de Blasio suspects that this would be against the New York State constitution but don’t assume that will be a barrier.  The New York State legislature is just as brain dead as their downstate brethren in the City.  They’ll probably say hold my beer and pass the same law for the whole state.

You’d think with the city tottering on the precipice of anarchy that they’d attempt to rein in the crazy.  But no, their new motto must be, “When you’ve dug yourself into a hole so deep you can’t see the sky, dig faster.  How far could China be?”

I think this is great news.  Once the NYPD completely disappear I think we can expect the Lord Humongous to usurp the mayor’s authority sometime in the spring and then things will return to some semblance of sanity.  Once cannibalism is put on a sound economic footing confidence will be restored in New York City’s fiscal responsibility.  It’ll take months to finish eating everyone in Manhattan.  By then the Outer Boroughs will have emptied out voluntarily and the horde will set its sights on greener pastures, perhaps Philadelphia.

Yet Another Epic Rant from Larry Correia

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I’m probably linking again too soon to one of Larry’s anti-Leftist rants but this one is just too good.

This was a response to one of Larry’s readers who politely suggested that Larry points the Left with “too broad a brush.”

“If the majority of the left aren’t my enemy, the burden of proof is on them, because frankly I haven’t seen jack shit from most of them beyond paying lip service to principles, as the rest of their fellows go about doing whatever horrible thing they feel like, and the ones who claim to be moral sit there silently and let them.”

And this is just the tip of the iceberg.  Larry gives them both barrels.  I have to confess reading Larry’s rants are a guilty pleasure of mine.  He builds up such a head of steam that I just get swept up in his outrage.  It’s volcanic, Homeric!

Of course your mileage may vary.

Guest Contributor – TomD – The Symmetry of Chaos

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“But the size of the community isn’t the defining parameter for how safe a place it is.”

The word fractal was trendy once, may still be but certainly applies. The true definition of fractal is a pattern that endlessly repeats on different scales. The memes that turn an ordered society into a disordered one work well and create similar lawless climates at anywhere between small town scale to national. Same poisonous ideas.

Another way of looking at it would be as entropy. A well functioning society is a highly ordered system and there are near infinitely more disordered states that ordered ones. Therefore, random changes introduced into an ordered state are near infinitely more likely to degrade the system.

Political conservatism is an instinctive method of dealing with the reality that willy-nilly releasing totally unproven assumptions into an ordered society will greatly increase the entropy (disorder) of that society. So maybe the concept that there are 73 genders that we can all sequentially occupy by simple declaration should be examined for a while before being released into the wild as a fundamental ruling precept.

The New Third World Normal

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People on the dissident right talk about the difference between high trust and low trust societies.  In a high trust society, you have communities where doors and cars aren’t locked, people can walk in cities at night without fear of being mugged and children can play outside without their mothers fearing for their lives.

This week Waukesha, Wisconsin found out that a Christmas Parade is something you don’t attend in a low trust society.  I’ve lived in small towns and large cities.  But the size of the community isn’t the defining parameter for how safe a place it is.  The difference is whether the community tolerates lawlessness.  The classic urban example is New York City.  Back in the 1970s and 1980s New York City degenerated into a high-crime environment where assault and robbery were at epidemic levels.  Very expensive neighborhoods in Manhattan were deserted at night because muggers would emerge out of Central Park at night and prey on the affluent inhabitants.  And a million inhabitants exited the city to escape the dangerous environment.  When Rudy Giuliani became mayor there in 1992, he used the police department to shut down the violent crime but he also took a zero-tolerance approach toward quality-of-life violations like squeegee men harassing drivers and deranged homeless people engaging in depravity on the city streets.  So even though New York City is an enormous impersonal place, for twenty years it was one of the safest large cities in the country.  The program was so successful that it allowed a new generation of progressives to take over the city.  And this new generation had no fear of violence.  And this same generation is running all the cities of America.  And they are now learning exactly why a police force with zero tolerance for lawlessness is the only way to have a city as large as New York safe.

But now look at a place like Waukesha.  It has a population of 70,000 people.  It has been fairly crime free and well ordered for its whole history and the people there probably think of their home as a big town rather than a city.  It has local sports teams and small companies as employers and community activities centered on schools and churches.  It has a relatively small black population and no major inner-city crime problem.  But then last year in neighboring Minnesota the George Floyd riots began and black criminals became convinced that they could no longer be arrested.  And so, for the last year black criminals have behaved as though there is no brake on their activities.  If they commit a crime and the police show up, they do not surrender.  They bolt and often the police just let them go.  None of the police want to end up on trial for shooting a black suspect.  They remember Derek Chauvin and his fate.  None of them want that so they’ll let these perpetrators escape.  And that’s how you get to a place like Waukesha today where people think they’re living in a safe place when they’re really not.

The only question left to answer is where will pushback finally happen?  New York voted in a black former NYPD officer as mayor.  This is a change from the anti-police, anti-white mayor Bill DeBlasio they currently suffer under.  But it’s not clear whether the will is there yet to meaningfully correct the weakening of the police there.  I believe things will have to get a lot worse before anything effective will be done.

In the meantime, people living in cities, large and small, need to realize what their new environment means for their safety.  Being mistaken about what kind of a place they now live in could cost them a lot, maybe all.

22NOV2021 – OCF Update – Monday Maunderings

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November 22nd 1963.  Everyone of my generation remembers this day as a nightmare.  The adults were in a panic over the death of President John Kennedy on the streets of Dallas.  I was in first grade at the time and the nuns were openly weeping which freaked the kids out.  Watching Walter Cronkite crying on tv reinforced the feeling that the world was coming apart.  But the country came together in solidarity.

November 22nd 2021.  News this morning that a crazed criminal purposefully drove his SUV through a crowd of children and their families watching a Christmas Parade.  Based on the killer’s social media profile it is strongly suspected that he is an anti-white bigot who probably wanted to strike back after the Rittenhouse acquittal.  Chances of the country coming together in solidarity not very likely.

I’ll confess that this incident has cancelled some of my recent enthusiasm.  Evil and crazy people will always be with us.  But what makes it disastrous is that there is no longer a consensus that they are the problem.  The current reflex is to blame the victim.  If only we had made the lunatic feel loved.  Maybe then he wouldn’t have killed so many.  Or even if he still would have killed them at least we wouldn’t take it so personally if we had grown to love him for the good natured homicidal maniac that he is.

So instead of giving this psychopath the electric chair which at least validates the idea that sociopaths need to be excluded from society we will be told that somehow all of this is our fault.  Those murdered children had it coming for being privileged white people.

Not a great way to start the week of Thanksgiving.

Practically Speaking, How Would a President Dismantle the FBI?

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After what we’ve seen happening over the last two decades in the intelligence agencies there’s no doubt in my mind that they need to be fundamentally altered.  And I don’t think the word dismantle is an exaggeration of what needs to be done.  It could be argued that there are functions that the FBI is uniquely suited to perform that need to be done.  But I look at those functions as the exceptions.

I imagine that someone tasked with this dismantling would form a new “group within the bureau and reassign all the personnel and infrastructure critical for these useful functions to this new group.  Once that is done, he could begin dismantling the rest of the agency without too much fear of meaningful disruption.

Fire all of the top echelon of management.  Assign trusted personnel to take over and begin removing any functionality that has been abused in the past.  Using internal rules block the access to FISA courts from anyone who isn’t appointed by the new management.  Begin surveilling the use of federal resources by the FBI personnel to find anyone who is running counter-intelligence operations against the new management and the President.  And continue to prune back the agency from the top down.

Look for hidden caches of information on powerful people and figure out what this has been used in the past to blackmail them into doing.  Figure out how this information is best disposed of.  In some cases, where real crime has occurred, exposing the information may make sense.  In other cases, confronting the victim and forcing changes in the status quo may be possible.

And once power has been wrested from the FBI and other intelligence agencies then the laws that have allowed them to terrorize this nation need to be changed to prevent these abuses from recurring.  The obvious one is the Patriot Act.  The Supreme Court knows it is unconstitutional but during the supposed “War on Terror” it allowed the law to stand in order to allow unrestrained pursuit of Islamic terrorists hiding in the United States.  I think we’ve learned that the law was meant to be used against all of us.

And other laws need to be changed.  The definition of civil rights needs to be rationally defined to prevent the kind of outrageous overreach that was on display in the federal government’s interference in the Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown cases.  And we can’t allow actual domestic terrorists like Antifa and BLM and their confederates in the blue city governments to perpetrate outrages like the George Floyd riots against American citizens.

And who would be the right person for a Republican president to appoint Attorney General?  I’m guessing it will require someone who has worked for the Justice Department.  Maybe someone like Rudy Giuliani.  He’s getting kind of old but he still might be the right guy.  But whoever it is he can’t be like William Barr who just tiptoes around the edges of the FBI and lets the swamp creatures run the show.  It has to be someone who is willing to perform radical surgery with a chain saw.  Because that is exactly what is needed.

So, will this ever happen?  If we ever want to get our country back it’s a necessity.  But it’s going to take brains and guts.  Where will we find those?

Guest Contributor – Chemist – America Loses Its Way

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Frenchman Alexis de Tocqueville said, “America is great because America is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great!”
What does it mean to be good?

In my mind it means we are governed by Judeo / Christian values and we stick to the rules. We have a government of laws, not men and no man is above the law.

America was the place to take a chance, build a business, a family, a life because it was governed by laws. There were rules and the rules were enforced. In other countries you might labor and sacrifice for decades to build up a business, only to see the government nationalize it “For the greater good”. But America wasn’t like that. There were laws to protect you and a written Constitution to back up those laws. The constitution limited the power of the government. It was unheard of!
America allowed people to take risks and prosper and the risk takers, the winners, the entrepreneurs came here. They built companies and, in so doing, created wealth and prosperity for millions of other people.

Recently, however, America has changed. It is no longer “good”. Certain people are now above the law. Congress exempts itself from the laws it forces the rest of us to live under. Federal and local law enforcement agencies “Seize” money and property and innocent people have to prove they deserve it to get it back. The wealthy and connected go free. While the nation’s premier law enforcement agency hides evidence allowing the innocent to go to jail. The Clintons, Kennedys, Duponts, actors and celebrities never pay for their crimes.
One class of people is permitted to riot, burn and murder and they go free. Another class of people engages in a few hours of peaceful protest and they spend months in solitary confinement without a trial.

It used to be that each branch of government knew its limitations and would not dare to try and do something that was not specifically written in the constitution. Now we have an executive who has the attitude of “What are you going to do about it?” They create powers that don’t exist (Vaccination mandates) and ignore duties spelled out in the constitution (Enforce the boarders).

Entire cities have decided to stop enforcing property laws and allow wholesale theft from retail businesses. Then the cities are surprised when the businesses – the makers of prosperity – leave. Worse yet, they hurl epithets at them as they leave calling them “Greedy capitalists”. Yet who could blame them? They tried to play by the rules. The rules said they paid taxes and the city protected them from thieves. Now the city says; “No protection, but you still have to pay taxes”.

Who would build a business in a country where it can all be destroyed or stolen tomorrow and there is no recourse? Who would invest when the government is talking about taking your investments in the name of “Fairness” or “Equity”? Right now there are elected politicians who want to take your pension, IRA and 401K because other people don’t have one. Just last month, the current administration talked about “Taxing unrealized capital gains”. That means: If you buy stock or a home or anything and the value increases, you owe taxes on the increase in value. Even if you have not sold a share of stock or your home. the feds want their cut.
All of these ideas, as stupid as they sound, create uncertainty and that kills investment.

America is no longer good. In a misguided attempt to try to atone for wrongs that may have been done hundreds of years ago, some Americans are destroying everything it ever stood for. (Others are doing it out of sheer greed.) Our constitution is one of the greatest documents ever written and is the blueprint for a prosperous nation – a nation of laws. John Adams observed that “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” We are no longer moral. America is no longer good and unless we change it back, the future will not be pretty.

The Dispossessed Taking Stock

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If something that always seemed substantial and even indestructible unravels then those that have always depended on its existence for making decisions in their lives suddenly find themselves adrift in uncharted territory.  And that’s where a lot of us are right now.  The United States of America was this behemoth of stability and an engine of prosperity.  It was also a place where people truly were free to say and do what they pleased as long as it didn’t involve robbing someone else.

Now with all of those things shattered what do we do?  How do we make a living?  How and where do we raise a family?  How will our children get an education?  How will they make a living?  Who will we have to swear allegiance to in order to avoid persecution?  Who must we be afraid to offend to avoid being a victim?  Essentially, all bets are off.

When a stable system receives a shock there are several possible outcomes.  If the system is elastic enough and the shock isn’t too large then things can return to a stability that might even be pretty close to the initial condition.  If the shock is a little stronger then perhaps a large chunk of the system will be ejected leaving a remainder that can then produce a diminished but stable system.  And finally, if the shock is cataclysmic the whole system is pulverized and scattered, never to coalesce into a whole again.

I think it’s too soon to tell how great a disruption there has been to America.  It feels like we’ve been irreparably fractured into several fragments that can’t be put back together again.  But maybe our enemies will be able to overcome all resistance and establish a new country in the image they have in mind for it.  Maybe we’ll win and fix the place back to close to what it was.  Or maybe we’ll split it in two.  All these questions aren’t going to be answered in a day or even a year.  Maybe a decade will decide things.

But none of us can wait ten years to answer that list of questions I asked above.  Our lives are ticking by right now.  Our kids and grandkids are growing and need direction.  So, we have no choice but to make decisions based on what we see happening around us and what we know about the policies being pushed by the federal and state governments.

And there are plenty of hints for anyone who is paying attention.  Living in California is being at the epicenter of all things woke.  It’s so dysfunctional and constrained that even the woke can’t stand it and are leaving in droves.  Places like New York and Washington and Oregon are pretty close to the California model.  In any of those deep blue states you’ll find problems trying to raise a family or even to just live your life the way you want to.  But even in purple states like Wisconsin or Colorado the Left is in charge and they will tell you what you can and can’t do.  And if you happen to be white, they’ll let you know that your turn is done and you better get used to humiliation and deprivation.

And even among red states not all of them are equal.  And not all areas in red states are equal.  Utah is considered a deep red state but Salt Lake City is a stronghold of California transplants that vote Left and control lots of the levers of power.  So, where you live is one of the ways you can control how free you will be.

With respect to employment there are decisions that will have to be made there too.  For instance, if you want to work in an industry that is heavily regulated by the federal government then you will find that the management of the companies working in that industry are aligned with the values that the federal government espouses.  So, for instance, the banking industry adheres to the equity, diversity and inclusion mantra pushed on them by the bank regulators.  In the same way the pharma companies follow these same precepts based on the FDA’s guidance.  None of this nonsense has any real bearing on sound banking principles or safe drug production but it’s how the system is rigged.  And even companies that aren’t themselves regulated by Washington may find that in order to get contracts with companies that are regulated they will have to parrot these same noises.  Hopefully, if they are small enough companies most of the noise is just that and nothing else.  But you can see how this starts to reduce your options.

And with respect to schools and colleges it’s even worse.  The percentage of colleges that aren’t woke is tiny.  It’s barely a handful.  And they won’t have all the programs you children may be looking for.  If your kids want to go to a woke college just prepare them for what it will be like and keep your fingers crossed that they can avoid being absorbed by the Borg.

And that brings us to the last part of our lives, the personal life.  We need to find enough people like ourselves to ensure that we have a rich personal life.  We have family but we need friends.  Our children need friends.  We need people who believe in the same things we do.  In the past you would have found these people in your church and in the school committee and among the parents of the kids on your kids’ sports teams.  And depending where you live you still might.  But you’ll definitely have to do some homework to find out if your neighbors are free Americans or part of the woke collective.  So don’t think that everybody is normal.  It’s easier to be careful at first and avoid the woke.  It’s much more painful to get rid of them once they’ve gotten close.  You owe it to your kids to protect them from bad influences and you owe it to your own sanity.

So, unless you live in the deepest red area of the country and work in a trade that has no connection to the government regulators and send your kids to Hillsdale College you will have to sort through these realities for the foreseeable future.  Either that or join the pod people.  I mean how bad could it be?

Biden Colonoscopy – Mission Accomplished

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Joe Biden’s colon was successfully scoped today.  Due to some fears about military doctors getting back at the Commander in Chief for the Afghan debacle the procedure was shifted away from Walter Reed Medical Center and to the local Duane Reade Pharmacy where Mr. Biden shops for his adult diaper supplies.

This colonoscopy wasn’t a regularly scheduled procedure but was strenuously requested by the State Department at the behest of the Vatican and British Monarchy.  Both organizations had lodged protests against the US Government claiming treaty breaches on the biological warfare front.  The voice message form the Papacy said, “Eeffa you letta that sumavabeetch back here again you betta make a sure he’s a not a gotta the blacka death a hidin’ a up there.  Get a camera up a there you dopey bastardos.

Although the medical privacy acts protect release of the details of the procedure certain information was gleaned by interviewing some of the ancillary members of the surgical team.  Team member Lloyd Bender who performs clean up in aisle four revealed that the scope discovered a large bolus of mummified gorgonzola cheese lodged in the presidential colon.  Dislodging it proved difficult.  Lloyd attested, “We tried pulling it out but it was the size of a bowling ball so you can guess that was a problem.  By a stroke of luck, we had the Roto-Rooter guy in house working on a sewage line that was blocked.  So, we asked him if he would do something for us if we kicked in another forty bucks and he was very obliging.  So, he got the thing done.  But he did say he’d have to get a new rig because the gorgonzola did a job on his setup.  And not for nothing but we had to close shop because the stench was awful.  But it’s done.  And I never want to get involved in anything like that again.”

Mr. Biden seemed subdued after his ordeal and he was walking kind of funny but his press secretary Jen Psaki said that all rumors about foreign cheeses and commercial sewage line clearance equipment were greatly exaggerated.  Later on today Mr. Biden felt himself sufficiently back to normal to make this short statement to the press, “My butt’s been wiped and is squeaky clean.”