19OCT2021 – OCF Update – photog Out of Pocket

I will be AWOL for half of today on special assignment.  But I promise to get back to work later this afternoon.  In the meantime look at the current results of this recent site poll.  Less than a third of participants have an optimistic opinion on the future of this country.  I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.  After all in my gut I kind of agree with them.  But never say die.

How Will the Left/Right War end?

View Results

Loading ... Loading ...

 

Butt Pete Strikes Again

Pete Buttigieg is the poster child for all that’s wrong in our world today.  The former Mayor Butt Pete is now Secretary Beep Beep Butt Pete.  And because Pete is very gay he has recently gotten married to a man and of course had to adopt some poor unfortunate child to prove that gender, sex and sanity are all just constructs that will disappear if you only ignore them.  Of course.

But not satisfied with turning his private life into a train wreck he has stepped up and has now added the U.S. commercial supply chain to his list of things that will mysteriously stop mattering if he just ignores them.  You see, Butt Pete is on his two month paternity leave!  So the supply chain nightmare will just have to fix itself while Pete learns how to breast feed or something.

The outcry from this situation has sadly forced Butt Pete to show up for work yesterday and explain to the sympathetic press just how under control everything already is.  In this sense it’s a lot like how the Afghans falling from the wheels of jet planes was the primary proof that the Afghan Rout was going wonderfully.  Nothing says everything’s going great like a suicide bomber blowing up our soldiers.

Well Pete won’t be able to match the body count of General Milley but he will be able to destroy Christmas and guarantee that inflation crushes the life out of the middle class this year.  Yes Butt Pete is the gift that keeps on giving.  What will he do next?  I assume his next fail up assignment will be as Pope.  He’s got that vibe.

Delta Airlines Will Not Mandate Vaxx – The First Hint of Corporate Sanity

After Southwest Airlines was forced to cancel thousands of flights, allegedly not because of pilot sickouts, Delta Airlines  CEO says he will not enforce Biden’s stupid corporate vaxx mandate.  Can I believe my ears?  Courage from an American business CEO?  Or was it just fear of a massive business loss if a bunch of pilots walked away?

Well, whatever the reason, here’s hoping a bunch of other folks do the same.  Let’s Go Brandon!

 

 

 

What Will Our New Nation Look Like?

Everyone talks about the “Two Americas.”  One of them is well defined.  The Progressive America has declared its mission statement.  It is the Woke, Anti-White, Globalist Nation.  It will continue down that road for the foreseeable future.  If we want to see what it will look like in a few years it will look like San Francisco, Portland, Minneapolis, Chicago and Atlanta.  It will be a place that pits various grievance groups against white people, men, people who aren’t sexual deviants and probably other groups that haven’t yet been attacked because no one has had a chance to think up a grievance against them.  Based on current trends I would guess that the next target will be people who can legitimately pass a course in high school geometry.

So that’s one nation.  The other one is ours.  A lot of people assume that our nation will essentially be like what America was before the grievance movements started changing things in the 1960’s.  That is a possibility but I wouldn’t say it’s the only one or even the most likely outcome.  And I won’t pretend that I’m sure how it will turn out but I have been thinking about it lately.  I’ll go through my thinking on it.  Thinking about it methodically seems the most comprehensive way to avoid missing any cases.

I’ll start with the most pessimistic scenario, of course.  Let’s call this the complete triumph of the Left or the complete collapse of the Right.  Whichever angle you take on it, it’s where the Right loses all political battles and essentially disappears from the culture.  So, all the old ideas and customs disappear and are completely replaced even in memory with the woke culture.  Freedom of speech disappears and individual freedom becomes reduced to which particular sexual deviancy you currently espouse.  Basically, it will look like California everywhere.  If I’m being honest, I might say that this is one of the likelier possibilities.

Slightly less pessimistic, is the case where people like us become a sort of shunned pariah minority.  Sort of the way the Coptic Christians exist in Egypt after the Arabs established Islam as the state religion.  They are despised and their place in society is always subject to assault by the authorities and even by the population at large.  Everyone knows that if the Copts are persecuted beyond what the law already prescribes it is very doubtful that the perpetrators will suffer heavy consequences.  And once again, this is not an unheard-of eventuality.  In fact, it’s sort of the status quo in blue states.  Think of that wedding baker in Colorado who keeps getting charged by the authorities for following his conscience, even after the Supreme Court has already found in his favor on the facts of the case.  Harassment and persecution all the way down.

A third case would be for the Right to prevail in some subset of the United States territory.  So, let’s say that the country doesn’t technically break up but the individual states are allowed to legislate social policy according to their beliefs.  One way this might work out is for these states to keep the current status quo.  Leave all the current laws but enforce the things that the federal government has been neglecting.  So, for instance they might enforce immigration laws and protect first and second amendment rights.

But they might decide that they want to roll back many of the things that the federal government and especially the Supreme Court have ordered over the last 50 to 70 years.  And there is a whole boat of things that would be covered there.  In reverse chronological order that would include, transgender rights, gay marriage, sodomy laws, abortion and affirmative action.  And there could be many other changes.  Access to welfare could be curtailed or eliminated altogether.  Even programs like social security and Medicare and Medicaid might be eliminated.  One thing that might be changed is the concept of citizenship based on birth in the territory of the United States.  Even the right of citizens of other states immigrating into another state might be questioned.

So, it could be seen how in a place where these types of changes are being considered or even enacted the nature of citizenship and patriotism would be very different.  Maybe Texan would become a much more important identifier than American.  And I could see regional identity become something important.  If several adjacent states coordinated their legal and commercial affairs, they could make a region almost the equivalent of a nation state.  I don’t claim to think this option is one of the most likely but I can see how it might be the most beneficial arrangement for our nation.

Another possible outcome but much less likely is the Right essentially wins.  We somehow build a big enough coalition to win the legislative battles and make the administrative changes that prevent us from being victimized by the Left.  Here we have to assume that the process of coalition building will involve identity groups negotiating quid pro quo arrangements where no one would get everything they wanted.  It would mean that this coalition would still be made up of adversarial groups fighting in a zero-sum game and only cooperating in the face of the greater evil that the Left represents to normal people of various ethnicities.  This will be a kind of cold civic nationalism where grudging tolerance will be the rule.  Once again patriotism will not be any part of this society.

I guess the final case is where someway, somehow Americans come to their senses and realize that what they had in the mid-twentieth century was as close to heaven on earth as anything could be and reject leftism and all the harmful and dysfunctional policies that the Left has spread and fostered.  Then we would have a country like we used to have.  I rate the possibility of this case so close to zero that arrays of supercomputers working on the probability couldn’t find a non-zero decimal place in the whole number.

So, these are the cases I can come up with.  Do you know of any other case?  Which one do you think will occur?

 

How Will the Left/Right War end?

View Results

Loading ... Loading ...

16OCT2021 – Word On the Street

A good friend of mine who spent a lot of his younger days as an engineer for the likes of Exxon or whatever they were called back then in the oil fields of Saudi Arabia says he’s heard from old friends that Joe Biden’s fervent requests for the oil companies to pump more oil (somehow) have been met with polite evasions like, “We’ll look into that.”  Meanwhile they’re laughing up their sleeves and watching as a barrel of crude approaches the $100/bbl mark with nothing but upside into the foreseeable future.  His advice to me is buy oil stocks.

Hey Joe, why not build some more wind turbines or how about a billion solar car charging ports?  Not quite there on those renewables are we?  Oh Joe, you’re gonna be an awfully popular guy this winter when fuel bills double in New England.  Awfully popular.  Sucks being a Democrat coming up for re-election.

But the bad news for us is that inflation is going to be pretty awful for the foreseeable future for all of us.  Maybe buying oil stocks isn’t such a bad idea.  Now I just have to find some money to buy them with.  Can I sell the dogs?

No One Talks Collapsing Empires Better Than the ZMan

My favorite dissident has what I think is a fascinating discussion of what happens when an empire, e.g. the Soviet Union or the Romans starts to die.  He discusses the transition from central rule to oligarchs.  I think he makes some truly excellent points.  We may already be quite a ways along the process.  And he shows how differences in circumstances can lead to different outcomes.  A good read.

Biden Humor for the Day – Begs Oil Companies to Lower Gas Prices

You can’t make this stuff up.  Let’s see, Dementia Joe cancelled the oil pipeline, stopped the oil and gas leases, weaponized the EPA and the Energy Department against the oil and gas companies and threatened the car companies to switch over to electric cars.  Gee, why wouldn’t they help him by selling gasoline at a loss.  I mean it would only be patriotic and Christian to turn the other cheek.

That Joe, he’s so funny.  When gasoline gets to $5/gal he’s gonna be awfully popular with everyone and they’re gonna show their appreciation with votes.  Joe must be getting awfully popular with those red-state Democrat congressmen.  I mean who’s going to fault Joe for doubling the price of …..  everything!

What Will Be Left of the Country After Four Years of Biden?

Right now, Dementia Joe has turned the United States into a dumpster fire.  Unemployment hasn’t recovered from the pandemic, small businesses have been decimated, prices of everything from gasoline to food has gone through the roof, the supermarket shelves are half empty, pre-school kids are being forced to wear masks over their faces, airlines, hospitals and even schools are being affected by hordes of people who don’t want to acquiesce to a vaccine mandate that they think is either useless or dangerous or both.  The southern border is besieged by hordes of third world invaders, the major cities are lawless hellholes where gangs shoot it out without fear of the police, the schools are determined to teach white children that they are evil people because of their skin color and the FBI is calling their parents terrorists for objecting.  And it’s only been nine months.  Who knows what he has planned for the holiday season?

Lots of Republicans are salivating over what they see as the makings of a wave election in 2022 to give them majorities in the House and Senate.  They see this as the reaction they need to begin preparing for taking back the White House in 2024.  And maybe they’re right.  Maybe that’s what will happen.  But what will be left by then?

Joe Biden may throw the Congress to the Republicans in 2022 but he’ll still be doddering around the White House for the next three plus years and the way things are going the damage will be even worse than what his master Barack Obama did in his eight years.  With the FBI and the Justice Department running interference for antifa and BLM the riots we saw in 2020 will increase and go after the people outside of the cities.  The war that Biden is waging against the petroleum industry will drive inflation into realms we haven’t seen since the 1970’s oil embargo.  Everyone except the rich will see their savings and their buying power evaporate and we’ll all be living a lot poorer until Biden is gone.  None of this is going to be easy to live through.  And on top of everything else, those of us trapped behind enemy lines in the blue states will be dealing with this COVID madness apparently forever.  Joe Biden will torture us as long as he can.

So, I’ve painted a bleak picture.  Let me now attempt to say something constructive.  Now is the time to take stock and decide how to weather the storm.  Prioritize on the things that are most important in your life and strip away the waste.  Maybe an expensive cable television package is a luxury that you can do without.  Maybe you don’t need a new car quite as often.  Maybe dining out is a very expensive habit you’ve gotten into.  Maybe the clothes budget and the Amazon.com bill has been getting a little out of hand.  How about the food budget?  Have you been spending a fortune on expensive wines or other non-essential grocery items?  Maybe the kids have been getting used to too many expensive video games and toys.

Some of the things I’ve been thinking about is doing some of my own home repairs.  And I may be one of the most inept carpenters to ever drive a nail.  But when I think of what I’ve paid in the past to repair wood damage I think it’s worth my while to do everything I can do first before calling in professionals.  Even a little plumbing and landscaping are well within my meager skills.  I was even able to step up and do some small engine repair this year.

But just as important as saving some money is sticking together.  You’ll know some people, family and friends that will be even worse off than you.  Families with kids are especially affected by an inflationary economy.  It takes a lot of groceries to feed a bunch of kids.  Helping out however you find to do it will be a godsend to people who are having a hard time making ends meet.  Maybe you can tutor someone’s kid who is having a hard time with algebra or babysit someone’s toddler while mom is going to the stores.  There are a million and one things that people need and now it will be all that plus bad times.  When someone you like needs your help find a way to help.  Who knows, it probably will come back to you some other way.  Many people remember kindness and return the favor.  I know this to be true.

While all this is happening, my greatest hope is that people on the Right will start planning for a way to stop this thing from happening any more.  The Red States have to start taking coordinated actions to free themselves from the control of the federal government.  They have to put together financial, law enforcement and immigration policies of their own that will prevent the damage that a rogue president like Biden can cause.  But in the meantime, we will have to deal with the damage that is coming our way right now.

David Reaboi Talks About National Divorce

David Reaboi of Late Republic Nonsense makes his case for why Red/Blue separation is no longer and if but a when.  He acknowledges all the daunting problems associated with division of the country.  And he doesn’t provide answers to the problems of divvying up “territories, populations, industries or nuclear weapons caches” but he insists that as the current abysmal relations between red and blue become catastrophic these questions will be answered because they won’t be avoidable.

I don’t think Reaboi answers any of the how questions about a national breakup.  What he does is state his position for why it’s inevitable.  Even three years ago I would have dismissed this idea out of hand.  I’m not doing that now.  My best guess is it’s a coin toss.

The alternative is we get the Lefties to back off the unconstitutional crap they’ve been pushing and allow the states to drift apart on the things they disagree about and cooperate on the things we don’t disagree about.  But the funny thing is that the list of things we agree on is getting shorter and shorter.

 

 

 

 

He’s a Rocket Man – Shatner Rejected by Space and Hurled Back to Earth

Jeff Bezos and William Shatner travelled a few time higher than a jet plane goes and then parachuted down to Earth and pretended that made them astronauts.

Watching the video I was pretty depressed that the once vaunted space program has been reduced to this, billionaires and moribund tv actors popping champagne bottles after accomplishing a tiny fraction of what was done more than fifty years ago by real pioneers.

But for Shatner I’ll allow that he has made Captain Kirk just slightly less fake.

Khaaaaaaan!!!!!!!