All the Secrets of the Universe and Some Really Important Stuff Too!
One of the top journalists at the Wall Street Journal, Holman W. Jenkins, Jr., says the FBI should be shut down. Yeah, well, who doesn’t know that? The question is who could get it done? He covers the bases pretty well but at this point who doesn’t know all of this? And who is going to drain the swamp? It’s been tried and the FBI came out on top. Read it if you want to feel depressed.
So, as I’ve alluded to recently, I’ve been playing host to one of my descendants recently and whenever he visits, he’s always shocked by how little progress I’ve made technologically since his last visit and in a spirit of charity he tries to modernize my approach to various everyday life circumstances.
For instance, he reminded me pointedly that my camera, the Sony A7 III, still had the original firmware version. But there were currently versions above revision 4. And he stressed the fact that one of those revisions included a major upgrade to eye autofocus and tracking autofocus capability. And since he is painfully aware of my legendary laziness, he begged me to actually perform the upgrade while he was watching, which I did.
Later when he attempted to run a YouTube video on the tv through a DVD player that had wi-fi, he was dismayed at the terrible bandwidth and asked if I had any other alternative devices. I explained that a year ago I bought a Roku device but it seemed as if I would need to pay for a monthly subscription so in my annoyance at being sucked in, I threw it into my tech scrap heap and forgot all about it. He assured me that the credit card registration was a harmless feint and I would not be charged for free applications like YouTube and other movie channels that had free services. He then dug it out, installed it and suddenly my wide screen tv became a new world of high-definition nature shows that he favors.
And the other day he asked me about my photo workflow. I use Capture One software to post-process my files and I had mentioned that the loading and backup time was becoming unmanageably long. So, we went through the system and identified that one of my settings had been accidentally changed and I was loading all my files to one folder that was now horrifyingly large.
I attempted to remedy the situation. I did successfully change the setting and now am no longer making the problem worse. Score one for me! But I then attempted to break the catalog into smaller pieces to speed up the processing time. That didn’t work out so well. Capture One has several categories of files. There are catalogs and sessions and folders and even other things that I’m not really sure I understand at all. I spent several hours chopping up the giant folder into my existing file system. Then I tried to point the thumbnail renderings to the new file system and that was a total failure. It wouldn’t locate the files for the thumbnails to work as needed, a crushing blow. An alternative would be to manually point the thumbnails to the individual files one by one. But since there are tens of thousands of files, I might not live long enough to accomplish this. Plan B is to spend several hours combining all the files back into one folder the way they were before I started changing it and then move the thumbnails and files together into separate folders. It’s sad to know just how inept I am with the software tools I work with. But an honest man must swallow the hard truth and try to do better. I have vowed, with Peter Thiel as my witness, that I will get my tech house in order. I will give a DAM (that’s digital image management) and get my millions of photo files under control. I will learn how to make my own plug-ins for my website. And I will spend the time to find the appropriate (and cheap) software I need to optimize my other digital occupations like fiction writing.
Of course, I won’t start today. We’re having a big get together and I have to help Camera Girl with the set-up and general chores. But soon! And from now on! The world will see a new photog!
Did that sound convincing?
There’s a family reunion this weekend here at the compound so output will drop. But I’ll have something posted later.
Joy is unbounded and frivolity abounds.
I don’t know who first said that the best defense is a good offense but for the most part he was right. It is my contention that if we intend to defeat the Leftists two separate efforts will be necessary. One will be supporting the social and cultural objectives that we need to sustain and improve our lives. So that includes all the efforts needed to support our agenda and defend it against the Left. All of our efforts to defend the constitutional freedoms, all the programs that will improve the chances of normal Americans to prosper in the new reality of America in this globalized environment. Let’s call all of these the defense. We’re defending ourselves from enemies foreign and domestic.
But there’s the other mission. Let’s call it the offense. And that’s something that hasn’t happened up till now. What is needed is a concerted effort to attack the institutions and the individuals on the Left. And as far as a template just model it on how the Left attacks individuals and institutions on the Right. No one is surprised when right-wing people are tossed off Facebook or Twitter. And equally no one is surprised when the state organs of government in Colorado sue and harass a small businessman like that wedding baker. And it’s just business as usual as lawfare is levelled against organizations from the Catholic Church to the Boy Scouts to Chick-fil-A and hounded out of existence or neutered by various states and jurisdictions. No one is surprised because the Left has made these attacks their stock in trade. But when is it done by the Right? Never.
What is needed is a concerted effort to level legal and other actions against leftist organizations and individuals who are vulnerable to this approach. For instance, why haven’t Texas and Missouri and other red states taken legal action against the individuals and groups that make up antifa and BLM. Why aren’t those people in jail? And why doesn’t someone go after the Fortune 500 corporations that have funded them? Why isn’t anyone representing the people in Minneapolis and Chicago and New York City who were harassed and assaulted and burned out of their businesses? Why shouldn’t the governors and mayors and city councils of those places be sued personally for allowing the outrages to occur by restraining the police from doing their jobs? It’s not happening because the national leadership of the Right isn’t an organized body. It’s just people scattered haphazardly across this country without the strategic awareness of what is needed to counteract the forces that the Left has brought to bear. And until we start attacking the Left on an organized and professional basis we’ll always be on the defensive. There should be a bank of lawyers that are spending time representing people on our side who have grievances that will generate settlements of large amounts of cash and legal remedies that will discomfort and maybe incarcerate criminals on the Left.
Think about it. Why aren’t the antifa criminals in jail? The January 6th trespassers are and what they did is a trifling offense compared to arson, homicide and grand theft. Donald Trump is being investigated by the New York Attorney General for being a businessman but the Governor of Minnesota and the Mayor of Minneapolis allowed their citizens to be terrorized and denied their civil rights by a mob that was allowed to run amok.
The people who represent us need to start thinking strategically about how to strike back at the Left or we’re not going to win.
The first day of fall in 2021 is on Wednesday, September 22 at 3.21pm EDT. Fall is the dying season. You see it in the leaves changing color and falling to the ground. You hear it in the desperate chirping of the crickets as they cling to warmth under stones and leaf mold. You can smell it in the air as the dying leaves begin to decay. And you can feel it in your head as the air begins to cool and dry out. And for the old folks you can feel it in your old bones as cold begins to tighten your muscles and tendons.
There will be many beautiful days in September, October and November. But summer is over and it will impact the way I feel and what I do. Many people love fall best. I can understand that. Many detest the heat of summer. Especially those living in the deep south. For them the end of summer is a release from brutal heat and humidity. But even in southern New England fall is just a prelude from the equally brutal reality of snow and cold.
But the good thing about Autumn is the longer nights. For someone who spends a lot of time writing, the darkness is the right time to write. The quiet and darkness of night isn’t interrupted by distracting sights and sounds. In summer I am often tempted to drop what I’m working on and go out into the world and luxuriate in the heat and light and color and smell of the flowers. So that’s the bad thing about Autumn. For a photographer there is the fall foliage and that’s about it. The butterflies and the dragonflies and the hummingbirds are gone. In fact, most of the birds disappear. Hopefully I might see some turkeys but mostly all I’ll hear is the wind and the water.
To compensate we get together with friends and family to celebrate another year and compare notes on children, grandchildren and milestones. Hopefully we are mostly over the lockdown nonsense. I would hate to think we have to spend another holiday season in isolation. That would be a crime.
So, the change of season finds me subdued but not depressed. There are some hopeful signs out in the political world. Even the fake news admits that Biden’s job approval rating is underwater and bound to go lower. A few men have shown some backbone, DeSantis and Abbott. The mood on the real Right is quietly defiant. We know we’re in a bad place but at least we aren’t being led by traitors and idiots. We see what is going on around us with dismay but we are waiting to see if anyone will step forward and do something meaningful. I’d say we’re being realistic.
Okay, enough gloom and doom. On the bright side Camera Girl will be cooking and baking splendiferous foods. Cakes and pies, soups and stews, roasts and sausages. Everything that makes eating fun. And of course, classic horror movies to celebrate Halloween. So, bring it on, bring it on, bring it on. Autumn here we come.
Back in 2015 and 2016 Codevilla wrote about the oligarchic basis of the American regime and along with Michael Anton recognized Donald Trump’s ability to expose the uniparty for what it was. I read that Codevilla was involved in some kind of automobile accident. And he was a very old man. God rest his soul. He will be missed in conservative circles. A very wise man.
Angelo Codevilla Addresses the Civil War
If you look at all the crazy things going on in our country you would be excused for thinking that all that is necessary to fix our problems is removing all of the leftists from power. You might think that if we had fifty Governor DeSantises and people like him running our cities and in Congress that everything would go back to normal. I think I used to believe that either consciously or unconsciously. All we needed was good leaders and everything would revert to a normal world. I no longer believe that to be the case.
Our world has drifted very far from a healthy pattern. We could probably spend eternity debating what were the causes of this drift. Some people would point all the way back to the Enlightenment and the dethroning of religion as the center of human life in the West. Maybe that’s true. Other people point to the emancipation of women as the spark that destroyed the family and led us to the place we are now. I think cases could be made for a number of causes for what has happened to our world.
The point I want to make is that some kind of change is going to have to happen. And either we are going to make these changes ourselves or nature will fix them for us. An example of what happens when you let your society degenerate would be the end of the classical world. The Western Roman Empire was toppled by German tribesmen who realized just how feeble the Roman state had become. And a few hundred years later the Eastern Roman Empire was almost completely swept away by the armies of Arabia galvanized by a fundamentalist religion that gave meaning and order to their lives.
Something very similar will happen to our world unless we step back and restore sanity to the way we live. Our institutions have to stop propagandizing our youth as to the value and desirability of living a secularized and sterile existence that eschews marriage and children. The idea that it is acceptable and even preferred to adopt an identity that puts you at odds with biological reality is madness. And all the other LGBTQ lifestyles must also be identified as deviancy that doesn’t merit celebration but at most pity and possibly tolerance if it isn’t allowed to corrupt the youth.
And these are just the negative aspects of our society that must be addressed. At the same time, changes must be enacted to amplify society’s effect on the positive behaviors we want to encourage. Our government must support the formation and flourishing of families. If a man and a woman are raising up children the government should be doing everything it can to maximize the odds that they will create good, well-adjusted and productive people. The tax laws and the social safety net should be primarily focused on these people. Everything should be done to allow young women to stay home with their children during those formative years. And this shouldn’t be done just because it is helpful to the child-rearing task but also because raising a family is the most fulfilling occupation that two people can hope to have. And a young mother at home with her young children is the necessary center of such a family. Without her it is an incomplete and confused fragment of what a family should be. A poor family with a mother at home has its struggles. But even a rich family without a mother at home is unbalanced and often unhappy. The children feel the lack but don’t know what they’re missing.
And there are so many things about our society that are unhealthy and dangerous. The complete disappearance of religion from our daily life and the normalizing of unhealthy obsessions like drugs and pornography have destroyed countless young lives. All of these things are justified by our fetish with freedom. A re-evaluation on the limits of freedom is painfully overdue.
And if society doesn’t start making these changes very soon, then as I said at the beginning of this rant, nature will do it for us. Or more accurately, do it for our successors that live in healthier cultures.
This post from the Babylon Bee attempts to mock the FBI sting operation that was recently head in DC. But the actual reports showing Capitol Police outfitted like Darth Vader attempting to shield the identity of an FBI plant dressed up as a fake antifa agitator was beyond parody.
Honestly, if anyone still doubts that we live in an occupied country just think about this. The FBI was perfectly fine with BLM and antifa burning down areas of dozens of cities last year. But they are going all out to entrap right-wing protestors with whatever false flag activities they can engineer. FBI or Stasi, what’s the difference?
Maybe she could just have said they’re absolutely useless but she does itemize what she thinks they should be doing. And there is some value in that. I’m always of two minds about these rants. After all I’ve done enough of them myself and even though it feels better getting to say it, unless someone actually accomplishes any of the items on the list it’s all just hot air. But I like to see if the other guy (or gal in this case) has anything on his list that I’ve forgotten. Joy actually has a few things I haven’t thought of so kudos to her.
Sharyl Attkisson reports on a county in Colorado where the locals discovered that not only was a murder/suicide added to the COVID death total but even two people who were very much alive were added in too.
Colorado finally got around to distinguishing between deaths due to COVID and those due to other causes where a positive COVID test existed. The number dropped from 13,845 to 7,028. Can you imagine if this is representative of the whole country. As one of the coroners who exposed this said, COVID is a real disease but its death toll is being inflated for political reasons.