Category: Current Events

Waiting for Equilibrium

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All of the parts of our culture have become a mishmash of old and new components that really don’t align and add to the sense that our whole world is completely out of balance and headed for a crackup.  Well, all that is true but I get the impression that this is just how the world feels to everyone as they get older.  In fact, it was probably even more extreme a hundred years ago when people from really old cultures came in contact with American progressivism in the 1920s.  And the tension between the old comfortable conventions and the chaotic modernism of the on-line existence is what will force the exact shape of what comes afterward.  After all, there are things going on now that cannot possibly go on in their current shape.  They are just too maladapted to last for more than a few years.  And these excesses will spawn reactions that will modify and even optimize some of the new customs and patterns that the next generations will adopt.

So, no matter what the world looks like in the coming generation, I won’t like it because it’s not my world.  But it will fit the people living in it.  And I will have had whatever input I could provide by my limited feedback to my contacts in the younger generation and by providing an echo of what the world was like in my time.

Aside from whatever small influence I will have on the new culture what I will contribute to is the historical record of my time.  The sum total of all the historical records of the second half of the twentieth century will be an enormous treasure trove for those who look back on that time period.  It will be recognized that that era spawned the single most impactful technological event of the last thousand years, the digital revolution.  And because of this enormous change the customs and practices of this generation will be studied to see what effect this innovation had on the older culture that pre-dated it.  Because these changes are unprecedented.  And I believe the negative effects of this revolution will be dire.

And at some point, corrective actions will need to be initiated to mitigate the harmful consequences on humanity.  Some technological and commercial products may have to be banned in order to minimize the dysfunctional outcomes that these practices create in the same way that we prohibit the use of certain very dangerous drugs that create addiction in humans.  And conversely, new products and services may be mandated to provide humans with patterns and behaviors that are known to improve individual and group mental health and benefit society as a whole.

Well, that’s a lot of supposing.  But I think it’s a safe bet that we are currently living in the time when the most imbalanced on-line culture exists.  I think as the maximum disruption of pre-digital culture is reached the imbalance of the digital culture will begin to recede as equilibrium around the new structures occurs.  The only question is will it crash our civilization before that equilibrium is reached.

SODT

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Therapist – So let’s welcome our new friend Scott Pelley and start by going around the circle and introduce ourselves.

Acosta – Hi I’m Jim and I’ve hated Trump for about ten years.

Pelley – Hi Jim

Moran – Hi I’m Terry and I hate all haters!

Pelley – Hi Terry.

Lemon – I’m Don and I’ve hated Trump since I was a kid and saw what kinds of atrocious ties he wore.

Pelley – Hi Don.

Reid – I’m Joy and I’ve hated Trump from the womb.

Pelley – Hi Joy.

Cuomo – Hi I’m Chris and I don’t hate anyone.  I’m just looking for a new gig.  Scott, what’s available at CBS.

Pelley – Scoundrel!

Therapist – So who has had a breakthrough this week?

Lemon – Me, me, pick me!

Therapist – Okay Don what would you like to share?

Lemon – Well, it came to me last night that in just two years this whole nightmare will end and the world will go back to the way it was in 2015 and I’ll be rich, famous and sassy again.

Therapist – Why do you think that?

Lemon – Well, obviously Donald Trump will be out of office and the Democrats will be in charge again and they will reverse all of Trump’s damage and restore all of us to the glamour and wealth that we enjoyed under Barack Obama.

Therapist – Does anyone else believe that?

(Everyone’s hands go up immediately)

Therapist – (rubbing his face with both hands) I see we still have a lot of work to do here.  As much as you feel that Donald Trump is the root of all your problems you must realize that this is a very different world from 2016.  Things have moved on.  Your industry has changed.  The internet has disrupted journalism permanently.

Reid – That’s a lie!  MS-NBC will be begging to get me back.  I’ll have a ten million dollar annual and I’ll have a bigger office than Maddow that closet racist!

Cuomo – Don’t you mean MS NOW?  And why would they want you back after what you’ve been saying about them?

Reid – Shut your face Chris, you always were a closet racist.  All of you are closet racists, even you Lemon!

Lemon – Girlfriend, have you gone crazy?  We can’t start attacking each other.  That’s what Trump wants.

Reid – Oh shut up.  I’m sick and tired of blogging on my sub-stack.  Nobody reads the damn things and so far, this month I’ve made eleven dollars and forty-two cents in subscriptions.  (breaks down crying) I want my old life back.   WAAAAAAAAAH!

Therapist – Please Joy, don’t slip into that mode of thought.  We mustn’t dwell on the past.  We must embrace the future and new opportunities.

Pelley – He’s right Joy.  We all have a bright future.  We don’t need MS-NBC or CBS.  We’re smart and we’re strong.  We have skills and are only waiting for the right opportunity to put them to work.  Listen, all of you, I’ve decided that it’s time to start something big.  Why, with all the talent that’s gathered right here we could set the journalism world on fire.  Why, Jim and Terry could be our Washington correspondents.  Don and Chris could handle the entertainment desk and Joy you handle the social justice watch while I can be the executive producer.

Cuomo – What kind of venture capital can you put together?  Can you cover a two year burn through?

Pelley – I was hoping we could all cover our own expenses until it got up and running.

(Everyone including the therapist start laughing maniacally and cross over into tears.)

Therapist – Scott, thanks for that moment of levity.  It’s really important to keep a sense of humor during depression.

Pelley – But I wasn’t kidding!

Therapist – Well then, you’re not ready for this group yet.  SODT stands for “Survivors of Donald Trump” and by definition, you can’t be completely delusional and say things like that.  Why don’t you try hanging out with Kamala until the crazy wears off.  Close the door on the way out, will you?

Snott Smelley – Journalist

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Good evening Mr. and Mrs. America and all the ships at sea.  And it goes without saying (although I will say it) good evening too to Ms. America and to all the pronouns that represent the gorgeous mosaic that is America in 2026.

I come to you tonight, not on the Sunday, 8pm 60 Minutes program where I belong but from my “man cave” in the basement of my home.  I have followed various YouTube videos and purchased the hardware and materials to assemble my very own television studio.  I will “upload” this video to YouTube, as the kids say, and get my story out to the world.  You might think that the recent interview with the New York Times would have set the record straight about the outrageous, fascistic and catastrophic events going on at CBS but I sensed that just as at CBS, the New York Times is now also being censored by the Trump administration and I must get the word out before the thought police have a chance to shut down all dissent.

And because I was trained in the Socratic Method in journalism school, I will structure this podcast as an interview between me and myself.  For the sake of clarity, whenever I am asking the questions as the interviewer, I will wear a hat with the letter J on it to show I am the journalist.  And when I am answering the questions, I will wear a hat with the letter S that stands for “source” and also Snott since that is my name.  Here we go.

J – Thank you, intrepid whistleblower for daring to blow the whistle on Donald Trump, The Ellisons and Bari Weiss while they lay waste to a once magnificent journalistic miracle, 60 Minutes.

S – Thank you for acknowledging my bravery and for building this state-of-the-art studio on such short notice.

J – What was the hardest part of speaking truth to power during your harrowing ordeal with those destroyers of free speech and haters of freedom of the press.

S – I would say that the worst of it was not being allowed to document my firing for an upcoming segment of 60 Minutes.  I would say off the top of my head that truth dies in darkness and unless I’m allowed to produce a fourteen-part series that covers every facet of the coup currently being perpetrated against this land of liberty I can’t see the world surviving for more than a few more weeks.

J – Will you make this series available to the American public.

S – I’m glad you asked that question journalist.  At the bottom of this video there will be a post office address.  If you send me a check for $1,400, you will receive a full set of 14 DVDs (or VHS tapes).  Or you can send $200 for each episode separately but that will be less economical.

J – That seems like a very fair price to pay.

S – Yes journalist, because what they will be paying for is freedom.  And who can put a price on freedom.  Although I guess that price is $1,400.

J – Thank you Mr. Whistleblower and good night, America and good luck.

Just a Rant for Today

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Today was an insane day.  I was enmeshed in a bureaucratic maelstrom of political deadlines and ideological absurdity.  People were running around in circles getting signatures on petitions and trying to dot the i’s and cross the t’s needed to beat the clock.  And I got gypped out of my day off.  But as Camera Girl would say I was the “better person” (I think).

So, I didn’t have much time to look at the news.  What I saw was more of the same.  Scott Pelley was crying (literally) about Bari Weiss trying to make 60 Minutes slightly less leftist.  Graham Platner was winning the Democratic Maine Senatorial primary while reports of his sub-human antics continue to pour in from all directions.  Donald Trump was booed at an NBA playoff game at Madison Square Garden.  And apparently the California absentee ballot scam is still working effectively six years into the new era so that as long as unlimited time is allowed for fake ballots to be printed up no Republican will ever be elected (or even get past the jungle primary) ever again.  Check, check, check, check.  Yep, full speed forward and steady as she goes.

And based on my personal experience today and what passes for the news of the day, we have entered the after-time where we no longer worry about getting things back to normal.  There is no normal anymore.  We just roll with the punches and when we can’t keep our heads above water, we take a deep breath and hope to fight our way back to the surface before our lungs explode.  All in all, it’s pretty great.

Okay, end of acerbic rant.

Actually, the day ended pretty well.  I had a very nice dinner, watched a fun old movie (American Graffiti) and even sold a few books on Amazon (two paperbacks and a Kindle Unlimited).  But it is undeniable that we have passed into a new era where normalcy is no longer a universal concept in our society.  Strangeness is the new normal.  And we must accept that, to those around us, we are the abnormal ones.

And that’s okay.  In fact, I now embrace my status as an outsider with a definite stigma attached.  It’s a badge of honor and a qualification for a secret society that lurks in the dark corners of the daylight world made up of vapid adherents of the “normal” world of the stupid and the weak.  We can embrace and support the sensible and logical pursuits and actions that have always been there.  There is so much reality that can’t be avoided by the stupid that just using common sense will guide us to how we should navigate around the catastrophic errors of our age.  A good example has been the green energy revolution.  Those who have gone along with the band wagon are now saddled with electric cars they can’t afford to charge and heat pumps that cost too much to heat their homes.  By just doing the math you could have seen that coming.  And that is the template.  Look carefully at the propaganda and avoid the worst of the pitfalls.  And most importantly stay away from the cities where we’re told that crime is at an all time low (despite the daily body count in the news).

Okay, have a good day.

Graham Platner: The New Democrat

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In search of a populist communist, the Democrats have embraced Graham Platner the former combat Marine, oyster farmer, misogynist and philosopher king.  Platner is embroiled in a scandal that just keeps getting weirder with every passing day but his poll numbers have been so strong up till now that the powers that be in the party have everyone from Sunny Hostin of the View to Chris Hayes of MS NOW playing along with Platner being what the party needs in Maine.  Now all of this is very interesting because Platner has a history of making disparaging statements about women and gays.  He also has a Nazi SS death’s head tattoo on his chest (although he has now tattooed over it).  Several of his girlfriends have described violent and controlling behavior toward them.  His wife has reported that he also has a history of “sexting” women on a service called Kik that is much frequented by Gen Z users.

But my all-time favorite detail about Mr. Platner is a remark he made to one of his girlfriends when describing what he would do if a man broke into his house.  He said he would the rape the man (but not in a “gay” way) to show his dominance.

Well, what can we say.  Graham Platner sounds like a certifiable mental case.  He has serious anger management problems and by his own admissions he’s a heavy drinker and drug user.  Sounds like the perfect Democrat Senate candidate for Maine.  As I mentioned above, Platner has been ahead of his Democrat rivals from the start so that the establishment candidate, the current Governor, Janet Mills, suspended her campaign.  And Platner is still higher in the polls than the Republican incumbent Susan Collins though that lead has lessened significantly.  But all of this negative publicity has rattled a lot of the Democrat establishment and Mills has reminded voters that she still appears on the primary ballot so if Platner is further damaged by scandal they can vote for her.  Also, even if Platner wins the primary on June 9th he can drop out of the race and the Democrats can pick another candidate for the regular election in November.  So right now, there is an enormous unsettled cloud over Platner’s status.  The Democrats are convinced that they must win in Maine in order to retake the Senate from the Republicans.

Well, this is wonderful.  Listening to feminists bending over backwards to explain how they can vote for a caveman misogynist against a woman is just too delicious to ignore.  And the best part is that the Democrats are frightened to death that there is still more dirty laundry waiting for after the drop-dead date on July 13th after which Platner’s name must stay on the ballot.

Now let me be clear.  I think of Susan Collins as a Democrat.  There is absolutely nothing conservative about her.  So, if Platner were to win in November I wouldn’t be too upset.  New England does not have a conservative constituency.  It should have the lousy communist politicians it deserves.  But it would be nice if we could squeak by without losing the House or the Senate in this midterm election.

Anyway, watching Chris Hayes making nice with a guy who claims he would rape a male home intruder in a non-gay way has to be an important milestone.  We’ve reached terminal Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS) fallout.  At this point, I believe the Democrats would vote for Hitler himself if he promised to unseat Trump.  So good luck Mr. Platner.  And good luck to any burglars who may be working up there in Sullivan, Maine.  It sounds like a tricky proposition.

What Would an Honest 60 Minutes Look Like?

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You know all this Scott Pelley comedy got me thinking.  What if 60 Minutes became a real honest to goodness investigative reporting show?  You know, like it’s claimed to be.  Watching the legacy media reporting on Pelley was hilarious because they all used exactly the same wording to describe just how venerable 60 Minutes is; “the gold standard of journalism,” “unbiased and non-partisan,” “acclaimed by both political parties.”  Of course, if anyone objective was within hearing of these claims, the eye-rolling was epic.

But imagine it for a moment.  What if 60 Minutes did an expose about Somalians in Minnesota running daycare scams to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars?  Or suppose they did an undercover investigation to find out which NGOs provide money, equipment and legal aid to Antifa?  Then they would really be doing something useful.  Even I would watch things like that.  Or could you imagine a detailed investigation into Gavin Newsom’s spending on high-speed rail and other boondoggles.  Or how about someone doing an audit on the “massaging” of the data used for the global warming studies?

Well, anyway, I don’t actually expect this level of honesty from legacy media but even if all they do is take a more balanced approach to interviewing political figures it would be a revelation.  Now the question remains whether a more even-handed approach to reporting would increase the market share for CBS.  Well, in my opinion, yes!  I used to watch 60 Minutes back in the ancient days before all of journalism became a leftist monolith.  Let’s say 1985 as a time when some vestigial fairness could still be found in the media.  If Bari Weiss succeeds in convincing the Right that she is willing to give respect to both sides of the country I think she can increase the audience by more than just a few percentage points.  And just as importantly if other networks see something like that it will make an impression.

Okay, that’s enough happy-happy talk.  We haven’t seen anything substantive yet.  Maybe all of this is just a way for Sky Dance to eliminate a lot of high-priced employees from their payroll.  I’m sure Scott Pelley was making eight figures and since they fired him for cause they don’t have to pay off his contract (as long as his lawyers don’t win in court).  But potentially this could be another case of the economics of angering fifty percent of the country leading to the collapse of another corporate dinosaur.  Just as Hollywood can’t both fight off new entertainment technology and also alienate more than half its audience, we may be seeing the breaking point for this crooked industry.  And isn’t it just poetic justice that it’s happening under the Trump administration.  Tonight, I saw a clip where a reporter asked Trump about Pelley and he said, “I think Scott Pelley’s got his own problems, he’s terrible. Look, Scott Pelley’s a stiff and he’s afraid, and he’s part of this, you know, gang of crooked, stupid people that don’t care about our country.”  Well, I think that sums things up admirably.  Hopefully from here it will get even funnier.

Goodbye Scott Pelley, We Hardly Knew Ye

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First Stephen Colbert and now Scott Pelley?  Has the whole of CBS gone topsy turvy?  The insufferable Pelley has been fired for cause from 60 Minutes after verbally assaulting his new boss (Executive Producer Nick Bilton) and the editor-in-chief of CBS News (Bari Weiss) at Bilton’s first staff meeting after taking over the news show.  During the meeting Pelley said to Bilton, “What qualifies you to be in this position?  …  You have slender qualifications for this job.”  He also accused Weiss of “murdering” 60 Minutes.

And then a day later he got the termination letter from Bilton, “Yesterday, you hijacked my first meeting with staff to disparage me, my qualifications, and my intentions with remarkable incivility and contempt,” He described Pelley’s behavior in the meeting as a “performative display of hostility — enacted in front of the staff.  …  Your antipathy to the future of the show has come through loud and clear. And I have heard you.”

Pelley has been making accusations that Weiss ordered him “to inject falsehoods and bias into a politically sensitive story” and “to include assertions that are unverified.”  He stated that “Incompetence and unprofessionalism in the new management have wreaked havoc.”

Alright, suppose Pelley was my favorite journalist.  Would I then think he was right to say those things to his new boss?  Of course not!  Anyone who works for a large corporation knows that you don’t call out your boss and especially not at a staff meeting and you definitely don’t tell him he’s unqualified for the job.  You don’t do it even if he is unqualified for the job.  You can try to make your point of view known in a respectful and convincing way or you can keep quiet and send your resume out to the headhunters right after the meeting.  But calling your new boss and his boss idiots or crooks is a very, very bad strategy.  It will not only get you fired, it will get you black-balled in your industry.  I guess Pelley thought he was bullet proof.  I guess he wasn’t.  Bye Scott.

So, what does all this mean?  It sounds to me that Bari Weiss is making a decent attempt to turn CBS News into a news organization again instead of a propaganda machine for the Democrat party and the Left in general.  I’ve got to say I’m stunned!  What next?  Will Donald Trump get an honest to goodness interview without the usual “Mr. President, are you still beating your wife?” question?

Well, even if nothing more gets done this is a spectacular result.  Personally, I think they’ve been hoping to trigger Pelley into something like this because ending his contract will save them many millions of dollars and their bloated budgets are probably the real focus of Sky Dance and their efforts to make Paramount profitable.  Well, whatever the real reason my hope is it continues and accelerates.  There is no shortage of insufferable journalists at CBS and firing another dozen or two can only make life in these here United States that much better.

Guest Contributor – Chemist – 02JUN2026 – Adios John Cornyn

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I’m a Texan.
I was unhappy about John Cornyn’s love for amnesty but let it slide because “he was the one who could win in the general”.
Then Cornyn stabbed us in the back on gun control. That was a bridge too far. I swore then that I would vote for a democrat for US senate before I would vote for Cornyn again. My reasoning was that we would have to put up with the dem for 6 years and then we could replace him with a real conservative but that Cornyn was there until he died.
Apparently, I was not alone in this and John picked up on it announcing that this would be his last term in the senate.
Didn’t care. Didn’t trust John to keep his word anyway.
(BTW, John was warned. He was warned by constituents such as myself and by organizations like GOA and NRA that if he supported Biden’s gun control he would face an expensive and grueling primary. He did not care.)
Then along came Ken Paxton. Fresh off 4 years of suing the Biden administration to a standstill, Ken was the guy who could beat John.
I sent Ken money in the primary and in the runoff and I will again for the general.
We are sick to death of RINOs pissing on us and telling us it is raining.
I am very happy to see John Cornyn in the rear view mirror.
Don’t go away mad, John. Just go away.

A Very Important Start

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Isn’t this a crazy world.  Our politics are suicidal.  Our culture is demented.  The captains of industry and the oligarchy are made up of sociopaths.  What passes for “artists” are debauched narcissists who don’t even know what they’re supposedly rebelling against.  And yet, in some strange sense we’re starting to shake loose from the system that seems hellbent on tearing all of society down to the ground.

Despite the havoc that surrounds us and the confusion that even “our” side seems to be strewing in all directions I feel like the mass of people have shaken off the stupor that enveloped us for decades and are now willing to say openly that the narrative is a bunch of lies and search out like minded people and in what ever ways they can, move their lives in the direction that benefits them.

One of the signs of this is the recent spate of Republican senators and congressmen being primaried out of their offices.  It used to be we’d be told that if we didn’t support a John Cornyn or a Mitch McConnell then we would weaken the party and the Democrats would “win.”  So, we’d hold our noses and vote for the RINO and watch as he voted with the Democrats on a whole host of issues that hurt us.  Well, no more.  I tell you the truth.  Even if the Democrats pick up a few seats I’d rather see that than have another traitor stabbing us in the back at the last minute when we need him most.

It’s like Susan Collins in Maine or Lisa Murkowski in Alaska.  Neither is a conservative and they’re just as likely to vote with the Democrats as against them.  If we lost both those seats it would hardly matter at all.  The main thing is that voters are voting their convictions and attempting to eject the fakes from the party.

Another sign that people are starting to wake up is the situation in Hollywood.  For the last few years it’s become painfully obvious that movie-goers are staying away from movies that push “the narrative.”  The biggest victims are the Star Wars franchise and the superhero movies.  These two formerly unstoppable money-printing engines abused their fans by tearing down the storylines and characters that the fans loved and replacing them with “woke” versions of them.  And the result is these franchises have stopped making money.  Where before some of these properties might gross over a billion dollars and make hundreds of millions in profits, now they can’t even break even against the production and advertising budgets.  And in opposition to this model, lately you have a few studios trying to court these fans with more traditional fare like Amazon producing the science fiction movie “Project Hail Mary” where a positive message and a minimum of preaching “the message” were rewarded with a handsome profit and the lesson that a fresh storyline and traditional values can make the studios lots of money.  In addition, some independent internet content creators have of late begun to make movies on a shoestring budget and been rewarded with the profits that such an endeavor can reap.  Horror movies costing $1-5 million are making ten or twenty times that much money at the box office.  Now, not all of these movies are any good.  But they’re no worse than some of the schlock that comes out of Hollywood and they have audiences that will pay to see them.  They’re giving an audience what they expect.  We will see changes in Hollywood and those who don’t change will lose a lot of cash.  That is progress.

Let me be clear.  We have not won the culture war.  What we have done is awakened to the fact that the war was rigged against us by our “friends.”  And waking up to that fact is a very important start.