Tag: Orion’s Cold Fire

Quantitative Analysis Interrupted

photog 2 Comments Current Events, OCF , ,
mushroom, Sony A7 III with Minolta 200mm f\4 Macro lens

There is a program called Google Analytics.  By virtue of the largest internet surveillance system imaginable it keeps track of every link click on the world wide web.  It must be a truly massive system of mainframes buried under the Rocky Mountains and probably uses up enough electricity to power the Eastern Seaboard.  And by virtue of this horrific gathering of information, I can glean which of my posts and which of my links are most interesting to the general public.  It even tells me whether the links were based on search engine inquiry or direct input or referral from a third-party site.  And all of this information is somewhat interesting.  For instance, some days I get a link on an aggregation site and the majority of my traffic that day will be from this referral link.  In fact, on days like that my overall traffic might be ten times the normal site traffic.  And this is good because some of this new traffic might become regular viewers and show up every day.  So, the Google Analytics (GA) is valuable to more than just the FBI in their never-ending search for Americans who don’t love Big Brother.

But I digress.  So anyway, about a year and half ago Google started announcing that GA3 would be superseded by GA4 on July 1st 2023.  But a year and a half is such along time.  It might as well be never.  And so, sure enough, I ignored this warning for … a year and a half.  And who knew?  Eventually, July 1st 2023 turns out to actually exist.  In fact, it’s 15 hours, 27 minutes, 47.33 seconds away!

As is my way last night at around 1 am, I managed to get the new GA4 link set up on my site dashboard.  Of course, the link isn’t really producing any data but that could take as much as 48 hours according to the helpful scolding I receive from Google whenever I look at the output.  So probably for the next few days (and probably much longer) I won’t have GA4 telling me that anybody is out there.  Of course, the website dashboard has an access log of the clicks but it doesn’t provide a trendline and totals so it’s not as useful or convenient.  What it means is I will be forced to understand yet another new system because of the unstoppable march of PROGRESS.  Ah well.

So, the good news is that you’re all still out there even if Google’s “Eye of Sauron” isn’t hooked up to my local palantir.  The bad news is that I wasted and am still wasting precious time messing around with these absurd systems that inevitably become less useful and less convenient every time they roll out a new edition.  But the upside is that even if the whole system crashes and burns at midnight tonight, it will still be the first day of July and that is cause for celebration in and of itself.  For the last ten days it has been cloudy and raining almost every day.  But yesterday it cleared up, and the forecast for today and tomorrow is sun.  So, I’ll let Silicon Valley’s minions have their way with my analytics and instead concentrate on more promising phenomena like some macro shots of the mushrooms that all that rain has engendered.

What Is There to Say?

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After a while we’ve said everything there is to say about the death trap we’ve walked into.  Everyone of us has read the umpteenth article on the managerial elite and the Global American Empire.  We’ve read the debates back and forth over whether this is a neo-religious cult or a cynical grift that the leaders of the Left have cooked up to keep the drones busy while they pilfer the treasury, or both.  It’s all been said.

So, what’s left?

Well, what’s left is us.  We still have to live.  We can’t just retreat to our living rooms, stop eating and die.  We’ve got things we want to do.  For some it’s family and responsibility.  For others it’s freedom and adventure.  But whatever it is we have to devote a certain amount of our energy to counteracting the intentional harm that our dysfunctional regime heaps upon us in innumerable ways day in and day out.  And chronicling these problems and pointing out the work arounds is one of the useful things that can be done by someone writing about our lives.

And we can pass along stories of victories and defeats.  Maybe one of our guys passes legislation to protect our side from some old or new atrocity.  Maybe some unlucky hero stands up to the thugs and gets railroaded into prison for the rest of his life.  All these things are useful because they teach us about what’s really going on.  Even if these stories find their way into the mainstream media the spin on them makes them almost unrecognizable.  So, the only place where you’ll hear our side of what’s going on is in some source like this.  And it’s the only place where the readers can comment on these events and give their own opinions.

And that’s another function of this activity.  It provides a means for like-minded people to speak their minds and pass information back and forth.  And that is valuable both as a means of communication and to improve morale.  Feeling alone makes our plight almost hopeless and if you can see that others are out there it encourages you to keep going.

And another reason that these sites are useful is that they provide a place for things that the outside world has eliminated.  As the world fills up with TikTok influencers cross-dressing their way into our hearts places like this can review movies and books that reflect the old way of thinking.  I can put up quotes by Thomas Jefferson and Rudyard Kipling that express thoughts that are strictly forbidden by modern leaders of government, academia and even the churches.

And finally, this site can allow us all to have a little fun from time to time by expressing our individuality.  One of the guest contributors can put up a photo or a story that means something to him.  And there may be a resonance in the other viewers.  There’s some camaraderie in being in a hated minority.  The plucky rebels can feel pride in standing up to the evil empire even if it’s just by calling out the crimes they commit.

So, just for today I’ll omit the rant against the managerial elite and the Global American Empire.  They’ll still be there tomorrow.  Today I salute Orion’s Cold Fire and all of its denizens.  From the lurkers and the regulars to the ringleader himself.  Long may we meet and grouse about the world.

Michael Anton Quotes From OCF – That’s Pretty Cool

photog Current Events, Life in Dunwich, OCF, photog's Corner , , , , , , ,

 

Back in the before time when 2016 was shaping up to be a contest between Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush I first read Michael Anton’s essay “The Flight 93 Election”.  And the fact that someone with an academic background and a connection to Washington understood just how bleak the Uniparty options were for this country impressed me greatly.

And afterwards as I perceived that he was pursuing those at at the far outer edges of conservative thought to provide fresh ideas for a political movement that was hollowed out at the top I was encouraged   Because we really do need much more coordination and honest dialog if we’re even going to survive the onslaught of the monolithic Left.

Now I’m not a great thinker.  I’m just a schmoe who got tired of being thrown off of photography and science fiction websites because I didn’t kowtow to the Left’s shibboleths and put together my own site where I can say whatever damn thing I want to.  But I practiced in my own humble way what Anton was doing.  I read far and wide on the on the internet.  Back in 2015 and 2016 there were all kinds of crazy people involved in the pro-Trump movement.  And beyond the pro-Trump movement there were the dissidents for whom Trump was just a symptom.  And I learned quite a bit about the various factions and ideologies and to be honest, the various hates that exist on the Right.

And I can see that there are strengths and weaknesses in each of them.  But what is also true is that the Left’s use of surrogates on the Right to disqualify anyone dangerous to the Left has been one of their most successful strategies.  William F. Buckley was famous for this.

And the neocons tried to do it to Donald Trump to stop him from being elected.  So I made a point to keep an open mind about fringe thinkers.  And so I read people like the Z-Man.  And I’ve found him to be spot on about a whole raft of things that affect our lives.  He’s a very smart guy.

But he’s just one guy.  We need about thirty million guys working together just to stop this train from going off the cliff.  So on balance I have to give the prize to people like Anton and even Gottfried who may disagree on a multitude of intellectual points but at least are willing to hold a discussion about their differences.  To my mind honest disagreement can be enlightening for both sides.  You don’t have to convince the other guy but you do have to make an effort to clarify your position for the readers.  And I believe that’s how we’ll end up with some kind of a coalition.

So I woke up this morning and I saw I had some traffic coming over from American Greatness.  Now I wrote a couple of posts for them a few years back but nothing recently so i was interested.  and there I saw this post by Michael Anton.  He quoted a blog post I wrote a week or two ago going over my thoughts on the Anton / Z-Man war.

I won’t deny I was pretty happy thinking that somehow Michael Anton had visited my site.  After all I had read his article about seven years ago and it had been one of the inspirations for my blogging and many other activities I had engaged in over the years.  He had crystallized many of the thoughts that had been growing in my mind ever since the George Bush presidency had destroyed my belief in the Republican establishment.

But beyond my own private satisfaction in being noticed, it gives me hope that there are people trying to build something bigger than just Donald Trump or Ron DeSantis or Twitter.  We need an actual identity and a mission to save this country.  We at least have to agree on what we’re trying to save.  I think Anton believes that.

It’s a start.

For Prospective Guest Contributors

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For folks out there who are interested in contributing some content and want to know what I think will work best for this site here are some of my thoughts and some information.

  1. First off it’s not a paid arrangement.  Anything that is provided is for free.  All I provide is a venue.
  2. I categorize all the content from each guest contributor separately.  If for some reason you decide you’d like to remove all or some of your content from the site I will do so without hesitation.  In fact, I’ll e-mail you the data for your own use gladly.
  3. Approving content is my job.  It has to be something that fits the site.  Politics  from a non-leftist perspective, family friendly culture, Americana, history, religion, military stories, uncontroversial photography, science and technology, energy, hunting and fishing, guns, cars, human interest stories, life stories, movie reviews, tv reviews, music reviews, book reviews and even fiction writing if you have the knack would all be good.  In terms of the politics I’m sort of a civic nationalist but dissidents are allowed to voice their opinions but must keep it in the range of polite discussion.  Threats and disparagement of any groups you don’t like probably won’t be a good fit for the site.
  4. Send the content in an e-mail and I can then evaluate it and let you know what I think.
  5. I have been interested in getting some female contributors to write about child-raising, home schooling, cooking and other family subjects.  So far no luck.
  6. I would prefer the posts to be between 500 and 2000 words.  If it’s much less it might be better off as a comment to another post.  If it’s much more I’d think about splitting it up.

So I’ll leave this up on the header for those interested.  Thanks for your attention.  If you need to ask any questions just send an e-mail to orionscoldfire at charter dot net

Best regards

photog

Here’s a Sample From My Unfinished Sci-Fi Book

photog Book Reviews, My Fiction, photog's Corner, Reviews, Science Fiction / Fantasy, SF&F Book Reviews ,

Here’s a sample of a book I’m currently about a quarter of the way through.  If you look at the Header of the website there’s a new link to “Stuff to Buy.”  That where I’ll embed links to books and photogrpaphy I’ll have to sell soon.

 

 

The American Archipelago

Book 1 – The Sniper

Chapter 1 – An Object Lesson

Joseph Boghadair was set up at a loophole in a small prefabricated metal building at the top of a mountain that contained the Icarus Mine.  His .50 caliber sniper rifle was trained on the narrow road that led up to the mine.  He could see a line of black SUVs about a mile and a half down the road and he was getting ready to start firing on the convoy.  His first shots took out the engine of the lead vehicle thereby halting the convoy.  His second volley took out the engine of the last car in line thus trapping the rest of the vehicles between.  Then at a more leisurely pace he took care of the other eight vehicles.  By this point the passengers were crouching behind their disabled cars and randomly firing handguns and assault weapons in Joseph’s general direction with almost no discernible results.

After about half an hour a few of the men in black body armor attempted to reach a stand of trees about 300 yards away to their left.  Joseph put a few well aimed rounds in front of their path and they quickly retreated back to the supposed safety of their not so mobile autos.  Joseph snorted wryly at their shyness.

An hour after that a helicopter approached the mountain from the opposite direction to Joseph’s loophole.  Walking over to a window on the other wall he could see a distant Blackhawk approaching at relatively high altitude.  Joseph then began his preparations for their reception.

Between crew and troops, the Blackhawk had a dozen men on board.  And more importantly it had a couple of hellfire missiles.  From a very safe distance away it targeted Joseph’s position and fired.  The missile struck precisely on target and obliterated the steel structure almost completely.  All that remained was the foundation of the structure around the mine shaft, now clogged with debris.

The Blackhawk landed about three quarters of a mile from the mine entrance.  At this point the agents hunkered down behind their vehicles began to stream toward the helicopter.  By the time they reached the aircraft the troops had exited and were waiting for their rescued brethren to arrive.

FBI Special Agent in Charge, George Chastain assembled both teams and briefed them on the updated mission plan.  “We will proceed to the mine head and look for any human remains.  We will collect whatever we can retrieve for lab analysis and attempt to seal the mine head until qualified personnel can be assembled for recovery operations.  It is presumed that the target, Joseph Boghadair was killed by the missile strike but we will take no chances.  He was an extremely dangerous individual and should not be approached by anyone without backup and prior approval from leadership.  In addition to his war record it is believed that Boghadair is responsible for the shooting deaths of forty-six people in the last six months with thirteen of those people being FBI personnel.  No one enters the mine until remote sensing equipment is brought in.  Alright, proceed.”

The agents formed two groups.  Apparently, SUV agents and helicopter agents must not bond very well.  But before they were more than a hundred feet from the helicopter a series of incredibly powerful explosions shook the ground and knocked them off their feet.  And while they were holding onto the ground for dear life, they could see that the high ground where the mine head was located collapsed into the earth.  The roar of that collapse was more frightening than the initial earthquake and some of the agents hid their heads under their arms in abject terror.  When the mountain stopped shaking the men started to collect themselves and stand up.  When they looked around them, they were astonished.  A circular pit had opened up centered on the mine head.  It was a thousand yards in diameter and so deep that only blackness could be seen at its center.  Several cracks had formed outside the circular pit.  One of these had nearly swallowed the Blackhawk.  It was on its side and half buried in the crevice.  Its rotors were fractured and it wouldn’t be flying away from this landing.

Chastain went over to the edge of the crater and just stared down into the blackness below.  Then he went back to his team and started giving orders to begin a retreat from the stricken mountain.  He was trying to think of what he was going to tell his boss.  Nothing reasonable came to mind.

Betelgeuse, Betelgeuse, Betelgeuse!

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Forgive the jocularity but Alpha Orionis (aka Betelgeuse) is of course of great interest at Orion’s Cold Fire.  Sporting such an alarmist title as “Is Betelgeuse About To Explode?” I should condemn this article but as a general interest essay and coming around the time of the Star of the Magi I felt I should link to it.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2019/12/25/is-betelgeuse-about-to-explode/#69d9c21d47bf

 

Social Media in the Age of the Shadow Ban

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A discussion in the comments reminded me why I set up this website in the way it currently exists, namely a multi-subject blog.  Full disclosure, I’ve never had a Facebook or Twitter account.  I have a Gab account but I’ve never noticed much if any activity there, so I’ll generalize by saying that my presence on line has been mostly a matter of membership on various websites.  And this is an artifact of my generational identity.  My children are members of the cohort that interacts on Twitter, FaceBook, YouTube, Instagram, SnapChat, etc.  I never got around to all that.  So, for that reason, shadow banning isn’t something I have experienced.  But I do know what regular banning is about.  I have been on websites (specifically photography websites) that obviously took sides in the culture wars and allowed the lefties to bait the non-lefties.  And when these non-lefties responded in kind they got censored and eventually banned.  This is a demoralizing state of affairs.  Eventually I decided that if I wanted to have a place on-line where I could talk about photography or movies or books I would have to make a space of my own where conservatives could interact on a level playing field with the Left.

I was tempted to separate my political and non-political subjects onto separate web addresses but on further consideration I decided to keep them all under one roof.  I did this for a couple of reasons.  The first was, let’s call it, truth in advertising.  I wouldn’t want photography or science fiction enthusiasts to come to my site and not know up front that I sat on the right side of the fence.  Otherwise they might get comfortable but then one day discover that they had been tricked into associating with the unclean.  That would be a source of irritation for both parties.

The second reason was because I shouldn’t have to separate them.  Photographers assume that all photo websites are automatically politically leftist.  Almost all literary websites are rabidly leftist.  Trying to separate my subjects from my philosophical/political identity seems like an apology for what I believe.  And I don’t want to do that.

So, the interesting aspect of having a multi-subject website is the way it is handled by search engines.  What I’ve noticed is that Google will never link to any of my political stuff, period.  But I’ll get a substantial amount of organic search linkage for my photography content.  Interestingly, a good amount of that is from Europe and East Asia.  I’d love to know what these folks think of my political content.  The science fiction stuff is somewhere in the middle.  Because I review mostly non-leftist sf content I probably don’t get as much search activity as I could if I were more politically correct in my coverage.  But so be it.

Anyway, the whole point of this post is that I am using this site as an avenue for pursuing my interests on-line without sacrificing my right to be myself.  I also hope to attract a readership that is interested in the subjects that I provide regardless of their political persuasion.  I think that discussing photography should be possible for both left- and right-wing individuals without resorting to character assassination.  Of course, on the political topics I assume there would be much more occasion for debate and even argument but I still contend that people can argue in a rational manner or at least agree to disagree and move on.  But most importantly, my point of view isn’t one that can be stifled by the powers that be.  I’ll get my say.

Interestingly, with the recent acceleration of social media acting as the ideological gatekeeper of the internet maybe it’s time for right-wing websites to once again become meeting places for those on the right who are tired of being threatened, brow-beaten and banned from the electronic town square.  Vox Day says we must build our own institutions and infrastructure.  This is my experiment in that direction.  We’ll see how the experiment works.

Latest Site Poll

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See poll at end of post

He-Man Woman Hater’s Club or Royal Order of Racoons?

As is my way I’m trying to come up with the name of something before the something even exists.  I’ve become intrigued with the idea of starting a fraternal order that would provide a place for people like me to feel at home.  Both of the names in the title are imaginary societies that appeared in popular tv shows when I was a kid.  The He-Man Woman Haters Club was where the Little Rascals congregated when they were having trouble with Darla or the other girls in the neighborhood and the Racoon Lodge is where Ralph and Ed retreated to when Alice and Trixie were nagging them about the dumpy apartments, they lived in.  Of course, these names may be under copyright protection but any name will do as long as the ground rules are right.

Rule 1 – All voting members will be married men.  They have to be men because women are a nuisance.  They have to be married because wisdom only comes through suffering and no one suffers as much as married men.  Unmarried men are welcome but cannot vote.

Rule 2 – All memberships will be approved by me based on interviews and recommendations of people I can vouch for.  Memberships can be revoked any time someone stops fitting the membership criteria.  I decide the criteria and can change them anytime I deem it necessary.  It’s a flexible system and should prove robust.

Rule 3 – The women’s auxiliary is made up exclusively of wives who can make sandwiches.  They have no standing in the organization other than to assist the members, cheer at sporting events, chaperone children’s activities and make sandwiches (and other designated foodstuffs).  If any wife becomes a nuisance she will be ejected and her husband will be liable for the offense up to and including expulsion.  Girlfriends of unmarried members can join the auxiliary but must get along with the wives.  Any member who has a wife and a girlfriend will have to sort that out himself.

Rule 4 – All children’s activities must be chaperoned by the parents or legal guardians of the children attending.  This is key.  People should care enough to spend time with their kids.  If you don’t want to why would we?

Rule 5 – No member can openly espouse Democrat, progressive, communist, socialist, globalist, anti-American or any other pinko sentiments.  You can be an atheist if you refrain from annoying religious people about it.  The organization is innately pro-God because God has always done right by me.  But we are not denominational.  God only talks to me when I’m alone and won’t allow me to tell anyone else what religion he belongs to.  Sorry.

Rule 6 – Men will wear pants at all times.  This is very important.  We are Americans and American men wear pants.  End of story.  You Scots are out of luck.

Rule 7 – Whenever in the course of a meeting or in organizational documents a pronoun is used for a person of indeterminate sex the masculine form will be used.  If this bothers you then you’re in the wrong club.

Other rules equally idiosyncratic will follow as I get around to making them up.  Suffice it to say that I will provide rules to prevent all the behaviors that annoy me in everyday politically correct arenas.  No make-believe pronouns, no gender equality, no weirdos of any kind (other than my kind of weirdos).

I am openly soliciting a name for this noble fraternal organization.  And if you can think of anything that needs to be added to the rules or if you have other comments, such as, “you must be insane!” then just leave them in the comment section below.

Yours in fraternal benevolence,

photog (AKA, the High, Exalted, Mystic Grand Master General)

 

[socialpoll id=”2533190″]

Where Do I Stand in the Political Spectrum

photog Current Events, OCF, On-Line Article Reviews, photog's Corner, Reviews, Trump , , , , , ,

For the newer readers of Orion’s Cold Fire this article I wrote for American Greatness sums up my position in the Great Revolt

https://amgreatness.com/2017/11/25/defining-the-space-between-nevertrump-and-the-alt-right/

I consider myself fully aware of the tremendous obstacles to preserving what’s left of the remarkable experiment that is the United States of America but I can’t quite give up on it yet.