August 31, 2021

Disproving my last post

 The video in my last post contained a video of a state department statement that was clearly, clearly a lie.


I agree with Tim's point that the U.S. should have kept Bagram air force base as part of the withdrawal plan. It would have smoothed the transition out a lot. The problem was the revised plan was not a plan.  

Ignominious retreat

The war in Afghanistan was almost never well managed, but the withdrawal became an ignominious retreat and an absolute disgrace of uncoordinated, ill-conceived, morally bankrupt failure.  It's shameful how America abandon Americans in the country as well as Afghani Christians, women and anyone else who believed that the country had a hope for a real future.  Instead, the walked away and handed the Taliban the victory.

This lack of knowledge is highly indicative of the failures of the administration and excuses for the same.

August 30, 2021

Uh oh.

Russia often creates some high tech military equipment.  The thing is they cannot afford to produce very many. Their new fighter might be the greatest innovation in aerial combat - at least for the last generation. 

The media gave us that guy, on purpose believe it or not.

 Tim Pool, still calling out the media, and rightfully so:

August 29, 2021

August 28, 2021

"Men of the West" or Fall of the West?

 An allegory for the west, both then (WWII) and now:


That is an inspiring speech. Meanwhile, the gentlemen at Daily Wire in a long form discussion/debate, cover the current situation in Afghanistan as it relates to the crumbling strength of the West (primarily the United States), when just a few years ago under president Trump, it looked as though the superpower was finally regaining its resolve and strength.


But this is a bigger discussion than just Afghanistan.  It's a question of who we are. Whether Afghanistan was a good idea is not the important question. That time has passed. As far as Afghanistan the question is about what do we do now. As an aside, I think Matt Walsh (and not because it's him, but it's the most daunting conclusion) is the most correct here. American has, over the 20th century, stopped fascism and communism from winning. Its moral duty as leader of the free world is to both continue to do so (where it can), and to foster democracy, where it can. That does not always mean wars. In the case of Germany, Japan and South Korea, thriving democracies were created due to American blood and treasure AND patience. America is reasonably justified in demanding compensation of the costs for these efforts from the beneficiary countries. America has not and instead they have become sacrifices for America. But this sort of sacrifice is one whereby America in fact does reap benefits beyond just the spread of democracy and abatement of tyranny. Trade opportunity and national security are both improved. Just because the nature of the threat has changed, does not mean the nature of the moral duty diminishes. In the case of Afghanistan (or any case), the question is a balance between the moral duty and the potential self-interest cost/benefit analysis.

And where does this leave us?  President Reagan once said that the freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction.  Is this the generation that allows it to be snuffed out?  Or perhaps even contributes to its extinction?  Has the West gotten softer with each passing generation to the point where it is now too morally weak and lacking the fortitude to stand against the forces of tyranny and darkness? I pray that is not the case.  And further, I exhort you to teach your children well that they must have the same moral convictions of previous generations or they will see their own freedoms perish - not in an epic battle, but in a slow (and now growing faster) creeping death.

Weakness has consequences

That guy, projecting weakness both personally and nationally.  If this doesn't entice China to invade Taiwan, then there is not much else will.



Donald Trump Jr. is a bright guy

Donald Trump Jr. discusses Afghanistan with Anthony Cumia (Compound Media). Donald Trump Jr. uses some strong (and occasionally vulgar) language talking about the failures of that guy. That doesn't stop him from being absolutely right.

Dictator Watch - China vs. India, and other stories

China In Focus, an excellent source of news and analysis on the communist country, takes a look at why China is encroaching on India, and why it matters to America  (as well as a couple of other stories): 

August 26, 2021

Dictator Watch - Russia is still a bad actor

Russia was not using president Donald Trump, but they are still a bad actor on the world stage.  It looks like they are targeting American agents with microwaves.  

The right to stand your ground reaffirmed by governor

The governor of Missouri has pardoned the McCloskys, who were convicted of misdemeanor gun charges for standing their ground against BLM protesters.

August 25, 2021

OnlyFans is not like Big Brother apparently

I've never been on OnlyFans, but I've read that there is a lot of explicit (adult) content there.  They recently had announced an intention to ban all of that sort of content from their platform.  I get it, they may not have intended to be that sort of a platform (and obviously not all content on OnlyFans is adult type content).  It's their prerogative  to make that sort of policy change.  But then something interesting happened that made me sort of become a fan of OnlyFans, despite never having been on their platform even once.  They listened to their users (both producers and consumers):

The content subscription service announced plans last week to block sexually explicit photos and videos from October.

On Wednesday, it tweeted that it has "suspended the planned 1 October policy change".

It is currently unclear if the delay will be permanent.

OnlyFans wrote on twitter that it would "continue to provide a home for all creators".

"Thank you to everyone for making your voices heard," said the company.

"We have secured assurances necessary to support our diverse creator community and have suspended the planned 1 October policy change.

"OnlyFans stands for inclusion and we will continue to provide a home for all creators."

OnlyFans might be a much newer platform and unwilling to take the hit of a producer/consumer revolt.  So this could end up being a temporary change of heart.  They could end up being as heavy handed and autocratic as Twitter or Facebook.  But for now they are not, and that is a win.

Why am I suddenly a fan?  They just did something other platforms  have refused to do, serve the community.  The heard the backlash and changed their minds.  That is called being responsive to the marketplace.  It's how capitalism is supposed to work.  This flies in the face of other decisions by the likes of Facebook, Twitter, Patreon, YouTube, Pinterest and Tumblr.  It's refreshing.  So much so that I plan on checking the platform out to see if there is anything of interest.  Not because of the adult content, but I will be checking it out as a result of their willingness to allow creators and users to produce and consume the content they prefer to produce and consume.  Hopefully there ends up being some political content or something worth keeping my attention because I'd like to be able to reward OnlyFans for their responsiveness.

FBI on January 6th: Not an Insurrection

 Via Dinesh D'Souza:


This was yet another concocted nothingburger by the left, along with the aid of the FBI, to demonize the right using a valid but unorganized protest (that to be fair, did contain a few troublemakers) on January 6th of this year.

While this matters greatly to those unlawfully imprisoned (in violation of their proper Constitutional rights at a minimum), and their families, to anyone else this has been the making of a mountain out of a molehill. The FBI should be doing the right thing at this point for those it has imprisoned unlawfully, but to date they have not, shamefully.

August 24, 2021

Cuomo Commuted Communist Terror Convict

I didn't use the insult in my last post, but Cuomo proved he is even more of a scumbag on the way out.  I am not in favor of ad hominem attacks, but if ever there was someone deserving of name-calling, this is the guy. he commuted the sentence of a communist terrorist.

ROFL ROFL ROFL. Buh bye.

Self serving tripe, absent important facts about his governorship.  He was a cancer on so many levels. And he has avoided the impeachment he so richly deserves.

Larry Elder: California's Target #1

 Larry Elder would make California successful again.  Liberals won't have it:

August 23, 2021

August 22, 2021

August 21, 2021

CNN goes after that guy after realizing the Taliban ain't woke

That guy is in the cross hairs of the left.  They can only exist with someone to blame.  But in this case, they aren't wrong.

August 20, 2021

Is the GOP full of liberal sleeper agents?


We know there are RINOs.   We know there are weak-willed Republicans afraid to do anything that rocks the boat.  We know there are establishment Republicans who are driven by money rather than principle.  All of these combine to make the party vastly less effective than it could, and should, be.  Here's the question though - is the GOP full of liberal/Democrat sleeper agents?  At times it really, really seems to be the case.

How else would you explain this (via Gateway Pundit):

Pennsylvania Republican Senate leader Jake Corman has squashed Doug Mastriano’s quest for an audit of the PA 2020 election results.
Senator Mastriano put up a video on his Facebook page blaming the “powers that be” for keeping his committee from meeting and issuing subpoenas. The video was subsequently taken down.

This despite some pretty convincing evidence that president Trump actually won the state. Why, as a Republican would you stand in the way of exposing this? Is the GOP that obsequious?  Or are Democrats in Republican clothing infiltrating the Republican party at all levels, rising through the ranks, and making decisions contrary to conservative beliefs?

August 19, 2021

When "anti-racists" don't realize they are racist.

 This is sad, but funny. But sad.

Why people are being red pilled

"Why don't they believe us?"  Here's why.  A fantastic article, as read on The Crigler Show:

   

Here's a link to the article itself.

August 18, 2021

Although there is a silver lining.

Afghanistan is a serious mess.  But there is a silver lining.  The White House guy is becoming really unpopular.

But wait, it gets worse

Today has been a sad, SAD day for Taliban news. But wait , it gets worse.  Afghan's future leader has significant ties to Obama failures.

This is how terrible Afghanistan is going to become

 Bodies falling from fleeing American planes.  This is absolutely terrible and horrific.

Dictator Watch - Afghanistan Edition

The Taliban is likely going to eliminate Christians in the country.  Oh, and slavery for women too, so there's that.

A possible preview preview of 2022

 In Canada's eastern province of Nova Scotia, a province that has not elected a provincial conservative government since 2006 and has voted liberal or socialist ever since (and in fact has had a conservative parliament only 14 out of 40 prior elections), elected a conservative government in a stunning upset with a resounding victory for the conservative party.

It could serve not only as a preview of Canada's upcoming federal election, but also of the U.S. midterm elections.

August 17, 2021

Stopped clock got it right on Afghanistan...in 2003

The guy in the video (who shall remain both nameless and without a title on this blog), like a stopped clock, was right.  Unfortunately you have to go back to 2003 for the correct view.

When president Trump announced he wanted to withdrawal all troops from Afghanistan, he made some valid points. In fact, I agree that there needed to be a timetable for withdrawal.  I think announcing the timetable was a rookie mistake however.  But the calamity and chaos was compounded immeasurably when the guy in the video started making the decisions.  The pullout under the cover of darkness, with no handoff of infrastructure and power, along with the announced delay, and his clear lack of a plan on how to do it, was done in the worst possible way. You would be hard pressed to think of anything that could have been done to make it worse.

Sure there were likely to be a lot of problems, even if president Trump was in charge during the pullout.  But you can bet it would not have been this bad.  It would have been manageable problems, not a total collapse and return to the Taliban.  

Beyond that, the guy in the video is lying now. But worse still, he continues to compound the problem, making it look like America's erstwhile allies in the country are on their own, with nary a chance to fight, flee or survive because, well, it is what it is.  The right wording might force the Taliban to at least pause before slaughtering more people.

All of that aside, was an Afghanistan war a good idea for America?  It made sense when they were trying to find Bin Laden. Not a war per se, but an invasion.  That's where they believed he was. The mistake was engaging the Taliban as enemy combatants as a side effort.  If they were in the way, take care of it, but do not put the country on a path towards democracy unless you are willing to stick it out for as long as it takes.  American forces are still stationed in South Korea and Japan and Germany.  It took decades for those situations to resolve into stable democracies that no longer needed American support. And to be fair, the purpose of continued American military presence in those locations has changed over time. But to think the situation would require any less in either Iraq or Afghanistan is foolhardy.

So the rationale for a pullout conflicts with some of the side goals of Afghanistan, but since they were decided as goals at one point, pulling out prematurely was an invitation to disaster. The only way to avoid that would have been that there was a plan made, to transition power to a self supporting Afghani government capable of at least suppressing the Taliban  if not eradicating it.  The plan should have started about 10 years ago.  It wasn't.  President Trump should have included it as part of his withdrawal model.  He didn't, even though he likely had more of a plan than this chaos.  The next guy should have at least had some basic plan for a transition of power and assets.  He failed spectacularly and Afghani people will pay the price for his colossal failure.

A personal rant regarding Uber Eats


I recently sent a complaint to Uber Eats.  If you've ever used the service, you probably already know the result; it bounced back to me with a notice about it being an unmonitored mailbox.

Great.

Here's the email I wrote. 

Customer Service,

I signed up for UberEats a few months ago. I received a $30 off coupon or promo offer via email shortly afterwards. I tried to use it at a couple of locations and got a few messages that it was not valid at that location. I got frustrated and did not order.

A few days later I tried again but received a notification that the offer had already been used. Annoyed, I decided not to use UberEats and instead went back to SkipTheDishes to order.

In a few weeks I noticed a new offer, it was either $30 off or 75% off my first order. I figured it had been sorted out and tried again. After letting me order and applying the coupon, it was when I finally submitted the order it came back and said not valid for this account and that if I wanted to order, it would be full price. I did not order.

I have since received an offer every few weeks (roughly) and have tried several times to order with the new account promotion. It has failed EVERY TIME I HAVE TRIED (I'm at about 7 or so attempts by now). Somehow it looks like I have already taken advantage of the offer, but if you look at my account you will see I have never placed a completed order with UberEats.

This has been the single worst customer service experience I have ever had in my life. Why offer me the same 'welcome' offer every few weeks, only to say I do not qualify to use it? I am frustrated beyond belief and thought I would express my concern so that you are aware of this issue, as I do not believe this will ever get rectified, have a very bad impression of Uber Eats at this point and do not see myself ever using the service (given the issue as well as the difficulty involved in even finding where to raise my concern).

Regards,
xxxxxxxxxxxx

They kept referring me back to the app, where there was no place to properly describe my circumstance, only a circular loop of standardized Q&As, none of which applied to my situation. UberEats has provided one of the worst customer experiences, if not the worst, of my entire life.  I get it about having to deal with scammers trying to get free stuff. I get the whole low overhead to keep costs down idea. What I do not get is creating a situation that causes customer dissatisfaction to turn to anger, without a mechanism to address it.  

I will never use UberEats.  They are on a list of companies that have pissed me off so much I refuse to use them, EVER.  There are now a total of 2 companies on that list.  Only two. And the other company was one I had worked for and saw the dysfunction from the inside.  Way to go UberEats.  You have joined the ranks of companies who, if asked, I will do everything I can to dissuade people from using.

August 16, 2021

America's non-answer to Taliban resurgence

 What's going on in Afghanistan?  Exactly what was predicted, the Taliban has won after an extremely poorly planned and poorly executed American cut and run.  Not a withdrawal, a panic fleeing.

Careful, this might trigger you:


Meanwhile, the administration that botched the withdrawal, is missing in action:

August 15, 2021

Refuting atheism's claims

 Courtesy of Gwyneth Paltrow, this constantly rehashed trope:

Every single problem in the world is due to religion; that's her conclusion. It's based on the idea that religious conflict has caused more death than any other reason in history.  Let's forget disease and famine for a moment.  And old age. Let's also set aside conflating all religions as equally guilty of war deaths.  And let's assume she meant wars of religion as opposed to non-religious conflict since she mentions war specifically.

While it's hard to estimate how many people have died due to wars, one reasonable estimate has it that 500 million people throughout human history.

If, out of the thousands of wars throughout history, I pulled out 20 of the larger wars of conquest, rebellion or ethnic conflict, I can come up with more than half of total deaths due to war that were not religious. 

1. World War II (70-85 million deaths, minus approximately 6 million Jews who were killed by the Nazis. The overall war was not religious in nature). On the conservative side that leaves 64 million deaths. 

2. Three Kingdoms War (38 million deaths)

3. Mongolian conquests (30 million)

4. Qing conquests (25 million)

5.  World War I (20 million)

6. Timur wars of conquest (17 million)

7.  An Lushan Rebellion (13 million)

8. Hui Minorities War (an ethnic, not religious war) (12 million)

9. Chinese civil war (communist revolution) (8 million)

10. Russian civil war (7 million)

11. Second Congo War (4.7 million)

12. Napoleonic Wars (3 million)

13. Hundred Years War (2 million)

14. Mfecane (Shaka Zulu) conflicts (2 million)

15. Korean War - (1.5 million

16. Soviet War in Afghanistan (1.2 million)

17. Nigerian civil war (1 million)

18. Mexican civil war (1 million)

19. Vietnam war (1 million)

20.Gallic Wars (1 million)

That's 252.4 million deaths out of an estimated 500 million deaths. Those 20 conflicts/wars alone,  caused more than half of the estimated total deaths in human history of war.  Those are non-religious in nature.  Now to be fair they are for generally three different reasons, and if all of the other wars combined were religious in nature it would be the single biggest factor in deaths due to war, and her statement would be correct.  But that is not the case.  I only pulled 20 larger conflicts out of history. I'm confident that many, many more wars were fought that were not religious and it would significantly alter that number.  Furthermore, if we look at wars of territorial expansion and rebellions and combine those as being wars about power, which essentially is what they are both about,  then 19 out of the 20 I have mentioned would qualify as such and make at a minimum 48% of wars about power.  That clearly would be the single biggest factor since the one ethnic war I mentioned accounts for another 2% leaving at a maximum 50% of all wars needing to be religious in nature for Paltrow's quote to be valid. That would include the Iraq war, the American Revolution, the American Civil War,  you get the idea.

The point is don't let this trope get past you without challenging it.

Sunday verse

 


August 14, 2021

Socialism is the useful idiot of fascism

Why "defund the police"? Here's why. The movement among the woke left to defund the police goes against all common sense. So why are they pushing it? There's an agenda behind it that might seem counter-intuitive until you take a closer look.  The latest example (via Hot Air), provides a good case in point:

There was a shooting in Oakland’s Chinatown neighborhood last weekend. A man attempted to intercede when two men got out of a car and attempted to steal purses from two women walking along the sidewalk. One of the robbers shot the man twice and then got back into his car and drove away. As you’ll see in this report, one local resident said of Oakland’s streets, “There’s no law and order. We’re going back to the wild, wild west.”

Carl Chan, president of the Oakland Chinese Chamber of Commerce in response to the shooting demanded help from the state by asking Governor Newsom to both declare a state of emergency for the city and deploy the California Highway Patrol.  

That's a draconian solution.  And that's exactly what those behind the woke left want.  I cannot speak to the politics of Carl Chan, he may be a radical leftist or he may simply be playing into their hands. But his response is exactly the agenda that is being sought. It's all about the centralization of power into fewer and fewer hands.  Here's their flawed logic - if we defund the police, there will be a rise in crime (including violent crime), probably dramatic.  With increasing crime, comes a clamor to do something about it.  With no levers to pull at the local level, there will be a call to the state to intervene.  Once they have done so, established a precedent, there will be a subconscious understanding among the public that the state can do what the local municipality cannot accomplish.  There will evolve both a comfort in that and an expectation. Over time it will become the norm. Municipalities will lose power as it becomes centralized to the state.  Once that is accomplished, the process can be repeated from state level to federal level.  The eventual result -- all the power centralized, all the control in the hands of a few.  But here's the flaw:

Socialism is the useful idiot of Fascism.

The social justice warriors of the woke left are suckers if they think they are working towards a more egalitarian society.  They are doing the dirty work of the corporate elite, corrupt trade unions, the government bureaucracy and fascists and communists of all stripes (from China).  They are serving the goal of power centralization in the misguided belief that the downtrodden of society will be lifted out of misery and poverty once that occurs.  

The corporate elites for their part, are not woke in response to market conditions - they are working under the assumption that as power centralizes, they will be part of the inner circle.  Maybe they will. Crony capitalism as part of the oligarchy may be the outcome. Or maybe they will frozen out once they are no longer needed.  It depends on what turn it will take towards the end of that path.

The thing is, power corrupts. Look at how Google, Facebook, Amazon and Twitter all unilaterally decided they could box out conservatives.  They were doing it to curry favor of the left in order to hold onto a portion of that power.  But  if you go back to their roots, they were not doing that.  At some point each of those entities decided it was okay to do what they wanted instead of what was ethical. They became corrupt as their power rose.

But as the number of those who have participatory access to that centralized power dwindles, they will come to see each other as potential threats. Most of them will also get boxed out, having outlived their own useful idiot moments. And those who retain power will become more and more paranoid about potential threats, and/or more avaricious and seek to neutralize any threat to their ever-increasing consolidation of power. 

Socialism, communism and everything outside of individual liberty (maximized as much as reasonably possible) will ultimately end up in dictatorial fascism, with power truly held among very few, or perhaps even one despotic dictator. Don't believe me?  There are myriad examples throughout history as proof. Even now it is true.  Look at Kim Jong Un, who had his uncle brutally executed. This happened in an ostensibly communist regime.

Where individual liberty exists, nations thrive.  Unfortunately it is also true that wherever it exists (and nowhere in human history has it been as enshrined in law as it has been in the United States), there are those who seek to pervert it or destroy it for personal gain.  Those who succeed in doing so are not the weak, they are those who swindle the weak into inadvertently doing their bidding, while remaining unaware.  These parties are playing with life as if it were a zero sum game and they are working with the mindset of winner take all.  There are no win-win scenarios that are plausible to them. 

Adam Smith in his treatise Wealth of Nations explained in economic terms why this is not true.  It is a difficult read, but it is the truth. Austrian-British economist and philosopher Friedrich Hayek further explained in The Road To Serfdom why the free market informs people and if left free is the most egalitarian option for humanity.   I urge you to read both of these works. This is especially true if you are a self-proclaimed social justice warrior. If you do not want to invest the effort at least seek out more brief interpretations in order to understand what you are mistakenly trying to destroy. 

Climate Change is back for useful idiots

The latest effort by the White House is exactly what my next post (later this morning) will be about. 

August 13, 2021

Project Veritas 2 - New York Times 0

 Project Veritas wins again. A highlight real score too.

Coming Soon: Afghanistan War 2

Yesterday I talked about how badly the guy in the White House was botching the situation in Afghanistan as badly as he was the situation on the American border.  Well guess what, he is sending troops back.

Tim Pool is rightly upset, and I get his reasoning (I agree with his logic in fact).  I also get the geo-political reason to deal with the Taliban.

I also believe the guy in the White House may actually be fine with sending troops back in.  Whether he is compounding the problem that they never bothered to solve in the last 20 years or not, he is not handling it well.

August 12, 2021

Tim Pool slams media for covering not-my-president's economy

The media is covering for the economic collapse under [censored not my president].  Tim Pool, effectively, explains why the economy is in the toilet.  Then he slams the media for sitting around with their fingers up their...noses, covering for a garbage administration.

Bravo Tim!

The guy with no plan is killing Afghanis as well as Americans

The guy with no plan (and no title I will recognize), pulled out of Afghanistan with no plan.  President Trump would have pulled out of the country as well, but there would not have been the chaos reported in the video below - there would have been issues, but there would have been a plan.  There' certainly would have been a transition to the Afghan government rather than a pulling out under the dark of night


In America, the open border and the "catch and disperse" of illegals, without and COVID testing is leading to American COVID infections and deaths.  In Afghanistan the pullout was so poorly managed that the country is being overrun by the Taliban with no seeming ability to defend itself from the onslaught.

Yeah. Great job. C'mon man!

August 11, 2021

What the actual hell???

There is so much wrong with this, that it's comical.  There's stupidity in both the questions and the answers. It's like children arguing over toys while there's a tornado happening.

He Red-Pilled Himself

 This guy did his homework and red-pilled himself.

August 10, 2021

Had To Happen

 Disgraced New York governor Andrew Cuomo has resigned due to sexual harassment.  

Via NBC News

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced Tuesday he was resigning after a withering report from the state's attorney general alleged he'd sexually harassed multiple women leading to calls from top Democrats, including President Joe Biden, that he step down.

About time. Too bad he didn't get caught before he sent COVID patients to Senior Care Facilities causing untold deaths.

August 9, 2021

Larry Elder would make a fantastic governor of California

 Larry Elder threw his hat in the ring for the California recall election.  Given the state of the state's electorate he seems like a longshot.  But given the state of the state, anything is possible and Larry Elder would make a fantastic governor of California.

The Sacramento Bee recently had a long form interview with the candidate:

Rand Paul just stepped up the culture war big time.

 Um, wow.  

August 8, 2021

Woke Olympics not for me

I normally watch the Olympics, but this year I only saw a few clips of highlights on YouTube.  I didn't miss it because the wokeness would have made me retch. Sadly.  But Andrew Klavan points out some highlights for the non-woke among us that gives me hope for 2022 and 2024.

Sunday verse

 


August 7, 2021

He can't count

 The guy whose name I will not put into electronic print, doesn't know basic math:

Google founder Larry Page skirting the system on health care

About a year ago Google co-founders Larry Page Sergey Brin stepped down as leaders of Google and Alphabet. Page, who has supported many liberal causes, appears to be taking advantage of the perks of wealth and is being less egalitarian when it comes to the health of his family.

According to Market Realist:

While Larry Page may not be a registered member of either the Democratic or Republican party, he has given money to Democratic candidates' campaigns. His political donations suggest that he is more liberal. Page has donated to campaigns that support same-sex marriage. He has also supported ballot measures on alternative energy.

...Google doesn’t hire staff based on their political affiliation. However, if political campaign donations by staff members are anything to go by, Google is still heavily liberal. For the 2020 election cycle, 88 percent of Google staff donated to Democrat candidates compared to 12 percent who donated to GOP candidates, according to the OpenSecrets website.

Democratic candidates Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren received particularly strong financial support from Google staff for their presidential bids. Interestingly, Google continued to donate to Warren despite her proposal to break up the company and other big tech companies to curb their influence.

But in recent news, it appears Larry Page was granted special treatment in New Zealand when health care was required.  According to Stuff, Page is considered a New Zealand resident under some questionable conditions related to the health of his son. It seems that where his family's health is concerned, the liberal Page, is willing to use his wealth in ways that might shock progressives:

Kiwi businessman and philanthropist Sir Stephen Tindall, who knows Page personally, confirmed Page visited New Zealand because his young child required hospital treatment in Auckland.

Page, who is reportedly spending the Covid-19 pandemic in Fiji, has since left New Zealand, Tindall said.

Meanwhile, it was revealed in Parliament on Thursday afternoon that Page and his child were evacuated to New Zealand aboard a Kiwi air ambulance. The billionaire went into isolation on arrival, while his child was treated at Starship.

The article noted that billionaire Larry Page applied for a $10 million investor visa three months before he went into managed isolation at an Auckland hotel, while his child was treated in hospital. I wonder if Bernie Sanders would approve of this? That's rhetorical, publicly Bernie would pitch a fit but privately he would likely be fine with it because Bernie's a typical two tier socialist, just like Page; socialism for thee, special status for me.

Mass Psychosis in progress

I posted a video about this very topic back in May, but with too few views it did not make the impression I had hoped.  We are experiencing a mass psychosis of wokeness in Western civilization as we speak.  Thankfully there are enough common sense people left that it seems it can still be turned back.  Frankly Western society is too large a swath of the world's population to have mass psychosis take full hold. At least I hope that to be true.

Here is a newer take on the same topic.  I urge you to watch it in full:

August 5, 2021

Wait, are Democrats the real capitalists here?

I kid. Via Tim Pool,  "Democrat Cori Bush Says SUCK IT UP After Spending $70k On Security While Trying To Defund the Police".  Sounds like a capitalist to me; she wants private security for all. Of course the issue might be that she wants it at public expense, so as a government program. Still, it's so funny that it's insulting to everyone.

August 4, 2021

AOC = Liar

It's all about optics people.  How anyone can see this and the duplicity of Nancy Pelosi, as well as Joe Biden and Kamala Harris and still vote for Democrats is beyond me.  The level of idiocy is indescribable.


Even if you agree with their politics, why vote for rattlesnakes?  They will betray you as soon as you are of no use to them. Republican voters are at least trying to purge their leaders of insincere fakes, Democrat voters just seem to embrace their leaders who are not really for the people.  That makes those voters idiots.  Useful, but still idiots.

Look, I'm no conspiracy theorist but uh...

 Mark Dice predicted this:

August 3, 2021

Taliban kill Afghan comedian

Revenge killing by the Taliban, that's just great.  I get the U.S. pulling out of Afghanistan, what I don't get is the wasted time given that Afghanistan is right back to where it was pre 9/11; a brutal, backwards dictatorial mess.  The non-Taliban government there wasted decades not becoming stronger.  The U.S. did not have the stomach to root out the Taliban like it should have.  Wasted is the time and treasure and lost was the opportunity, however faint to get away from this garbage:


The end of universities?

Jordan Peterson discusses  with Yeonmi Park her experience at Columbia University after her escape from North Korea:

August 2, 2021

Pelosi don't need no stinking mask

 "Rules for thee and not me" Pelosi to the peasants of congress and America:

Religious egocentrism vs. the futility of atheism; a philosophical rant

If I were an atheist, I would most certainly also be a hedonist. It seems to be the only logical option. If you take the sum of all human activity; our greatest accomplishments, our innovations, our greatest foibles and blunders, all of our art, music, philosophy, literature and theater, our wars, our famine, our conquests and defeats, love and death - all of it is meaningless. We are infinitesimally small in the universe, which itself seems eventually destined for death. We cannot change either of those precepts of existence. Nothing we do matters; we are a pointless speck of no consequence. 

In that regard, everything we do, say or think has no real matter, no grand consequence or significance. In that light, why not toss aside virtue?  And value?  What point is there to doing anything other than pleasing oneself as much as possible as often as possible? Obey laws? Only insofar as they keep you out of prison.

Atheists can be virtuous people but those who are, are likely as rare as they are misguided in their atheism.  Once you have thought through the nature of existence you have three choices as an atheist: 

(i) nihilism (which taken to its logical conclusion does not end well) 

(ii) hedonism (which is pointless but at least potentially enjoyable) or

(iii) unavailingly continuing to strive to improve the world.

But to what purpose the latter option?  Atheists who want to do good for mankind, at the expense of their own hedonistic pleasure have likely not thought through the pointlessness of their own efforts. It will not make a difference.  And if they have thought this through and still are insistent upon efforts towards greater good it is because they have a belief at the root of it. That in itself is a form of religion. 

The other alternative for atheism was exactly as Nietzsche proclaimed it would be - nihilism; the belief that all values are without foundation and that nothing can be truly known or communicated. Nietzsche was not necessarily a proponent of nihilism.  In fact he warned us of its future. He argued that its toxic effects would eventually destroy all moral, religious, and metaphysical convictions in humanity. He also predicted it would lead to the greatest crisis in human history. 

With the creeping death of religion in the West, with the accompanying decay of morality and virtue nihilism has taken root and the crisis Nietzsche warned about is upon us. We have seen the decay of value, beauty, morality, virtue, and society writ large.  There is no coincidence that belief in institutions beyond just the church have coincided with this undercurrent of unspoken nihilism.  It is slowly pervading everything.  It will consume the entire world, not just Western society. 

That decay is what fascist and communist leaders wish for the west, not realizing it will consume them in turn. They may seek to have unfettered access to a forlorn, nihilistic and unmotivated populace who will easily be suborned to their dictates, but it is a self-defeating effort. Because of the inevitability of entropy, ants can only build an ant hill so high before it collapses upon itself. We in the West appear to be in this stage of collapse. Although it may be far more profound a thing at play than communism vs. capitalism. Sure, communism seeks the overthrow of capitalism but not for some grandiose purpose but rather, whether out of jealousy or true belief, the reality of godless communism is that those at its epicenter seek to rule over others in a society of pointlessness. And in the end the entropic nature of existence will crumble communism as quickly as capitalism if not more quickly. It's a weird perversion of Schopenhauer then which communists have created for themselves.  Existence is characterized by suffering that we cannot overcome, only mitigate in small amounts. So, they seek to replace God as the opiate of the masses with their own social religion.  To what end? Do they believe it themselves?  Probably not but no one can say for sure what another thinks or believes. But in my estimation, it is for their own hedonistic opportunity to minimize their own suffering while selling an impossible dream to the masses. Western traditional liberal thinkers have gotten it exactly right when it comes to assessing the 'virtue' of communism and socialism.  As Winston Churchill so eloquently summed it up "The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings. The inherent virtue of Socialism is the equal sharing of miseries." But that sharing is not meant to include the ruling elite. They will sell it to you as a Utopian possibility but the Utopia they hope to achieve is only for themselves, at your expense.

Putting that aside, the option of nihilism for atheists is clearly not a worthwhile endeavor.  As an individual it can only lead to a sense of no self worth and no purpose.  That can only lead down negative paths with death as the only destination. For society it means a fragmentation and eventual collapse.

That leaves hedonism, the endless seeking of pleasure and self-indulgence, as the only viable option as an atheist. Given the proclivities of the societal elites not just those of today, but throughout historical empires (from predating Nero to the clients of Jeffery Epstein) it would seem the ruling elite class have long since taken this philosophy as their own. In their self-indulgence they have no qualms about deceiving the rest of society to further their own ends.  They live to enrich themselves monetarily and experientially to their own whims.  But hedonism contains its own peril.  Religion may be the opiate of the masses according to Karl Marx, but there are actual physical opiates that have taken hold. From nicotine to alcohol to fentanyl, far too many people across the globe are addicts, slowly or quickly killing themselves, unaware of their own self worth. The wealthy who themselves are not addicts are still in a manner, doing the same thing: avoiding reality with their hedonistic self-indulgence. 

But she that liveth in pleasure is dead while she liveth. ~1 Timothy 5:6

Self awareness is a marvelous thing. If instead of a mindless pursuit of pleasure to avoid thinking about our place in the universe, and the meaning of life, you take some time to think about those things for yourself you will be better off; be it through religion or as an atheist.  Though the latter may lead you back to the same pointless place.

Spirituality is also a marvelous thing. It opens us up to the possibility of greater purpose. It opens you up to the possibility of development. While spirituality (opening oneself up to the questions of who you are, what is your purpose and what is the meaning of life) does not require religion, but it does open you up to the possibility of religion. Religion is the written and passed down knowledge of the spiritual realm that inevitably comes originally from God. It is the codification of spirituality in an attempt to connect us to God. That connection is spiritual. Spirituality gives suffering meaning.  It gives existence meaning.  That alone provides the pillars of structure religion and by extension for society.  But the precepts of religion go even further in prescribing a morality and virtue based on the notion of the greater good. Both spirituality and religion encourage you to be a better person, both within yourself and within society.  Not all religions are equal in this regard but that is a discussion for another day.

Atheists would argue that religion is an egocentric exercise, spirituality too. They put humanity on a level of importance incongruous with our miniscule place in the universe.  It is a pretentious exercise in self-importance which overstates our role in the universe. While that may be true, if religion is baseless, it still does not preclude the contribution of spirituality or religion to both societal structure and continuity and individual peace of mind.  These two things cannot be glossed over as they both are of utmost importance.

Given that they encourage you to be a better person, both within yourself and within society, religion and spirituality are not an egocentric exercise.  They are an attempt to create harmony; both between oneself and God as well as within society.  Unless you are a nihilist bent on societal destruction you cannot argue the benefit of those things given the stream of unrelenting entropy in which you swim.

Atheism does not preclude the questions and openness to ideas of spirituality, it merely comes to a different conclusion.  The endpoint for atheism is a dark foreboding place, where as spirituality, religion and the requisite faith offers hope and meaning. While that endpoint cannot be proven, the benefits of following the path of faith within this earthly existence can be. That is not the reason I choose a belief in God, nor is it a justification for it.  Those choices are deeply personal for everyone and do not require explanation or justification.  My personal belief in God comes from somewhere I cannot properly explain other than to say it is a spiritual place.

August 1, 2021

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...

Share This