Archive for November, 2019

The Wall and its lessons

Posted: November 12, 2019 by chrisharper in Uncomfortable Truths, war
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By Christopher Harper

From the Cuban missile crisis in 1962 to the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the Cold War shaped most baby boomers.

Like me, almost every boomer spent some time under classroom desks in a rather idiotic drill during and after the Cuban missile crisis. Somehow being under a desk would save us!

The Vietnam War also was a reaction to the Cold War—an attempt to stop the spread of Communism in Southeast Asia. Obviously, it didn’t work.

I had the opportunity to spend time behind the Iron Curtain both before and after the fall of Communism.

What struck me most about Soviet domination before 1989 was how difficult the lives of people in Eastern Europe were under Communism.

It was difficult to find food, proper medicine, and hope.

I recall twisting my ankle in Poland. I struggled into the hospital and noticed how the shelves were empty, and the equipment was aging. The doctor told me the ankle wasn’t broken, and he didn’t have much to help me with the pain. Fortunately, a nurse found an elastic bandage to help me hobble around for the next few days.

In Bulgaria, the hotel offered lobster on the menu. One of my colleagues decided to order some. The waitress didn’t speak much English, so she came out with a shellfish that was encrusted in ice because it was caught years ago. The message, however, was clear. Perhaps my friend should order something else.

For years, my wife and I had wanted to visit what was then called Czechoslovakia. Because I was a journalist, I was unable to get a visa even though I only wanted to be a tourist. The government did not allow American journalists to visit for any reason. Fortunately, we were able to visit the Czech Republic after the end of the Soviet empire.

Although Eastern Europe has had its share of difficulties after the end of communism, the streets are brighter, the hopes are higher, and the freedoms are greater.

The lesson that every American should take away from the fall of the wall is how much better life is in Eastern Europe. All you have to do is look at the economies of Poland, Hungary, and other countries that lived behind the wall and under the boot of Soviet oppression.

Moreover, it’s critical to realize that socialist doctrines, such as government control of essential industries, never worked in the Soviet Union and its empire and won’t help the United States in the years ahead.

Realities: Voldemort Media Values, Rescorla or Thunberg and Incel dreams Under the Fedora

Posted: November 12, 2019 by datechguy in culture, media, News/opinion, under the fedora
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The fuss about Molly Hemmingway saying aloud on the air what everyone in the room already knows, namely that the so called “Whistleblower”  Eric Ciaramella is a perfect symbol for the culture the left has given us. The inability to speak aloud the truth, particularly truth that everyone knows, is the hallmark of repression. He has become the media’s Voldemort media (he who must not be named).

We have have won the cold war but I’m becoming increasingly convinced that the Communists won the peace.

One of the aspects of the Voldemort media are the choices to be made. The entire Jeffrey Epstein / ABC /CBS coverup and the firing of someone who they thought was an actual whistleblower has become that which must not be talked about. What I find really interesting is the supposed motive:

ABC was exposed this week for killing a story about Jeffrey Epstein’s alleged pedophile ring, which anchor Amy Robach claimed was due to an upcoming interview the network had with the royal family.

emphasis mine

As a practical matter the amount of stories you would get out of exposing Epstein, particularity in 2016 before the metoo movement and the subsequent number of eyeballs online and ratings on the air that such a story would produce would undoubtedly eclipse the value of an interview with the British Royal Family or even future interview that might be denied the network. I would think that Robach would have been able to make that case with ease.

This tells me that even years later Robach doesn’t see the truth, namely that protecting the friends of the Clinton’s who were expected to be back in the White House trumped everything else in that election year, but to acknowledge that truth is more than some can bear.

Speaking of dealing with truth, stumbled onto James Stewart’s long New Yorker piece from 2002 about Rick Rescorla who died getting folks out of the World Trade Center and re-read it. The final paragraph says a lot:

“What she doesn’t understand is that she knew him for four or five years. She knew a sixty-two-year-old man with cancer. I knew him as a hundred-and-eighty-pound, six-foot-one piece of human machinery that would not quit, that did not know defeat, that would not back off one inch. In the middle of the greatest battle of Vietnam, he was singing to the troops, saying we’re going to rip them a new asshole, when everyone else was worrying about dying. If he had come out of that building and someone died who he hadn’t tried to save, he would have had to commit suicide.
“I’ve tried to tell Susan this, in a way, but she’s not ready yet for the truth. In the next weeks or months, I’ll get her down here, and we’ll take a  walk along the ocean, and I’ll explain these things. You see, for Rick Rescorla, this was a natural death. People like Rick, they don’t die old men. They aren’t destined for that and it isn’t right for them to do so. It just isn’t right, by God, for them to become feeble, old, and helpless sons of bitches. There are certain men born in this world, and they’re supposed to die setting an example for the rest of the weak bastards we’re surrounded with.”

There was a time in our country, a time in my memory where every school boy would know who Rick Rescorla was and dream of being him. Thanks to having a father born in 1921 who served in the pacific I was regularly exposed to men like this and taught to revere them. Not anymore Once or twice a year men like this are spoken of fondly but today our schools and the media which shapes society would condemn Rick Rescorla as a man seething with toxic masculinity and white privilege.

God help us those who do when they need such men again, and they will.

In San Francisco a mural of Greta Thunberg is going up so that all can look upon her stern gaze and repent. At Front Page Magazine Jason Hill a Philosophy professor at DePaul has penned an open letter to this media proclaimed hero:

First, we did not rob you of your childhood or of your dreams. You are the legatee of a magnificent technological civilization which my generation and the one before it and several others preceding it all the way to the Industrial Revolution and the Renaissance, bequeathed to you. That growth-driven, capitalist technological civilization has created the conditions for you to harangue us over our betrayal. It is a civilization that eradicated diseases such as small pox from the word, and that lifted millions out of abject poverty in a universe you think is dying and decaying. It assured you a life expectancy that exceeded that of your ancestors. Most likely by focusing on economic growth which you demonize, and scientific advancement, that civilization will further enhance a robust quality of life and health for your descendants.


Here is a hard truth to ponder, Greta: if the great producers of this world whom you excoriate were to withdraw their productivity, wealth and talents—in short—their minds from the world today, your generation would simply perish. Why? Because as children you have done nothing as yet, with your lives besides being born. This is what we expect of children until such time as they can be producers by learning from their elders. You are understandably social and ecological ballast. You are not yet cognitively advanced to replicate the structures of survival of which you are the beneficiaries.

Greta Thunberg is a useful idiot which is why our cultural betters given the choice of her or Rick Rescorla their hero will always go for the former. Men like Rescorla did not play the idiot for others.

I laughed when I saw this story at the Daily Sun:

Sex robot factory ‘looks like Westworld’ after producing ‘hyper-realistic’ dolls
EXCLUSIVE: Silicone Lovers told Daily Star Online it is using a workshop that mirrors fictional HBO hit Westworld to produce sex robots with advanced human-like technology

The mirth comes from three things that instantly came to mind.

  1. Odds are if you can afford such a robot (as opposed to a lower end one that goes for say 2-10 grand) you’re likely rich enough to be able to attract a real woman. But I’m sure the prices will eventually drop so that every incel can have one.
  2. These will never be “hyper-realistic” until they can say no and enforce that statement.
  3. I don’t care how realistic these things are, until they are self cleaning and self disinfecting you couldn’t pay me enough to try one let alone own one.

Some advice for the ladies, if you discover your date has one of these in his apartment or house, run, this guy is a loser.

Report from Louisiana: Election Countdown

Posted: November 11, 2019 by Pat Austin in Uncategorized
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By: Pat Austin

SHREVEPORT – Saturday was the last day to early vote in the gubernatorial election and the turnout across the state has been quite heavy. The scene was surreal in Shreveport as the line to vote snaked outside the Registrar of Voter’s office out on to the street, extending at least two blocks. The day was clear and crisp, vibrant blue skies and bright sunshine.

As we stood in line, across the street at the Caddo Parish Courthouse, two rallies were in competition with each other to have their voices heard. One group of about thirty-five were there in support of the Confederate monument that stands in front of the courthouse. (Its fate is still in litigation). They waved various Confederate state and battle flags and marched around the courthouse square chanting about preserving history. A second group, a climate change activist group, held posters and signs denouncing drilling, global warming, and burning coal while marching the opposite direction around the square. At one point the climate change group stopped and faced those of us in the voting line and shrieked “ROCK THE VOTE, Y’ALL!”

It was a bizarre sight. People in the line around us snickered and wondered how many of those climate change folks rode their bicycles or their cars downtown. They were all wearing sneakers and plastic sunglasses…the hypocrisy was curious. On the other hand, the monument supporters were interesting too. All in all, it made the wait in line fairly interesting. It’s probably the most people I’ve seen in downtown Shreveport on a Saturday in quite some time.

President Trump has been spending some time in Louisiana these past few weeks as the election nears. Before the primary last month he spoke to a capacity crowd in Lake Charles in support of Republican candidate Eddie Rispone. Last week he spoke in Monroe, Louisiana and the local news there reported over 40,000 people requested tickets to that event. The overflow crowd was served by large screens outside the arena; and President Trump will be in Bossier City on November 14 to lobby for Eddie Rispone.

Election day is November 16 and currently the pollsters are reporting that the race is “too close to call.” It will come down to turnout. I’ll be honest – I’d be surprised if Gov. Edwards loses. Eddie Rispone doesn’t have any political experience which is not necessarily a bad thing; a lot of people see Edwards as just conservative enough on some hot-button issues that they can stomach him. Plus, Edwards is using fear, now telling voters that Eddie Rispone will “rip away their health care” and freeze Medicaid.

Fear is a powerful tool.

Thankfully this will be over soon.

Pat Austin blogs at And So it Goes in Shreveport and is the author of Cane River Bohemia: Cammie Henry and her Circle at Melrose Plantation (LSU Press). She blogs at And So it Goes in Shreveport. Follow her on Instagram @patbecker25 and Twitter @paustin110.

Vets, Asheed, Cleese, Idle and Cellphones Under the Fedora

Posted: November 11, 2019 by datechguy in Always look at the bright side of Trump, culture, under the fedora
Tags: , , , ,

It’s Veterans Day a holiday everywhere (except where I work of course). On on this day we take a few minutes to remember the folks to whom being “triggered” meant someone trying to kill them rather than someone saying something they don’t like on social media.

It never ceases to amaze me how so many Americans squander the freedom these men and women bequeathed them but in a society so narcissistic it’s to be expected. I wonder how many of our long dead vets if they saw what the society they had fought for had become, might have had 2nd thoughts about defending it?

Is light dawning on marble head?

https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

If the Democrats aren’t scared of stuff like this they should be, but then again as long as their paid machine cronies are counting the votes in black area they will be able to disenfranchise black republican votes as they did in the days of Jim Crow.

Don’t think for a minute they won’t try.

I note the daily beast interviewed Eric Idle and John Cleese for the 50th anniversary of Monty Python and they of course had plenty to say against those of us who support Trump

“It’s been quite clear to me from the very beginning that he is not mentally balanced,” Cleese says of Trump. “He is an extraordinary caricature of an asshole; a person who has no interest in anyone else except himself. Every time he makes a decision, no matter how impulsive it is, it’s the one that makes him feel best about himself for the next 20 minutes.

Contrast that statement with the one above it and your irony meter will explode.

That doesn’t make him and them any brilliant when it comes to comedy.

One more Python quote from Eric Idle on Trump that made me laugh

Idle admits that, during a break from his busy schedule, he recently became addicted to MSNBC.
“The problem is, the way they cover everything, you constantly think, ‘They’ve got him!’” he says of the coverage of Trump’s travails. “Like they’re coming for him with the handcuffs. The golden handcuffs, of course.”

reminds me of a song…

https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

Funny how Trump the supposedly Nazi/Racist dictator isn’t censoring them?

Finally This whole conversation is a pet peeve of mine:

Ms. Zideyah said that she and many of the women who attended the Ignite training were aware that they had to be careful about their social media posts, but worrying about what was stored on their phones was new.
“As an online human, you don’t think that those kinds of things are going to be used against you or leaked, especially from people that are closest to you,” Ms. Zideyah said. “But I do think that now that sort of training has to be implemented, because what you should keep on a phone is becoming a serious issue.”

via hot air headlines.

I’ve been saying this for decades but let’s try one more time.

Don’t put any image or thoughts on a phone or an email or a computer or any device that a computer is linked to that you would be ashamed to show to your grandmother.

I used to say “from your mother” but where you do think this generation got that idicoy from?

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