Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

Escaping today through tales of yesteryear

Posted: February 13, 2024 by chrisharper in Uncategorized
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By Christopher Harper

I’ve found an antidote to the swirling morass of bad news and vibes in current affairs. I’ve started reading a variety of books—both fiction and fact—about even worse times in history.

Author Bernard Cornwell provides an incredible array of terrible tales.

I just finished a quartet of books, The Grail Quest, which follows the trials and tribulations of an English archer, Thomas of Hookton, during the Hundred Years’ War between England and France in the 14th Century. In the books, the English are ravaging and raping their way through Frances, including some of the bloodiest battles I have ever read. Two of his women die, and another is blinded. He’s excommunicated from the church as a heretic, and his village has been destroyed.

At the time, the Catholic Church was corrupt and split between Avignon, France, and Rome. The plague has killed one-third of the European population. Much of the population lives under corrupt counts and lords.

In the books, Thomas, the bastard son of an English priest, becomes entangled in the search for the grail, the cup used at the Last Supper. He runs into cardinals and kings who are trying to find the grail. Eventually, he locates the grail and tosses it into the sea because of all the evil it has wrought.

If you think times are tough now, you wouldn’t survived England or France in the 1300s!

Another book, The Wager by David Grann, puts today’s troubles into perspective. The nonfiction book isn’t about a bet but an English ship called by the name.

The ship left England in 1740 on a secret mission to capture a Spanish ship during a war between the two countries. En route, The Wager was wrecked on a remote island off the coast of South America. There, roughly 100 men divide themselves into three groups: those who follow the captain, those who follow the first mate, and those who follow neither. Many sailors die from starvation or extreme weather. 

Amazingly, each of the three groups sees some of the followers make it back to civilization, where some are considered mutineers, and the captain is a murderer for shooting one of them without due process. 

As accusations of treachery and murder flew, the government convened a court martial to determine who was telling the truth. The stakes were life and death—for whomever the court found guilty could hang. 

The final rulings reflect the desire of nearly all governments to put some sort of spin on what events happened and what they mean. 

Happy escape to historical reality!

Pro-Life protestors are being sentenced to prison for over a decade thanks to the FACE Act

Posted: February 8, 2024 by Jon Fournier in Uncategorized
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It is obvious to anyone who has been paying attention that the Biden regime has weaponized the Department of Justice against Americans who oppose the Marxist fundamental transformation begun by Barack Obama.  Pro-life protestors are the latest victims of this outright tyranny.  Republicans Renew Call to Repeal FACE Act After Pro-Lifers Found Guilty (breitbart.com)

Republican lawmakers have renewed their call to repeal the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act after six pro-life activists were found guilty this week for “conspiracy against rights” and violating the FACE Act in relation to a peaceful protest outside of a Tennessee abortion facility in 2021.

The FACE Act “prohibits threats of force, obstruction and property damage intended to interfere with reproductive health care services,” while conspiracy against rights — a charge that carries a maximum 10-year prison sentence — “makes it unlawful for two or more persons to agree to injure, threaten, or intimidate a person in the United States in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured by the Constitution or laws of the United States or because of his or her having exercised such a right,” according to the Department of Justice (DOJ). 

This unconstitutional farce is being used to criminalize the exercise of our most fundamental rights, those rights that are enshrined in the First Amendment.  The Biden regime has created a two tiered justice system.  Left wing darlings such as Black Lives Matters and ANTIFA are free to riot, burn buildings, and block freeways.  This is what happens to right wingers who simply protest:

“Free Americans should never live in fear of their government targeting them because of their beliefs. Yet, Biden’s Department of Justice has brazenly weaponized the FACE Act against normal, everyday Americans across the political spectrum, simply because they are pro-life,” Roy said in a statement at the time. “Our Constitution separates power between the federal government and the states for a reason, and we ignore that safeguard at our own peril. The FACE Act is an unconstitutional federal takeover of state police powers; it must be repealed.”

Roy’s office also noted at the time how the FACE Act made national news after pro-life activist Mark Houck was allegedly held at gunpoint and arrested by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) last year in front of his wife and children, citing the FACE Act in relation to a pushing incident outside of an abortion facility. Houck was found not guilty, with the judge in the case asking the prosecution whether the FACE Act did not “seem to be stretched a little thin here.”

Some pro-life activists were guilty of blocking entrances to abortion clinics.  This activity is actually illegal and not protected the First Amendment.  It is a misdemeanor under most local jurisdictions.  The punishment is usually a fine or community service.  Under the tyrannical Biden DOJ, this is the punishment pro-lifers face:

Here is the text of the FACE Act: Civil Rights Division | Statutes Enforced by the Criminal Section (justice.gov)

Section 248 makes it unlawful for a person to use force, the threat of force, or physical obstruction to intentionally injure or intimidate a person because he or she is or has been obtaining or providing reproductive health services.

Section 248 also makes it unlawful for a person to use force, the threat of force, or physical obstruction to intentionally injure or intimidate a person because he or she is lawfully exercising the right of religious freedom at a place of worship.

Finally, Section 248 makes it unlawful for a person to intentionally damage or destroy the property of a facility because it provides reproductive health services, or because it is a place of worship. Section 248 also prohibits anyone from attempting to commit any of the above.

This act is unconstitutional because the Federal Government was not granted jurisdiction by the Constitution over this type of crime committed inside the borders of a State. They are not federal crimes under the Constitution.  They are State and local crimes.

The pro-life activists are receiving sentences issued by the Biden Regime that are extremely excessive even under the tyrannical FACE Act.

In the absence of aggravating factors, a first offense under this statute is a misdemeanor punishable by six months imprisonment for a non-violent obstruction offense, and up to a year for an offense involving force or threats.  A second offense (committed after conviction on a different FACE offense) is punishable by up to eighteen months in prison for a non-violent obstruction offense and by up to three years in prison for an offense involving force or threats.  If bodily injury results, then the penalty is increased to up to ten years.  If death results, the penalty may be up to life imprisonment.

The Same Old Grift And Dance

Posted: February 8, 2024 by datechguy in Uncategorized
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Curley: [stops Moe and Larry] Hey! What’s this stuff [Brighto] for anyway?

Larry: Why, it’s a cleaner, ya chump!

Curley: I know, it’s auto polish.

Moe: You boys really wanna know what it’s for?

Larry & Curly [In unison] Yeah!

Moe: It’s for sale, now get busy selling it.

The Three Stooges, Dizzy Doctors 1937

When you’ve been blogging for as long as I have (15 years here plus 3 or 4 as a tech blogger for Hiwired) you tend to cover a lot of things. Sometimes you forget that while you might remember an argument you made in 2013 that ten years later most people haven’t seen it.

So when in the news today you see Stephen Cruiser ask about Karine Jean-Pierre understanding the state of Biden’s mental acumen or Ibram X Kendi pooh poohing a statement of fact as “White Savior syndrome” or Even sports talk people going on about Bill Belichick not having a job when they spent a year calling him to be fired one must remember a key fact.

This isn’t about a cause or an argument, it’s about a living. Their sources of income demand such a response because any other type of response risks losing said income.

I pointed this out a while back:

But what happens if your goal is achieved?

What happens if it turns out the water is, in fact clean, cleaner that it has been for decades?  What happens if the Polar Bear population and deer population are boom?  What happens if every 16 year old in the country has the right to declare themselves whatever sex they want on any given day?  What happens if the US pulls every single soldier out of Afghanistan?  What happens if pipelines are declared illegal or scientists develops a leak proof material able to even stand up to earthquakes?

Or worse,  what happens if science proves your fears unfounded, that the world isn’t warming?  What happens when January 27th 2016 come along and we’re all still here?  What happens if  statistics show your “oppressed” group is voting in greater numbers than ever before?

Do you bask in the glory of your victory?  Do you celebrate that all your hard work has been successful?  Do you breathe a sigh of relief that your children and grandchildren are not going to die a horrible death in a parched poisoned earth?

Hell NO!

You’ve achieved status, you’ve achieved power, you’re living comfortably.  You’re invited to the right parties, feted over by stars who think your cause is SO important and pols on the local, state and federal level care what you say and act accordingly.

So you find a different crisis, it doesn’t matter if water is clean, it isn’t clean enough, it doesn’t matter if the polar bears have recovered, they haven’t recovered enough, sure 16 year olds can declare themselves whatever sex they want, but what about 7 year olds?  Yeah we’re out of Afghanistan but what about Europe?  Yeah we stopped the pipelines, but the trucks are dangerous too?  Do we really trust those figures that say the world isn’t going to end?  We need a 50 year study of our own to be sure.

The really scary thing about that quote from 2013 is that the business about 7 year olds deciding their sex has come true.

So please remember when you see people talking nonsense about the border, or gender or oppression, remember that their goal isn’t to solve an actual problem, their goal is to maintain their wealth, income, social position or status.

Keep that in mind and you’ll get it.

Extinction vs. hope

Posted: February 6, 2024 by chrisharper in Uncategorized
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By Christopher Harper

Extinction panic. That’s the latest worry that The New York Times says we must be concerned about. 

Tyler Austin Harper, an assistant professor of environmental studies at Bates College in Maine, writes an extensive analysis in DaTimes:

“What makes an extinction panic a panic is the conviction that humanity is flawed and beyond redemption, destined to die at its own hand, the tragic hero of a terrestrial pageant for whom only one final act is possible. The irony, of course, is that this cynicism — and the unfettered individualism that is its handmaiden — greases the skids to calamity. After all, why bother fighting for change or survival if you believe that self-destruction is hard-wired into humanity?”

Harper [no relation] blames politicians left and right for what he calls “doom-mongering.” He writes: “One way to understand extinction panics is as elite panics: fears created and curated by social, political, and economic movers and shakers during times of uncertainty and social transition. Extinction panics are, in both the literal and the vernacular senses, reactionary, animated by the elite’s anxiety about maintaining its privilege in the midst of societal change. Today, it’s politicians, executives, and technologists.” 

He cites several potential sources for extinction worries: Middle East war, “climate anxiety,” artificial intelligence, and China. “Climate is driving new fields in psychology, experimental therapies, and debates about what a recent New Yorker article called “the morality of having kids in a burning, drowning world.” 

Only once you dig into the analysis does Harper finally show his cards. His solution to extinction panic is to give the government more power. 

“We have gotten into the dangerous habit of outsourcing big issues — space exploration, clean energy, A.I., and the like — to private businesses and billionaires,” Harper argues. “We need ambitious, well-resourced government initiatives and international cooperation that takes A.I. and other existential risks seriously.”

After COVID, people may be even more prone to worry about extinction and perhaps turn to the government for solutions. 

I hope people remember just how badly that solution worked!

Instead of wringing one’s hands, I suggest that people read a few books about faith and hope. Education scholar James Fraser has one that fits the bill.

Fraser’s History of Hope chronicles “American history through the stories of the individuals and movements that dreamed of a better future and then took action to make that dream a reality, arguing that the much-heralded American spirit was not born as a gift of our founding, but was forged through our adversity and triumphs.”

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