The idle musings of a former military man, former computer geek, medically retired pastor and now full-time writer. Contents guaranteed to offend the politically correct and anal-retentive from time to time. My approach to life is that it should be taken with a large helping of laughter, and sufficient firepower to keep it tamed!
The Biden regime gives Ukraine $80 billion in tax dollars. Ukraine invests in FTX crypto exchange. FTX owner Sam Bankman-Fried gives $40 million back to the Democrats’ campaigns for the 2022 midterms. A week later FTX goes bust, scamming clients out of $36 billion.
The mainstream media ignores it.
Yep. All that US taxpayer money "for Ukraine" . . . wasn't all for Ukraine.
In the bigger picture I don’t think many Americans outside the DC beltway give a flip about internal Ukrainian squabbles and Russia’s support for the Eastern Ukrainian independence effort. However, inside the DC beltway Ukraine is very important, stunningly important, because Ukraine functions as the corrupt money laundry operation for DC politicians to receive taxpayer kickbacks from their financial support into Ukraine.
Monday was fairly laid-back, with attendees registering, picking up their badges, and wandering around the vendor hall. An impressive variety of industry vendors were in attendance, including Amazon, where Miss D. and I publish our books. Their representative promised to help sort out a technical glitch still affecting Miss D.'s first book, and we look forward to results soon. Also, one of the developers of the Vellum publishing software was in attendance, and had lots of news on new upgrades and tools. As an enthusiastic Vellum customer, I'm very interested to see how they're constantly improving the package.
There were a few workshops during the afternoon, but nothing that particularly interested me. I've bookmarked several panels and presentations later in the week. Some are here for advice on creative input, preparation for publication, etc., but I'm mainly interested in how to use my time better and improve my output. As regular readers will know, my physical condition isn't great, and I lose a lot of time to pain and other factors. That has a very serious impact on my ability to write without interruption and produce output timeously. I want to talk to other authors (particularly those with similar health issues) and listen to presentations on how to organize my time effectively around such problems. If I can get that right, I may be able to produce books much more consistently and regularly, which all helps with keeping food on the table and a roof over our heads. Here's hoping!
My mobility limitations and pain issues will almost certainly prevent me seeing much of Las Vegas. I'll hang out at the hotel and conference center, and walk (slowly, with a stick!) around a couple of neighboring malls, but that's about it. I thought about renting a mobility scooter for the duration, but they're very expensive in a tourist trap like Vegas, and I doubt I'll get enough use from one to cost-justify hiring it. (On the other hand, if my wife and I got a matched pair of scooters, disconnected the speed governors, and drove madly up and down the shopping malls side by side, I daresay we might build up an impressive casualty list! Being Vegas, we might even be able to charge admission... However, given how mean she was about another of my suggestions on an earlier vacation to the Gulf shore, she may not take kindly to this one, either.) I may take the monorail that runs around the city, just to see the sights from the track, but I won't be more adventurous on this trip. Miss D. has her own physical limitations, so for both of us, the availability of pain-killers is likely to be a critical factor in the success (for us) of this conference.
We had to smile at the presence of not just one, but two "oxygen bars" in the hotel. I'd heard of them, but never before run into one. After our experience driving at altitude through parts of New Mexico and Arizona, we might just give one a try, to see if it helps us acclimatize faster. Have any readers used them? Any advice or opinions to offer? Please let us know in Comments. (Remember, thanks to spammers, comment moderation is in effect, so it may be a while before your comment appears on the blog.)
Finally, a word about my alternative blog site. It's almost ready, apart from copying over the last couple of weeks' posts. If you want to take a look at it, go to https://bayourenaissanceman.com , but keep this site bookmarked as my primary site until I advise that I'm finally making the change. I won't be finished with all the format tweaking and behind-the-scenes setup for a few weeks, but I can already switch over there if this site is blocked for another violation of Google's "community standards" (a.k.a. politically-correct propaganda). You might want to bookmark that URL as an alternate address for me, just in case.
Gathered from around the Internet over the past week. There aren't as many as usual, because due to traveling I haven't had as much time as usual to look for them; but there are still some good ones among them. Click any image for a larger view.
Miss D. and I made it safely to Las Vegas, Nevada by late Sunday afternoon, after nine hours on the road. I can remember when a 17-hour road trip over a weekend didn't faze me at all, but my aging body is doing its best to persuade me that those days ended a while back. I'm stiff and sore, to the point that as soon as we'd settled in to our hotel room, I took a painkiller and turned in for a long rest while my wife went out to supper with friends and "cased the joint". I was just too worn out. If we do another of these conferences next year, I suspect we'll be flying rather than driving.
The traffic was slightly less heavy today than yesterday - perhaps truckers need a day of rest, too? At any rate, it was less stressful to navigate around the 18-wheelers. I found the altitude a bit of a problem between Albuquerque and Flagstaff, with altitudes sometimes exceeding 7,000 feet; and Miss D. had even more difficulties with it. Our blood oxygen levels and pulse rates were making unhappy noises at us, and we didn't feel our usual selves. However, pharmacies in Albuquerque sell "canned oxygen" to help cope with that, so we bought three cans and headed out. We ended up using one can between us to take occasional "hits" of breathable oxygen, and it helped us over the hump, so to speak. Here in Las Vegas we're back at lower altitude, in thicker air, which helps a lot. The remaining two cans should see us through our return journey and visit with Larry Lambert of Virtual Mirage.
We took delight in seeing a whole lot of great big ravens in western New Mexico and across Arizona. Both of us have fond memories of these highly intelligent birds in other parts of the world, and we love to watch them soar, tumble and play with each other. It was a highlight of our day. I couldn't help replaying in my mind Maddy Prior's six-song raven cycle (tracks 7-12 inclusive on her album "Ravenchild", all of which are available on YouTube). Here's the last of those tracks, "Dance On The Wind".
That's exactly what we saw them doing (and enjoying) during our drive on Sunday; carefree and laid-back. It was very nice.
Arriving in Las Vegas was an unpleasant experience, thanks to road blockages, closed lanes and a whole lot more traffic than we're used to in our relatively quiet North Texas home town. It was difficult to navigate in the hotel/casino area, made worse by Google Maps developing schizophrenia and directing us into the parking garage of the Bellagio instead of Bally, which is the one we wanted! We managed to sort it out in the end. Our room at Bally is very pleasant, spacious and well-equipped for our week's stay, with comfortable mattresses on the beds - always one of the most important considerations.
I'm off to bed again, to sleep off 17 hours behind the wheel. More on Monday, God willing.
Miss D. and I arrived in Albuquerque, New Mexico late on Saturday afternoon, after about 8 hours on the road from home. We interrupted our travels for coffee and breakfast in Chilicothe, TX at the Turquoise Coffee Stop, which has become an institution for more than a few travelers along US 287. They make really good coffee, and their breakfasts are also very much to our taste. Recommended.
We stopped for lunch with Alma Boykin in Amarillo. She and Miss D. commiserated with each other over their current works in progress, both of which started as (or were intended to be) short stories, but have taken on lives of their own and expanded dramatically. I won't be surprised if both end up as novellas or even full-blown novels. It was great to see Alma, as always. She's one of our dearest friends.
The drive west was OK, but truck traffic became very heavy after we left Amarillo. I don't know how traffic patterns work for heavy vehicles, but we were seeing three or four 18-wheelers for every car, SUV or minivan - and some of the heavies were not the world's best drivers, to put it mildly. I have no idea why a truck would try to overtake another with a negligible speed advantage of what felt like about a quarter of a mile per hour, but it led to some epic backups and bad language as the slowpoke passers dragged ever-lengthening trains of aggravated drivers and vehicles in their wake.
It seemed to get dark in New Mexico rather earlier (in terms of the time of day) than we're used to in northern Texas. The time zone changed, of course, from Central to Mountain time, but even so, it was dark by about 5.30 pm. Fortunately, by then we'd reached Albuquerque, so we didn't have to plunge onward in darkness, in unfamiliar territory, surrounded by semis. I would not have enjoyed that.
Tomorrow morning we head for Las Vegas. I guess the drive will be about nine hours from here, including a trip over the wall at Hoover Dam, which I've never seen before. I understand it's pretty empty right now. We'll be tired by the time we roll into Party Town, USA.
Finally, please say a prayer for the souls of those who died in the mid-air collision over Dallas, TX on Saturday. I understand five crew members died aboard the B-17, and a sole pilot in the P-63. It was a disaster for the Commemorative Air Force and its warbird enthusiasts (including Alma Boykin), so please remember them in your prayers, too. They lost comrades yesterday, and they're bound to be feeling it. The accident reminds us that no matter how careful we may be, the fickle finger of fate can reach out and touch us without warning or opportunity to escape, at any time. May their souls rest in peace.
Miss D. and I will be leaving tomorrow morning for the tenth 20 Books to 50K conference in Las Vegas, Nevada. Here's a video promoting that conference a few years ago, to give you some idea of what it'll be like - only larger. This year, I understand over 2,000 writers and associated professionals will be attending.
We're first-time attendees, and looking forward to learning a lot about our craft to help us improve going forward. The thing about writing, particularly independent publishing such as we do, is that one's constantly having to do everything for oneself. There's no publisher's staff handling editing, revisions, typesetting, publicity, promotion, advertising, and so on - it's all on you. Writing the book is actually less than half the work involved in getting it out there and making it a success. We've both done reasonably well on the writing, as your reviews attest, but we've still got a lot to learn on the other aspects of it. We're going to dive into the deep end and see how much we can absorb.
Unfortunately, this means we're likely to be utterly swamped as far as free time is concerned. I'll try to put up a blog post as and when I can, hopefully each day of the conference, but that may or may not be possible. In addition, the drive there and back - two full days each way - may not leave me enough time or energy to blog over the weekends. In particular, don't expect a Saturday Snippet or Sunday Morning Music post for the next two weekends.
It is as difficult and as dangerous to try to liberate a people that wishes to live in slavery as it is to try to enslave a people that wishes to live in freedom.
Machiavelli
True dat - particularly when so many of them choose slavery at the polls . . .
My grandfathers fought in World War I. I can still remember, as a very young child, hearing my grandfather cough... cough... cough his life away, the result of exposure to German gas warfare in the trenches from which his lungs never fully recovered. It made the horrors of the "War To End All Wars" a lot more real to me.
I'm very sorry that the USA chose to make November 11th Veterans Day, instead of Armistice Day. It would have been more fitting, I think, to join the rest of the world in remembering that anniversary, and choosing another day to honor our own veterans. Many's the time I've heard the church bells or sirens sound at 11 a.m. on November 11th, and seen traffic - vehicle and pedestrian - come to a halt on the streets as people bowed their heads for a minute of silence to commemorate the dead. It was a profoundly moving experience.
"The Times of London observed on 11 November 1938: 'No foreign propagandist bent upon blackening Germany before the world could outdo the tale of burnings and beatings, of blackguardly assaults on defenceless and innocent people, which disgraced that country yesterday.' "
Just how dunderheaded, purblind and asinine were those designers of the app that KFC allegedly used to highlight the date to its customers? Is it even possible that they could be blind to such an error? I'm tempted to say that it can't be out of neglect. I don't see how it could not have been deliberate.
A couple of weeks ago I mentioned that our buddy Lawdog, whom most of you know, is having a fundraiser to cover legal expenses for what I regard as a trumped-up, malicious charge. You can read more about the case at Old NFO's place. Follow the links he provides to see what Lawdog's friends are offering as raffle prizes to those who contribute.
The fundraiser has been pretty successful so far, raising over $40K. However, I know what lawsuits can cost in terms of legal fees, and $40K doesn't leave much margin for error at all - particularly when taxes have to be paid on funds raised like that. I'd love to see Lawdog's fundraiser hit $50K, which would be enough (I think) to meet all likely demands on his bank account over this matter.
If you've already donated to the fundraiser, thank you very much! Your generosity is greatly appreciated. If you haven't - or if you have, but are willing to consider more - please click over to his fundraiser and do what you can to help. Lawdog's a good man, as I said in my earlier post, and I really want to see him come through this free and clear, without being tied up for years in debt to his lawyer and expert witnesses.
As the political discussion centers on the 2022 wins and losses from the midterm election, one thing that stands out in similarity to the 2020 general election is the difference between ballots and votes. It appears in some states this is the ‘new normal.’
Where votes were the focus, the Biden administration suffered losses. Where ballots were the focus, the Biden administration won.
. . .
The effort to attain votes for candidates is less important than the strategy of collecting ballots.
It should be emphasized; these are two distinctly different election systems.
The system of ballot distribution and collection is far more susceptible to control than the traditional system of votes cast at precincts.
A vote cannot be cast by a person who is no longer alive, or no longer lives in the area. However, a ballot can be sent, completed and returned regardless of the status of the initially attributed and/or registered individual.
While ballots and votes originate in two totally different processes, the end result of both “ballots” and “votes,” weighing on the presented election outcome, is identical.
While initially the ballot form of election control was tested in Deep Blue states, through the process of mail-in returns under the guise and justification of “expanding democracy,” a useful tool for those who are vested in the distinction, I think we are now starting to see what happens on a national level when the process is expanded.
. . .
Now that ballot collection has been shown to be a much more effective way to maintain political power, Democrats in a general sense are less focused on winning votes and more focused on gathering ballots.
When ‘ballot organization’ becomes more important than ‘vote winning,’ you modify your electoral campaign approaches accordingly. It might sound simplistic, but inside the distinct difference between ballots and votes you will find why refusing debates is a successful strategy.
If you are trying to win votes you could never fathom campaign success by refusing to debate an opponent. However, if your focus is centered around ballot collection, the debate is essentially irrelevant.
. . .
Republicans are running around trying to convince people and win votes. Meanwhile, who needs voters? Democrats have skipped all of that old fashioned stuff and modified all of their electioneering systems to quietly and efficiently collect ballots. [Last Tuesday] you saw the outcome.
That hypothesis certainly seems to fit Democratic Party "get-out-the-vote" efforts. They used to focus on getting people to the polls. Now they focus on collecting people's votes and getting those to the vote counters, often by "helping" voters fill in their ballots. There are reports out there of postal votes being collected even before they were filled in, with a promise to do that on the voter's behalf! If true, that's electoral fraud - but it probably has willing accomplices who are unlikely to report it.
A ballot collection network also does away with any possibility of challenging the eligibility of the voter. If we see a person at the polling station who's exhibiting suspicious conduct, we can challenge his right to vote, and have his identification and/or registration verified in one way or another. If the voter never has to appear in person at all, we lose that safeguard. I wonder how many of the postal votes this last election were deliberately intended to achieve precisely that?
That may also explain how some candidates were elected despite seemingly overwhelming evidence that they weren't fit for election. Fetterman in Pennsylvania comes to mind. Before the debate that exposed his mental unfitness for office, Democratic Party postal ballot harvesting had already gathered several hundred thousand votes for him. Those who'd cast those votes might have wanted to change their minds after seeing the debate: but it was too late for them to do so. They were already committed. I think that's probably one of the main reasons, if not the single most important reason, why Fetterman was elected. I'd love to know what percentage of the votes cast for him comprised those early ballots. I think it'd be eye-opening.
(As Phil of Bustednuckles put it: "Congratulations, Pennsylvanians, For Electing A New Senator! Just don’t forget to water it regularly and fertilize it occasionally and you should be just fine.")
The question now becomes: can - and will - the Republican Party put in as much effort as the Democratic Party to build a ballot collection and processing machine of its own? If it doesn't, it's probably doomed to play second fiddle for years to come. Some states appear to be moving in that direction. Others appear to be playing dead.
Meanwhile, those of us who support a constitutional Republic may as well accept that our nation is about to be irrevocably changed. We're dealing with a ballot harvesting system that can gather enough support to pass any and all constitutional amendments the progressive left desires. The Supreme Court can rule as it wishes, but before long it's likely to be "packed" with progressive judges who'll aid and abet the process. We can no longer rely on the protection of the rule of law, because the law itself will be administered in a partisan political manner.
I see everyone on the right fighting about Trump vs DeSantis for 2024 and I just laugh to myself. The presidency in 2024 is a pipe dream, with DeSantis or Trump on the ticket. To be frank I don’t know if we’ll ever see a Republican president again. Millions and millions of illegals pouring over our border and being distributed to key swing states. An electorate trained to believe that hundreds of thousands of mail in ballots appearing is normal. Demographics is destiny. He who controls the machines controls the outcome. We didn’t fix 2020 and we didn’t build the wall so don’t expect another “free and fair” election.
BRM (Peter Grant) will be in the area next week and by hook or crook, we’ll meet up and within the hour, we will have solved ALL of the world’s problems in this epic summit. I’ll either see him coming west on I-40 or headed back east a week later, but it will happen. The fate of Western Civilization hangs in the balance.
Let's see . . . A grizzled veteran of the US Navy SEALS and long-time law enforcement narcotics and cartel expert meets up with a former South African military vet, pastor, and survivor of the quasi-civil-war in South Africa from 1976-1994. Between the two of us, I daresay we've caused a fairly significant amount of mayhem over the course of our lives. We both write novels and we both blog. We've also both chosen to move to parts of the country where we can be free to be ourselves.
If we put our heads together, who knows what might happen?
My wife and I have made a habit of getting our annual flu shots as a matter of routine. Both of us have health issues that affect respiration, and need to avoid serious congestion or breathing difficulties; so, for us, it's been almost an automatic reflex to get the shot. However, we've refused from the start to be vaccinated against COVID-19, even though it affects respiration, due to serious misgivings about the safety of those medications - misgivings that have been validated and magnified by the horrific total of side effects that have been reported. They far outnumber the combined total reports of all other vaccines in human history.
That's why this news is likely to force us to abandon our annual flu shot "fix".
Pfizer and BioNTech have launched a clinical trial to test a combination vaccine targeting influenza and Covid-19, the companies announced on Thursday, one of several efforts to combine the two recommended shots as experts increasingly suggest yearly coronavirus boosters will be needed.
. . .
Both flu and Covid components are built using the mRNA platform underpinning the companies’ joint Covid vaccine.
. . .
Pfizer and BioNTech are not the only companies pushing ahead with a combination Covid-flu vaccine. Moderna, which uses the same kind of mRNA technology as Pfizer and BioNTech and was their main pandemic rival, is also testing its own mRNA flu shot and a shot combining this with its Covid booster vaccine. Novavax, which uses a more traditional style of vaccine technology, is also developing a combination shot. BioNTech’s Sahin said the Covid-flu trial will give the company more information on combining mRNA vaccines to address multiple pathogens, which he said will help guide its product pipeline in the future.
Moderna is also testing a three-pronged shot to protect against RSV (respiratory syncytial virus), Covid-19 and influenza. All three are potentially serious respiratory infections...
Not just no, but HELL, NO!!! Given the damage that mRNA vaccines have already caused - cases number literally in the millions - there's absolutely no way I'm going to allow any of that stuff into my system.
However, it's a major concern that hospitals may make such vaccinations part of their treatment protocol for any admission. If you get admitted, you'll get the shot whether you like it or not - perhaps without being fully informed about what they're injecting into your body. Personally, I regard that as equivalent to assault with a deadly weapon, but I'm sure the law won't see it that way - or permit me to respond appropriately. Sadly, as I grow older, the chances that I may not be able to make my objections known prior to getting the shot (for example, if I have another heart attack and am admitted in a comatose condition) are increasing. That's a deeply worrying development.
What say you, readers? Are you willing to take a chance that your hitherto-benign annual flu shot might now inject you with potentially dangerous mRNA?
We still don't know the outcome of yesterday's elections. However, we know enough to be sure that many of the infrastructural and procedural problems with the 2020 elections have not yet been satisfactorily resolved. Voting in some states appears to have been marred by difficulties, and Arizona's electoral system has now become something of a national joke in that respect. Why can't they get it right? Why are Maricopa County's electoral officials so inept and/or incompetent? Verily, the mind doth boggle . . .
Fox News star Tucker Carlson on Tuesday night ... [claimed] that the use of electronic voting machines “shakes people’s faith in the system” and shows America is “not serious about democracy.”
. . .
“And what happened today in Maricopa County, where some huge percentage of voting machines… 30 percent, they claim these are Dominion voting machines, but it almost doesn’t matter,” Carlson insisted. “Electronic voting machines didn’t allow people to vote apparently.”
. . .
“Whatever you think of it, the cause of it, it shakes people’s faith in the system,” Carlson continued. “That’s an actual threat to democracy. The core problem: We’re not serious about democracy if we’re using electronic voting machines. You’re going to have these moments where everybody in the country fears volatility because one side doesn’t believe the result is real.”
Claiming that distrust in voting machines runs on “both sides” and is not “just the crazy right,” Carlson said he hoped there would be a “bipartisan” demand to ban electronic voting machines and “require voting IDs.”
I can only endorse Carlson's comments above. There's a reason Canada and many European nations reject the use of vote-counting automation. It's because it's simply too easy to interfere with or hack, and is therefore untrustworthy. They'd rather go with paper ballots, counted by hand, in constituencies small enough that they can count their votes within a few hours of the polls closing - not giant county-wide processing facilities where everything takes longer, is more complex, and costs more. What's more, if there are issues with the totals, it's a simple matter to recount the paper ballots, with observers able to see and hear everything that goes on. Transparency does away with trust issues on the spot.
Some political pundits also have egg on their faces. Many forecast a Republican "red wave" that simply has not emerged. I'd like to know why that happened - the miscalculation, I mean. Where were they getting their data? Clearly, it wasn't accurate. One hopes they'll learn from their mistakes, but being journalists and politicians, that's doubtful. They never seem to learn from anything, much less their own mistakes. "My mind's made up - don't confuse me with the facts!"
As for our nation's Congressional representatives and Senators . . . nothing could more clearly illustrate that we're a house divided. The "United" States aren't. Far too many individual States are divided against themselves. Cities are divided against rural areas. Old are divided against young. Races are divided against each other - aided and abetted, let's remember, by identity politics. I have dwindling hopes that our nation can survive as a constitutional republic. Too many groups want to run it by "pure" democracy, disregarding constitutional restrictions and balances. That's a very comfortable thing for a 51% majority, and a very uncomfortable one for a 49% minority.
Finally, there's the electorate. Pennsylvania can serve as an example for the whole. How anyone there could vote for a Senator - irrespective of political party - who's clearly even more mentally damaged and impaired than President Biden is utterly beyond me. Have they lost their minds? Do they really want such a Senator making national decisions in their name?
Nothing more clearly illustrates that voters can be manipulated like so many mindless drones, driven like cattle to the slaughterhouse. That should scare the hell out of any thinking person, of any and every partisan perspective.
“Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance. No one in this world, so far as I know—and I have researched the records for years, and employed agents to help me—has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people. Nor has anyone ever lost public office thereby.”
So, once again, America gets to vote on who will be its representatives in Congress and the Senate for the next couple of years.
The question of whether those representatives will, in fact, be truly "representative", or merely political golems and automatons who've been shoehorned into office over - and often despite - the votes of the electorate, will be neither asked nor answered by our political powers that be. That's a pity, because it's the single most important question that this election will raise. If the same sort of shenanigans take place today that took place during and after the November 2020 elections, we'll know that the USA has become just another banana republic, just another corporate state, where "we the people" have effectively been stripped of the powers allocated to us in the republic's constitution, and we've become nothing more than "we the peons" or "we the pitiful". Three out of the "four boxes of liberty" will have been demonstrated to be ineffective, for all the world to see. If we want to see change, that will leave only the fourth box ... and nobody in his right mind wants that to happen. I've seen it too often in too many other countries, and the outcomes are unspeakable. The further we can keep that from our shores, the better!
It behooves all of us to pay very, very careful attention to how the votes from today's elections are counted, and to demand accountability from electoral officials at any sign of anything untoward, including delays, vote counting being stopped, additional "mysterious" batches of votes being "found" for a particular candidate, statistically impossible voting patterns, and a host of other irregularities. We tried in 2020, only to have the courts largely refuse to hear the cases. (Do note that. It's not that there was no evidence of electoral fraud in 2020 - there was evidence, out the wazoo. However, the courts refused to admit or examine that evidence on procedural grounds, often very flimsy. It was very instructive to watch how the "deep State" manipulated the proceedings.)
Those who manipulated that election are bound and determined that they won't be called to account for their misdeeds. There's simply no way they're going to sit back and allow the voice of the people to override their political imperatives.
That observation still stands. They're going to try something - anything - that will prevent their losing power in this election, and forestall their being called to account. Depend upon it.
In a functioning democracy, you're not simply allowed to raise questions about elections, you're encouraged to. You're encouraged to because it's your government. There's no such thing as election-denying in a free society. It's called free speech. You're allowed to say it if you think it, period, and yet our media, which exists to defend free speech, is doing its best, day after day, to shut it down. "How dare you raise any questions about next week's midterms! Why are they telling you that? It's ominous."
. . .
First of all, if people have questions about the last election ... there's a really simple way to put those concerns to rest, to stop the conspiracy theories, and that's produce the evidence. Show us the facts. If people are worried about vote totals in a specific state from 2020, first of all, they have a right to have the party in charge prove that that election was fair, but moreover, they have a duty to ask because the only way you have a free and fair system is if everybody is free to ask questions about it and demand real answers.
. . .
There's nothing wrong with asking questions — period — and if that's banned, this is a totalitarian country.
If we'd had a lot more transparency after the 2020 elections, I wouldn't be so concerned about those taking place today . . .
Martin Armstrong, who's proved to be a prescient and largely accurate economic observer, goes so far as to warn that if the same shenanigans occur today, manipulated as always by oligarchs and pressure groups like the W.E.F., there may not be an election in 2024.
"The cheating in the midterm election next week is going to be so great that it is almost impossible to make a prediction. . . . In a fair midterm election, the Republicans would win the House and the Senate."
. . .
"It’s going to be tight, and the Republicans have a shot at taking the House. Technically, they should take the House and the Senate. I am just not sure. The corruption is so bad, it’s crazy. Pennsylvania sent out hundreds of thousands of ballots to people who are not documented or even American. I’ve gotten emails from people in Canada, they are getting mail-in ballots. They mailed them to Canada. . . .Where this ends up, who knows? It’s just so corrupt, it is over the top. It doesn’t matter who wins. Nobody is going to accept this thing, and that is the problem."
. . .
"We may not even have an election in 2024. It is not looking very good, and it’s probably because this election is not going to be accepted. When it is so over-the-top corrupt, what do you do for the next one? The United States will not exist after 2032. After 2028 and 2029, we are going to have to redesign a government from scratch. America is being destroyed. Republics always end in absolute corruption. We just saw the same thing happen in Brazil. They staged a major effort to take Bolsonaro out. . . . This is a worldwide effort. They had to get rid of Trump. The other one who stood in their way is Bolsonaro. Then there is Putin (Russia) and Xi Jinping (China). I think you are going to have historians look back at this 50 years from now, and they will call this period ‘The Climate Change Wars’. . . .They are trying to take down as much oil energy capacity as possible."
. . .
"Our computer is showing it’s going to be a rocket launch for volatility and civil unrest next year."
I wish I could believe that Mr. Armstrong was exaggerating, but he's not. Think about it. Those who most fervently support the 2020 election results and the resulting government are going to be all-in on expecting the same thing again in 2022. If they don't get it, they'll reject the result as "unrepresentative" and/or having been "manipulated", and probably cry electoral fraud and mismanagement. If the opposite happens, and the 2020 results are repeated, everyone on the conservative side is going to claim exactly the same thing. Neither side trusts the other; neither side is willing to listen to the other; and neither side is willing to examine the evidence objectively and in full, in order to resolve any doubts using "just the facts". When facts no longer rule, opinion, conjecture and emotion dominate. None of them are reliable, and none can be objectively verified. That's a recipe for disaster - and for no future free and fair elections, because nobody will trust them or accept their outcome.
The Good Citizen offers some gloomy - but soundly argued - thoughts about that.
[Electoral politics has] become another corporate-state money laundering operation while attention snatching to distract and demoralize a public that desperately grasps for ‘hope and change’ every few years only to find there is little of either on offer anywhere.
The spectacle of elections has ballooned into a multi-billion dollar corporate-government bribery scam that reveals the most plainly crooked state in the history of human organized systems. No other country or perhaps even empire comes close in shamelessness of open bribery. Until money is removed from the process, nothing will ever change.
As a result, there is no sign of a heartbeat for a Constitutional Res-Publica any longer ... The political structure of the American government today resembles a three-layer cake: Oligarchy - Corporatocracy - Kakistocracy, in order of power.
. . .
The word Democracy today is nothing more than a rhetorical political weapon to wield in justifying tyrannies whenever rulers need to gaslight their constituents. The assumption is always that whatever is a threat to their tyranny is a threat to democracy itself, so they use the word like a club to beat their slaves into submission to keep them voting every few years. It’s a protective shield to hide from the blowback of their own atrocious incompetency while projecting the offer of change if their debt slaves simply lend their minds to the charade of slum and spectacle that is American electoral politics.
Despite all that doom and gloom, my wife and I will still be voting today. After all, if you don't play, you can't win: and, as Robert Heinlein famously observed, "Always cut the cards". You never know what might happen. Let's all proceed on that hope. If our hopes are unfounded . . . well, at least we tried. Nobody will be able to accuse us of letting things slide over the edge into chaos without doing our best to prevent that.
As for assessing the election results tonight and over the next few days, the American Spectator has some very amusing suggestions as to how to assess what's going on.
We on the red team will know we’re having a rough night if these things happen:
John King is working the big CNN election map with a drink in one hand.
We’re shown film of Antifa members serving as poll monitors in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh.
A conservative-heavy precinct with long lines is reported to have run out of ballots at 10 a.m.
Late in the day, NBC, coming out of commercials, is playing “Happy Days Are Here Again.”
. . .
But if the following is happening, then the red team is having a nice night:
Rachel Maddow is taking off her glasses and wiping her eyes a lot.
PolitiFact is reported to be rehiring the 500 fact-checkers who were laid off after Biden won the presidency and Democrats won the Senate.
Hunter Biden is seen boarding a flight to Brunei, which has no extradition treaty with the U.S.
CBS is going to commercial breaks and coming out of commercial breaks to [the] strains of Mozart’s Requiem.
That's the opinion of Amanda Little, writing at Bloomberg.
Preppers, as the community of bunker builders and food hoarders is known, emerged during the Cold War as fears of nuclear holocaust drove some people to go to great lengths to prepare for survival in a burned-out world. But as the movement persisted over the decades, it has been mostly ignored by mainstream society, myself included, which came to view preppers mainly as paranoid radicals.
So it's more than a little uncomfortable to confront the reality that this fringe industry is increasingly mainstream. In fact, in an era of growing environmental volatility and geopolitical unrest, Augason and his competitors appear downright prescient, maybe even pragmatic.
Disaster after disaster has reminded us all of the disturbing premise underpinning prepper thinking: We’re increasingly at risk of being cut off from our normal food supply. One recent report predicts that the survival food industry, which now produces very roughly $500 million in annual sales (privately held manufacturers don't like to share their numbers), will grow by $2.8 billion by 2026.
The growth of this industry speaks volumes about the fear mindset that has crept into mainstream consumer behavior. You probably have at least one friend, colleague or neighbor who has been toying with the idea of becoming a “prepper.” Maybe not building a full-on bunker, but lining their pantries with long-storage food in the event that another major storm, blizzard, wildfire or another public health crisis hits.
I've never been a prepping extremist. I simply grew up in Africa, where in most countries the supply of food is precarious at best, subject to interruptions of many kinds, from drought or other natural disaster through banditry to all-out civil war. Anyone with any sense there stores at least a few weeks' worth of essential supplies, because one never knows when one might not be able to buy more of them. After coming to the USA, experience with Hurricanes Katrina and Rita drove home the lessons I'd already learned in Africa, and reinforced them.
I began pounding the "prepping" drum in earnest after those hurricanes, because I could see how simple population growth was putting the world's supply of food at risk. It's not that there isn't enough food in normal times; there is - but it has to be moved from where it is to where it's needed, and that's a whole lot more difficult when shipping is tied up with moving consumer goods, and older ships are retired because it costs too much to keep them in service, and airlines can't carry bulk food because it's not cost-effective, and trains are short of the fuel needed to move from one country to another. What our cities need in the way of food is available, but it's hundreds or thousands of miles from the shops and distribution facilities closest to those who need it, and we can no longer take it for granted that it'll be able to cover that distance. The current diesel shortage is only one element of the problem. There are many more.
Thousands of tons of wheat and canola is stranded in Canada after rain has hampered deliveries at the country’s largest port during peak shipping season.
Grain terminals in Vancouver are having trouble loading and unloading grain amid heavy, persistent rain in British Columbia, creating a backlog of trains that are unable to deliver to the port, said David Przednowek, assistant vice president of grain for Canadian National Railway Co. At least 12 fully-loaded unit trains, carrying more than 100,000 tons, are parked on the Prairies waiting to deliver, he said.
“Nobody wants to see those trains idle,” Przednowek said Friday by phone. “Everybody wants to move it. We just can’t.”
I'm not going to go into all the details of our own agricultural situation, and inflation, and supply chain bottlenecks, and all the other ramifications. We've talked about them a lot in recent months. Suffice it to say that our cities and supermarkets are not ready to deal with an interruption of even a week in the arrival of foodstuffs and critical supplies. Our transportation system is increasingly broken, from drought affecting the Mississippi, to diesel fuel prices and availability affecting trucking, to supply bottlenecks affecting everything. It's never made more sense to have a food reserve in your home, so that if such interruptions arrive (perhaps I should say "when"), we can get through them. If we can afford it, there's no reason not to prepare for longer shortages.
If you haven't already done so, I can only urge you to make what preparations you can, even at this late hour. They probably won't be adequate (unless you have very deep pockets and can afford to pay through the nose to buy and have delivered all that you'll need), but they'll be a lot better than nothing.
Yesterday I heard the sad news that a man I'd known for almost two decades had died of a drug overdose. I'll call him Steve (not his real name), because his family is in mourning right now, and they wouldn't want his name or location shared. I daresay many of you have known Steves in your own life.
Steve got into drugs and alcohol in his teens, because both were freely available in the city where he lived. Drug pushers used to hang around high schools, offering free hits to students in the hope of ensnaring them in addiction so they'd become long-term customers. At that time Steve only indulged in marijuana, but as so often happened, it proved to be a "gateway drug" for him. He cleaned up his act to serve a term in the US armed forces, but had some experiences in the invasion of Iraq that left a profound impression on him. He began to use marijuana again, and was caught. His commanding officer had enough compassion to simply refuse to allow him to re-enlist, rather than charge him with an offense. In hindsight, it might have been better for Steve to be charged and convicted; it might have given him a wake-up call. Sadly, that didn't happen.
Steve parlayed his military training as a driver into a commercial drivers license, and spent long days on the road while studying part-time to become a diesel mechanic. He continued to use marijuana, and to drink, which led to a couple of brushes with the law. Again, sadly, the officers concerned "gave him a break" and didn't charge him; just told him to "straighten up and fly right", took him off the road until he'd sobered up, then let him go. Eventually, he was caught by an officer who played it by the book, and his employer fired him when he was convicted of DUI. His CDL was also endorsed and suspended.
He spent a couple of years completing his mechanics training, working wherever he could find a job to earn enough to support himself. During that time he met the lady who would become his wife. They married the same week he graduated, and began to build a family together. Three kids would come along over the next decade. Sadly, Steve slid further and further down the slope of drug and alcohol abuse. That put his marriage under severe strain; I think his wife was something of a saint, because she didn't move out and take the kids with her. She had a lot of support from her own family, who made it clear to Steve that if he lifted a finger to her or the kids, he wouldn't have a finger left to do it again. He knew they meant it.
Steve began using harder drugs over time. By 2015 he'd tried methamphetamines, and a couple of years later began using heroin. I was far from where he lived by then, but I heard about it occasionally from a mutual friend. By 2020 he moved out of the family home and lived on the street. His wife and her family tried to get him the help he needed, but he wouldn't accept it, and refused to enter a residential detox program. As always in such cases of addiction, one can't help the addict unless and until they face up to the reality of their problem, and realize that it's up to them to change. One can't change them from the outside.
Steve's long decline and fall came to an end last Friday. The cops suspect his last purchase of heroin was contaminated with fentanyl. The autopsy will reveal the truth.
His widow and kids have had to do without him for a long time, but their strong family network has helped them get through his absence. Perhaps now, with his malign influence no longer hovering over them, however distantly, they'll be able to make a fresh start together.
I've had far too much experience with drug and alcohol abuse, from working with street people in a church program in South Africa as a teenager, to serving alongside abusers in the military and the commercial world, to dealing with them as a pastor and prison chaplain. The latter was the worst. One would think that drug dealing and use could be more easily controlled in a high-security prison than on the street, but you'd be wrong. Inmates can get what they want in various ways, and they usually succeed. I've had more than a few long support sessions with inmates trying to break the habit; but their own cellmates and fellow prisoners all too often actively try to sabotage their efforts. It's almost as if they think that if one of their own can break free, it's a black mark against the rest of them, a revelation of their own weakness; so they constantly try to drag others down to their level. I never did understand that.
At any rate, I thought it might be informative to listen to some of the many songs about addiction that are out there. Some of the most famous singers and entertainers in the world have fallen into that trap, and put it into words and music later on - those who survived, that is. Many did not. I need only mention Jimi Hendrix as an example. Think of the music that died with him, that we've never heard!
Let's start with Johnny Cash and "The Junkie's Prayer".
During 1989, Joe Elliott of Def Leppard made a trip to Dublin, Ireland. He says of it: "I was distressed beyond belief to see so many heroin addicts just sitting around on the street corners, just shooting up in plain sight of everybody. I got home and I just couldn't stop thinking about it, so I decided from a lyrical point of view that this song was going to be written from the inside. In other words, it was going to be the heroin singing, or talking, or narrating the lyric to the listener." That's what Def Leppard called the song: "From The Inside".
In 1994, Nine Inch Nails produced the song "Mr. Self Destruct". I don't like this song at all: but I have to say, as an example of so-called "industrial rock" and a portrayal of the internal dissonance experienced by many drug addicts, it's ground-breaking and very important. Its very nature portrays the reality of its title.
In 1997, Creed introduced the song "My Own Prison" on their first album. Here's an acoustic version.
Finally, one of Def Leppard's guitarists, Steve Clarke, died of alcohol and drug abuse in 1991. In his memory, the group recorded the song "White Lightning", released on their album "Adrenalize" in 1992. In my opinion, it's one of the most powerful songs about drug addiction I've ever heard. Sadly, the lyrics are sometimes obscured by the instruments, but if you need them, you'll find the lyrics here. These two verses stand out in my mind as an epitaph for so many addicts I've known.
You wanna leave but you can't let go You wanna stop but you can't say no (You never laugh about it, you just can't live without it) You've had enough but you just want more You never get what you're looking for (You never laugh about it)
You've got both ends burning Like a moth to a flame You're going off the rails Like a runaway train It's a no-win situation And there's no way out And no one will ever hear you - Scream and shout
May all of those who have lost their lives to addiction, and all those fighting it, and all those who love them who are trying as best they can to live with them and help them, receive God's blessing and mercy; and may they all be given the grace to respond, preferably in this life, but if not, in the next.
Spammer accounts have cropped up en masse over the past couple of weeks. I'd hoped they'd go away after finding all their comments deleted, but they've stuck around.
Therefore, until further notice, all comments on this blog will be moderated. I can't look at them very often, so it may take several hours between your making a comment and it appearing here. I'm sorry about that, but on the Blogger system there's no way to ban an IP address, so I have to apply moderation to every comment.
I hope that'll be less frustrating than having to read gormless idiot comments from gormless idiot spammers.
