No Man’s Land

I sit this morning with all media turned off to be with my thoughts, impressions, and prayers as I try and make sense of the election day and the four years leading up to yesterday and today. It is quiet but it is not a peaceful quiet. I am recollecting and pondering what I consider to be our nation’s first virtual election its implications today and potentially going forward. The nearest example to this eerie silence is the eerie silence that I have experienced before battle commences in military field exercises and the silence one experiences just before going outside the wire in a hostile combat zone. A sort of no man’s land in which anything could happen. The silence that one hopes they have all their kit in order and that their training will be sufficient for any contingency and that help will be close enough should contact be made. However, one difference today that I sense is I am not sure where or if there will be any help.

Let me state up front that I call this our nation’s first virtual election because as I recall the events of the last several years I am waking up even more to the corrupting influence Silicon Valley is having on our nations media, political class, and business in general. I will also state up front that it is not just Silicon Valley that is the corrupting influence but rather the dark unholy marriage between Silicon Valley’s vast financial resources with the corrupt political, media and business classes in our country.

In the last several weeks an expanded vision of corruption and the extent to which the vile nefarious wraith like influence of Silicon Valley’s influence has dawned in my consciousness. The vision of Jack Dorsey’s hollow sunken distracted eyes set in his hollow cheeked scraggly bearded face has haunted me since watching him get grilled by Senator Cruz. The brazen disrespect as exemplified by what I consider to be statements bordering on perjury regarding Twitter’s policies regarding posts and accounts that they ban and the reasons they do so just rang hallow to me. It took nearly another week for Twitter to remove their ban on the New York Post’s reporting of the Hunter Bidden laptop. It appears to me that Jack Dorsey considers himself to be above the law.

The next idea or realization that occurred to me is looking geographically where the most left leaning politicians in the country reside and represent relative to Silicon Valley. Obviously, we have Nancy Pelosi from San Francisco, Kamala Harris from Oakland, California. Two cities within a half hour drive of Silicon Valley when traffic is not too congested. Then radiate outward from here my mind goes to Hollywood a mere one hour flight from Silicon Valley which is represented by none other than Adam Schiff. And to the north we go to Portland another hour’s flight from Silicon Valley and finally up to Seattle maybe another half hour flight beyond Portland. Spreading east over time we have seen Nevada, Colorado, Arizona, and other states gradually leaning and going more left with passing time.  This year we have witnessed vast and huge sums of money being poured into political races throughout the country to include the South Carolina and Iowa Senate races. Where did this money come from?

I witnessed the Dot Com bubble and bust in the 1990’s and in fact participated peripherally in many of the conversations and actually embraced the advent of the internet and personal computing. I used an Intel based 286 computer to type up some of the first work packages, letters, and data base manipulations for my work and loved the flexibility and power that if provided at the tip of my fingertips. Using the Intel based 386 computer I explored the internet for the first time setting up an email account and communicating with my local universities servers I thought I was the mater of my own universe.

I remember visiting friends in the San Francisco Bay Area in the 1990’s and the energy and euphoria of the boom were palpable as one could almost taste the excitement and buzz surrounding the amount of wealth being created and generated. My friend’s wife started to work for a startup company and part of her compensation package was options on the company’s stock as promises were made, co-workers were investing their money in tech stocks expecting to retire at the age of thirty, and on and on and on. I remember noting the apparent, even then, ruthless competition to acquire talent as campuses were being created to keep employees satisfied and the vast sums of money being thrown at engineers to entice them to work for these companies. All the while property values and the cost of living in the San Francisco Bay Area continued to up and up and up.

Of course, this all came crashing down wiping out many life savings in the process and bankrupting countless internet and tech startups as it probably should. It is the way of business and only the strongest survived. To survive the slaughterhouse of the late nineties I will also submit that not only were some of these companies the strongest but some of them were the most ruthless. For instance, Amazon emerged taking out whole industries starting with brick and mortar book sellers. I will admit that Amazon is much more efficient at moving product than the traditional book seller but I am one who enjoyed the physical act of going to a store that smelled of new books, where one could browse many genres of books, and where one could sit down and manually flip through pages scanning and deciding if this was the right purchase for me. It was not a virtual experience illuminated by photons emanating from a computer screen. The survivors of this onslaught came out stronger, with increased market share, and began accumulating wealth beyond imagination.

What does one do when they have accumulated so much wealth that they do not know what to do with it? Personally, I do not know as I have not experienced this in this lifetime. But I have observed people like Bill and Melinda Gates building an expansive mansion near Seattle and starting a Foundation. I have seen Jeff Bezos continue to expand his reach into media, food, back to setting up brick and mortar store fronts, and seemingly reach to become the wealthiest man in the world. Google has quietly acquired countless companies while becoming a verb along with the most visited search engine on the internet. Facebook, to me is a time suck and quite honestly is drug like. I have spent some time on Facebook and have been shocked at how quickly the time has gone by engaging in conversations, reading posts, and making posts. Mark Zuckerberg has been quiet with where he spends his money at least from my point of view Twitter, on the other hand, sort of came out of nowhere in my world as I was already becoming disillusioned with the internet and all things Silicon Valley when they broke on the scene. And after seeing Jack Dorsey’s wraithlike drug fueled eyes I am glad I have not given Twitter much of my time or energy.

Where do they spend their money? Though I do not direct proof as I do not have the resources to thoroughly investigate my suspicions it has dawned on me that there is a pattern developing and patterns that I am suspicious of. First off, there is a rise in left wing Democratic politicians on the national stage who are from California. Nancy Pelosi, Kamala Harris, and Adam Schiff come to mind. Second, California is now a one party state and this has happened since the rise of Silicon Valley wealth. Nevada, Oregon, Washington are just about one party states and this shift has all happened since the wealth of Silicon Valley has been accumulated. The largest beneficiaries of the COVID 19 crisis has been Silicon Valley and their monopoly on virtual communications platforms and shopping. How many hundreds of millions of dollars of money were poured into Democratic Party candidate’s coffers? To me there is only one industry that can support the type of funding across the country and in the manner that the money was spent and the industry is tech and the media outlets it supports and is in collusion with. Have we, as a country, entered the land of Mordor in which the ever present eye of Sauron could fall upon us at any time and deploy his wraiths to do his bidding?

I know see the lines more clearly now and it frightens me. I am frightened and awestruck at the lengths these people will apparently go to maintain their power and influence. I now have to question the legitimacy of some conspiratorial theories that COVID 19 was a creation of an alliance between international leftists in the United States and the Chinese Communist Party to ensure President Trump is not reelected as possibly being correct. It seems while the majority of the people are in isolation a great power grab is being undertaken by leftist elites who are more than willing to censor, further isolate, black mail, and threaten violence in order to lead our country into a leftist collective hell hole ruled by an ever shrinking minority. If President Trump loses this election it will be a close loss and I have to wonder had there not been COCID 19 in which the Joe Biden campaign literally was able to get massive virtual support through television commercials, Silicon Valley censorship and suppression, media suppression of relevant news while in person meetings were limited if not outright banned by Democrat Governors in the battleground state would President Trump have won by a landslide? Would President Trump have clearly won once Democratic strongholds with ease? Again, with COVID 19 restrictions in place this election became a virtual election that played into the hands of Silicon Valley and their surrogates at the expense of freedom.

Random Musings 10.20.2020

Once again it is time for some Twitter (for those with a litigious bent there is a trademark symbol just after the “r” in the previous word) like random musings from the mind of a quiet, unassuming, at least in my own opinion, person observing the ramblings, rumblings and revelations in the media. Additionally, it appears that Twitter would most likely censor what I have to say any way and Facebook certainly would censor what I have to say.

I have been quiet the past couple of weeks because I, quite frankly, need a break from all of the junk on the news coming from both sides. However, I just watched the Clint Eastwood story of Richard Jewell, the security guard initially accused of planting the bomb at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta. Needless to say, the movie left me angry and reminded me and brought my mind back to current events. Specifically, what brought my attention back is how in the story and unholy alliance between and FBI agent and a member of the press unleashed a witch hunt on an innocent man. An innocent man who was smeared and whose family was put through a press fueled ringer. All this for a crime committed by a man who later plead guilty to the crime.

So, if this happened more than 24 years ago how am I to believe, in today’s world anything that the FBI or government bureaucrats say? How am I to be expected to believe anything that the media says? So, now we have the FBI who spied on citizen and President Trump based on trumped up (all pun intended) charges when they claim Russian interference is responsible for Hunter Biden’s computer being left at a computer repair shop? How am I to believe all the major press outlets print and digital with the exception of Fox News and the New York Post? How am I supposed to believe all who appear to be in an all-out blitz to prevent President Trump from being reelected?

Oh yes, has anyone else found it fascinating that COVID cases are on the rise within mere weeks of the election?

Governor Newsome is now recommending that Thanksgiving celebrations in California? I am shaking my head.

I also have been traveling and have in fact flow into and a little out of the swamp of Washington DC in the last week and perhaps this is why I can not longer avoid the news and have to write something. It seeps out of the television and where I am staying, I am seeing BLM t shirts and hats being worn by people openly. I have to admit that my first thoughts are to ask if the people wearing them understand that they are supporting a Marxist organization?

Also, I have been watching CSPAN 2 the last couple of mornings and have to admit that I am unsure what to say. On one morning being interviewed by Karen Tumotty of the Washington Post were the coauthors of a book called Presidents, Populism, and Crisis of Democracy: Terry Moe and William Howell. This morning a woman named Tara McGowen was one of the people being interviewed and each morning the named people were Progressive apologists and supporters of the Progressive movement. Again, I felt a visceral reaction as these people are quite eloquent and truly believe in what they are saying. To be honest this is what frightens me. This frightens me because I do not believe these intellectuals really give a rip about me nor do they understand the laws of physics. I think these people truly believe that because they say something it is true and if anyone disagrees with them, they will do whatever it takes to suppress opposing views. Perhaps, they are being paid by Facebook, Google, and or Amazon? This is a small example of the problem that exists in our institutes of higher learning. Their minds are made up and using circular logic they are professing to know what is best for me.

Good on the Justice Department for filing a suit against Google. I am still waiting to see how people who ran a coup against a duly elected President are going to pay for their crimes.

I think I may have a new byline for my home page, and it is going to be something like, “Eventually the laws of physics will trump the laws of man”. The question is when and in what form will the laws of physics push back and slap the laws of man in the face?

Random Musings 10.8.20

Once again it is time for some Twitter (for those with a litigious bent there is a trademark symbol just after the “r” in the previous word) like random musings from the mind of a quiet, unassuming, at least in my own opinion, person observing the ramblings, rumblings and revelations in the media. Additionally, it appears that Twitter would most likely censor what I have to say any way and Facebook certainly would censor what I have to say.

I will not Zoom my Thanksgiving dinner! F*&k you CDC and any others who would even suggest this. I am my family consist of responsible adults who can make their own choices. Go back to being good little bureaucrats and keep your noses out of my business because you are no longer scientists.

So, the Presidential Commission on Debates wants to have a virtual debate because of COVID fears. Hmm, let me see I wonder if I could have backed out of my deployment to Afghanistan because of my fear of being killed? No, I took an oath to defend the Constitution of the United States and so I did my duty. Excuse me Commissioners the Presidential Election is guaranteed by the Constitution and your fears of COVID ring hallow to me. Wear PPE and if you get it, the odds are you will not die. The numbers just do not back it up. Besides President Trump obviously has beaten it and so will not be in danger.

I think it is a great thing that the FBI broke up the plot against the Michigan Governor. I do not agree with any one of her policies but there is a way to legally remove her from office and that is the way to go about it in my opinion. Now, why can they not bring charges against the members of the Justice Department who plotted a coup against the duly elected President of the United States and arrest the bastards who committed these seditious acts?

Grandma Nancy Pelosi will not pass any COVID relief because she cannot get her pork passed? Good for you President Trump!

Random Musings 9.30.20

Once again it is time for some Twitter (for those with a litigious bent there is a trademark symbol just after the “r” in the previous word) like random musings from the mind of a quiet, unassuming, at least in my own opinion, person observing the ramblings, rumblings and revelations in the media. Additionally, it appears that Twitter would most likely censor what I have to say any way and Facebook certainly would censor what I have to say.

Since I was working at something last night, I missed the beginning of the Presidential Debate. I did listen to it on my drive home and watched the last half hour or so once I got home. I have the following comments:

Chris Wallace pinged on President Trump and certainly was not objective. He even seemed to bail Joe Biden out more than once.

The debate format stunk.

President Trump never once mentioned draining the swamp. I hope he has not become a permanent denizen.

Joe Biden was either very well rested or on some sort of drugs.

I think the Trump team should bring some radio jamming equipment with them next time. At times it looked like Joe Biden was listening to someone for his response and a simple visual inspection is not enough to confirm the presence or absence of an earpiece. Surgically implanted? Perhaps.

Random Musings 9.18.20

Once again it is time for some Twitter (for those with a litigious bent there is a trademark symbol just after the “r” in the previous word) like random musings from the mind of a quiet, unassuming, at least in my own opinion, person observing the ramblings, rumblings and revelations in the media. Additionally, it appears that Twitter would most likely censor what I have to say any way and Facebook certainly would censor what I have to say.

I cannot believe so much time has passed since my last post already. This especially considering all the events that have happened and so much that could be commented on. Then again perhaps it is because all the events going on that have prevented me from typing.

In my part of the world we have been sucking California’s smoke for literally the last month except for three days. Today is one of the relatively smoke free days and maybe that is a reason for me doing some typing.

Hmm, it seems that Senator John Thune is partners with Senator Lee in supporting and protecting big tech. Senator Thune why don’t you just confirm President Trump’s FCC nomination? I wonder how much they have paid you, your campaign, and or one or some of your constituents. Are you a RINO or just a greedy bastard?

And the cheat by mail fraud scandal continues on with Pennsylvania and Michigan being the latest characters to join in the plot.

I hear that the State of Nevada Governor (Steve Sisolak) is now withholding coronavirus relief funds from the county that hosted President Trump last weekend. What a petty little man.

Talk about another petty man and petty dictator the mayor of Nashville is another one. I just cannot help but wonder how many more of the petty men and women in positions of power are doing the same?

I finally got around to taking my NFL, MLB, and NBA teams off of my DVR list. The next things for me to do are to cancel my Netflix subscription and shutdown my Google accounts.

I wonder if Prince Harry knew what Meghan Markle was really about when he married her? I would think that Marxism flies in the face of all that his family stands for but then again, he did step back from his official duties.

Random Musings 8.21.20

Once again it is time for some Twitter (for those with a litigious bent there is a trademark symbol just after the “r” in the previous word) like random musings from the mind of a quiet, unassuming, at least in my own opinion, person observing the ramblings, rumblings and revelations in the media. Additionally, it appears that Twitter would most likely censor what I have to say any way and Facebook certainly would censor what I have to say.

Fifty three years ago the Summer of Love happened in San Francisco in which, apparently, the media fawned over the hippies and their “counterculture” movement. Now, fifty three years later with some of those same hippies and their acolytes fully ensconced in power it appears the counterculture movement has morphed. Now they organize and support the Summer of Hate counterculture movement.

I read a great sign the other day and it said, “Do not question authority, they do not know the answer either.”

I wonder how much money from international donors goes to finance domestic political campaigns.

To the General and Flag officers of the US military. Please do not allow the COVID vaccine to be tested on the members of the military. Remember the junior members of the military are in your charge.

I watched a shingles vaccine commercial the other day and all of the actors were elderly. Then it suddenly dawned upon me that the COVID response is a Baby Boom Generation response. I say this because the Baby Boom generation essentially is the generation in charge of government at the present time. Judging by history this is one of the most selfish generations ever in the United States and now, when faced with their own mortality, what do they do and support? It appears to me that a lot of the fear that is currently being peddled is being directed at the elderly and for good reason considering the elderly are most likely to be killed or experience long term effects from the virus. But shut down the whole nation and its economy? Like everything else the Baby Boomers will leave a wide wake behind them as they depart. Their mantra seems to be if I cannot have fun then you cannot have fun!

What is up with Justice Roberts siding with allowing the State of Nevada to keep churches closed? What happened to the separation of church and state and First Amendment Rights? I say church and state because the secular progressive dogma has infiltrated the state, evidently.

I heard a couple of weeks ago that Mayor DeBlasio of New York City is putting up COVID check points going into the city. It really does not bother be because why would I want to visit that s&*t hole?

I read something else somewhere that the Silicon Valley FANGS are scrubbing data from their websites. In particular, any data supporting conservative principals or counter to the progressive Marxist agenda. George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty Four’s dystopia is knocking on our door!

I wonder what would happen if I showed up in Portland with a wheelbarrow full of Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto and started burning them? I wonder if the response would be the same as if I showed up with a wheelbarrow full of Holy Bibles?

The Vietnam Veteran: The Forgotten Generation of American Patriots (Originally Posted on Veteran’s Day 2018)

When I was young, I started out in the work force and considering I was born when the Vietnam War was in its heyday, I could not help but find myself working along many Vietnam War veterans. In the eighties at a time that the end of the Vietnam War was slightly over a decade in the past. I can remember a gentleman who hid a beer can inside a hallowed out seven up can and could not get through the day without a couple of beers. I learned later that he had gone out on a patrol and was the only survivor of his squad. Another gentleman picked up a stick and within two days carved out a k bar knife in excruciating detail. He had been a US Navy SEALS and did not talk too much about what he did, but he did share a couple of telling items. The first was a story was about being dropped off in Seattle after his enlistment. In the story he was in a bar and someone called him a baby killer. He said within seconds he had the person on the ground and was about to tear the guys throat out when someone pulled him off. In retrospect how grateful he did not kill that man. The other about how one of his teammates had gone completely off the grid somewhere in the Northern California woods and would only talk with his Vietnam team mates. Yet another gentleman that I worked with woke up at 4:00 every morning to take care of farm animals before coming into work for a long day of sometimes manual labor. His eyes would at times go far away and mist up. He had been in the US Army Special Forces and he did not talk about what he had done or saw.

Moving forward slightly over a half a decade later I worked with a gentleman who had served in Cambodia and Laos in the US Marine Corp. He too almost killed someone when he returned home because he had been spat on. This, of course, was in California. He credited the Marine Corp with getting him some psychological help that calmed him down. He made the comment that if he had not been on active duty at the time and had not received the treatment, he probably would have killed someone and ended up in prison.  Later in life, when I was preparing to go to Afghanistan, a gentleman that I had met as a professional insisted that he meet with me before my deployment. A person who I had known for more than ten years and had worked on several projects with confided in me that he had served as a young enlisted man in the US Marine Corp doing a tour in Vietnam. During the conversation he asked me to keep confidential that fact because the people in the industry that we were professionals in would have, in his opinion, not favored his service favorably. He too mentioned the shame that our country showed toward these returning veterans upon their return from Vietnam.

I have spoken with many Vietnam Veterans and they all seem to have had some variation of the same story.  This was the shame that was heaped upon them when they returned home. Fortunately for me many lessons were learned and upon my return from war it has been so much easier to talk about PTSD and the lingering effects of being in a war zone and etc. I thank heaven this is the case because it is not easy and it is real, speaking from personal experience, and I now have a small glimpse about what they went through upon their return and what they probably still experience. I say this because being a uniformed member of the armed services in a war zone has changed me in ways that I would have never expected.

Yesterday I went to my first Veteran’s Day parade and I must admit I was nervous about attending. For many reasons I was fearful about what my emotional response would be. I experienced a spectrum of emotions including, as previously mentioned, fear, stoic tension, anger, laughter, and relief. I will not go into details, but I am glad that I went. Next year I may even try to cajole my family along since after all they are a veteran family.

What struck me is the overwhelming majority of Vietnam Veterans in the parade. I am pumped up that some many of them are stepping up to keep the tradition alive considering what they went through upon their return and in the years afterwards. What I believe is somewhat of a lost generation of men in this country is and has found its way back into society. It saddens me that essentially some of the best years of their lives were wasted thanks to Hollywood figures such as Jane Fonda and the leftist antiwar movement demonizing the everyday soldier. However, thanks to their sacrifice I and others of my generation did not experience that. I was heartened to see one banner that essentially said though the Vietnam Veterans are the lost generation we will never leave behind another generations. They truly are living up to that and I thank them for that. Happy Veterans Day to all the veterans and their families and thanks to all for their service.