Intercepted phone calls reveal Russian frontline troops complaining of heavy losses, poor supplies
Tuesday, September 5, 2023
Ready to Fire, Sir: Northrop Grumman’s Ray Guns Ready for Action
Ready to Fire, Sir: Northrop Grumman’s Ray Guns Ready for Action
Sunday, September 3, 2023
The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration
The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson
This was the author’s first book and she won the Pulitzer Prize fir it. In my opinion it was well deserved. This book about the black migration from the south to the rest of the country (1914-1975) fills a gap in social history. She did a tremendous amount of research and interviews. The writing is like velvet. I am not the only writer who envies her talent.
She follows the migration of three people who sought in three different decades to escape the indignities and violence of Jim Crow. She follows their life and families in New York, Chicago, and Las Angeles, and the racism they found there. People who say we are a racist country would have been right in those years. Coming home from Camp Lejeune in 1864, we stopped in Rocky Mount, NC to change buses. I went into the snack bar and found I was invisible to the waitresses. I realized they were all black. Serving me would have put them at risk. I found the larger, white snack bar on the other side of the building.
The great migration not only changed America and the cities, but destroyed overt racism in the country, eventually the south as well when they found they had a labor shortage. If you have any empathy at all, parts of this book will make you angry. Parts will make you admire it as well. I knew about the great migration, but not the details and the ongoing impact on people and the country. I highly recommend this book.
Robert A. Hall, Amazon Author
“Quotes for the Conservative Heart
Random Thoughts for September 2023
Random Thoughts for September 2023
Robert A. Hall
Health: My back aches. I’m tired all the time. My
hearing seems to be getting worse. My balance is bad. So, I’m fine. Had a renal
appointment. My kidneys are doing well, creatinine is 1.4, but there were
traces of blood in my urine and the amount of protein in my urine is growing. They
had me do another urine test the same day, scheduled more blood work in two
weeks, and will schedule an ultra sound to be sure it isn’t caused by cancer. Gave
me pills for the protein.
I have
decided to give up teaching chess, though I will miss the kids. One girl said
she wanted to be a chess teacher like me when she grew up. A boy sent me a post
card thanking me. A girl drew a thank-you card with a dragon on it. Several had
their picture taken with me, often with the trophies they bought by earning
chess dollars. I had many nice comments from parents. But after teaching six
weeks of chess summer camp, Monday-Thursday, three hours a day, I realized I
was putting in twice as many hours as I was compensated for, and putting a lot
more gas in the tank than what they pay in gas money covered. Not to mention
running the printer with special handouts for my kids, or picking up used chess
sets at thrift stores to give to kids who don’t have one. Of course, the fact
that my vision and hearing is getting worse, and I’m too tired to haul around
the 70-80lb. suitcase with 10 chess sets, books, demo board, etc. contributed
to my decision.
What does Sen. Tim Scott stand for?
https://www.ontheissues.org/House/Tim_Scott.htm
I read in National Review that 3/4th
of university Diversity Officers are white. And can make up to $424k a year!
There’s a lot of money in discriminating against the Whites, Asians, and Jews.
Jim Crow recognized a person as black with one drop
of black blood. Will Jim Reparations use the same standard?
If parents had a way to determine if a child was
going to be Gay, would the left support their right to abort that child?
Violence has always been normal around the world in
political disputes. Now that Antifa and BLM are bringing increasing political
violence to America they will provoke increasing counter violence.
“If
all mankind minus one were of one opinion, mankind would be no more justified
in silencing that one person than he, if he had the power, would be justified
in silencing mankind.” ~ John Stuart Mill
Fight
Fuzzy Thinking!
“There
remain 73 countries in the world where it is illegal to be gay, and eight in
which being gay is punishable by death.” ~ The Madness of Crowds by
Douglas Murrey.
Contrary
to what the Left tells you, the Roberts Court has overturned precedent less
often than the Warren, Burger, or Rehnquist courts.
Nothing
is obnoxious as a fundamentalist progressive.
Progressives
think that if you don’t think just as they do, you are evil. And if their
leaders change their minds—say like the Clintons on Gay marriage—they will
change their minds, and you better too!
When
a tech company says you have violated their “Community Standards,” they mean
the standards of their far-left Silicon Valley community.
Maybe
it’s guilt. While companies like Google preach diversity, according to The
Madness of Crowds, “Google’s workforce is only 4% Hispanics and 2% African
American. At 56%, whites are not over represented compared to the wider population,
but Asians make up 35% of Google staff and have been steadily reducing the
number of white employees despite making up only 5% of the population.” I guess
at Google, competence matters more than diversity.
Teaching
chess summer camp in DeForest, I turned at a bar and grill that also offered
bait and tackle. Welcome to Wisconsin.
Gratitude
is as dead as chivalry.
“The
Wolf at the door is your greatest Danger, and not only in Winter.” ~ Russian
Proverb, from The Wolf at the Door by Jack Higgins.
Putting
diversity ahead of ability is racism.
If
Trump had committed the irregularities that Biden has, the Democrats would be
screaming. And vice versa.
Sometimes
I put my GPS on just to piss it off by taking back roads.
When
I was a young man, people dreamed of fulfilling Martin Luther king’s dream of a
color-blind society. Now “color blind” is racist. Does that make King as
racist? After all, anything you did in the past can still be held against you.
And everything your ancestors did—except for Kamela Harris’ slave-owning ancestors—can
be held against you.
And
when I was a young man, black people were referred to as colored people. That
now is racist, but “people of color” is the height of political correctness. Go
figure. There is no avoiding the woke landmines unless you are in a favored
group.
If
you can’t trust the scientists, you can’t trust the science.
“A
martial nobility and stubborn commons, possessed of arms, tenacious of
property, and collected into constitutional assemblies, form the only balance capable
of preserving a free constitution against enterprises of an aspiring prince.” ~
Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Republic.
Do
not fall in love with a politician. You will find yourself defending the indefensible.
Support the ones you believe in, but keep a clear head.
“Doesn’t matter what the press says. Doesn’t matter what
the politicians or the mobs say. Doesn’t matter if the whole country decides
that something wrong is something right. This nation was founded on one
principle above all else: the requirement that we stand up for what we believe,
no matter the odds or the consequences. When the mob and the press and the
whole world tell you to move, your job is to plant yourself like a tree beside
the river of truth, and tell the whole world — “No, you move.” ~ Mark
Twain
Nothing
fills Wisconsin drivers with despair like a “Road Construction Ahead” sign.
Ultinatims
are usually a mistake.
Money
is fungible. If you give a terrorist-supporting country humanitarian aid, it
frees up other money to support terrorism.
*****
Email from a professor: “Your book of quotations arrived and I plunged
right into it! Yes, the section on guns was one if the first things that I
read. You have compiled an impressive set of wise comments. Bravo.”
Quotes for the Conservative Heart: Ideas as Weapons of Defense
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0B576XFSX?ref_=pe_3052080_397514860
Print $9.99:
Kindle $2.99:
Quotes for the Conservative Heart is a collection of over 1,900
quotes, thoughts, and adages that will make you think (which may be an
uncomfortable experience), which will help you defend yourself against ad
hominin attacks, and which will help your writing and speaking. They will
inspire you to fight a bit harder and a bit longer. As necessary to your
security as an extra magazine, this book will help you identify threats to you,
your family, and your culture. Open carry (of this book) is encouraged. We hope
it will be a constant companion and a treasured possession. If you like it,
please review on Amazon, and tell your friends.
Robert A. Hall is a Marine Vietnam Veteran who served five terms in the
Massachusetts State Senate. He is the author of The Coming Collapse of the
American Republic. http://www.amazon.com/Coming-Collapse-American-Republic-prevent/dp/1461122538/ref=sr_1_5?s=booksandie=UTF8andqid=1304815980andsr=1-5 For a
free PDF of Collapse, e-mail him at tartanmarine(at)gmail.com. Hall’s other books
are listed here: https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/7362663422037727028/9086317755245136353
His blog of political news and conservative comment is www.tartanmarine.blogspot.com. He was a
writer-editor in the My Life, My Story program as the Madison VA Hospital,
interviewing vets and writing up their life histories. He now teaching chess to
kids after school.
Wednesday, August 30, 2023
AI
I've been reading up on this, listening to lectures, watching videos.
It's getting to where you wonder how many jobs AI can make redundant,what will be left for intelligent and skilled people to do.
Minor example from BBC is that the expertise of London cabbies was
critical to their business, it took years to really get familiar with the
mixture of streets there. Same would be true for Boston and other
places. Now the cab has a GPS in it and the driver only has to know how
to follow directions.
Kids cheating on essay assignments is already very well known and schools
are trying to figure out what to do about it.
There have been nice examples of how clever the AI program can be. For
instance, ask for and 800 word article on why it was a truly terrible
thing for the USA to ever get involved with the war in Viet Nam and what
the terrible results were. Then ask for an 800 word article on why it
was so important for the USA and what the positive results were.
You get two essays, both in excellent English, with very well structured
arguments and references that leave little doubt as to how correct each
is. Both will have at least some elements of factual truth in them.
Only an expert historian could go through them and show why one is less
correct or more correct than the other, where the inputs have some bias
or inaccuracies in them.
An educational firm is using AI to create tutoring programs for students.
So far the results have been really excellent, the students have all
benefited from the help of the tutoring. This sounds great, but my
suspicious mind wonders if someone writing an AI tutor for students
studying history could build in a bias to slant how that history is
taught. I bet it's possible, next thing you know kids are learning,
slowly and subtly, that Marxism is really a great idea. Or that racism
and atrocities make up more of US history than anything else.
How far can the creative capacities of the more advanced AI programs go?
I have no firm idea.
AI controlled machines have lots of possible applications. How about a
real hot point, AI controlled fighter planes? Now the aircraft doesn't
need the weight of a life support system or escape mechanisms, can take
high G turns that a human cannot, and has faster reflexes than any human.
Would flying such crafts against human pilots be like a wolf in a herd
of sheep? How about compact low profile tracked vehicles with a
specialized anti-tank weapon like the 30mm gun in the A-10, that can
scream up fast from the side or rear of enemy tanks to take them out,
night or day, rain or shine?
What I'm sure of is that we are on the very edge of a huge change in the
world in lots of ways. But I cannot really imagine with any clarity
where this will take us. Various science fiction writers have explored
some of this. When they get into how advanced technology can be used to
really, really control people..... it gets scary. And it's already
started in China with the millions of facial recognition cameras and the
AI system that tracks everyone. Will 2084 be so much more than Orwell's
1984 was? Or maybe even sooner.
Just something to think about.....
Del
Tuesday, August 29, 2023
More than 1,600 scientists, including two Nobel laureates, declare climate 'emergency' a myth
More than 1,600 scientists, including two Nobel laureates, declare climate 'emergency' a myth
Monday, August 28, 2023
Unthinkable
A selection of links that have headlines that were utterly unthinkable a decade ago. Some days I am really sorry to read the news that comes my way.
Del
Sunday, August 27, 2023
Saturday, August 26, 2023
Grieving Mother Desperate For Answers After FBI Busts Down Door, Fatally Shoots Her Disabled Veteran Son in Pre-Dawn Raid
Grieving Mother Desperate For Answers After FBI Busts Down Door, Fatally Shoots Her Disabled Veteran Son in Pre-Dawn Raid
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