L'Ombre de l'Olivier

The Shadow of the Olive Tree
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  • Francis Turner

Leaving is the Hardest Thing May 23, 2019

Anyone who has been paying attention to European politics might detect a certain soupçon of nervousness amongst the EU establishment regarding the EU elections this week. It seems that beastly nationalists and non EU-lovers are likely to win big in many countries. We have President Macron begging people not to vote for "nationalists": “We have a crisis of the European Union. This is a matter of fact. Everywhere in Europe ... all the extremes, extreme-rights, are increasing,” Macron said Thursday, making an unexpected appeal for European unity on the sidelines of a technology trade show. “On currency, on digital, on...

By Francis Turner Vote8 0

A Tale of Two Coups May 20, 2019

In the UK there was Brexit, in the US there was Trump's election. Both these events were a big shock the establishments in their respective nations (and in the case of Brexit to the neighboring EU as well). Since they perceived these events as a threat, people in both establishments sought to strike back and nullify the result one way or another. In the US, the result of this was the "collusion" story and the Mueller investigation. In the UK the result has been the numerous attempts to not actually Brexit but pretend to. Both of these attempts to strike...

By Francis Turner Vote11 0

Notre Dame Apr 16, 2019

About the time I was picking up my bags at Nice Airport, fire broke out at Notre Dame in Paris. By the time we had checked into a hotel for the night the spire had collapsed and it was clear that this was a serious blaze. Social media alerted me to the blaze and to the scant details repeated in every news article/broadcast about what little was known. When we woke this morning we learned just how bad things were and, fortunately, the summary of the damage is bad but not as bad was was initially feared. Yes the roof...

By Francis Turner Vote2 0

Sport, Ladies and Transport Mar 28, 2019

In the last few months there have been a bunch of gripes related to competitive sports for those of the female persuasion. A lot of this is due to the way that "trans-women" seem to beat more traditional women at every level of competition. This should not be a surprise to anyone who actually takes part in or watches any competitive sport regularly. For example I used to be a marathon runner and I competed in the Boston Marathon three years in a row. In order to qualify (in my mid forties) I had to run marathons in the 3h15m...

By Francis Turner Vote0 0

“Much Loved” But Not Missed Mar 27, 2019

I know various people who live in Avalon (a.k.a. Gastonbury and the surrounding area of England). Recently their lives have been disturbed by things rather more concrete than watery tarts distributing swords to would-be monarchs. The disturbances have tended to surround a certain Jonathan Roper and the result has been a general tarnishing of the ambiance. Perhaps the spiritual atmosphere will now recover because Mr Roper has had a rather closer encounter with the stabby part of a something than he wanted and is now no longer animate. He has snuffed it, kicked the bucket, gone to meet his maker,...

By Francis Turner Vote1 0

Gold Plated Brexit Mar 22, 2019

So it looks like Brexit is going to be the glorious cockup of a thing that people feared. Maybe not quite as hard as I predicted a few months back, but I'm guessing it will be close. Anyway the prospect of no deal has focused the minds of many British citizens, particularly those that thought they'd like to pop off to somewhere sunnier/warmer/snowier for Easter, and they've been taking a look at the official rules and guidance for travel etc. Her Majesty's Government has put together a selection of pages specifically covering things like passport and drivers license requirements when...

By Francis Turner Vote2 1

Psychedelic Warlord O’Rourke Mar 17, 2019

It turns out the Robert F O'Rourke, who raised zillions of dollars to run against Ted Cruz and lost and is now running for US President, has an interesting past. In addition to the DUI and burglary arrests that is. At one time he was a member of the Hactivist group called "Cult of the dead cow" and he posted various things on their BBS under the nickname "Psychedelic Warlord", in fact in one posting he claims to have been the one to come up with the name. These posts are still on-line so we can admire their insightfulness and...

By Francis Turner Vote3 1

Christchurch Mar 16, 2019

The news today and probably for the next few days will be filled with reports of the terrorist shootings in the Mosques of Christchurch, New Zealand and their aftermath. As with any other such event there is no doubt that many of the first reports will turn out to be flat out wrong and thus anything I write now may end up having to be changed. First off, this is a terrorist tragedy and I utterly condemn the perpetrators and what I understand of their motivations. It isn't a "senseless" crime, the perps had reasons and those reasons were (are)...

By Francis Turner Vote3 3

Twitter Considered Harmful Mar 7, 2019

There's a lot of talk about the toxicity of "Social Media" and Twitter, it seems to me, is the one with greatest toxicity and fewest redeeming features. The tweet I'm using as the image for this post is from one of the very few redeeming parts of Twitter - a parody account that seems to articulate the inner thoughts of many SJW sorts. I've had a twitter account for almost a decade. Actually I have two but I've not used the other in so long it now appears to be suspended - possibly because someone hacked it and used it...

By Francis Turner Vote4 1

This is not the Discrimination we were looking for Mar 6, 2019

There have been a flurry of articles and commentary recently about how Google recently evaluated the salaries of its employees for evidence of discrimination and gave pay raises to more men than women. Quite a few of the comments have boiled down to: "But that's not what we meant! you were supposed to give the women pay raises" Plus of course lots of commentary about how Google is still being discriminatory based on the 2017 lawsuit that claimed: "Google has channeled and segregated, and continues to channel and segregate, women on the basis of their sex into lower compensation levels...

By Francis Turner Vote5 0

The Betrayal of Macron Dec 4, 2018

Although he probably thinks it the other way around, I am referring to the betrayal by President Macron of those who voted for him. I wrote a certain amount about the French elections last year and haven't written much if anything about President Macron after he won. In the pre-election posts I said that I thought Macron was a creation of the French "Deep State" who created their own 'outsider' to protect against the genuine outsides of Le Pen and Melanchon. I was pretty sure that Macron would be more or less Sarkozy v2: Macron’s ideas, it seems to me,...

By Francis Turner Vote6 0

I’m afraid of ‘Woke People’ Nov 30, 2018

Actually I'm not personally afraid of 'woke people' but I am afraid of their likely impact on Western Civilization for reasons that relate entirely to the title of this post. You see, a Canadian gentleman of the "outrageous queen" persuasion called Sky Gilbert wrote a blogpost with the same title. He has now discovered that he was quite right to be afraid of the 'woke people' because they did the usual twitter mob thing and got him ousted from the theatre company he founded as well as making sure he is now "persona non grata" in the sort of artistic...

By Francis Turner Vote10 3

Climate Change Max Boot-licker Nov 27, 2018

Max Boot is a Washington Post (tagline - "Journalism Lies For Darkness") columnist who claims to be a conservative. He has written a column repenting of his climate change skepticism and asking why other "conservatives" don't do the same. The article is of limited interest in terms of making a convincing case and could have been written by any columnist who believes in Catastrophic Anthropic Global Warming (CAGW) in the last decade or two. As such however it serves as a worthwhile subject for fisking because it is so predictable: I was wrong on climate change. Why can’t other conservatives...

By Francis Turner Vote0 1

Sales Taxingly Amazing Tacos Nov 22, 2018

Government is, as we all know, just a word for the things we do together. But unfortunately government has an appetite for tax revenue that would put your average overweight consumer of cheap high carb ethnic food look like an anorexic on a kale diet. The result of this is that government revenuers are always looking for businesses that might be cheating the voracious state of their morsels of tasty tax revenue. One such case was brought against Tacos Guaymas, a small taco chain in the Seattle area: Attorney General Bob Ferguson filed charges against the owner of Tacos Guaymas...

By Francis Turner Vote5 0

Hard Brexit Here We Come Nov 19, 2018

I'm pretty sure we'll get a hard Brexit. I've said so before come to think of it. The reason is that the EU wants to put the fear of catastrophe into any other nation (coff Italy coff) that might have the desire to exit the EU by refusing to allow any deal that allows the leaving country any modicum of dignity. Hence they negotiate a deal like this one where there is no effective exit but the exiting country gets to pay more for the privilege of not having a say in the EU. Fundamentally the Eurocrats think they are...

By Francis Turner Vote14 1

Don’t Forget the Farmers Nov 14, 2018

Someone on the book of feces posted a link to the original image above because they were (and I am) amused by the invisible comma in the "Eat Local People" sticker. Others pointed out more or less what I edited the picture to say - namely that without industrial farming we'd looking at a global population considerably lower than it currently is now (as in perhaps 30-40% of the current 7.5 billion +) and that therefore we would be forced to eat local people in order to survive. They are of course absolutely right. Currently industrial farming produces yields per...

By Francis Turner Vote1 0

Google Dorks Kill Spies Nov 13, 2018

There have been various rumbling mentions of this before, but the Yahoo News article recently by Zach Dorfman and Jenna McLaughlin gives lots of juicy details. The CIA had its communications with covert agents in Iran and China intercepted by the Iranians and Chinese and, as a result, many agents where arrested and killed while others only escaped thanks to heroic James Bondian efforts to get them out of the country. Most critically the article reveals that the Iranian and Chinese counterespionage effort was aided by Google (albeit unintentionally): U.S. officials believe Iranian intelligence was then able to compromise the covert...

By Francis Turner Vote4 0

Letterbomb Campaign Bombs Oct 25, 2018

I admit I'm going out on a limb here, but somehow the recent set of letterbombs sent to CNN and various Democratic pols seem, how can I put it? questionable. As people noted on social media the CNN "bomb" isn't very convincing. Here's part of one example: [H]ow did this relatively intact device make it out of the package and on the counter of what appears to be a break room next to some household container items and photographed before the police or FBI or ATF or the Great Pumpkin or whomever got to it? 4. The device looks suspicious,...

By Francis Turner Vote6 1

Do They Want Jackboots? Oct 24, 2018

I see stuff on social media like the Bruce Bartlett tweet above and I wonder why apparently intelligent people make these bone-headed statements. They also mindlessly post memes expressing shock that Trump is a "Nationalist" just as was that certain well known German Oddly, though, the same people almost always get upset when it is pointed out that this person also claimed to be a Socialist. And they get really torqued when people point out that governments following the "international" form of their beloved socialism killed far more if their own people. But to go back to the claims that...

By Francis Turner Vote4 8

What We Have Here Is Failure To Educate Sep 6, 2018

I have some friends who are college lecturers. They are the unfortunates (of various titles and grades of professor - mostly adjunct) who actually have to face the hordes of undergraduates and somehow impart knowledge to them. At this time of year the students are busily poring over course descriptions and syllabi, and making enquiries about the exact requirements. These enquiries lead the recipients to despair (and, in the cases of the non-Mormon, to booze) For example: Syllabus says Each student must complete a term paper or a final class project. Note emphasis on the OR. Professor giving the course...

By Francis Turner Vote12 2

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