Author: VD

Ban Fake Guns In Hollywood

Clearly the denizens of the Hellmouth can’t handle them:

Alec Baldwin has accidentally shot and killed the female cinematography director of his upcoming western movie Rust and wounded the director while firing a prop gun on set.

The 68-year-old was filming a scene for the movie at Bonanza Creek Ranch, near the city of Santa Fe, New Mexico, when the gun went off around 1.50pm, fatally wounding 42-year-old photography director Halyna Hutchins and leaving writer-director Joel Souza, 48, badly injured.

Hutchins – believed to be a married mother-of-one – was rushed to the University of New Mexico Hospital in an air ambulance but was later pronounced dead, while Souza was taken by ambulance to the Christus St Vincent Regional Medical Center. He has since been released, though his exact condition is unclear.

Meanwhile Baldwin was taken to a Santa Fe detectives’ office to be questioned about the shooting. He was not arrested and was later released without charge – though investigations are ongoing.

I understand how a prop gun mishap – or mishandling – can get an actor or actress shot. They’re actually being aimed at, and loading mistakes can happen. But how do you “accidentally” shoot the directors? Unless they’re standing in for an actor during a run-through, there is no reason to be pointing a gun at them, let alone pulling the trigger.

Anyhow, we’re told that if it saves just one life, it’s worth it, right? And clearly, it would save lives if actors just pointed their fingers at people and shouted “bang!”

UPDATE: Given the fact that the Hollywood crews were on strike and had been replaced by local New Mexicans, it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that the live rounds were planted by a union member.

It’s unclear where the union got the information that the round fired by Baldwin was a live one, since none of its members were on the movie set.

They’d certainly know if one of their members was responsible for loading it.

Just Stop Already

I have less than zero interest in joining Jared Kushner’s gatekeeping site:

Former President Donald Trump said he will launch his own social media network called TRUTH Social in early 2022.

The new Trump Media & Technology Group said it will create a rival social network to the current ‘liberal media consortium’ and ‘fight back against the ‘Big Tech’ companies of Silicon Valley, which have used their unilateral power to silence opposing voices in America.’

Trump, who will serve as TMTG’s chairman, said, ‘I created TRUTH Social and TMTG to stand up to the tyranny of Big Tech. We live in a world where the Taliban has a huge presence on Twitter, yet your favorite American President has been silenced.

‘This is unacceptable. I am excited to send out my first TRUTH on TRUTH Social very soon. TMTG was founded with a mission to give a voice to all. I’m excited to soon begin sharing my thoughts on TRUTH Social and to fight back against Big Tech. Everyone asks me why doesn’t someone stand up to Big Tech? Well, we will be soon!’

While Donald Trump was unquestionably the greatest president since Andrew Jackson, I am unlikely to support any of his post-presidential efforts. The man simply can’t be trusted due to the shady figures with which he still surrounds himself. And his refusal to support his followers who were arrested on January 6th, to confront the election fraud, or to support the existing alternative platforms indicates that he is no longer much more than a figurehead for those who have hijacked the MAGA movement.

Finally, he did nothing – literally nothing – to fight back against Big Tech while he had the ability and the power to do so. While I respect him for his historically great four years in office, as far as I’m concerned, his time is past.

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Wanna Bet?

The US Department of Defense appears to be determined to sacrifice Ukrainian independence.

No country can veto Ukraine’s wish to join NATO, America’s top security official has said. Lloyd Austin’s statement comes after Moscow warned Kiev that joining the bloc would go beyond “red lines” and may prompt “active measures.” Ukraine is free to decide its future and foreign policy, with no foreign entity having a say in its aspiration to join the NATO alliance, the US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said on Tuesday.

“Ukraine… has a right to decide its own future foreign policy and we expect that they will be able to do that without any outside interference,” Austin said at a joint press conference with his Ukrainian counterpart Andrey Taran in Kiev.

No third country has a veto over NATO’s membership decisions.

The statement apparently came in response to a harsh warning against Ukraine ever joining NATO, voiced by Moscow a day earlier. Speaking to French journalists for a program called ‘Vladimir Putin: Master of the Game,’ the Kremlin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Kiev’s accession to NATO would be “the worst-case scenario.”

Russia has made it very, very clear that any Ukrainian attempt to join NATO will be met by an immediate invasion and occupation of the country. And outmoded rhetorical appeals to “freedom” and “democracy” and “self-determination” by the USA are no longer even remotely credible anymore in light of 20 years of foreign invasions, failed occupations, and fraudulent presidential elections.

The election of Donald Trump saved Ukraine from invasion. The stealing of the 2020 election from him may doom Ukraine to Russian occupation, which is particularly stupid because Russia doesn’t want to occupy Ukraine. But they will do it if necessary, because they want US troops and US missiles on their borders even less.

Like it or not, Russia not only can, but absolutely will, veto further NATO expansion.

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John Piper Pushes the Vaxx

John Piper pushes the vaxx on Christians. Even worse, he utilizes classic satanic inversion to do so:

My point is this: Don’t be enslaved by fear of man. Don’t be enslaved by the fear of breaking ranks with ideological allies. The old name for this is peer pressure. You are free.

You have considered the risk of COVID as you watch hundreds of thousands of people die.
You have considered the short- and long-term risks of the vaccines as you watch millions get the shots.
You have compared the frequency of hospitalizations and deaths of those with and without vaccines.
You have thought hard about the implications of fetal cell lines in the production and testing of the vaccines.
You have rejoiced at the increasing evidence that natural immunity, developed after recovering from COVID, is as effective as vaccination immunity.
You have pondered the likelihood and unlikelihood of conspiratorial conjectures.


Your conscience is increasingly clear. It says, “Get vaccinated.” But there is this niggling fear of looking left wing, or progressive, or Democratic, or compromised, or woke!

So, my message to such folks is this: “The children are free!”

The fact that he’s trying to invert the direction of the social pressure makes it very clear that this is a fundamentally evil man who has knowingly deceived his flock. There is no truth in him. He calls fear freedom and freedom fear. And consider his appalling statement at the end, which appears to be particularly wicked in light of the recent push by the Biden Fake Administration to vaccinate children who don’t have any possible need for the vaccines even if they worked, which they don’t.

In his inverted argument, you can see how wolves in sheep’s clothing like this man will be part of the Great Deception, and how they will not only embrace the Beast and his Mark, but will actively evangelize for them.

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A New Foundation

The Tree of Woe contemplates the West’s need for new philosophical foundations in the aftermath of the complete failure of the Enlightenment and classical liberalism.

We need to do better than our great ancestors did.

To defend the good, the beautiful, and the true we must be able to know what is actually good, beautiful, and true — and then we must be able to persuasively demonstrate that to others.

For the good, beautiful, and true to be actual, they must in some way be real. Thus, to defend their actuality, we must be able to defend their reality; and that requires defending a theory of moral realism, a theory of aesthetic realism, and a correspondence theory of truth against those who would say they the good, beautiful, and true do not really exist.

But to defend these theories of realism, we must be able to defend the objective and knowable existence of the real itself against those who would say that reality as a whole is subjective or unknowable.

And to be able to defend the knowable existence of reality, we must be able to defend the evidence of our senses and the conclusions of our reason from skepticism.

To be able to defend the evidence of our senses, we must be able to defend direct realism, or something like it; to be able to defend the conclusions of our reason, we must be able to defend the laws of thought.

So we must do more than just identify the natural order, we must identify how we have identified it, and then defend both the method and the outcome.

The Enlightenment failed to do this. It failed to defend the evidence of the senses, it failed to defend the laws of thought, it failed to defend moral realism, it failed to defend aesthetic realism, and it failed to defend the correspondence theory of truth. It failed on every front and was routed from the field.

We must do better than the Enlightenment. We cannot return to classical liberalism. There is no retreat; the bridges are burned; the way is blocked. We must advance.

If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?
Psalm 11:3

I could not agree more, having thought similar thoughts in recent years. In fact, I’d even begun laying out some of my own contemplations in this regard a few months ago, so this seems like a reasonable time to share a few of them here. For the time being, I’m referring to this proto-philosophy as “veriphysics”.

The Principles of Veriphysics

  • The truth is that which exists independent of any human perception, sense, or analysis.
  • The truth must be always be the foundation of any correct idea, concept, ideal, objective, policy, or principle.
  • The fullness of the truth cannot be conclusively and comprehensively established from any human perspective or by any human method.
  • Every partial truth is perceived on a gradiant that depends upon both the perspective and the method utilized to determine it.
  • The not-truth can be conclusively established by a wide variety of methods, including logic, observation, statistical analysis, mathematics, and experiment.
  • The practical objective of veriphysical analysis is to construct reliable predictive models that provide a sound basis for pragmatic decisions which produce observable results that correspond with the predictions derived from the models.

The rhetorical version of which is as follows:

  • Truth is reality.
  • Truth is the basis for correct thought or action.
  • All truths are partial.
  • The parts of the truth perceived depend upon the who and the how.
  • The not-truth is easier to establish than the truth.
  • Veriphysics is a practical philosophy.

The primary forms of existence are: ontological, experiential, testimonial, experimental, spiritual

That which can be imagined.
That which can be experienced by the senses.
That which can be testified to by others.
That which can be repeatedly and consistently observed.
That which can be perceived indirectly through its effects on the material world.

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This is Not Your Grandfather’s Military

The USA is no longer the United States of America, it is the United States of Diversity. And diversity is not exactly a strength when it comes to IQ or military capabilities:

The loss of a US Navy ship to a massive blaze was “a completely avoidable catastrophe,” but management lapses on multiple levels, including the failure to activate a firefighting system, made the task impossible, a report claims.
Some three dozen officers aboard the USS ‘Bonhomme Richard’ were named as responsible for the loss of the ship, which caught fire near a San Diego naval base in July 2020, according to a 400-page investigation report obtained by the Associated Press on Tuesday. While one particular sailor, Seaman Apprentice Ryan Mays, was charged earlier this year for initially starting the conflagration, the report alleges that the vessel could still have been salvaged if not for the commanders and the crew’s lack of basic training and skills.

“Although the fire was started by an act of arson, the ship was lost due to an inability to extinguish the fire,” the report said, as quoted by the AP. It concluded that “repeated failures” by an “inadequately prepared crew” led to an “ineffective fire response.”

The report, prepared by Vice Admiral Scott Conn, outlined major lapses in training and preparedness, poor communication and coordination between personnel, bad equipment maintenance and broader breakdowns in the overall command-and-control structure on the vessel.

For instance, the investigators found that while the ship was fitted with a firefighting foam system that could have slowed the spread of the fire, no one on board was aware of how to put the system into operation, that is to push a certain button.

“No member of the crew interviewed considered this action or had specific knowledge as to the location of the button or its function,” the report said. Even if the sailors had prior knowledge of the intricate mechanism, it’s not clear if they succeeded in stopping the flames. The report claims that about 87% of all fire stations on board were plagued by equipment issues or had not been inspected at all.

This is why Ukraine will not be joining NATO and why Taiwan will be reunifying with the mainland. The US military is no longer a global superpower, it is now merely the largest, if not necessarily the most formidable, of the regional powers. While it still has the ability to intervene outside of its zone of control, it no longer has the ability to do so with any real degree of confidence in doing so successfully.

If Great Britain is any guide, it will take at least 10 years, and probably at least one more major military failure, before Americans and other US citizens begin to accept this decline in relative military power and adjust US foreign policy accordingly.

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