L'Ombre de l'Olivier

The Shadow of the Olive Tree
Profile picture
  • Francis Turner

The Bolshevik Century Nov 7, 2017

100 years ago today, November 7th, the Bolskeviks seized power in Russia and ushered in a century of terror, murder and economic/environmental mismanagement that killed more people than any other ideology or religion ever in the history of humanity. Not only did they kill more people in absolute terms, but the Communist regimes inspired and supported by the Soviet Union get to claim top spots in the "relative death" chart. It is worth reminding people of these facts when others try to whitewash the bloody red past. Hitler was only a National Socialist and anti-semite and as a result he...

By Francis Turner Vote5 1

Garmin Vivoactive HR Review Nov 6, 2017

I recently purchased a Garmin Vivoactive HR* because I was getting sick of my phone screwing up tracking runs and rides. Also I was interested in my general health and activity levels and the Vivoactive HR promised to do that too. I've had it for a couple of weeks now so it seems appropriate to provide a quick review. For those that can't be bothered to read the details, I like it and recommend it to anyone who does (or wants to do) a fair amount of exercise but it isn't perfect. As I noted in the intro, I wanted...

By Francis Turner Vote1 0

From Russia with Lies Oct 27, 2017

The activities of Russia in last year's US Presidential election seem to be becoming clearer, despite the best efforts of the US MSM. In fact, with a bit of Kremlinology and reading between the lines, they are clear, IMHO, perfectly. Whether that clarity is accepted by the sorts of people who care about these things is a whole different tale. We also have some clues as to their ultimate goal. Lets start with what is known Russia helped themselves to the information goodies that Hillary Clinton, the Clinton campaign and the DNC left so invitingly available for a medium competent...

By Francis Turner Vote7 0

This is my wife, there are many like it, but this one is mine… Oct 23, 2017

My friend Jonathan LaForce made a previous appearance here when he wrote about the wonderfulmess of the VA (typo semi-intentional). Sometime earlier in a private FB group, he wrote an extremely politically incorrect post riffing off the cartoon above. That writing deserves wider circulation so, with his permission, I am publishing this. [Note: **The author wishes to note he wrote it as if he were a Battery gunnery sergeant lecturing his junior enlisted. In reality, he was honorably discharged as a corporal.** ] Good morning Marines and Sailors! My name is Gunny Mormon and today I'll be giving your lecture on...

By Francis Turner Vote2 0

Victim Signalling and the Four Yorkshirewomyn Oct 19, 2017

As anyone who hasn't been hiding under a rock knows we've recently had confirmation that Hollywood is a pit of sexism, where the borders between consensual sex and non-consensual sexual predation have been increasingly blurred. Not that anyone who wasn't paying attention (coff Polansky coff) wasn't already aware of this - after all this is the industry that gave us the "casting couch". I'm not going to go into the whole battered wife syndrome exhibited by Hollywood's actresses beyond saying that John Ringo had a very interesting take on it on the Book of Feaces. What I want to comment...

By Francis Turner Vote4 1

Amber Rudd – Nanny Ludd Oct 4, 2017

Amber Rudd is the UK's Home Secretary and as such she is responsible for law enforcement, prevention of terrorism etc. As the world knows the UK has suffered from a wave of terrorism from a mysterious source that is definitely not even slightly related to a religion founded in Arabia about 1400 years ago and Ms Rudd wants to keep Her Majesty's subjects safe from future occurrences. Her theory appears to be that if the UK population is wrapped up in enough cotton wool they'll be kept safe. To that end she's a bansturbator of all sorts of things, from...

By Francis Turner Vote0 0

Is the NFL Reaping the Whirlwind? Oct 1, 2017

Last season one player in the NFL decided to not follow tradition (and the NFL handbook) when it came to the pregame playing of the National Anthem. I think it is fair to say this irritated a lot of the NFL audience, but for the most part they kept on paying money to see the games, buy the memorabilia etc. This year, as everyone knows, way more NFL players are doing the same, as are various coaches etc. and so President Trump has got on twitter to suggest they should be fired. Rather than taking issue with the players' behavior,...

By Francis Turner Vote7 1

Fairfax County, Virginia Does the Brecht Solution Sep 30, 2017

Berthold's Brecht's famous poem Die Lösung* (The Solution) suggests that the government should dissolve the people and select new ones. Until now, and despite regimes like Pol Pot's Kampuchea, I had always assumed this was so obviously sarcastic than no actual government would attempt to implement it. Looks like I was wrong. As you can see from the photo above, Fairfax County, Va has a "Citizen Disposal Facility" on (and the fittingness of this amazes me) Furnace Road. It gets better. If you pull up the address in Google Maps, you note two interesting adjacent map elements Yep there's a...

By Francis Turner Vote7 1

Voter fraud in the US – an anecdote Sep 24, 2017

Some twenty plus years ago when I first passed my driving test in California the lady at DMV in San Jose pointed out that I hadn't filled in the voter registration form that was part of the drivers license form. I explained to her that as I had (at the time) an L1 visa I wasn't eligible to vote. She said something like "Oh OK" and processed the form so that I got my temporary drivers license. After that expired (temporary licenses last 3 months), I got another temp and then, shortly before that one expired the DMV gave me...

By Francis Turner Vote3 3

Tapped Out: The Manafort Mess Sep 22, 2017

This is a guest post by 'Jason Garik'. I don't particularly disagree with what he writes, and in fact we discussed a draft or two, but it's his work not mine. Take it away Jason... (Update: see the youtube video at the bottom for a similar but swearier take) In the past few days, we’ve seen an uptick in the Trump/Russia story and the Mueller investigation. The latter has zeroed in on Paul Manafort, who for a while was Trump’s campaign manager during the election last year. Manafort’s credited in part with turning Trump’s campaign into a more streamlined and...

By Francis Turner Vote2 6

Internet <3 Censorship? Sep 20, 2017

Update: TimN has a post on the same subject that is well worth reading Way back in the early days of the internet, John Gilmore famously said: "The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it." In 2017 this no longer seems to be the case. And that is, or should be, worrisome. I'm not just talking about repressive regimes like the PRC or Saudi Arabia and their firewalls, I'm talking about countries that we consider to be bastions of freedom of speech such as the USA or Australia. Part of the fall out from the Charlotteville mess was...

By Francis Turner Vote1 6

Germans have no sense of humour Sep 12, 2017

Ha Ha Ha. Actually that is of course well known to be untrue. Many Germans do have a sense of humour, however SJWs and politicians, particularly politicians facing campaigns from populists, generally speaking do not. Hence the way that "all right thinking people" in Germany have piled on the AfD and its various posters in this years federal election campaign. The one at the top of this post is less controversial than some, mocking the recent declarations that diesel cars should be phased out but others, such as this one with a cute little piglet, have caused so much controversy...

By Francis Turner Vote8 3

Qu’ils marchent a l’ecole Sep 12, 2017

Or "Let them walk to school" as Marie Antoinette might have said had she thought to worry about how her peasants educated their children. Recently however in many countries the idea that schoolchildren should walk to school on their own has become controversial. Fortunately many of these schools have also stopped teaching the works of dead white males like William Shakespeare so pupils at them are spared the dangers of encountering these lines: Then the whining School-boy, with his satchel And shining morning face, creeping like snail Unwillingly to school. And of course it isn't just limited to letting the...

By Francis Turner Vote5 0

Google & the Guardian Sep 1, 2017

It could just be me and where I'm blogging from (the South of France), but I've noticed an interesting romance in my search engine. There I was looking for information about Theresa May's visit to Japan as a possible blog post so I did the search of "may abe tokyo trade deal" in Google (because I'm using a Chromebook and Chrome sneakily went back to Google after an upgrade). I got the following Note the way all the news items come from a single source. So I did the same search in Duckduckgo Note that in this case while the...

By Francis Turner Vote2 3

Prediction: Hard Brexit Aug 29, 2017

Note: I have absolutely no internal contacts with the EU, Her Majesty's Government or anyone else involved in the Brexit negotiations so this article is speculation based on public documents and news articles. With that disclaimer out of the way, let me cut to the chase. I'm 99% sure the Brexit negotiations are going to collapse and the UK will thus be entirely separate from the EU. In the medium term that will be a good thing, but in the short term it will cause chaos for the UK, Ireland and probably much of Europe. Why do I think this?...

By Francis Turner Vote8 7

The (White) Girl’s Burden Aug 28, 2017

These days it seems the white girl's burden is to sacrificed on the altar of virtue signaling by the right-on social justice types. Unless the white girl is herself a suitably right-on SJW, she is apparently fair game to be taken advantage of, raped or even killed by those higher up in the victimology hierarchy. Those who take her side and try to get some kind of justice, or to stop similar things happening again, are also to be discredited, demoted, and generally piled on until they recant. Even if, perhaps especially if, they are also female and of a...

By Francis Turner Vote6 1

The Wonderful World of the VA Aug 1, 2017

This post is taken lock stock and barrel from my friend Jonathan LaForce's post on the Book of Faeces. I've added a couple of illustrations (if you like the T shirt you can buy it here), links to relevant news articles and tidied up a couple of typos. Take it away Jon! People keep talking about single payer healthcare, and universal healthcare, as if somehow such systems are spontaneously going to save all of humankind from some sort of dreaded mass bodily failure- “millions will die without this!” and any other number of alarmists claims which have been ranted about...

By Francis Turner Vote9 0

Please Sir, May I Build a House? Jul 8, 2017

I recall many years ago reading about the guy in the Philippines who decided he was personally going to legally import a car following all the rules and regulations. It was, IIRC, some kind of VW, i.e. pretty good but nothing special and cost him a few thousand dollars overseas. He wrote up his experience in the Manila English language newspaper to illustrate the pernicious effects of excessive red tape. I don't precisely recall all the details but I know that the various mandatory inspections duties and the like cost him more than the car cost to buy and ship...

By Francis Turner Vote11 0

This blog is probably moving Jun 19, 2017

When I restarted my blogging, I chose liberty.me as my blog host because it gave me a pretty good wordpress install with decent themes, https, spam blockers etc. as well as being a good match on ideological grounds. It was also priced correctly at the low low price of $FREE. Unfortunately, to some extent you get what you don't pay for and I have discovered that unless liberty.me gets a clue by four pronto my blog will soon be inaccessible to me and to many of my readers. The problem is that the certificate for this site (ombreolivier.liberty.me) is one...

By Francis Turner Vote5 3

Surviving Disasters Jun 14, 2017

The news this morning was taken up by the Grenfell Tower fire. There will undoubtedly be lots of enquiries in to just how this could have happened and I predict that a bunch of "managerial failings" will be identified - Tim Newman wrote a post looking at the leadership of the management company and has a link to a rather prescient post from last year on a blog of a community action group. That, however, is not the subject of this post. The subject of this post is how to ensure that the reader survives natural disasters and fires. This is something...

By Francis Turner Vote5 0

Login