Francis W. Porretto

Mount Sinai, NY USA

Author's posts

After An Awful Night

     …something like this is what I need to return to the land of the living: Tech tip pic.twitter.com/mKGD336lWg — ONT WTF (@OntWtf) March 1, 2024      I have absolutely no doubt that someone, somewhere thinks this is the right way to clean your laptop computer. And I find that strangely comforting.

Longshots

     Some longshots entice the bettor with misty visions of grandeur and glory. Others attempt to seduce with an emotional pitch. Still others are frank about the odds against them, but they appeal to the common desire to see oneself as a visionary or an adventurer. Their sole commonality is that a payoff is, in …

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Mask Droppings

     The forces of chaos must feel that they can no longer be stopped: The most insane thing you have ever heard from@MSNBC Celebrity Black activist lawyer @BenCrumpLaw says that criminal behavior in America is just Black culture. Demands the legalization of crime.@TheRevAl and other Black racial activists all express agreement. pic.twitter.com/bfEQr0b7AU — National Conservative …

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Say What?

     Something “out there” is seriously wrong. You know it; I know it. But is it a unitary thing, or merely the sum of all the little things that currently bedevil us? It can be hard to tell.      I can’t shake the sense that there’s a monster lurking in the shadows, peering now and …

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What Is Caesar’s And What Is Mine?

     Pro-freedom journalist John Stossel has a plaintive piece up today about that special feature of this time of year. After all, it’s the season when a young man’s fancy turns to what his wife, fiancée, or Significant Other never stops thinking about: what’s in his wallet – and I don’t mean his Capital One …

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Agreements Between Nations

     John Mills at Gateway Pundit has posted a piece on treaties and their utility, with particular emphasis on the post-Cold War world. It’s a good piece well worth reading, which reminds us that treaties themselves cannot and will not guarantee peaceful relations between nation-states. It got me to thinking about a subject that’s been …

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Saying It Straight Out

     Stephen Kruiser does so:      Anyone claiming to be vehemently anti-Trump because of principles is willfully aiding and abetting the rapid leftist destruction of the United States of America. If these people do have principles, they’re commie principles.      That’s a Twenty-First Century version of this famous utterance:      If ye love wealth greater …

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Mask Droppings

     Now and then, the alliance between the Democrats and the media, which is usually kept on the Q.T., becomes too open, too shameless for anyone to conceal it. The following brief video is a case in point:      Turn the volume up so you can hear the “reporter’s” questions. She is trying to imply …

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For Virginia With Hope

     [An old friend asked about this short story, and if I would please repost it. It first appeared at Liberty’s Torch V1.0 on December 18, 2019. I’ve made some slight edits since then. – FWP]      They had disdained the courtrooms, even though cleared of the pestilential scum that had roosted there. The aroma …

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“Don’t! No Matter What!”

     One of the giveaways that “artificial intelligence” as it’s currently being vended to us is – pardon my Belgian – a crock of shit is the absolute unwillingness of such programs to accept a problem as stated. Problems that come with constraints are everywhere; human intellects deal with them routinely. But the “AI” known …

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A Quick Appetite-Whetter

     Shamelessly stolen from Western Rifle Shooters:      I think we can all agree with the sentiment at the bottom. All of us white menfolk, that is.      Never fear: I’ll be back with something more substantial a bit later.

Scare Talk Often Means Only That The Talker Is Scared

     Good morning, Gentle Reader. The “Future Columns” folder is bulging, as usual, but of all the subjects addressed therein, only one piques my interest today:      From the White House to think tanks, and even mainstream media outlets like CNN, White Christian nationalists have been vilified, being labeled as the greatest threat to national …

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Public Schooling: The Grand Delusion

     “The child is not the mere creature of the state.” — Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 1922      One of the more persistent debates in pro-freedom circles is whether children have the same rights as adults. In practice, they don’t: their parents can compel and restrain them against their wills, at least before they …

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It Doesn’t Matter If It Succeeds

     Just yesterday, I wrote about the egregious commercial sin of defining others’ desires and preferences as “wrong.” While it is something we’ve all done from time to time, a commercial concern can’t afford it. You cannot sell dead cats to the Board of Sanitation. Similarly, you cannot sell “diversity” to an audience that’s looking …

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Pots, Kettles, And Corruption

     Thanks to today’s Morning Report at AoSHQ, we have this bit of ludicrousness:      The FBI is probing self-described “super mayor” Tiffany Henyard over mounting accusations of misconduct and misuse of office — as the Illinois attorney general shut down her charity Tuesday, The Post has learned.      The eccentric mayor — whose face …

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Shamelessly Stolen From The Feral Irishman

Something We’ve All Done

     Have you noticed how often other people are wrong? It’s amazing! Where did they come up with so many misconceptions and delusions? How can they live with such murk in their heads? How do they cope with the challenges of life?      The italicized word in the above is a kind of shorthand. A …

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Killers Part 3

     When force is made the standard, the murderer wins over the pickpocket. – Ayn Rand      If you’ve read the previous two pieces in this little series, you’ve probably got the idea that I don’t much like governments. You’re right about that. The State, the human organization defined by its monopoly privilege of using …

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The Narrative Has Parts

     Supreme over all other laws is The First Law: The First Law: Everything Has Parts. (Except the First Law)      For example, we have The Narrative, a thing of many parts, none of them particularly pleasant. Here are a few: Gun control works. Diversity is our strength. It’s not race, it’s “culture.” Minorities cannot …

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Killers Part 2

     An ancient principle of the law holds that he who aids or abets the commission or the concealment of a crime is as guilty of that crime as the perpetrator of the criminal act. Clearly, the abettor must condone the crime. Equally clearly, the abettor and the perpetrator share certain convictions, whether about the …

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