Month: May 2022

Uvalde Massacre – THIS… is Evil Incarnate

First and foremost, let us lift those struck by this tragic shooting in prayer.

Heavenly Father, please be with the parents, teachers, students and others directly and indirectly affected by this evil act. Grant them comfort. Grant them peace. Let your truth shine through to lift them up. Shower them with your love. Give them the strength to move forward. In the name of your only begotten Son and our Lord and Savior Jesus the Messiah, Amen.

As we pick ourselves up from the stunning blow of this massacre of students and teachers at the Robb Elementary School in in Ulvalde Texas, many of us have one question in mind… WHY? Other questions follow. How could this happen? Could it be prevented? How could a Holy God who loves us allow such a thing to happen? All of these questions deserve an answer. All of the answers point to a single cause and a single solution. The cause is evil. The solution is God.

God?!!! God couldn’t stop this! Some may say. If God wanted to prevent this, He could have – IF He really is “all powerful”! Both responses cannot be true. Choose.

“God couldn’t stop this.” Oh really? Let’s suppose those who say this are correct. If this is true then God is NOT all powerful or all knowing. Such a god is weak and ineffective. Such is not a god I would care to worship nor trust.

What about “IF God is “all powerful and all knowing” and He loves us… WHY did He allow this to happen”? In a word… evil. Get this straight, GOD is NOT evil. GOD is good. Always. Evil exists in this world at this present time to allow US to choose and many of us choose evil over a holy and loving God time and time again.

At this juncture, someone is sure to claim I am saying the sins of the parents of these murdered children are to be blamed for this awful act. No. I do not. Neither do I blame the children themselves. They were innocent. Every. Single. One. Evil knows no bounds. Evil follows no rules. It is not beyond evil to slaughter children, to spill innocent blood. This is the essence of evil.

This nation, our Constitutional Republic established and blessed by God Almighty, has rejected this same God and embraced evil. Consider the Hebrews. They turned away from the very God who rescued them from Egypt and sent them bread from heaven. Instead they chose to worship a false deity. Likewise we reject God Almighty to worship evil.

Look around you. Evil is everywhere. Christians, my brethren in Christ, commit adultery and divorce on an equal scale with non-believers. Many who claim Christ embrace illicit sex, abortion, perversion, theft, lying, slavery, human trafficking and more. Our glorious Super Bowl, the crown jewel of US sports, is purported to be the heyday for human trafficking. We Christians are not alone.

Ghislaine Maxwell, recently convicted of trafficking children for sexual predators now resides in prison. Not one of those who received a child from her for sexual exploitation has been charged. Not. A. Single. One. Where are the tears for these children? Where is the outrage? Where is the demand for justice? Are we a godly people? Are we even a decent people? You tell me.

No doubt, those children who died at Uvalde will be received into heaven. I expect most, if not all, of those who were trafficked by Maxwell continue to live with the horrors they faced to this day. Which group received mercy?

This is no time to blame but rather a time to search our own souls. What have I done to thwart evil? How have I turned from a living, loving God to embrace that which He abhors?

Who scoffs at God? You have your answers. Evil abounds. Look around you. If you can see no evil, look in the mirror. The eyes do not lie. We mourn for those lost at Uvalde and so we should. Who mourns for the other children lost on May 25? Or the day before, or the day before that, or today? I cannot tell you their names, but their loved ones are grieving too. Evil pervades.

Who mourns for those who are abused, sexually, mentally, physically, emotionally? Who mourns for those ill-treated in our nursing homes or our prisons? Who mourns for those ripped from mother’s wombs or for the mothers themselves? Surely some do, but how many celebrate these same things? How many turn a blind eye? Out of sight, out of mind.

Evil abounds. Politicians are openly and brazenly corrupt. No one questions the Speaker of our House of Representatives when she is accused of insider trading. No one charges politicians or their minions when evidence of crimes surface. No one holds our vaunted media accountable for their own lies as they turn from a bastion of light to a political propaganda machine.

As a nation, we citizens are at least as corrupt as those we chose to represent us. Consider those words. We choose them to REPRESENT us. Not just one time but again and again. It has been pointed out that when one chooses the lessor of two evils, one still chooses evil. We choose evil. We embrace it. We celebrate it. If those who represent us are evil what does this say about us?

If you truly want evil to stop, you must turn from it and turn back to our Holy God. You must reject evil at every point, on every level. You cannot serve God and mammon.

The boy, I’ll not call him a man, who instigated the massacre at Ulverde, Texas, was evil incarnate – evil in the flesh. He was the manifestation of the evil pervading our nation. He lived among us for eighteen years. He attended our schools, shopped in our stores and walked on our streets. He did not simply decide on May 24, 2022 to shoot his grandmother before opening fire at Robb Elementary School. This took time, a lifetime. His lifetime. His final actions were the sum total of everything that happened to him, everything he experienced in his life. They were the culmination of a life lived in an evil land. Our land. It need not be this way.

Let this event, this massacre, be a turning point for us. Let is turn from evil and turn to a Holy, Almighty God.

Elon’s Latest Move Losing Me Money

So Elon Musk is hedging on his bid to buy Twitter saying he’s got to look at the number of reported fake accounts vs the reality of it all. Is it a ploy or is he serious? How does this affect my purchase?

When  I first read about this, my heart sank. I have no doubt Twitter’s fake accounts are above 5%. Could this kill the deal? Of course the price of the stock has sank well below my purchase price. I’m losing money. But do I care?

Not really. I bought Twitter on principle. I advocated buying stock in order to have some modicum of influence. By now you know my “influence” here amounts to pissing on the dumpster outside corporate headquarters. Well, okay, not that much because at least that could get be arrested. Like I said… principle.

Add to the principle, I’ve said all along I would rather we ALL bought Twitter rather than expecting Elon to carry the entire load. I wasn’t all that hyped about selling my shares for a few dollars profit. I wanted to be on the “inside”, even if he took the company private. Of course the reality was I’d be more like a fly on the wall there, you know, the one that got swatted. So much for that.

In no way did I consider Twitter’s profitability or should I say their inability to turn a profit. At this point, Twitter’s losses give me more leverage to hold them accountable. It is likely the only real leverage someone like myself is likely to have, as long as I am a lone wolf or the pack is small. However, that was the one bright spot I saw in the event Elon took it over. At least he seems to have a head for business.

So is all lost? Was this an exercise in foolishness? Maybe. Acting on principle can often be a lost cause. Unlike the movies there is a very real chance I could lose a substantial portion of the money I’ve in this. I knew this going in and let’s face it, we’re talking about less than $500 here. I’m not going to starve for that. Besides, it was never about the money. So let’s talk principle.

Twitter has turned themselves from platform to a publisher. A platform offers a place for people to speak freely. Obviously those running this shitshow don’t want that. Federal law is no help. Section 208 gives these platforms a huge loophole so they can censor to their heart’s desire and still be protected from any lawsuits. If you ask me, any politician who voted yea on this legislation should be immediately dismissed for being either too stupid, lazy or compromised to properly vet the bill.

As I delayed posting this, news has surfaced. It appears Elon Musk wants to renegotiate the deal as it now seems as much as 20% of the accounts are fake and/or bot accounts. Is anyone surprised?

I can’t say as I blame him. He correctly points out how this directly relates to advertising revenue as pricing is and should be directly related to reach. Bots don’t buy shit. And advertisers don’t want to pay to reach them. Having been there myself, I can tell you from experience that cost is a huge factor in online advertising. The most important factor is arguably the conversion ratio – how many times the ad is displayed vs how many times someone clicks on the link. In the best of times this metric is extremely low, meaning it has to be displayed lots of times to get enough eyes on whatever is being advertised to make it profitable. Now skew those numbers by 20%. Ouch.

So, yeah, the fake to real account issue is a major factor. No doubt by now, those advertisers now spending money on Twitter are reevaluating their efforts, if not pulling back or pulling out altogether. However, this may not be as critical as one might think. Any serious advertiser ultimately considers the bottom line – the ROI or return in investment. If their advertising is making money for them then these recent revelations should actually be good news. Why? Because they should expect and demand a reduction in cost to reflect the true metrics, thus making their advertising even more profitable. Good for the ad buyers, not so much for Twitter as they could likely see up to a 20% reduction in ad revenue right off the bat.

Then again, once one accounts for a 20% bot account rate, it should make the ROI on advertising look much better. Either way I don’t think this is a game-changer unless one was counting in Elon’s offer to make a killing on Twitter stock. In such cases, well, speculation can be a bitch.

As far as I’m concerned, I’m happy with my sliver of Twitter for the moment. Sure I would be happier if I’d bought at $35 or less than at $46 but it’s not the end of the world either.

 

 

Supreme Court Protests, War – So Much to Keep Up With!

My apologies to anyone stopping by during the past few days expecting to see something new. On a personal note, I’ve been writing articles to promote my book and disputing with an online publisher about it. I ended up pulling my articles from their site with the intention of publishing them on my own site AMHavens.com. At least there I have complete and total control (evil laugh). The downside is traffic is not nearly as substantial. The reasoning that won out, other than the principle that I was absolutely in line with their TOS and still they whined, was if I that extra traffic cannot be at least introduced to my book, what good does it do me? That and I’m a pigheaded jerk, to keep things clean.

In other news, I’m working on my garden. This is not a new thing but I am determined to expand on the success I had last year – my best year yet. The timing of things doesn’t hurt either. While I’ve been attempting to green up my thumb for years, the fearmongering as of late is certainly an added incentive.

Finally, the progeny is descending on the homestead this week and thus preparations are being made. This will be the first time in a couple of years so other things must take a back seat.

All that said, I feel compelled to at least agree with Tucker Carlson on one point – these recent protests and attacks on the Supreme Court justices as well as those on churches and pro-life organizations is indeed an attack on Christianity. It is as if Christ is once again being displayed by Pilate and the crowd is screaming “crucify him!”. Strangely enough, I wrote something just yesterday (yet unpublished) about the word “crucify”. Metaphorically, some say the word means to utterly destroy something. This rings true to me. Also yesterday, I concluded Carlson does not claim Christ. It is an observation rather than an accusation, as I noticed he always refers to Christians as “them” instead of “us”. It is a shame. Hopefully he will see the light.

On Twitter, I’ve had some revelations and some thoughts.

They released their earnings a week or so ago. They are bleeding money. So far it is a relatively small wound but they are not making a profit nonetheless.

As I purchased too late, I did not qualify for a dividend, had they actually turned a profit. Should I hold on to my stock AND they actually make a profit AND declare a dividend, I would then qualify. Then again, I’m didn’t buy the stock for the dividends. Even so, I DO expect them to be profitable as they are in business and not charity.

In the proxy info, I also learned I do not yet have a vote in the upcoming annual stockholder’s meeting. Again, I bought too late.

In addition I found out I have far less say than I thought I might. For instance one must own 1% of the company to recommend a board member. From what I was able to ascertain, it was a cursory glance so I need to verify this, I can band together with other stockholders so together, we can put up someone for the board, even if none of us has that magical 1%. Let’s run some numbers for the fun of it.  First…

Musk owns 73,486,938 shares of Twitter, which represents a 9.2% passive stake in the company, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission 13G filing released Monday. The stake is worth $2.89 billion, based Twitter’s closing price Friday April 4, 2022

source: cnbc (I know… right?)

Okay so the price fluctuates meaning any calculations depend on settling on a stable price. Thus let’s fudge a bit. There are about 764 million Twitter shares outstanding. So 1% would be  7,640,000 million shares. I have ten shares. so I’m about 7,639,990 shares short of 1%. Put another way, from the figures in the cnbc story, 10% was worth about oh, let’s say, $3 billion give or take. Ten percent of $3 billion is $300 million. Either way you look at it, I’m a few dollars short.

Now if Twitter stock dropped to a penny per share, it would still cost me $80,000 to buy my 1%. It would take some doing. I may or may not make that but why in the world would I sink that kind of money into Twitter at that point?

Long story short, ain’t no way I’m owning enough Twitter to have a real voice. I haven’t looked into other aspects yet but I’m pretty sure I could still be a thorn in the corporate side. Once again, my idea of a shareholder group looms large. My voice might still be tiny but at least I’d have a chance to be heard, as would anyone else. But there’s another rub.

I’d also have to own the stock for three years. Yup. Can they do that? I’d say they can. Granted, this could be challenged in court but chances are, only the lawyers would win that one. In a way, this obstacle actually makes some sense. Considering my lowly stock holdings would have to work to be a drop in the capital bucket, imagine thousands of us stockholders all making countless demands and such. Stretch that imagination to include the idea that anyone could buy a single share and immediately start making demands. Such may be the ruin of any business. So, I can see the point of it and I don’t necessarily disagree.

Considering all of the above, I’d say the larger lesson is such adventures require much planning and some serious scouting. Now I did not have to prove I was a stockholder to gain access to the above information. I’m reasonably certain this would be true in most, if not all cases concerning public corporations. Additionally, the sheer scale of any corporation raising money should be taken into context.

While I am not ready to abandon the ideas of influencing corporate policies from the shareholder perspective, the stark reality of such an attempt tends to be a bit daunting. To be sure, such a reality exists for our constitutional aspects as well.

WE the People are the massive obstacle the authoritarians must face in order to have their way. To an extent, their outlook is far darker as WE CITZENS are limited to a single vote each. Thus it becomes obvious why the controllers are so intent on stuffing our ranks with illegals and then giving them voting “rights”. They cannot tip the scales in their favor otherwise.

The point we should all take on this is none of us can do this by ourselves. We need each other. We need to stick together as citizens, sovereign or corporate, and stand strong in the face of those who would grind us down.

 

 

Was January 6 Deja Vu?

Yesterday I watched a film that made my jaw drop. It was based on a historical event that happened right here in the US of A. All I could think as I watched this movie was – January 6. Yet the events of this story occurred more than a century ago. There were some similarities in the circumstances of both events but for the most part they were very different. Only the reaction was, in some ways, a carbon copy of how our government is handling what occurred on that day.

The movie is The Conspirator. It is by no whiff of the imagination a “right wing propaganda piece”. In fact, in some other light, just the opposite is more likely to be inferred.

It is the story of Mary Surratt. She was a southern woman, a Confederate supporter who ran a boarding house in Washington D. C. when Lincoln was shot. She was implicated in the plot to assassinate the President, Vice-President Johnson and  Secretary of State Seward because her son, a friend of John Wilkes Booth and, allegedly a co-conspirator met at her boarding house to further their plans.  Here are some of the similarities I saw.

(spoiler alert!)

 

 

 

 

 

Mary Surratt was charged because of her proximity to some of the bad actors.

Little or no evidence was forthcoming.

The evidence that was presented was thin, at best, and possibly false.

She was held without bail until trial in a dank cell. Though I imagine it may be better accommodations than those of some J6 prisoners and she was likely treated better.

The prosecution stacked the deck against her. A civilian, she was tried by a military court rather than a jury of her peers in a civilian court.

She was going to be tried to appease those who abhorred the assassination.

While she was found guilty, her original sentence was life rather than hanging.

The powers that be demanded and got the death penalty for her.

A writ of habeas corpus was obtained, granting her a civilian trial. The writ was overruled by President Johnson, who had zero authority to do so.

Of course, this dark chapter in our history envelopes the worst moment of our nation. In fact, one could say, and yes, I do say it, if our constitution was followed, this nation as it stands today would not exist at all.

The Confederates were not “rebels”. These sovereign southern states did not attempt to “overthrow” the Union, they seceded – they opted out.  It was their absolute right. Now I am not going to debate their intentions or the merits or demerits of their contentions. What I will say is they had every right to act as they did, even if they were wrong.

The Union had already trashed the Constitution many times over. Thus the monkey trial of Mary Surratt pales by comparison. Yet the total disregard for her rights as a citizen and as a human being should glare as a festering sore on this nation’s history.

It is not the first, the only nor the last time the powers that illegitimately be, have trampled on the rights of us citizens – individually and as a group. Every instance is an affront to our sovereignty as citizens.

Someone once put forth an analogy concerning illicit sex that works here. He said illicit sex was like duct tape. Used once the very strong adhesive binds two together so it is very difficult to separate them. However once the tape is removed and applied to another and the bond becomes weaker. When repeated over and over again, eventually there is not enough adhesive to bond at all.

The same thing can be said for our rights as enumerated in the Constitution. Each time an amendment is “temporarily” lifted from our founding document it needs to be bound back in but each time the bond is weaker. At some point, a point we are dangerously close to, the bond will be too weak to stick at all.

Don’t take my word for it, watch The Conspirator for yourself. Compare that story with the plight of the J6 political prisoners. The details are different for sure but the substance – the stark obliteration of these citizens’ rights to appease a handful of political cockroaches, if not to deflect attention and shelter them from their own treasonous actions, is glaring.

Misinformation My ASS!

In my last post, I kinda got a bit heated concerning Mayorkas and his partners in obscurification. For this I do NOT apologize. Ever. if anything I did not go far enough. That said, I kinda wanted to shed some light on this whole “misinformation”, “disinformation” kick the left is bound to hound these days. First, let’s take another look at those definitions I found in Grrrgle.

Both of these definitions point to “false information”. Let’s drop the kid gloves, shall we? These are lies, plain and simple. Now that these terms are revealed for what they truly are, we all know what group is most proficient in propagating lies. For those of you in Egypt visiting denial, that would be politicians. Of course, they’ve built themselves tremendous support systems, supported and paid for by us taxpayers. Their corporate masters tell them what to say, often word for word, and they spew it forth like the good little sycophants they are.

On a side note, the above should give some indication just how stupid the political class is. They’ve worked for decades to enrich the moneyed elite while they only get a comparable pittance for themselves. Compare billions to millions and this becomes obvious. Granted, the politicians cannot be to brazen in their corruption or some of us sleeping citizens may come out of our slumber.

Coming back to my main point here, the crux of all of this is plain, old fashioned truth vs lies.

The worst part of all of this is I’m hearing so much wailing about all of this. People are whining about how this will “destroy democracy” and what a lousy choice this wacko chic – Nina Jankowicz is to head this debacle. Well, their not wrong but they are missing the real point.
Some have said it. Tucker Carlson started out in this vein. Chris Salcedo went straight for the jugular. The federal government has no authority to do this. None whatsoever. Period.
Enough said.