Tag: Ricochet

Limited, Local, Lawful Government

Aaron Miller
Aaron Miller
23 18
 

I have been an active poster and commenter on Ricochet since the beginning; way back when Peter came down the mountain with the Code of Conduct and Rob was still scribbling graffiti on the side of NRO cruise ships.

The concept and the membership really haven’t changed much. Contributors come and go. Ever more podcasts elbow each other for a place in the spotlight. We have more options on the site now, like groups and private messages. We have more meetups. Ne’er-do-wells are still sacrificed to the PIT.

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Member Post

Henry Racette
Henry Racette
21 9
 

When I commented recently that Ricochet was a wonderful place for people who want to engage in center-right conversation, at least one member expressed his opinion that, while he valued the right quite a lot, he had little use for the center part. I get that. In these seemingly hyper-polarized times, anything that smacks of […]
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Speak Out in 2021

Henry Racette
Henry Racette
21 12
 

As the train wreck of 2020 steams full speed into what we have every reason to expect will be the train wreck of 2021, I’ve been thinking about how I want to apply my limited time and energy in the new year. There are certainly plenty of issues that warrant attention. After all, no problems that dogged us last year have been solved; none has even grown smaller, and a brand new set of problems is scheduled to take office in just a couple of weeks, promising a tsunami of bad judgment and its inevitable consequences.

I’ve resolved to do my best to focus most of my attention on one issue, something I consider to be of paramount importance; more important even than our foolish panic over COVID, or the frankly idiotic trans movement, or the viciousness of Antifa and hateful dishonesty of BLM, or the barely concealed self-loathing of climate catastrophism.

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Member Post

Henry Racette
Henry Racette
55 0
 

I’d be interested to hear anyone’s thoughts about this. By virtue of their market dominance and the competitive advantages of large networks, the tech giants are able to manage the flow of news and information, censoring, throttling, and editorializing as they wish. They can do this transparently or invisibly, using increasingly sophisticated algorithms coupled with […]
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Member Post

Bo Grimes
Bo Grimes
54 18
 

I’ve been a supporter for years, but I hardly ever use it because every time I come back I get too frustrated by ridiculous load times. I’m on a Ethernet using a 1Gbit/s fiber optic connection, and Ricochet is orders of magnitude slower than any other web site I ever load. Just look at this […]
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Member Post

Tedley
Tedley
14 8
 

I just listened to the two most recent (28 and 29 Sept) “3 Martini Lunch” podcasts, and they open with an ad from, of all people, the Biden campaign. Not what I would expect to hear on a Ricochet podcast, but when you’re an important and widely-followed media empire, this type of thing was going […]
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The Dave Carter Show #20

Secretary of Veterans Affairs Robert Wilkie On Turning The Corner At The VA

4 2
Hosted by Dave Carter

Dave had the opportunity to talk with Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert Wilkie during a recent press event where Wilkie mentioned that the VA had “turned a corner” in the last couple of years. Since large bureaucracies are not typically suited to a sharp change in direction, Dave thought to inquire more on the topic and the result was a fascinating exchange that we think you’ll find interesting indeed.

Then, continuing his series of compelling interviews with Ricochet Members, Dave talked with member Lilly B. about her recent post, “Little Crazy Children,” in which Lilly compares rampant charges of racism with the rampant accusations of witchcraft in Salem in the late 1600s. The similarities are (pardon the pun) arresting, as are Lilly’s thoughts on the current madness and the prospects for a peaceful resumption of civic life. All of which make for a thought provoking and informative show, which we’re sure you will enjoy.

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Member Post

Hoyacon
Hoyacon
162 25
 

I’ve been thinking about this for awhile, but it’s now become a question worth asking. Paranoia strikes deep. Note that the question is not when will they come after Ricochet substantively or even justifiably because it’s clear that the adverbs are not culturally relevant. Perhaps there’s an element of hubris in thinking that “we” are significant enough to be […]
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A Jolly Challah-Day!

She
She
18 6
 

“Oh, it’s a jolly challah-day with Susan, Susan makes your ‘eart so light!” OMG. Apologies for the appalling pun, to you, to @susanquinn, to Mister Susan, to the brothers Sherman who wrote the music and lyrics for Mary Poppins, and above all, to everyone who reads this, wherever you are, for inflicting upon you Dick Van Dyke’s excruciatingly embarrassing (embarrassingly excruciating?) excuse for a Cockney accent. Born within the sounds of Bow Bells, he most certainly was not:

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Rob Long’s Data-Driven Utopian Dream

Henry Racette
Henry Racette
49 15
 

In the first 15 minutes of the latest Ricochet podcast (Episode #483), Rob said a couple of things that caught my attention. At one point, when talking about our communication- and data-centric technical culture, he suggested that the answers to all our big problems were probably in the wealth of data we’ve collected.

What came to my mind when he said that was the movie WarGames (1983), in which a wayward defense computer is discouraged from initiating Armageddon when it crunches the numbers and concludes that there’s no way to win a nuclear war. Setting aside the question of whether or not that’s a correct conclusion (and I recently re-re-re-watched Dr. Strangelove, in which Buck Turgidson makes a compelling contrary argument, so I’m really not so sure), what the computer in WarGames did was reach a kind of meta-conclusion. A thorough examination of the available information suggested that no good answers could be found.

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The Dave Carter Show #8

Going “Weapons Free” with Lt Col Brendan Welsh and Spin Owsley

26 7
Hosted by Dave Carter
With guest Alphonse Fontenot

The term “Weapons Free,” is used to describe a missile defense system which has been set to launch whenever and wherever the system’s computer senses any potential threat, according to Special Forces retired Lieutenant Colonel Brendan Welsh who shared a great many illuminating perspectives and theories about the US strike that led to the demise of Iran’s Maj. General Qassem Soleimani with our own Dave Carter.

And while there were no threats to the podcast (except a wisecrack or two by Alphonse Fontenot), Dave couldn’t resist going “weapons free,” in a show which also features a new segment called Meet The Member, in which various Ricochet Members sit down for a fun conversation with Dave. In this first installment of Meet The Member, Dave talks with a fellow veteran, Ken Owsley, known around these parts as “Spin.” They talk about everything from Spin’s time serving in the Army in Germany to sharing some laughs while discussing the value of maintaining a healthy sense of humor. Sportscaster Mark joins in to talk LSU Championship football, and General Hatchett unveils something called the Hatchett Doctrine. While no one was hurt and no small animals were abused in the making of this podcast, we think you’ll enjoy this “Weapons Free” edition of the show.

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Ricochet at 10: America in 2010

EJHill
EJHill
41 24
 

We’re almost through our 10th year around here. Wow. Who would have thought it? It was a much different world back in May of 2010 when the first Ricochet Podcast went online and was followed by a website that the founders envisioned would be more civilized because everyone would have “skin in the game;” even if that “skin” was nothing more than the cost of a cup of coffee at Starbucks.

What was roiling us back then? Well, according to Time, the #1 story that year was an environmental disaster in the Gulf: the explosion of the BP drilling rig, “The Deepwater Horizon.”

But in politics the top story was undoubtedly the passage of ObamaCare and the backlash that came with it in the form of the Tea Party movement. In their year-end review Time lamented that the Tea Party types were “chasing a socialist poltergeist” and the press was still hanging on to the notion that ObamaCare was going to expand health coverage to an additional 32 million people and “would in the long term trim costs.” How’s that working out for you?

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Look Who Wants to Be Ricochet!

RushBabe49
RushBabe49
31 17
 

I was just reading an article in the Wall Street Journal about BuzzFeed, and its trials and tribulations over the past couple of years (losses, layoffs, etc). Now, I know very little about BuzzFeed, except for what I hear Rush Limbaugh say about them, and have never been to the website. Here are the last two paragraphs of that story from Saturday’s Journal:

The company also is seeking to create a membership model, with an eye on creating niche social communities for people with shared interests. “We believe people might be willing to pay a little bit to something if it reduced the amount of spam, trolls, and bad actors”, he [CEO Jonah Peretti] said.

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What I Love About Ricochet: No $exting

Midget Faded Rattlesnake
Midget Faded Rattlesnake
38 15
 

@blueyeti promised us in Ricochet’s recent Focus Group that “We also do not sell your email addresses or anything else to third parties even though we get asked about it on a regular basis.” As testimony to how good Yeti’s promise is, let me share what happened right after I subscribed to some other well-known right-wing outlet (which shall remain nameless) just this fall. I’ve been a Ricochet member for years. And for years, the partisan demands on my money have been negligible. Few emails, no texts. Life was good. Then, I signed up at that other right-wing outlet:

Now random politicians won’t stop $exting me. You know what I’m talking about. $exting. Those endless texts demanding money, burning up your phone faster than you can block them. Various personas claiming to be “Newt” or “Mitch” or “Scalise” take credit for sending them, though it’s hard to imagine the sender as anyone other than some pitiable peon of a staffer or intern, unhappily grinding out the wheedling that’s below everyone else’s pay grade.

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Member Post

Henry Racette
Henry Racette
49 15
 

The gentleman whose long hours and tireless efforts keep this site running smoothly recently posted a request for comments from the Ricochet membership. This is my second internal post in response to that. The response to the Blue Yeti post is, currently, about 650 comments long, and includes a lot of interesting ideas. One feature […]
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