Western Rifle Shooters Association, one of my favorite blogs, is down. I miss them. I hope they come back soon!
Scuttlebutt (1 & 2) is that WRSA was brought down by WordPress.com. Sounds like the usual gambit: “This post isn’t politically left of Trotski so we arbitrarily shut your blog down. Never forget we’re in charge, peasant. Next time vote as you’re told.”
For Fuck’s Sake! Why am I hearing this kind of crap in 2020? I’m more upset that WRSA didn’t avoid the obvious situation than WordPress.com acted like nincompoops. WordPress is a corporation in 2020, of course they acted like nincompoops.
My blog was on wordpress.com for six and a half years (a shadow still remains). I was dependent on them and decided it was unwise. I took pains to extract myself after witnessing corporate/media’s behavior in the 2016 election cycle. Who wouldn’t?
If you’re dependent on a corporate entity (or pretty much any large organization) the question is not if but when they’ll screw you. Eventually, SJWs will run the organization and you will do as Karen says or get fucked. If you haven’t yet learned that simple lesson in 2020… the problem is you. To quote my own blog on that very topic (from 2018):
That’s why I left WordPress. I did it in 2016. Here’s a four year old link to explain my reasoning:
I have no ill will toward wordpress. It’s just that I am dependent on them and dependency is Latin for “eventually dumb blogger will get deleted”.
Is there a price to going you own way? Sure. Freedom is not free. Self reliance is a PITA. TANSTAAFL. Etc…
I pay for all my own stuff; in time and labor. Blog hosting is a PITA and I pay fees for hosting and to register my domain and other stuff. (Thanks to everyone for the donations that keep me going! By the way, if you ever have $5 and are wondering “what can I do with this fiver to generate fun stories”… I’m your man!”)
I don’t Tweet; which costs me a huge audience. Then again Twitter is obnoxious. Nothing wise was ever debated in 140 character slogans. It’s telling that they’re in a pissing match with the President of the United States. I don’t care if you hate Orange Man or not, any group that’ll jack an account around for shits and giggles when the account is the Goddamn President is out of control. If they can hose the Donald, folks like you and me haven’t a chance. Incidentally, that’s exactly Twitter’s reputation. They’re known for nuking bloggers and secretly rerouting traffic.
I also don’t F***book. That costs me a lot of publicity too. I setup an Adaptive Curmudgeon F***book presence but never use it. Facebook unnerves me; it’s built from the ground up as a snitch factory. Also Facebook is run by the Karen army. Getting kicked off Facebook is pretty much a given for anyone who thinks beyond a meme. They’d eventually throttle my presence for aggravated wrongthink. Plus the setup experience made me feel like a whore.
YouTube likes to demonetize people for inexplicable reasons that always seem to lean left (it’s almost like there’s a pattern). Thus, I won’t expand into video. If you’re wondering why there aren’t videos of me sailing into rocks or riding my motorcycle into trees… now you know.
I forgo an absolute mammoth amount of attention I might otherwise get. But I also keep my balls out of their vise. That the true condition of freedom of speech in American in 2020. So repeat after me: Corporations are not your friends. Don’t act like they care. How many shots across the bow do you need?
A.C.
P.S. It’s only fair I mention my use of these guys:
Are they corporate entities? Yes. Would they, therefore, love to screw me? Of course. Will they? Probably. Have they yet? Nope… but when it inevitably happens I won’t be surprised. I’m ready for it. (In fact, Amazon cut off one spigot of money a few years ago. When it happened, many blogs wen’t dark. I wasn’t among them. I was never Amazon’s bitch so I skated.) I still link to Amazon stuff and I still get a kickback that costs you nothing. So far they’re mostly about commerce and not politics so I can live with it. So by all means click on any Amazon link I’ve posted (like to the cool new toolboxes I bought), and then buy anything you want. If it’s something huge I get a big reward and buy liquor. If it’s small, I’m still happy and buy beer. Regardless, I never get too dependent on them. That’s the key, none of the three (Patreon, PayPal, Patreon, or Amazon) can kill my blog. Corporations act like nincompoops… don’t let nincompoops near the kill switch!
Western Rifle Shooters Association has transferred to a blog and from first impressions and fiddling about, it looks like they managed to retrieve most, if not all, of their content and repost it on the blog:
https://westernrifleshooters.blogspot.com
But your point is well taken. With the media companies (Google, The Tube of You, Farce Bok etc.), if you aren’t paying for the service, you are the product. Dealing with them is as delusional as pigs in the pig pen thinking that the farmer is a charitable soul, feeding them for free and not charging rent. And we all know what happens to pigs in a pig pen … BACON!
https://gab.com/WRSA/posts/104277105566412775
WRSA ain’t dead yet!
I would contribute outside you suggestions. Possible?
Sure, if you’ve got a desire to contribute, I’m all about making your dream come true. Send me an e-mail (ac@adaptivecurmudgeon.com). I’ll figure out something.
But, we would love seeing the poseidon adventure on Bitchute. Just so we could laugh along with ya……… so to say.,..,, 😀
I’ll always prefer words to video but I’ll look into it.
Paypal has been screwing people involved in 2nd Amendment style businesses for years. (Translation – if’n you sell pieces parts for bangsticks, they’ll stop letting you use them, and may, and have, not refunded or remitted funds still on the books.
Patreon has done the same thing. Especially anyone selling accessories for arms or talking heavily about anything regarding return to strict interpretations of the Constitution.
Same with Amazon.
Nowhere is safe from the proggie bastiges.
Oh yeah, I get it. You can’t trust any of them. PayPal, Patreon, and Amazon are all whiny little bitches about guns… and lots of other stuff too. Lots of entities would love to cancel anything cool and fun. But ya’ gotta do what you can with what’s possible; holding out for perfect is unwise. It is good practice to be ready to jump ship at a moment’s notice from any of them though. I did think I’d once bought a firearm using PayPal (before the tragic canoe accident) but maybe I’m remembering incorrectly.
Some months back, before migraines, family emergencies, funerals, etc, I promised an email server tutorial. I have a rough rough draft:
https://www.amssolarempire.com/Blog/?p=668
I keep my paypal balance ludicrously low.
I remember anecdotes about them failing to deliver or return money, and arranged my finances accordingly.
If you ever decide to get into videos: https://www.bitchute.com/. They don’t use advertising, they use a donation model for monetization, and you won’t get nearly the audience that you’d get from Youtube, but you also won’t get deleted arbitrarily either.
Or you could put the videos on your own web server and use an embedded player to host them yourself. That’s what I did with my blog when I decided that youtube was evil.
Re Westernrifleshooters…if they transferred from wordpress to blogspot they basically traded Sodom for Gomorrah. Blogspot is owned by Google and google is as left wing and anti-gun as they come. It’s just a matter of time before they get kicked off there too.
I did what you did…I was on blogspot right up until Google bought it. I immediately switched to hosting my own blog on a fee based hosted webspace. Granted, I’m still dependent on some other corporate entity’s hardware so there’s a chance they could “cancel” me if they decide my heinous right-wing, pro-gun message is not worth taking my money, but the chances of that happening are smaller when I’m paying them for the product they’re selling rather than being the product they’re selling.
Huh. My original reply must have gotten lost in your spam trap. If not, ignore duplicate posts.
I’ve posted my mail server tutorial (version 0.5, the terse ball-of-yarn version) on my blog:
https://www.amssolarempire.com/Blog/?p=668
Trying to do my part to keep the internet free and functional.
First, it’s vise not vice. Based on the word’s definition, putting one’s nuts in a vice is a rather common practice.
So is putting one’s nuts in a vise but the outcome is very different and much less enjoyable.
Second, we’ve discussed fuel capacity on the 200, and ther are larger tanks available. Does anyone make a snorkel for it?
That’s a serious question; can’t remember which bike – Husqvarna, Bultaco, CZ, one of the odd ones, and it was back in the ’70s – made an intake extension that nestled in the “inverted valley” between the fuel tank wings. Don’t remember if was an anti-dust measure or anti-water, but some of the scrambles bikes had them.
Damn! I shall correct my grammar. Can’t believe I missed that one.
The air intake of the TW is pretty high and well sheltered. I’m not really sure how it could be made much higher without a pipe sticking up like a smokestack. I’ve read about people tweaking it for more air inflow and so forth but there are pros and cons to every modification. It seems like every-time I read about a cool air intake mod, I subsequently read about how there were drawbacks, particularly in how the carburetor responds. I suspect the second water hazard was simply too deep for any motorcycle. Live and learn.
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