Tomorrow is the big day. Finally, after years of lurking and then hesitant posting, I’d have a chance to meet some Minnesota Glibs. I’m a little excited, not in a sexual way, but more in “be prepared for a science test in high school” way. So it’s off to bed, hoping to get a good night’s sleep.
Tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow…somewhere in the darkness I drifted off to sleep, just like Kenny Rogers’ “Gambler.” I’m all prepared, I have my clothes all laid out. I’d ironed my newest bib overalls, using spray starch to get the crisp crease, found my Christmas flannel shirt and I want to look my best so I’m going to wear the bow tie that has the flashing lights. I’ll have to remember to check the batteries to make sure the lights work alternately and will switch to both lights blinking together. As I get ready I decide to use some hair pomade but Dixie Peach is hard to find here so I went with the regular brand. I opened up the can of Bag Balm and it was nearly empty! I was able to use my little finger around the corners of the can and got about a tablespoon, not much but it will have to do. I made a mental note to get the economy size the next time I was in Tractor Supply. I want everything to be perfect, first impressions are important, just as Miss Sawyer said in English class.
For a while I had thought for the occasion I’d wear my white painter’s bibs, the ones that have the Dickie’s logo on the patch in the front, but I couldn’t get enough of pine tar out of the knees from the day I helped my friend Gus unload a truck full of rough sawed pine. Besides, it’s not formal and the fashion magazines all say no white after Labor Day. Boots for the meet up ’cause I want to look manly but I won’t turn the socks down, I don’t want to appear pretentious. I checked my bow tie, making sure the wire to the batteries was hidden inside my shirt, a trick I’d learned from my older brother. I’d better stop and get extra batteries, I don’t want the lights to quit blinking halfway through the meet up. Checked myself in the ceiling mirror in the bedroom and I knew I was ready.
Make the long drive to Minneapolis-actually to a northern suburb-to meet Pope Jimbo, Tundra and A Leap at the Wheel for the very first time. I know these fellas from their witticisms on the Glibertarians site. I don’t really know them, but I mean that’s where I’ve seen their well thought out insights and comedy efforts that always produce either awe or a hearty chuckle. We’re meeting at the Conference Room in Caribou Coffee and I admit to being a little nervous.
I check in with the receptionist, a pert but matronly young lady- I would guess a high school drop out with two kids but studying for her GED ’cause her boyfriend wants her to get into Cosmetology School so she can work when he’s laid off in the winter. Right now she’s senior barista, cashier and table clean up, as well as Glibertarians receptionist.
She directed me down the hall to Conference Room 3, but reminded me to use the Secret Knock. Oh, oh, I wasn’t prepared for that, but she whispers, “Shhh, middle two fingers, rap twice but firmly, wait exactly ten seconds, then flat palm the door, you’ll hear a ‘Come In’. Immediately open the door and enter.”
Nervously, I approach the Conference Room. It had a large brass 3 on the door and below that someone has written “Janitor’s Closet” in magic marker. I use the Secret Knock, wait 10 seconds and follow it up with a flat palm. A voice from inside says, “Come in.” I try the door knob, one, two, three times, then the voice says…“Turn the knob in the other direction.” I do and the door opens. At this point I know I’ve committed a “Folks Pass” as we said in sophomore French Class.
There is a folding leg card table in the middle of the room, four chairs, three men. I quickly survey the faces and try to put a name on each, from my observations of their comments. I recognize the more serious looking one as Leap, the good looking one as Tundra, and the happy one as Pope Jimbo. Now I approach the table and we start with the introductions. Leap stands up and offers his hand and says, “I’m Tundra.” I kiss his ring, noticing that it was the Monopoly Scottie dog. I go to Pope Jimbo, we shake, I kiss his ring which is the top hat and he says, “I’m A Leap at the Wheel, but you can call me Leap.” Now the last one, Tundra, is left and we repeat the formal introduction, his ring is the thimble, super glued in an inverted position, open end up. He says, “And I’m Pope Jimbo, but you can call me Pope or Jimbo or Mr J or Mr P but you don’t have to call me Johnson.” They all laugh.
I start to sit down and I hear, “There are rules, Dude,” whispered from an unknown. I look up and see that sitting down first is Leap, followed by Pope Jimbo, lastly Tundra. Leap waves me into the empty chair. “We’ve been looking over your application and biography and find you’ve had a rather interesting life. The time you pushed the girl out of the way while getting on the school bus makes us believe you are a take charge kind of person.” I nodded, they were seeing things correctly. “And the time you saved your friend Bobby from walking into a puddle without probing the depth first was nothing short of heroic.” I was a little embarrassed at having to acknowledge these personal feats, but I really wanted to be accepted as a Glib.
I looked across the room and saw a shelf with three caps, lined up like marines on parade. These were not knock-offs but genuine Glib merchandise, custom embroidered. From left to right they read:
“Glibs Yesterday” then “Glibs Today” and lastly “Glibs Tomorrow”
I could see a white plastic bag with a red cap in it that said “Glibs Forever” and an empty space on the shelf. I knew that would be mine if all went well today.
Suddenly, the informalities were over and a certain aura fell over the room. Tundra announced that he had copies of the day’s agenda; I could participate in the discussion, but was not allowed to vote. He passed the agendas out and for my benefit explained the rules. There were ten subjects on the agenda that had been submitted and ranked according to their importance. Each person would have 90 seconds to discuss the implications and on to the next person. After everyone had a chance to speak, each person would get 30 seconds to summarize or rebut, then a vote would be taken. Leap would be the moderator, Tundra the time keeper because he had an official Special Olympics stopwatch with the big numbers, and Pope acting as a sort of controller, using a power point pointer (with the light on it) to signify who was in the on deck circle.
So the discussion started. First item, how high should the wall be on the Mexican border that was being discussed nationally? A lively discussion with a lot of emotion, economics and established facts followed. I found it difficult to keep up because of the speed and coherence of the conversation.
It was like this all afternoon, as agenda item after item was dissected and remodeled in a Glibertarian format. At one point someone mentioned MikeS’s idea/opinion and I pointed out that he was not a Minnesota Glib, but I heard the “There are rules, Dude” repeated so I dropped it.
At the conclusion of the agenda discussion Happy Hour commenced and all formalities were dropped, everyone was relaxed, on a first name basis, like Leap, Pope and Tundra because it was hard to shorten up his name but still he didn’t seem to mind. The conversation was generally surly, sarcastic and offensive, much like the daily comments I’d come to enjoy from Glibs. Soon, however, the time had come to say goodbye. I felt I’d made an average to good impression. We all walked out together, laughing, enjoying the Glib camaraderie.
As I got into my truck I noticed the same white plastic bag I’d seen in the conference room. Somehow the receptionist had sneaked that bag into the truck without me noticing. My heart was pounding. I opened up the bag, and there it was. A red hat with Glib embroidered on it and below that was “Forever.” I was in! Hat on, I sped out of the parking lot and was heading for home when I felt something bam-bam-bam in my back. “Uh-uh-uh” was all the sound I could make.
“Wake up! Wake up! You were talking in your sleep again, some crazy thing about the Pope being A Sleep at the Wheel and driving on the Tundra.”
Then it hit me, I’d been dreaming the dream of every novice Glib…
’Twas a dark and stormy night, they were all gathered around the campfire; “tell us a story Q!” they cried.And the third installment of Q’s Brain Toilet went like this:
The State of Academic Science
I’ll start with a disclaimer in that I recognize there are other scientists here and their opinions may be vastly different, I’m speaking strictly from my own experience.Simply put, overall it’s not good.This isn’t to say there aren’t people out there doing great work, there definitely are, but while the physical sciences (and to much less of an extent, the life sciences) have been less affected by general campus insanity, they haven’t avoided it completely.The wokification of campus continues its inexorable creep, transforming every nook and cranny and I fully expect even chemistry and physics departments to be teaching the new gospel of racist gravity or patriarchal stoichiometry in the near future.You can see it in biology departments with trans-mania; how many biologists might privately hold unwoke opinions about how many genders there are but would never dream of actually making that argument in public?I’m not even talking research here; I’m talking make an offhand wrongthink comment to someone other than family outside the confines of home.Even tenured professors seem reluctant to openly hold unorthodox (read: non-Leftist) views on a whole host of ideas that would have been utterly non-controversial 20 or even 10 years ago.Non-tenured?Fuggeddaboudit.SJW mobs, harassment, unemployment and unpersoning await those who dare step out of line.Couple that with thought policing by grant funding agencies and you have an atmosphere of enforced conformity that goes beyond mere ideology; perception of reality itself must tow the Party lion.Why bother doing original research at all when the Party tells us everything we need to know?Taken together with the “publish or perish” philosophy that values quantity over quality, you have a giant circle jerk of researchers publishing papers as quickly as possible all saying the basically same things.Don’t you dare question root assumptions or work from different premises; that’s racist and don’t you realize the Nazis did that?Wanna see the future of academic science?Look to meteorology and despair.Fortunately for all of us, the major breakthroughs in medicine and technology in the past couple of decades have almost all come from evil profit driven private research anyway.The campus, as we know it now, I believe will be dead in a couple of generations, and good riddance to it.The last thing we need is more Lysenkoism.
Kids These Days and Their Music, Get Off My Lawn!
This may seem like a trivial or simpleminded conclusion, but I have the answer why modern music always sucks.Time is a glorious crucible that burns away irrelevancy, and the further you get away from a particular era of music, the more the impurities and bullshit get burned away leaving you with the good stuff.I may think that the current incarnation of hybrid hip hop/R&B/electronica is intolerable swill, however there are a few songs and artists among the pile of auditory crap that are not half bad.Perhaps 20 years from now, the ratio of decent/shit will have gone up just due to the fact that “oldies” stations have to try and consolidate an entire era of music in one place.Naturally, they’d want the best of the best.As a late Gen X child of the 90’s, I have always greatly enjoyed grunge, but even at the time there was a fair amount of crappiness.Now, however, if I listen to the Lithium channel on Sirius, it’s all only the best stuff, the crap jettisoned.But no Ariana Grande.Ever.Self-important tweeny boppers that sing like a bag of cats set on fire should be exiled to South Georgia Island.
Advertising, Media, Outrage Porn and Despair
Apologies in advance to any Glibs that may work in the advertising industry, but my personal opinion is that, next to public employee leech-hood, advertising is the most immoral of all industries.Classically, advertising is about informing potential customers about the virtues of a particular product and trying to convince them to buy said product.Simple enough.However, what’s the one biggest motivator for human behavior; bigger than morality, logic, sex, even basic needs like hunger and thirst?Fear.Advertising is about fear.You have to make people scared to not buy your product.Scared that they’ll be miserable without it, that there is some gaping deficit in their lives without it.That’s the most effective advertising there is and, if done properly, it is damn effective.As the art of the ad has gotten more and more sophisticated over the decades/centuries, it would only be natural for other industries to pick it up.The news media has been at it for a long time; so much so that it’s a joke.“Welcome to local news on channel 4.This common household product is something everyone uses all the time.But it’s probably killing you.Stay tuned after this break to learn more.”Look at the dysphoric TDS-gasms endlessly being peristalsed on our collective faces by corporate media.Sure the journalists are lunatics, but man do their hysterics get them eyeballs.Trump singlehandedly saved the New York Times.If Shrillary had been elected, they’d probably already be digital only.
That’s why I think SJW virtue signaling is driven much more by fear than by the delicious frubbles of self-righteous indignation.The self-righteousness is a nice bonus and gives the troo bleevurs the little dopamine shots their barren and wasted lives depend on, but fear is the true motivator.Fear of how others might perceive them, fear of saying the wrong thing, fear of ending up in the outgroup; after all what’s “virtue signaling” if not advertising?It’s right there in the name; “signaling”!As anyone whose life is completely driven by “keeping up with the Joneses” their existence is that of a desperate, empty husk deeply in Kierkegaardian despair.All style, no substance; just endless advertising the existence of a soul that isn’t there.
NB: I may think advertising is immoral, but I love it.For one, it’s a natural outgrowth of capitalism; can’t have one without the other.Further, it’s very instructive and character-building to learn that self actualization can’t be bought and that skepticism is vital to a healthy existence.Caveat emptor is one of the most important lessons anyone can learn, and it doesn’t apply only to advertising.To that end, thank you advertisers for helping make the beauty of capitalism function and for teaching me important life skillz.
FIN.
This is Q, signing off.Remember kids, don’t stay in school, it’s dumbed-down government indoctrination. And c’mon people, why would you neuter your pets?Let poor fido keep his balls!How would YOU feel if our alien overlords decided they needed to keep their stray human numbers down and started spaying and neutering like crazy?I don’t think you’d be very happy!
Gather ‘round children, it’s time for another exciting installment of Q’s brain toilet!It may be snowy and cold outside, but my tortured neurons are just getting warmed up.So let’s jump right in.
MGTOW: Pathetic Losers, Misogynists or Canaries in the Coal Mine?
First off, MGTOW is something I could never do.There’s no way I could live without nourishing my soul by drinking from the well of feminine soft sweetness.Sure, there are plenty of crazy bitches out there (just as there are plenty of imbalanced doods), but after a certain age and experience level, I’d like to think that a person can get better at spotting the true nutballs and avoiding them.And if you get fooled and roped in by one… oh well, shit happens.You play, you pay (another one of my personal mottoes).
However, I will say that I would consider myself a MGTOW sympathizer on some level.After watching several videos produced by self-proclaimed MGTOW, I would say that the majority of them are making a rational, thoughtful choice based on a personal cost-benefit analysis.Feminism, the Pill and openly misandric family courts have upended male and female relations to such an extent that, at least until people truly adapt to the situation (probably in a few generations), I can understand how a man would come to the rational conclusion that opting out is the safest and most reasonable course of action.The rub here is that maximizing safety is not always the best way to go through life, and there are plenty of people who think that the only reason these guys “go MGTOW” is that they can’t get a girl anyway so they cover up their inadequacy by claiming that it’s a choice (hence the “pathetic loser” label).There also are some genuine misogynists in the community, though I would say that the vast majority of apparent woman-haters have been legitimately screwed over by a specific woman or set of women and make a category error of ascribing evil motives to all women.I will say that I think the problem will get worse before it gets better (if it ever does) and many men will take a MGTOW-like path even if they don’t formally ascribe to the philosophy.So in answer to the question, MGTOW are all of the above.
One final point addressing criticism of the group that they gather online to constantly talk about women.If you’re walking away from opposite sex relations, then why obsessively talk about them all the time?My theory on that is MGTOW primarily acts like a support group for men in recovery.The desire for sex, love and companionship is so fundamental that consciously choosing to walk away from it is extremely difficult and daunting; akin to an alcoholic walking away from alcohol, but from a healthy, even stronger, drive.Therefore, MGTOW groups are like AA meetings and one could make the same criticism; if these AA people are trying to quit drinking, why do they talk about it so much?
Supplements Galore!
As many of you may have surmised, I am a great proponent of better living through chemistry.Capitalism and human innovation has provided us with a cornucopia of options to enhance, modify and optimize our physical and mental abilities, so why wouldn’t you take advantage.This section will focus on my favorite OTC supplements.Future Brain Toilets may touch on prescriptions, but I’m not sure about liability in that case and would need to confer with the Overlords (if you’re feeling bold, go here for your favorite prescription meds).
Yohimbine: I relentlessly evangelize for this, but only because I’m a true believer in its amazing sexual powers.If I’m anticipating a particularly boisterous bedroom session, I’ll pop a capsule an hour before, then break open another one about 20 minutes before and take about half sublingually.PDE5 inhibitors like Viagra may help the flag get to full staff, but Yohimbine will make the big finish so explosive that it’s like unleashing a tsunami.You may just feel like passing out and your partner(s) will be greatly impressed by the increased volume of “output”.Women can get in on the fun too as it’s been reported to me it turned her into an “orgasm machine”.Side effectsat high doses can be uncomfortable (racing heart, sweats, chills, anxiety) so start slow.
Diphenhydramine: AKA Benadryl.Sticking with the sexual side of things, if you are unfortunate enough to suffer from premature ejaculation (or you just feel like having an extra long session), popping a Benadryl about 30 minutes will effectively delay climax and give you more control over when it happens.Side effects are well known, so unless you want to be falling asleep on her instead of servicing her, tread lightly.
DHEA: This is a testosterone precursor that is (inexplicably) legal and OTC.If you like it, I’d stockpile it before the DEA decides it’s eeeeeeeevul and poleaxes it.This basically works like a kinder, gentler anabolic steroid.Good for weight loss, increased muscle mass/gym performance and even elevating mood.Women get all these benefits plus a raging libido and a “magic vagina”.Taking too much has similar side effects to steroids; acne, mood swings and possibly lowered fertility.Don’t take it longer than 4 weeks at a time without a 2 week break.
5-HTP: This is a chemical precursor to Serotonin so at higher doses it can work on depression in a similar way to an SSRI, but with a completely different mechanism of action.At lower doses, it just promotes relaxation.This can be serious stuff though, so I’d recommend asking your doctor before taking it (especially if you’re already on antidepressants).
Commieball 101
As a preface, I can completely understand why some people think soccer is boring, especially if you don’t watch it much and aren’t familiar with the strategy.It’s low-scoring, can be (apparently) slow and doesn’t have the rigid structure of more traditionally American sports.This isn’t trying to convince anyone to watch it, just explain why I love it and it’s played such a big part in my life.
To my eyes, the moniker “beautiful game”, clichéd as it may be, is entirely accurate.I believe it is the sport that most closely mirrors life itself in all its beauty.There can be stretches of boredom and torpidity (though I like to think of these stretches as deliberation) but they are always punctuated by bursts of excitement, speed and energy.While the object is definitely to score, it’s not the centerpiece of the joy in watching.It’s about the strategy, teamwork and skill.The journey is more important in many ways than the destination and the free-flow lack of structure gives great freedom to players.An individual contributor can have an effect on a game, but one star player is never enough to win single-handedly without support from his family (team).Similarly, team cohesion almost always beats individual skill and flashiness.On a practical level, the amount of conditioning and stamina required is monumental with the average professional running 7 miles each game, much of that sprinting.In high school, we practiced on a field right next to the football team and always chuckled at their “conditioning training” which consisted of running 50 yards then taking a 5 minute break.Boxing Day is one of my favorite days of the year in which I can rise early, head to a bar and drink beer and watch the Premiership all day long.
That’s All Folks!
Another installment of Q’s Brain Toilet is on the books, hope you enjoyed it.It’s like a wart, it’ll just keep coming back until someone freezes or cauterizes me.
As Chief Cryptid Editor and Wrangler of this here site, I have noticed that many people have suggested versions of STEVE SMITH such as we saw with SEA (Mad Scientist made first contact with SEA SMITH and steered him to our site)
SEA SMITH
or SPACE SMITH (not sure about him yet…is he real, or just the product of the insane ramblings of a deranged government employee?).
IN SPACE, NO ONE CAN HEAR YOUR RAPE WHISTLE
Oh, and STEVE SMITH did use a pseudonym in Hollywood – STEPHEN SMYTHE. Also, SEA SMITH’s greatgrandfather was OCEANUS SMITHE.
We have seen STEVE SMITH’S MOM:
MOM SMITH
..and GRANDFATHER SMITH:
GRANDFATHER SMITH
I don’t have any pics of SEA SMITH’s distant progenitor LEV IATHAN.
But you, the Glibertariat, have suggested some too. So far, off the top of my head, I can recall;
SNOW SMITH – STEVE SMITH has denied such a one exists, but does acknowledge Cousin Yeti is around.
CAVE SMITH – seen in the recent past in the comments (help me out, who was it that came up with this one?)
BOT SMITH – same here as with CAVE SMITH…
SKY SMITH – I think I have seen this one recently too.
What other SMITHs have/can you come up with?
Have at it in the comments – by have it at it, mean…
Welcome to the inaugural installment of Q’s Brain Toilet; a collection of vignettes designed to demonstrate the random thoughts that flutter in and out of the Hell that is my cranium. My aim is to amuse, inform and, primarily, to inflict upon you the excrement produced by my cerebrum; because misery loves company. If people like it, and it pleases the Overlords, maybe this can become a semi-regular feature? Maybe? In any case, on with the show!
Political Nihilism: Legitimate Philosophy or Cop-out?
We Glibs comprise a loose association of philosophically similar individuals who are by no means ideologically homogeneous. Some call themselves yokeltarians, others an-caps, still others Objectivists; it runs the gamut. While I have evolved over time from a more traditional Republican in my younger days to a card carrying LP member and then to a decidedly small-l libertarian, more recently I find myself landing on what I call Political Nihilism. In many ways, I’m still a run-of-the-mill libertarian; I zealously believe in the NAP as a guiding principle of political ethics, I consider the government to be an embodiment of violence and put primary focus on individual rights and liberty. I also love ass-sex (only with ladies, sorry guys). However, I’ve come around to the thought that no matter how many limitations you place on government it will, like water in a mountain stream, find ways around them. It might take a while, but it will happen. The Founders in the US did a pretty bang up job trying to decentralize power, limit government authority and emphasize individual freedom. We see how in just 240 years it’s been chipped down into a shadow of its former self and all indications are that it will be reduced to rubble in the short to medium term. I’ve said that the right amount of government is like the right amount of cancer, so wouldn’t it stand to reason that anarcho-capitalism would be the solution? Unfortunately, I think an-cap is just as utopian as communism. I think it quickly devolves into might-makes-right with no respect for individual liberty. Where does that leave us? Well, nothing works long term. But I suppose that’s expected; like Fight Club says, given a long enough timeline, everyone’s life expectancy goes to zero. It was fun while it lasted.
Female Ejaculation vs. Squirting
Any connoisseur of the finer erotic streaming sites (as I know you all are) has surely come across videos of women ecstatically expelling large amounts of fluid during orgasm. This is often termed “female ejaculation”. I’m here to relieve and correct you of your wrongitude. Female ejaculation is a milky white secretion emitted during orgasm from the Skene’s glands, sometimes (stupidly) called the female prostate. The amount is similar to male ejaculation (1 – 5 mL) and has a similar composition to semen (with no sperm, obviously). Squirting or gushing is what is typically portrayed in porn movies and is actually a type of orgasmic incontinence. A study performed bladder ultrasounds on women who regularly squirt. Their bladders were confirmed empty prior to masturbation, then reexamined at a level of high sexual excitement to find the bladder had rapidly filled up. After climax (and attendant Old Faithfulness), the bladder was confirmed empty again. Analysis of the fluid revealed a composition similar to highly dilute urine, but with a curiously higher fructose content. For those who haven’t accomplished/experienced this kind of fun before, here is a how-to guide (seriously, majorly, utterly NSFW; not kidding, do not click).
Womb Envy?
I’ve written pretty extensively (ad nauseum in fact) on what I see as the intrinsic differences between men and women (shameless self promotion). That long-winded piece does a pretty good job, I think, of summing up why more men are failing to launch, falling behind in school, professionally and generally in life. Misandry from feminist policy making aside, men don’t have to excel anymore to get laid. The supply of pussy went up and the price came down. It also outlines that women are generally dissatisfied with the dating landscape due to giving up their leverage on the sexual marketplace. However, what accounts for monotonically declining female happiness in a more general, existential sense? This again, I believe, is an unintended consequence of the Sexual Revolution. In spite of propaganda to the contrary, women have always been part of the workforce, it’s just that in bygone days that work was primarily done in the home. Try telling any mother that raising children, cleaning, preparing meals and generally keeping life from falling apart isn’t work and you’re likely to get an open palm across the face. Additionally, women may not have entered the workforce outside the home en masse until post-Sexual Revolution, but there were still a fair number who did work before. My great-grandmother for example, graduated from college in the ’20s and worked for Union County, New Mexico as a “domestic assistant”. Essentially this meant she traveled to country folk and taught them the basics of canning food, haberdashery, general domestic skills and basic personal finance. This profession is something that contemporary feminists would deride contemptuously, but I’d like to see them do any of those things. At any rate, it’s not the work itself that has made women unhappy, I fully support people (and that includes women) pursuing whatever goals they want. What has made them unhappy is that work, as defined by feminism, has not complemented domestic life, but supplanted it. For a man, if he’s lucky, he has a job he can tolerate. For a significant portion, it’s pointless and soul-sucking drudgery; only a tiny minority really love and feel passionate about work. What makes it worthwhile for a man is the fact that the drudgery is in service of a much greater project; the support and sustenance of hearth and home. That’s what makes him get up each morning and do things he’d rather not do. You see, men’s work has never been a substitute for domestic life, it’s an integral part of it. Creating and raising children is just about the only thing in existence that lies at the intersection of our biological, sexual, intellectual and spiritual natures. It is the primary purpose of our silly little lives at the most basic level. Feminists, thinking that male work was an end to itself, sold the idea to women that entering the workforce “like a man” would lead to more life satisfaction. They grievously misunderstood that working for a man has a higher purpose to the home and that work, in and of itself, is often not very satisfying. Women largely relegated domestic life to the back burner, if not chucking it altogether, thinking that career, money and professional power would provide happiness by itself. Unfortunately, this approach has largely failed. This is not to discourage women from working or encourage men to become Mr. Mom. There are a zillion different ways to skin a domestic cat. It’s a critique that, for the vast majority of humanity, child-rearing and family must take the central role in life for maximum happiness for both men and women, whatever else may have peripheral roles.
TTFN
Well, that’s it for this pilot installment of Q’s Brain Toilet. If you want more, say so in the comments. Likewise, if you hate it and want me to crawl back under the rock from whence I came, say that. Or don’t read it and skip down to the comments. Whatever.
I didn’t buy a new Tarot to use for you all, since my local witchcraft store was closed due to the snowpocalypse. Yes, you can buy decks on Amazon.com, but they don’t give you valid results unless the cards are sufficiently permeated by nag champa.
Anyway, the skies are speaking out of both sides of their metaphorical mouth this week. Kind of appropriate, I guess for the month of the two-faced god.
The first bit of seeming contradiction (because of course, there isn’t really any contradiction where the Celestial is concerned) are the two planetary alignments. We have Mars-Terra-Luna (waning) = “strife at home.” And we also have Terra-Sol-Mercury which means “good news from/about home.” Obviously the skies are speaking to two different groups of people. If you’re born between Libra and Aquarius (both signs that feature prominently this week) then you get the good news. Leo through Aries… I’m sorry, especially since I’m in that group. Pisces or Virgo? I have no idea I mean, “your destiny is cloudy and difficult to discern.”
The second non-contradiction is having the moon in Libra while Venus and Jupiter are in Sagittarius. We’ve talked about these before — having such a powerful change sign in the place of balance leads to instability and things generally going amok. While Sagittarius, when empowered by the two brightest planets brings about things going well. The clue here is that Sagittarius isn’t a lucky sign as much as it is a karma sign. Doing right this weeks brings great rewards, while cutting corners (in a metaphysical sense) subjects you to the pique of irritated stars.
Beyond that, we have Saturn in Capricorn making people act like doofuses (anything like that happen last week when this sign was also up?) and Mars in Aries giving its buff to getting buff (hit the gym, hit it hard). We also have something new — The Sun and Mercury are in Aquarius. This is a good omen for prosperity, return on investment, financial windfall, rewards for effort, crop yields and the like.
Taken all together, this is a very rewarding week if you show some self-discipline. Enjoy it.
The Glibertarian Tarot Project is not dead, though it is taking longer than I had hoped. Part of that is because my cash flow seems to be diverted somewhat to ammo purchases and buying accessories to make sure the range toy is just the prettiest little pistol that ever was. However, while I am slowly working on getting the deck put together, I also have been casually looking for more divinatory techniques to supplement the horoscopes. That’s how I discovered the most profound, most complete, most revelatory Great Key ever produced. I hesitate to share it with you, because a) you won’t need me to cast horoscopes for you anymore as it explains everything, and b) it may lead to teams of assassins armed with Tavors hunting us all down now that we know the secrets. Look at your own risk.
You want the truth? YOU CAN’T HANDLE THE TRUTH!
I’ll let one of the other (((Glibs))) go into Kabbalah, since it’s a bit complicated, and I really need to do something simpler first, like memorizing the ballistics of every cartridge ever produced. However, if you’re unfamiliar with sephirot correspondence, you can get an idea here.
Just in case the Illuminati blocked that image from going through, here’s what’s happening in the skies this week:
First there is a lunar eclipse which signifies new beginning/rebirth of an esoterical or spiritual sort/major transitions and portends astronomy geeks standing outside in the cold. By orbital necessity this involves the Earth being between the sun and the moon, which is a very powerful astrological alignment. This eclipse occurs with the moon in Cancer, so it’s time to get your Xanatos on — plotting, scheming, working in the shadows, all of these things will be particularly successful for you this week.
Capricorn is a confused mess. It’s playing host to the sun (that good!) the moon (that’s bad!) and Mercury (that’s… indeterminate but portentous!) The best-case interpretation (and honestly, the most likely one) is that you will see the removal of a mental block, or the way around an obstacle will become apparent. I could really use this — I’ve had this issue with airborne tin that seems to be small enough particulate-wise to go through our ULPA filters that I haven’t been able to find a solution to. Stars, don’t fail me now!
Mars in Aries indicates that it is a good week to stay indoors, as well as a warning about hostility. Now, we mentioned above that this is a good week for subtlety. If you seem to be in a situation where the two tactics are going to come into conflict, which will win? If you have an obvious opponent and you are between Gemini and Scorpio inclusive, blindside them. Otherwise, confront them directly. Reverse those if your enemy is being a sneaky little bastard.
Lastly, Sagittarius is keeping hold of the two luckiest planets, Jupiter and Venus. Enjoy things going as planned.
The grape genus Vitis splits into three natural groups based on geographical location: North American, Eurasian, and Asiatic. There are roughly 25 to 30 species of American origin and about the same number for Asia. But there is only a single grape species for Eurasia, the Vitus vinifera. Vitis vinifera is itself comprised by the wild grape vine Vitis vinifera sylvestris (commonly referred to as V. sylvestris) and the cultivated grape vine Vitis vinifera vinifera (commonly referred to as V. vinifera). So, all the well-known varieties/cultivars of grapes used for making wine today (such as Cabernet Sauvignon and Chardonnay) are members of a single species of grape vine, V. vinifera, and are the result of some combination of natural mutations and human tinkering over the course of several thousand years.
There is no clear point in time where the cultivated V. vinifera became distinct from V. sylvestris. In fact, hybridization occurs naturally between the two subspecies and occurred continuously throughout ancient times. We know that the native range of that the wild grape vine V. sylvestris included the Mediterranean shores of modern Lebanon and Syria as well the border between Syria and Turkey. However, there is archeological evidence of grapes being cultivated far outside the native range of V. sylvestris and into the far reaches of Israel, Egypt, and ancient Babylonia inside the geographical known as the ‘Fertile Crescent’.
The cultivation of grapes did not occur in a vacuum, but was part of the overall development of agriculture in the Fertile Crescent. Archeological finds indicate that wine was being made on a large scale as early as the 4th millennium B.C, in the ancient city of Godin Tepe in western Iran. In addition to the traditional archeological evidence of wine making such as finds of broken pottery, some of the pottery still had residue that was subjected to an in-depth chemical analysis that confirmed the presence of grape products (assumed to be wine). So, in the ongoing debate between wine people, beer people, and mead people over who started brewing first, the wine people now have scientific proof that puts start of intentional wine making back to at least the 4th millennium B.C.
The cultivation of V. vinifera, and presumably the making of wine, spread from Iran and the Fertile Crescent throughout the Middle East and Turkey eventually making its way to Greece. The Greeks spread viticulture to many locations around the Mediterranean including Italy and southern France; the Romans continued the spread viticulture throughout Western Europe. Fast forward through several thousand years of history including the dark ages, the middle ages, and the renaissance and we get to modern viticulture (growing grapes) and viniculture (making wine) using any of several hundred cultivars of V. vinifera which humans have new carried around the globe.
So how do we make wine. It’s easy. Crush the grapes; press out the juice; pour it into a vessel; and wait. Wine will happen; it can’t not happen. It might be good wine (lots of great commercial wine use spontaneous fermentation). But it might be terrible wine as well. To ensure success then, most wine makers inoculate with cultured yeast (someone got lucky with a spontaneous fermentation and has been culturing the yeast ever since).
First off, we need to grab some grapes. I guess we need white grapes to make white wine and red grapes to make red wine, right? Not exactly. V. vinifera grapes generally come in two types: green grapes and black grapes. There are other colors as well, but they are just not as common as green or black grapes. Regardless of the color of the skin, the flesh of the grapes is generally colorless ranging from pale green (green grapes) to pale grey (black grapes). And the juice from V. vinifera grapes is also generally colorless ranging from pale green (green grapes) to pale grey (black grapes) – amazing how that works out. Therefore, white wine can be made from almost any variety of V. vinifera grapes, but red wine is made from black grapes (or blends of grapes where the majority of the grapes are black).
Thus, we can make white wine from Chardonnay grapes which are green; Gewürztraminer grapes which are dark pink; and Pinot Noir grapes which are black. Yes, you really can make white wine (Blanc de Noirs); rosé wine (Sancerre Rosé); and red wine (Burgundy) from 100% black Pinot Noir grapes. How can that be you ask? Great question. And the answer is that white wine is made with a white-wine process and that red wine is made with a red-wine process (duh). The making of rosé wines straddles the fence.
The white-wine process is as follows:
1) Crush the grapes
2) Press the juice from the crushed grapes
3) Clarify the juice (let the pulp from the crushed grapes settle in a tank)
4) Transfer the clarified juice to a fermentation tank
5) Inoculate with an appropriate wine yeast
6) Wait until fermentation is complete (with some caveats)
7) Clear the wine using fining agents or power filters
8) Bottle the wine
Dry white wine is made by letting the yeast consume all the available sugar in the juice. Semi-dry to semi-sweet wines are made by chilling the fermentation tank to just above freezing right before the yeast consumes all the sugar. This puts the yeast into hibernation. Then the wine is power-filtered through increasingly fine filter pads until the live yeast is filtered from the wine. Finally, a big dose of potassium metabisulfite is added to ensure that refermentation does not occur once the wine is in the bottle.
The red-wine process is as follows:
1) Crush the grapes
2) Transfer the mixture of juice and skins (known as must) to a fermentation tank
3) Inoculate with an appropriate wine yeast
4) Work the must until fermentation is complete
a. The grape skins (and pulp) still have juice in them
b. The yeast will ferment the juice in the skins
c. The resulting CO2 will puff up the skins like little balloons so they will rise up from the liquid below
d. The skins also form a cap which traps CO2 from the liquid below while it ferments
e. Thus, the skins will rise up out of the liquid below and will begin to dry out
f. Fermentation releases heat, so you get warm moist skins which can become a great environment to grow many bad organisms, so
i. You push the skins back into the cooler liquid below two or three times a day (punching down the cap)
ii. Or you pump cooler liquid from the bottom of the tank on top of the skins
5) Release the free-run wine from the tank (whatever wine flows out without pressing)
6) Transfer the skins to a press
7) Press out the remaining wine from the skins
8) Age the wine (typically in barrels, but tanks with wooden slats can be used)
a. Premium wines typically age the free-run wine and pressed-wine separately to be blended to taste at the end
b. Bulk wine will have the free-run wine and pressed-wine blended before aging
9) Clear the wine using fining agents or power filters
10) Bottle the wine
Some premium wines will have an extended period of maceration (soaking the finished wines on the skins) after fermentation is complete to extract as much color, aroma, and flavor from the skins as possible. This is one way to make amazingly intense wines. It is also a way to make hideously harsh crap. Know what you are doing if you choose this path.
Many red wines and some white wines will undergo malolactic fermentation at some point in the process. Tartaric acid is the dominant acid in grapes, but grapes also have significant amounts of malic acid. Malic acid is tart and harsh on the palate. Certain bacteria (Oenoccocus Oeni) will convert malic acid to lactic acid which is softer on the palate and can provide a creamy, oily mouth-feel. This malolactic conversion is not true fermentation, but it does release CO2 resulting in the appearance of a “secondary” fermentation in the wine.
Alright, let’s go get some grapes. Hmm, you better live on the west coast or near one of the handful of places in the Eastern or Southern US where the climate is moderated by proximity to an ocean, a river valley, or the Great Lakes. Otherwise, you aren’t getting fresh V. vinifera grapes unless you have friends willing to jointly buy several tons of grapes and pay for refrigerated shipping. Otherwise you are buying kits.
All juice is just that. 23 Liters (6 gallons) of pure wine grape juice. You put it in a fermenter and go. This provides the truest flavor profile for the wine.
High-quality kits are around 16 liters (4 gallons) of juice concentrate. You add 2 gallons of water to get to normal concentration and then ferment.
Mid-quality kits are around 10 to 12 liters (2.5 to 3 gallons) of juice concentrate. You have enough water to get to 6 gallons and then ferment.
The canned stuff is basically crap. You add one or two cans of concentrate and a bunch of sugar into the primary. Then add enough water to get to 5 or 6 gallons.
The key is that the more concentrated the kit, the less of the true grape varietal flavor and aroma carries over into the final product. It is possible to buy premium wine kits that have the juice still on the skins, but they are hard to come by. You need to order in advance from some dealer, and the must comes refrigerated or frozen in 5-gallon pails. I’ve seen friends use them, but I have no relevant experience.
So how are wine kits made, in particular red wine kits? We know that red wine is made by leaving the juice in contact with the skins during fermentation. But kits aren’t fermented (otherwise, they would already be wine). Here is one quick summary:
White grapes are pressed, and the juice is pumped into a settling tank. Enzymes are added to break down pectins and gums, which would make clearing difficult after fermentation. Bentonite is added to the juice and re-circulated. After several hours the circulation is shut off, and the tank is crash-chilled below freezing. This helps precipitate grape solids, and prevents spoilage.
Red grapes are crushed, sulfited and pumped through a chiller to a maceration tank, where special enzymes are added. These break down the cellulose membrane of the grape skins, extracting color, aroma and flavor. The tank is chilled to near freezing to prevent the must from fermenting. After two to three days the red must is pumped off, pressed and settled much the same way as the whites.
When the tank is settled, and the juice almost clear, it is roughly filtered, the sulfite is adjusted, and it is either pumped into tanker trucks for shipment to the kit facility, or into a vacuum concentrator.
Vacuum concentrators work like the reverse of a pressure cooker. By lowering the pressure inside the tank, water can be made to boil at very low temperatures. By boiling the juice at low temperature browning and caramelization are prevented. The water comes off as vapor, leaving behind concentrated grape juice. Because some aromatic compounds can be carried away in this vapor, a fractional distillation apparatus on the concentrator recovers these essences, returning them to the concentrate after processing.
Enzymes are used to extract color, aroma, and flavor from the skins of black grapes. They do a good job of capturing the basic flavor profile of the grape variety, but it is not the same as fermenting on the skins. It is similar to making beer with extracts versus all-grain. You can get good products from extracts, but finesse is only achieved through total control of the mashing process. It is the same story when making wine. Concentrate kits make good wine. Exceptional wine requires working with fresh grapes.
So, what does an aspiring winemaker do if he doesn’t live where V. vinifera is grown and doesn’t want to work with kits? The answer is hybrid grapes.
Starting in the late 1800s, the French had a little problem. Some “important person” in Germany imported grape vines from the United States to plant as curiosities. Top Men did that kind of thing for amusement – creating gardens of plants from around the world. The problem is that North American grapes evolved with a nearly microscopic insect called phylloxera which eats the roots and leaves of the grape vines (the insect lives underground all year except for a few weeks when they go airborne to reproduce). It turns out that V. vinifera had a bit of trouble dealing with phylloxera, and phylloxera destroyed 3 million acres of vines in France. Wine production was cut in half, and the trend was going from bad to worse. Fortunately, some professor in Missouri figured out you could graft V. vinifera to American rootstock and the vines would survive, even thrive (and that’s an entirely different article). European wine was saved!
Until the gentlemen from Missouri saved the day, viticulturists (people that grow grapes) in France were frantically trying to hybridize V. vinifera with American grapes to get something to survive. And they had some successes. Several French/American grape hybrids were produced then that are now grown throughout the United States, but they have since been regulated out of existence in France to preserve the cultural integrity of French wine (and because the grapes aren’t anywhere near as good V. vinifera). In the 1940s, a Wisconsin farmer named Elmer Swenson began hybridizing the French/American hybrids with American species found in the upper Midwest trying to find varieties that would survive in cold climates. Elmer also had a lot of success. Many of his grape varieties are in production around the Midwest. In more recent years, Cornell University in Geneva, NY and the University of Minnesota have continued to have great success creating many new cold-hardy varieties. Thus, wine grapes can now be grown in many places where V. vinifera cannot. And while many of these varieties can produce wine that is quite good, none of them have reached equality with V. vinifera. But if you live in Iowa and want to make wine with local grapes, you need to make do with the hybrids that grow close by.
Finally, let’s make some wine.
Remember that apple crusher we just bought to make cider. I got bad news. It won’t work. You need to go drop another $500 on a grape crusher/destemmer. You put the grapes in the hopper and turn the crank. Crushed grapes fall out of the bottom, and the stems traverse a down a long tube of sorts to the end of the destemmer. The destemmer part works, mostly. But you still need to stick your arms into the crushed grapes and pull out the pieces of stems that make it all the way through.
Crushing and destemming the grapes.
Then we’ll splurge and buy a nice big wine press. It’s big, and it’s heavy, and it’s awkward. So, we’ll mount it to a platform with castors – castors that don’t lock. Note when I say we, I mean the dude that bought the press; it ain’t mine. Since the castors don’t lock, make sure you have 5 or 6 other people around that are willing to grab on to handles that don’t exit to hold the press in one place while you crank away.
Pressing the grapes.
And the beautiful juice flows out of the press. Wait, why isn’t it colorless. I was told that black grapes produce colorless juice. Well, that’s V. vinifera. This is a lovely French/American hybrid called Frontenac created by the wonderful folks at U of MN. Unlike V. vinifera, the pulp of Frontenac is purple and the juice is a vivid red. Even though we are following a “white-wine” process and pressing juice from the fresh grapes, we will be making a medium-bodied red wine. The reason we are not fermenting on the skins is that Frontenac is notorious for smelling of green vegetation (i.e., like “someone just opened can of green beans”). The common wisdom is that avoiding skin contact during fermentation reduces the undesirable aromas in the wine.
Frontenac produces vivid red juice.
Oh, and the acid level of Frontenac is about double the acid level of high-quality V. vinifera grapes. So, don’t be thinking you’re making a nice dry red wine. You’ll be making a sweet wine (or in my case, a type of mead called pyment). There’s reason why no one pays 50 bucks for a nice bottle of Frontenac from Iowa.
Disposing of the cake.
Once all the juice has been extracted from the grapes, the outer frame is disassembled exposing the “cake” which is the dry, compacted grape skins. In this case, a nylon bag is used as a screen to prevent the skins and seeds from being pushed out between the wooden slats in the frame. The cake is dumped into a handy bin and then disposed of in a way that honors Gaia (e.g., composting, feeding to livestock, sending it FedX Ground to your Representative, etc.).
Today is a twofer in the ongoing esoteric education of the Glibertariat. We have reason N+1 why I “never mention your sign” and also concrete proof of the sciencyness of astrology.
Here is the chart for Jan 18. This in NOT the actual chart I use, but one generated by a computer (SCIENCE!) that has many of the same features and can be used as a teaching example.
Want to know the secrets of the universe? Start here.
So obviously, you’ve got the zodiac around the edge, and the position of all the planets and a few other things marked as to where they are. You will notice that everything falls in the range between Aries and Sagittarius. If your sign is between Scorpio and Taurus inclusive, there is literally nothing there. So why don’t I mention your sign? Because you’re unimportant. Your life has no meaning. The cold, uncaring stars don’t even bother to look in your direction, nor do they avert their gaze. They simply aren’t aware that you exist. The eternal empty eons of apathy ignore you. Only the Glibertarians love you, and you can make them love you more by donating at https://glibertarians.com/donate
“But wait!” you may be saying “There IS something on the chart! That weird messed-up pawn shop logo pointing to Cancer!” Well, no. That’s the ascending node for people born that day– it doesn’t actually exist. But it is a great example of how astrology is a true science.
I’ve talked before how astrology was born out of inductive reasoning — taking data, matching events and signs and using them to make a model that predicts the future, just like notable scientists such as Ptolemy, Pythagoras, Brahe and Copernicus did. But as science advanced, so did astrology. Just as the concrete, inductive discipline of practical masonry lead to the abstract, deductive Freemasonry, so too did astrology gain a philosophical, theoretical, deductive branch. Particle physics has “virtual particles” and “supersymmetric counterparts.” Cosmology has “dark energy.” These are things that might not exist, or in the case of virtual particles absolutely do not actually exist, but we keep them around because they are useful to the models and keep physicists employed. Likewise, clients get pissed off when you tell them that there’s nothing in their sign on any given day, so astrology has developed these virtual heavenly bodies to keep the income stream going (just like any other scientist with their research grants.) Sometimes these are actual objects (like the asteroid Ceres) with absolutely no demonstrated astrological value, and sometimes they are completely invented spots in the sky, like the Dark Moon Lilith (indicated by the black crescent and cross symbol pointing into Aquarius) but they need to exist, otherwise astrology wouldn’t work. And since astrology works, they must exist. Q.E. Freaking. D.
Last week’s amaze-o bad luck Rune of Ending from Wizard of Earthsea has broken up, so that’s good. Still some reverberations from it as Saturn remains aligned with the sun and the moon leading to additional good things ending.
One of those good things that ended was Venus’s transit through Scorpio. If you didn’t take advantage of that, too late. This week Venus enters Sagittarius with Jupiter, so there’s an interesting double-path to good lovin’. Your Game will be on this week (On point? On fire? On fleek?) However, even if you don’t have Game, this is one of those rare weeks where being polite and well mannered will get you laid.
Swimming will be more difficult this week as Saturn joins the Sun and Mercury in Capricorn. Also bad luck involving leather goods. Lastly, someone will make a conscious effort to deceive you.
The moon and Mars are in Aries this week, bringing an extra jolt of belligerence and higgledy-piggledy. Ares will enjoy competitive success, but also an increased risk of indigestion. This is an obvious sign that you should enter an eating contest if there is one this week.
So, big things in the sky. Very big. Also bad. Very bad. Very bigly badly. I’ll take things out of order to address this problem.
Jupiter aligns with Mercury and the Sun, indicating major political news. NOT the assassination of a president major however. This will be relevant shortly.
Venus remains in Scorpio, which is good news for orgasms. This is the last of the good news this week.
Cops will have a good week what with Jupiter visiting Sagittarius. Good news for cops typically means bad news for everyone else, but I guess it’s possible that this will be actual hero cops taking down legitimately bad people without collateral damage. I’m not seeing any other signs of that, though that could be because the rest of the sky is busy sending other messages.
Saturn and Mercury join the Sun and Moon in Capricorn. Warnings will go unheeded. Disregarded prophecies. Or, as we say in the augury biz, “Monday.” Also, hyperchange. Your reasoning will be overclocked, and yet your conclusions will be wrong. Ouch.
Mars in Aries. War, destruction, terror. Buildings collapsing. The Tower Tarot. With the Aries/Ares homophone, the baleful aspects of Mars are doubled.
So each planet, save Jupiter has got some schmutz of negativity rubbed on it. Even Venus is tainted. And ALL of the darkened planets are involved in a single construction. Just how important is this? There are the Sun, the Moon, the Earth, and five other planets. Eight total. Six of them are involved in this. This is death-of-kings level stuff. Except it’s not the death of a king (Jupiter isn’t involved) and it’s not a new war breaking out (Mars isn’t involved). What we do have is a double-legged diagram focused on Saturn. Saturn is bad news. Saturn is endings, death, Father time, the Grim Reaper, Chronos and the metal lead. And he’s leading this thing. And what’s worse, is the two legs are in a 2:1 harmonic resonance, so each are at double strength with respect to the other. Because this is so bad, I won’t even try to personalize it for the Glibertariat — I don’t know if it’s possible for anyone to do that, let alone me. Instead, I’ll spell out what each leg is saying and let you all apply it to your lives as appropriate, or (more likely) disregard it completely (see Capricorn, supra).
