Swiss was a bit tied up (those cheese holes won’t drill themselves), STEVE SMITH is… otherwise occupied, so I’m stepping in to give you people a place to rant, vent, and otherwise be horrible humans.
The only content I’ll put here is the single funniest thing Donald Trump has ever tweeted. And this one other Twatter link. And now you guys and gals can have at it.
Libertarians often believe in what is de facto open borders. But let’s look at the consequences.
Yes, we are a nation of immigrants, but our current situation is different than it was in the past. The country is suffering from immigration indigestion. The existing laws of the United States now exclude certain classes of immigrants who, we can all understand, would be most undesirable additions to our population. These exclusions have been enforced, and the results have been beneficial; but the excluded classes are extremely limited and do not by any means cover all or even any considerable part of the immigrants whose presence here is undesirable or injurious, nor do they have any adequate effect in properly reducing the great body of immigration to this country. There can be no doubt that there is a very significant and heartfelt desire on the part of the American people to restrict further, and much more extensively than has yet been done, immigration to the United States.
I needn’t mention the economic side of the general policy of restricting immigration. In this direction the argument is unanswerable. If we have any regard for the welfare, the wages, or the standard of life of American workers, we absolutely must restrict immigration. There is no danger to American workers from the entry of skilled or trained and educated immigrants with an established occupation or pursuit, for immigrants of this class will never seek to lower the American standard of life and wages. On the contrary, they desire the same standard for themselves. But there is an appalling danger to the American wage earner from the flood of low, unskilled, ignorant, immigrant labor which has poured into the country for some years and which not only takes lower wages, but accepts a standard of life and living so low that Americans cannot compete with it. In essence, the current wave of immigrants is merely cheap competition for American workers, and a heavier drain on the welfare system. It has been well documented that reliance on foreign workers in low-wage, low-skill occupations, such as farm work, creates disincentives for employers to improve pay and working conditions for American workers. When employers fail to recruit domestically or to pay wages that meet industry-wide standards, the resulting dependence — even on professionals — may adversely affect both U.S. workers in that occupation and U.S. companies that adhere to appropriate labor standards.
New arrivals should be limited to our capacity to absorb them into the ranks of good citizenship. America must be kept American. For this purpose, it is necessary to continue a policy of restricted immigration. It would be well to make such immigration of a selective nature with some inspection at the source, and based either on a prior census or upon the record of naturalization. Either method would insure the admission of those with the largest capacity and best intention of becoming citizens.
To sum up, we have been called the melting pot of the world. We have experienced a situation where it looks as though we have allowed influences to enter our borders that are about to melt the pot in place of us being the melting pot. There has come about a general realization of the fact that the immigrants who have been coming to us in recent years are wholly dissimilar to native-born Americans; that they are unfamiliar and perhaps hostile to self-government, something that has taken us many centuries to acquire. America is also beginning also to feel the pain from the internal ‘foreign colonies’- those groups of aliens, either in city slums or in country districts, who speak a foreign language and live a foreign life, and who want neither to learn our English nor to share our common life. Instead, let’s keep what we have, protect and preserve what we have, make what we have the realization of the dream of those who wrote the Constitution.
(yes, this is a pastiche of contemporary comments from politicians in the early 20th century with some archaisms updated. They argued that Italians, Slavs, Asians, and Jews were qualitatively different than previous immigrants. Thus did half my family perish in Hitler’s concentration camps.)
In the summer of ’81, I was 15 years old. I wasn’t your average teen. I was a committed juvenile delinquent and drug “enthusiast,” with a somewhat troubled past. My parents were hippies who–like many counter culture rebels–became hard core drug addicts. They divorced during a state mandated custody battle. The cops seized my siblings and myself because my parents refused to snitch on their dealer, basically. I spent two years (’76-’77) with my grandmother, who was a vicious and mean, high-strung stress case with an extreme superiority complex. My Mom eventually regained custody of us and we returned to our outlaw life. After a few years, and developing a drug habit, I tired of the poverty and stress of it all. I was offered to return to my Grandma’s house and I accepted. I returned much more street smart and ready to party it up.
The San Fernando valley in the early eighties was a great place to party. Cruising Van Nuys Blvd (if you google “cruising Van Nuys Blvd” you can see what it was like) had been shut down about a year earlier and that scene had moved to a large park called Balboa Park. The lot would fill with cars, all of which would tune their radios to KMET, and a huge party would happen. Every once in awhile, the cops would drive through and everyone would hide their beers and what have you. It was a great scene.
My friends and I would buy six packs of Mickey’s big mouths and split them. You’d put one beer in each back pocket and drink the third. That way, if you had to run, you only lose one beer. We had a plan for everything. This informal gathering happened every Wednesday night, just like the Van Nuys Blvd scene it replaced. We had many memorable times there, and this story centers around the last one I had there, during the summer of ’81.
I had a friend named Marvin. Marvin was far more criminally minded than I. He had been to juvie a few times and had a huge record. He’d dive right in to any criminally oriented situation with aplomb. He pushed me to expand my lack of respect for the law. I was positively small-time by comparison.
Marvin was very small. I was about 6” taller than him. I was kind of a protector of his. He’d get belligerent often and at ill-advised times, and I’d usually smooth things over with whomever wanted to kill him this time. Sometimes a fight would be unavoidable. Those times we’d just fight it out.
This particular Wednesday night was off to a good start when I ran into Marvin. I was already a little drunk, had my three Mickey’s big mouths and was raring to go. Marvin pulls out some ‘ludes and gives me two of them. I was starting to feel really good about things, a feeling later proven to be misguided. As we walked the rows of cars, talking to girls and checking out hot-rods, this big dude runs up and starts hassling Marvin. Here we go again.
I go to assess the situation. It seems that the ‘ludes Marvin had given me earlier had been fronted to him and he had no plan to pay for them. The big dude seemed very agitated and was demanding his 20 bucks. I sprang into negotiating mode and asked what he needed that we could maybe actually get for him. After some back and forth, we agreed that Marvin and I would go steal a car battery as payment. This seemed like an easy was to avoid violence, and we were sure it’d be quick and painless.
There was really only one option for stealing car batteries near this park, a row of apartment buildings across the street. We went to the first car, in the first space of the first building. It turned out to be a horrible choice. There was an overhead storage locker which covered the front half of the hood. I told Marvin to be the lookout, so he stood at the edge of the lot watching out. I had no tools, but I figured I could just wind the clamps off. The hood crashed loudly into the storage bin when opened. I got the negative cable off as planned, but the positive side would not budge more than a slight partial turn. Eventually, I decided to just yank it out and hope the inertia would pop it off. Drugs and booze famously spawn bad decisions. We had both the former and the latter.
Well, after one particularly loud crashing noise I see Marvin waving at me frantically. I start waving back to say, “I can’t help it,” but he responds as if to say, “NO, not that.” Then, he raises both his hands like a stick-up victim from the movies. I was perplexed until I saw the three people with guns pointed at him. They told me to come out with my hands up, so I did. They ushered us into one of the apartments and sat us on the couch inside. There were more armed residents inside and now we had about 6 guns pointed at us. I remember one of them looked like a flint lock taken from a plaque off the wall. Anyway, they held us until the cops arrived. I’m sure the proximity of the park caused them much concern, with all the partying and such, explaining the guns and quickness with which they used them.
The cops took us down to the station and handcuffed us to bench. After about an hour, Marvin’s Mom came and picked him up. I assumed my grandmother would come for me next. Well, an hour later, she still hadn’t come. Finally the cops came and told me that she had told them to keep me. I was going to be driven to Juvenile Hall. Whoo-hoo! After another hour on the bench, they walked me out to a waiting car and we were on our way.
Juvie was pretty much what I expected. It was a huge concrete building with only tiny windows way up high on one wall. It was three floors high and the lesser offenders like me were on the upper floor. That meant we could watch the traffic on the overpass through our window slits, if we stood up on our beds. The food was disgusting and the place was noisy and smelly and fucking cold all the time. We stayed in our cells almost all day. Ate in there and everything. There were some tables in the hall area outside the cells and we’d go out for about an hour every day. I spent about two months there going to trial and then waiting to get shipped out. I remember the radio played the Stevie Nicks/Tom Petty duet over and over because it had just came out. I will always connect that song to that place and time.
Juvenile court is (or, at least, was…) unlike any other depiction or reality of court I had ever seen. As a minor, you have NO rights at all. There’s no concerns about proportionate punishments, rights to confront accusers, even the right to defend oneself. Marvin’s Mom had hired a lawyer for him and he (the lawyer) was the only one who spoke, other than the judge and, briefly, some kind of social worker/probation person, who made recommendations to the judge. Marvin’s lawyer gave a dissertation on what a good kid he was and how the only reason he was in trouble was because of my bad influence. I was steaming mad and kept raising my hand. The judge seemed irritated by me and kept waving me to shut up. After awhile he proclaimed that he had heard enough. Marvin was sentenced to house arrest and probation and I was sentenced to “suitable placement.” For how long, I had no idea. What suitable placement was, again, no clue. All I knew was I got jacked in that courtroom.
Well, one day they drove me out to my “suitable placement.” It was a large group of brick buildings arranged like a school, with a quad, dorms and a cafeteria. It was run by Catholic monks. Everyone was “Brother X, Brother Z,” etc. There weren’t any walls or fences, so escape was always an option. Only the knowledge that I would be hunted down kept me from just leaving, well, that and the constant reminders that the next place was gonna be much worse. There was a school adjacent to the facility and we would spend regular school hours there. I was assigned a job in the kitchen and a dorm space with a cabinet and a bed. We had group therapy every day, where we’d talk about our problems and receive any news about our status, etc. The staff got to determine how long we would have to stay. We got weekend passes which we could earn in various ways. I had to talk my grandma into letting me go to a few at her house (I’m pretty sure the staff called her and made it happen). I got two weekend passes, one of which turned out to be transformative.
There was three things that stood out as notable events while there. First, when I had just arrived, a guy in the kitchen had a half a joint. He was gonna share it with me. I figured we could put a ladder all the way up to the vent so the smoke could escape without smelling the place up. Then, we decided to cover any remaining smell with a mixture of all the cleaning products available, particularly the strong smelling ones.
It turns out that mixing these chemicals can cause a variety of symptoms, including loss of consciousness and even death. Who knew? All the fumes rose to the top of the room, where we were atop the ladder. The fumes were so overwhelming, I couldn’t tell if the pot had any effect. The other guy fell off the ladder, hurt himself and I had to go get him help. The whole thing was viewed as us mixing the wrong chemicals and we never got into trouble because they never found out about the pot.
The second thing was much more consequential. On my second weekend pass, I was out looking to get high. I ran into a friend and asked if he had any dope. He said he didn’t but he was going to a meeting and I was welcome to go. I had to cram as much into my time as possible and there was nothing going on so I said, “yes.”
We drove to some little room in a church. I walked in and immediately thought, “there’s no way these are my kind of people.” They all had cars and jobs and they seemed like normal people. Then they started talking. They talked about all the things I was doing as a delinquent and how they had done similar and felt bad about it. They talked about having a conscience and how it seemed no-one else did. They talked about how it felt to know you were gonna keep doing dope, no matter if it killed you and how hopeless it felt. They seemed to have a window into my soul and made me look at myself in ways I never thought I could.
Prior to that I had all those thoughts and feelings, I just never considered saying them so out loud. I watched people (in my fucked up outlaw world, anyway) go steal, fight, scam and do any manner of devious stuff and never seem to have any feelings of guilt. I assumed that I had to do these things and I would force myself to, but I was wracked with guilt. I thought my guilt was a personal defect which kept me from being all I could be. My life to that point had been a constant battle with my morality to overcome its influence and finally feel the way others looked like they felt. I had never imagined that they all experienced the same turmoil. Now I had proof. I was hooked. I got sober and stayed that way for 30 years.
I was the only one at my placement who had gotten sober. I began to explore my soul and how it worked to regulate my morality. I completely changed my outlook and focus. In the group therapy sessions, I started actually being helpful to the other kids. I started helping them to solve their problems or at least begin to. The average stay there was about 6 months. Some people stayed 5 and some 7. I stayed a whole year. I’m pretty sure some of that was to find a suitable foster home (more on the “suitability” later) but I’m pretty sure my effectiveness at counseling the other kids played a part in extending my stay, as well. In any case, I set the record for longest stay for at least that era. Even a couple of other kids who went to foster homes were released after 6 months.
It was during this time that I developed an ulcer. I was taken to the doctor who injected me with some dye and then x-rayed me. Back then, they had no real drugs for this so they just gave me a list of what not to eat. It was basically everything. Because I was institutionalized, they made me actually stick to it. I spent the last month there eating plain mashed potatoes and egg whites with no seasonings. It was hell. Every meal was a plate of bland whiteness. It sucked balls. I was getting really fed up with the system and wanted out bad.
Eventually, the day came when I was allowed to leave. I was to move to a foster home in a good neighborhood with one other kid who already lived there. Oddly, the “parent” was just a single man, not a couple. I was happy to be leaving and ready to go out into the world. The guy seemed nice enough and the other kid was OK, I guess. I was happy to able to go to meetings and be out in the world, finally. It was about 14 months after I had tried to steal the car battery, and I was finally free to walk the streets, or so I thought.
The other kid that lived there was a full-on fuck-up. He would waltz in with a shiny new stereo and claim he found it in an alley. He’d say that he hoped it worked and then try it out. Amazingly they always worked. The “parent” seemed to buy all of this hook, line and sinker. This kid never got in any trouble whatsoever. He even got brought home by the cops once for some crime or another. The guy never even asked about any of this. In my case, however, if I was a few minutes past curfew, there’d be handcuffs on the tables and endless threats to send me back. It was clear that the other kid was immune from trouble and I had a target on my back. I was young and at least somewhat naive, so I never really understood what was going on until after I decided to leave.
One day I had had enough. I decided to find my bank book with my kitchen job earnings (about $300.00) and split. It was over a year and a half since my crime. I figured that I had paid my debt and was not going to live under this cloud of threats any more. I ditched high school and went hunting for my bank book. As I rifled the drawers in the “parent’s” room, I hit one that was locked. I assumed my stuff was in there, so I used a playing card to open it. Inside was a huge cache of gay porn and some sex toys that seemed like they were aimed towards women, IYNWIMAITYD. That’s when I started to remember a bunch of details. I would come home in the middle of the day and both the “parent” and the other kid would be in bath robes. Sometimes the kid would be taking a bath and the parent guy would go into the bathroom and stay 20 minutes or so. I realized that this guy was fucking the kid and knew I wasn’t going to be down with that. He was trying to get rid of me to cover it up. At that moment, he came in and started yelling about me being a thief, because I jimmied open his drawer. I really wanted to beat the living hell out of him with a lamp. I mean badly. The guy was a minister at a huge church, someone who convinced the state he could look after wayward teenaged boys, and this was what he did. I restrained myself and just left, not even bothering to find my bank book.
It was not easy, being alone on the streets at 16 years old. On top of that, I had a warrant for going AWOL. I started using a fake name, at least for anything official (like talking to the cops). I slept in an abandoned bar across the street from my AA clubhouse for a few months. I would put 4 bar stools together for a bed. I spent my days in bookstores reading book after book. I really can’t remember how I fed myself.
Eventually, I started getting jobs doing drywall or framing houses. Back then, you could buy a tool belt full of tools and just walk up to a jobsite and ask for work. 8 or 10 bucks an hour and if you worked really hard, they’d keep you. Nobody asked for ID or social security info. I did phone sales, auto repos and a bunch of other crap, too. Eventually, I got a job from a guy at the meeting in title insurance. It paid OK and I started saving a bit. Finally, I went to trade school for auto repair and became a mechanic.
One day, I hitchhiked to Santa Barbara with a friend of mine. We just went to hang out and have fun. We were walking down State Street and as we walked, I was cleaning my finger nails with a buck knife. My friend bumped into me a few times. I kept telling him to watch where he was going, but he persisted. Finally, I stopped and adamantly told him to knock it off. Right as I was doing this, a guy walks up and asks, “what are you doing?” He was just a regular looking guy with a Levi’s jacket on. I said, “nothing, just messing around,” and realized I had my knife in my hand, so I folded it and put it away. Well, he opened his coat and pulled out a gun and yelled, “Freeze!” which was silly, because we weren’t moving. We put our hands up and he took his coat off to reveal a Santa Barbara Police shirt. He arrested me for “disturbing the peace.” I used my middle name for a first name and my Mom’s maiden name for the last one. I told him I was 18 years old, so they took me to the county jail. This was on a Friday night.
I sat in jail until Sunday evening, when they called out my alias. I had forgotten it by then so there was significant lag time in my responding. Eventually, I caught on and answered up. The officer told me to roll ’em up because I had made bail. I was shocked. The only one who even knew I was there was my friend and he was 16 also and penniless. The cop walked me down some halls and finally stopped me in a quiet spot. He told me that some friends from L.A. had come up to look for me after my friend hitched back down there and told them what happened. They went to juvenile hall, the police station, the hospital, basically everywhere before ending up at the jail. They tried every combination of my name with no luck (they didn’t know what my alias was).
Finally, they asked to see pictures of arrestees from Friday night and found me that way. The cop said they told him my whole story and he was impressed. He said he was gonna let me them bail me out, but first he took me on a scared straight tour. This guy killed his mom, that guy stole a car, etc. Then he gave me a hundred bucks and said, “don’t come back to my jail,” and I was out.
I tried to make good on his admonition, but it wasn’t to be. About 2 years later, I was riding my motorcycle around and got pulled over. I had long since stopped using fake names, so I gave them my real name. They gave me a chicken shit ticket for loud pipes or dim tail lights or something and after I signed it, they whipped my hands behind my back and handcuffed me. I asked what they were doing and they said I had a warrant from Santa Barbara. Damnit!
This time, I went to L.A. County Jail and had to sit there for 5 days until a bus left for up north. I rode up with all the people who were sentenced to state prison. I got to Santa Barbara jail on Friday, so I had to wait until Monday to see a judge. When I finally did, he seemed pissed that I was there. He said, “years ago you did basically nothing on State Street, there’s not even any peace on State Street to disturb! Now, you’ve spent ten days in jail, and forfeited $100.00 bail for no good reason. I apologize and the case is dismissed.” So now, I get released at like 11 p.m. in Santa Barbara with no money and no way home. I hitched home and it took all fucking night. When I finally got home, my motorcycle had been impounded and cost me about $600.00 to get it out.
I could go on, but this seems like as good of a place as any to end this story. My life, both before and after these events, has been filled with the similar craziness, this is just one sliver of it. BTW, Santa Barbara County Jail, circa early 1980s, was a WAY better place to be an inmate than either L.A. County Jail or Sylmar Juvenile Hall.
P.S. When I adopted my son 7 years ago, I told this story in somewhat abbreviated form, to our social worker. She was amazed, not by that fact that it happened, but by the fact that I turned out OK. She said, basically, “ most of those kids end up spending their whole lives in prison.”
Come one, come all! Q’s traveling circus of insanity has returned to town! See the Bearded Lady, the Human Pretzel and the world famous Flying Shitlords on the trapeze! And now, in the center ring, the show is about to begin!
The Deep State and Faux Accomplishment
We often discuss the rampant and obsessive credentialism that flourishes in the permanent bureaucracy of the FedGov. This seems to go incestuously hand-in-hand with a handful of expensive and prestigious (emphasis on expensive) educational institutions. Entering “the civil service” has largely been considered by popular culture as a way for a skilled individual to work for the good of society rather than power and money. As the FedGov has grown ever more bloated and infiltrated more and more of our lives, this theory has become laughable.
The permanent bureaucracy cultivates and maintains a self-licking ice cream cone of masturbatory influence peddling amongst the chosen ones who inhabit it. It is a pathway to great power and wealth to mediocre individuals that would otherwise be unavailable. You see, what it takes to make it into the private club is a secret handshake consisting of the “right” credentials, the “right” connections, the “right” familial relations or some combination thereof. To be a captain of industry, or a famous scientist or author, or a wealthy entrepreneur etc. requires real talent and tons of hard work. Entering the permanent bureaucracy and getting gifted some minor Administration position or managerial post in an agency is a back door to the same type of “respectability” and “prestige” as any of the aforementioned accomplishments. The fact that people with no other qualifications other than “former White House adviser” sit on boards of directors of large companies or gain endowed professorships at universities is evidence enough of that.
I believe that a mildly competent mid-level professional is, on average, eminently more qualified for various leadership positions than even a high-level Swamp Creature; to say nothing about truly exceptional individuals occupying the heights of industry, business and applied research. Looking from this angle, it’s evident why getting a cherry position in the Deep State is so appealing to those whose ambitions are several sizes larger than their talents.
Male Sexual Ego, Uniqueness and the Will to Power
The generative act is treated by many religions and philosophies as a divine act; in essence, this draws an analogue between reproduction and the act of capital-C Creation. It’s really not all that far fetched considering that it is an ecstatic outpouring of energy resulting in a mysterious process that creates new and independent life. A more cynical person might even say that creation myths were written ex post facto to align with human sexuality and orgasm. However, I digress…
Especially in Eastern religious tradition (but present in Western too) is the view that males and females channel inner god-like energy during sexual congress. I don’t believe this is the full story, however. Females may, in fact, channel the divine feminine during intercourse, but the true god-like aspect of the reproductive act comes later during gestation and parturition. For the male, however, his only involvement and feeling of being akin to G-d is during the sex act itself. This is partially why, contrary to pop culture belief, men care a great deal about getting a woman to orgasm; it’s proof of their divine abilities.
To that end, I posit that there is nothing more horrifying to a man than the idea that he has a sexual doppelgänger. A man can deal with the idea that the woman he’s having sex with may have had a man in past who is overall subjectively “better”. This is almost always offset by the fact that in particular areas, he himself was deemed “better”; ie: even though man X had a smaller penis than man Y, man X was better at oral, etc. And this is down to the judgement of the particular woman. The principal thing here is that the man retains his uniqueness when it comes to his divine power.
Imagine now a scenario in which man X and man Y are utterly indistinguishable. There is no objective difference at all between how each of them have sex. All of a sudden, they are no longer distinct beings at the most fundamental level. Milan Kundera said (and I’m paraphrasing) that only through having sex with someone can we pierce the veil of the superficial and see their true nature. Given that, regardless of their other qualities, man X and Y are identical, non-unique and, therefore, useless and soulless. Looking at it this way, it makes sense why men are: 1) obsessed with sex, 2) obsessed with distinguishing themselves to their lovers and 3) very goal-oriented sexually.
My Favorite Rare and Exotic Diseases (in no particular order)
Fibrodysplasia Ossificans Progressiva – “an extremely rare connective tissue disease. It is a severe, disabling disease with no cure or treatment and is the only known medical condition where one organ system changes into another[…]The disease is caused by a mutation of the body’s repair mechanism, which causes fibrous tissue (including muscle, tendon, and ligament) to be ossified spontaneously or when damaged. In many cases, otherwise minor injuries can cause joints to become permanently frozen in place, as new bone forms and replaces the damaged muscle tissue.”
Fatal Familial Insomnia – “It is a prion disease of the brain[…]Fatal insomnia has no known cure and involves progressively worsening insomnia, which leads to hallucinations, delirium, confusional states like that of dementia, and eventually death. The average survival time from onset of symptoms is 18 months.”
Xeroderma pigmentosum – “is a genetic disorder (autosomal recessive) in which there is a decreased ability to repair DNA damage such as that caused by ultraviolet (UV) light[…]There is no cure for XP. Treatment involves completely avoiding the sun.”
Primary Amoebic Meningoencephalitis – “N. fowleri invades the central nervous system via the nose, specifically through the olfactory mucosa of the nasal tissues. This usually occurs as the result of the introduction of water that has been contaminated with N. fowleri into the nose during activities such as swimming, bathing, or nasal irrigation[…]Although infection occurs very rarely, it nearly always results in death, with a case fatality rate greater than 95%.”
Nodding Syndrome – “Nodding disease is a disease which emerged in Sudan in the 1960s[…]Children affected by nodding disease experience a complete and permanent stunting of growth. The growth of the brain is also stunted, leading to mental handicap. The disease is named for the characteristic, pathological nodding seizure, which often begins when the children begin to eat, or sometimes when they feel cold. These seizures are brief and halt after the children stop eating or when they feel warm again. Seizures in nodding disease span a wide range of severity. Neurotoxicologist Peter Spencer, who has investigated the disease, has stated that upon presentation with food, ‘one or two [children] will start nodding very rapidly in a continuous, pendulous nod. A nearby child may suddenly go into a tonic–clonic seizure, while others will freeze.’”
That wraps up yet another edition of Q’s Brain Toilet, while it may not be as horrific as SF’s posts, as interesting as Animal’s, as informative as MS’s, as whimsical as Banjo’s, as creative as CPRM’s, as useful as SP’s or as anti-Semitic as OMWC’s, it certainly exists! G-d bless Glibertarians and G-d bless America!
…and maybe Canada every once in a while too.
TW: Spoilers…sort of.
Today is Saturday. This means I have about 30 hours until the only adult activity in my house will involve dropping everything, turning off all the lights and….watching Game of Thrones. I don’t hate it, but I don’t get it either. I first came across GoT while I was living in Colorado. I was visiting my parents who were into the show from the beginning of Season 1. I noted the terrible effects, poorly choreographed fight scenes and the fact that Boromir finally found a universe that won’t kill him.
This is my review of Trader Joe’s Providential Golden Belgian Ale (made by Unibroe)
Too bad for Boromir though, he just can’t catch a break.
Unfortunately, others including my wife tried getting me to read the books. I stopped sometime around the albino wolf. I didn’t get around to watching it until midway through this last season. So my analysis of this show starts around the time K.I.T.T., flaming-sword guy, hilarious asshole, and freaky-eyed ginger dude, all go on the other side of Trump’s wall to capture a zombie-Mexican. I couldn’t understand what the deal was. They needed to capture a Mexican to convince the fake blonde, and/or evil Carol Brady they need to help the Scots defeat Mr. Freeze and his army of zombie-Mexicans?
What was the point if the wall was made out of ice, and Northern Scotland was going to continue to be in nuclear winter for the next ten years, couldn’t they just fortify Trump’s wall with MORE ICE? There doesn’t seem to be a shortage of SNOW and ICE in Northern Scotland–make the ICE wall stronger or something by adding more ICE.
In the next scene we see Wee-Man giving the fake blonde excellent advice for any government figure, that sometimes the best choice is to do nothing. Nope. We gotta do SOMETHING, so we’re saving K.I.T.T., flaming-sword guy, hilarious asshole, and freaky-eyed ginger dude. To the Dragons! Where they pull two classic TV mistakes of provoking the marauding horde, and staying in the LZ way longer than necessary and paid dearly for it. Don’t they do CSAR in Northern Scotland? Provide cover fire, land, mount up, and get the hell out of dodge. Now they have to deal with Mr. Freeze slaying and resurrecting–a zombie dragon.
I bet they wish they just fortified Trump’s wall now. Nothing is stopping the zombie-Mexicans from overrunning Trump’s wall, and evil Carol Brady is just going to let them get run over.
Now that the fearless crew have returned to the Scotland with their zombie-Mexican safely in a crate, we find out through the magic of dramatic irony that while K.I.T.T. is doing it with fake blonde–she is his aunt. Seriously? Is it really any wonder why incest-porn is a thing now? Whatever, they’re royalty.
The next season begins with Northern Scotland being ground zero for the zombie-Mexican invasion. Northern Scotland is greeted by an enormous army of black Spartans and Turkish Mongols. How do they deal with the logistics of three armies being in one place in the dead of winter? Who cares, these are zombie-Mexicans due to arrive at any minute. We also find out that fake blonde does not play well with either of K.I.T.T.’s sisters: slender ginger and wide-eyes. Its cool though, because we are further reinforced that K.I.T.T. and fake blonde are related when he mounts a dragon, and doesn’t die. Other plot lines involving awkward moments between other characters also occur, thankfully not between siblings.
The battle for Helm’s Deep! I think. I couldn’t see anything because they decided to shoot the entire episode through a camera lens coated with Wesson Oil and shot it at night. K.I.T.T., crazy-eyed ginger dude, flaming sword guy, hilarious asshole, the Storm Trooper captain from the new Star Wars, Goldfinger (evil Carol Brady’s brother), Wee-Man–screw it. Nobody of consequence to the story dies at Helm’s Deep, and all manage to fight off a zombie dragon, zombie-Mexicans, plus …zombie-Scots, zombie-black Spartans, and zombie Turkish-Mongols. That is, except for Mr. Freeze. Apparently wide-eyes is some kind of super assassin who stabs him under the ribs with a dagger made by magic Romans, thus killing all the zombie Mexicans, Scots, black Spartans, Turkish-Mongols, and dragons.
It is here we get to a point in the storyline that seems to have surprised “people” on the “internet.” This entire time they all thought fake blonde was somebody worthy of admiration. Even Elizabeth Warren got it wrong, granted that is par for the course for her. They want a do-over. I for one saw that fake blonde has been an evil, impulsive, power-hungry tyrant the entire time–they all just thought she was the candidate most likely to be a “good” leader. —Spoiler Alert— Everyone vying for the throne is either evil or stupid.
Everyone all seemed to miss this. It was foreshadowed by parts like where she required everybody to bow down to her for her help. How she didn’t purchase her army of black-Spartans, she just ordered her then toddler dragons to murder the guy selling her the army. In fact, she pretty much burned all of her enemies to a crisp for the transgression of being against her; such as slave owners, other monarchs, the cue ball that was the only character that figured this out on his own, her brother, etc. She told slender ginger the only goal she ever really had was to win back the throne, which she believed the entire time was rightfully hers–sort of like evil Carol Brady.
Upon finding out she had relations with her nephew, instead of feeling slightly disgusted or acting in a manner to what any reasonable person would do (dousing themselves in Holy Water, for example) her first thought is that means K.I.T.T. technically has a claim to the throne more legitimate than hers. Then she takes her dragons, one fresh off a fight with a zombie dragon, where he is clearly injured, and decided to attack a flotilla commanded by Captain Jack. Predictably, Captain Jack brought that dragon down to the railroad track.
So is the plot of last week’s episode really that surprising? Not really. Here’s a spoiler friendly version.
For everyone else, they now see she is an evil, impulsive, power-hungry tyrant that will stop at nothing to achieve her objectives. It doesn’t matter there are other people with claims to the throne that also made sacrifices towards that end. It doesn’t matter an army surrendered and then were burned for their trouble along with an absurdly large medieval city. It certainly doesn’t matter the throne she sought, was destroyed because she literally decided to burn the castle it was placed.
…but this is definitely a person worthy of Elizabeth Warren’s admiration. I’ll give you that. Which reminds me, remember when Hillary compared herself to evil Carol Brady?
Pepperidge Farms remembers.
Is this beer any good? Yes, it’s Unibroe and they make good stuff. Since it is marketed under the Trader Joe’s brand it is a very reasonable $6.99. It has excellent body, mild citrus notes, and overall is simply lovely. I will go so far as to say it is better than this show, and the best part is that I can still buy it on Monday when I will be inundated with people in my office yammering on about GoT. Trader Joe’s Providential Golden Belgian Ale: 3.9/5.
1,703 words.
That is the amount CNN columnist, John Blake used to express what could have been expressed in four: Lynn Patton is a coon.
Progressives, typically academics, as well, often labor under the delusion that they can mask their slimy, bile-coated race-hatred with verbosity. Indeed, the laconic honesty of a simple racial or ethnic slur hurled in impotent rage seems refreshing to utterly craven attempt at slur through obscurantism.
What rankles the most, however, is that not only will Blake continue to build a career out of dehumanizing black and brown folk who don’t march in lockstep with his radical left-wing societal and political views, but he will continue to be well-compensated for serving as hatchet-man for the vastly majority-white CNN editorial board by running interference for one of their newest poster-children, Rashida Tlaib who, to the delight of progressive media,has helped to successfully bring Jeremy Corbyn ‘Wolf-Who-Cried-Boy’-style antisemitism to American politics. Blake represents just one member of a brigade of CNN’s house, ahem, ‘slaves’ that at the order of their paymasters rushed to spew racial grievance and divisiveness all over its Op-Ed page in a frantic attempt to steer their narrative out of its nosedive after Tlaib beclowned herself at Michael Cohen’s first appearance before the congressional committee by unwittingly insulting the (Democratic) chairman’s “best friend,” which prompted Elijah Cummings to speak eloquently against the identity politics trafficked by this newest crop of elected sea-monsters that make up the progressive wing of the Democratic Party.
And this dusty ass lookin’ motherfucker has the balls to call Patton a ‘token Negro’? This is all I have to say about that, and notice I took only 290 words to say what I could have said in two.
A Jarflax Rant
I have been surfing the web and it seems that there are a lot of stupid opinions and beliefs. You have your (((Joos))), Christers, Buddha Botherers, Holy Cow Heroes, Mohammedans, and even those damn Mormons (no one could be that nice unless they were up to something). You have your Pinkos, Reactionaries, Progs, and those evil Glibertarians. And all of you bastards are stubbornly refusing to recognize obvious reality! Is it that you are all evil conspirators trying to take my stuff and make me a slave? That you like to see orphans selling themselves for a crust of bread? Or is it that you are all retarded and can’t see what is as plain as the nose on your collective face? Why can’t all the other 7.5 billion of you see TRUTH as clearly as me?
Every problem has a neat solution. Every situation is made difficult by easily identifiable malice, and could be perfectly smooth, just, and simple if the evil obstructionists would stop deliberately disrupting things. If you want wisdom buy me a fair trade latte or a PBR and sit with me as I sneer it out, one snarky epigram at a time. Just don’t be one of those assholes who doesn’t understand conversational etiquette! I talk/you listen, capisce? Do not ask me to enact your labor! Google it yourself! I am emitting wisdom, not being your research assistant!
Also if you voted for the Cheetoman, the Gangster in the Mao suit, some election spoiling third party wasted vote candidate, or were too lazy to vote at all you are an asshole and one of the evil obstructionists, so don’t think your imperialist earholes get to drink my sweet wisdom.
If you believe in Jesus you want to watch womyn bleed out in back alleys while piles of beaten gay corpses fill the gutters. If you do not believe in God you want pedophiles to sodomize toddlers, at clinics where mandatory abortions are performed by perverts that are married to camels! If you are Muslim you are either planning a bombing or are reading this as you leave the scene. If you are a (((Jew))) it is all your fault. If you are some other weird religion, you are lying!
If you like country, western or metal you are a Nazi racist. If you like pop you are a pervert. If you like classical you are a pretentious closet pedo. If you like hip hop you are a rapist. If you like something else you are lying!
If you are male you are a rapist and probably a murderer. If you are female you are an emotion driven castrating whore. If you are neither you are probably both.
In short everyone who disagrees with me is doing so because they are evil!
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People have a very hard time distinguishing disagreement from malice, particularly in areas of belief. Religion and Politics are essentially similar belief based conceptions of reality. They inspire strong emotions, and inculcate an Us vs. Them mentality, leading to anger… Which is why they were traditionally excluded as conversation topics from polite gatherings.
Some of this is unavoidable, and will always be the case. People get very emotionally connected to core beliefs and any attack on those beliefs, or even strong disagreement, hits us in the same way a personal attack hits. But I think some aspects of modern life have made this worse.
The internet and social media expose us to the worst spokespeople for ideas. In earlier times when you were interested in a subject, or a viewpoint you sought out books or articles explaining it. You might agree with what you read or disagree. You might find parts of the idea appealing and others appalling, but it was an impersonal interaction, and under your control. You read the book or article and any dispute you had with it was internal. If it was too offensive, or too idiotic you just put the book down unfinished. If it didn’t interest you, simply never read about it. Various curating bodies/effects tended to select for the best, most appealing spokes people being the most widely read.
Even then you had people who would try to force you to learn about their pet beliefs. We called those people cranks or bores, and we never invited them to a second party. Now every ‘movement’ or belief has militant advocates. They bring their pet belief into EVERY conversation, and because they are ubiquitous they are usually the first contact you have with an unfamiliar belief.
Vegetarianism is an utterly inoffensive practice. How can your diet possibly harm or insult me? But I cringe when I hear that someone is Vegan, because I have had dozens of interactions with people who militantly proselytize the Vegan ‘lifestyle’, not as a diet they have chosen but as “The One Truly Moral Way to Live.”
Across the dietary divide you find the Paleos. They think veganism is foolish, possibly an evil conspiracy of Big Grain and that we can only achieve health (and cure every ill of body mind and soul) by eating a largely carnivorous, low carb, high fat/protein, ancestral diet. If you disagree (which you can do simply by not immediately and unequivocally accepting every bit of pseudo science they spout as TRVTH), they will harangue you until you leave the forum.
As you turn away from the Paleo, who is beating the Vegan to death with a jar of ghee, Mr. Crossfit hobbles over on his crutches (blown tendon bro, do you even lift?) to tell you what a pussy you are for not exercising to the point of regurgitation. Fleeing Mr. Crossfit you encounter Ms. Antivax, who explains that the $30 DPT shot is a plot by Big Pharma to make your kids autistic, and announces that if you vaccinate you are in a parenting category with Jeffrey Epstein.
You don’t learn about Christianity from C.S. Lewis or G.K Chesterton; instead you learn about it from Frank Fundy who mocks you for being duped by the lies of the ‘Evolutionists’, and accuses you of molesting children if you meekly say you do not see why gay people shouldn’t be allowed to adopt.
Turning away from Mr. Fundy you run into a flame war between Moishe who regards any disapproval, of any Jew, in any context, as clear evidence of NSDP membership, and Ackbar who screams that allowing Moishe to live is an unforgiveable offense against the religion of peace. Meanwhile some 4chan’er is pretending to actually be a Nazi purely to rile up some SJW who dropped by the forum to berate all cis-hetero males for their inherent privilege. And an atheist is making very sure that you understand that he doesn’t believe in God, by announcing that only retards need a “Sky Daddy.”
All of this is probably happening in a thread discussing your favorite hobby! You don’t seek it out, it comes to you everywhere. Reading about home brewing? BOOM Atheism! Playing a Video Game? WHAM Social Justice. Looking up a recipe? POW Jesus/Allah/Jehovah loves/hates/owns you. If you try to disengage gently the militants get offended. If you dispute their premises they go ad hominem and call in sock puppets/allies/tulpae to pursue you across a dozen domains.
Of course people end up feeling that anyone who disagrees with them is their enemy when every dispute becomes a personal attack. Which of course makes the next set of people react with hostility when you disagree with them. So, this whole mess propagates itself.
At the end of the day most people are not militants. This is why in day to day life you find that you have friends and acquaintances who don’t actually believe the same things you do, but who are nonetheless decent people you enjoy knowing. But online the trolls and the true believers come into their own, and God (or not, I don’t really care what you believe) help us all.
I liked Not Adahn’s post on changes to the political system enough that I thought I’d write one of my own. While I could wax philosophical about democracy and republicanism and the like, that’s all been hashed through 1000x by people much smarter than me.
Instead, I wanted to approach some moderate changes that could be made to the current system to make them much more responsive to citizens’ revealed preferences and personal priorities rather than their stated preferences and social priorities. I’m under no illusion that any of this could ever happen, but it’s a fun discussion to have.
I mentioned in Not Adahn’s post that barriers to entry aren’t going to affect the incentive to acquire power because power, once acquired is lucrative enough to render those barriers to entry useless.
I wrote:
The only way to curb abuses is to kill the incentive to accumulate power via fedgov. That’s an incentive that cant easily be counterbalanced with barriers to entry or other disincentives. It’s also very hard to reduce or kill that incentive. As long as fedgov is the sovereign, no amount of legislation will prevent power seekers from eventually maximizing the reach of their institution.
What’s the best way to curb the social greed of those who seek power and the complacency of the electorate that gives the power to the seekers? How about an even stronger and more acute incentive? Personal greed.
My half-cocked idea is as follows. Tax day is now election day. The total government budget is set by popular vote, but with a twist. You have 5 choices: Budget stays the same as last year (zero based, no adjustments). Budget plus 5%, Budget minus 5%, Budget plus 10%, Budget minus 10%. Once you are done voting, you get a receipt for your votes (like usual), as well as a bill for your taxes owed at the percentage you voted for. Taxes are due immediately, and there are representatives of the IRS and the various localities in the building to take payment.
If you do not pay, your vote is marked provisional and you have 30 days to pay your bill (plus interest) and have the vote counted. After 30 days, your vote no longer counts, and while you still owe the money (and interest), it is no longer considered part of the annual budget and is saved in a rainy day fund that requires massive agreement to access (2/3 states and 2/3 of each legislative body).
This delineation is important because the federal budget is given to Congress based on actual tax receipts within the 30 day window. Balanced budget is constitutionally required, but Congress has the authority to allocate the specific expenditures within the money received on voting day. However, once you run out of money, you’re done.
Obviously, it would require a massive simplification of the tax code. It would probably also require some sort of assurance that everybody has to contribute at least something.
The benefit of this plan is that it aligns incentives for the populace limiting taxation and government expenditures. Of course, it would never happen because 1) it takes away the meticulously crafted system where costs of government are hidden and benefits are touted; and 2) anything that associates taxation with voting will be lambasted as “POLL TAXXXXX!!!!”