- Be mindful of every action’s consequences.
- Respect nature and don’t change it’s action.
- Be kind to the innocent and punish the guilty.
- Leave Things Better than You Found Them.
Dear Mr. Grim Reaper
Before Covid, preferably.
Rabid Loyalists
Gaetz, that fuckwit cheerleader from Ohio Jim Jackhole, The BoBitch, MTG – what a packed looney bin full of imbeciles. It’s a little harder to pigeonhole the Senators. They’re old enough to know better. The whole elected Federal representative kit-and-kaboodle would be wise to consider Lindell and Guilani’s developing Billion-$ legal black hole. Because once you’re out of office, the gloves are off.
They just don’t get that it’s not about them – never was. It’s not about Trump, or any of them. They are simply the various types of personified system byproducts. They get their mindset from a craven, selfish leader. Just yesterday Trump symbolically resigned from the Screen Actors Guild before they could expel him, ending his little hissy-fit of a letter with “you have done nothing for me.” The fool’s clearly a legend in his own mind. Thanks for all you’ve done for the country, Fuckwit. It’s not the 1st letter like like that from him we’ve seen.
“…what is clear is that the Capitol insurrection was only the visible part of the massive iceberg that is now ripping through the hull of the Republican Party.”
And McConnell stood at the bridge for days, appointing unqualified judges and torpedoing as much progressive legislation as he possibly could before they got there. Starting to look like I’ll be serving as a LIncoln Project re-post stop going forward…
Trump the Fuckwit II
All he had to do was just go away quietly, but noooooo. The 74yo Fuckwit wants to stay in politics. Makes sense I guess, since that appears to be the only thing keeping him out of jail recently. He really thinks he can gaslight his way to a Get-Out-Of-Jail-Free card after reigning over this country’s worst four years since the Great Depression.
At this juncture, Fuckwit is a complimentary term of address for the cretin known as Donald John Trump. That might imply mere stupidity – but it is only the beginning of the story for this feckless moron and his criminal enterprise. Stupidity was the foundation upon which a global empire known as the “Trump Brand” foisted it’s depraved business and social agenda on an unwitting populace.
In league with like-minded fraudsters in the business and political realms, Trump’s accomplishments are many and varied, listed by the numbers below. They missed quite a few notables like number of Americans murdered by bounty-seeking Taliban, and naval vessels docked due to Covid-19. We’ll probably never know the half of it, but perhaps the most troubling covers it all: One democracy nearly destroyed.
Now we get to see where the “new GOP” and their splinter groups are headed. At least Lindsay can claim he was right all along about one thing regarding Trump.
Last Season Pond Pics
I was neglecting the Photo Album pretty badly last year. Everything is backed way up behind my slow work pace nowadays. At least I can do the computer stuff with minimal physical discomfort. According to the SSA, that’s why I’m not really disabled – because I can still sit in front of a computer.
Here’s a few pics that sat on the Pixel account for months until today. The pond ran well into the fall for the first time last year. I even tried installing a couple of 1k-watt heaters to keep the fish out of dormancy, but it soon became clear heating that much water outside later in the year around here is a huge energy waste. Goldfish were eating the birdseed in that first pic. There’s a total of 20 shots from last Summer and Fall around the middle of this page. This one shows the sump pumping out the day after I drained it.
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Migration Complete
2nd Gen Ryzens are only a couple years old in the market, but already in the high tech history dustbin. It’s hard for me to imagine how the 3rd Gen 5k model going into my next build can really be that much better. This old 7/27 now forms the core of a fairly sophisticated SOHO architecture, hosting a ton of services, all while doing the network firewall dance underneath.
The system dashboard screengrab below was taken while simultaneously running a local copy of the data volume and encoding an mp4 video with a well-resourced Windows VM running in the background. You don’t notice even the slightest slowdown working at the console. I thought the reviews were too good to be true. It spent the past year+ basically wasted as strictly a personal workstation content creation machine.
Kinda like race cars – there’s lots of people driving them, not alot of real race car drivers around, tho. It’s not as much about the horsepower, as how you use it.
Software Security is a BIG reason to stay away from the commercial kind. Here’s the other good reason. I’ll try to get around to updating the network diagram to better show whats happening after things get settled in.
Tough Shyt – Find Something Else To Do
Most inhabitants plan to live on this planet for the foreseeable future. Any employee, owner/operator, supporter and/or any others who still think the petrochemical industry is/was a good idea can just go fuck themselves. Maybe do a little cleanup work out on the Pacific Plastic Patch. Nice work Oil ‘n Gas – the transition is in progress. Get your ducks in a row and move on.
“It’s uneconomical to drill right now,” Baker says. “Oil and gas will cry bloody murder but right now they’re not drilling, because they can’t afford to.”
It’s OBE. (O)vercome (B)y (E)vents – Obsolete, supplanted by technology, like every other bygone industrial complex of the past century. Scale it back to a specialty/cottage industry as appropriate. I’m gonna miss my modded diesels, but I’ll pay the called-for price just to warm them up once in awhile, if that’s what it takes. Starting to look forward to that first all-electric car. Never thought I’d say that.
Political and corporate apologists wrangling for position on the back of an industry in decline for more than a decade at the expense of ecological disaster are scum-sucking parasites.
We’ve Known All Along
“We” in this context meaning, the half of the country who either directly or implicitly recognized the contents of the Kerner Report, commissioned by Lyndon Johnson:
“What white Americans have never fully understood – but what the negro can never forget – is that white society is deeply implicated in the ghetto. White institutions created it, white institutions maintain it, and white society condones it.”
Fortunately alot of what remains is implicit in unwitting participants, brought up alongside systemic racism in recent generations. There are of course the hardcore fanatics embodied in the nazis and other flavors of white supremacy. They need to be convinced: It’s over.
The willful ignorance and bold depravity with which GOP politicians have enabled and in fact, incited a resurgence of one of the human race’ most vile failings, mob rule, fueld by among other things racist hatred, in my democratic Capitol of the Untied States of America, at this time in history, is unforgivable.
They must be real “proud” of this shyt. Up next: Qanon…
Living with this Lumbar Injury
It’s a matter of adapting and learning to do things differently. Use leverage, split things up into smaller chunks, take lots of rest breaks. For example, it took almost 3 months to complete the deck refurb last spring/summer, on a job I’d conservatively have estimated taking 2 weeks max, if I could just work on it all day. The worst part is one of the things I really enjoyed and planned to spend my retirement doing more of – hiking with the dogs – is mostly out the window. It’s just no fun anymore. Any time on my feet is a forced march now. I’ve lost full use of the entire right side of my body. I am what we call “butthurt” – literally.
24 JAN 21: Took the dogs on a long (1hr) walk yesterday trying to establish Monday as “long walk day.” Muscle strain/soreness was acute last night and little diminished this morning, with the right thigh twitching at an alarming resting rate. Sometimes I can drive it and the right glute into continuously twitching to the point of making me stop whatever I’m doing if the particular activity is aggravating things in just the wrong sort of way. Basically any type of movements on my feet be it walking, light housework, playing with the pets – anything involving ambulatory movement aggravates it to some extent, with the glutes and right leg stiff and sore 24/7. The glow from L4-5 expands to eventually include the entire midsection and right thigh until muscle exhaustion sets in before long. It’s difficult to describe, not pain, but a building tension or intensity that eventually becomes overwhelming. Actual pain now comes from the left side rebound and the right knee, when it flares.
Feline Fun
Caught the cats on video a couple times recently. The Tigger-by-the-pond vid on the bottom was awhile ago last summer. I’ve been neglecting the content creation lately:
The Girls
I have to settle for the furry kind, now that my real girls don’t live here anymore.
These two are the shy, skittish type – especially Anna Mae. I’m amazed she ever decided to hang out with Tigger like that.
Good Start
It’s gonna take awhile to reverse the damage, but this was one of the more egregious violations with potentially far-reaching consequences. This is part of the reason 70 million Americans aren’t thinking straight. The cocksuckers were starting to leverage VOA for their vile propaganda overseas as well. Good riddance, fuckface.
Voice of America CEO Pack, Defined By Scandal, Resigns At Biden’s Request.
GOP cornered the market on stupid. The old mantra “stupid is as stupid does” couldn’t be more evident in a world where the base’ stupidity level is directly proportional to political vulnerability in media-energized mind control politics. Then when the numbers don’t add up you get a riot at the Capitol – all nicely recorded and published for the world to see what a huge lot of stupid fucking imbeciles we have here.
I’ll give you 3 Guesses what the new “Covid Response Team” learns from the previous “Covid Task Force.”
Watch for the Echo Chambers
Trump’s Twitter banning, despite being welcome relief from relentless Trump fog, only portends higher intensity in the fringe webspace. Parler was just a shot across the bow.
These craven seditionists will re-group in more cyber-clandestine fashion soon. Keep an eye and ear out for them – they won’t be hard to spot. Recruitment is their only hope to advance the cause. It’ll take more than a few thousand white trash rioters to overthrow this democracy. And keep #19 in perspective. The dividing line between cyber and real is expanding all the time.
What Happened to my Internet?
The Cult of Trump
I nominate Keith Olbermann to be Joe’s 1st spokesperson. We need to get some unvarnished truth out of the government for a change.
The 14th Amendment, Section 3.
I won’t post the applicable verbatim portion at hand, as it’s contents should be clear and well-known to the people it affects directly today:
“Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, in theory, gives Congress the authority to bar public officials, who specifically took an oath of allegiance to the U.S. Constitution, from holding office if they “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” against the Constitution and therefore broke their oath.”
This point of order applies to ALL the Cocksucking Sons of Bitches who dared exercise the temerity to fuck with my democracy. Starting with Trump on down through Ted Cruz, Hawley, Lamborn from CO, et al, they cal ALL go to HELL. And if it turns out that Boebert Bitch from Colorado was tweeting like reported, that stinking whore can rot in jail. The inference is obvious. There will be no platitudes, no apologies, no forgiveness. Get the fuck out and stay out, traitors.
Late Update 1/15: Apparently the BoBitch didn’t think this all the way through. Looks like the little cunt is getting all the attention she so richly deserves.
Yale Historian Timothy Snyder
Just a simple re-post. Looked too good to touch in any way whatsoever. Now we know how the rise of a deranged dictator and his angry mob’s consequences CAN happen here.
“When the men with guns who have always claimed to be against the system start wearing uniforms and marching around with torches and pictures of a Leader, the end is nigh.”
I didn’t research it, but I bet #21 was written around the 2016 time-frame:
- Do not obey in advance. Much of the power of authoritarianism is freely given. In times like these, individuals think ahead about what a more repressive government will want, and then start to do it without being asked. You’ve already done this, haven’t you? Stop.
- Anticipatory obedience teaches authorities what is possible and accelerates unfreedom.
- Defend an institution. Follow the courts or the media, or a court or a newspaper. Do not speak of “our institutions” unless you are making them yours by acting on their behalf. Institutions don’t protect themselves. They go down like dominoes unless each is defended from the beginning.
- Recall professional ethics. When the leaders of state set a negative example, professional commitments to just practice become much more important. It is hard to break a rule-of-law state without lawyers, and it is hard to have show trials without judges.
- When listening to politicians, distinguish certain words. Look out for the expansive use of “terrorism” and “extremism.” Be alive to the fatal notions of “exception” and “emergency.” Be angry about the treacherous use of patriotic vocabulary.
- Be calm when the unthinkable arrives. When the terrorist attack comes, remember that all authoritarians at all times either await or plan such events in order to consolidate power. Think of the Reichstag fire. The sudden disaster that requires the end of the balance of power, the end of opposition parties, and so on, is the oldest trick in the Hitlerian book. Don’t fall for it.
- Be kind to our language. Avoid pronouncing the phrases everyone else does. Think up your own way of speaking, even if only to convey that thing you think everyone is saying. (Don’t use the internet before bed. Charge your gadgets away from your bedroom, and read.) What to read? Perhaps “The Power of the Powerless” by Václav Havel, 1984 by George Orwell, The Captive Mind by Czes?aw Milosz, The Rebel by Albert Camus, The Origins of Totalitarianism by Hannah Arendt, or Nothing is True and Everything is Possible by Peter Pomerantsev.
- Stand out. Someone has to. It is easy, in words and deeds, to follow along. It can feel strange to do or say something different. But without that unease, there is no freedom. And the moment you set an example, the spell of the status quo is broken, and others will follow.
- Believe in truth. To abandon facts is to abandon freedom. If nothing is true, then no one can criticize power, because there is no basis upon which to do so. If nothing is true, then all is spectacle. The biggest wallet pays for the most blinding lights.
- Investigate. Figure things out for yourself. Spend more time with long articles. Subsidize investigative journalism by subscribing to print media. Realize that some of what is on your screen is there to harm you. Learn about sites that investigate foreign propaganda pushes.
- Practice corporeal politics. Power wants your body softening in your chair and your emotions dissipating on the screen. Get outside. Put your body in unfamiliar places with unfamiliar people. Make new friends and march with them.
- Make eye contact and small talk. This is not just polite. It is a way to stay in touch with your surroundings, break down unnecessary social barriers, and come to understand whom you should and should not trust. If we enter a culture of denunciation, you will want to know the psychological landscape of your daily life.
- Take responsibility for the face of the world. Notice the swastikas and the other signs of hate. Do not look away and do not get used to them. Remove them yourself and set an example for others to do so.
- Hinder the one-party state. The parties that took over states were once something else. They exploited a historical moment to make political life impossible for their rivals. Vote in local and state elections while you can.
- Give regularly to good causes, if you can. Pick a charity and set up autopay. Then you will know that you have made a free choice that is supporting civil society helping others doing something good.
- Establish a private life. Nastier rulers will use what they know about you to push you around. Scrub your computer of malware. Remember that email is skywriting. Consider using alternative forms of the internet, or simply using it less. Have personal exchanges in person. For the same reason, resolve any legal trouble. Authoritarianism works as a blackmail state, looking for the hook on which to hang you. Try not to have too many hooks.
- Learn from others in other countries. Keep up your friendships abroad, or make new friends abroad. The present difficulties here are an element of a general trend. And no country is going to find a solution by itself. Make sure you and your family have passports.
- Watch out for the paramilitaries. When the men with guns who have always claimed to be against the system start wearing uniforms and marching around with torches and pictures of a Leader, the end is nigh. When the pro-Leader paramilitary and the official police and military intermingle, the game is over.
- Be reflective if you must be armed. If you carry a weapon in public service, God bless you and keep you. But know that evils of the past involved policemen and soldiers finding themselves, one day, doing irregular things. Be ready to say no. (If you do not know what this means, contact the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and ask about training in professional ethics.)
- Be as courageous as you can. If none of us is prepared to die for freedom, then all of us will die in unfreedom.
- Be a patriot. The incoming president is not. Set a good example of what America means for the generations to come. They will need it.