Yes, yes, everything is going to shit, blah blah. Same as it ever was, amirite? But this too shall pass – the current scene contains irreconcilable contradictions, and what can’t go on forever, won’t. Consider:
Banks and Finance. The central banks and the financial masters of the universe have their collective asses in a crack. The Federal Reserve has vomited forth a tsunami of money, mostly, I believe, in service of keeping the portfolio value of the financial masters of the universe intact. That tsunami is almost entirely in the form of the low interest bonds which are embedded now in every portfolio.
When interest rates go up, the value of low interest rate bonds (which is about all there is these days) go down, and the whole leveraged world of the financial masters of the universe teeters. But that tsunami of money also creates inflation, and interest rates cannot remain below the rate of inflation for long, or nobody will issue new loans, and once again the whole leveraged world of the financial masters of the universe teeters. Either inflation is ignored and papered over by more money printing, and hyperinflation collapses economies and currencies (and those portfolios) or inflation is addressed by raising interest rates (collapsing those portfolios).
No matter how fast the bankers and the vampire squid of the financial system drive off the cliff, they won’t reach the other side. In the long run, math always wins in the long run.
Wokism. The totalitarian leftists infesting our government and the overculture are pushing an ideology that insists that all of society accommodate the most mentally, emotionally, and physically fragile. However, the machinery of accommodation cannot resolve the inherent conflicts that this ideology creates. OK, fine, every child must wear a mask in school, forever, because of the potential harm to the small handful of immunocompromised children. This demand also creates an equal and opposite demand by those who can demonstrate (easily done) that masking creates harm for their children.
You can’t accommodate everybody, so the ideology has an inherent contradiction and is unsustainable. This same dynamic pervades much of wokism – see, also, accommodating male trans athletes by disadvantaging female athletes, the favored class of yesterday. Wokism will collapse, because it is a zero sum game (at best), and must collapse.
Sure, you can demoralize some of the people some of the time, into believing that Current Day’s favored class requires everyone to bend the knee, but you can’t demoralize all of the people all the time. Reality is still real, oppression is still visible, and ideological (which includes religious) revolts against a detached, lunatic ruling class hostile to its subjects have been a feature of human history. It would be foolish indeed to believe that the groundwork isn’t being laid right now for such a revolt.
Just as math always wins in the long run, so will the reality which wokism attempts to deny.
The Great Reset. Much is made of the World Economic Forum and the Great Reset, to be implemented through pervasive economic and cultural control via all-digital currency and social credit scoring. I believe that this is a fundamentally backward-looking program, intended purely defensively to stave off the coming challenges to the globalist ruling class. As a reactionary program, it can be nothing more than temporary (if it comes to pass at all – it will require a collection of sociopaths to work together in their common interest, which seems unlikely). The post-war (whether you mean WWII or the Cold War) world order is passing from the scene; what will replace it, I don’t know, but it won’t be a rearguard action by the ancien regime, which is all the Great Reset is.
The Barbell and the Bell Curve. A free, undistorted society that has escaped the crab bucket of subsistence will tend toward a bell curve, because people tend toward a bell curve. This means a substantial middle class, which has enough economic cushion and power to be pretty hard to push around – see the American economy and society for much of its existence. This, naturally, is why the current ruling class is trying to exterminate the middle class and create a barbell society – a big cluster of impoverished, dependent, and powerless subjects at one end, and the ruling class and their sycophants at the other end. You can see barbell economies and societies like this in a lot of places, and to be honest they can be pretty durable.
But outside of subsistence economies, a barbell economy (and society) is fundamentally parasitic. They rely on wealth creation from either resource extraction (see, any petrostate or similar) or from other, less distorted bell curve economies (see, those emerging economies, including China, dependent on exports). If everybody is a parasitic barbell economy, it doesn’t work any more. A lamprey population can’t exist in isolation; it needs to feed on something other than itself.
The middle class is under siege, but it is also the default state of an advanced economy. While the ruling class may well think they will be satisfied to rule over the ruins of a subsistence economy, they don’t get the only vote (and they are unlikely, in fact, to be satisfied – the perks and luxury to which they have become accustomed are unavailable in a subsistence economy). The erosion of living standards to (and beyond) that point is what creates revolutions. People will put up with a lot, but they won’t put up with the constant, ongoing degradation of their living standards forever. Sooner or later, the distorted barbell society will break its teeth on human nature, now that everyone has seen that mere subsistence is not something they need to settle for.
Cocktail. And of course, a cocktail! Those of you (both of you?) who read to the end of my meanderings will recall that last episode I was quite taken with the Chinola passionfruit liqueur. A little poking around on the intertubes turned up recipes for a passionfruit mojito, which with a little tweaking produced a cocktail which is way too drinkable. As in, you better put it down and walk away periodically or you will guzzle it in a few minutes. Or, just slurp it down! I’m not the boss of you. Everything is voluntary!
- 3 oz. white rum
- 1 oz. lime juice
- Mint leaves
- ½ oz Dolcedi sweetener (roughly equivalent to 1 oz. of simple syrup; you should be sweetening to taste anyway).
- ½ oz passionfruit liqueur
- Club soda
Muddle the mint leaves in your shaker. No need to smash into a green goo; just slap them around some. Add ice to the shaker and the rest of the ingredients, shake, and strain into a highball glass with ice. Top with club soda, give a quick stir, and garnish with a mint sprig. Pretty much a basic mojito, only with passionfruit liqueur. The liqueur adds sweetness, so you may want to dial back on the simple syrup/Dolcedi. Like a good mojito, crisp and minty and very drinkable, only with passionfruit flava to bump it up. Dolcedi is supposed to be lower glycemic, which is why I use it instead of simple syrup.
Remember, flowers bloom even in the desert.
Those of you (both of you?)
There’s only one of me.
Nice desert picture.
We are legion.
I’m late but I read it all.
I abandoned it when he started talking about rooster feathers.
A Flower In The Desert
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=09VvqWTYG6U
Flowers
I keep forgetting he’s still alive.
A flower to hide?
Desert flower
All solid, except for TED’s, who is the worst troll, ever.
I’m not trying to grow flowers in a desert…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=657TZDHZqj4
Where have all the Flowers Gone?
They’re in her hair.
And here is where I worry. They’re going to try to outsmart the Devil with a CBDC. The allure of instantaneous changes to the money supply and the power that brings is just too great. Of course, that means the rest of us are going to get it good and hard. They’ll do everything they can to save Blackrock, but Joe the Plumber gets the shaft.
Klaus says it can go on forever, now get your nask on and get back inside, peasant.
In the long run, math always wins in the long run.
RC Dean channeling Yogi Berra?
Repetition for emphasis. Totally not an editorial failure.
[spikes JI’s next piece]
Eh, in the long run we’re all dead.
It would be foolish indeed to believe that the groundwork isn’t being laid right now for such a revolt.
Oh I agree, the backlash is building. I just don’t think it’s going to end where we (in these here parts) would like it to.
Not with a bang but a whimper.
I hate to be Daddy Downer here but, as badly as we would like to push back, there’s nothing to push back against.
So, are large contingent of the Glibs are armed. Who are you going to shoot at?
The ballot box, the soapbox, and the cartridge box.
Our vote is meaningless, our opinion is suppressed, and who are you going to shoot? Yeah, big macho guy until the stormtroopers show up and you hand over whatever they ask for.
Leela voice: “Yeah, we’re boned”
Definitely not a big macho guy, but someone who won’t go along quietly. I’m close enough to death to not fear it and I sure as hell would take at least a couple with me.
That cactus is giving us the finger.
No, just you.
Damn, Ted ruined my turkey.
As God is your witness, you thought turkeys could fly?
just slap them around some
Glibs sometimes just has that cosmic alignment – this statement coming right after a Winston’s Mom post.
That ‘Krugman, wrong, Winston’s Mom somehow less wrong’ is a shining example of the genius that is SF.
Vorndado fan I ordered earlier mentioned in now dead thread is perfect. Very heavy solidly built but just the right size and the variable speed is great. On low you cannot even hear it but it still is creating that light breeze to circulate the air. Buying 2 more right now for the bigger unit. Only thing is that I cannot get the best angle on this for the small unit, but for the big unit it’s prefect, just clip to the uprights, which don’t exists on the little one, but it’s OK, I just clipped it on my desk. If I would have bought this right away, I don’t think I’d have a prob with my lettuce right now, but hopefully it will recover. I’m not sure if this is Mosaic or leaf spot, but to the unlearned like me, it seems to be leaf spot because one symptom is wet spots on the leaves and I’m indoors with no humidity or dew. Maybe someone here more educated on this can tell me. And I mean it was sudden, like nothing yestereday and I noticed it this morning right away. And there are no insects, first thing I did was check for aphids and thank the invisible sky gods, there are none.
I believe the Vornado company was started in Wichita, Kansas. Their original claim to fame was industrial smoke eaters for bars.
You know what else was started in Wichita? Pizza Hut, White Castle (my favorite fast food), Cessna and Lear airplanes…
You know what else Wichita is famous for?
BTK (Blind, Torture, Kill), the serial killer.
You know who else liked bigger units?
Good write up RC. As part of the middle class and having zero debt, including mortgage, I like to think that I am set up to weather the storm. Ultimately, if they want to destroy me then in the end they will succeed.
In the same situation as you and right now it feels like I can weather it, if it does not last too long, but I feel sorry as hell for people when I go in the grocery stores and see them with very few items in their cart and having that look like they are lost, because you know they cannot afford this shit. Democrats love poor people, just imagine if they didn’t.
Pfft. All they have to do is quit their jobs and go on food stamps.
*I was on food stamps for a couple months in college – it was like winning the lottery. Then I got a stupid job.
I’m not willing to try it to find out, but not saying you are wrong. I knew a couple in their 30s who had not worked, either of them in more than 10 years, and he was always bragging about how they had to feeg their dogs filet mignon and lobster because they had too much food and would have to throw it out, while having one kid after another because they considered each one a raise to their standard of living.
If you’re anything like me, you probably have some savings and/or a retirement account of some sort so you’re not eligible.
I was literally flat broke at that time so it was easy to get some free dough.
There is a reason it’s mostly for single moms. Hell, I grew up on food stamps when my mom divorced and moved the four of us across the country. She eventually got steady work and a steady man so I got to see both sides of the equation.
I’m not elligible because I make too much money. My wife works for a state, but also sort of for the fed gov in a sort of housing welfare program. She’ll sometimes ask me to come to her desk so she can show me something crazy and it is typically something like people asking for assistance who live in million dollar houses or have $300,000 incomes. I am not making that shit up.
I was born into a very poor family in Appalachia. I sort of got lucky becanse my grandparents on my mom’s side sort of adpoted me and I lived with them from the time I can remember until I was an adult and my grandfather was a housing contractor and they were fairly well off/upper middle class. But make no mistake I have seen real poverty close up and I was very lucky to escape it.
I didn’t like being poor either
Blue box mac ‘n’ cheese was $0.25 per box. Even cheaper was the store brand.
We ate a lot of store brand mac ‘n’ cheese and a shit load of Hubbard squash.
“Wokism will collapse, because it is a zero sum game (at best), and must collapse.”
The butthurt and lamentations will be palpable and epic. Saving up the popcorn and alcohol.
“what will replace it, I don’t know”
Snowcrash world with a sort of federalism made up of semi-autonomous corporations. Can’t be worse than what we have now and probably, somehow better.
I want a dog-thing.
Yeah, I’ll take one of those too and outside camera to watch it tear someone’s ballz off the next day.
Semi-tagential to brother Dean’s thoughts, a good article about ORBANS big win:
https://postliberalorder.substack.com/p/a-fidesz-earthquake-shakes-europe/comments?s=r
Cribbed this from Reuters…
No shit the Democrats here hate him – he’s doing everything just like them.
A useful reminder that Europe is still closer to peak derp than the US.
Derp is always descending in the United States and yet lands only in Europe.
Sadly, “only” is incorrect.
“I believe that this is a fundamentally backward-looking program”
We’ll see. Either Klaus wins himself an anti-Christ award, or he gets hung from a lamppost, or nothing happens and he’s just cartoon Dr. Evil. The possibility of it is some scary fucking shit though, they’ll get us all killed, themselves included. But them going right along with us won’t make me feel too much better.
Folk ARE around! Time to read the article. Thanks, R C Dean. I love this place.
you’ve arrived at the killer of the dead thread.
Look who’s here!
Hi, Evan.
Consumption requires production. What we call money is not wealth. Wealth is the food in your cupboard, the shoes on your feet. The more people producing more and variety of goods allows the poorest among us to have cell phones.
The rich can not sustain them selves, they need us, you, the producers. Right now there are some in high ranking places that believe that Climate Change is serious (if it even exists) but a world without using energy will be hungry, cold and brutal. The more energy consumption in the production of goods means less manpower and more middle class luxury.
“The rich can not sustain them selves, they need us, you, the producers.”
Which is why they plan on letting about 500 million of we peasansts live as slave labor to serve them. The rest are just poaching the King’s stuff. I don’t even have to make this shit up.
But like the Soviet Union top down production quotas resulted in inferior or phony goods. “The Big Guys” had to resort to Import Stores for quality products.
That cocktail thing sounds a lot like a Caipirinha with maybe less lime and rum.
Or a Daquiri with a bunch of other stuff added.
One of the YouTubers I watch, South Main Auto, made a comment in his latest video that they are having trouble getting brake rotors and oil filters due to supply chain problems. Biden’s America sucks sucks and that’s “no malarkey”.
C’mon man! Nobody needs more than one kind of rotor.
*Gold clap
This used to be a country where people recognized a need and built the ability to satisfy the need. Now we bitch that our stuff is stuck on a boat somewhere.
Much of our physical economy has been offshored. It also seems like the ability to build a physical economy is gone.
Don’t know when that country existed. One hundred sixty years ago, Southerners bitched that Northerners made all the goods and that Northern shipping monopolized carriage to Southern ports. What, factories couldn’t be built in the South? Ships couldn’t be owned by Southerners?
Thought: I fucking HATE these olfactory hallucinations. The one visual I had was kinda fun and interesting. The auditory ones, which are mostly gone, were ANNOYING. Sometimes they could be overwhelming and I had to see what was real and what wasn’t. But I just wanted confirmation. If I confirmed it was NOT real, then that was fine. It was just goofy. Not really that big of a deal. Annoyances. Nothing more.
But these olfactory ones are fucking TERRIFYING. I haven’t had one in a day or so, but when they happen (except for one lovely Chanel No.5 one) it’s being surrounded by smoke and fire. I am often an idiot but I’m not THAT dumb. Babies, mice and tigers are smart enough to know that fire is dangerous. It’s useful as hell, but you don’t play with it. (Well. Playing with fire is amazing fun. You know what I mean.)
So, I get surrounded by smoke and fire in an apartment that has none. It simply isn’t real. GREAT! You aren’t going to die of inhalation or char in flame. FANTASTIC!
“OH! You’re fucking brain damaged and you’re fucking insane! Atta boy, Ev! These demons will just continue to haunt you, and you don’t know when! At any random moment you’re gonna feel the existential threat of a horrific death that your brain is smart enough to not ignore! ENJOY! Make sure if there is a real fire that you don’t ignore it and you really do choke on smoke and then burn to death! HAVE A LOVELY DAY!”
You could ask your doc for a trial of Keppra. That should put a stop to the olfactory partial seizures.
I guess I’m lucky I only had the deja vu and auditory ones. They kept upping my dose of Keppra til they went away.
Good luck.
Hrm. I think I used to take Keppra. It certainly sounds familiar. (Memory issues.) I am currently on Depakote and have been for as long as I can remember.
Any thoughts on the differences? My last seizure was 10 days ago. Lady said that it was the “least severe” that she had seen. She insisted that I go to the hospital. With her help, I was able to get around OK. It’s the first seizure that I remember. Something was just “off.” It was only partial and I didn’t lose consciousness, but something was wrong. A big part of it could have been my anxious reaction to feeling like I was surrounded by smoke. I was awake enough for it to be terrified. You can’t turn off that response. Well. I have learned how to reduce it. But it is scary. I’ve gotten around to ways that I can control it. Mostly I just ignore it (after checking to make sure it isn’t real. I’m not ever NOT gonna do that).
And as a fellow temporal epileptic: *fist bump.* It isn’t pleasant, but I’m still on my own (titanium!) legs and breathing. (You too!…minus the titanium.) This, too, shall pass. Just hard to get used to a new type of hallucination. I miss the fun ones! I had a crush on a coworker. God, she was hot. I got that Chanel No. 5 hallucination and I just felt FABULOUS. Lasted a few hours, even after she was gone, so it wasn’t her wearing perfume. I had a profound sense of confidence and joy. It was like being on tremendous drugs. It was amazing. I was sorry when it ended. It was “real.” And it was spectacular!
Memory and scents are closely linked, even in “normals”. Many studies have shown scents to be a more powerful trigger for memory than other senses. If you look at the proximity of the hippocampus (in charge of filing and retrieving memories) to olfactory processors in the brain, it’s not too surprising.
In folks like you and me, we are a bit mis-wired due to injury (bike for you, infant high fever and brain swelling for me) or some congenital mishap.
The fact that you have “auras” (which are partial seizures—or “aware” seizures”— in which you maintain total consciousness, as I know you know but I’m writing for other Glibs) that involve olfactory sensations as well as fear is a strong indicator of mesial temporal lobe epilepsy, meaning the source location is a little deeper.
By contrast, the fact that my simple seizures are deja vu indicates lateral (outside) temporal lobe origin, consistent with the brain swelling against the skull and “bruising”. Deja vu also involves the hippocampus; during a simple “aware” seizure the hippocampus mistakenly files short-term, present events in the long term memory spots and thus you feel like you’ve been there, seen that, had that conversation before. In fact, that what happens to you non-epileptic Glibs when you have deja vu too; it just doesn’t happen several times a week or even a day.
Sorry about the smoke; happy about the perfume! ? Sometimes I miss the deja vu, but the neurologists say that we should cut back on even the partials because they reinforce neural pathways that will lead to more tonic-clinic (grand mal) seizures, and those are no fun.
Light reading about the difference in medial and lateral temporal lobe epilepsy:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2854951/#__sec5title
https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/17778-temporal-lobe-seizures
About Keppra: it was approved as an adjunct to other anti-seizure drugs, but docs found out it works fine by itself for many patients.
Depakote can leave some folks lethargic, but if it works for you, great! We are all a little different.
If they do add Keppra, make sure they ramp up slowly, like 250 mg 2x daily, then 500, then 750 and so on, 4 weeks each. That way you don’t get the side effects. I’m up to 1509 twice a day now.
“now that everyone has seen that mere subsistence is not something they need to settle for”
That’s why “they” have to make everything into a religion, so that they can persuade the serfs to make sacrifices for the object of worship, whether it’s wokism, mother earth, or whatever the current flavor is.
No one needs more than one kind of sistence, sub will be fine, you greedy apitalist zillionaire.
But wokesters think it only applies to you. They believe that the electricity will always be available, it’s right there, in that little plug thingie.
Actually I believe they really do know better but by proselytizing and converting the youth they will have plenty, even if yours is rationed.
Everyone needs someone to look down on.
And they oppose petro and nuclear because real energy runs on magical unicorn farts. And they oppose captitalism because someone is going to make their new iphone out of the goodness of their heart and give it to them for free. This is why you let idiots and luddites just go exinct instead of codddling them.
The Great Society says hello
You all fret over nothing. The First That Will Change Everything grows inside of me everyday. You will be the first to feel its warmth when it pushes itself out of me into the world.
Those who fancy themselves the elites have not had to contend with a First like this. Most of them are seconders, all are second to me.
*Goes to bathroom. Sees Bro:*
*Vulcan salute*
Dean, I think you’re right in the big picture sense; reality will assert itself and correct this eventually.
But a lot of pain is going to be felt by a lot of individuals along the way.
A lot of surprises for a lot of people when the neighborhood warden comes around every evening and says you have too many lights and there’s an enforceable 10 pm lights out.
Reality doesn’t care if you believe in it or not. But with this many delusional people around, who knows what will happen.
“You can’t accommodate everybody, so the ideology has an inherent contradiction and is unsustainable.”
You are correct in many ways. Chiefly, that this is absolutely by design. I think those in Power don’t realize or care. They want theirs now and the future doesn’t concern them. We don’t live forever. Animals want status, resources, and stability. Fuck those other people. Societal competition in social mammals. And more.
“Sure, you can demoralize some of the people some of the time, into believing that Current Day’s favored class requires everyone to bend the knee, but you can’t demoralize all of the people all the time.”
Lincoln nailed that one. Not my favorite president, by any means, but he was correct about the past and prescient about the future . For all his flaws, in the time he served, he did as well as anyone could ever be hoped to do.
“This, naturally, is why the current ruling class is trying to exterminate the middle class and create a barbell society – a big cluster of impoverished, dependent, and powerless subjects at one end, and the ruling class and their sycophants at the other end. You can see barbell economies and societies like this in a lot of places, and to be honest they can be pretty durable.”
History shows this to be true. The last few hundred years is an outlier. Societies with the Ruling Class and peasants have dominated all mammalian societies forever. The Enlightenment culminated in the Constitution, the most advanced and prescient political document of all time. The rules to change the system are written right in it. That’s insightful statesmanship.
The saddest bit of it all is that humans are humans and won’t/ca n’t change. Nature is nature. It’s all about getting to the top. See above: status, resources, stability. That’s biological reality. Nothing that is set out to be “Fair” will ever stay that way. To do so would be to have the Gatekeepers, those in Power, relinquish their own status, resources, stability, in order to force it to remain such.
Humans are not designed to relegate themselves for everyone else. People do, through charity and other measures. But it is not the “Natural State” of our species or of any other. Eat or be eaten. Play the Game or get played.
Miss three meals and every one is a revolutionary
Take a teenager’s phone away for three days and you’ll have a rebellion. We saw what happens after an event like the death of George Floyd.
Boom. Stability, along with comfort, are the most important things for people. If you get to eat and have a place to stay, it doesn’t matter how nice your apartment is. Psh. Look at my past ones. It was reliable and always there. I don’t want too much. I had what I *needed* and I wasn’t shooting for the stars. Some people do. I don’t.
Once you create insecurity and take away the things that people rely upon, people respond with anger and uprising.
See also: All of human history.
“the current ruling class is trying to exterminate the middle class ”
I don’t see it. They want a compliant middle class, a middle class where the dreamers can think they, too, can rise to be in the ruling class. As long as that dream for personal advancement exists, they’ll chase it instead of plotting revolution.
I see it, because I live in NYC.
A big glass of pinot noir and RC’s optimism. Just what I needed before bed.
Liberals try humor.
Kicking off her campaign for the United States Congress, Sarah Palin lashed out at the word game Wordle for “using such long words.”
“Wordle uses words that are way too long for everyday Americans like me to guess,” she told her audience at a campaign stop in Anchorage. “When I tried to play Wordle, I did the same thing I did as governor—I quit halfway through.”
Two weeks from now that will be as firmly ingrained in America’s brain as, “I can see Russia from my house.”
Tedious, just like everything else the New Yorker does.
The Babylon Bee doesn’t have to worry about any competition.
Lame
Sure Joe.
https://dailycaller.com/2022/04/04/joe-biden-female-truck-driver-big-mama/
Yeah, right. I bailed there.
I actually feel bad for strawberry. They have already had to admit Biden never drove a big rig. He won’t learn. He can’t be controlled. He’s going to keep doing this.
Don’t. She’s a propaganda artist in a somewhat pretty package.
Point taken.
It may have always been hard to recruit trucker drivers. I mean how would you like to be the driver who t-bones a woman who goes through a stop sign right in front of you, she and her kid are killed, and her husband labels you a drunk driver?
That was especially shitty of Biden.
Shout out to Swiss: I tried a French 75 cocktail at a fancy French restaurant this weekend. It was tasty to this country bumpkin hayseed’s unsophisticated palate. The bartender said he hadn’t made one in over a week. Apparently not many people order them. I felt special.
Foie gras with a little cornichon and two mini pickled onions on either side (I laughed at the visual dick joke, because I’m classy like that). Steak frites and then pots de creme au chocolate. It ranks in the top ten best meals I have ever had.
Man, that sounds great. I love French food.
Pâté de foie gras tastes like butter of the gods.
You’re both too good for freedom fries.
I did this yesterday
https://youtu.be/H3J46idrQIg
Leftovers for lunch today were even better than the first time.
I made croissants in my then girlfriend’s* dorm’s community kitchen. I could have had any woman in the dorm that day.
* sadly, she cheated on me after we were married. I have never made croissants again.
Shu Qi can make madelines for me any day of the week and twice on Sundays.
https://youtu.be/5FNQd2plVpw
I’ve never had it but I’d try it.
Love cornichons.
My date had the same foie gras, duck breast with wild rice, and creme brulee for desert and a glass of French (of course) wine.
I used to think I’d like to go to a fancy French restaurant but,
a) I’d have to wear a suit and I don’t own a suit
2) I wouldn’t have a clue as to what to order (“cheese enchiladas, red, with an egg. No?”)
I definitely wasn’t in a suit (I do own one, but it doesn’t fit anymore).
Also, dude, it was steak and French fries with chocolate pudding (but, really good chocolate pudding, worth the carb hit.)
LOL at myself. I should know better than to ASSuME. I got the frites but didn’t connect on the rest.
I guess I’m one of those hicks who assumes French cooking is snails and brains (under a really good sauce).
I’ve eaten snails in China. Once you get past the tough “foot”, they can be tasty.
I’m a fairly brave eater. The only things I don’t like (so far) are raisins, cashews, lima beans and sea cucumbers.
I can’t even. Cashews are manna from heaven.
I’m sorry your taste buds are defective. There are SO many better nuts: walnuts, pecans, almonds, peanuts, butternuts,
“butternuts”
It’s too early, but there has to be a joke there…
And you’re a commie for not liking cashews.
I’ve heard Bro really likes sea men cucumbers.
It’s exceedingly rare that _any_ restaurant requires a jacket any more.
Sadly.
However, your basic French bistro is just a pub with good food – you can wear what you like. It’s all peasant food – i.e., cheap proteins made delicious.
I’m not a slob but a tie brings back past life memories of hangings for some reason.
Anyway, good to know.
Commander’s Palace has a sad. I hate wearing a jacket while eating, but I adore Commander’s Palace. I would always wear my old 1980s Miami Vice style jacket (giant shoulder pads, rolled sleeves) from when I was a high school clothes horse. The dirty looks from the stuffy patrons, the type of people who DO enjoy wearing formal wear while dining, were always fun.
A jacket isn’t really formal wear (unless you’re wearing a tux)…
I like to dress since I have so few occasions to do so.
I hated “dressing up” for a long time – once I actually had clothes that fit, it made all the difference.
A childhood of ill-fitting, uncomfortable clothes (usually from the thrift shop, before that became cool) had scarred me.
I often say that I’m short term black pilled but long term white pilled. Usually that’s in reference to my faith, but it’s also in reference to the cycles of society. Imbalances and insanities tend to get cleaned up within a few decades of taking hold. The problem is the few decades it takes to clean them up. Also, like a pernicious weed, these social issues tend to have long hidden tendrils that go back further than is apparent from the surface. If you just pluck the leaves off, the root will send up another weed.
We, as a culture, need to find a “why” again. “Fuck you, leave me alone” isn’t enough anymore. Why are the principles of the past important? Why should some lines be left uncrossed? “Because I don’t like it” isn’t enough either.
“Give a man a why and he can bear any how.” The intellectual cowardice masquerading as “being nice” is part of the reason, I believe, people can’t find purpose in what their culture is doing. The contradictions become so glaring over decades of degradation means people won’t find value in their own cultures. Why would a populist, America first person go to battle for Lindsay Graham, for example? These people stand for nothing, so nothing will stand for them.
Nothing can go wrong with this plan.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/new-york-set-to-ban-natural-gas-in-new-buildings
So. Fucking. Stupid.
And the only opposing quote is from a fucking chef?!
How about, erm, people will freeze to death from the prohibition of cheap, easily accessible energy?
That story gets written around 2037 after an especially intense ice storm that brings down the better part of the underpowered NYS grid. Surprisingly, the people with gas heat fared much better.
But… Texas PROVES that gas is less reliable than solar!
That will teach those pesky Russians!
Home heating oil is still A-OK, despite the constant traffic, messes, and spills from the delivery of same. Also, electric stoves suck ass! I want a gas range.
Berkely did it, and NY has massive woker-than-thou issues with CA.
Very nice, RC. There is a self fulfilling prophecy angle to all these top men actions. They understand that they are vulnerable to a Ceaucescu like ending and so try to gain more control of the populace in order to protect themselves. They fear losing support, so they try to silence and marginalize all dissent. These steps always result in a backlash given enough time.
They can have an artificial “great reset”, but the natural “great reset” always asserts itself. By natural “great reset” I mean the birth of a child. The top men do not have control over the mind until they have access to it. Propaganda fails because eventually, a new human comes along, points and says, “The empress not only has no clothes, but she also has a cock.”
Speaking of children, I read you’re going to be able to empty the nest two years early now. Maybe Namie Amuro will come out of retirement to record Sweet 17 Blues.
Not sure what “empty the nest” is referring to.
I think he’s hitting on you, not realizing that alls he has to do is unzip his pants and you’ll pounce.
Lowering the age of majority from 20 to 18.
Huh. Didn’t see anything about that until now. Wonder if it will actually make any difference.
Namie Amuro?
Hide and Seek
I wonder if any of their donors have any regrets.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/blm-purchased-6-million-los-angeles-mansion-with-donor-money-report
It’s funny the CEOs of major corporate donors are so very silent on this.
Rock Chalk Jayhawk!!!!
Wut?
UNC is dust in the wind.
What this got to do with University of North Carolina?
Just got their ass beat by University of Kansas.
They probably went about as fur as they can go in Kansas…
Their game is up-to-date.
Bawk Bawk Chickenhawk! ? (?)
What y’all doing up still, don’t you work?
Ever hear of Phil X and the Drills? You can check out any time you like, but you motherfucking can’t leave.
Sunny Days
What y’all doing up still, don’t you work?
4 year old is terrified of the thunder…
Damn good thing y’all don’t live in the midwest. Always told my wife the first time she was like ‘OMG’ when there was a thunder shower in MD, if you lived in IN, you will freak the fuck out first time it comes a T-Storm.
Yup. It wasn’t a terrible one this time. Only two tornado warnings in our vicinity this evening.
I’ll say that one of the most intense storms I’ve ever been through was in NoVa. It was a massive fluke for the region, but we holed up in the basement, if only to take shelter from the noise of the near constant cloud to ground lightning strikes that were shaking the house.
I think the storms are overblown here in TX. Yeah, they tend to be super cells that spin up tornadoes and hail, but it’s like 6 weeks of storms and then there isn’t a cloud in the sky until November. Growing up in IN, you could have tornadoes in December, hail in August, and thundersnow in May.
*clips onion to belt, grabs shaking cane*
We used to sit on the front porch swing and watch lighting for entertainment.
/Okie
Still amped up from my date Satdee and Sundee.
The best thing you could do right now is to just call her and tell her you just want to talk. Or just ask her what’s she doing.
*breathily* “What are you wearing?”
Both of you still better than my advice of ‘I was just thinking you should come over and sit on my face again’.
I missed that it.turned into a two day date.
Niiice.
Okay, so now I got that out of my system and actually read the article, thanks RC.
Right now my family concerns are taking almost all of my attention and I have no thought for any future beyond the coming weekend. Quite frankly, other than watching our savings go into the gas tank and refrigerator, I just don’t care. I don’t have enough energy to care.
Got a nice view from the window today.
https://ibb.co/dDLrK7v
Nice
I can’t see anything past the cherry tre– oh I get it.
https://youtu.be/JIM_XK_o81g
Have a disturbing peek into the mind of an ignorant, simpering tool.
The fifth-grade writing level is a nice touch.
Bonus points for the “more from Bloomberg” section at the end. I don’t venture into the realm of absolute stupidity very often, but hoo boy it exists, and people read it for some reason.
You know what? These chains are actually pretty comfortable and give me a free workout.
Not GlibFit!
Pathetic. Bubble boy is going to be disappointed.
“I’m so sorry, it’s ‘Moops’.”
Lots of people wearing masks also encourages more people to wear masks, as I witnessed on the bus last week.
This has absolutely no effect on me. Nothing. Do I even want to associate myself with humans?
I apologize for the “ink” spilled above about temporal lobe epilepsy; one of the common personality traits is hypergraphia!! ?
Is that a condition where you really really love graph paper- including log scale graph paper? You do you on the X, Y, and Z axis Hayek!
Engineer pad > graph paper
Truth! Live that green grid on yellow paper look…
It’s also wonderful to scan in “for the record” because the paper color and grids disappear so all you see it the beautiful text, math, drawings, and charts.
❤️
https://youtu.be/GIzDsGyxsQM
The best song you’ll hear all day.
Morning peeps.
Good morning, Sean & TARDy! (And HE, if you’re still awake!)
Most tedious report-compiling for month-end is done, and the big bosses are out of our hair for a couple of days. If the weather doesn’t suck too much, I may go on a quest to replenish the break room snacks – the ones that tempt me from far-too-few feet from my desk. ?
Most tedious report-compiling for month-end is done, and the big bosses are out of our hair for a couple of days.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tsgw0W1RE5A
Take that, TedS!
Morning, GT et al.
Good Morning UCS, GT, GP, Sean, et al…
We got 1.5 inches of rain yesterday, so no work outside today. (other than feeding the animals)
A nice article. My fear is that those “top men” are nowhere as smart as they think they are.
So how are the animals doing?
Last I’d heard one of the lambs had been rejected by its mother.
Lambs are well, baby was successfully reunited with mom. Got some help, and got one shorn. But clippers came with a “fine blade”, and we need a “corse” blade to quickly get the rest shaved.
Desperately need to get other pasture gate finished so i can rotate the animals.
Cow still does not like me.
Takes a first time Momma a while to get used to the cold hands of a man. Give her a treat, a coffee can of oats or ground corn and you’ll have made a friend during those early get acquainted days.
I ran a cost analysisreport last week, and had my former supervisor compile it for me. He used to do it semi annually to balance work loads between supervisors.
It pretty much shows that our post-Rona productivity sucks mightily. Boss has literally not even acknowledged it… yet.
https://ktla.com/news/california/26-year-old-arrested-in-sacramento-mass-shooting/
Dandruff arrested.
“Daniel Dray III arrested” No photo.
+1 Senator & Mrs. Blutarsky
Photo? NY Post has it covered.
https://nypost.com/2022/04/04/6-victims-in-sacramento-mass-shooting-identified-by-coroner/
Nice write-up, RC. I’m not optimistic myself. I know there will a change for the better coming, but at what cost in lives?
Math may always win, but human nature doesn’t really change. We just gain new technology to bring out the best of us… and the the worst.
We are here>Weak men bring bad times.
Good times, bad times …
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=TA9Rec1qAFQ
Good choice. Love the drums.
Mornin’, all. Thanks RC for a relatively optimistic take on things. For the long run, anyhow; the journey to the destination will be a bumpy ride.
I hear that. Corporate finally offered me the chance to work for their replacement outfit. The new guys must be getting desperate because they keep setting back the takeover date. Management hates me. I’ll turn it down. The new guys seem to run on an MLM scheme. I’m too old and canny to fall for that shit.
How does an MLM scheme work with janitorial services?
There’s a big market for trash. Lots of people love it.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=cVS8OHmlFtE
Well ya see, you buy the supplies from the company that is paying your wages. I’d rather not owe my soul to the company store.
That’s a load of bullshit. Definately walk away from that.
Right? Fuck them.
Obligatory.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QKOL8XehVSg
I’m so sorry brother. I once worked for a chef who was rapidly snorting his restaurant up his nose (like, in the middle of lunch rush he would grab a handful of cash from the till and disappear for an hour or so). He was HEAVILLY into some
pyramid schemeMLM program where he was flogging a collection of motivational cassettes and building his downline. He was always trying to rope me into helping. It all fell apart when the paychecks started bouncing and he offered to pay me in weed. No thank you.At this juncture in life I’ll not be taking on any more debt. Renting scissor lifts and manning them? Keeping up with the day to day? I’d be out probably 7-8 Grand just to set up at a minimum. Even if they did “rent” me a floor-scrubber, who pays for the parts when it inevitably breaks down? These guys dangle big bucks at the start and then chip away at your bottom line. Same thing happened with silviculture, milling, trucking. They killed decent wages for courier drivers and taxies. Capitalism works when you don’t quite play by the rules.
Mornin’ ‘Patz’, Tardy, Sean and GT,
Looking around and seeing such things as Life in Afghanistan, places in Africa and Asia we wonder why do people keep on living the high life of the 19th Century. It always comes back to the government, such as it is, trying to keep the people under control.
The Taliban is the most obvious. Why would demeaning 1/2 the population benefit society? India, in the not too distant past? Our own history but we had to learn.
Don’t believe that nonsense about the Afghans. The Poppy must flow…
Isn’t the new artificial stuff coming across the Southern border a cheaper and better replacement? I’m far from knowledgeable but according to the 100K US deaths attributed it’s doing a great job in satisfying it’s customer base.
Fentanyl is a Chinese product.
Well, starting with tequila and finishing with Scotch may not have been the smartest move last night.
When the current contradictions fail, things will get ugly for a time. I think we are already seeing them fail. The only real questions are:
How bad?
What next?
The potential benefit we have now is that we have an example of a better society within living memory, one that a lot of Americans are still attached to. Maybe that will provide an opportunity for the next evolution to be another departure from some historical norms. My (our?) task is first, to weather the coming storms, and second, if we choose, to try to bend what comes after in a direction we prefer.
Don’t be worried that the current top men aren’t as smart or capable as they think, or need to be to avoid what’s coming. Be happy. If they were, I wouldn’t be as optimistic.
Outside of people/communities infected with the overculture, there is still a lot of social capital. The recovery could well be V-shaped.
I’m seeing in my purview and for quite some time that the old “family oriented” cultures have been monopolizing pretty much every service industry. Cheaper overhead when you live in extended family households. Grandma rules the roost and decides which ones go to College and which ones flip burgers.
Mornin’ All! How rude of me.
Good Morning Fest. Sounds like your job has gotten stupid.
It was always stupid but for 7 of 9 they left me the fuck alone. Now it has become not my job, anymore. Long-term employment means something still. Maybe?