Invaded by Aliens

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

It is a cliché of bad science fiction – as in what I tell all my newbies not to do – to start a story with characters telling themselves/each other things they already know.

“As you know, Bob, we were invaded by aliens in 1939,” has become a catch phrase in my family, as in when someone is telling us things we already know. You know, something like younger son will say, “In case you didn’t notice, the economy sucks” and I say “As you know, Bob, we were invaded by Aliens in 1939.

Now, while I don’t believe we’ve been invaded by aliens, it occurred to me that this was a great story starter. But then I realized that (though I don’t believe we’ve been invaded by aliens,) the resulting world is as close as it can be to ours, and in many ways makes more sense than ours. Or, as a vocal woman once said, “At this point, really, what difference does it make?”

 

“As you now, Bob, were invaded by aliens in 1939, and since then they’ve been doing their best to destroy humanity. But because they’re cunningly disguised, most people aren’t aware of it and think the culture has gone inexplicably bad.”

 

-Our entertainment and culture vilifies the very concept of humanity.

-Our entertainment and culture vilifies the concept of “good” meaning benefiting most of humanity.

– Our entertainment and culture vilifies the concept of success and successful people are viewed not as role models but as evil villains.

– Our entertainment/culture/education holds up to ridicule and opprobrium the human cultures that have made the most humans happy/healthy and wealthy, while glorifying cultures where women are held as chattels and anyone different (mouthy women, original thinkers, gay people) are at best hanged from cranes, and at worst tortured in inventive ways.

– Successful Western countries are ASSUMED to “deserve” being swamped by third world immigrants and made into hell holes like the ones the immigrants came from.

-TV programs exhibit “extinction lust” fantasizing about a world without humans.

– “Environmentalists” loudly equate men and rats in their scale of priority and think human population should be reduced to one tenth what it is.  They refuse any solutions that don’t involve extreme population reduction and return to a short, brutish and nasty standard of life for all humans.

– To this end, a vocal and poisonous belief called “feminism” has been propagated, to keep the human males and females from making more humans.

IN THE UNITED STATES IN PARTICULAR:

  • Our elites vilify the United States compared to anyone else. Yes, even evil pirates, rapacious fascists like China, corruptocrats like Putin and the unholy mess that’s the Middle East other than Israel. Faced with that bucket of fail, our president went around… apologizing for the US.
  • We routinely help our enemies and stab our allies in the back, or as someone said “changed sides on the war on terror.”
  • While the world falls apart around us, the most important thing in the world for our elites is to subdue their own populace, be it by ridiculous environmental regulations, gun regulations, hectoring on diet (according to disproven principles,) and targeted economic war – IRS, EPA, and various banking regulations – of which the problems made for old coin dealers are the drop of water in this bucket of scary that makes my hair stand on end. You figure out why.
  • While the world falls apart around us, our cultural elites, blithely blind to what is going on in countries where women, gays and minorities truly are oppressed (as in dead-oppressed) blather on about the future being queer and about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, how to eliminate the tyranny of bi-gender assumption from fiction, games, and other creative culture outlets.
  • While anyone who behaves like these “elites” (I prefer aristos. It’s more… accurate) is told that they’re brave and “speaking truth to power” while reaping all the rewards possible by the society that supports them (and doing their best to tear it down) anyone pointing out the suicidal folly of this behavior is called… “a conformist” and “unoriginal” and “scared” or a “sell out” while, in fact having to swim against the cultural current, because the main current is supporting the suicide-encouraging ones.

 

I don’t believe we’ve been invaded by aliens. But do look around.

If we had been, how could you tell the difference?

At this point, really, what difference does it make?

 

317 thoughts on “Invaded by Aliens”

    1. What difference? Some percentage of actual ET aliens might be friendly, might actually think we’ve had some good ideas. Haven’t noticed that with this bunch…

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    1. Which is an interesting concept in itself. Memetics, where we get the world Meme, was about the spread of an idea like a virus through a population, including mutation (Telephone game). It means more than just LOLcats.

      Some have studied Mimetics to the point where they try to use it to manipulate the culture, and you can bet which side I’m talking about. They deliberately infect the culture with harmful ideas and direct our attention so that we avoid even thinking about the right questions. They try to get us debating how much wealth should we confiscate from the 1%ers to redistribute, rather than asking whether we should or not. (The proper answer, we should not, is off the table already thanks to them.)

      The left: Typhoid Mary, Patient Zero, and Bug Donor all wrapped up in one, for the mental illness of virulent viral ideas.

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      1. They deliberately infect the culture with harmful ideas and direct our attention so that we avoid even thinking about the right questions.

        And kids aren’t being taught old style logic, so we can’t even figure out how to build a case if our impulses DO manage to tell us the right thing.

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        2. Do you think it merest happenstance that such things as formal logic and rhetoric are no longer taught in the schools? That the average high school graduate can no longer enumerate the various types and classes of logical fallacies?

          First, they took over the schools. Then, journalism and politics. At this point, the rest of us are just in for a hell of a ride until the whole f*cking thing crashes and burns. I’m not even sure that the system is reformable, at this point. Too many generations of ignorance, too many people of massive stupidity in place inside the system. What’s the most frightening is that people like Nancy Pelosi aren’t actually members of the “conspiracy”, just the end product.

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          1. Other way around–they took over Journalism first and for a while had a lock on both parties (Nixon a “conservative”? T. Roosevelt was a progressive etc.)

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            1. Theodore Roosevelt’s position on the proper role of government shifted over time. Whatever, he was an eloquent defender of American Patriotism and self-discipline.

              I quell when I read his great progressive address The New Nationalism[1910]. He should have kept in mind his own warnings from a 1986 stump speech for McKinley:

              It is not merely schoolgirls that have hysterics; very vicious mob-leaders have them at times and so do well-meaning demagogues when their heads are turned by the applause of men of little intelligence and their minds influenced with the possibility of acquiring solid leadership in the country.

              Although we are not facing arguments about free silver, some of the aspect of national politics remain little changed, from a later this part of the same speech something that might interest:

              … Our foes are waging a campaign which is at bottom waged primarily against morality and ability. They hate men who pay their debts and obey the laws, exactly as they hate the men who win success in life or who cause the laws to be enforced. They use free silver as a cry because they hope therewith for the moment to mislead some honest men and to bribe some dishonest men; but they really care little for any particular form of policy as regards the currency. At bottom what they most desire is to strike down the men who by virtue of leadership in any walk of life, whether it be in business or theology or law or literature or science, tend by their efforts to raise the whole community upward. The forces which they have rallied behind them and which give them their only real power are the dark and mean hostility and envy felt for all men of ability by those unworthy men who care more to see their brethren fail then themselves to win success by earning and deserving it.

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            2. The ideologies of the major parties has shifted over times. The Democratic-Republicans of the early Republic, forerunners of today’s Democrats, were opponents of a large, powerful Federal government. The Democrats under Andrew Jackson helped give us a larger Federal government and the spoils system.
              In the years after the Civil War, the Democrats were small government conservatives (and racist hate-mongers) and the Republicans were for an even larger government, but one that wasn’t necessarily very intrusive. The Republicans of the time did want to enforce the 14th amendment, supported research and agricultural education and surveying, and had some land conservation policies, but didn’t much interfere with day-to-day business or life. The Republicans of the time generally saw the Federal government as a force for good, while the Democrats abhorred it.

              Then “progressive” ideas became popular. While the Republicans largely swung away from those ideas after the 1912 Roosevelt/Taft faction fight, the Democrats under Wilson picked some of them up. Without discarding the racist hate-mongering that has been their hallmark. During the Wilson Administration, the ranking black officer in the Army was cashiered, the Navy was segregated, and the blacks who supported civil rights were considered subversive.) The Republicans largely reverted to their old attitudes until FDR seized power. It wasn’t really until then that there was Republican opposition to “big government” – because aside from the spell under TR then under Wilson during wartime, it hadn’t been very intrusive. Note the “very” part – it could be intrusive, but wasn’t often, or impacted only a few, or the trade-off was overwhelmingly seen as acceptable. So the New Deal pushed the Republicans into being the party of “smaller” government relative to the New Deal Democrats.

              This perhaps explains some of the tension between true small government conservatives and certain segments of the Republican Party.

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              1. That makes a lot more sense, since I don’t so much care if gov’t is small as I care if it’s butting in where it should not be.

                If there a gazillion miles of road, then there’s a lot of gov’t, but that’s not so objectionable as having an equal amount of gov’t that’s involved in deciding exactly what morally objectionable thing I must buy for employees who do not want it.

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                1. *metaphor of gov’t as dust comes to mind.. .fine if there’s a desert where it should be, not so much if there’s even a light cover where it oughtn’t*

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              2. The Federalists saw the need for the nation to have a single voice when negotiating with foreign nations. Hamilton, representing the Federalists, saw the need for a stable monetary system. Many of the various states were failing to pay off the loans they had taken during the Revolution. This was effecting the credit of both the new nation and the various states. Hamilton favored consolidating those debts and placing the obligation in the hands of the central government. He also advocated setting up a single system of tariffs and a central bank. Meanwhile another Federalist, John Addams, advocated for a standing navy, believing that it to be necessary for common defense.

                The original Republicans (known under several names such as the Democratic-Republicans, Jeffersonian Republicans and Jacksonians before ultimately becoming the Democratic party), largely represented southern and rural interests. They started as the anti-administration party, primarily opposing Alexander Hamilton. They were wary of any consolidated power, distrusted banks and did not favor keeping either a standing army or navy.

                The present day Republican Party was founded in 1854 by northern anti-slavery activists who opposed the Kansas-Nebraska Act proposed by Sen. Stephen A. Douglas. They took their name from Thomas Jefferson’s original Republican Party. The party attracted the support of former Whigs and Free-soilers.

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                1. CACS,

                  “Hamilton, representing the Federalists, saw the need for a stable monetary system. Many of the various states were failing to pay off the loans they had taken during the Revolution. This was effecting the credit of both the new nation and the various states. Hamilton favored consolidating those debts and placing the obligation in the hands of the central government. He also advocated setting up a single system of tariffs and a central bank.”

                  Hamilton was a banker. It is what he did as a civilian before becoming Secretary of the Treasury.

                  The Original Republicans, as you called them, where mostly those Anti-Fedralist, having lost the fight on ratification, that switched into damage control mode to stop excess of Government Power right from the beginning (1790). Madison & Hamilton split on this issue. Madison was an Idealist beleiving we actualy could keep a Federal government under-control. Hamilton as a banker and Mercantilist (what we today would call a crony-capitalist), and as with most Mercantilist and Bankers, confuses Credit with Capital was under no such illusion and just wanted to use the new government to get what he wanted. Anti-Administration only in the since that the Federalist where in power.

                  FYI: I good (IMO) essay on the nature of credit, debt and money is, “What is Money?” by Fédéric Bastait.

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                  2. Yes, Hamilton founded (with others) the Bank of New York, but he was not a banker.

                    Hamilton was the bastard child whose father had abandoned his mother. After his mother’s death and before coming to the colonies to obtain a formal education, had worked as a clerk at an import-export firm in the Dutch colony of St. Croix.

                    He left King’s College to fight in the American Revolution. He served most of the Revolution as General George Washington’s aide-de-camp. After the war he practiced law and became involved in politics. (He also helped to restore King’s college as Columbia.) He was instrumental in the formation of this country under the Constitution, serving at both the Annapolis and Philadelphia conventions. He is credited with writing more than half of the Federalist Papers arguing in support of the ratification of the Constitution.

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                    1. Sorry Madison and Jefferson started the Democratic Republican party, composed of mostly Anti-Federalists, in opposition to Hamilton’s monitary policies and his continued efferts to expand the small standing army that had been agreed to at the convention.

                      Hamilton was a Federalist advicating for a strong centeal government, sorry I didn’t make that clear.

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                    2. Yes, I guess I overstated his role in banking. You are correct, but he was a strong advocate for them as Treasury secratary.

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            3. Though sometimes an interfering busy-body, Theodore Roosevelt was in many ways more fiscally conservative than most presidents who have succeeded him – and far more patriotic than much of the country is today.

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              1. Theodore Roosevelt gives my mind whiplash; the one thing you can say about him is that he definitely doesn’t fit in any of the neat little cubbyholes that liberals use to categorize people. Patriotic, check; fiscally conservative, *waggles hand* on balance, check; pro 2nd Amendment, check; pro hunting, check; created millions of acres of National Parks that the federal government prohibits anyone getting any use out of, check; supported a bigger more intrusive federal government, check; believed in personal responsibility, check; dealt with blacks and Indians as equals (at least in personal relationships); check. The list could go on and on, but he was all over the board on his beliefs. Then he did things that really make you scratch your head; like hunting all over what became Yellowstone National Park, writing magazine articles about what a hunters paradise it was, then making it a National Park and closing it to all hunting. To be fair, many National Parks are not closed to hunting by their founding charter, it is simply the bureaucrats in charge of the Park Service who close them through “management” decisions, but I believe (I don’t have a cite, but am positive I have read it in the past) that Yellowstone was one of the ones that was specified as no hunting when created.

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                1. Looking this up I found out that it was President Grant who signed the bill that established Yellowstone Park on March 1, 1872. President Theodore Roosevelt signed the Act for the Preservation of American Antiquities (otherwise know as the Antiquities Act or the National Monuments Act) on June 8, 1906. From what I could find at least the hunting of wolves was allowed within park boundaries as late as 1926.

                  From online U.S. National Park Service — Yellowstone Hunting Regulations Reminder:

                  The Lacey Act and the Code of Federal Regulations strictly prohibit the killing or removal of any animal, living or dead, from inside Yellowstone. This includes animals shot legally outside the park that cross into and die within the park boundary. Taking and removing any animal parts, including shed antlers, is also prohibited.

                  Looking up the Lacey Act, I found the following at Wikki:

                  Introduced into Congress by Rep. John F. Lacey, an Iowa Republican, the act was signed into law by President William McKinley on May 25, 1900. It protects both plants and wildlife by creating civil and criminal penalties for those who violate the rules and regulations. It authorizes the Secretary of Interior to aid in restoring game and birds in parts of the U.S. where they have become extinct or rare. It also regulates introduction of birds and other animals to places where they have never existed before.

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              2. Teddy Roosevelt, and Dwight Eisenhower, each raised sons to be proud of FWIW

                When asked what the bravest act he had ever seen was, General Omar Bradley responded, “Ted Roosevelt on Utah Beach.”

                Patton wrote to his wife, “Teddy Roosevelt died in his sleep last night. He was one of the bravest men I ever knew.” [Patton also removed Roosevelt from command under Patton]

                Compare that with some other children of the great and famous.

                Interesting to observe that as with the shooting of Liberty Valence myth has become much of the Roosevelt background story as frex the tales of the Kaibib Deer – a useful teaching tool but as generally observed bad history and equally bad biology.

                The Lacey Act has its points but it too is a useful teaching tool of federalizing otherwise local matters. FREX Idaho has many out of state hunters and fishermen – perhaps because of flaws and faults in their home state ecosystem – who violate local laws in Idaho. The people would be tried in Idaho under Idaho law but Idaho Fish & Game refers any prosecutions they can to Federal prosecutors for Federal court prosecution to shift costs to the national government. To make a federal case out of it produces no net savings but net savings is not the only incentive.

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      2. There’s this old web comic where ideas become infective and create mad science:
        http://project-apollo.net/mos/
        Toward the end other stellar civilizations have been found that have destroyed themselves. I always had the idea that if you wanted to destroy something exposing them to lethal ideas might be a way to do. Truly evil and disgusting of course.

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      2. I do like Mark Steyn’s comment on that nutter theory on his free speech tour. He’s much more eloquent (& funny) about it, but it boils down to that conspiracy theory is a lot less weird & creepy than the idea that we need the government to protect us from letting these nuts speak.

        I’ve never seen anyone else who can be so funny and so depressing at the exact same moment.

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  4. Speaking of legal aliens . . . Gene Simmons (yes, THAT Gene Simmons) is on Fox Business talking about immigration and how he’s proud to be part of the “1%.” A fiscally conservative rocker! What is this world coming to? (OK, Sons of Liberty and Madison Rising excepted.)

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    2. “A fiscally conservative rocker!”

      Occasionally some great conservative thoughts come out of surprisingly mainstream pop-culture figures. Robert Downey, Jr., comes to mind.

      “. . . you can’t go from a $2,000-a-night suite at La Mirage to a penitentiary and really understand it and come out a liberal.”

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        2. Alice is best buds and golf partner with Pat Boone; which, blew my mind when I heard it.

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              1. At one point there had been talk of opening a second Cooperstown, in Denver. I don’t think anything came of it.

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        4. As far as I know he is not and never was ordained. He and his wife Sheryl are both PKs. They helped found and are involved The Solid Rock Foundation a Christian outreach whose “primary goal is to help meet the spiritual, economical, physical, and social needs of teenagers in our community.” One of the ways that support is raised for this by Alice is with an annual golf event.

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              1. Hey, countertenors are all a bit . . . odd. And often Odd as well. No, I’m not going into the possible anatomical reasons why.

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  5. “Our entertainment and culture vilifies the very concept of humanity.”

    One of the weirdest moments for me was when I went back to my (liberal) hometown and was having a conversation with one of my elders and realized that he sounded like Agent Smith from The Matrix—humans are a virus, that type of thing—but he apparently meant it seriously.

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  7. The most disheartening thing to me is the realization that most of our political, intellectual and cultural elites appear to hate the middle-class, working-class, small-business-owning, religiously-observant residents of flyover country with the passion of a thousand burning suns. One of the frequent commentators on PJ Media and on Chicagoboyz is a guy who calls himself Subotai Bahadur, who has coined the acronym TWANLOC to describe those elites as “Those Who Are No Longer Our Countrymen.”
    How can we get along, when it seems like the elites of a nation hate the rest of the citizens so?

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    1. How can you govern people you hate? It is hard to have a conversation when the opposition denigrates you by saying things like “clings to their guns and religion”.

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      2. They aren’t interested in having a conversation, you don’t have conversations with servants, you give servants orders.

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        1. How many times have we read about such people having demands about none of the staff making eye contact? Truly, I wish I had confirmation of such outre requirements, it seems beyond credible, but I have heard it of Hillary and that Streisand twit and many another, but never of a conservative.

          Sayyyyy, doesn’t Harry Dresden say something about avoiding eye contact with certain types of people?

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          1. I wouldn’t have live in staff. You have no privacy. I’d only have it as an alternative to assisted living.

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            1. I do not feel so inclined, either — but these people choose to have live-in staff so they can treat them respectfully. Nobody sane hires live-in servants (a la Streisand) nor runs for the White House without knowing their privacy is compromised, so your choice is to treat them like family or treat them as less than human.

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              1. Laura Bush was known to admit that cooking was neither her best nor most enjoyed skill, therefore having the White House kitchens was a nice perk. ;-)

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            2. I’ve written about this – in the context of the 19th century. The upper servants see all, know all. The servants lived in such intimate connection to the served that there were very few secrets at all. Everything that an upper-class person did was noted and likely gossiped about in the servant’s hall.

              The urge for our elite classes to have compliant servants — who will keep their mouths shut regarding what they have seen and conjectured — is quite ironic, considering. It calls to mind the old adage about being careful about what you wish for, as you may get it. No matter how iron-clad you think that the non-disclosure agreement that you have made them sign as a condition of employment may be. Those who serve you will always know.

              In one of my books, I had a character in 19th century Texas say, “…no secrets in the slave quarters. Never has been, never will; anything you wish to find out about a family, their nigras will always know. “

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              1. In Have His Carcase, it wasn’t even a live-in servant. It was Harriet Vane’s charwoman that the police consulted.

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              2. With their lack of historical knowledge maybe these pseudo aristos delude themselves into thinking that their staff won’t publicly gossip about them.

                I guess having an entourage puffs up their self importance.

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                1. Absolutely – the more people you have running around doing things for you, the more important you must be to NEED all those people running around doing things for you, since your time is, obviously, far too precious to waste by, oh, opening your own beer.

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                  1. Before the invention of such handy household items such as the washing machine there were advantages to having help. The chores necessary to keep a house running were time consuming and exhausting.

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                    2. They don’t have robots that pick up trash yet. Or mop floors without human intervention (yes, roomba. But those only do carpet.) Precooked meals get old. (Maybe it’s just me– I grew up with lots of home cooking) Dusting. And yes, there are “litter robots” but cleaning them are still hard on the back. I’d love to have a maid, frankly. But I can’t afford it. But live in servants? No. I don’t go on a cruise (outside of funding) because I can’t stand to have somebody else carry my luggage. And I don’t want the poor folks working for the cruiseline get fired because I’m ornery that way.

                      Besides, having servants is a status thing. Always has been, always will be. Sooner or later there will be a fad for having your servant pour water over you in lieu of a shower. Will be called “green” or “earth friendly” when it will actually be all about pretending to be a Roman aristocrat.

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                    3. I have recently read that one of the hot new jobs in Silicon Valley is butlery … butling? … butledom? … being a butler. It seems the rich and powerful have brought back the professions of nanny and butler. Can valet be far behind?

                      What do you call an independent contractor whose profession consists of going into people’s homes, using their own pots, pans and other kitchen equipment to prepare a fancy meal for the householder and guests?

                      At least in the current market you call him (or her) “moderately well off.”

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              3. Have been watching the British soap Upstairs Downstairs. A fiction yes, but based on the realities of the time. Just started the third season — first episode ending with a cablegram being sent out to Lady Marjorie aboard the Titanic. One of the recurring plot points is that below stairs invariably is aware of the goings on above them.

                And I do believe I have read that a certain Irish housekeeper/cook/partner in a boarding house in the capitol of Texas was aware as well … ;-)

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              4. We’ll get back to that state quicker than you think–when all our appliances (our modern servants) are connected to the internet. And our preferences for frozen pizza, cat waxing, and floss-twirling are published on Facebook. Or passed around the NSA’s offices for laughs.

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                1. Much of that is already out there. Those various shopping discount cards and tags? The market knows what you are buying.

                  There has been talk about requiring ‘smart meters’ to monitor and then exert control of your energy usage.

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      3. How can you govern people you hate?

        Easy, because causing pain isn’t a problem and you don’t care how well they do.

        It’s much harder to govern people you care about because there are always consequences and those consequences hurt people.

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          1. “employees are easier to deal with than slaves.”

            But this is the Left you’re talking about: employees are slaves to these people.

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            1. If the contract I had to sign for my last job is any indication the corporate masters want to believe that they own you. You that little clause that says that any idea that you come up with belongs to the company even if you do outside the work environment and what you do has nothing to with what you are doing at work is sort of chilling to an engineer.

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    2. We can’t get along. We need to get rid of them and their ideas. If only it would be as easy as just killing them all! But that’s a good start. I think that the coming times will be bad, in fact atrociously bad on toast. I don’t see how we can get to better times.

      Maybe I’m just depressed. Now for some cheery thoughts. Hubby is coming home tonight and there is fanfic to read and ice cream to eat.

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      1. We may have to just kill them all and let God sort them out.
        I’m sorry to say some of my close family are TWANLOC, actually voting for the obomanation twice.

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    3. I’ve often thought that it’s time for the US to divide. All the “red” counties should segregate themselves from the “blue” counties, and establish a government actually based on the original text and meaning of the Constitution. Give people six months to relocate to a red or blue area, based on how they want to live. Allow free passage back and forth through the different areas, otherwise function as two separate nations. Put aside two percent of the red GDP each year to re-integrate the blue areas when they collapse. Let the “elites” or the “aristos” learn to live without being able to suck the life out of the rest of us.

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      3. As I recall something a lot like that was tried in Germany right after WWII. Except I think they missed the free passage bit.
        Remind me how that turned out again.

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        1. Rather well for the “red” side, if I recall. Eventually the “blues” were reintegrated though, and they are currently attempting to send it all to heck.

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  9. “how many angels can dance on the head of a pin”

    Angels are spirits and not material bodies. Only material bodies can occupy space. Only by occupying space can you exclude other objects from a location, or be excluded. Therefore, an infinite number of angels can dance on the head of a pin.

    Note that this argument is logically independent of the existence of said infinite number, or even of any, since it’s predicated on the the nature of the being.

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    1. IIRC, the question about “how many angels can dance on the head of a pin” involved debates on “are angels purely spiritual beings or partially material beings”. [Smile]

      Oh by the way, in Katherine Kurtz’s _St. Patrick’s Gargoyle_, a human is watching a large number of angelic beings getting into the trunk of his car, laughs and asks the question of “how many angels can dance on the head of a pin”. One of the angelic being answers “as many as wants to but why would we want to”. [Very Big Grin]

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      1. IIRC, the question about “how many angels can dance on the head of a pin” involved debates on “are angels purely spiritual beings or partially material beings”. [Smile]

        The story I heard was that it was a parody of the “foolish questions” that Catholics would ask…like the ones about non-human persons and their moral standing….

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    2. Nobody asks the important question that comes before: Can angels dance at all?

      Hell no, they can barely walk, that’s why God gave ’em wings. :-)

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      1. Can we use fictional examples? Like Castiel from Supernatural?
        :D

        (Granted I don’t watch that show very much, just a few repeats on cable. So if he’s actually a great dancer, then oops.)

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      2. According to Sir Pterry in “Good Omens”, you can get one angel dancing. A gavotte. Slowly.

        That said, the question is interesting because it’s about the nature of angels. If they are purely spiritual beings, then you can get an infinite number of them. If they have physical form, then there is a finite, if unknown, number.

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    3. The alternate question; “How many angels can dance on a pinhead?” was answered at Monterrey.

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  10. In some ways, I think it would be better if we had been invaded by aliens. Once we found a way to identify the aliens, we could just kill them. As it is, it’s harder to go around killing people *infected* with these alien ideas. [Frown]

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      1. Green? It’s the Greys you have to worry about. (Legs it. Really fast. Was once friends with someone who THOUGHT she was an incarnated alien. For given values of “friends”)

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        1. Actually, it’s the Reds you really should worry about. The Greys are just slaves of the Reds. [Very Big Evil Grin]

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      2. Or “Invasion of the Body Snatchers”? I had some net.friends react very badly when they found out I voted for Bush in 2004. Pretty much a “point and screech” reaction.

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              1. Because I look at things with hope that rationality will ultimately prevail I say: No. It is their loss.

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    3. I know exactly how to identify aliens. They’re the ones who call me “Miss” or “young lady”.

      Where’s an antimatter cannon when you need one?

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      1. There’s worse. There’s people who didn’t know I existed a minute ago and who call me Sarah. Always makes me want to answer “I have a stapler and I’m willing to use it.”

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        1. Undue familiarity is annoying–but I maintain “miss” and “young lady” are worse, because it implies I’m either a cute little girl, or a cute little old lady. One gets a smile, the other, an antimatter cannon.

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          2. I find the simplest way to avoid such misunderstandings is to just not talk to anybody I don’t already know, and talk to damn few of those I do know.

            It isn’t as if I have any reason to talk to strangers or am likely to gain anything much from it.

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      2. Y’know… I’d spend some time explaining to you just how wrong you were in this regard, but I suspect it would be like trying to teach a pig to sing. It would annoy you, and waste my time. So, I’ll simply address the external ironies, here.

        What’s most ironic here is that you don’t even grasp how much your attitude towards these little things, these minor matters of politeness, says about you and your “culture”. Perhaps instead of “Miss”, or “young lady”, you’d prefer a hearty “yo, b*tch…”, or similar modern honorific?

        Nor do you grasp just how much this is of a piece with the self-same issues that this post is addressing–You’ve been assimilated by the Borg, and you can’t even recognize that fact. You are offered respect and good manners, and you take offense, interpreting things as insult that were never intended as such. And, we who would offer those things to you automatically are the aliens?

        The irony is richer, in that you won’t even recognize the point of what I say here. You’re an unconscious participant in the coarsening of the general culture, and the loosening of restraints–Both things you should be concerned with maintaining, presumably being a person who would not flourish in the red-in-tooth-and-claw environment you’re unconsciously helping birth.

        Odds are, however, that you’ll never understand the how and why of that, even as your throat is rent by the teeth of the wolves. So, I waste my time.

        When the time comes, however, rest assured that I will point and laugh at the likely end state of the civilization your sort is creating around us. It will be quite humorous to watch as you are shoved to the side as the lifeboats fill, while the creatures who look like men that you’ve helped condition to disregard custom and manners allow instinct to override culture.

        Your ilk has no concept of what you tear down, or even recognition that you do it. Much like small children, everywhere.

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        1. I think she’d prefer ma’am. I still get called Miss and “young lady” and it annoys me because people aren’t blind. It doesn’t annoy me THAT much, but…

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          1. In my experience, it doesn’t matter what honorific you offer those who take offense, they still take it. When I was doing what amounted to customer service dealing with civilians in the military, I got the same response no matter what I used, and sometimes from the same person on separate occasions. Some people just want to take umbrage, no matter what. And, ya know what? I’m done with them. Period. I probably will start using that “yo, b*tch” thing when people respond negatively to the normal honorifics, now that I’m no longer answerable to the UCMJ.

            I’m genuinely tired of being read the riot act by these sanctimonious jackasses, when I’m merely trying to be polite and respectful. Oh, so “Miss” or “Ma’am” is now a f**king insult, denigrating your status as an enlightened and fully-liberated prick? So be it. I’ll respond in kind, henceforth.

            Tell you a little story here: Once upon a time, not so long ago, I was treated to a diatribe and lecture when I held a door for another “young lady”, who should probably have been termed a “young c**t”, instead. I politely listened to her rant, and went on with my day, albeit with heightened blood pressure. Restraining myself from beating her into an insensate pulp required more than you might think. Having stood in actual concentration camps, I don’t respond well to being called a Nazi.

            On the way out of the building, some hours later, I observed that selfsame “young lady” being harassed in the parking lot by a couple of drunken louts.

            Care to guess what I did? Yep, this representative of the oppressive patriarchy just walked right the hell on by, got in his car, and left. Not my circus, not my problem. You want to be one of the monkeys, be one. When the others start throwing shit at you, don’t expect me to intervene on your behalf.

            And, that, my friends, is how you get barbarians. It’s also how and why civilizations die from within.

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            1. You might find this article interesting – especially on how grievances are saved, stored, and savored.

              http://www.americanthinker.com/2014/07/ten_reasons_i_am_no_longer_a_leftist.html

              I really think they have no idea what they’re doing to themselves… and even if they did they might not really care. They’ve been taught that they have to be continually angry above all else, and nothing can really change that without a massive re-evaluation.

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          2. It’s a generic polite form of address, which is largely regional. Our Mormon neighbors called me “Miss (firstname),” which was a huge change from how I grew up– a parent was “Mrs (lastname).” But it’s a matter of manners, and there is no harm intended, so it’s like the rare enlisted guy who will throw a genuine fit over being called “sir.” (Most are making small talk or telling a joke.)
            One makes a mental note that they are not polite company and carries on, with various levels of returning their lack of manners as needed.

            I’ve picked up calling everyone “ma’am,” with occasional exceptions for 13 year old girls. Most folks are really good about recognizing polite fictions.

            Although I very much understand the very CDO* impulse of “no, that’s not right!”

            *husband’s office joke. It’s OCD, but with the letters in the right order.

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            1. Courtesy, politeness and manners are the lubricants which keep society from overheating.

              Some people, for their own entertainment, simply want to pour sand in the gears.

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            2. I know that in Spanish, you traditionally become a Senora at a certain age, whether or not you’re married. And it makes sense; Senorita is a diminutive where the diminutive means youthful; it doesn’t really mean you’re old but that you’re not mature. (And married women are presumably mature, as are women of a certain age.)

              But any respectful form of address is generally better than not, unless you accidentally call a non-military woman “sir.” (Assuming her name isn’t Peppermint Patty and your name isn’t Marcie.)

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              2. Yep. Same in Portuguese. Though there too there has been a disturbing slid up in the age of “menina” — i.e. I still get called “menina” And there ain’t no way I look like one.

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                1. I picked up a bad habit from a friend of addressing ladies as Dona Menina or even just menina. When someone finally pointed out my lack of manners, I was mortified. I still don’t understand how I got into that, other than Flávio had a very charismatic and… flamboyant (in the states, you’d probably call it metro) personality. I still cringe thinking about it.

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          4. The first time I was addressed as ma’am I was truly startled. I was in my early-twenties, working as a waitress. I came up to their table to take their order and they called me ma’am. Of course, the person who had done this was still in their teens and we were in the south.

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        2. While you’re points are sharp I’m not certain your target is accurate. There’s not enough in her original comment to form an opinion one way or another.

          I do dislike the lessening of clearly defined manners in polite society. And I’m not clear on what they think they’re gaining.

          But — I’m not sure jumping down someone’s virtual throat over an unclear comment while petting your peeve is a sturdy bulwark against the barbarian tide. Might just be me.

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          1. I’m sorry that I find it highly offensive that the manners and mores that I internalized with my mother’s milk are termed “alien”, and deemed worthy of being eradicated from the commons with violence.

            That those of us who weren’t raised by wolves find that sort of thing a “trigger” might be something worth contemplating. I’m extremely tired of having to treat every importunate intentional offense against my sensibilities as being perfectly acceptable, while every well-intentioned act of mine is simultaneously interpreted as some sort of perverse attack on the rest of the world.

            This idea that I’m some kind of alien in my own f*cking culture, for maintaining the proprieties of a more civilized era? I and the other civilized folk were here first, my friend. We’re emphatically not the alien usurpers–That status is reserved for the neo-barbs that insist on crapping all over the existing culture.

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            1. Check your targets. There is no attack coming from these quarters, particularly as I’ve argued rather emphatically in favor of a mannered culture and with particular note of what happens when courteous restraint is mocked and discarded.

              I get that you’re tired, I’m there with you. Well, maybe I’d be more with you if you weren’t jumping down my f*cking throat. Worth considering.

              I agree with your stance, I’m just unsure your argument in this specific instance is worthy of the hostility and disdain you’re piling on it.

              Consider: would it be courteous to address an elder gentleman as “young man.” Or would it be condescending and dismissive of his experience? It is possible, just maybe f*cking possible that this is the context of the original comment. I don’t know, the original commenter hasn’t weighed in.

              In the meantime, you’re belying all your talk about maintaining proprieties and civilized folk. So put your dick back in your pants I’m not interested in measuring and get your fucking finger out of my face.

              Or vice the versa, whatever twirls your beanie.

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              1. Eamon, I wasn’t addressing that at you, at all.

                It’s that whole “alien” imputation that pisses me off. And, when the original poster doesn’t bother to include any context whatsoever, merely the bare issue of it and the implication that those who address her in a mannered fashion are somehow intentionally insulting her? What do you think a person is to suppose from that?

                Were the argument made that those who addressed her in such a “disrespectful” fashion were doing so in order to disrespect and denigrate her intentionally, that would be one thing–And, I would take her side in that. Offering intentional insult to strangers is never acceptable, is it? But, what of the converse–Deliberately interpreting things as insult when the intention is not implicit, at all. Is that somehow acceptable, while the converse is not?

                The intent of the post is clear: It is that mere use of the word “Miss” and the phrase “young lady” are insulting, alien, and worthy of the users being destroyed, if only metaphorically. There’s no additional context, just the bare imputation that the usages are intended as insult.

                Where and when I was brought up, the honorific “Miss” was taught to be used to address a young female person of indeterminate marital status. Failure to use that when addressing a stranger guaranteed discipline in private, when observed by parents or grandparents. “Ma’am” or “Mrs.” was required when obvious marital status or age rendered those terms appropriate. That was what was taught and conditioned, until it was second nature, instinctual. That was, once, a societal norm. Until our “betters” decided it wasn’t, any more.

                And, now? Rendering such honorifics is apparently to be considered alien and insulting, even when intentions are merely to honor social niceties. And, we doing so are considered the alien, the interloper? I should simply accept this new thing, while simultaneously honoring the rest of the unspoken obligations and restraints that came along with the manners?

                There’s something wrong with this idea, and with the similar idea that such things shouldn’t be called out when they’re observed. If one of my elders were to address me, at my advanced age of fifty, as “young man”, and it has happened, I accept that gracefully in the spirit with which that term was intended. I don’t take offense, and fantasize about eliminating them with violence. But, it’s fine for others to do that when I’m offering similar graces? Is that what is meant, here?

                What’s worse, in this? Think about the difference between “young man”, and “young lady”: In the most common accepted female version of that sort of address, the assumption of genteel status is implicit to the term–“young lady“. You only hear “young woman” when someone intends either insult or discipline, unlike the commonly used “young man”.

                I can’t think of a single occasion where I’ve encountered the usage “young sir”, outside of an old book dating back to the19th Century.

                And, I’m to accept that “young lady” is an automatic insult? Interesting.

                This sort of thing pisses me off more than I thought possible. Good manners and respect for strangers is now, somehow… Alien? Is that what it is? Am I no longer welcome, in my own damn country, the one I willingly offered up my life for during the best years of my life, simply because I have the effrontery to believe in an elder code of manners and conduct? Mock me for being “out of date”, fine: I’ll accept that. Alien in my own land? F*ck off, the lot of you who say and believe that.

                That’s the summation of the original poster’s implications, whether or not you want to acknowledge that fact. I’ve seen no clarification rendered, as of yet, so I have to assume I’m reading that posting correctly.

                It’s a symptom of cultural self-destruction, both in the lack of grace, and the imputation that such manners are somehow intended as insulting to the recipient. Every little one of these “minor little issues” is another step down the decline, and I’ll be damned if I’m not going to dig in my heels and resist, if only by calling out the BS when I observe it.

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                1. Inter alia … I was totally charmed a week or so ago, when a Texan of indeterminate age touched the brim of his hat to me and said, “Howdy, ma’am.”
                  It’s the first time this has ever happened to me. I was heartened to see that traditional chivalry is not dead, in spite of all attempts to beat it into that condition.

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                  1. Since I’ve been living in the south I’ve been called Miz Nelson. My hearing being only adequate, I either heard it as Miss or Ms., neither of which title I liked. Since someone clarified things for me, I like the honorific.

                    Would anyone like to recommend a history of Dallas and its suburbs–especially Collin County and Plano in the 19th century?

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                    2. Well “Miz” existed in the American South before “Ms” ever started. While “Miz” is the pronunciation of “Ms” now, it started out as the Southern pronunciation of “Miss” and “Mrs”.

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                  2. *smiles with nostalgia* I was accompanying my parents to a diplomatic do one evening, walking down the street with them to the taxi stand when we lived in Paris. Mom and I were dressed formally – she in a suit dress with traditional embroidery, I with a gown, so we were strolling along enjoying the pleasant weather while Dad marched ahead, talking on his phone. Several older men smiled and made a point of doffing their caps to my mother and myself, greeting us good evening and calling my mother ‘ belle dame’ and myself ‘belle demoiselle.’ I smiled, thanked them and bowed slightly in reply. My father said it was the right thing to do, because he said that the men were talking amongst themselves that it was wonderful to see that some people still have good manners.

                    It is heartening!

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                2. I still agree with your points, and I still maintain there is insufficient context in the original comment to draw conclusions.

                  She’s a regular, Kirk, not a drive-by. I believe she was making a joke neither you nor I have the context to fully judge. I get that it pokes buttons. Truly. I’ve dealt with the same ill-mannered nonsense you have. It pokes more than one of my buttons, as well.

                  But it ill-serves your legitimate argument to attack when the meaning is unclear.

                  Last piece, you noted you would find no offense if one of your elders addressed you as young man. Perfectly sensible, no argument.

                  How would you feel if somebody in their 20’s did it? Perhaps someone with nominal authority, such as a doctor? Would your first instinct be to treat it as a sign of respect?

                  I know nothing about Kali, cannot judge age nor anything else. I’m just urging you to give her the benefit of the doubt until there’s more context.

                  Your call.

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                  1. Kirk, I’ll back Eamon on this. I have no clue on the context of Kali’s statement. Frankly it didn’t make a lot of sense to me,

                    “but I maintain “miss” and “young lady” are worse, because it implies I’m either a cute little girl, or a cute little old lady.”

                    I fail to see how those honorifics could imply ‘cute little old lady’, so color me confused on her whole comment; I don’t understand what she is taking offense at.

                    If it was a new commenter I would make the same assumption you did about her comments, and likely be MORE ticked off than you are. But Kali is a regular that has commented on here for at least a year or two, and I don’t recall ever before heard her make a ridiculous libtard statement. I don’t recall her statements when the subject of politeness and holding doors for women has come up here before, but I’m pretty sure that she has been involved in those conversations, and if she had took the stance her comment here appears to take, well I think that idiocy would be branded in my memory.

                    I’m giving her the benefit of the doubt, because her past actions seem to indicate she is worthy of it. And many of us don’t spend the day sitting in front of the computer waiting for replies to our comments, so her not having replied to you yet, doesn’t raise my suspicions any. Now if she comes back and refutes my statement about her, I’ll gladly hold your coat for you, or you can hold mine.

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                3. “A dying culture invariably exhibits personal rudeness. Bad manners. Lack of consideration for others in minor matters. A loss of politeness, of gentle manners, is more significant than is a riot.”

                  – Robert A. Heinlein, Friday

                  Sarah mentioned Puppet Masters and Now I’m reminded of Friday. Which to read?

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                  1. Who was it that was playing with the RE Howard idea on politeness, and said that the barbarian is polite out of concern about retribution that his society insists on, and the civilized are polite out the kabuki-like formalisms that their society requires, but true respect and honor comes from the free man who understands the abilities of his neighbor, and values his neighbors’ contribution to his own life?
                    It was a poster here and it is brilliant. I’ve probably got it wrong but I’ve been mumbling that around in my head for months.

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                  2. Speaking of rudeness, I was in a store this afternoon looking at magazines – the paper kind, I have plenty of the metal ones – when a small child began kicking at my ankles. Its parent saw that it was kicking me and ignored it. I said in a clear voice: “You had better stop that or someone’s going to get hurt.” Its parent began to berate me for “threatening a child”, which I cut short by saying: ” I wasn’t threatening a child, I was threatening the entire family.”

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                    1. Nice one. A Franks type answer.

                      Now I’m wondering if that child would make a good bludgen to beat some sense into their parent with.

                      All the while saying, “Next time you will remember to keep your child under bettter control.”

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                    2. In round numbers how many magazines is plenty?

                      I never have enough myself. Though I have found myself almost hoping some feed lips would spread or crack because I could use more poured full of lead for juggling and dropping practice

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                    4. I find the feed lips mostly suffer from being hammered by the strong springs used with extra capacity magazines and fast cycling slides from +P loads They spread before they crack except some that crack around the cuts in back – work hardened I think. Pays to gauge from time to time – the spread changes the release point.

                      As always there is no Utopia. FREX on the one hand a removable base plate allows the magazine to flex a little bit and hold together; a fixed base plate won’t come off the first time if the magazine hits hard when thrown to a companion who may be kneeling behind cover.

                      My attitude toward the hefty springs and 8 round magazines in the .45 chambered 1911 is the same as my attitude toward taking big game with a 243/6mm – everybody does it and it mostly works but it will bite you.

                      In the black rifle category I mostly go with Brownell as they are kind enough to discount a little and have stock. A Wilson 47D worked hard in games and high round count exercises will typically last about a year before rebuilding. I like the Checkmate hybrid lip hybrid follower fixed base plate for carry with a 1911. The S&W M&P, mine has a red dot on top and a laser in the stock, factory is the only choice but they have been more than adequate.

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                    5. I’d have done the same. You would be shocked how many kids look astonished when I say “No” or “stop that” — you can tell they never heard the word in their lives.

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                    6. Informing people that their child is committing assault seems to work better, though. (That one wouldn’t rationally charge a three year old doesn’t matter. They’re setting the poor kid up for jail, and should be told so.)

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              2. Speaking as one who gets called ‘Young Man’ on occasion, which kind of annoys me because in my head I’m no more than about 30 or so despite my chronological age creeping up on double that…

                It’s a bit irritating – but I’m just glad they’re being reasonably polite. Slightly eye-rolling, though. I know what I am, and I know how old I am. ‘Sir’ is perfectly acceptable, ‘Sire’ is a bit extreme, ‘Oh Lord and Master’ is reserved for my cell phone who knows where it’s next charge is coming from.

                And I call most people either ‘sir’ or ‘ma’am’ according to their displayed genders. My son, at 16, seems to have picked that up – and if it’s old fashioned, then (shrug) I don’t see what it hurts.

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                1. And I call most people either ‘sir’ or ‘ma’am’ according to their displayed genders. My son, at 16, seems to have picked that up – and if it’s old fashioned, then (shrug) I don’t see what it hurts.

                  This is how I was raised. Handily reinforced in the army. Though it’s taken a beating by some squawking feminists over the years. I eventually decided I was going to be polite, and shift to icily polite as required.

                  Around here, and with my family, sir and ma’am are treated as age neutral indications of respect. I can’t think of the last time I heard Miss used. When the party is known, then the appropriate Mrs. or Mr. may come into play. Even then, however, sir and ma’am are likely to be a polite staple of the conversation.

                  I’ve known some East coasters who didn’t get the culture and were heartily offended to be called ma’am. Not sure I ever figured out why.

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                  1. I’ve known some East coasters who didn’t get the culture and were heartily offended to be called ma’am. Not sure I ever figured out why.

                    I think someone tried to explain it to me here once, but danged if I can remember the explanation.

                    Was talking to a woman at a bakery a year or so ago, and she said she got a call from her son’s teacher. The teacher said, “I kept your son after school today.” “Why?” the woman asked. “He called me ma’am.” “Well, he damned well BETTER call you ma’am! I taught him to show respect!”

                    She didn’t say what the response to that was, but I suspect it was silence.

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                    1. I seem to recall the reasoning being that ma’am is a contraction of madame and madam means a female pimp. Yes, yes, I know there are to many problems with that explanation to count; but I’m just passing the explanation on, not agreeing with it.

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                2. I do call men “young man” on occasion, but only if A) he is old enough that it is obviously meant tongue-in-cheek (or he’s my father) and B) I feel comfortable addressing the fellow humorously. However, since you might almost fit those criteria – I don’t know that you’re quite old enough, unless you’re unusually decrepit for your age – and yet are bothered by the phrase, I need to rethink my approach. Food for thought; thank you!

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        3. Well, what would the internet be if our casual words didn’t light a fire?

          Sorry I’m a little late in responding, things got busy after I commented. I won’t go into details about the incident that got my dander up, but as you seem to be just a touch worried, I can assure you, I was perfectly polite and pleasant. No weeping, shaking customer service people were left in my vicious wake. That would be wrong. After all, how do I know what’s in their minds?

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          1. Hmmm. . .

            At this point I feel moved to observe that Miss Manners agrees with you. “A young lady is a female child who has just done something dreadful.”

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        4. My dad and mom take a swimming class for the elderly at the Y up the street. They are having a camp for little kids. We were talking about what was going on and my dad mentioned that it seemed to him how the emphasis was on groups and not individuals. On conformity and and not independence. And this is in in a very wealthy town filled with competitive 1%ers.

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        1. Out here it starts with “Ma’am” (as in, “Good morning, Ma’am. How can I help you?”) and then shifts as the other party figures out which title fits best.

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        2. Here Mrs. is probably the default, I hear ma’am used fairly commonly, but wasn’t raised using it myself (nor sir, always Mister). So if I use ma’am it is usually either because I know I have done something wrong and am groveling (something I do both poorly and rarely) or more commonly it is being used sarcastically. I can never recall using Sir in any form other than sarcasm (other than the obitiquous; yes sir).

          Mr. and Mrs. for common shows of respect, or Miss for someone I know is unmarried, or is obviously under marrying age.

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      4. You must not live in the southeast.

        Frankly, all things considered, I would address a goddess of your reputation as politely as possible…

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    4. But Sarah said Bob knows. What does Bob know?

      It’s the frickken stoners.

      Certain of the chemicals found in pot combine to substantially enhance the supernatural ability to be possessed by malign entities from certain alien dimensions.

      It isn’t puzzling that they’d be over represented in those with the wealth and pull to trivialize what little consequences are placed on using marijuana.

      Identifying them isn’t the limiting factor. The limiting factor is that a system which could permit them to be killed, would too easily allow real people to be killed.

      As long as there is rule of law to speak of in America, the collateral damage to just take them out will be worse than leaving them free to destroy everything they can.

      Okay, yes, I’m not so deeply committed to rule of law in places like Australia or the United Kingdom. I’m also not committed to seeing that those countries are governed well; if they become too much of a danger, that is part of the purpose of war.

      On a more serious note, the less improbable and more boring ‘human nature’ explains things well enough on its own.

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            1. There’s no point in commenting (although sometimes I do) because I doubt the Blogfather has time to read them, and there are SOOO many threads, nobody comes back to read replies in them anyway.

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              1. I occasionally comment, and might even check back to see if there’ve been any replies. Unfortunately whatever Reynolds uses for his blogging software doesn’t have a “notify me of replies by e-mail” option, and I often forget where I’ve commented.

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                1. There’s a thing for showing your comments, but it only works if you’ve clicked where you commented, and then they appear in random order, and don’t always include your latest comments.

                  They used to have a better one, in that it showed everything in order, but it wouldn’t take you to the post, so you couldn’t get any context.

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                  1. I just use Google. There’s a trick to restrict your search to a certain site, or a certain domain. site:”url or domain”. So I’d search (jabrwok site:http://pjmedia.com/instapundit//) and see everything I’ve posted in the comments. It doesn’t order by date unfortunately though, so you have to include date info as a search term. It *does* link to the relevant comment though, or at least the relevant post.

                    Kinda cumbersome though.

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                    1. Never thought of that…. I wonder how fast it indexes them. Sometimes, If I thought I’d written a particularly pithy comment, I’d bookmark the page.

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          1. One should always read James Lileks, of Lileks.com, ricochet dot com and now available at NRO once a month! (or maybe two months, can’t remember)

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    2. I would also like to welcome our new alien overlords. May I present you with a gift of these fine, handcrafted, clay representations of a gopher? The wires coming out of them are so that their noses light up when the button is pushed on the control box in the next room. Here, let me go next door and demonstrate for you. [VBEG]

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      2. Why am I reminded of the enforcement drone being rewarded with the “Tri-Nitro-Toulene Medal”(?) by one of the humans in Spaced Invaders?

        “‘Prepare to die, Earth Scum! Prepare to die, Earth Scum!’ I’m gonna have that carved on your tombstone!” “SHUT UP!”

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  12. Why would aliens invade? After the advance scouts report back, they would just wait and move in to the coming power vacuum.

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  13. I’m not sure if we’re living in a cliche of bad science fiction or a cliche of bad dystopian fiction…especially since the crew currently in charge here in the United States seem to think the likes of “Atlas Shrugged” and “1984” are instruction manuals, not cautionary tales…

    The way things are going, any day now I’m expecting to wake up in the Peoples’ Republic of frickin’ Haven. Which, I suppose, brings us right back to “bad cliches of science fiction.” Sigh.

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    1. So is it just Southern California where radio stations have cheery ads from government agencies reminding us to save water, turn off unneeded lights etc. etc. and generally prepare for a time when basic utilities are rationed?

      (Note it COULD just be SoCal. I mean thanks to the green BANANAs (Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything), Socal is in fact in danger of running out of both water and electricity. It would be fixable in short order by building a nuclear powerstation or two and using some of the power to run some desalination plants)

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      2. Two tidbits drawn from the cobwebs of my long term memory.
        Seem to recall at least a couple of early Cali settlements went belly up and died off due to the periodic drought cycles common to the region.
        Then again, years ago someone seriously proposed catching a medium size iceberg, wrapping it in a plastic envelope, and towing it to the California coast. Probably more energy efficient than desalinization, but then again with desal you also benefit from the byproducts. Fleur de sal anyone?

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        1. With the tech the Navy recently announced, a Nuke plant could also generate Hydrocarbons from C and H from the ocean – making absolutely carbon neutral fuel. Of course that would be culturally insensitive or something

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          1. Only if they don’t use fish-screen on the intakes. And probably on the outflow, too, from what I recall of the Simpsons. ;)

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      3. I’ve never heard such things since the 1970’s, and that was just light and heat PSAs on the cartoons. (Because they didn’t want us to waste then-expensive energy, not because there wouldn’t be enough.)

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      4. Then there’s the couple who was told they’ve be fined $500 if they watered their lawn, and then told they’d be fined $500 if they didn’t water their brown lawn.

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        1. As someone from Northern California (where we’ve actually reduced demand by 13% in my area), this thing drives me BONKERS. The area around L.A. is one of the few places in the state that’s actually increased its demand for water this year, and it’s cities and HOAs and people going around telling everyone that if they reduce their water consumption, that will be their new baseline, so they need to use water now so that they have a high baseline. One county increasing use and they’ve pushed up state water demand by 1%.

          There are agricultural workers all over the state suffering and SoCal cities are still demanding green lawns—the most useless waste of water you can imagine in a desert. Heck, I’ve PAINTED my front lawn—it’s green, all right, and totally dead. (Can’t say as I hate my water bill right now either.)

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      5. Nope, the one I am currently hearing on the radio constantly is this gagworthy propaganda.

        Showing how unbiased at least one of the mainstream news sources really is.

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      6. No, it’s not just California. When I used to listen here in CT the PSA’s were endless. For some reason they don’t buy time on the streaming audio on the computer.

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    2. Haven wouldn’t be so bad. You’d just have to hang on until Thomas Theisman kills Oscar St. Just and Eloise Pritchard restores the constitution.

      Like

    3. I’m not sure if we’re living in a cliche of bad science fiction or a cliche of bad dystopian fiction

      I woke up this morning in a bed, in a house with hot and cold running water, and electricity.

      I was able to shower, and get dressed. My wife assembled my food for the day, and I got on my motorcycle and drove 16 miles over moderately well paved roads to a building with air conditioning where I will spend about 8 hours working for pay.

      Pay that will get deposited directly in the bank.

      At no time did I have to draw a firearm.
      At no point did I hear gunfire.
      At no point were their armed soldiers standing in full battle gear at checkpoints.

      I did see someone getting pulled over for some random traffic violation, but I didn’t stick around to see if the cop beat them severely.

      We have inflation higher than the assholes in government would like to admit, but it’s not near double digits. We have about 530 feckless f*tards in elected office in DC (surely there’s at least 5-6 good ones, and I’m including the President in that number). We have a press that isn’t, and we’ve got lots of problems, but in about 40 minutes I’ll go to the gym here in the building and move some heavy weights around and do some other stuff because if I don’t I get even fatter from all the food.

      Bad dystopia? Most people who ever lived would call this paradise.

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      1. “Bad dystopia”? By definition a dystopia is bad so saying “Bad dystopia” is redundant. [Evil Grin]

        Seriously, we haven’t reached the dystopia level yet. [Smile]

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      2. The problem with paradise now is that it is being financed by debt that will eventually have to be paid someway. What is ironic is that everything you list was possible without the debt or the devaluation or slippery statistics. We could be saying the same thing, knowing that our children had a good future ahead of them, not fantastic just reasonably healthy and sufficient.

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        1. I’m not arguing that things are going the right way now. Long term projections are NOT good. In fact I’m the one that says we’re not pulling out, that it’s all coming apart, that we’re going to lose most of our freedoms, most of our standard of living, and that we have very little chance of it not happening because most people are peasants and willing to thank Uncle Sam for increasing their chocolate rations.

          But we aren’t there *now*, we’re not in *any* sort of dystopia, especially not a bad one.

          Heck you can find dentists open on a Saturday. That’s freaken AWESOME.

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      3. Isn’t that what pretty much everyone would have experienced in the world of Fahrenheit 451? As long as they didn’t have the audacity to, say, read books?

        Obviously we’re not quite there yet, but the infrastructure is in place.

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    4. The way things are going, any day now I’m expecting to wake up in the Peoples’ Republic of frickin’ Haven.

      You are not the only one. :-/

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      1. But neither Elizabeth Warren nor Hillary Clinton are short enough nor attractive enough to fill in for Cordelia Ransom. Perhaps Obama could play Rob S. Pierre? He seems fanatic enough.

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        1. A few problems with “Obama being Rob S. Pierre”.

          1) Rob S. Pierre was competent.

          2) Rob S. Pierre was driven to make Haven a better place but wasn’t IMO a fanatic (at least not in the insane sense of fanatic).

          3) Rob S. Pierre wasn’t interested in “power for the sake of power”. He wanted/took power because change was necessary.

          4) Rob S Pierre understood the limits of his power and understood the dangers of the revolution he started.

          IMO David Weber wrote Pierre as an understandable and some what likeable villain. In some way, “opponent” is a better word for Pierre than “villain”.

          Now, Cordelia Ransom was a good example of an insane, some-what competent villain. Oh, I doubt that either Elizabeth Warren or Hillary Clinton could have done the job that Cordelia Ransom succeeded at.

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          2. It could be argued that Rob S Pierre was the “best thing to happen to Haven” (he did restore a truly working economy to Haven) and Oscar Saint-Just was loyal to Pierre and Pierre’s plans for Haven, so IMO it is an insult to Saint-Just to compare him to Holder. For that matter, Saint-Just was an “equal opportunity SOB”. It didn’t matter what race you were. If you threatened Pierre and Pierre’s plans, you’re going down (unless Pierre ask Saint-Just to “hold back”).

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  15. I’ve been watching this for a while now, and I noticed something a while back. It came to me when I was reading one of the opinion columns calling for re-regulation of the airlines, back in the ’90’s. The pillock didn’t have much of an argument, but it was crystal clear that what REALLY BUGGED him was that the common people could now travel by air, which used to be a perk of belonging to the Elite.

    The twits that afflict us absolutely HATE that so many people are enjoying so much prosperity. They CAN’T STAND that being one of the Right People means so little.

    Now, most of them wouldn’t have made the cut in a pre-industrial society. Indeed, most of them would have been working class as recently as 1930. But try telling THEM that.

    They have vague ideas about what being part of an Upper Crust was like, and think they would belong if there was one (fat chance). They resent that actual progress (as opposed to Progressive Planning) has spread literacy, so they (perhaps unconsciously, but who knows) adopt policies that will halt the spread. They resent that there is no longer a Servant class, so they adopt a policy that will bring in a large underclass of people who will be at a disadvantage in the workplace. They resent so much of the modern world, and they work so hard to retreat into the 12th Century.

    They are pathetic, vile morons.

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      1. The thing is, I’m not sure what we can do, other than wait them out. They used to be the gatekeepers of culture, but they abdicated when the Fine Arts started to be about shocking the squares instead of making beauty. Now technology is making them back numbers, just was the industrial revolution made the great landowners obsolete. They have some power, and will for a while, but most of their attempts to acquire more are backfiring on them. Actually rebelling against the rancid little twits will wreck things about society that we may like and/or need later.

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        1. Adopt and adapt. Get used to the new technologies that are fundamentally changing the way human society works, and then make them work for us.

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          1. I am envisioning a vast horde of robots constructed with 3d printers and controlled by Arduinos and Rasberry Pi’s. Am I weird?

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            1. Not particularly. I’m sure that one alone keeps half of Congress up at night sweating. I’m awfully surprised we haven’t seen much legislation constraining the use of 3D printing. Licenses, regulations, permits, “you may only own one 3D printer,” etc. I expect when it gets to the point where the average American can use a laser sintering process on their desktop, we’ll see more of that. Which is the normal kind of stupidity to expect out of DC.

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              2. If they want to regulate that, the better hurry. The laser sintering is only a patent expiration away and there’s some even more incredible stuff coming. As far as metal goes I expect the breakthrough will be a printer that uses welding wire of some other metal filament. The powdered metals most sintering printers use are horrendously expensive. On the other hand, there are whole classes of stuff that can be made from zinc, copper or aluminum and those are very likely to be good printer materials. Honestly I don’t think the typical congressman really understands what’s going on. A revolution is happening right in front of them and they haven’t even caught on to the last one.

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      2. It’s the vileness that is the problem. Anybody can be pathetic and I don’t hate them. I sort of feel sorry for them. But in the case of vile, which would you rather have, pathetic or non-pathetic variants?

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    2. And delusional. You are correct. They imagine a world where they are in charge as perfect and wondermus. Funny thing is when you give them a bit of rope they do very reliably hang themselves. All you must do is watch the torrent of excuses the current crowd continually vomits up for why none of their elegant solutions to things ever seems to work as they intended.
      And then there are the numerous cases where they’ve been caught cheating in a vain and generally unsuccessful attempt to cook the books and make it look like they knew what they were doing.
      Truth is they are incompetent boobs who must gather in their elite circles and tell each other how perfectly correct they are while the real world goes about its business outside their bubble. Trouble being when they try to control real world events from that bubble and the world pushes back. It gets ugly fast, but can always be explained away with we didn’t try hard enough, spend enough money, or those evil conservatives stymied our valiant efforts.

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      1. “Truth is they are incompetent boobs who must gather in their elite circles …”

        It has been years since I read Wells’ book, but I believe it is spelled “eloi.”

        Which seems quite unfair, frankly, because Wells’ eloi were not actively destructive.

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        1. Truly. The Morlocks were actively destructive. The eloi, in marked contrast, were neglectful and conditioned to accept cannibalistic violence with a shrug.

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          1. Nit, the Morlocks may have been “destructive” only when they left their homes to harvest Eloi. I don’t think we ever saw them when they were not dealing with an invader (the Time Traveler) or when they were harvesting the Eloi.

            Of course, not to excuse the Morlocks’ behavior but the Eloi appeared to be descendants of the “1%ers” while the Morlocks appear to be the descendants of the “99%ers”.

            The Time Traveler believed that some time in the past of the world of the Eloi and Morlocks, industry and the workers involved in industry moved underground with the owners remaining above ground in luxury.

            IIRC by the “time” the Time Traveler visited their time the mechanisms that kept the Morlocks fed underground had failed and the Eloi no longer had the instincts/ability to fight back when the Morlocks came looking for food.

            Note to self, I’m going to have to get a copy of _The Time Machine_ to check my memories. [Smile]

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            1. Your memories are accurate (well, they accord with mine anyway). I don’t think Wells gave his scenario enough thought though. Unless there were very few Morlocks, preying on the Eloi wouldn’t have been a good, long-term nutritional strategy. The Eloi didn’t seem to reproduce particularly quickly, so eating them couldn’t supply a large Morlock population.

              I suppose Eloi-meat might’ve just been a delicacy, with the Morlocks generally subsisting on mushrooms and insects and whatever the Eloi ate.

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              1. Mildly on topic: There’s an older Hispanic man of my acquaintance named Eloi. Apparently it’s a non-uncommon name in the older generation, but I sure did a double take the first time he was introduced at a meeting!

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                1. Also spelled “Eloy” or “Eligius” or “Elmo.” Patron saint of goldsmiths, farriers, and horses; and one of the few examples of a saintly chancellor or prime minister. One of those Merovingian or before guys.

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  16. “As you know, Bob, the first reconnaisance incursion of the alien invasion occurred over Los Angeles on the night of February 24-25, 1942…” The movie “Battle Los Angeles,” my favorite 21st Century invasion Earth movie, actually did that, but did it in trailers and advertisements referring to the so-called Los Angeles Air Raid of that night. And frankly, I don’t think the weather balloon explanation holds water at all.

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  17. of which the problems made for old coin dealers are the drop of water in this bucket of scary that makes my hair stand on end. You figure out why.

    Jews in the attic test? – tip of the hat to Joe Huffman.

    Forbes – I think it was Forbes – interviewed a major dealer in precious metals many years ago. Man said he was attracted to the business after seeing his family trade precious metals hidden in plain sight as buttons and beaten thin for hem weights and collar stays traded for water if not for escape.

    Forbes asked if he had carried on that family tradition in the United States and he said no. Elaborating that the United States is the last stop on the refugee train and there would be nowhere to go even if his family were to buy their freedom from a government roundup. I’ve been told by others that the last comment was a white lie – the something is always hidden – In every generation……

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    1. A friend of mine pointed out that hording gold or silver wouldn’t do you much good if you encountered someone who had horded lead. That’s why he’s big on what he calls his “Canned Goods and Shotgun Investment Portfolio”. Hiding it in plain sight would probably make the precious metals idea more workable.

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      1. Have both on hand. Precious metals are for peaceful trade; base metals for people attempting hostile trade.

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      2. As I said before, I’m dollar cost averaging into base metals. Copper, brass and lead. Pre-assembled.

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        2. Electronic funds. So they know who spent money, where and on what. So they know where you get every penny you spend or save. And they can stop you.

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          2. Computers aren’t magic and neither are software programs. I can’t see cash money ever going away. How will graft/bribes be paid? How will politicians pay callgirls?

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            1. There is also the problem of what you tuck into a stripper’s waistband? Perhaps we will see debit cards for the purpose, although I adamantly refuse to engage in speculation about where you would store the card reader.

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      2. If it ever gets THAT bad, gold and silver won’t save you either, since you can’t eat it. Our needs would be too immediate for that kind of delayed gratification barter to be any good.

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        1. For barter: coffee, chocolate, cigarettes, alcohol, ammo.

          And depending on the trajectory of the future, electronic gadgets that can’t be tracked. Shortwave radios. Stills that can produce ethanol to fuel vehicles and other machinery. Just extend that rationed gasoline a bit further . . .

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      3. They’re ivory tower folks. What do they think they’ll do if the monetary system collapses? They are strictly luxury items only a wealthy society can afford. I wouldn’t be surprised if they die in the chaos of an economic collapse.

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        1. Well, (y’know, Bob), in the workers’ paradise, the intellectual elite will rule (almost let that stand misspelled as “rue”) wisely until everything’s humming along, from all according to their ability; to all according to their need. And then? Why, they’ll throw off the yoke of power and responsibility to tend sheep in the morning, and compose sonnets and arias in the afternoon.

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            1. That’s just because society is built wrong. If it were built right, it would work just fine.

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                1. People aren’t clay and they aren’t The Great Maker. They can’t/won’t distinguish between their fantasies and the real world. They have spent their entire life cocooned, they have no clue.

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                  1. “The man of system, on the contrary, is apt to be very wise in his own conceit; and is often so enamoured with the supposed beauty of his own ideal plan of government, that he cannot suffer the smallest deviation from any part of it. He goes on to establish it completely and in all its parts, without any regard either to the great interests, or to the strong prejudices which may oppose it.

                    “He seems to imagine that he can arrange the different members of a great society with as much ease as the hand arranges the different pieces upon a chess-board. He does not consider that the pieces upon the chess-board have no other principle of motion besides that which the hand impresses upon them; but that, in the great chess-board of human society, every single piece has a principle of motion of its own, altogether different from that which the legislature might chuse to impress upon it. If those two principles coincide and act in the same direction, the game of human society will go on easily and harmoniously, and is very likely to be happy and successful. If they are opposite or different, the game will go on miserably, and the society must be at all times in the highest degree of disorder.” — Adam Smith

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          2. Jefferson was a great man in many ways, but he really had NO idea of the work required to keep a small family farm running with only a family for labor.

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        2. This! THIS SQUARED! My father was an academic (he was also a genuine scholar, whuch most of the modern academics aren’t) and he spent an inordinate amount of time trying to make his collegues see that they were a luxury good, and that the very minimum they owed society aws to publish their research.

          He did. He published innumerable papers and several books, including a two volume biography of Joseph Priestly that was his life’s work. Too many of his colleagues didn’t.

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    4. Clark, it was both Forbes Magazine and Louis Rukeyser on “Wall Street Week.” I remember the camera zooming in (as much as it could) on the man’s jacket buttons.

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  18. Can you grow vegatables, raise chickens, shoot straight, kill and butcher wild game, operate heavy equipment, and know how to move at night without a flashlight?

    If yes, then you are ready for the crash……

    PS….you also have to live in the country on some acreage at least 30 miles from the nearest city. (I fail on the last requirement, only 15)

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      1. I’d guess that 30 miles is the maximum range you can many expect your average out-of-shape city-dwellers to travel on their own feet.

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        1. It’s getting harder to find boonies where there isn’t a hospital within an hours drive, on this side of Texas. But I’d be tempted to try and find one if it weren’t for the border problem.

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          1. There’s hospitals, and there’s hospitals.

            It’s one thing to find a place to put in a few stitches or set a broken bone. It’s another to find a good internal medicine guy, cardiologist or oncologist.

            And it’s going to get harder.

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            1. And when one set of your family REALLY liked to find mates at the family reunion and you have a lot of those “What? This is what’s causing that? Well, I read about it in a textbook” — yeah. Bigger is better, as I get older.

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          2. The other problem is that in Portugal and apparently in Argentina, when things got wobbly, the boonies were WAY worse. Is this going to be true in the states? Can’t tell you, but I suspect it’s a pattern of MODERN civ.
            or maybe just civ. Look, when Rome fell, the cities grew. The countryside was f*cked.

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            1. I suspect it’s a time lag issue.

              I wouldn’t want to be in the big cities during and immediately after the collapse. (see Dr. Pournelle once again on what today is called prepper life but Mel Tappan say is getting obsolete and Steve Stirling’s books are maybe not the best guide)

              But see e.g.For Children of All Ages IIRC an immortal preadolescent avoids telling her teachers the truth about a child’s life through the ages among other things. Or David Drake’s The Road of Danger 3d century BCE analog – better not to be a farming population defeated in detail. It wouldn’t take long to be back to motte and bailey lifestyles. Points for predicting the Magyar, Norse et. al analogs of the hypothetical future. I suppose better to live in a free city in a feudal world.

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              1. The suburbs are halfway to armed city states already. Walled, gated, private security guards . . . just bring in some shops and light industry, and send the armed and/or guarded farmers out to mind the fields during the day, and you’ve got it.

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                1. My suburb isn’t like this. Then again I don’t live in the richest part of town. On the other hand it isn’t the poorest either. I doubt that the hubby and I would live in such a place even if money were not an issue. We have a horror of HOAs.

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            2. That depends entirely on just how hard that fall is and what ancillary services cease either temporarily or permanently. Loose power and you don’t just do without lights and refrigeration, eventually the pumps stop working and there is no water pressure. Lose transportation and any major city is an estimated three days away from starvation. A steady food supply relies on sources willing to supply the goods, a means of transport to deliver them to distribution points, some method of preservation during the process, and sufficient order to guarantee that the goods are fairly handed to those who need them.
              So, it’s true that at one level of collapse the city dweller fares better, but beyond a certain point the cities become death traps. The answer? Anticipate as many possible failure scenarios as you can, prepare for the most likely and the easiest to overcome, and accept that you may still be well and truly f*cked if things break wrong.

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              1. I’m old enough to remember how well (Hahahahaha!) the gov did when it started dictating gasoline deliveries during the Arab Oil Embargo. Wait until they start trying to control food deliveries. The city stores will get priority. Not the stores that need food the most, not the cities that are in the worst condition, because the government Know How It Ought To Be.

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        2. If I was in my 20’s I’d consider the country solution. My husband is a country boy. However, we are both in our 50’s and in poor health.

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  19. It would be fixable in short order by building a nuclear powerstation or two and using some of the power to run some desalination plants
    That’s a very very expensive way to make fresh water. For Californicatia, the better method is to use the power plants for electricity and use some of it to pump water down from Oregon/Washington after they pay for it. I bet it would be cheaper than desalinization.

    I do like Jerry Pournelle’s idea of embedding a nuke chip reactor in a huge iceberg and driving it to whrer it is needed though…..

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    1. Nothing is “expensive” or “cheap”. The proper comparison is whether the scheme is either above or below the market clearing price. So how much does an acre foot of water go for these days? How much does it cost to desalinate? Last I checked (a couple of years ago) I saw the lines crossing in about 2020 for places like Las Vegas at which point it’s a transport problem.

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    2. How about just build several nuke power plants and use their lower demand time to purify water?

      Oregon and Washington have enough issues with water as it is, and if there was a water source actually near the cities in Cali, maybe they’d stop stealing it from the rest of the state.

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      1. How about we just shut off the taps to LA let it wither on the vine? Or would the residents spread out from their to the rest of the US, spreading their pestilential attitudes wherever they go?

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        1. I’ve sometimes wondered what would happen if the California Aqueduct were to suddenly disappear.

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      2. That and the seismic sones you’d have to cross to get the water down there make it . . . interesting. Plus you’d need a couple reactors dedicated to producing electricity for the pumps. (If it was forecast to require eight to pump water from the Mississippi Delta to the High Plains of Texas, how many . . .)

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    3. I’ve heard that double layered carbon nano membranes may exclude a lot of imputities, including salt. The cost and energy requirements for desalinazation may be dropping fast.

      If it can be made to work on a large scale, it will be a massive game changer.

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  20. “Canned Goods and Shotgun Investment Portfolio”

    I like that idea. I think I’d add MRE’s to it also. You can store a LOT of MRE’s in a small space. For those of us in northern climates, an good chainsaw, axe, and bowsaw will be handy. The emerald ash borer has created a LOT of deadwood in N. Illinoisy.

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    2. After lessons learned from eight days without power caused by a tornado wall that swept through northern Alabama I laid in a month’s supply of freeze dried food. All you need is boiling water, though room temp would work in a crunch. I’m partial to the Mountain House brand. On sale you can pick up a ten serving can for $20-25. Until opened they have a shelf life of 25 years or so. Once the seal is broken you need to eat them within a week or two. They’re good enough I usually open one a month for quick meals I don’t have to worry about. Do FIFO inventory control and you’ll always have a reliable supply of eats for short term disruptions.

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    1. I think the jalapeno potato chips I had the other day might have qualified as nuclear chips. :)

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  22. Sarah, if you write this at novel length, I will buy it as soon as I can. It’s a brilliant idea that looks so obvious, every other non-leftist sf writer will kick themselves for not coming up with it.

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  23. Off-topic: Is anyone planning to be at Armadillocon in Austin this weekend? I was invited to participate, so stop by. I’d love to meet more people from outside New England.

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    1. Brainwashed??? He was their willing and knowing agent, helping them hide it in plain sight.

      You don’t think for a moment that it was coincidental that he and the author of the novel adapted had such similar names?

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  25. I’ve compared Obama to a Goa’uld System Lord before… I was mostly joking.

    (Mustnottauntmurphymustnottauntmurphy…)

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    1. The only one that lasted very long after Exposure To Americans was Ba’al. And that’s only ‘cus he was a paranoid SOB with a gazillion clones.

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      2. I think Ba’al stumbled across the “How to be an Evil Overlord” list whilst hiding out on Earth and was… inspired.

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  26. I think I know the answer but what’s so special about 30 miles?

    It would take at least a week for the ravening hordes of semi-starved city folks, especially the drones to walk that distance, probably more when you take into account the fact that they will loot and burn every house they come to looking for food. That gives the country boys time to set defenses and mow them down when the locusts start appearing.

    I think when a civilization collapse comes the rural folks will be in a better position to weather out the ride, as they can grow/raise their food, usually have guns and plenty of ammo, and given the fact it is a long drive to get groceries, almost always have well stocked pantries. Firewood is easier to come by too.

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  27. I think the jalapeno potato chips I had the other day might have qualified as nuclear chips

    Bob’s Jalapeno Chips?????

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    1. Can’t remember, actually. But they were NOT what should along with a spicy sandwich. Something blander would have been a better choice.

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  28. Everyone, allow me to consolidate all my answers in one comment. First, my apologies for not providing adequate context to my comments–they must have seemed abrupt and strange. Thank you to all who cut me some slack, even when I couldn’t come back immediately and explain myself. Let’s just say in context, and in the campus culture I work in, I was reminded how old other people think I am. It was a minor annoyance that I exaggerated for comedic effect. (I can hear you now: “Kali–you’re a death goddess. Leave the comedy alone.”)

    Kirk: I managed to cancel my first reply to you. Last night’s was still a bit snarky. This morning? Your IFF system needs work.

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  29. Oh, Sarah – I shared this post on Facebook and one of my friends says it sounds like you’ve been smoking too much crack. Just thought you would like to know. :-)

    And when we were younger, I thought he had more sense. But if his word usage is any indication, he’s the one who’s been smoking crack.

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