The Crazy is Infectious

Posted on by accordingtohoyt

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For various reasons, mostly because of something that caused a loud continuous noise all night and we couldn’t fix till yesterday, I’ve been sleeping like heck.

Yesterday was spent in solving the situation so I can maybe finally write. (Seriously, not sleeping gives me terminal ADHD. I was forgetting what I was doing in the middle of doing it, and just wandering off aimlessly.  Of course, we then had a lousy night because of two amber alerts in the middle of the night. I get the need for amber alerts, but why do they think sending it to everyone who owns that phone at 1 am and then 1:30 will do anything but rouse half the population in an area code? Never mind.)

So come dinner time I was in that enviable position between too sleepy to eat and too hungry to sleep.  As in such situations, we went out to eat before it got worse. (Once, after a flight that sent me all over for 24 hours and didn’t give me a chance to leave the embarkation lounge to EAT I was so bad off I literally told the poor husband who picked me up and wanted to take me to dinner (I’d been away almost a month) “Never mind. Just stop by a convenience store and get me milk. I can drink, but I don’t think I can chew.”  I then drank the milk in the car, got to the hotel room (I told him if he drove me home an hour and a half away he’d have to carry me in from the car) fell on the bed unwashed and dressed, and was asleep before head touched pillow. I slept six hours, got up, showered, put on a nighty, had some food and went back to bed for 12.)

We went to a rather cheap Mexican restaurant (very good too) because it’s closer to us, via the highway than Pete’s (or at least is not in an area of such high traffic, so it’s shorter getting to.  They’re actually not far from each other.)  Also it’s cheaper than Pete’s (Pete’s Kitchen, on Colfax.)

And I came across a bit of crazy I’ve seen elsewhere, with other things.  And it never stops shocking me.

Keep in mind that this is a CHEAP restaurant. Mostly working families. Staffed by people who still have accents.  But as she brought us our drinks, the waitress looked guilty and said, “Do you… do you want straws?” like she was offering us drugs in a back alley.

This is not the first time we’ve come across this, though the other instances have been in at least semi-trendy places like cafes and “natural” restaurants.

Here’s the thing: two years ago, they gave you the straws, no questions, no idiocy.

And there’s nothing wrong with straws, whatever California thinks. There’s nothing wrong with plastic bags either.  First, if there really are vast rafts of plastics in the sea, why are there no PICTURES (yes, there are pictures of little ones, and they’re mostly in ponds and such, and also, no. That’s not what they’re claiming.) Second most of the plastics in the actual sea causing actual pollution come from places like China and India.  Banning them in the US where the bags are made to be degradable, the straws are mostly disposed of properly, is nothing but a piece of crazy cakes virtue-signaling.  It makes life unsanitary and inconvenient to many, including the disabled, but hey, you gots to virtue signal.

What always shocks me is how this bit of crazy then transmits to society and everyone becomes afraid they’re doing something wrong by using the perfectly legal, no issues until the left got crazy product.

The last time I saw this bit of crazy was over the pill.

NO ONE EVER WANTED TO BAN THE PILL. (Maybe the Vatican, but I think their business is more telling women it’s a sin, not telling us that laws should forbid it in countries they have no control over like the US.) The only fight about it was whether employers would have to pay for it, or whether it should be subsidized. ONLY FIGHT.

And because the pill is not that expensive — no, really, the basic one is like $9 per month — people had to bring up crazy cake situations to make not paying for it the equivalent of banning.

So you got stuff like “Some women can’t have that expense, or their husbands will see!”

Now keep in mind I know a LOT of women. I know exactly zero who are on the pill without their husband’s or boyfriend’s or casual hook up’s enthusiastic consent. Are there some? There is some of everything in a country of 300 million. There are probably some few thousand people who subsist entirely on clay sandwiches.  Doesn’t mean it’s a common or likely situation. (Or that there aren’t organizations and people, including friends, who’ll help people in those situations, by paying for the meds.)

To make this plausible, the left and the media (BIRM) had to make it sound like all men run around wanting to impregnate every woman.  I know nothing less likely in the current world. In fact most women are the ones want kids in a relationship. There are exceptions. My husband kept us going through extremely expensive infertility because he REALLY wanted kids, while I mostly wanted them (it bothered me more that I was failing.)  Both of us love them to death, but his drive to parenthood was stronger than mine.  And yet, he’d have stopped if I told him I REALLY didn’t want it. Because his drive was to have awesome kids with this woman he loved, not to run around impregnating people against their will.  (Who really wants to do that, unless they’re touched? Sounds like a weird fetish.)

Now, I’ve been on the pill as a young woman (serious cycle deregulation) and as a perimenopausal (and probably bad for me to get pregnant. Also my hormones were so screwed up my doctor joked I might be more likely to get pregnant while on the pill from about 40 on. Not joking and in fact it happened) woman.  Both times medically indicated and needed.

In a Latin country (and in the US when newlywed before we started going through active trying because, yeah. It’s really that bad) where the pill was frowned upon for religious reasons, the prescription was treated matter of factly.  I was told “here is your prescription for the pill”.  Same as perimenopausal.  Same in the pharmacy when they gave me the dang packages.

But after the crazy campaign of “all men will abuse all women for being on the pill” suddenly my doctor was dropping her voice to a whisper when saying “this is a prescription for the pill” and the pharmacy was acting like they were giving me contraband.  Of course being me, I usually answered in autistic-levels shout “Thank you for my prescription for the pill.”

What worries me about this mechanic is that there seems to be some mechanism whereby the media could invent something like “people with green eyes are afraid of being killed” and suddenly people with green eyes WOULD be afraid of being killed, everywhere.

Nothing else explains the crazy representative who wore tampons as earrings because the media decided that the right was going to ban them or something (I don’t even.)

This horrifies the hell out of me.  No matter how crazy the lie — say that one in five women in college get raped, or that our straws are killing fish — people seem to run with it and it propagates through society as UNQUESTIONED fact.

This would all be easier if it weren’t for the fact that there are organizations if not devoted to at least willing to make up the most outrageous and crazy shit.  Like apparently PETA is now making people afraid/ashamed to wear wool because the complete idiots have decided you SKIN THE LAMB to get the wool.

Of course this is not even vaguely true as those of us with rural upbringing know. You give the lamb (or sheep)a haircut to get the wool.  In fact, not doing it is animal abuse, as they will die, or get tangled in bushes trying to get the wool off themselves.

I wonder if it’s purposeful mendacity or stupidity that started this. It reminds me of the first incarnation of minecraft where you killed the chickens to get the eggs.

BUT it’s impossible to ignore that soon there will be a substantial portion of society maybe not even sure why “knowing” that wool is bad and kills animals.

How do you treat this crazy?  I don’t know.  I treat it by being loud and responding to it as to a dog that just went on the floor.  “What the heck is wrong with you? There was never any problem with this.”

Maybe it’s not the most effective thing. But I don’t know anything else that can be done.  Sometimes the only way to treat infection is blunt measures.  And those are the only one I know.

 

 

277 thoughts on “The Crazy is Infectious”

  1. Of course the crazy is infectious. People become fearful, afraid to engage the crazy even with a ten-foot straw. This “Wrong Tile Syndrome” makes folks tentative and unsure.

    It is akin to being new to a culture, reluctant t commit a faux-pas both because of a preference for being polite and a reluctance to have a live bomb go off on you.

    1. Down here in the South, you just say, “Why bless your heart darlin’, that’s about the silliest thing I ever heard.”

    2. And the rules of said culture not only change on.a whim, but if you transgress the punishment is orders of magnitude worse than that given to Hester Prynn. The actual means of survival will be refused to you because some well off activist decides to change the rules.

      1. Yes, they fight like cornered rats. But they only have the power over us we allow them to have. The long-term solution can only be to call them out whenever they start getting psychotic, and let everyone else know that what they’re spewing is a load of crap and that it’s OK to laugh at them.

        1. Unfortunately, many of them have the power of the police (legal use of lethal force) behind them, and disarming them of that power takes an act of Congress hostile to those of us with common sense.

          3. And that of those with command of the life utilities. No bank account, no job, no utilities, etc. Even self employment needs access to market

            1. You can only do that to a small % of your population, and that % has to willingly cooperate. Most of the Jews willingly boarded the trains to the camps, because they thought it was the normal persecution. When a few in Warsaw found out the truth, they were able to put a hurt on the Nazis.

              Go for too big a part of the population, and bad things happen. The same Russians that allowed Stalin’s terror fought against Hitler’s- and then willingly submit themselves again to Stalin’s terror.

                1. For as long as I can recall the Democrat Party has run false flag operations, from fake grass roots campaigns to setting up extremist groups to make their candidates seem moderate. I am firmly convinced that even the name of their party is, at best, ironic.

                  The next national Democrat to run an honest campaign will be the first.

              2. More Austrian Jews escaped than German ones, because all the laws that had crept up on Germany were imposed in a fell swoop in Austria.

  2. I think the best response to such claims is to laugh uproariously at them, and then as you wind down, to say to whoever made the claim, “Oh wait, you were serious?” and start laughing even harder.

    1. Wait, you left out a step:

      Laugh uproariously at them, then “Oh, wait, you were serious?” (pause) “What-evvaarr” (you know that word that has been driving parents nuts lately? Don’t forget the dramatic eye roll. It really works to give it back, honest it does.) THEN politely ask for whatever you wanted. As, “okay, then, may I please have a straw?” Well except where it is not legal. Maybe ask for a to go cup? I don’t like ice on my teeth. Guess I’m going to have to take my own cup to pour into when in CA. We have to ask for a straw & now some places salt. But the salt issue is they are promoting their own brand/blend.

  3. It’s been crazy for me as well. With my hard drive going “tits up” — yes, it is a technical term– I haven’t been able to sleep while trying to remember how to reload a hard drive. I am sitting here in my pajamas… after a successful tech foray… wondering if I should go back to bed.

    BTW infections– do I know them– just ended up in the hospital with an infection in my gut (diverticulitis). The two antibiotics that they gave me there and that I took home with me made me sleep 10-14 hours per day. I’m starting to feel better, but I am really careful not to eat fiber yet.

    And so goes the life of chronic illness. In short– I empathize.

    1. > diverticulitis

      That can be *really bad* if it gets out of hand. In somecases surgery is the only real solution.

      You might want to see what kind of deal you can get on having regular white blood cell counts done. They’re an indicator that *something* is wonky, even if not specific to diverticulitis.

      1. I have three illnesses that cause the WBC to go wonky. Sadly it is hard to tell which one is starting the nonsense. Diverticulitis is just new for me. I’m hoping I can keep this one under control …

  4. Welcome to Heinlein’s Crazy Years.
    And they still have yet to reach peak crazy!

        1. No, it’s things like cornstarch, the material in Tums, lactose and dextrose. (according to son who’s in pharmacy school, and just had Dose Form Design…)

          1. Gah. Corn starch and complex sugars? No wonder the damn drugs are screwing up my diet!

            1. Depends on the exact formula of the meds.

              Corn and yeast do not agree with my mom, so she has to get versions of drugs that don’t contain such things. They do have them, but it takes some hunting.

    3. Every time I think we hit peak crazy someone says, “Hold my beer.”

      I used to think some of the stuff in Atlas Shrugged was crazy cakes, even knowing the Lysenkoism was practiced both in the USSR and the PRC (during the Great Leap Forward).

      No I realize a lot of it Rand toned down realizing no one would believe her.

      1. So many times over the last decade I’ve wondered about the number of people who seem to think Toohey was the hero of that book. Or who take Atlas Shrugged as a manual.

        1. My fundamental problem with that book is the fate of Eddie. He gave value for value, but because he was not one of the greats of the mind he was abandoned.

          The inability to deal with less than demihumans in her morality is a fundamental failure.

          1. I’m not sure I agree. It’s been a few years since I’ve read it, mind, so I might be forgetting some details, but iirc Eddie had the chance to go to the gulch and turned it down. He was still a tragic figure, but because he couldn’t let go of the old, not because he wasn’t a Super.

            1. That’s how I remember it happening, too–and I had to point out the specific passage, just as Dagny was leaving, where Eddie got the offer and turned it down, since my husband didn’t remember it happening, either. It’s still incredibly tragic… and it’s supposed to be, and telegraphed from the first page or so.

              As a counterpoint, Rearden’s secretary Ivy *does* go.

              1. Now that was a detail I’d missed. 😀
                I know I’m in the minority, but I love her work. Most of the criticisms I’ve seen don’t hold a lot of water, either, once you realize that (a) she was a Russian Jew who emigrated in the 1920s, and thus saw both pogroms and the Bolshevik revolution and (b) then proceeded to teach herself English.

            2. I don’t know when he would have gotten his chance. He wasn’t with Dagny when she crashed and out was in Arizona when they see the lights go out in NYC after rescuing Galt.

              Maybe at some point before he heads out West to restore the Taggart Express. It has been quite a while since I read the novel as well and perhaps I’m forgetting that.

              The thing is I always thought he was supposed to prove than ordinary people could not achieve what the Men of the Mind could. While I didn’t dispute that it seems to imply anyone less isn’t fully human or at least not worth full consideration. The condemnation of the children killed in the tunnel collapse because of their parents being people of pull instead of people of work.

              The situation of Eddie is also confused by the treatment, by Dagny, of Jeff Allen. He succor of Jeff is the key piece of evidence I used when people deny any sense of charity in Rand. Also, he is shown to be useful with his work even though he is not a man of the mind. While Jeff is abandoned as well it is off screen and his has not given as much value to Dagny.

              Dagny’s abandonment of Eddie is as hard to reconcile to regular human emotions as her abandonment of Hank for Galt (then again, I think Galt is a huge problem in the novel as a novel and would have been better handled as a character whom Francisco was behind).

              Then again, knowing what I know of Rand’s life she was a bit off so perhaps her characters being off is not a huge surprise.

              1. I believe, and my husband confirms, that it was right before he went out to Arizona, and I think he knew he was condemning himself by going.

                But… Wow. That’s a depressing reading of Rand, and one I have trouble reconciling with either the rest of Atlas Shrugged or The Fountainhead, and especially not with Anthem. I think, although I can’t be certain right at this moment, that her censure was against the parents of the children on the train at least in the largest part. That was definitely a moment where the creeping horror of that works hits, though. The goats and the sound machine is another.

                Galt… Someone, somewhere, pointed out that he basically fills the role of a pulp fiction villain. (Was that you? It might have been here…). That struck me as a delightful little inversion when I first read it.

                Anyways. This is getting to be a long response for writing on my phone. It’s interesting to discuss this with someone who’s read it and disagrees, though. 🙂 Most of the time I only end up discussing Rand with my husband, who convinced me to read more than Anthem in the first place.

                1. It is a view very different from one I have of Anthem. I have never read The Fountainhead.

                  Nor does it mean I disagree with most of Rand’s major ideas presented in the book. I consider the contrast between the fate of Eddie and Dagny’s treatment of Jeff Allen crucial in that respect.

                  There are two scenes in the novel that I consider Rand showing her philosophy at its best: Dagny’s exchange for the Reardon Metal bracelet and Dagny’s succor of Jeff Allen. The former, when contrasted with Hank’s wife’s initial reception of the bracelet is profound in demonstrating the core values Rand has and is a great example to counter claims that Rand, Objectivists, and Libertarians in general are material reductionist (note: I think many are, a mistake they share with Marx, but that is a bigger discussion). In fact, it is Mrs. Reardon who is the materialist.

                  But Dagny shows the understanding of what Hank gave of himself, his passion, in creating Reardon Metal.

                  That is also why Galt becomes problematic. How exactly does Galt win her? It is not by the passion with which he creates. She admires the machine and sought its creator. She understands and in the end endorses the Gulch.

                  But in the end Galt wins her because he is the superior man and Reardon not only accepts but endorses it. It is more Zeus gaining Hera because he is the god who defeated the Titans more than any passion for him.

                  That might be the way of gods, but it is not the way of men, even perfect men, and I think it harms the novel.

                  Dagny’s reaction to Jeff Allen in feeding him and offering a job knowing he would provide value for value is a much more human interaction. It is genuine charity that provides a strong contrast the fake charity of her brother and others. She also attempts to do the same for Cheryl, but is not able to do so in time.

                  The crucial thing is both these items predate Galt’s appearance. Dagny loses these characteristics, or at least ceases to display them, after meeting Galt. It is hard to avoid concluding that Rand intended that in correcting the world those characteristics have to be lost. Which I think is symbolized in Eddie.

                  I think it is also the opposite of the character arc in Anthem.

                  I think by Atlas Shrugged Rand was beginning to suffer from staring into the darkness. Much like the Communists she was fighting she had started to see those who did not embrace her view fully as essentially the allies of the Communists. She certainly earned her hatred fair and square and by the mid-50s fear of the Communists winning was real. Nor was she wrong as is shown daily in the west in terms of what Communism means and how it warps and controls.

                  However, by fighting monsters she was showing monstrous tendencies in the arc of Dagny. Your observation about Galt, which is interesting, may be a part of that. Is Galt a villain whose ends justify his means? Was the absolute strike the only way?

                  In an odd way the second half of Atlas Shrugged falls prey, to a small degree, to the same error as the Alt-Right. It fights fire with fire (something I understand and want to do more days than not) and while Rand never lost it in that manner I think she got absorbed enough in the false Communists win scenario of Atlas Shrugged she fell into that trap in completing the book. Or, perhaps, she was warning us of the danger of utopianism even when it embraces her philosophy.

                  That is what makes it a hard book for me. I love it. I even love the idea of the Strike. I find many of its ideas compelling, but I think it loses its soul in the second half.

                  1. Hm. Okay. I still don’t agree with your take on Eddie, but I don’t have to. Certainly it’s possible that she was getting worn down by the fight a bit at that point.

                    That said, The Fountainhead is well worth reading, even if Dominique makes Dagny look normal. No, seriously. And at some point I’d like to read We the Living.

    1. “Common sense” is coming back around to the classic meaning- the plain truth that the common people knew, but was too low& simple for the upper classes to accept.
      Of course, it’s almost a super power these days.

      1. I included “the people who take them seriously” in the Idiots.

    2. Yes, but they were worn to protest the banning of tampons, which is key to the GOP agenda somehow, and “the pink tax”.

      1. As I recall, most of those who, er, decline to wear sanitary products during menstruation are on the left.

        1. Thus far, it seems to be 100% are left of center or so far off the deep end that they’ve disappeared (or ought to). This includes personal knowledge of two such individuals in college, plus the modern crop.

  8. Like apparently PETA is now making people afraid/ashamed to wear wool because the complete idiots have decided you SKIN THE LAMB to get the wool.

    Saw someone making a similar argument regarding milk. Seriously, lady, (not you, the person making that stupid argument) are you on drugs?

    2. Drugs? They probably grew up on Ritalin and moved to the antidepressant of the week as adults.

      Nope, totally not on drugs…

        1. Some people need antidepressants because of body not producing the right or enough brain chemicals.

            1. I take an antidepressant. I was in therapy for years and things got much better with the med and therapy than with therapy alone. Another piece of evidence that it’s biological for me is that my dad had depression too.

              1. It works for a lot of people. But it’s not a universal panacea, and for most people it only works for a year, and then you need something else.
                I’m glad it works for you.

                    1. Only kulaks talk like that, comrade! All good comrades know that the New Soviet Man is standardized!

              2. Same issue here. Both my folks and 3 out of my four sibs are on a brain chemistry drug of one sort or another. And let me tell you, life is soooo much better when I can address the problems instead of just being buried by them.

          2. Alas, it’s a rather scattershot approach. So far, there seems to be no reliable way to determine Patient A has a deficit/excess of neurochemical B and thus drug C to up/down regulate it is a probable (nothing is certain) good treatment. Instead it’s more, “It looks kinda like this, so try this drug for a time and see if it helps… and any side-effects are tolerable. If that doesn’t work, we have other drugs to try.”

            I know of at least one person who, after going through N (for a non-trivial value of N) different antidepressants decided it was less of a problem to just put with the episodes of the affliction rather than the hassle of the side-effects… and she seemed to always get either the nastiest not-quite-permanently health damaging effects, or the Ultimate Sleep Aid, or both.

          3. Some people, yes. And it does them wondrous good, judging from how they changed the lives of a couple of friends.

            The problem is they’re still psychotropic drugs, and they’re prescribed by far too many MDs after “well, nothing else seems to work, I’ll try this.” Who then fail to properly follow up on how their patients are doing.

        1. Nutmeg is psychoactive, but it takes a fair amount to get an obvious effect. Is eggnog a nutmeg microdosing bit? Besides the obvious ethanol effect, of course.

          [If I were evil, I would promoted a ‘Nutmeg Challenge’ during the stupid ‘Cinnamon Challenge’ nonsense of a bit ago.]

          1. I have never had alcoholic eggnog. Though from what I’ve heard of my mother-in-law’s eggnog, the eggnog itself is a minor flavoring ingredient.

            I add nutmeg, ginger, and allspice to a lot of recipes. Under my theory that the more something tastes like dessert, the more likely kids will eat it. Take chicken breasts. Soak in a mixture of OJ (Or pineapple- orange juice), allspice, nutmeg, ginger, cinnamon, and vanilla for a minimum of 24 hours, then grill or broil. Tastes great.

    3. Someone (me I suppose) should have said something when my land-grant university stopped having a cow milking contest on the brickyard (during homecoming week, maybe) because of animal reasons or something. Come on people, we’ve got a John Brown ag school here. d

      (I think the governor participated one year; he was an alumnus.)

      1. Start loudly accusing PETA for advocating animal abuse too. Considering that they are. That on top of their kill them all shelters and kidnapping animals from their owners and some of the other problems with them which have been proven by now. I’d presume they do get most of their money from people who ARE animal lovers, so if you just could change that meme – that the organization is FOR animals to one that they are money grabbers who actually seem to HATE animals (which they do, at least they hate domesticated ones as getting rid of the practice of humans keeping pets and livestock and such would, in practice, mean killing those species off as they no longer can exist apart their symbiosis with humans) – and it might bankrupt them sooner or later.

        1. When I used to live in Newport News, VA (near where PETA headquarters is located in Norfolk), we’d see all KINDS of reports on TV and the local paper about finding lots of animals killed behind the headquarters and shelters. It was averaging at least once a week for a while there. And these folks have the audacity to claim that me eating meat (yummm!) or keeping a properly cared for companion animal is immoral? My wife has a heart a mile wide and three deep. Watching this happen just tore her apart. Except where our kids safety is concerned, she wouldn’t hurt a fly (literally. She has ME kill them). I had to stop her several times from planning a “rescue lab animals” type raid on their shelters in the area.

    5. *dry* I wonder how many of these idiots have ever seen mums breastfeed.
      …

      I just read that bit out loud to Housemate, who wondered how much ‘thought’ went into that lie, remarked about the population of the cows if that were supposedly true, and then said “I like it. Let’s spread that breastfeeding kills mothers.”

      I rather like the idea. Then the idiots who believe that insanity won’t breed.

      On the other hand, if they do, their children will probably starve to death, and the kids didn’t do anything to deserve that.

      On the ‘wool’ thing, I think they came up with that idea because of the sheepskins sold with fluffy on them still are usually from the same sheep we eat. Still flamingly stupid though, and I showed it to my husband, who used to help with shearing, and mutton slaughter. He said “Only if you have an apprentice who’s a complete idiot, and then the wool comes pre-dyed red.”

        1. I know knicks can happen occasionally, because I saw it ONCE— and that guy didn’t get five minutes without being harassed for it by the other sheerers for the rest of the event. (Big 4-H sponsored sheering thing, for folks who didn’t have enough sheep to hire in themselves, I think there was an option to either donate it or sell at an OK price.)

          This is with a collection of the most genetically screwed up, wait-that-thing-is-still-alive, and “Gaaaah! What’s that, wait it’s another sheep!” type animals you’ll find….well, outside of a town with animals whose ancestors came in with two flavors of Basque, Italians, the pre-Mexico Spanish, whatever looked good to the Scottish (I KNOW they didn’t bring those over with them!) and whatever the big sheep operations in the area had. I know there were at least three non-specialty breeds*, and I think the family that specialized in freakish sheep (What’s the breed that has four horns without surgery? I remember seeing them at the fair, but…names!) also brought their stuff.

          *White face, black face, and no-that-white-faced-one-is-totally-different.

          1. The sheep with four horns is a Jacobs sheep. I don’t understand why that’s a breed, but don’t know much about sheep either.

      2. There’s already been a couple of kids who died because their parents fed them fruit juice and such instead of nursing. I think the last little girl was watermelon juice?

        1. My dad was “nursed” on water from boiling rice, because grandma lost her milk when he was three months old (she’d got pregnant again.)
          BUT they didn’t have formula, so…. Miracle he survived and is still ticking in his late eighties.

          1. It is– although that’s right about when they say you can start introducing solids, and I’m sure they did what they could otherwise, but zowie.

            Now wondering all kinds of unknowable things like if they HAD enriched rice back then or not.

  9. To make this plausible, the left and the media (BIRM) had to make it sound like all men run around wanting to impregnate every woman.

    It’s because they think people are animals.

    (And what is BIRM? Berm? No. A mis-firing machine gun? Wait, acronym: Brothers In Reality, Man?)

    3. But I Repeat Myself took a second to occur to me, too, and then mostly did because Twain’s sally has become a trope.

      ….that was in English, I swear.

    5. They do.

      They even claim that a hypothetical father who impregnated his daughter would WANT to preserve the DNA evidence against himself by letting the baby live. (All the actually abused girls whose story I’ve heard have reported the opposite.)

  10. > straws

    Here, they routinely give me *two* straws; it seems to be the standard way of differentiating the weird customer with Dr. Pepper from the ordinary Coke-drinking types.

    The annoying part is, I don’t *want* a straw; I learned how to drink out of a cup or glass without spilling it, oh, quite some years ago now. So the two unwanted straws make a sticky spot on the table after I remove them. Sigh.

    In a large chain restaurant I once said something like “No thanks, give it to someone else” when a waitress proffered a straw, still in its sanitary covering. She said the rule was “if it comes to the table, it can’t go back to the kitchen” and that they have to throw them in the trash.

    1. In Texas, that would be “differentiating the weird customer with Coke from the ordinary Dr. Pepper-drinking types”. 🙂

      A couple months ago, my wife said to me, “You are such a Texan. You may not have been born there, but you are definitely a Texan.” And yes, I love Dr. Pepper. (It’s hard to get in the country where we live, unfortunately).

  11. I thought the issue vegans had with wool was not wanting to use ANY animal products. So most vegetarians consume eggs and dairy but vegans eschew those also. It’s not teneble because some required vitamins are only produced by living things. Synthetic B vitamins are produced by fermenting yeast. Still living… Or there’s DHA and EPA. While theoretically possible for the body to produce from vegetable precursors, efficiency is low to negligible depending on genetics. The best source for those are fish oils.

    I think they are silly/crazy, but don’t enjoy conversion efforts. And I do mean conversion.

    2. I think they are silly/crazy, but don’t enjoy conversion efforts. And I do mean conversion.

      An atheist, a vegan, and a crossfitter walk into a bar…

      And they told everyone within two minutes.

          1. That’s so true! The question is how long they stay your friends once they take up veganism.
            Can I steal the bar joke? It’s a good one!

          2. I actually have quite a calm one. He only states his veganism when people offer him something he doesn’t want to have. I dig up cool vegan recipes for him (like Depression chocolate cake, no eggs or dairy.)

            1. I have known a few nice vegans too, those who just are without making a big number out of it or trying to make you feel guilty for using animal products. Now personally I do think most of them are misguided and mostly going by faulty information and ideas, but whatever, if it makes you personally feel good do whatever you want, I don’t mind until you try to shove the whole thing down my throat all the time. And yep, that diet can be okay and healthy enough, it just needs a bit more knowledge and trouble to keep it that way. Good point is that the need for knowledge can also make it way healthier to those who actually do try to find out what exactly they need and what can give them that than your average diet “just eat whatever” used to be.

            2. Pretty much every medieval Western Lent, or modern Greek and Russian Lent, recipe leaves out eggs and dairy. It is not what I want to do, but it is doable with caution.

              1. Wouldn’t you agree that the point of Lent is to be a time of special restraint for religious reasons? It’s not supposed to be all the time. I can see a biological case for times of restrictions alternating with more normal eating too. That they would facilitate reset and repair in the body. But both cases are part of a cycle of eating not a full permanent switch.

                And for Lent, pregnant and nursing mothers are exempt from the the no meat and dairy, although I understand that they are supposed to be choosing other ways of fasting, but to me that seems like acknowledgment that it’s hard to get the needed nutrition on a vegan diet. Maybe someone else can elaborate on that?

              2. Eastern Orthodox fast days in general are close to vegan (although we get shellfish which I lean on a bit too much), but at least in my parish, the emphasis on humility in fasting keeps us from being “those” vegans.

                The sad thing is, my first vegan friends were not those vegans. In fact, the woman could joke about it to the point that I found her a bumper sticker that said, “Heart Attacks: God’s revenge for eating his animal friends.” I know she’d see it as a joke between us and not a way to attack non-vegans.

                All the cars I have seen it on…well, I try to give the drivers the benefit of the doubt.

      2. It’s the same thing they were pushing in the early 80s, and it didn’t get much traction.

        Now folks have run into the old stuff, and are pumping it out again.

      3. TINS. Lady I knew who ran a western wear store went to the Denver Expo in the late 1990s and was talking to a wholesaler of shearling* products. A very concerned Dear Soul came up, looked over the shearling products, and asked, “Does it hurt the sheep when you obtain shearling?”

        The wholesaler looked her straight in the eye, smiled, and assured her that, “Oh, no, ma’am. They don’t feel a thing.”

        The very relieved lady went on her way as my acquaintance was fighting not to laugh.

        *For those not familiar, shearling is the term for wool-on leather products, usually coats and vests and hats. It is very heavy and very warm. And very heavy.

        2. I had a bomber jacket like that. Loved it, warmest thing I have ever owned, and I used it for nearly two decades. Unfortunately I then got an infestation of moths…

      4. Last time it was “skinning ‘racoon dogs’ alive for their fur, because it makes better pelts” complete with videos from China of the dastardly deed being done. The workers are talking, tho, and someone translated it: “Why are we doing it like this? This is wrong.” and so on. (Aside from anyone with the first experience with pelts knows you kill the animal first, or you’ll be sorry and the skin will be a wreck.)

        In short, it was entirely staged by PETA, complete with animals skinned alive, since PETA couldn’t care less how many animals they harm in the name of creating their propaganda.

        (And somewhere around here I have a copy of the video.)

        1. There was the guy who threw live chicks into a garbage disposal at a farm and videoed it, too. So there was “proof” it was happening.

          1. I have been lied to and hoaxed so many times by Leftists like PETA that I simply assume they are lying to me, no matter how minor the issue.

        2. Wow. I’m beginning to think trying to eat the PETAs after they ban all animal sourced protein would taste bad and be bad for my health. Can you turn them into animal feed instead, or would that be considered cruelty to animals?

      5. Propagating… sounds like propagandizing, i.e. purposeful dissemination of false information. On the other hand I also have no objection to actual leather products with or without the hair on.

    5. Don’t omit the possibility that people raised in cities may not have a clue that lamb’s WOOL is not the same as lambSKIN leather…. and PETA has no interest in providing them with one.

  12. …two amber alerts in the middle of the night

    After the third late night alert (I get the need too, but the ones I see are all some parent swiping their own kid in violation of a custody order) I found the menu where they can be disabled.

    Sorry, kids.

    Then they added Blue Alerts, which have to be disabled separately, so when that drunk driving gang member illegal foreigner shot and killed the young deputy a couple hundred miles away, we got that going off in the early morning hours as well.

    Sorry, cops: Disabled that too.

    If it were possible to only have them go when you are out and about (i.e. alert geofence one’s home property) so one might have a chance of actually sighting said miscreant’s vehicle, I might re-enable them.

    “Do you… do you want straws?” like she was offering us drugs in a back alley.

    “Well, not plastic straws, as we all know those are bad for mother Gaia, praise be to Gaia. Do you have any straws made from natural materials – something like, say, Ivory?”

          1. Been watching a Youtube channel (DrakeParagon) and they are in Greenland.
            The local with some English was telling them about seal hunting, and was emphatic . . . no, not baby seals, hunting for meat, gotta let them grow big enough so you get more meat.

    2. Given the rate of parents swiping their kids and killing them, I don’t mind because of that– I mind that every time I’ve gotten an alert that had enough information to FIND anything, the kid was already home before my phone went off.

      Back up in Seattle, we had one where I read about the little girl being home…and six hours later got the FIRST of at least four alerts.

      And don’t get me started on the ones that are something like “Child in pickup with two doors.”

        1. “possibly in a [color] 2014 Chevrolet pickup”
          I think it was Red but I recall getting one in Texas that had only that, and it was Possible. There are a few Red, or Grey, or well any color Chevy P/U trucks in the DFW area . . . how hard could it be?

              1. You have to factor in the grey and black pickups, too. Plus the occasional red and chartreuse ones. My poor brother (he lives in Fort Worth), his neighbor has a chartreuse Dodge Ram quad cab pickup with an extended bed. Color’s aftermarket, but GAAAAAAH!! That’s a lot of ugly colored truck. Of course, since he knows my brother hates the color, his partner’s Mercedes gets the garage and the truck stays in the drive. Gotta love Texas.

      2. During my USA trip I found out about amber alerts when I got one. While on a road on the Rockies. Nearly drove off it, there was this nice big drop on front of me right then as it was a road zigzagging down a mountain side (as I was there for a month and a half I bought a cheap cellphone and got a local operator plan for it for the time).

        1. I got several eclipse warnings when we drove up to Oregon for the total eclipse in 2017. The interesting part was a) this phone was not enabled as a phone (it was my temporary camera since mine had died) and b) one of the alerts was for climbers during the eclipse to not fall, since emergency services would probably be slow around totality. That was oddly specific. (Some of the other warnings made more sense, like being careful to not park a hot car on dry grass, or to not look directly at the eclipse without protective equipment.)

          1. We lived about 140 miles south of a tolerable totality site, but the traffic forecasts were horrible. I gather some of the more sparsely populated areas of eastern Oregon had some impressive (6 hour) traffic jams.

            The area is also really good at attracting and clobbering inexperienced climbers.

            1. We visited my MiL, who lives about 20 mies south of totality. She said we should avoid the traffic and just watch from her house, and our response was that we drove 500 miles, another 20-30 is worth it. And it was. We did drive back just after totality, and stayed an extra day at her house, so we didn’t have to deal with the horror stories.

    3. We blocked the Amber Alert number. Then they outsourced it to some place in Oklahoma using a pool of a dozen numbers, which required more blocking. They’ll just wardial the damned phone every five minutes until someone picked up. which would be actionable in court if a private individual did it.

  13. Straws: I’ve been hearing about the push to switch to paper straws for a while now. This past weekend, finally came across my first paper straw in a restaurant. I was amazed it took this long.

    Aside from the fact that the whole thing is ridiculous, I actually LIKE paper straws, and never liked the feel of the plastic ones, so I was happy. However, my Mother is threatening to buy a shipping crate of regular plastic straws, and carry them around in her purse because she hates the paper ones with a red hot burning passion.

    Skin the lamb for wool? Really? What would be the point? A lamb doesn’t have all that much wool. You get wool from a full-grown sheep. You skin lambs for that nice soft plush leather for making gloves and jackets (oh, and lamb chops! YUMMY!!!). Geesh… don’t these people know anything?

    1. Don’t forget sheepskin seat covers for airplanes. You really don’t want squirmy-butt pilots.

      1. sheep skin is usually not lambs either. It tends to be rather big before cutting to size.
        I have a sheepskin cover for my motorcycle seat, and was one of the first customers to get one after the company’s building was burned down by leftoid animal rights terrorists The company is in Milady Sarah’s neck of the woods.

      2. Local radio station used to have ads for a company that sold sheep-skin seat covers. Kept thinking they were cheap skin sheep covers… 😉

    2. If I recall correctly, paper straws use more energy to make, produce more polluted waste water, and are more expensive.

      The Greenies are reliable; any ‘solution’ they push is pretty much guaranteed to make matters worse.

      1. Then there’s the thing of today’s environmental problem being the result of yesterday’s environmental solution.

        1. Plastic bags were supposed to solve the problem of trees being cut down to make paper bags, now paper is better for turtles (as mentioned earlier).

          1. Like, you know, the paper company (and other landowners) doesn’t own forests that it *replants*. Money, you see, does grow on trees; it just takes 20-25 years to get a crop.

      2. Not to mention (to explain that whole “disabled access” thing), paper doesn’t bend, can be troublesome around hot liquids, and will often start to dissolve for the length of time it takes some disabled folk to use them. “Sterile, single-use, medical assistive device” is a real term.

    3. “Geesh… don’t these people know anything?”
      Nope. They treasure their ignorance of what those filthy, dirty working flyover people do. To them, food comes from stores and power is generated at the outlet.

    4. There might be decent paper straws, but what I think of for “paper straw” are the things that were clearly the cheapest made, used at school, and went from ‘new’ to ‘soggy’ at Ridiculous Speed.

    5. > red hot burning passion

      The ones I remember would unwind and die if they were in the drink too long. And you had to use a pencil or a key to open a hole in the plastic lid sinsce the straw would collapse if you tried anything radical like that. And they would simply collapse if you tried to suck a shake through one.

      I remember when plastic straws were phased in in the 1970s; I thought they were a wonderful idea. At least they actually performed the “straw” function if you needed one.

  14. The straw mania was based on research done by a 9-year-old. I hope he grows up to regret it and not like nutso-anti-gun-kid. It’s well known in customer service fields that focusing on the loudest and most obnoxious customers is not really good business. You’re extremely unlikely to ever make them happy, and by using your energy on them, you make things worse for your actual good customers. Unreasonably unhappy customers are that way because they are in pain, either physical or emotional, that is likely not caused by you and not curable by you.

    1. Kinda like the 1 in 5 women in college is raped statistic seems to be a sloppy repeat of a 1 in 5 women in college experiences sexual harassment, which is a whole other thing.

      1. I am about to start telling anyone who sends their daughters to university they are misogynists as the risk of rape there is higher than in Nanking in 1937.

      2. “1 in 5 women will experience a clumsy pass from a guy they don’t like,” just doesn’t quite have the same ring to it.

        1. Nor does “1 in 5 women will regret choices in men they choose to date or bed after the fact”, but now we are hearing arguments about withdrawing consent after sex.

          “Interesting game, Professor Falken, the only way to win is not to play,” was not supposed to be about dating.

          1. As I understand the current standard, this also includes guys who fail to make a pass at a gal even though she has clearly indicated she is interested. The refusal of some guys to pick up on that extra millisecond of eye contact is too consistent to be accidental!

            2. There was a university that listed as “withholding of sex and affection” as a form of abuse on its website for months. (Took it down last time I checked.)

        2. “One in 5 women will over-exaggerate when relating a minor experience in order to gain victim points” is also a little too on the nose.

      3. Insty had a story on Trumps speech. He claimed the rape incidence for migrants through Mexico. He claimed 1 in 3 of the women were raped in transit, but the CBS fact checkers found the number was more like 60 to 80%.

        Surprise, surprise, they decided not to reveal that. (Though Drudge had it as “Trump Lied”. I’ve pretty well given up on Drudge.)

        1. He used the stats given by Doctors Without Borders. They cited some other group. And some people DID publicize that.

    3. Hey, how else was nutso anti-gun kid supposed to get into an Ivy League school? Certainly not his abysmal testing scores, and he’s too white for diversity placements.

      1. I’ve lost track of what’s-his-name. Didn’t he not get accepted, and is trying to make a living out of waving the bloody shirt of an incident he was a long ways away from (as in another building far from the incident)?

          1. And reportedly admitted despite SAT scores two or three standard deviations below the normal Harvard lower SAT score boundary for admissions.

              1. Depends if he’s able to kiss the right rear ends and play the political game properly. He is part of the cis white patriarchy and a son of privilege, so a target for the More Virtuous Than You game.

            3. I was about to say “He’s about to learn what ‘mismatch’ means,” but then I remembered that we’re talking about Harvard, so he doesn’t actually need that much academic ability to do fine there.

              Why, yes, I do hold Harvard in contempt, why do you ask?

        2. Harvard or Yale decided to offer him placement.
          Something about a white button down shirt, with a black armband, carrying a white circle with some kinda design, just appeals to ’em

          1. There’s a pretty good chance he’ll quietly drop out after a few semesters.
            There’s a slightly lower chance he’ll be #MeToo’d & kicked out after going after a fellow student.

    4. “You’re extremely unlikely to ever make them happy, and by using your energy on them, you make things worse for your actual good customers. ”
      We could call this the Target Syndrome.

  15. I came across an article once that summarized a study of the “Great Pacific Garbage Patch.” Turns out 52% of the plastic came from discarded commercial fishing gear. Stuff like huge plastic nets, And guess what, it was Asian fishing fleets responsible for almost all of it.

      2. … 5 rivers in Africa and Asia where Western Capitalists’ Exploitation of native cultures has been especially oppressive.

        FIFY

  16. As we say in Missouri, you can reason with a mule, but you have to whomp it upside the head a few times with a board to get its attention.

  17. I actually “won” an argument with someone on line because I showed them they’d been lied to– I was able to look up where they’d been told was the Great Pacific Garbage Patch actually came from (it was post-tsunami river mouth, with the scenes carefully selected or edited) and connect it to the Doldrums, a place where stuff naturally collects.
    It helped that they’d been in areas with flooding, so they were able– once the suggestion was broken– to identify that most of the actual STUFF was wood or plants, with just some bright plastic among it.

    Beats any of my other wins. (The other side never admits it, storms off in a huff…and a few weeks later I notice them using my arguments. I’ll take it!)

    1. It is also interesting to point out that bacteria have developed that eat the plastic, just as there are bacteria that eat petroleum. Thus after long enough, the problem goes away into the ecosystem and is not a problem any more.

      1. There are bacteria that eat vulcanized rubber; they lived on and around roads. They eat the rubber that wears off car tires.

        I still boggle that anything can make use of vulcanized rubber for food; the sulfur bond is pretty tight.

  18. Oh yes, the plastic pan because every sea turtle tested had plastic plugging up their stomachs. Never mind that said testing required a dead sea turtle. We have no idea how many live ones a doing just fine eating occasional plastic bags, or if they eat them at all. Maybe the ones eating plastic bags are the dumb ones.

    Middle of the night amber alerts? I am so glad I’m a luddite and don’t own a cell phone. Landline with an answering machine makes a good screening device.

    1. I left mine active, but the ringtone is a quiet one I sleep through, because my twitter settings keep being changed and the friend in the UK starts early, her time (and she is now the sole reason I have the account)

  19. “But after the crazy campaign of “all men will abuse all women for being on the pill” suddenly my doctor was dropping her voice to a whisper when saying “this is a prescription for the pill” and the pharmacy was acting like they were giving me contraband.”

    When you pause to consider it, the people MOST LIKELY to go ape [feces] over something, anything of this sort are those on the Left, not the Right. Are Right-Wingers going around demanding bakeries not sell obscene cakes? Are Right-Wingers going demanding that businesses discriminate against [target group]? Not bleedin’ hardly. Not even Fred Phelps’ crew is acting out that sort of insanity.

    It is the Left that is making unreasonable demands, insisting society conform to their (ever-evolving) WOKE-the-Eff-up standards. It is the Left that is criminalizing disagreement. It is the Left that refuses to “live-and-let-live.”

    They get themselves all wee-wee’d up and then gaslight the larger culture into indulging their mania — which burdens all of us with their bananas.

    1. Arguably that is part of the issue we run into with the growing corporate deplatforming events. Squeaky wheel and all that.

  20. Now keep in mind I know a LOT of women. I know exactly zero who are on the pill without their husband’s or boyfriend’s or casual hook up’s enthusiastic consent. Are there some?

    I know more women who have lied about being on the pill to get pregnant when their partner did not want to (which is okiedokie on Planet GrrlPower) than I have women who lied about being on the pill because they were afraid of people knowing they were on it.

    No matter how crazy the lie — say that one in five women in college get raped, or that our straws are killing fish — people seem to run with it and it propagates through society as UNQUESTIONED fact.

    The frightening thing is they spread it while not believing it.

    No one with a daughter in college believes that 1 in 4 stat (which is the number I am used to seeing) or their daughter would not be in college.

    That is a rape rate higher than The Rape of Nanjing:

    The International Military Tribunal for the Far East estimated that 20,000 women, including some children and the elderly, were raped during the occupation.[53] A large number of rapes were done systematically by the Japanese soldiers as they went from door to door, searching for girls, with many women being captured and gang raped.

    The low estimates for civilian population of the city in December 1937 was 200,000. Assuming half the population was female that meets the 1 in 5 stat, but not the 1 in 4.

    No one with a daughter if asked if they were send her back in time to survive the Rape of Naking would send her. But we not only encourage girls to go to college we send more daughters than sons.

    A people who really believed colleges had rape rates exceeding that of a known WWII atrocities would not be doing that.

    1. The Rape of Nanjing is why every time I hear of some ninny whining about the Enola Gay being on display my gut reaction is that we should put a banner on it saying (in Japanese) “You rape Nanjin again, we bomb you again.”

      1. I don’t think it should be on display either.

        I think it should be in a nice cozy hangar at Tinker or Barksdale, kept ready for flight in case we need it again.

  21. MomRed had to come see why I was laughing like a hyena on nitrous oxide. The catalogue on the table in front of me touted garments made of blends of “fleece and wool!”

    Yeah. We have a generation and a half that have no idea that fleece used to mean clean, unprocessed wool.

          1. I will say that I’m not agnostic, atheist, vegetarian, vegan, into crossfit or into vaping.

        2. I’ve been eating a lot of the plain unsweetened So Delicious non dairy yogurt lately, but I really do prefer that brand’s gluten free dairy free ice cream.

      2. That actually makes sense as eggs are normally classified as dairy for some odd reason and all ice cream deserving of the name has eggs in it.

    4. I’d have to stop and think about it for a moment.

      To the best of my knowledge I’ve never seen a fleece or anything made of wool.

      I saw a sheep once. It was at the zoo.

      1. Apparently the wool yarns were incorporated in with the polyester at some point to make a single fabric. The photo in the catalogue didn’t enlarge very well.

  22. On the pill thing. I’ve actually known a couple where the Husband refused to let the Wife be on the pill (when she wanted to be on it). It does happen. The wife just told him “OK then, don’t be surprised when you don’t get any sex!” He folded like a cheap suit. I suppose with the sheer number of people in America, SOME woman is probably being abused and not being allowed to have/use birth control by her husband. But that’s abuse. Legislating to give her free birth control is like giving free band-aids (complete with cartoon characters) to a woman who is being beat bloody by her husband on a daily basis. Sure, it helps, sort-of, but It’s not fixing anything.

    The big hue and cry from my progressive friends back during the obamacare fight was all those women who MIGHT get FIRED from their jobs if their bosses found out they were on the pill. WHAT?!?! Yea… words cannot express… Apparently, according to them, all bosses are (evil) conservatives who think that any woman on the pill is a whore, and of course they wouldn’t want a whore working for them. again… WHAT?!?! Yep, you guessed it. Arguing against this idiocy got me called a sexist, racist, science-denying, homophobe. (Oh… and a pervert because I pointed out that if *I* owned a business, I would be perfectly happy if all my female employees were on the pill.)

      1. And here’s me thinking that the way to solve that problem is to remove all paid leave and other cost additive benefits requirements and make hiring and firing lower cost to both employee and employer. That way, if mom decided to take a year sabbatical, she could quit for a year and be pretty confident in her ability to find a job when she wants one again. And the company can hire someone for the time they actually work, not consider that the woman wanting maternity leave will cost more per work unit than the man.

        1. Let’s not forget Sarah’s assertion that pregnancy makes women fat and stupid (I’d still like a cert. on that). There are a lot of jobs where stupid can be a life ending property and not just for the stupid party.

          1. There is a wider issue with finding work after an interruption.

            Mobility means that there is a huge pool of potential workers. If they aren’t already working for you, you basically don’t have any really reliable information about them. And even a new hire has a lot of access for causing damage before the organization realizes that they are clueless. So there is a limit to the degree to which the risk of hiring can be eliminated.

    2. Yep. My best adolescent friend was the oldest daughter of a strict, Bill Gothard/Bob Jones Baptist family. Seven kids total; after number seven the mother apparently explained Very Very Calmly that her husband’s options were 1) pill or 2) couch till menopause.

      1. her husband’s options were 1) pill or 2) couch till menopause.

        I was going to ask why she didn’t go in and get spayed (for whatever reason it’s always the husband’s responsibility to sterilize himself when the wife doesn’t want more kids?), but I suppose that using medication may be preferable to surgery.

        2. I wanted eleven kids. Sigh. Which is why pill was till 23 and then from 45 on in spots. Well, fairly solidly because things went straight to h*ll at 45. Turned out Hypothyroidism. But we didn’t know that.

          1. Ambitious? (Two of first cousins and one of my second cousins married into a set of eleven brothers and sisters.)

          2. My first wife wanted 12 kids. I think one of the things that really started our problems was me refusing to go beyond one kid until we could afford more. She didn’t want to wait, but reality was firmly on my side. The stress of that caused other arguments (which blew up into major problems), and as they say, it’s all history now.

            I do note though, she never did get anywhere near her goal of 12 kids. She kept our daughter (who is 28, and oddly enough is living with me now) and had two sons from her second husband, and then no more. Probably because they couldn’t afford more.

            Maybe funny note, I have 4 daughters. One from my first wife, and three from my second wife, although we lost one of those, so I’m down to three total. Had the first wife just been a little more patient, she probably would have gotten closer to her goal. Probably not all the way to 12, but closer. None of my reticence to have more was because I didn’t want more. I just wanted to be able to afford to feed them.

      2. That it stuck is *really* saying something, given the hyper authoritarian “Even the smallest objection sends you straight to hell!” type sub-culture.

        * for values of “objection” equal to “didn’t jump to it fast enough”.

  23. Or how about the people who were convinced that the election of Trump would mean the end of “marriage equality” in the US?

    More directly related to the original post, the idea that I am somehow infringing your right to something because I will not pay for you to have it is utterly baffling.

    1. idea that I am somehow infringing your right to something because I will not pay for you to have it

      I’m sure it goes hand in hand with the idea that publicly expressing one’s beliefs forces others to accept those beliefs.

    1. Green eyes? Beats having green skin…though you might get a part in the next Star Trek series if you did! Think of all the personal appearances you’d have.

  26. Regarding too hungry & too tired to eat. Or choosing what is closer or rather faster to get to than your preferred location. Been there, done that.

    I deal with a condition called Reactive Hypoglycemia. Been known to have a snack right before leaving for dinner; Due to the Hypoglycemia side of things. Stress & lack of sleep affects it big time. Having sleep apnea isn’t helping.

    1. That’s what it is! That started happening to me when I was pregnant last winter, and I couldn’t figure out why I suddenly had to be snacking on carbs just to stay awake.

        1. So much fun. Yes. It was worse during pregnancy. No it doesn’t help with weight loss or maintenance. I get the “don’t know what I’m was doing” in the middle of episodes all the time; or more maybe redirected to doing something else & what I was doing gets left undone. (No, age has nothing to do with this. Not helping, this is not something new.)

  27. Turning off ‘amber alerts’ was literally the second thing I learned to do with my cell phone. (The first was to make a call.) The last survey I checked showed a 90% false positive rate – kid never in danger. The chance I’ll be near any active real incident is so small it’s not worth my attention.

      1. wait
        CNN does news?
        We get their atrocious headlines scroll on the info screen at work.
        I though the Fox News one was non-informing ( too much clickbait)

        1. An “upgrade” to one of my devices included some sort of newsfeed. At first I was going to try to figure out how to turn it off, but then I figured glancing at the headlines was a good way of monitoring the narrative without actually going to CNN, MSNBC, etc. Latest example was something along the lines of “CNN: Donald Trump is unsuited to be president.” Yep, their narrative remains steady.

          1. ours is direct from CNN, but it sometimes will have a different networks “news” when it is “Dumbass at ABC: The Orange Tan is More Proof Trump is unsuited for President”

  28. “Now keep in mind I know a LOT of women.”

    How many do you know who are underclass black or hispanic girls whose partners are street gangsters? Or are married to hyper-observant Moslems (i.e. wear a hijab or even a niqab or burka)? Your sample may be pretty large, but not fully representative.

    Which is not to say that the hysterical fear of alleged suppression of contraception is anything less than absurd. Many liberals stated that the Hobby Lobby case was about employers denying all contraception to employees. In fact, Hobby Lobby’s health plan offered 12 or 15 kinds of contraception; the case was about the Obamacare requirement that they include post-conception birth control, which they regarded as a form of abortion.

    Regarding straws: I’ve spent a fair amount of time in hospitals recently (due to mother’s health issues). Said hospitals have supply closets on every floor, stocked with plastic water cups, plastic cup lids, and plastic straws. Also bins of plastic straws in the cafeteria.

    1. How many do you know who are underclass black or hispanic girls whose partners are street gangsters

      That’s the demographic that kills their women when the other forms of birth control fail.

    2. I don’t know many Muslims. But I had a life time of working occasionally at low-pay jobs with women who’d fall in the other categories. And no, none of them was afraid of using the pill. Some were afraid of getting pregnant because boyfriend would cut up rough.

    3. “How many do you know who are underclass black or hispanic girls whose partners are street gangsters? Or are married to hyper-observant Moslems (i.e. wear a hijab or even a niqab or burka)?”

      You are engaging in cultural imperialism, imposing your cultural values on historically oppressed peoples. It is wrong and hegemonic to attempt to evaluate the mores of such cultures according to the biases of your privileged position.

      1. Okay, this made me laugh. Now, I’ve no notion if Hispanic street gangs try to force their girlfriends to get pregnant. It seems unlikely. But this still made me laugh.

  29. Where does the crazy come from? Maybe it’s the inner certainty that we are sinful, and the vast cultural denial of any real sin. “By terror and the cruel thoughts of curse in bone and kin,/ By wierd and weakness winning,/Accursed from the beginning,/By detail of the sinning,/And denial of the sin.”—GKC

  30. I was grumbling on Twitter around the time that Jerry Brown signed the California Straw Law, largely about the inferiority of paper straws. One of my Twitter friends said that she used reusable stainless steel straws and always had one in her purse. She even offered to send me one. Being in a state where that particular problem hasn’t shown up yet, I declined. I got curious later and looked on Amazon. There are tons of different stainless steel straws, many with plastic tips. Some of them have a little cloth carry bag plus a cleaning brush to run through it.
    https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_1_21?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=stainless+steel+straws&sprefix=stainless+steel+straw%2Caps%2C171&crid=1XIRB7WHDDFXW

    2. On the plus side, if you sharpened the other end of the straw, maybe chamfered the end so that it came to a point, you could probably do quite a bit of damage to a random attacker.

    3. We have a bunch, first batch came free with my husband’s good NotIglooorArtic travel mugs and I use them to replace the reusable plastic straws that go in the kids’ cups. (Which I got because it was cheaper than the normal kid cups, and they’re now going on three times the lifespan of those.)

      They’re a bit of a pain to clean, in part because you can’t see if they’re dirty inside; I’d put them about half as annoying as twisty straws.

    1. Every member of the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement needs to be executed, immediately.

      After all, they claim it’s for their own good and the good of the planet.

        1. That works. No governmental sponsored moneys, whatever locally called (ex: US no medicare, no SS, no food stamps, no welfare, no nothing), any financial means should be immediately confiscated**. DNR’s tattooed. Any dependents removed from their care … all for the benefit of mother earth.

          ** Why should the wealthy snowflake be shielded from their consequences?

      2. They’re already brain dead, so it’s merely a matter of conforming the reality to the theory. They ought approve of that.

  32. One problem is that there are a lot of people whose purpose in life is to “fight the enemy”, and think it is morally justified to lie in order to do so. Once such a person becomes a professor, teacher, or a media-person, they do a lot of damage.

    For example, from my Facebook feed I see a LOT of people that do not know that there is such a thing as legal immigration. They seriously think that the way you are supposed to immigrate to the US is to find a way to cross the border and then find a place to live and a job. Stopping people from crossing the border illegally is therefore stopping all immigration!

    1. Absolutely!

      That’s why the Statue of Liberty exists, to light the way for illegal immigrants to slip past I.C.E. at Ellis Island.

      1. Yup, seriously! I’ve seen people who are angry about stopping illegal border crossing state things like “My ancestors were welcomed at Ellis Island!” — as if Ellis Island was just a big welcome center where everyone was given gift packages, and as if going through an immigration center is the same as climbing over a border fence.

        Many people state that asylum-seekers are supposed to enter the country illegally in order to make their claim!

        1. Do they not know of the ones who were turned away?

          The families that were split because one parent was denied entry? Or a child was denied entry?

          Getting to Ellis Island was one step. It did NOT guaranty entry.

          Before Ellis Island. Yes. Foot on ground (generally) = entry. But, getting here was not guaranteed. Even then you may be indentured servant (European). Families were not necessarily kept together, either.

          I suppose the Oregon/California trail was one big party along the way? Surely there aren’t graves every foot of the way.

          Okay. Sarcasm off.

          Idiots.

      3. I’ve had folks assure me there were no limits on immigration before whatever point they want to argue, usually it’s the 60s or 70s.

  33. At Last! The REAL culprit causing Global Warming!!!

    This tiny ant could endanger the planet, scientists say
    Could there be a new culprit behind climate change?

    Leafcutter ants emit nitrous oxide levels usually found in “wastewater treatment tanks or dairy cow manure lagoons,” according to a study published Thursday in Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.

    These small but mighty bugs unintentionally created the largest natural nitrous oxide hotspots ever recorded in tropical forests, the researchers found.

    Scientists from the University of Montana came upon the discovery by accident while working on another project examining patterns of greenhouse gas emissions in Costa Rica’s rainforests.

    “And [then] one of our sites was completely destroyed when a leafcutter ant colony moved in,” lead author Fiona Soper said in a statement.

    [END EXCERPT]

  34. I know of one case where the man wanted his SO off of the Pill. It was making her crazier and asexual. I don’t blame him.

  35. Pingback: Saturday Links | 357 Magnum

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