I’ve been thinking of the whole Covidiocy.
I’ve been thinking of it through the framing of WWII, particularly in Britain (though we weren’t wonderful) where strict rationing and also recycling (in the form of scrappers collecting every bit of paper, old signs, etc.)
Speaking of erasure of culture and destruction of statues, that did a lot more damage than even our hordes of simplificators.
And in the end, none of it really helped very much. No, I’m not sure about the scrapping, but knowing how the rest of things were run, I suspect most of the metal and other things collected ended up not suitable for the intended purpose and basically wasted. Food production got completely divorced of demand and kept up shortages. And let’s not start in on fabric, etc.
And all the while there were vast fortunes to be made. All of which is basically textbook fascism: tightly controlled economy where the government picks winners and losers from nominally private enterprise.
within a very short time, all of the economy was bent to this purpose, to the “war effort” although not really, and all brought under the government heel.
In the anglosphere (Southern Europe was always… different for both good and bad) this paved the way for all the abuses and intrusions that we’ve been enduring for a century.
Which brings us to….
The way to get people to knuckle under was fear: fear of the big bad Nazi empire. (With reason given their expansionist tactics. Even if they ignored the equally dangerous COMMUNIST expansionist tactics. You can’t have everything. Where would you put it? Who would dust it?)
The threat was commensurate, though. Remember that in Europe you can’t swing a cat without a passport (yours and the cat. Also the cat won’t like being swung.) People had family in France and Italy, in Poland and countries under the fascist heel. They GOT the threat.
And yes, it had to be stopped.
So, while the measures meant diddly for the war effort, it did a lot in psychological cementing and “we’re all in this together” effort.
From the whole “we’re all in this together” and dumb slogans that the left keeps spinning, you know they’re using WWII as the model for the Covidiocy as well as their lusted after Green Nude Heel.
But here’s the thing: to pull the kind of transformation they want, you need the extraordinary claims to have some concrete and immediate BACKING to show that yeah, we need extraordinary measures.
That was present in WWII. Now? Not so much, besides the fact even the dumbest person can tell if the grocery store is safe, the park is safe. If a riot is safe, so is a stroll on the beach.
Which brings us to: this is the reason for the whole masks mandates NOW, and for all the crazy claims that we’re worse than never.
They made a massive grab for power based on claims that were pretty obviously crazily inflated.
They now want to keep piling things on, to keep the return to normal so far future we never focus enough to see how ridiculously exaggerated and insane their reaction was.
In other words, the left has a tiger by the tail.
You can’t hold onto the tail of the tiger forever. And when you let go, you know he’s gonna eat you.
This is where they are now. Desperately holding on to that tail, and not letting go.
And knowing what can’t go on forever,won’t.
According To Hoyt 
What infuriates me is the constant goalpost moving. Changing with new information, cool; getting stricter with changing information and pretending you never did the first thing, not cool.
Are they that stupid, or do they think I am?
Yes.
They think enough people are stupid for them to get away with it.
And sadly it appears they were right.
Those of us who aren’t stupid are always left to clean up the mess.
*Although I think we win. Things aren’t done yet. Not here. Not now. But they sure made a mess that’s going to suck to clean up.
Actually, they will not get away with it.
There is always a cost to falsehood. That costs eventually gets paid, whether people realize it is false or not.
That’s what the “why don’t people trust us” guy is complaining about, after all.
They lied, and people are going to align what they said with what actually happened, even if they dno’t know it was a lie.
So if they say the same thing next time, but it’s true, a lot of people are going to die.
It isn’t just that sort of cost, for that sort of lie.
I’ve spent a lot of time lately on BLM. Which is basically a bunch of conspiracy theorists making demands, backed by force. Arsons and murders are definitely force.
I’m angry for several reasons, and probably should quit reading several blogs.
One, the Bible does explicitly call out banditry as evil. And Communist word magic is no more a licit practice of Christianity than arena death sports, abandoning babies to die of exposure, or cutting out hearts ‘to keep the sun going’.
Two, pushing the old conventional thinking outside of the overton window doesn’t only legitimize the fringe thinking on one’s preferred side of the overton window.
Three, it is easier to force people to accept conspiracy theory as legitimate, than it is to force them to only accept one’s preferred flavor of conspiracy theory.
The Bible also specifically prohibited punishing the innocent for the sins of their relatives. (Ezekiel 18, it’s a pretty epic rant.)
Yeah.
And yet in Joshua 7 Achan and all his sons and daughters were stoned to death and burned for Achan’s trangressions. We’re not told that they didn’t partake in same, but we’re also not (at least in KJV) told that they did.
It was hidden in the family tent.
Which means everybody in that household knew that they were stealing from God, and placed loyalty to the guy who did it above God’s direct order, after being told that if ANYBODY did it, all of Israel would suffer.
Notably, after God had granted them a bleepin’ miracle, with this one catch.
It’s a scam being run by Black Quislings for their (mostly White Intellectual) Democrat masters. The Democrats need it desperately because so much of the real oppression that impinges on porn brown people is a direct consequence of Democrat policies. The Democrats don’t WANT to change those policies, because if the way the Working Man abandoned them in large numbers when he started to get middle class. So they latch onto the Urban Poor Blacks like so many bloated ticks, and do everything they can to avoid dealing with the core problems…or even acknowledging them.
Note how the (Democrat) Administration of that city has increased the charges against Floyd’s killer to the point that it is doubtful the case can be made. When the greater charge is dismissed, they can shout to the rooftops that they tried to bring about Justice, but they system’ is racist.
Blue-checkmark dancing bears, performing for lollipops and fancy-pants. Oh, and the power to smash and burn and hurt people with impunity.
You mean I have to stop the cattle raiding? Blast.
I thought the logic of the cattle raid was that they all belong to your clan, and have been mistakenly misplaced?
Cattle raiding is an intrinsic part of your cultural heritage and any efforts to interfere with that would be racist imperialism.
Takes the fun out of that raiding, doesn’t it?
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Depends. Perhaps I can start stealing the left’s sacred cows, so.
I still have mental derailments, even after everything, when I read that acronym and go “Oh, jeez, what did the Bureau of Land Management do now… wait, no, it’s the other one. Emily Latella.”
I know one’s Federal and the other is Marxist, but the main difference is the *kind* of damage each one does…
Methinks the difference between the two BLMs is more of degree than of kind, if you take my meaning. Ask the Bundys.
Bouncing off your comment, because it reminded me of something I was listening to this morning while I stitched together small pillows:
On the no trust front, I saw Scarf Lady of the Coronavirus task force of all people quoted as saying we can’t trust the numbers coming from CDC.
But will they have to pay it? The architects of SS KNEW it would go bankrupt — after they died.
I’ve wondered if they assumed that antibiotics would remain rare and rationed. That would have kept the average life expectancy at 60 years, as it was at the time SS began.
Social Security is a government run and mandated Ponzi scheme.
nuh uh
in a Ponzi scheme, *someone* makes money.
There is a gigantic bureaucracy built around Socialist Stupidity, and a government employees’ union. THEY’RE making out like bandits. The old folks, not so much.
I paid about $150,000 into the SS. If I file at 65, and live to 85, I will be ‘entitled’ to more than $480,000. If I live to 95 — and my family is a long-lived bunch — it will add up to almost $800,000. Multiply that by 70 million, and the leftoids wonder why the SS is crashing and burning.
What am I saying? They’re the latest products of our government schools. They’d be doing good to multiply any number by 10 and get the right answer.
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If you give politicians money to pay the government’s debts, they will spend it and borrow more.
I’m drawing retirement from NYS. First thing to go will be the GUARANTEED cola adjustments. Next they’ll probably start a means test. “Oh, you’re getting military retirement benefits? You don’t need ours then!” “Oh, you were wise and invested in an IRA? Why are you stealing money from us that can go to those that didn’t?” Something along those lines.
And if you had put the money you paid into SS into the stock market you would be sitting on around $1 million. THAT is the true theft of Social Security.
Indeed.
And I’m drawing both SS and a military pension.
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We essentially did exactly that. With less money, for a shorter period of time, than the 7% contributed by us to SS, let alone the 14% total contribution. IRA’s came available, mid-’80s, 401(k)’s & Roth, even later. At least when you could actually contribute when you also had a pension plan. Individually our accounts aren’t a million, combined they are. Each of us have been contributing to SS for at least 55 years, but to our own accounts for a max of 35 years.
Mmmmmm … puts out hand, palm down, waggles … hard to calculate. All of that money going into the stock market would have greatly increased market capitalization without necessarily increasing performance. I’m not such a financial analyst as to predict effects but surely there would have been some. The question is whether that would have produced more value or less per share owned.
Secondary effects would be the impulses of politicians to enact “safety protocols” to protect investors from market risk, the potential hazards of WorldCom, Enron, Madoff, and Solyndra type schemes, There’s also the problem related to the degree to which Social Security surpluses have papered over budget deficits. We’re looking at a lot of variables that seem hard for the casual observer to factor.
OTOH, you would be hard put to be worse off had the government replaced Social Security’s “Lockbox” with a mixed investment plan involving a government guaranteed annuity (establishing a minimum stipend) with mixed portfolio of market funds similar to what most 401Ks offer.).
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Well, for a first order estimate, more money chasing the same set of goods raises prices, so you’d probably be better off than the initial calculation.
At the second order, all that money staying in the productive economy rather than being recycled through the government according to politics would lead to more wealth creation. And SS not being available to paper over deficits would have been a good thing. It would have robbed the Democrats of bragging over Clinton “balancing the budget.” Today SS is a net deficit, so it isn’t papering anything over anymore.
We already have the government enacting “safety protocols” ostensibly to try and protect people from their stupidity, which is why things like Kickstarter and Indiegogo are around.
Yes, but if you keep the age at which you get the payout higher than life expectancy, a Ponzi scheme can work because people die before they get the money back. It’s when they actually expect it that you hit problems.
We used to joke that we were just using the government to pay the grandparents. Paternal grandmother lived to be almost 80, plus the payments for her disabled son who lived months longer than her. Maternal grandparents lived to be 95. Guaranty none of them paid into the system what was paid out to them & the combined payments to them was around $1600/month.
This thought has me personally somewhat worried, given the rushing towards a vaccine that, from indications, the ‘powers that be’ seem to want to make mandatory. I really don’t like the conspiracy theories that I’m encountering on that vein, especially with the whole Bill Gates part of it, and it really does not help that I’ve seen multiple interviews and speeches where he says the same thing (vaccines and population control in the same breath, pretty much. It gives me serious nervous vibes.)
They assumed that it would continue to go up at the same rate. The rate accelerated. That’s the only reason that any of them lived long enough to see the problems.
They didn’t anticipate we’d “enjoy” such a diminution of
workerscontributors in proportion to beneficiaries, either. There’s a huge difference between six* people contributing for every one drawing Social Security and two** working per recipient.*Or four or whatever the original ratio was – it is not worth looking up.
**Approaching one and a half donors per drawer.
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The belief that some people will face divine justice is all that keeps me going sometimes.
amen
Although I think we win. Things aren’t done yet. Not here. Not now. But they sure made a mess that’s going to suck to clean up.
History of humanity, there. 😀
I don’t think it’s people are stupid, it’s short attention span theater. They’ve would up the news cycle so short that what happened a month ago is now ancient history. They’ve literally gotten people to forget where the goalposts were before they moved them.
“…wound up the news cycle…”
As much as I’d like to blame WP for that, I think it was just me being fumble fingered.
They completely fabricated a claim that one of the most highly visible men in the country was secretly a Russian agent, and aggressively pushed that claim even as said man took actions that were clearly against Russia’s best interests.
Yes, they really do think you’re that stupid.
They’re firm believers in the Twentieth Century technique of telling a blatant enough lie.
Be fair; they probably believe that because they’re fairly sure (or know) that their guys ARE agents of Russia or China or Other Interest Here.
Clinton (Billy) wasn’t even subtle.
They aren’t depending on stupid but on ignorance which they have been purveying for a century now and its worked pretty well for them thus far. Now–lets hope not
I’d have put good money on Al Gore being found listed in the KGB archives as an active asset.
But DJT? Nope. Recruited why? An asset how? “I recruited a rich guy because he has a TV show” would have resulted in the agent being recalled to Moscow for their new assignment overseeing Krasnoyarsk Station.
There are a bunch of things besides the “big lie” that came out of that particular National Socialist regime that the Democrats embrace as well, especially the things that pertain to Jews.
If it is not reported in “America’s Paper of Record,” it never happened. That used to work perfectly; not so much these days. Which is the main reason for attacks on real internet neutrality – they need, desperately, to get back to the old days.
OMGTHIS
“Are they that stupid, or do they think I am?”
They Are that stupid … and they imagine themselves the smart people.
Remember: those of us who understand how
Sciencescience actually works are denounced as Science deniers.–
If they can make you bow down to the lie, it doesn’t matter how intelligent you are: At that point one has traded his integrity away.
Furthermore? When I point out that there’s no such thing as a good teacher in public education anymore, that bowing the head to Common Core to go along and get along, instead of resigning in protest, means the teacher _cannot help_ but be no more than mediocre*? I get rage and denial from anyone who has bowed their head to the Department of Education all out of proportion to mere words. To such a great degree that I’m convinced that their lost integrity pricks their conscience, and they have no answer but to kill the kid who reports that the Emperor has no clothes on.
-Albert
*There’s also the 2004 DoE report that a _conservative_ estimate is that at least 10% (i.e. likely much higher) of the kids incarcerated in public education get sexually assaulted by school personnel. And of those personnel teachers will be the ones who ‘know the victims’ best.
Common core is not that bad.
The *implementation* of it is … *shudder*
It’s not like it’s something that can be done effectively in a group class setting, but even for that it’s been done very poorly. Major issue is it’s stuff by people who don’t remember learning the lessons, telling folks who don’t understand being good at them, and done by people who don’t understand the stuff being taught.
That’s a bit like saying Affirmative Action isn’t that bad, it’s just the implementation that’s horrible.
The implementation is the reality. The best possible outcome was merely the theory.
-Albert
No, it isn’t.
Affirmative Action is in its core wrong.
There is no way to give priority to members of X race without violating the rights of those involved.
Common Core is a set of standards. You can even go look them up– I use the thing to figure out what some lesson material is attempting to accomplish.
There is nothing inherently wrong with “teach students multiple ways to solve math problems, ensuring they are at least basically familiar with them.”
Attempting to accomplish this by having a teacher who does not understand the method lead 30 kids through poorly explained lessons and switch to the next method before anybody has time to practice the method enough to find out if it fits their brain doesn’t work.
See the difference?
“Multiple ways to solve math problems” is a teacher’s toolbox, not a standard.
I sometimes have to switch the socket on a wrench three or even four times before I get the right size for a hex head bolt that has no markings. Now, a teacher with a student (multiply by 25 to 30), when approaching the problem of teaching them how to solve something, is in a worse position – starting out, they don’t know whether this kid is a hex bolt, a square bolt, a star bolt, or an even rarer type. But the competent ones, like a competent mechanic, doesn’t try every socket in the box – they try until one works for that bolt. With refinements as they get the right shape, but don’t quite have the right size yet.
Common Core (or just about any other standard, for that matter) is the equivalent of “try every socket on every bolt and hope that you manage to turn all of them by the end of the day.” Which wastes an enormous amount of time – and can seriously damage the bolts that had the wrong sockets repeatedly applied to them, possibly to the point where you can’t even turn them with the correct socket.
Note the analogy here; at least in the work that I do, hex head bolts are by far the most common. The competent teachers of my younger days tried hex sockets on every student first, then their more specialized ones on those who didn’t get it the standard way. Such as me – I was a “hex head” when it came to arithmetic; memorization and the old fashioned method of solving problems worked perfectly. When it came to reading, phonics was of some help – but I learned faster with the “whole word in context” method. (Writing, sadly, I didn’t encounter a teacher equipped with star head sockets until high school…)
“Multiple ways to solve math problems” is a teacher’s toolbox, not a standard.
A toolbox that they’re not issued.
The biggest problem with trying to implement the standard (besides that the setup is really not suited to teaching math– something like Khan with a competent teacher explaining anything that doesn’t click in the videos is probably the best big class option) is that the people using it don’t know how to use the tools. They read the directions, turn the screw, and don’t notice it snaps off.
They’re not trying to fix competent teachers. They’re trying to patch incompetent ones.
Affirmative Action is in its core wrong.
There is no way to give priority to members of X race without violating the rights of those involved.
Having been twice victim to attempts at affirmative action benefiting the less deserving, this is part of why I hate it so very much. Plus, Affirmative Action is, at it’s heart, inherently bigoted and places a certain group as superior to the ones ‘helped.’
There is nothing inherently wrong with “teach students multiple ways to solve math problems, ensuring they are at least basically familiar with them.”
Interestingly, this is how I did algebra in high school, and it was probably the last time math made sense for me. The teacher I had made sure that it made *sense* to us, because math and algebra were a form of logical thinking (as long as the answer we had was correct and the method was shown and we could work it backward to proof, even if the equation we did wasn’t the ‘standard’ expected one, it was marked correct. We were taught the ‘this is expected methods’ though, but we could deviate or use them as springboards.) The teachers I ended up with in college were rote teachers who expected us to robotically apply the formula to a problem, and not necessarily understand the math.
I really miss the joy I had back then, learning math that year. It was fun. College math killed math for me, and I have such an aversion to it now.
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Ditto. I got some tolerance back when I went back to school and the math instructors weren’t English as a second language with accents so thick they were impossible to understand, had utter contempt for a very young freshman. My last two math classes were even fun. Part of the reason was the instructors were both graduate students, not PHD’s yet, classes were small, reason for the classes was to understand the math. With math I’m one of those who has to use it regularly to keep it up beyond basic, through more complicated algebra. I can pick it up again easily, given the need, but I would have to work at it. At least I’m not afraid of or hate Math.
> Affirmative Action is in its core wrong.
There is no way to give priority to members of X race without violating the rights of those involved.
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I think they’ll be calling it “reparations” soon enough. And that will make it all better!
Here in NC the Asheboro city council has decided to pay reparations, but not to individuals. The city is one of the state’s Hippy-Dippy redoubts centered primarily on the UNC branch there.
In historic move, North Carolina city approves reparations for Black residents
The unanimously passed resolution does not mandate direct payments to Asheville residents. Instead it will make investments in areas where Black residents face disparities.
ASHEVILLE, N.C. – In an extraordinary move, the Asheville City Council has apologized for the North Carolina city’s historic role in slavery, discrimination and denial of basic liberties to Black residents and voted to provide reparations to them and their descendants.
The 7-0 vote came the night of July 14.
“Hundreds of years of black blood spilled that basically fills the cup we drink from today,” said Councilman Keith Young, one of two African American members of the body and the measure’s chief proponent.
“It is simply not enough to remove statutes. Black people in this country are dealing with issues that are systemic in nature,” Young said.
The unanimously passed resolution does not mandate direct payments. Instead it will make investments in areas where Black residents face disparities.
“The resulting budgetary and programmatic priorities may include but not be limited to increasing minority home ownership and access to other affordable housing, increasing minority business ownership and career opportunities, strategies to grow equity and generational wealth, closing the gaps in health care, education, employment and pay, neighborhood safety and fairness within criminal justice,” the resolution reads.
What is systemic racism? Here’s what it means and how you can help dismantle it
[END EXCERPT]
There’s more but reading it will just leave you dumbfounded or dumber, depending on how you take it. The important thing is that they’re not giving the money to people but to interest groups. That will probably work out real well for certain values of well.
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My apologies. I keep confusing Asheville and Asheboro — Asheboro is where the state zoo is, which is why I tend to recall its name when reading of the antics in the mountain town of Asheville.
My apologies to any residents of Asheboro offended by the mis-identification.
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We really need to start challenging crap like this on Equal Protection grounds. I know the SJTs like to talk about past wrongs against populations, but that argument runs counter to the prohibition of corruption of blood* as well as pretty much the entire Fifth Amendment. At the very least it should get rid of the disparate impact doctrine as controlling precedent. My ancestors were entirely northerners or immigrants after the Civil War, I guarantee you that most Black Americans have a more recent slave-owning ancestor than I do.
*That applies to punishment for treason, but if the descendants of traitors can’t be punished it’s hard to see the argument for punishing the descendants of those whose actions weren’t even criminal at the time
Asheville is in the part of NC that was VERY unlikely to have slave – it is in the Blue Ridge and the Scots-Irish who settled the area were fiercely independent. Slaves were far more commonly owned by folks living in Central and Eastern NC. Such slaves as were owned in Asheville were likely no more than a few household servants.
That said, by some accounts, Wilmington’s 1898 race riot which resulted in the state government being deposed and a new state constitution imposed, was the beginning of the racial discrimination policies which became known as Jim Crow. As Jim Crow took effect across the state there probably was some racial discrimination even in far West Asheville (whose native son of Thomas Wolfe authored Look Homeward, Angel and, later, You Can’t Go Home Again).
OTOH, Wikipedia advises that in “the 1910s and 1920s … Rutherford P. Hayes, son of President Rutherford B. Hayes, bought land, worked with Edward W. Pearson, Sr.* to create the African-American Burton Street Community, and worked to establish a sanitary district in West Asheville, which became an incorporated town in 1913, merging with Asheville in 1917.” So maybe those “reparations” are not particularly owed ad merely represent so much virtue signalling; only time and a close eye on those development funds will tell.
*per Wiki “Edward Walton Pearson, Sr. (January 25, 1872–July 4, 1946) was an African American entrepreneur, Buffalo Soldier and Spanish–American War veteran, civil rights leader, and pioneering sports enthusiast. He moved to Asheville, North Carolina in 1906 and became known as the “Black Mayor of West Asheville” because of his influence in African American neighborhood development and community life.”
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It’s not like Democrats have ever let a silly thing like facts dissuade them.
Facts are tools of the Oppressor and do not speak to subjective experience. As Ben Shapiro has said, “Facts don’t care about your feelings” — which is why facts are unacceptable.
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Same. My family come over from Éire in 1910. How we survived An Górta Mór in West Clare is beyond some days.
Go back far enough and you’ll find both slaves and slave owners in everyone’s family tree. One of the central pillars of American justice is that the children are not punished for the sins of their fathers. Reparations is a direct attack on that.
Yep. Can confirm. And it’s not that far back. Though I suppose being like half Greeco Roman (Cleverly disguised as Spanish and Portuguese) there’s slaves and owners ALL THE WAY DOWN.
And let’s talk about when my beloved river Douro was frontier between Christian and Moor, and slave raids (if one is to believe accounts, mostly for comely females) went on merrily both sides of the border.
That is the truth they will not see.
Slavery was [b]UNIVERSAL[/b] for more than 200,000 years, since before we were even human. Everybody did it, and everybody had it done to them. There is no branch, twig or leaf of the human family tree that is free from the taint of slavery, [b]NOT ONE SINGLE PERSON[/b] on the face of the planet today who is not descended from both slaves, and slave masters. If there were any ‘reparations’ to be paid, they would be owed to [b]EVERYBODY, FROM[/b] everybody. Sorting out who owed how much to who would be impossible.
Serious opposition to slavery started less than 400 years ago, and ONLY in Western ‘white’ civilization.
It seems not so long ago that Leftists were arguing slavery was among the most common human experiences, even claiming that marriage represented enslavement of the woman as wife (although they never quite addressed questions over buying and selling of slaves in that context.)
Given sufficiently high-proof inducement (single malt preferred) I could even see constructing an argument positing children as functionally slaves, with the marrying them off as equivalent to buying and selling.
Of course, you don’t have to go back very far to find ALL people chattel of their Kings.
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More like being beaten down regarding the implementation. Fatigue factor. I know a number of teachers who took the requirements, made the lessons fun, remembered even years to decades later, regardless of what the topic is. After a while those same teachers lessons don’t have the same spark. They are still trying. They are the teachers the system is still trying to get rid of.
I’m only teaching my kids, and am starting to wonder how the heck folks get out of school able to do basic addition.
It’s exhausting, you have to actually LISTEN to the kid and understand what they mean, and then you have to figure out how to get the different method through their head.
For example, out eldest does division best by writing it in the air. Fractions still annoy her because they are division problems “written wrong.”
Next up physically sorts the things into groups, even if she’s doing that in the air. I got her to grok fractions with leftover pizza. (I slice the cheese into twice as many as the peperoni, but they all go on the same leftover tray.)
The third gets fractions instinctively, and sees division as “how many of these are in there.”
If these guys were in the same math class? Ugh!
The only problem I had with the eldest (a math nut) was the part in fifth grade of having to show his work. It took a lot of explaining to get across that doing the steps is tedious and annoying, but at some point you’re going to come across something you don’t instinctively know how to do, and writing it out is how teachers figure out where you went wrong.
Mind you, he was reading a precalculus textbook for fun the last time we went to my sister’s, and since her kids didn’t need it anymore, we now have it. He’s entering 7th grade. (I do have a calculus textbook to hand him once he feels comfortable. We’ll see what happens.)
Hmm. Question there is, even with all of the steps explicitly written out, will the teacher be able to identify where the student went wrong – and, more importantly, why? (I would say probably not with your math nut, at least until he is in high school where at least some districts still require a subject degree.)
I do empathize, though. My parent had much the same problem with myself and two of my siblings, as they had taught us mental math from at least kindergarten age. Even the third sibling, who is the odd duck of us – she loved the pre-sweetened breakfast cereals, but Mom wouldn’t let her buy a box unless she could figure out in her head what the price per ounce was. (This was in the ’50s and ’60s, long before modern shelf labeling laws.)
Teacher’s Edition usually has the steps written out for the problems, at least when I was in high school.
That’s so the teacher can copy it out, exactly as written, on to the board– and you can check the steps they took, too.
I found this out when our biggest idiot teacher handed me the wrong book. 😀
And yes, at least one problem was written in the book incorrectly, something like it transposed numbers in a way that was obvious when you looked at it.
(Wresting coach. Actually had a degree in math, but he was a lazy a-hole educator, not a teacher. Any time I start to worry about my failures as a parent teaching, I remember that active damage, which in a GOOD SCHOOL nobody could be bothered to stop. If I was good enough to teach it at 15 without a teacher’s guide, I am good enough to teach it at 35 WITH one.)
For me, the best single moment in math classes as a homeschooled student was when I advanced to the first textbook where they started assuming the student could read instructions.
Huzzah for those (now all too)rare texts!
One thing I like about the old (1950’s) texts is that while they start off seeming way simple, they assume the student is merely ignorant of that subject, not stupid, and is capable of overcoming that ignorance with just a little effort.
Absolutely. Which is why all my best engineering texts are older than I am.
New stuff seems to be mostly tickbox mentions of this and that without actually teaching any of it.
One of the very rare exceptions is Glassman’s “Combustion.” Glassman didn’t write it for academics, he wrote it for engineers who wanted to burn stuff, like the guys who design waste incinerators. The book is like those Fred Dibnah steam videos from the BBC; Glassman *loved* his subject, assumed his readers were uninformed but intelligent, and HEY LET’S BURN SOME STUFF! YEE HAW! Even if you never had a chemistry class, it’s all you need.
I ran across a fascinating book at Project Gutenberg; ‘Steam Generation And Use’ by Babcock and Wilcox. Great coverage of the history and theory of boilers.
I did fairly well in elementary school. But I’m wondering now just how much better I would have done had my teachers used pizza as a manipulative…
*hides the mini M&M bag* There are many tricks.
Study for those interested:
https://www2.ljworld.com/news/2004/jul/01/sexual_misconduct_widespread/
I remember reading some time ago a statement that sexual misconduct by teachers in the public schools DWARFED the incidents with Catholic Priests, and that the Educational system’s attempts to sweep the problems under the rug would make the cover-up by the Catholic authorities look like very small potatoes.
Now, A) this would not surprise me if it were true. It would be totally consistent with other Leftist behavior.
but
B) it was a flat assertion by somebody who seemed to have an axe to grind.
They may have had an axe, but they were correct, as best anybody can tell.
Any method you measure it, even if you compare those accusations which are not physically impossible (such as the more-common-than-you’d-think claim that someone was molested by a priest who had been dead for years at the time) to those which were tested in a court of law, and then try to adjust for the number of Catholic kids vs public school kids, it’s still very much on the schools being worse.
Andrew Greeley asserted a number of times in his books (like the characters, can put up with the politics, mostly) that the percentage of Catholic Priests who were molesters is generally in line with the percentage in other positions (such as Baptist Minister, or Scout Leader) that have some level of authority over minors. The scandal, in his (unpopular with his Church) opinion was the way the Church handled – or failed to handle it. Too many people in positions of authority who expected Americans to react like European peasants.
Was he right? Well, the Church certainly failed its flock. About the percentage? It SOUNDS likely.
The problem with the Public Schools is probably in two parts; Teachers’ Colleges produce a very low grade output, and at the same time instill an attitude of “we are The Experts”. Combine that with the Left’s instinct for cover-up and denial, and you have a Petri dish for nurturing the growth and spread of abuse.
It’s complicated, though. In the 70s they thought child abuse was a) curable and b) not that bad for the kids. So, yeah the church erred, but heaven help me, I think they believed they were being COMPASSIONATE.
The Church leaders who attempted to treat such victims compassionately were a product of the Therapeutic Culture, a cult that dominated Western Intelligentsia for a brief period in the 1960s and 1970s. It was a core belief of that cult that all problems could be treated by suitable psychological or sociological therapy. Remnants of that cult still linger today i Academia and certain segments of the Democrat Party, although the latter are often able to break the bods of their beliefs when personal well-being is under threat..
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Father Greeley is not prepared to grant them that sop. They knew it was wrong, they knew it was happening, and quite shortly that knew goddamned well the ‘cures’ were hogwash.
This would explain some comments I heard from adults back then when I condemned pedo teachers in my own school days (mid 70’s to mid80s). They snorted at my complaints and told me to ‘get a sense of humor about it’. These weren’t sexual or political weirdoes either, but folks otherwise fairly mundane and even rather socially conservative in many ways.
I’ll also note that based on my personal observations, there was at least as much student to student predatory sexual behavior as from the teachers. Some lavatories at my school you didn’t dare enter unless you were ready to ‘pay the toll’.
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Zombie priests? The church didn’t hush those up, it was the MCB!
Well, now I remember why I thought the researcher who said it was massively more common in schools was reasonable… she’s one of the authors for that No Child Left Behind study on sexual abuse in schools. Shakestaff.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2484819/posts?page=109
I used to have the US Department of Education study with a link to the percentage of child abuse teachers, before a BSOD crash that wiped out my links. (Everything else was backed up, yay!) IIRC, it was a bit north of 9%.
This one?
Click to access report.pdf
Gee, hard to believe anybody could engage in producing an extensive study of those abuses and their long-term consequences and come out of it with an axe to grind. Surely nobody who pursued investigation and reporting of child sexual predation in the Church ever emerged grinding an axe.
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Oh, I agree. But by ‘had an axe to grind’ I meant BEFORE the study was conducted, and possible not primarily connected to abuse at all, just hated public schools.
Nit that there aren’t plenty of reasons.
I found the conclusion both hilarious and sad. The writer considers his homre more dangerous for his children than a public school.
Sticking with the NEA line that one in ten kids being harassed or assaulted was not a problem. ‘cus there’s no creepy way for a teacher to call a kid “sweetheart,” to use his example….. -.-
“Are they that stupid,
orand do they think I am?” FIFYOTOH really, for this group, s/b “Are they that stupid,
orand do they thinkI amwe are?” … Better?Can’t believe no one already posted “embrace the AND” already …
Didn’t RES say “yes”?
True.
Moo?
Quiet, wallaby. 😛
I would advise against relying on anything RES says. That wallaby is not sane.
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Don’t listen to him, he’s trying to confuse you with a liar’s paradox! Trust him in all things instead!
Wait…
I thought a pair o’docs was when Ben Casey met James Kildare?
No, that’s my work boots
I need a new pare o’ Doc’s
the soles is getting whonky
Yes, but that’s the ill-formed Cretan variation.
Note: I did not say the wallaby always lies; that would indeed be paradoxical What I said was that the wallaby is an unreliable narrator, something which ought long since have been apparent.
Like a clock flashing 12:00, the wallaby is sometimes right but you can never be sure just when. And the smart money always bets against it.
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They think most people are. I’m not sure they’re wrong any more given the mask Karens.
The mask karens are just normal, scared and/or lied to folks– or they’ve been under the boot and abused so long that they FINALLY have something they can do, to Right The Wrongs.
It’s not pretty, but it is human.
A lot of them are willing to hear when they’ve been lied to; we’re lucky in that the Chinese were so insanely, obviously over the top.
Lots of my co-workers are dead scared about returning to face-to-face work with other people and are clinging to the Mask Talisman.
I’ve tried to talk to the ones at serious risk: 65, overweight and diabetic, about real vs. magic talisman masks one to one.
Are they that stupid, or do they think I am?
Nope, can’t go on forever but we can be sure it will go on to November.
Civilizations aren’t forever either, as we may sadly learn if The Orange Man loses, or has the election stolen from him/us, in November.
& BTW: I was one of the kids gathering milkweed in 1944 to support the war effort: https://www.pantagraph.com/news/kids-gathered-milkweed-pods-for-wwii-effort/article_5099b3d3-117e-52c6-8815-c6893b97ea30.html
Interesting!
I wonder if they actually used the milkweed for its intended purpose.
dear Lord. I didn’t even know about that.
My family slept on pillow cases stuffed with Kapok when I grew up.
We had plants in the backyard….
The milkweed was to replace kapok- which came from islands the Japanese captured early on. And was actually used to make life preservers.
I have a WW2 era (if not older) sleeping bag (very large stuffed canvas quilted thing and very small woolen bag thing… not sure which is supposed to go inside which) that is stuffed with some mystery fiber, obviously from a plant, short and fine-textured… guessing it’s milkweed. Who knew there was that much milkweed fluff??
It may be kapok, which IIRC is from leaves of the kapok tree.
“knowing what can’t go on forever, won’t.”
I’m not totally convinced that they DO know this. Sometimes it seems as if they do, and at other times it seems as if they don’t and are SURE that just one more outrageous claim or one more riot will put things back the way they ‘should’ be.
“No boom. We can pile on more.”
“No boom. We can pile on more.”
“No boom. We can pile on more.”
“No boom. We can pile on more.”
Uhm…
It’s worked for so long, why wouldn’t they think that?
And the rare exceptions are just useful propaganda for them to “prove” that they were right all along.
“No boom today. Boom tomorrow. There’s always a boom tomorrow. What?! Look, somebody’s got to have some damn perspective around here. Boom. Sooner or later. BOOM!”
–LtCdr. Ivanovq
Claudia Christian as Susan Ivanova was brilliant. The priceless quotes just go on and on.
Susan Ivanova: “You’re saying just because I’m holding this right now, I’m Green Leader? But I’m human!”
Former Green Leader: “Rules of combat older than contact with other races. Did not mention aliens. Rules change…caught up in committee. Not come through yet.”
Susan: “Bureaucracy. Ya gotta love it.”
Susan Ivanova: “I do not like Santiago. I’ve always thought that a leader should have a strong chin. He has no chin, and his vice-president has several. This to me is not a good combination.”
Susan Ivanova: “I’d like you to take the time to learn the Babylon 5 mantra: ‘Ivanova is always right. I will listen to Ivanova. I will not ignore Ivanova’s recommendations. Ivanova is God. And if this ever happens again, Ivanova will personally rip your lungs out.”
Susan: [casts her eyes upward] “Just kidding about the God thing.”
[After being ordered onto a diet that will make her gain weight] “Figures. I’ve been fighting against imperialism all my life. Now, suddenly, I AM the expanding Russian frontier.”
It’s a shame she wasn’t around for the fifth season. I preferred her to the character that replaced her.
Both Straczynski and Christian have changed their stories about her departure from the show several times. They range from “contract not renewed” to “fired by fax while representing the show at a convention”, though she did admit in her biography that she was snorting so much nose candy they were having to shoot around the times she was too bombed to work.
Interesting. I remember that at the time I had the impression that CC thought she was too good for SciFi (or at least SciFi at that payscale)
And yes, she was brilliant as Ivanova!
She had a small part in a movie called “The Hidden” in 1987; one of those films that should have been a low-budget B movie, but turned out way better than you would expect. Worth watching if you find it anywhere.
IMDB says Christian has worked steady for her whole career, which is more than a lot of more-famous actors can claim, and unlike too many of the B5 case, she’d not dead yet… looks like she had her troubles, but overcame them instead of starring in yet another of those “what happened to…?” rehab reality shows.
Oh, and she played the starship commander in a riotously funny British TV series called “Starhyke.” Think of “The Orville”, except British, circa 2009.
Considering the amount of downtime commonly reported on set in TV and Film production, I do not find it hard to believe that an actor could acquire bad habits, particularly bad habits that create an illusion of having more energy.
The tendency for certain categories of men to provide such “candy” to attractive women merely exacerbates the problem.
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I just finished The Los Alamos Primer and Feynman’s “tickling the dragon’s tail” comes to mind. Maybe not a boom, but there’s more than one way to kill yourself by piling on more…
Actually two gentleman died from prompt radiation from screwed up supercriticality experments
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demon_core), Several others later (much later 20-30 years in some cases) of diseases that had radiation exposure as the proximate cause. These incidents were August 21 1945 and May 21 1946. After this this particular variant of “tickling the dragons tail” was forbidden. Oddly in both cases the same weapon core was involved getting it the name of “the Demon Core”.
I’ve heard of another case where a 3 MW thermal (nominal) reactor had its main control rod pulled out too far (preparatory to hooking it up to an electric control system). Forensic analysis showed that the reactor hit almost 20 GW in 4 ms before as it set off a steam explosion, killing the three operators. (Note the story is kind of gruesome. I do not recommend going through the details near meal times.
)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SL-1
Too fast- not too far. Adding criticality depends on both speed and distance. And there’s been much suspicion it was a murder-suicide with the third death, well, an accident. Involving, of course, ye olde love triangle that often causes such things. Never ever jerk a control rod. Stories I hear that they couldn’t find the man who pulled the rod until they looked up- he was pinned to the ceiling….
That is one of the incidents used in training courses at nuke plants in the US.
Wikipedia has a whole section on criticality events
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticality_accident
The two I’d called out were from one of the “tickling the Dragons Tail” experiment. Looking at the wikipedia article there were two previous accidents at Los Alamos. I’m surprised there were so few. These folks were working in a whole new world at breakneck speed. They went from nothing to 3 sites producing the various parts in just over 2 years. Richard Rhodes “Making of the Atomic Bomb” has this stuff in great detail, although his analysis of the usage part is predictably left and flawed.
He probably had to stick that in to get it published. Because anything atomic is inherently evil, and nothing can be printed without pointing that out.
It’s still the best book out there on the US bomb project. He wrote a book about the Soviet bomb project (Dark Sun), but while it is informative, it’s pretty hard slogging for some reason. Wilcox’ “Japan’s Secret War” covers what as known about the Japanese atomic bomb project circa 1995 when it was written; a lot more stuff has been uncovered since then, but it’s not assembled nicely into book form.
The existence of the Japanese A-bomb project was known in the 1950s, but it was assumed that it was entirely theoretical; they had some laboratory models of isotope separators, but not even plans for units big enough to produce enough fissionables for a bomb. Then much later historians found they had had their own version of Oak Ridge running in Korea, near a dam with plenty of hydroelectric power. The Soviets dismantled the whole thing and hauled it back to Russia, so their brief “assistance” in the Pacific theater was quite profitable for them.
Best as we can figure nowadays, they were behind the Soviets, but not *that* far behind, and they were working without Beria’s pipelines into Los Alamos and Livermore.
Dark Sun seemed to be a melange of the Soviet Program and the Super program. It just isn’t as compelling, possibly because there’s a whole bunch of spy stuff that let the Soviets go faster
than they might have otherwise. As for Japan they seemed to be doing better than the Germans who went off into dead ends.
I think…
I think that most people are going to hit the point of passive resistance/”Irish Democracy” very soon, if not now. Assuming a month’s lag time for the Mainstream Media to finally notice something, there are a lot of people doing quite a bit of their “normal” stuff, but underground. Hell, my sister got her nails done very recently-at the woman’s house who normally does her nails. I would not be surprised if there were underground hair-cutting clubs or many things that are being “kept closed” that are actually open.
And, I do think that short of massive, blatant fraud, Trump will win this election. If he was a protest vote in 2016, he’s going to be a riot vote in 2020. Biden has not shown that he’s…high energy, and people need a high-energy candidate right now. We don’t know who his VP candidate is and all of his choices are people I wouldn’t trust to take care of a hamster, let alone become President if Biden falls down a staircase after the election. Most people are at the “I don’t care about the risks-I’d rather roll the dice with Wuhan Flu than spend any more time at home with my family. I’m about out of unemployment and starting to hit savings and I am very f(YAY!)king tired of being lectured by my ‘moral superiors’ on how terrible I am.”
If the Usual Suspects keep trying to keep this pot lid on, it’s going to explode and nobody is going to like that at all.
They were busily scrubbing Kamala Harris’ wikipedia page to a shine last week.
Komodo Harris?!? Bring ‘er on!
She’s pure evil. I KNOW that.
Stupid bitch isn’t PURE anything. 75% evil, 25% dumb as a post, though, that I would accept.
She’s disliked in her home state.
Of course, since her home state is California, it’s possible that the Biden campaign just doesn’t care. But I would find it hilarious if her presence on the ticket upset enough people that California went for Trump this year.
I strongly suspect that California is going to be a major part of the coming Democrat Vote Fraud scandal. They aren’t especially subtle about it, and have thoroughly cowed what few Republican politicians they have to deal with…and (like most Democrats) refuse to learn that when you attack Trump, he hits back. Hard.
I also think there’s an off chance that much of the California Democrat Machine will be in serious disarray come 2022. If so, THAT will be hugely entertaining to watch.
I don’t even need her to move Cali to Trump, just piss off enough people so California doesn’t skew the (irrelevant) popular vote and take that talking point away from Team Blue.
The problem with her presence merely keeping voters home is that California has legalized “ballot harvesting”. If you don’t mail in your ballot or go to the polls to vote, then one of the campaigns can send someone to your residence, provide you with a ballot for you to fill out, and hand-deliver that ballot for you.
Even assuming that this isn’t used for vote fraud, the legal purpose of this law us to overcome low voter enthusiasm causing low turnout at the polls. If you can’t be bothered to go to the voting booth, then the voting booth will come to you -in a manner of speaking.
Or in other words, the presence of Harris on the ticket keeping voters home won’t be enough. Instead, the voters must either vote for Trump, or fill out a ballot and leave the Presidential choice blank.
All blank mail in ballots sill have Biden filled in by helpful poll workers.
I fully expect that California will be a major epicenter of the coming Democrat Vote Fraud scandal. Whether it will do enough damage to the California Democrat Machine remains to be seen.
There are days, that living in California, I start to play with NUKEMAP and divide number of warheads by twelve on Sacramento. I can make sure that there isn’t a city with just one Trident D4 missile, yay me.
A blank ballot is clearly intended as a representation of Biden’s mind and therefore counts as a vote for Joe Whassname.
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Any voters staying home that will be incontrovertible proof of voter suppression.
The next stage will be “any vote for Trump (Republicans) s a vote for Racism; votes for Racism must not be counted.”
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Disliked is too mild. Despised?
Round Heels Kamala was anointed by the party elite and basically sent by default to replace retiring Babs Boxer after the Dems implemented open-primary-top-two-runoff (with the aid of that idiot Arnold) that resulted in balloting two Dems for the 2016 general election Senate race, so it was either the Dem nobody representative from central casting or Dem Kamala, and all the money was behind Kamala.
Harris’s opponent for the Senate -Loretta Sanchez – was an important figure in Southern California. She cost long-time Orange County congressman “B1” Bob Dornan his seat in the 90s (incidentally, there was known fraud in that election), and represented that district until she ran for Boxer’s old seat.
But she’s not from the Bay Area. And political power in this state is concentrated in the Bay Area. So she lost to Harris.
Political pull is concentrated in SF and it’s offshore colony, Oakland – that’s why Jerry Brown’s rerun started with running for Mayor of Oakland and Willie Brown’s post-Assembly Speaker gig was Mayor of SF.
I can’t remember the last state power position occupant that came from Silicon Valley
not really Arnold’s fault. It was 1: Already being used in local elections and 2: passed as a ballot measure
Voted against it. I’m sick and tired of having my choices being Column A or Column A. (If there really must be a law to keep there from being people with minuscule voting percentages on the ballot, have it be the top vote-getter from each party AS IT SHOULD BE or at the very least, any candidate of at least two who gets more than 15% of the vote.)
In 2016 we had to choose between two Democrats, only one of them was running as a Republican. I swear, without a cheat-sheet you can’t tell them apart.
Here in California we do occasionally end up with a Democratic district that had twenty Dems running in the primary, and just two Republicans.
So when the general election comes around, the only people on the ballot in that Democratic district are the Republicans. It’s the one bright spot in the stupidity that is the Jungle Primary.
The Parties have no Constitutional justification, yet you can only vote for the people they pre-pick for you. In many states – mine is one – you can’t even get a candidate on the ballot unless he is nominated by “an approved political party.”
And people still think my Powerball Election System is silly… (run the balls until a valid Social Security Number comes up, and that person get the office unless they’re underage, senile, or judged incompetent.)
Ah…
Let’s just say that Kamala Harris is proof that women can still get into high positions of power in one of the most classical ways.
I look forward to campaign ads offering multiple repeats of her challenging Biden’s record on busing.
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it’s going to be an interesting election season, one way or another.
We can be confident of one difference from prior GOP presidential campaigns: if Trump loses it won’t be because his campaign pulled any punches.
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And she’s probably the least awful of the several candidates being bandied about.
https://theintercept.com/2020/07/02/kamala-harris-wikipedia/
I gather Susan “I Will Lie For My Party” Rice is a favorite. Presumably they do’t trust Fingers to do his ow lying and keep the lies straight.
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For a time, I thought it was bought-and-paid-for by the presumptuous would-be-Governess of Georgia, who still can’t admit that Mr. Kemp beat her, even though the fraud in her favor that surfaced in some Atlanta precincts shows that along with a face to crack mirrors at twenty paces (they must make them of tougher stuff these days), she couldn’t cheat her way out of a wet paper bag.
My dad– my quiet, understated, cowboy to the core, the normal one dad– wore a plague doctor mask to his massage therapy yesterday.
Yeah, malicious compliance is here.
I just got a memo that we can’t wear bandanas as a mask at Day Job (although you can wear one in public). Now I really want to get the plague doctor mask . . .
I’m just about ready to order a couple of cloth masks with the Division logo on them. It’s a shame so few people will recognize them and get the joke.
I just bought a kheffiyeh. It should be delivered by Tuesday.
That ought to be *mask* enough for Governor Idiot and his Jackboot Gestapo.
I keep musing on wearing a Darth Vader mask.
i was tempted to make a Darth Revan mask.
I walked into our local Fred Meyer a day or two ago as a young person was walking out with a Boba Fett helmet. I approved.
I see you are a man of culture.
My new goal is that if I must wear it, it will be worn visibly wrong *somehow*. Inside out, upside down, definitely not over my nose, maybe on one ear and my chin. It keeps me entertained and from panicking after some of the things that happened in the hospital and at least I can have some fun. Masks must also always be stored balled up in as small a bundle as possible in my pocket and very obviously never washed as well. Disheveled has to be part of the story.
And no, I am *not* putting anyone’s life at risk with malicious compliance, I’m actually the one person in the store you *can’t* get it from, so pretty sure I’m still good under the NAP.
You could take a paper punch and add plenty of ventilation holes…
Ooh! I like it.
The Voices asked my to relay that you could punch the holes in any pattern you want. Though the pattern suggested by Alvin might be a little more in-your-face than you would want…
I have a gaiter that I wear when I go to home depot. It stays wrapped around my neck. I don’t even pull it up.
I have also thought about getting a ski mask or a stocking, and wearing that. If it worked for the Provos, it should work for me.
I identify as a mask-wearing American and if you deny my identity it can only mean you are an oppressor.
This is helped by a capacity for miming donning and removing a mask.
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I usually wear beard net over my mouth and nose. It’s cloth, it qualifies.
Some guy was spotted in Los Angeles wearing a full Darth Vader suit. That includes a mask, right?
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Most don’t have savings. Of any kind. And don’t have anything to sell. Their vehicles either aren’t worth much, or they owe more than it is worth, at the high end. The rend, or they are up side down on any mortgage they might have, at best they might break even if they sell it.
I remember the shocked looks in late 2003 when mentioning that we were hitting savings harder than I wanted because unemployment was running out, to the tune of $300/month. 1) We had savings. 2) Hubby’s net earnings + Unemployment, even with 2 household costs, was less than expenses, so I added to savings when on unemployment. Which helped. But Hubby’s net earnings weren’t quite enough alone, even cutting down the absolute minimum. 3) I wasn’t even talking about the tax exempt savings that triggered penalties. Taught us to never live to the higher salary.
I’m lucky to have some and unless everything goes bad, I won’t be in any serious danger. State of California is saying that they’ll extend unemployment up to the end of the year…fingers crossed.
I had savings. And then family mess exploded, and I had to take care of that (still in process) and when I was trying to get back on my feet from that I was out most of 2 months with WuFlu, and after that the mask hysteria hit and jobs are pfft….
2020 sucks.
I’m sorry.
You’ve said enough here to know what you’ve been going through is Bad. Not only financially.
This is the first time in 42 years that a down turn hasn’t really affected us, from minimum a setback, to threatening to take it all away. Of coarse some of the worst, take it all away, there wasn’t a whole lot to take. At that we’ve been relatively lucky. Sure at the time the whatever disaster didn’t look good, but in the rear view, eh … Which is why I phrase one of them as stupid owl … Can I phrase another one as stupid 44? (Kind of a take off of imp**** 45.) Guess we scrambled correctly to keep the pieces together.
Glad you’re doing okay, at least. 🙂
There are so many times over the last few months that I have said “There but for the Grace of God…”.
My family has been extraordinarily lucky. Two of the “family” jobs were completely safe (Amazon and exceptional ed teacher) – the third, the extra unemployment allowed her to keep paying normal room and board (she, Hallelujah!, has been called back to start on the 27th, and barring idiot politicians will keep it, since a third of her coworkers aren’t even responding to her boss).
FWIW, I just bought all of your ebooks (and I even think I did it right so that Sarah will get her tiny commission). Sorry, I have no room for more dead tree remnants, and PayPal and I have a very disagreeable relationship.
Are the beads and such over on your eBay site? Not right now, but the girls are at the age where they really have to pick out their own presents, I just pay for them.
They are; I have various Swarovski rhinestones up ATM, too, if you want something really sparkly for crafts. *G*
I’m sorry, too. We had a bad couple of years a few years ago, but not on the level you’re describing (though there was a mess, it did involve death, and addiction, and emotional abuse, and probate). I don’t know how it hurts for you, but I know it hurts and drags at you. “This, too shall pass,” isn’t always comforting, but at least it’s true. Eventually.
2020 sucks suppurating donkey balls, and we all know which donkey.
Agreed.
Plenty of people had basement bars and made homemade wine and gin during prohibition, so there is no reason to think that people won’t do the same end run around big government saying nyet to them.
There is a reason why Democrats and their media arm keep trying to raise the fear level; it is the only way for them to maintain power.
And, I think that’s going to back-fire on them immensely. Most people are in the “what the?” mode of mind with all of this crap. Let’s be honest-unless you know someone that caught the Wuhan Flu, are living in the cities having the various…disturbances, and/or are in the medical field-most people are seeing this as Kabuki Grand Guginol theater. We have to MASK EVERYONE!!!…but, rioters are suspiciously immune to this. Teachers are demanding that we keep the kids at home…up until the union realizes that if the kids aren’t in school, they won’t get paid.
And, a lot of this stuff is sub-rosa. The mainstream press doesn’t want to talk about it, because that would be to admit that they’re complicit in this, in that the Emperor not only had no clothes, but has been peeing on everyone and everything.
Oh, and we’re tired of getting lectured by our “betters.” We aren’t shooting or hanging our “betters” yet because we’re too busy ignoring them to get things done. But, if they make us start paying attention to them…
That’s one of the things i’m slowly investigating …
In one of his autobiographical works, Mencken wrote that he taught several people in Baltimore the art of brewing potable beer, on the condition that each of them teach at least two more, and so on. With the consequence that there was (as I recall him putting it) a fine malty air over most of the city for the entire episode.
“I would not be surprised if there were underground hair-cutting clubs”
The First Rule of Underground Hair-Cutting Clubs is: Nobody talks about Underground Hair-Cutting Clubs.
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OK, that one deserves a whole school of Carp! A small one, anyway.
Oh, GOD. I had enough of the pseudo-nihilism of Fight Club to last me my entire life. Even having the delicious Helena Bonam-Carter as Marla barely takes the edge off.
I confess I’ve never seen Fight Club and, absent some variant of A Clockwork Orange‘s Ludovico’s Technique, never will.
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I heard about it endlessly, and tried to watch it. Once.
Then filed it under “more moral gibberish that the Left likes, for some unfathomable reason.”
Oh, I understand why they PUSH this dreck. But they also seem to actually LIKE it.
It’s worth watching-once-just to get the major beats and watch David Fincher sets up the big reveals. He does a lot of things that you don’t notice until they’re pointed out and he does it right. Otherwise, yes, once is enough unless you liked it or are doing a Film Studies degree.
My father got his hair cut in spite of being quite certain that if he catches COVID-19, he will die.
“We’re all in this together” — but some of us are more in it than others.
Some of us haven’t seen a paycheck in months, while some of us (coincidentally, the ones braying “we’re all in this together” the loudest) haven’t missed a single check (although they’ve suffered terribly, terribly from having no fancy restaurants to dine in, no shows or concerts to attend, no awards banquets being held) … and some have made more money on unemployment (while being able to skip rent payments) than they ever did working.
Some of us have been “all in this together” in tiny, crowded apartments while some of us (again, coincidentally, the ones crowing “we’re all in this together” oftenest) living in spacious mansions with pools, tennis courts, even yards large enough to play croquet … although, poor tormented things, they’ve had to do without their lawn services)
So while “we’re all in this together”some of us hear that as the echo of the
kapo’s assurance to those en route to the showerswarden’s reassurance to the inmates.–
Hey, they landed a PPP “loan” so they could keep their household staff, but they made said staff either wear spacesuits when they come in to clean the toilets or move out from their families and into the servant’s wing on the estate to continue nannying junior.
There’s one song that has the “all in this together” phrase in it; Brad Paisley’s “There is no ‘I’ in Beer”. OTOH, I gather he is in a world of hurt, and the grocery store that he and his wife started at the beginning of the year is what’s keeping them alive. When touring artists can’t tour, it sucks. (AFAIK, that’s generally the only way country acts can actually make money anymore.)
“AFAIK, [touring]’s generally the only way country acts can actually make money anymore.”
I gather that’s the whole music industry (probably why so many performers these days offer Vegas=like shows.) Used to, bands toured to sell albums; now bands release songs to promote tours. One more way the Grateful Dead were ahead of their times.
I gather that even the biggest Sixties bands often lost money on albums; at least, that’s what record company accountants told them. There’s probably a very good book possible on the business of selling music.
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Dunno about books, but here’s a dandy article:
https://web.archive.org/web/19990225072719/https://negativland.com/albini.html
I sense a parallel in publisher accounting.
Sounds like Hollywood/Music Industry/Trad Publishing accounting use the same set of crooked books. I think it was Lyle Lovett who said in an interview that his income from selling CDs was zero. OTOH, I’ve been to concerts where the organization sold their (indie-produced) CDs, and presumably kept the profits from that.
I am very very careful to notice that hey! my husband is not only still employed, it’s a job he’s always been able to do from home, and working from home has allowed him to drop the mental health meds by a good percentage. We have good internet. I’ve been stay-at-home, so when we do distance learning this fall, I’m there to hover over the kids. (I’ve even extended the “hover over the kids” to a single mom of my acquaintance, so that she can get some new employment.) And even though I’m an extrovert, I’ve suffered through extreme periods of social deprivation in the past even without internet contact, so this? It sucks, but I’m doing mostly okay. Working out my stress on house projects, so I can feel accomplished.
But—and I say this carefully—I know a casualty of the stay-at-home orders. And in the interests of his family’s privacy, I won’t go into details beyond the detective’s comment of shelter-in-place being one stress too many for a lot of people.
Oof. My condolences to the family.
My main FTF friendly contact used to be my local library. Now they’re only open by appointment with masks. It does make one fray at the edges.
I’ll believe “we’re all in this together” when I hear about the first .gov employee AT ANY LEVEL missing a .paycheck
Three different contractors in my online geek group either lost their jobs entirely or are on temporary hiatus. (Group is mostly military, former military and folks who associate with the above.)
Military and parts of the fed gov who actually Do Stuff have been hit.
Have active duty military been hit all that much? I haven’t really paid attention to that, except as it affected my USMCR son. He had quite a few monthly “drills” that were all online from home, but it looks like he’s still set to be out on his AT and Corporal’s Course all of next month. (The last drill was hands on, at least. Although they ran the three platoons through separately, so I’m not sure if he’ll be paid two full days or two half days. I hope the first; he’s already ticked off about being acting platoon sergeant on less than a day’s notice – when he just barely got his own squad. No idea how that happened…)
I did hear about boot and various MOS sessions being delayed.
Depends on what you mean by “hit”. We (active duty people) are still getting paid. Depending on where you are and what you’re doing, you may still be working, still deploying or preparing to deploy or whatever.
People scheduled to transfer (like myself) are often in limbo, not knowing when they’re leaving, or if they are, even when staying in the same geographic location. You have to request a waiver for PCS travel, and it is a huge bureaucratic nightmare.
Ah. A situation that I did not consider – the son is not transferring, and has no dependents to also sit in suspense while waiting for things to settle out.
Yeah, I do not have any dependents YET, but I am planning to change that directly I get back. The Bugbear and I will go to the courthouse the first weekday after I arrive. Can’t plan for anything more than that at the moment.
Congrats!
Short version: if it requires travel or school, it’s in a very irregular limbo.
One of the guys who is still active just finally got to the school he was supposed to report to in March.
They were in the middle of their last military move, buying the forever home, etc.
Included the fun of getting written up by one level of idiots because he hadn’t reported. When they hadn’t issued him orders yet. Personnel had gotten permission to do it, entered that they COULD do it in their system, then failed to do so. Thank God, it’s now recorded so they couldn’t gundeck that he’d just failed to go along with the orders….
Before the Nimitz left for workups earlier this year the brought everyone on board and kept them there for two weeks before leaving. At least, that was the plan until someone on the ship tested positive, so they had to wait an additional two weeks.
On the civilian side, the shipyard told all the high-risk people and those who were primary caregivers of high-risk people to stay home and paid them admin leave if they couldn’t work from home. The caregivers came back after about a month but those who were themselves at high risk didn’t come back for almost three. The rest of us kept working, but with magic napkins tied to our faces.
Being able to lay off/fire contractors was a big part of the contracting-out movement of the Reagan administration. You can fire a Fed, but it’s so much hassle they mostly get reassigned. If someone gets assigned to run the Combined Federal Campaign for his organization it’s not a good sign.
I know and approve of the switch, but the point is that they are .gov workers, and generally in stuff where results matter.
That’s why the chain is willing to deal with all the BS involved in switching to contractors when they’re not forced to do so. At least some are automatically in the union, too. (People involved were not pleased; even if the union wasn’t sucky, the unions goals did not run along their wishes.)
I will have to mention here that some of us who haven’t missed a paycheck (even had quite a bit of overtime) know this is all nonsense, and have known it since the first numbers came out- from the Diamond Princess. Ships are ideal for spreading URIs- I have a lot of first hand experience suffering from them. What that told us was- not as contagious as advertised, not as deadly as advertised, and if you’re healthy and get it- you’re not going to die as advertised. Unhealthy and get it- that’s another story.
Every number since then has confirmed that.
Something else was loose in Wuhan. The ChiComs contained it successfully. Was it a more deadly variant? Or was it something entirely different? They’ll never say, but the death rate there was much larger than the death rate anywhere else- although they’ve lied about it. We know lots of Chinese died in Wuhan from something. Your guess is as good as mine. My two postulates are a more deadly variant or something entirely different.
One thing I’ve learned is that there are far fewer people who understand numbers then there should be.
a purge under the cover of an epidemic?
Widespread vitamin D deficiency? A STRONG linkage has been established.
Somebody here has mentioned the existence of two strains as seen world-wide and in the US. As I recall, the more deadly version hit Europe and then the US through NYC, while the lesser version hit the Left Coast.
The other side is that so many folks are clinging desperately to any bad news they can get. Because if we allow things to get brighter, and there is a hope to and end for all this (or at least learning to just deal with it as we have had to learn to deal with lots of endemic diseases throughout history), they are going to be required to get their own shit together without the excuse of COVID forcing them into economic and other forms of inactivity. Free will is scary.
I punched some numbers today and concluded that maybe as many as 10% but more likely less have been in mortal danger from this bug. As more (unheeded) experts in their fields are saying, we have shut down for a bad bout of flu (called TDS) in other parliance
The “We’re all in it together” is supported by material drives and rationing. It’s been years so I can’t provide a source – but I did read that if people suffer some deprivation they can blame on a common enemy it generates political support. SO they great a shortage or task to unite people.
Tiger. Tail. Indeed.
In my case I’ve been (along with a sibling) cleaning up on the small scale after a mess… let us say, very reminiscent of the large-scale one we’re all dealing with. Since October. We have cleaned, sold stuff, donated stuff, gone to great lengths to make sure everything is up-and-up legit and all bills paid, taking care of the old dog the rest of the family does not want… and are currently staring down the reality of 1) because of the ongoing Covidinsanity, no shelter will take a healthy dog, 2) likewise because of that, we can’t find a place to move to we can afford until Sep/Oct, and 3) because of certain legal parts of the mess we could not fix, there is a possibility we will have to clear out anyway – and if that happens we’ll have less than 2 weeks’ notice to do it.
I have personally run out of f’s to give.
I don’t remember the title of the movie (most of it wasn’t that memorable), but there’s one in which a guy got fired from his bank job, came home to find (what looked like) his wife cheating on him with another man, goes out for a drive in stunned shock, stops at a light… and a masked guy with a gun tries to carjack him.
Driver Who is Out of F’s To Give: “Boy, did you ever pick the wrong guy on the wrong day….”
One story I read, I think by Larry Niven, had the driver _pretending_ to be suicidal; the afterword noted that his friends upon reading it came up with the protocol of ‘surrender or I’ll crash the passenger side into a tree at 80+ and take my chances’.
-Albert
Heh. In the movie the would-be carjacker was convinced he’d been picked up by a serial killer….
Yes – The Deadlier Weapon, or possibly deadliest, it’s been a long time. Initially collected in his now out-of-print anthology whose name escapes me … Well, searching turns up The Shape of Space as the anthology and confirms deadlier.
Available now in The Best of Larry Niven, apparently, at absurdly high price.
It was first published in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, June 1968
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Addendum: May life start to suck less soon, Amen.
Augh. *Thud* Let’s hope. ATM I keep thinking of Marcus Cole’s quote on the unfairness of the Universe.
Does not quite help.
Dog: if needed ask in diner for temporary caretaker.
In diner?
There’s a vet we can board him at, if things go completely pear-shaped. It’s just… straw, camel. I’m the last person who should have a dog – I take care of him, yes, I’ve been stuck taking care of him for years because his owner was not responsible – but I’m afraid of dogs.
And I’m just… really tired of having everything lined up to finally get out of this mess, and having the rug yanked out like Lucy with a Football. Again.
Boarding a dog gets expensive fast. Where, in general terms, are you and what sort of dog? Sarah’s got followers from all over.
I know; hopefully it’d just be until we could get housing.
Louisiana Catahoula/possibly mix, about 70 pounds, 14 years old, so you can see this gets tricky when trying to find a rental place.
Gulf Coast Florida, generally speaking, and in the heart of “mask or else” idiocy.
Are there any apartment complexes run by Fieldstone Properties in your area? Their complexes tend to allow pets and some have shorter term rentals (i.e. 4 or 6 months instead of a year) available.
I actually think we may be looking at one of theirs – that’s the one with no openings until September. Housing around here is insane.
People are fleeing the cities. . . .
That, and people not able to work are losing houses, etc.
Sounds like Tampa Bay area. The stupid is very strong there.
My mask(an actual N95 mask left over from my screwed up appendectomy) has a large circle and a much smaller circle drawn with a Magic marker on it that says, “smallest hole in masks” above the large circle and “actual size of China virus ” over the smaller circle. Seems to spin up the stupids nicely.
My little surgical mask has the following message written in sharpie on it. “F**KING (fully spelled out) WORTHLESS POS PLACEBO”
On facebook? If not on facebook get someone else to post it in diner for you.
I’m really tired of htis sh*t too. 1)university and son’s graduation is a mess that could be solved in ten minutes (it’s all bureaucracy) if they were open, but I suspect they’re going to drag it for a year then say he can’t graduate because he hasn’t taken courses in a year.
1) I’m driving with expired license plate. We ordered and paid for it in APRIL, but no one seems to know whom we should even TALK to about it.
SO TIRED.
…Huh. I don’t even know anybody on Facebook, but noting!
Well, in Florida license plates go through the county Tax Collector. I’m just lucky that we got that out of the way before the whole Covid… mess. (Yes, had to buy the cars/switch ownership, too.)
we bought a car JUST before the shutdown.
Ouch!
Hmm. Looks like it’s the Colorado Department of Revenue for license plates….
https://www.colorado.gov/pacific/dmv/how-covid-19-closure-affects-vehicle-services
Hopefully some of that might be useful.
Yeah, but we called and they don’t even know whom to talk to, even though we paid for the plates.
Cut two appropriate-sized pieces of 1/8″ Masonite
Paint them the correct colors
Make the license number ‘COVID19’
If you get stopped, explain the reason. “We paid for the plates five months ago and they still haven’t delivered. These are my temporary plates!”
*Facepalm* Of course. Of course it couldn’t be that easy…
I’m waiting for a $20,000+ overpayment refund from the *$^$%^$8(** irs (since May)
Good grief, update your W-4! Cut withholding to break-even, or a little less.
Feds took their money on time (scheduled 4/12). State – finally got the refund in May (considering we filed early February, that is late). In fact, the check came, two days after the Feds sent the CV19 stimulus check. Haven’t had to pull extra money from IRA’s since shutdown, even with the huge veterinarian bills with trying to save Thump, and the two new kittens. Not only that money coming in but not eating out or going anywhere has dropped the expenses a lot.
Good news on the kittens. At 6 weeks, Sissy at 1# 2oz, (she’s tiny) tested slightly positive for Feline Leukemia, but Brother (2# 3 oz) didn’t. Veterinarian figured optimistically that Sissy was showing mama cat’s antibodies. Hubby’s golf buddy Veterinarian said he won’t test kittens before 12 weeks old because of mama cat’s antibodies or until well past being weaned. At 10 weeks, yesterday, both tested negative of the virus. YAH. Sissy gained 1#, and Brother gained a little over 1#, he’s at 3# 5oz now. Still haven’t “given” us their names.
Not possible, if you don’t have a W-4. Had that a couple of years when I was contracting, and had issues with getting a couple of clients to send correct 1099s.
At least in California (!!) if you have expired tags due to not arriving yet, but have the paid receipt in hand, they can’t cite you.
Supposedly tomorrow (says USPS) arrives the very small package that was ordered and sent Priority Mail … on the 3rd. That makes it 15 days, a new modern record. (Had two take 9 days last month.)
Dragging on seems to be contagious.
OUCH.
Fortunately here the license plates themselves don’t expire. (But, seriously, people, don’t need a new car.)
Ours is “new” to us. 13 yo.
BUT we needed one because the other one expired.
Being on more-or-less the other side of the world, I can’t offer to drive down and help out, much as I would like to. But I can pray for you. You’ve emailed me once, so I have your email address; I’ll send you an email so that, if you want, you can let me know any prayer requests that you wouldn’t want to put on the publicly-accessible ‘Net.
Prayers are much appreciated. If we can just get through the next few months… well, then I’m sure Murphy will throw something else at me. But if we can get another place to live and sell the house, then (as far as I know) that’s the last legal tangle we need to cut through. Everything else is just… heartbreaking clean-up.
At some point, the malicious fraud, false advertising, and gleeful cancel culture of the legacy media will result in a backlash that destroys them. (Or, possibly, they’ll be disposed of as expended tools by marxist tyrants who take over; Lord watch over us as You do for drunks and fools and avert our just desserts!)
Whether that backlash will be financial, judicial, or extra-legal may depend on how long it continues to be deferred.
-Albert
Saint Augusto of the whirling blades, spare us your necessities.
Amen.
I am afraid of a Marxist takeover. How likely do you think it is? I’m a normally anxious person and I’m getting swamped by my fears and bad thoughts lately.
Wish me luck on my colonoscopy on Monday.
Not very. The Marxists are loud, mostly because they’ve managed to capture many of the cultural bullhorns, but they aren’t numerous. Most people don’t care about politics until August of an election year, they mostly go by images and emotion. This is why Trump’s response to the riots has been pretty much spot on, the only images have been those of Democrats behaving badly. Trump’s made some tweets about taking on the rioters, which prompted Democrat politicians to defend the rioters. Trump’s campaign themes are going to be 1) get the economy going again, 2) where’s Joe?, and 3) Americans don’t have to live in fear.
Trump has the advantage due to the Dems’ inability to not “throw him into that Briar Patch.” Their conditioned reflexes make them highly reactive and Trump has shown he knows how to employ that.
He’s already got them telling suburban moms that their kids will not be in school next year. That’s gotta be going over well.
His biggest advantage is he is selling America o having choices while the Left is offering Bureaucratically made choice for all – that’s like selling Unsweetened Lemonade.
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He’s also got them telling suburban moms that police need to go away. That’s going to be a great moment in the debate.
Luck.
Also on the prep.
I think Dave Barry had a point when he advised against mixing “Golightly” with vodka…
I don’t drink. Do you mean that I shouldn’t worry? Or that I should be concerned but keep perspective, Or that I should just laugh. I’ve found Dave Barry impenetrable. I don’t understand. He goes places and does things and tells stories that are supposed to be funny. What are you saying?
I dunno either — I read “Golightly” and wondered what Breakfast at Tiffanys has to do with vodka.
I probably ought watch the movie, I guess.
BTW – good luck on the colonoscopy. The prep is far worse than the procedure, based on the two I’ve been through (or have they been through me?) but be sure to have somebody accompany you to drive you home and, more importantly, remember what the doctor doing the scoping tells you afterward. I might just take a heavier hit from anesthesia than most folks, but in both cases I apparently gave the doctor an impression of awareness and in neither case had I any later recall what was told me.
–
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That’s what husbands are for.
Or parents … Dad was there my first colonoscopy. Hubby had been exiled by work to middle of nowhere. Dad could be there …. Kid only had his permit. A semi incapacitated mom was not an adequate co-pilot.
Good luck on the colonoscopy. Agree with Res, the prep is absolutely the worst part. I’ve had the dubious honor of having to do it 3 times now, since age 50. Get to do it again in a little over a year (at 65). Every 5 years. Stupid polyps and ulcers; cancer free. They acknowledged that the prep might be the problem. But I’ve had other symptoms that suggests not 100% can be blamed on the prep.
The procedure was count back from 10 to 1 … me “Te … you are done?”‘ Or words to that effect. I got a lot of paperwork to read as well as the explanation from the doctor after the procedures.
Where we get the colonoscopy done, they require a buddy there to also listen to what the doctor tells you afterwards and to take you home. No buddy, no colonoscopy. They will not let you leave alone to take a bus or other public transportation. Nor will an Uber, or taxi, be adequate. In theory they want someone with you when you get home. Not something they have control over however.
Place I went, they required the buddy to stay if it was an afternoon appointment. (They weren’t waiting for the buddy to show up so they should shut down the place, no sirree!)
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I forgot that point. No dropping off & leaving. The buddy had to be there the whole time. No matter what time the appointment.
“Golightly” is a product you mix with water, sort of like those powdered energy drinks. After drinking about two gallons of it, you need a seat belt on the throne.
According to Barry, the colonoscopy tech suggested mixing it with vodka instead. Barry initially thought it was a fine idea, then reconsidered having to make a warp-speed trip to the throne room while drunk.
Good luck at the hospital. I hate that procedure.
c4c
sorry for the OT, just in case Sarah has inside info? instapundit site is down , as is some other nominally right wing sites like twitchy, gateway pundit, right scoop. “Server IP Cannot Be Reached”
never mind, seems to be back
Comes up for me?
Cloudfare had a major outage today and that means up to 40% of internet was impacted as they handle about 40% of DNS and CDN services globally.
Note that it may have been due to a DDOS attack by the Chicoms:
https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2020/07/17/websites-crash-worldwide-as-cloudflare-suffers-outage/
For a few short minutes where I am- a whole lot of sites couldn’t be reached. Downdetector showed a spike at a lot of places when I checked. DDOS? If you go to the site now and look, complaints of down sites peaked at shortly after 5:30 PM.
There’s been some interesting behavior on Twitchy for over a week. In Chrome, every individual story link returns a 404 error. It works fine in Brave.
A month and a half ago, every (mostly Democrap) government official that could get near a microphone was talking about mandated generalized testing for Covid.
Notice how that suddenly stopped?
I bet they suddenly figured out that if they implemented generalized testing, then we’d have irrefutable proof that there is 4-5x more asymptomatic people than people who actually ‘had covid’… and a lot of people would start asking a lot of questions.
There is a story in USA Today claiming that federal agents are grabbing protesters in Portland and sticking them in unmarked vans. One claims to have been locked in a federal holding cell, but ‘could not be reached for comment’.
The story
So, did it happen? If so, who are the agents? If Trump ordered those detentions, it was a stupid move that only provides cover for the enemy.
So, did it happen?
I’ll go with “not outside of their dreams,” possibly rude ones.
I’m going with “Not ordered by Trump”, IF the allegations are even true. Too many time it has been “Look over here …. This is happening! Bad Feds (or right whatever) Racists.” Then it goes away because it didn’t happen or it was them doing it.
Federal cops wearing uniforms and badges are arresting Antifa members in Portland. The arrestees are getting placed in unmarked vehicles because the Feds don’t use marked cop cars. The Left has been playing up certain aspects of this, and lying about other aspects (including one congressman who claimed on Twitter that the arrests are made by out of uniform officers) in an attempt to make it sound sinister. But it’s merely (Fed) cops doing their job.
Saw something where the officers are cleverly disguising themselves with official jackets labeled innocuous things like “Police” and “FBI”. Who would dream that such people might be law enforcement?
$SPOUSE recorded Tucker Carlson’s show and I saw some of that segment before bedtime last night. Apparently, Sen Merkley (D-ranged, OR) has been spreading the most incendiary videos of the arrests.
Nah. It’s a ploy for sympathy from antifa.
USA today considers people throwing firebombs at federal buildings to be peaceful protestors, so their claiming that “protestors” are being arrested and held is likely missing some rather crucial information about the conduct that actually led to those arrests.
You called it.
Shooting fireworks, throwing frozen water bottles, aiming laser pointers at their eyes — all the sort of thing which would get the police denounced in the same MSM outlets defending the “good clean fun” of the defenders of citizen rights.
Same as they did defending the KKK back in Reconstruction and the efforts to end Jim Crow.
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I read in PJ that federal agents were arresting people who had crossed state lines to riot. If true, I will be interested To see how it plays out.
Finally hit my Facebook today, complete with carefully edited pictures.
They erased the uniform markings, and blurred the gas masks so they look like just masks, and from how closely the shots were cropped I suspect the background was more important stuff.
But I was able to find the supposedly terrifying threat… from the front page news, two weeks ago, when the arrested the antifa guys who were firing illegal fireworks into federal buildings, AFTER they set it on fire.
https://www.ijpr.org/law-and-justice/2020-07-07/federal-law-enforcement-agencies-deployed-to-portland-protests
I see Pelosi is denouncing it as Banana Republic stuff, and the local politicians are engaging in attacking one another.
It requires a heart of stone not to laugh.
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Arresting the rioters who are setting buildings on fire is “Banana Republic stuff,” while carefully not enforcing laws against Politically Protected groups isn’t?
That is impressively insane, even for them.
I can just picture MaligNancy in one of those Generalissimo uniforms with fifteen pounds of medals.
But not until after the elections.
They now want to keep piling things on, to keep the return to normal so far future
I don’t know. C’s favorite chain restaurant is gone forever because buffets a D salad bars cause COVID. If we don’t re-elect Trump they will make thw COVUD permenant. I saw an articles arguing we need to make wearing no mask the same as drunk driving in cultural terms.
If Trump wins? Well, the riots keep going to punish us with mayors and governors just letting it go.
They have won to the point that the America I grew up in is gone. Our best outcome now is that highly conformist and distrustful but more localize America you wrote about months ago.
And now I live with the isolated of that off grid cabin in the north woods I dreamed about without the advantages like snow and not having to deal with stupid people.
I don’t even want to burn it all down anymore. So many people have surrendered to the left I’ll let them do it for me.
I saw an articles arguing we need to make wearing no mask the same as drunk driving in cultural terms.
That author is out of his ever loving mind, kinda like the Smithsonian idiots who thought that declaring logic, science and due process to be “white culture” was going to fly.
They’ve got you surrounded and isolated, don’t believe them. They’re trying to brain wash/gas light you as hard as they can.
Resist.
Doing my best. Thursday was a Very Bad Day. ATM just mostly dejunking and paring down stuff in prep for moving… whenever.
I don’t wear a mask unless forced to. If I can’t get a needed service without a mask, I wear it under protest. LOUD protest. I tell everybody that masks are useless, the blind stupid panic is blind and stupid, it’s all Political Plague Theatre.
The checkout clerk refused to scan my purchases until I put on the stupid mask, and whined, “Quit complaining, I have to wear a mask all day, you should have to wear one.”
I got an answer for that. “So, because you have been robbed of your freedom, everybody else’s freedom should be taken away too? That’s a shitty attitude.”
I got an answer for that. “You are being paid to wear that mask, it is a condition of your employment. I am not being paid to wear a mask, I am being forced to accept it as a price of bringing you my custom.”
Even when in my youth I was forced to work in customer service roles I was wont to express sympathy for customer complaints but observe that if my views carried any weight in the business I wouldn’t be standing there listening to complaints. I lacked Upper Management Privilege and wasn’t ashamed to admit it.
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This. Something Razorfist has argued recently: the left is focused like a laser on demoralizing our side because they can’t motivate their own. As long as we actually go to the polls and vote in November I think we win this.
And as for dealing with the left’s reaction to another Trump victory, well… Didn’t I hear something about presidents having more flexibility after reelection?
Yeah, what FoxFier said.
We are all fried, and fucking tired of this.
Everyone in the US is stressed and crazy right now.
As a conservative, we can hit a bad cluster of inputs that gets defeatist propaganda past our filters.
Intellectually I think Sarah’s usual happy warrior arguments are correct. But emotionally I’m not up to making that case.
I wound up spending a lot of the day on recovery, healthwise. And rest and recovery are definitely worthwhile. I’ve had better days in the past, and look hopefully forward to more in the future.
They don’t want to return to normal, they want to create a “new normal” in which they have absolute control over the minutiae of everyone’s lives.
I had to forcibly remind myself this morning of Victor Frankel’s dicta: We control our response. No one outside of us can touch how we choose to respond to events. I can snarl and be angry and cause myself trouble, or I can find ways to work around the imposed system. Granted, I have to remind myself of this over and over, especially after an unpleasant surprise I got this afternoon, but I WILL find a way around it. Or I will point out “Under these circumstances, Policy X is going to inhibit Desired Outcome Y. Here are some options I have devised in order to permit Desired Outcome Y to be achieved.”
Viktor Frankl was mandatory reading in one of my college classes, and I think they should drop that down to high school. SUCH a good book.
I rather doubt most high school classes can read at a high enough level to understand Frankl. I’m not even sure most college students can.
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Afterthought: I AM sure most pedagogues would deem his insights highly dangerous and inimical to the body politic. Where would
Democrat Partythis country be if people adopted a philosophy of rational thought and personal responsibility?–
Why, Ed College Drones with zero skills might actually have to WORK for a living.
*shudder*
“If Trump wins? Well, the riots keep going to punish us with mayors and governors just letting it go.”
Then either everyone moves out, or a lot of politicians end up unemployed.
Reports are that the former is already starting to happen. I think we’ll also see a lot more citizen groups taking up arms to defend their communities. Sure, the press can do the whole “Racisty racist with a racist gun!” thing when it’s a white guy with a gun defending his home. But it’s a lot more difficult to pull that off when a group of black men tell the pasty-faced Antifa members to go away or else. In fact, we’ve already seen that sort of thing. There’ve been a number of instances of black men confronting Antifa and BLM idiots. There’s also been mention of local gangs doing what the cops won’t do, and forcing Antifa and BLM to stay out of their communities. And unlike the cops, the local gangs don’t care about a rioter’s civil riots. Strangely, *cough* these incidents don’t seem to get that much attention in the news.
Finally, if Trump can keep the various Federal law enforcement groups on a tight leash, and resist the urge to misuse them (unlike Nixon…), then he has a potent tool to reign in the worst of the offenders. We’re starting to see that already in Portland, where Antifa tried to directly confront the Feds. So far it hasn’t worked in Antifa’s favor, and the recent snatch and grab arrests by Federal law enforcement seems to have the local Antifa members unsettled.
“ Well, the riots keep going to punish us with mayors and governors just letting it go.”
Where are those riots occurring? How log can politicians pander to the rioters and remain in office? Is it likely that riots will spread to red States and cities? (As Rick Blaine said, “Well there are certain sections of [the USA], [Antifa], that I wouldn’t advise you to try to invade.”)
There will be considerable healthy communities once the rioters have exhausted local fuel or are put down.
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I am tired of living in “interesting times.” Glad I am almost 81 so probably don’t have to put up with this crap much longer. But I come from very long-lived stock on both sides. Back to the drawing board as the saying goes…
81! My mom is 85 and getting younger. You have at least 3 more presidential elections or more.
yeah. Dad is 89. Mom is 85
Both of mine are 87.
I like the idea of keeping the name and changing the logo to a potato-red, of course.
Mom is 97, though since she lives not too far from Chicago, I figure her votes will be tallied for a few more decades.
Re: WWII scrap drives, Compton Mackenzie wrote several WWII novels that are savage about homefront stupidity, as well as funny things connected to reasonable homefront activities. There is one called The Red Tapeworm which has a government minister inadvertently saying the wrong thing in a radio talk, and getting trash and second-hand goods sent to his home.
I think if they’re going to rename the Washington Redskins, the Washington Redtapers would be appropriate.
I hear that some Navajo have suggested the Code Talkers.
Apparently not only are Florida Health officials including things like motorcycle accident deaths as being due to the CCP Virus, they think doing so is perfectly justified and that there is nothing wrong with it:
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/07/17/florida-health-officer-lables-motorcycle-crash-victim-a-coronavirus-death/
*tongue in cheek* Well, maybe he had dual NY/FL citizenship, so they used the NY mortality reporting rules.
…That should not be as funny as it is….
There was a sort of unholy trinity of nuclear war movies about that time. “The Day After,” was actually done fairly well in some ways. “Testament ” was a gooey soap opera with negligible science (if the small town was away from the blast, why the #$!! didn’t anyone think about throwing up fallout shelters? No, let’s just all wait to die). The totally depressing one was a British movie titled, “Threads.” The Russians start it, lots of people die, the survivors are back to nasty, brutish and short, plus massive genetic damage…the other two are cheerful by comparison.
OMG!!!! Guess what I just saw as a _recommendation_ for me on YouTube.
Coming back from the dead, one of the single greatest pieces of crap sf, in the form of a TV movie with an all-star cast….
Yes! It’s _The Day After_ (1983), one of the singlemost ridiculous fearmongering pieces of liberal Catholic crap in the entire decade of the 1980’s. Aired on one of the big three networks, and surrounded with all kinds of hype and newspaper stories.
Talk about your propaganda… this is definitely it.
Oh my. I remember watching that when it was first broadcast. Fortunately, I was already of a mental age to dissect the idiocy of it.
You must remember that it was part of the massive pre-election propaganda effort against the last President that actually accomplished some conservative goals while in office. Back then it wasn’t “Orange Man Bad,” it was “Bonzo Monkey Man Bad.”
Forgot to get rid of the “Catholic” part. There was a liberal Catholic movie movie called Testament that came out at the same time as The Day After, and it was based on a short story called “The Last Testament” by Carol Amen, which came out in St. Anthony’s Messenger magazine. The Day After kinda ripped off parts of “The Last Testament,” to the point of confusing me about which was which.
I saw it in my parents’ house in Jacksonville. There was a huge thunderstorm the next morning. So I get awakened by a bright flash of light and an enormous roar of sound….from the east, where the naval base is…
That got my heart rate up for a few seconds.
got played in school in one of my classes
I suppose that’s better than playing Duck Soup in a political science class, albeit less entertaining.
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‘Duck Soup’ is probably the most honest political documentary ever produced. I’m not even sure it was SUPPOSED to be a comedy. 😛
Useful* reminder:
There’s No Such Thing as a Federal Mask-Wearing Mandate
By David Harsanyi
Reporters keep asking White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany if the president will consider a mask-wearing mandate. Journalists keep writing about federal mandates. House speaker Nancy Pelosi says a federal mandate on mask wearing is “long overdue.” Joe Biden promises that if he’s elected this November, he would require all Americans to wear masks in public.
Have any reporters every wondered which federal agency would be tasked with forcing Nevadans or Texans to wear masks in public? Or under what constitutional power Biden can enact a mask-wearing ban in Vermont? Will he just sign an executive order? Or will he just declare a mandate like Michael Scott declared bankruptcy? And what federal agency would enforce the mask-wearing mandate? Will National Guard be called in? Will CDC paratroopers be dropped into Arkansas? Will Biden direct local police departments to chase down non-compliant joggers? Will there be a fine? Will there be jail time? Will the offenders stand in federal courts?
And what if Biden could enforce this edict? Every day, thousands of needless interactions over petty crimes put police in contact with Americans. Let’s remember that Eric Garner was killed for selling ten-cent cigarettes. Now, many of the same people who advocate “defunding” police want to create a national mandate that would result in thousands of interactions between cops and citizens.
The CDC already recommends that everyone “should wear a cloth face cover when they have to go out in public” — though the agency recommended the opposite when the outbreak began — as a way of mitigating the spread of the coronavirus. The media can’t stop talking about wearing masks. Lots of people do. Some people don’t. Businesses are free to force customers to wear them on their private property. As far as I can tell, most do. State governments are free to mandate mask wearing, or strongly suggest it, or not.
Mask wearing has become just another stupid front in our partisan war. The fact is that whenever Donald Trump fails to engage the federal government in ways that Democrats demand, they claim he is negligent; and whenever he uses the federal government in ways they oppose, they rediscover the Tenth Amendment and accuse him of being a dictator. Trump could no more declare a no-mask mandate than Biden could force the entire country to wear masks. It’s all just political theater.
David Harsanyi is a senior writer for National Review and the author of First Freedom: A Ride through America’s Enduring History with the Gun.
*Of course, none of this will deter a Biden Administration with the backing of House & Senate.
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> Will CDC paratroopers be dropped into Arkansas?
That would be fine, though brief, entertainment.
Especially once duck season starts . . .
Yes, it can’t last forever – the real question is whether they can make fooling enough people last for another 4 months – if they can manage that (and they’ll throw all their eggs to try) then if they can finagle a win-at-any-cost, it doesn’t matter if they can maintain it another day – they’ll have plenty of time to cement their hold.
There’s been quite a bit of speculation as to whether the CCP Flu might be a genetically engineered virus. I’ve been starting to wonder if this is the “cry wolf” part of a one-two punch. This one is just bad enough in the really serious cases that it frightens the bejezus out of people, leading to an overreaction by government and media, in the process creating so much distrust that they’re effectively discredited. Once this dies down, the real nasty virus gets released — and no one will believe the authorities or take the necessary precautions until things reach catastrophic proportions and it’s too late, all because of the “cry wolf” effect of the first virus turning out to be a nothingburger.
We’ve already lost pretty much our entire convention season. We just got word that our fall outdoor event has been canceled. It’s looking like we probably won’t get our November anime convention, even if it happens at all, because they’ve had to reduce the number of vendors in order to put more space between booths. The October sf con is rather shaky at this point, and we’re uncertain whether we want to put down money on the November comic con, because of the likelihood it too will be canceled, leaving us with yet more money tied up in cons rolling over to next year.
One particular reason that I’m pretty certain that this wasn’t a planned release is because the Chinese seem to be spooked. If this was the non-lethal half of a one-two punch, then I don’t think we’d see the level of response that we have from Beijing.
The one-two punch theory is the only one I’ve seen so far that would explain why the ChiComs would deliberately release a virus on the own soil; plausible deniability when the second, more deadly, strain gets released on someone else’s soil and someone says “This looks like it was cooked up in a lab.” They would then respond with “Well, people said that about the COVID-19 virus too, and we were the first ones hit by that. So whoever did this one, it wasn’t us.”
But as junior said, the Chinese reaction (locking Wuhan down HARD, etc.) looks exactly like a government that’s been caught by surprise, whereas a deliberate release wouldn’t have caught them by surprise. So while I have heard (and believe) that evidence points towards COVID-19 being a tailored virus, I’m still firmly convinced that it was accidentally released from the Wuhan virology lab. Probably they were creating SARS variations in order to study how to combat them (they were, after all, hit quite hard by SARS in 2002-2003, which apparently originated in cave bats in Yunnan province), and someone got sloppy with safety protocols. It’s not like Chinese factories have a history of poor quality control, after all…
I hope you’re right and it was a lab accident, not some nefarious scheme. Sometimes it’s good that governments tend to the incompetent, unlike in spy thrillers, etc.
China lies. They lie to themselves. 11 Poo is trying to become the last Chinese emperor. So everyone had to look like they were doing what was required. Critical point. LOOK LIKE. No one wants to admit a mistake. This is China’s weakness. They are all corrupt. That is why Australia had to limit the amount of baby formula visitors could take out. Chinese parents did not trust milk for babies. Think how evil a society is that allows tainted milk for babies.
My retirement job is working of the U.S. Census. Data falsification is the worst evil to the census. That is why they do samples to check accuracy. To make sure no one takes shortcuts. This is what is the most evil about what is happening now with the corruption of data about the panic. We no longer can trust the data. We are on a ship sailing into hazardous water with a sabotaged depth sounder that cannot be trusted. How many thousands have died because of the conspiracy to discredit hxyQ?
We can’t get off that ship. Can we repair the depth sounder before we crash on the reef? Losing hope before you crash is stupid. Do what you can. Despair is a sin, as Jerry P. was so fond of saying.
it is likely an engineered virus made to understand the original SARS and how it got to the outside is probably through, either someone there going to the market and spreading it unintentionally, said someone passing it to someone who then went to the market, or the bats used in the study being disposed of by someone selling them to the market instead of disposing of them as haz-mat, or the person supposed to dispose of them bringing them home for themselves and spreading it to family, who then spread it at the market . . .
The Stupid and Evil with the CCP Gov’t goes from there. “Hey, we got this thing going ’round, but hide it!” “What if it spreads outside the nation?” “Who cares, then we won’t be the only ones dealing with it. Just deny everything.”
> My retirement job is working of the U.S. Census. Data falsification is the worst evil to the census.
Consider DJT’s situation, trying to build a coherent policy on a quicksand of lies. And when they get caught, it’s just “whatever” and nothing changes.
Dr. Falsie is a big part of why it was being worked on there. iirc he steered them much backing money to help set up that lab.
One man in Colorado, trying to fight back:
https://www.lynchforcolorado.com/post/i-want-my-state-back-the-democrats-have-destroyed-my-state-enough-wake-up-get-our-state-back
Okay, I had to go there – for those who don’t follow the link, “lynch” is not the advocated solution, it’s the guy’s NAME. Mike Lynch for Congress.
Whew! Although…
But— but— his very NAME is RRAAACIISSST!!!
LOL, yeah, he could have been a little more savvy about his domain name…
So, I’m looking through an old forum thread from 2019 and find this:
https://www.npr.org/2019/03/27/707095754/ny-suburb-declares-measles-emergency-bars-unvaccinated-minors-from-public-places
N.Y. Suburb Declares Measles Emergency, Bars Unvaccinated Minors From Public Places
March 27, 2019
In a move aimed at getting the public’s attention, officials in New York’s Rockland County have declared a state of emergency in response to an ongoing measles outbreak. Among the measures: a 30-day ban on any unvaccinated people under the age of 18 from being in public places. …
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Gee, somehow this seems *familiar*…
Funny thing is, if they really wanted to get folks to vaccinate… they could try listening.
But that would require doing something besides screaming that vaccines don’t contain fetal tissue, when folks object to the vaccines being cultured in fetal cell lines from “elective abortions” on 62 and 66.
Measles isn’t cultured in either of those, but you can’t get it unless you have the MMR shot, and the Rubella vaccine is.
I just realized…even the “Christian” reporting downplays those few innocent deaths about that time…which is also about when they were needing to get new cell lines. IIRC, China soon “provided” at least one.
Measles is rather more serious, and aside from the risk of permanent damage or death, it effectively resets your immune system so you’re no longer immune to anything. So then you catch everything *again* (or need to be revaccinated as the case may be).
OTOH given that not vaccinating your kids against serious preventable diseases is stupid, I’m all for letting natural selection do its job. Just not at my expense.
I think our hostess’ description of “tiger by the tail” describes the situation well. A number of D governors saw their chance to destroy the Trump economy, and they took it. Anything to defeat DJT. Now, they have to keep their knee on the neck of the country until November, so the Pandemic Theater mandates are going to grow ever more grotesque.
I see the fecal matter hitting the air impeller in mid-Nov if Trump wins, and by New Years if the Ds can manufacture enough votes to get the Alzheimer-American into the WH. Riots in the streets by the left or anti-gov guerrilla warfare by normals.
I suppose I could have used some metaphor about Greebo emigrating to a new world to prepare Sarah’s home there as a way of shoe-horning this in, but it. Would. Be. Wrong.
We immigrants know the America-bashers are ridiculously wrong
By Karol Markowicz
It’s my America-versary, the day my mother and I arrived in the United States. I was just 1 year old, and America was deep in her 1970s blues.
Every July 20, we celebrate. It’s up there with birthdays and anniversaries for our family.
It’s the day we became free.
My father had been granted permission to leave the Soviet Union first and had arrived in Brooklyn the previous summer. Nineteen seventy-seven was a particularly tough time for New York and the nation. It would be two more years before President Jimmy Carter would deliver his infamous “malaise” speech, but the crisis was in full view when my father landed at JFK Airport.
A few days after his arrival, the 1977 blackout happened. The lights went out in New York and, with them, the sense of basic security. Riots raged; fires and looting were widespread. It wouldn’t have been crazy for a new immigrant to wonder if he had made a mistake.
When my mother and I arrived (a year later), the country was in disarray. The overwhelming feeling was that America’s best days were behind her.
Then things began to turn around. It wasn’t easy, but America achieved a remarkable upward climb. President Ronald Reagan was elected on a message of hope. He created favorable conditions at the federal level, and the American people did the rest.
It would be 13 more years before Rudy Giuliani was elected mayor. Thanks to his policies, Gotham became the safest big city in the country and an urban model for the rest of the world.
Perhaps these astonishing successes lulled many into believing that no work was required to maintain our security and prosperity. We are just beginning to pay the price for such complacency.
[SNIP]
Last year, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez suggested that America offered most citizens little more than “garbage,” owing to inequality and other social ills. Normally, when someone insults America, I bristle, my nostrils flair, and I’m ready to defend my country. But this time, I smiled. It was funny.
Here was a member of Congress, supremely privileged and supremely unaware of how lucky she was to have been born American. Her rage and fury, her provincial mindset, are products of her ignorance. She doesn’t know what people around the world live through. She doesn’t know garbage.
Bless her heart!
[SNIP]
There’s irony in the fact that the party which considers itself “pro-immigrant” is also the one that wants to destroy our country’s rich and complicated heritage. If Democrats believe immigrants come to America to be anything but American, they are kidding themselves. My family and millions of others came here longing to be free, to say what we want, to worship how we want and to raise American children who will know nothing but freedom.
On the day my mother and I became citizens and said the Pledge of Allegiance in a room full of new Americans, there were few dry eyes in the house. Don’t end our patriotic displays because an influential fringe has decided they are somehow evil.
We are in a difficult moment in our nation’s history. But if an immigrant family — arriving in a new country in the tumultuous late 1970s — could believe in the goodness of America and have hope for a better day, so could we all. America’s best days are ahead, if we remember what made us great in the first place.
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