212 thoughts on “NEKULTURNY -A Blast From The Past from September 2020”

1. The great paradox is this:
   God’s perfect plan requires us imperfect people.

   God invites us to join His Plan.
   That requires listening.
   Men find that hard.

   1. Men in the sense of humans, yes.

2. If you don’t have a local network, folks, what are you waiting for?

   Yes, yes, online is easy mode. And we’ll need remote contacts, too, if things go red arrows. But we’ll need local just as much, and we have to be able to trust them with our children’s lives, if we have children.

   And I need to check on a local friend who’s ready to riot over vax mandates, which haven’t yet happened. Because my roll is apparently saying ‘Wait, wait, not yet, not time yet.”

   1. Amateur radio – even if things don’t hit that level, still useful in natural disasters (cell and landline service often go out for days/weeks).

3. I don’t wobble, I weeble. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFzhjnjXc2o (For those not of a certain age.)

   1. But do you fall down?

      1. Only if pushed. Or if I try to navigate a staircase with a new prescription in my bifocals and don’t reeeeeaaaaallly look carefully.

         1. The optometrist didn’t bother to mention that little peculiarity when I got my first pair of bifocals. The first time I went down some steps I was rather annoyed.

            1. I walked out to the car, fortunately on level, drove with my old glasses, got out of the car at the mall, and had the pavement stop doing funny things while I was walking in.

         2. I never wore bifocals but went straight to progressive lenses. For a long time that, combined with astigmatism correction, meant each new prescription made navigating an interesting experience for a few days. Now my prescription changes so little each time that my brain doesn’t have to adjust.

            1. This is what I’ve done too. Progressives, or bifocals, were recommended, I held off for a long time. I could read without glasses. But finally got tired of taking off my glasses to read labels in the grocery store and other not-home, not-restaurant, locations. Then got to the point where I had to have the reading part of the progressives to read labels. Most menus I can still take off my glasses. Computer stuff, except first thing in the morning, I’m good still too. Current prescription I’ve had for 3 years now. Always “slight change don’t bother unless you want new glasses, your current lens are in fantastic shape”. When my prescription was changing regularly, I too had a few days of “Oh, wow!” Doesn’t help that I don’t wear them around the house. Only wear them outside (because of the photo sunglasses reaction).

      2. It’s all right if you get back up.

4. By the way, weaponized umbrellas exist. https://unbreakableumbrella.com/ I own the collapsible version and it’s a pretty good headknocker.

   1. & most umbrellas have a rather pointy tip. I felt quite comfortable carrying such in some rather curious parts of Malaysia and Thailand.

   2. I know.

5. Also, King County (Seattle) has followed the CDC and recommended that everyone wear masks in public spaces regardless of vaccination status. It’s a “recommendation”, not a “requirement”, and everyone including businesses seems to be ignoring it and continuing on wearing masks to the same degree as they were already. Hell, I’m going to a goth night at a local club (our usual club still being closed for repairs), and there’s been no change in the “vaccinated people can dance and drink without masks” policy.

   1. Oregon has done the same, with the threat that the governor will mandate masks. Again. Response in the flyover county was pretty poor the last time (only non-federally mandated compliance was at a retail electric/plumbing outfit that was feeling pressure, and the not-Cabelas sporting goods store that was worried about having the gun section shut down).

      Even the Fred Meyer (Kroger) had massive noncompliance. I think people are getting used to breathing freely again, and are going to be reluctant to going back. Not sure how emphatic the Nope will be west of the Cascades, but we’re having a lot of Irish democracy over here.

      My ham radio project went on hold when I injured myself, but I’m slowly getting the pieces mounted and readier to go. That should enable some cross country communications. There’s a local group that might be suitable; have to figure out how many/which people are glowies. We’re not all that far from Malheur county…

      1. Most hams are centrists/right. Generally NOT Left, even Soft Left.

         1. A nearby neighbor ham is hard-right. I *love* this area.

   2. Nevada has done the same. They are trying to get the “mentals” to self-identify. I’m still having to use a mask at doctor’s offices though.

      1. Annoying

         1. Yes

      2. Oregon’s Health Authority claims it’s a combination of state and federal regulations for health care masking, and that includes pharmacy departments in multiple-department stores. Compliance at one medical practice was about 30% in the lobby (though that was last week, before the CDC moved the goalposts again). OTOH, the tech told me I had to mask up before she did her thing.

         I was amused to see that dental offices are included in the mask edict.

         1. amusing about dental.

            1. My dentist double-masked, but both extraction rounds were messy. I was still on warfarin, so she could use all the protection she could get.

               Got the shallow end of the gene pool when it came to teeth.

               1. me too

   3. I would think some goths would totally rock the whole “mask” concept…

      1. I don’t doubt that they will. “Cybergoths not worried about mask mandate” memes have been going around since the beginning.

         However, I am not a cybergoth or steamgoth; I am a former romanti-goth who has aged into vest-and-tie-goth. Also, I can neither dance, drink, nor socialize while wearing a mask, and those things plus “look at the pretty girls” is really the whole point of going out. So, since I can prove that I’m vaccinated, I’m not going to wear a f***ing mask.

         What actually surprises me on this is that I’m friends with the promoter’s girlfriend, and she’s been one of the most fearful mask Karens since this thing started. I would have expected her to pressure the boyfriend to “exercise caution” and Obey The Recommendations.

   4. The interesting thing is, I’m seeing at least one company that’s been all for every single CDC guideline, didn’t actually update their masking requirements yet. They’re still, if you filled your vaccination state, you can work on the premise maskless.

      Maybe they’ll send out a revised policy in a few days, but maybe not.

      There are other gov’t pushed policies they seem to be avoiding getting to deep into too. I wonder if the Progressives have finally over reached so far that they’ve burned their base?

      1. One of the places that went nuts pretty early here has also not updated” their policy– and even the signs at local stores saying “we trust you to do the right thing” are gone.

         Since my mother has permanent lung damage from mask-caused pneumonia, take a wild guess what I think the “right thing” is.

         1. Sorry to hear that.

            It amazes me the number of people who still think masks have no health costs, when they themselves talk about how a few hours in the things jack up their lungs.

            It just seems like some people don’t think things are real unless it’s been reported in a million dollar study. You don’t need a double blind study to show if you cut yourself, you will bleed.

            1. Too many people have been trained–mostly via public schools–to believe that only experts can really “know” things and they must of course always listen to teacher–I mean, the expert.

               1. I think that’s part of what’s happened in med school too. They’re basically being trained to pattern match and regurgitate. And since people revert to training under stress, that’s what the majority of them have reverted to during this whole thing.

                  I’m not sure if the older ones were trained that way.

                  Had an interesting discussion with my old man about that. It was about why the Kreigsmarine generally sucked, even if their ships were good on paper. He had come to the realization that it was stress that drove people to revert to training and mantra. While the RN mantra was, essentially, kill them all or die trying, the KM mantra was preserve the ship. So, while the RN would charge into bad odds, the KM would retreat or avoid engagement, even when they had the advantage.

                  This how you also end up with things like Taffy 3. US Escort Destroyer mantra was defend the fleet at all costs. So, when a group of escort destroyers found themselves defending their transports against the whole of the IJN line of battle, their response was not, “How do I get out of this?” instead “How many of you can I take with me?”

                  The example he ran into that convinced him of this was a lady who had been trained in low impact camping, who got lost in the woods. She ultimately become fat more careful about her low impact camping, being even more thorough and deliberate in burying and hiding her waste, which was actually contra-survival for her in this context. It was clearly not a panic response, but the fact that she was actually making it harder for people to find her indicates it was not a considered response either.

                  Moral of the story is, if you think you will ever depend on a set of skills under stress, you need to train how you believe you need to use those skills to achieve those goals before you are there. Because once you are there, you will behave exactly how you trained, regardless of whether that’s really what you wanted to do or not.

                  1. I think it helps to have an imagination, and more to the point, an imagination that is put to use. I learned early on in life that imagining situations and how I would respond/what I would do had the potential to make things a little easier if faced with that situation or a similar one in reality. Not always (it certainly has never helped my dating life, lol), but I did discover that in a threatening situation, I didn’t freeze. I’d already made the decision, long ago, what to do in such a situation. (It wasn’t a life threatening situation, but still.) Possibly it’s family-culture as well–most of my immediate relatives are very big on “don’t panic until AFTER everyone is safe” and I learned from that. (My dad is great in a crisis–for example, a hit and run–directing other people to get help, making sure traffic stops, etc etc. But he also hates the sight of blood. He just waited until AFTER everything was taken care of to turn green and have to put his head between his knees.)

                  2. Bret Weinstein, in his Youtube-censored interview with Dr. Kory re Voldemort Ivermectin, proposed that doctors nowadays have become technicians, not scientists, and it shows in their response to a new disease. Dr. Kory agreed.

                     1. Given how *rare* it is to find a doctor willing to find out WHY something has gone wrong with you, and try and fix that, vs. just throw pills at it…I fully agree.

                        Finding one that will also admit that, for all our medical advances, we still actually know ‘jack’ and ‘s**t’ about how the human body fully works is like finding a unicorn. (I’ve met one. I babysat his daughters in high school, and one of his older daughters is my unofficial sister in law. He died many years ago, and I do wonder what he’d have to say about the state of the medical profession nowadays.)

                        1. It might be useful for us to compile and share a list of the good doctors amongst ourselves, although I worry it could end up being used against them.

                           But either way, I might want to move near to wherever Sarah’s Older Son sets up shop someday.

   5. Here in the Demented Dominion we have been All Masks All The Time since March 2020. We’ve been locked-down for more than two months -twice-. They’re looking at doing it again for the dreaded Delta Variant [ooooh, delta!!!]

      Our WuFlu numbers are worse than Florida. No one seems to notice.

      Vaccinations with the MRNA Experiment were hugely delayed here in Dumbf*ckistan due to some really appalling dumbf*ckery by the federal and provincial governments. Of note, since the MRNA Experiment has proceeded, our WuFlu numbers still look worse than Florida. No one seems to notice.

      The outrage is reserved for the Residential Schools (Antifa has seized upon this excuse to start burning churches, 25 burnt to the ground so far, 50 vandalized across Canada) and, of all things, pickup trucks.

      https://phantomsoapbox.blogspot.com/2021/07/first-your-gun-now-your-truck.html It’s good for a laugh, anyway. Lots of people noticed this one.

      Also, the Federal government is introducing another bill, C-36, to censor the Internet. They say “regulate” but what they really mean is censor. No one seems to notice.

      Now, of interest regarding these seemingly unconnected things above, the Federal Liberals are hinting rather broadly that they are going to have an election soon. I think they want to have it before they’re forced to drop all the special WuFlu provisions so they can pull a Biden and get themselves a majority in the House of Commons. No matter what box you check, the vote will go to the Shiny Pony.

      That makes sense of the lockdowns, the masks, the burning churches and the threats of censorship. These are the kinds of things Leftists do when they are in a panic. The truck thing is squid ink, squirted by a worried newspaper because they know all the sh1t they’re doing isn’t working. Distract attention by attacking people’s most expensive possessions and threatening to take them away, while burning churches and killing their grandmothers in public “health” facilities.

      Going to be an interesting fall and winter, my friends.

6. I was studying propaganda at the online Holocaust Museum yesterday.
   We aren’t being randomly lied to. We’re being propagandized, which has some very specific goals.
   This is very bad–it’s as if the holocaust site took today’s headlines and wrote them down as Nazi history.

   But, what you can see coming, you can see coming.

   This is my Republic. This is my home. These are my friends.

   The answer is “no”.

   1. I know.

      1. “Cassandra did not get half the kicking around she deserved.”

         People don’t like prophets. 8-(

   2. I was wondering the same myself when the NFL (which I don’t actually pay attention to any longer) indicated they were considering yellow armbands for non-vaccinated players – my thoughts went to “why not yellow stars? That seemed to work so well before”

      It is sad to think that history has to so often repeat – and this time around in such a short amount of time.

7. “We’re being propagandized”…

   Well as the old saying goes if they were winning they wouldn’t need propaganda.

   1. Yes. And many of us have seen it before, and are not willing to go quietly into the night.

      1. Or the cattle cars.

         1. I lock my vehicle doors, fwiw.

            1. If the cattle are in the vehicle, it’s not threatening.

               1. well, not if the cattle is one of us. I mean.
                  Orvan, are you willing to drive the escape car, if they come for us?

                  1. Hahaha! “I escaped the camps in a cattle car”

                  2. DAMN RIGHT I AM!

                  3. Oooh! Me, Me!
                     I love driving like a bat out of hell!

                     1. Unless you are actually being pursued, it’s best to just drive normally. Less stress, and less conspicuous.

                        1. “Drive it like you stole it.”
                           “Obeying all traffic laws perfectly, got it.”

         2. As I noted in a thread a while ago, if they come to take us to the cattle cars, fight like a Klingon.

            1. “One bleeding-heart type asked me in a recent interview if I did not agree that “violence begets violence.” I told him that it is my earnest endeavor to see that it does. I would like very much to ensure – and in some cases I have – that any man who offers violence to his fellow citizen begets a whole lot more in return than he can enjoy.”

               – Colonel Jeff Cooper, circa 1975

               1. Depends on who’s being violent. Properly done, you only need to get violent once.

                  1. Sort of like when the calm, quiet, always smiling teacher chewed a class up one side and down the other for still misbehaving after the third warning. Word got around and it was several years before the problem reoccurred.

   2. Which is the most ridiculous statement in history.

      When did the US end its propaganda campaigns in WW2? During the war when it was clear the war would be won?

      Nope.

      How about when the enemy in a theater surrendered?

      Nope.

      After the war?

      Yes, for some value of after. In Europe, war propaganda went straight to the Marshal Plan and straight into Cold War propaganda. Japan gets a little more complicated.

      You continue propaganda when you are winning for the same reason you keep fighting when you are winning if the enemy is still in the field.

8. “If America is oppressive and offensive, why are they coming here “for a better life?”

   When leftists were at the peak of reeeeing about “kids stolen from their parents and put in cages” and how this was prima facie evidence America’s evil I would ask, “then wouldn’t the best thing to do for these kids be to get the out of this racist, child-stealing county as fast as possible?” Cue angry NPC face.

9. Yes I am paranoid and yes, none the less, the sons of moon howling mothers are out to get me!

   1. and thee!!

   2. “sons of moon howling mothers”

      That has to be one of the best euphemisms I’ve heard in quite a while.

10. The past few months have shown me that the current administration can’t control the country. The best figure heads they could find are disintegrating as we watch, and their best generals are only able to dismantle their armies, not lead them. They cannot win, even on Twitter, where they own the terrain.

    Their systems are to big, to complicated, and to insane to function. All they are achieving is convincing people they are crazy, and deceiving themselves.

    They cannot rule.

    1. They’re running the same old playbook, with a few new technological twists, but they don’t really understand any of it. (The “new” technological twists were mostly created decades ago by people who are now dead, as far as I can tell. They’ve been implemented largely by lesser lights, and it shows.)

       For example, based on the things that leaked out, the 2020 election was supposed to be stolen using techniques that were statistically undetectable. Well, they failed to account for the possible outcomes if voters did not maintain their historical behaviors…and things got messy.

11. The problem of course is that if these handkerchiefs started showing up everywhere, the left, in their idiotic way would decide that they meant something else completely different, and try to destroy your life with it. Or worse, they’d know exactly what it meant but accuse you of meaning something different so that they could destroy you.

    Seriously.

    Try making an “OK” sign.

12. Psa 27:1-14 KJV 1 A Psalm of David. The LORD is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? the LORD is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid? 2 When the wicked, even mine enemies and my foes, came upon me to eat up my flesh, they stumbled and fell. 3 Though an host should encamp against me, my heart shall not fear: though war should rise against me, in this will I be confident. 4 One thing have I desired of the LORD, that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the LORD, and to enquire in his temple. 5 For in the time of trouble he shall hide me in his pavilion: in the secret of his tabernacle shall he hide me; he shall set me up upon a rock. 6 And now shall mine head be lifted up above mine enemies round about me: therefore will I offer in his tabernacle sacrifices of joy; I will sing, yea, I will sing praises unto the LORD. 7 Hear, O LORD, when I cry with my voice: have mercy also upon me, and answer me. 8 When thou saidst, Seek ye my face; my heart said unto thee, Thy face, LORD, will I seek. 9 Hide not thy face far from me; put not thy servant away in anger: thou hast been my help; leave me not, neither forsake me, O God of my salvation. 10 When my father and my mother forsake me, then the LORD will take me up. 11 Teach me thy way, O LORD, and lead me in a plain path, because of mine enemies. 12 Deliver me not over unto the will of mine enemies: for false witnesses are risen up against me, and such as breathe out cruelty. 13 I had fainted, unless I had believed to see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living. 14 Wait on the LORD: be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the LORD.

    My favorite Psalm. It reminds me to face life with courage and faith in God. That standing for and in his righteousness is never a lost cause and evil men and their deeds are never to be feared, they are to be put to flight.

    Have faith, submit to God, and resist tyranny.

    1. Amen. Selah.

13. Prepare for disaster, but don’t make it your only plan, since often the world keeps spinning all the same.

    1. As General Eisenhower said, “planning is essential, plans are useless.” You never know what events will require you to cobble together strategies from different plans to prosper. But first you must know to get off the “X”

       1. Malfoy’s Law: Never rely on a plot that requires more than three thing to go right. Since something almost always goes wrong, never rely on a plot that requires more than two things to go right.

          1. Hmm… Do you think a Patronus 2.0 would work on democrats?

             1. Well, Democrat, Dementor, what’s the difference? 😛

                1. Well, Biden’s clearly lost his memories. Can dementors do that to each other? 😛

14. This is no time to go wobbly

    So here is the problem…most of our side has always been wobbly and shows no sign of change. You say:

    It’s gotten to the point even children can see the lies. And since those of us who saw them were already the majority, I wonder how bad it is now.

    If that is the case, why did the FICUS ever take office? Why did roughly half of us get the jab? Why does the half that got the jab feel emboldened to market those of us who didn’t walk around wearing yellow stars (not pink triangles, because being gay is not unclean for these fascists…at least not yet…I hope I live long enough to see their shocked faces as their “allies” toss them off buildings)?

    I think we are the minority and a shrinking one.

    If not, then we are a minority that lacks one characteristic the left has in abundance, the willingness to fight for what they believe in.

    I’m convinced most of the right will be writing stern letters and saying not yet as they are herded into boxcars.

    Hell, if the camps have cell reception half of the right will be posting about how soon they’re going to act. Probably right after their shower.

    Anymore I wish there wasn’t so much with my real name attached that I couldn’t just go into the closet and pretend. The things I care about are being destroyed anyway because it isn’t time to fight so I wouldn’t lose anything more by being in the closest.

    The reality is the time to fight has passed…we’re just all waiting to go to the Gulag. We should at least be honest with ourselves we lacked the courage of those who came before us.

15. Everybody knows the war* is over. Everybody knows the good guys lost” -Leonard Cohen. *Yes at that time, it meant the cold war.

    The good guys did lose the Cold War.

    If the good guys had won the Cold War, communists would be as marginalized as fascists. Communists run all our major institutions.

    The USSR fell, but Communists won the Cold War. Their system is the only one that is socially acceptable and freedom is more marginalized every day.

    1. John Stormer wrote “None Dare Call It Treason” in 1964, tediously documenting the Communist infiltration of politics, business, academia, and mass media. Stormer was ignored or ridiculed, but as far as I can tell, he was 100% correct on everything.

       1. I haven’t read it, but I suspect he was an optimist.

          1. Here ya go: (now reportedly public domain)

             https://archive.org/details/NoneDareCallItTreasonJohnStormer

             and his FBI files:

             archive DOT org/details/JohnStormer/Stormer%2C%20John-None%20Dare%20Call%20It%20Treason-1/mode/2up

             1. That’s a really bad scan. I’ve been trying to find a better one to point people to. No luck yet.

                1. Here’s another, a bit easier on the eyes:
                   https://archive.org/details/NoneDareCallItTreason/mode/2up

                   There’s another similar copy on archive.org, just search for the title. But it’s an awkwardly large file (116mb for the PDF).

                   1. Thank you. 🙂 📖

16. The point is that THESE PEOPLE AREN’T POLITICAL. Yes, I know what social platforms have done. I know what insane things some of these people say and post. But the problem is not that they are political. Most of them are focused on their field, very good at what they do (which make money from the most unlikely things) and completely blind to political philosophy.

    This really is the point that needs to be hammered on, right off the bat– because it has predictive power for why people will get outraged when they say Obviously Political thing, and you object.

    You can work through a group to enforce the No Politics rule, as long as 1) you allow hitting back in limits, and 2) it is applied to ALL sides. (I got to have a *great* discussion with some new to us gamers because I did pipe up with the “no politics!” rule…when I 10,000% agree with the folks. 😀 Just had it in private messages.)

    1. Dorsey is well past non-political and into oblivious. His thread a year or so ago extolling the spiritual discipline and insights he received during a meditation retreat in Myanmar while the junta was steamroller Rohingas proved that.

       1. *points at various pictures of the Twitter guy*

          If I met him in the street, I’d make sure I didn’t turn my back on the guy. There’s something just *off* about that guy, bad enough for ME to notice.

          1. There’s something behind Dorsey’s eyes, except it’s a nothingness. That’s . . . the sort of thing that makes me back away until I’m far enough to run.

             1. It makes me uncomfortable to not argue– I am *horrible* in pictures– but not uncomfortable enough to ignore the “nope!” impulse.

             2. So far as I can tell, that man is always extremely high on something. His eyes–the pupils are ALWAYS tiny little pinpricks. That is NOT normal, and a big sign of drug use.

                1. And that would explain his descent into the Rasputin look, too, though even a more clean-cut Jack did seem…off, to me, too.

       2. Which the Rohinga richly deserved for their attacks on Buddhists, Christians, and the Government…

          1. Wait, they’re supposed to be genocided because they at least are claimed to do what the Buddhist majority has been doing to the local Christians for years now?

             Note that the Myanmar government claimed the same justification for the gov’t attacks on Christians.

             Short version, Burma/Myanmar is a freaking mess, and that *still* doesn’t justify burning kids in their homes.

             1. Has Ken found a new handle?

                1. I THINK it’s just not realizing exactly how nasty Burma/Myanmar is and has been.

                   It’s not like they mention it at school or anything, I only found out because I was wondering about “Burma Shave” and what ever happened to the country, and the tactic of “oh the poor, oppressed Muslims are kicked out for bombing the neighbors” is pretty well established, but….

                2. Pyrrhus has always been at least half-ken and often goes full ken.

                   1. Never go full Ken.

                      Speaking of, did you finally get that ban on his account to stick?

                      1. nope.

                         1. Is just this a wordpress problem, or is he hacking is way back in somehow?

                            1. WordPress has made banning people really difficult.

       3. Dorsey also favorably promoted through his own twitter account an opinion piece calling for single party CCP style rule by the Democrats and use of “all means necessary” to destroy political opposition including specifically the Republican Party. And yet he wants people to believe he is not systematically silencing those who disagree with the Democratic Party’s party line.

17. I’m doing the first transplant appointment tomorrow. I’m trying to do the best I can. I guess I can’t wobble if I’m to survive these next two years.

    1. Go, Cyn! Fight! Win!

       1. Thanks

       2. “And call me when you get back. I enjoy our conversations.” 😛

    2. PRAYERS UP.
       You can do it, sis. You got this.

       1. Thank you– It’s the beginning

    3. God bless and prayers up.

       1. Thank you

    4. Good fortune. You’ll be in our prayers.

       1. Thank you

    5. I’ll be out of the house, but keeping my fingers crossed for you tomorrow. And I hope to see good news when we get back home.

       1. thank you

    6. *Thumbs up!* Go for it!

    7. Good luck and God bless you! Prayers lifted.

    8. Hang in there. Many prayers your way that this, if nothing else, goes smoothly 🙂

18. Some random items from China, courtesy of the Epoch Times –

    The Epoch Times is reporting that the Chinese now have their own version of the Cajun Navy (not their term) in Zhengzhou. It’s made up of locals who are sick and tired of how slow the government’s response to the current flooding has been.

    Zhengzhou residents have been placing flowers at an unofficial memorial outside a flooded subway tunnel. Local authorities fenced the area off, blocking access to it.

    Beijing is starting to go after Chinese companies that are listed on the US Stock Exchanges. This is presumably because China doesn’t have as much control over companies that are listed on foreign exchanges instead of the Chinese exchanges.

    1. The Previous Incumbent would probably have taken the opportunity to yank their shorts over their head and beat them like a pinata.

       The Current Resident is likely to hand them a trillion or so of our money to bail them out fo their difficulty.

       1. The US will always offer to assist with disaster relief, regardless of who is suffering from the disaster. That even applies to countries such as Iran.

          However, “local Chinese” (whom some have said were actually government agents dressed in civilian clothes) have apparently been attacking foreign journalists in and around the areas that were flooded. Given that, the Chinese would likely refuse any US offers of humanitarian aid, as it appears that they are trying to limit foreign knowledge of the breadth of the disaster.

          1. Let’s see, that goes back . . . a very long time. People don’t need to know X, and outside people certainly don’t need to know X!

19. Heh, it’s like you’ve been looking into my head this week… The things you laid out here are another big part of why the gloom over the political situation just won’t go away for me, especially since the fearmongering over the delta variant is picking up. The people in my small town know it’s a bunch of crap, but they’re resigned to the city and/or Big Business shoving the kabuki theater back down our throats anyway. The state won’t come until Abrams and the Democrats sweep the state elections next year. If I’m being honest, Herb’s posts are pretty much how I feel right now, and I’ll readily admit I never had much courage to start with and what little I do have never fails to fail me… It’s hard to see a way out of this that doesn’t end in me being one more broken egg for the socialist omelet that never seems to materialize and I’ve been in several dark places mentally this week because of it. Nothing to do but drag myself through another day, though, I suppose.

    1. They won’t get a hold here. Be not afraid.

       1. All I can say is I hope you’re right, but I’m afraid Herb is.

          1. No. Listen to me. As someone put it in the comments, they’re already not holding us.

             1. You don’t steal an election and then hold show trials because you are -winning-.

                Same with Canada. We don’t hear about it in the news, but privately people are enraged.

             2. Well, the gloom is starting to lift somewhat, so at this point I’ll just hope for the best and snuggle the kitties in the meantime.

    2. We’re all facing the same situation. It may just seem worse to those of us that are actually sane, because our world is drifting toward insanity and tyranny right now.
       Don’t know if you have any spiritual thoughts, but the ultimate release from the mental anguish of facing seemingly overwhelming odds is at Matthew 10:28. Our real life lives in a temporary tent, which is our body. The worst the idiots can do is take your tent. And we’re a long way from that.

       1. This is the death throes of statism. The world is not going insane. They are. And they’re trying to impose their insanity on everything.

       2. Hoping I don’t cross any lines I shouldn’t here but spirituality is…a thorny issue for me. Growing up Odd in southern church culture made it as unappealing as it gets and then some. Not that I’m completely without faith – there’s…something to Christ and if you make that connection there’s no way to break it but I’m very much disillusioned in that area, feeling like a fool for even the small amount of faith I have when there may not be anything out there for a large part of the time and feeling like the actual Trinity in my life is Loki, Tzeentch, and Nyarlathotep for another large part of it. It has the ultimate effect of making me feel like just another expendable pawn in the Author’s plans – and one that He takes no small amount of pleasure in kicking around at that – so it’s of very little comfort at best and another rock on the depression pile at worst. Sorry, I know you meant well with that, but this is how things are for me.

          1. Growing up Odd in southern church culture made it as unappealing as it gets and then some.

             Going off of the number of “I am not and will never be Catholic, but I listen to you guys every day” calls to Catholic Answers and EWTN: Open Line, you’re not alone.

             Even my Church-of-England grandmother watched EWTN over the mess of the local church.

             1. The Catholics I’ve encountered seem to be mostly* decent people. They type you could go to for help if you had to.

                Quite the contrast from Calvinist culture, which is cancer crossed with airborne ebola.

                * always exceptions, no such thing as an ideology with no bad people in it

                1. That’s one of Niven’s Laws: “There is no cause so noble that a few shitheads won’t follow it.”

                   1. Sadly the reverse is also true: there is no cause so evil that a few well meaning deluded idiots won’t support it.

                2. It helps that EWTN was founded by a VERY no-nonsense Sister who….

                   Well, when she had a dream that she was supposed to build a grotto-shrine, she went to her mother superior was basically told “Fine, you can use that corner of the garden, but you have to get all the material AND labor for it, no hiring anybody.”

                   ….she got freakin’ high grade Mafia guys down there laying stones for the Holy Mother, with their own hands.
                   *facepalm*

                   She’s also the lady who pointed out that if the thing you’re giving up for Lent is more of a sacrifice for others than it is for you, *PICK SOMETHING ELSE*.

             2. Sounds like something worth checking out. Not a Catholic myself and not sure I see myself converting but I’ve read some sharp Catholic minds’ thoughts on the subject in the past and I’ve always found them worth listening too. And while joining them is even more of a stretch for me I’ve always appreciated Brad Torgersen and his friends’s LDS perspective on Facebook, too. There’s definitely something more at work than just his writing gifts and skills there.

                1. Hey, you ever wanna chat/ask about stuff with LDS theology, feel free to get with me, or Blonde Engineer, or Evenstar. And I know there’s at least two others and probably more floating around here. 🙂

                   1. I’ll keep that in mind, though as I mentioned earlier me going LDS is far less likely than me going Catholic and the odds of that aren’t good to start with. Still, I can see that it’s been a good influence on people and I also appreciate how Brad and ILOH are honest and have a sense of humor about where they fall short spiritually. You definitely don’t see much of that in southern church culture!

                      1. Eh, no pressure to convert you, promise. 🙂 Just if you wanna chat theological viewpoints and ideas. Conversion, by and large, is a very personal decision–and that’s something I was taught to respect even when I was a proselyting missionary.

                2. My go-to suggestion is always Father Mitch’s Open Line podcast:
                   https://www.ewtn.com/radio/podcasts/open-line-wednesday-~HQ

                   He’s a total geek. 😀 You just page down to something that looks interesting.

                   Or if you want kind of like a coast-to-coast-with-faith-and-morals-plus-actively-avoiding-comment-on-politics, you may really enjoy Jimmy Akin’s Mysterious World. Last Friday’s was pretty awesome, Border Patrol Ghost (Luis Santiago, San Diego Ghost Story), gave me chills but in more of a hope-it’s-true way. (Search engines can find it fairly easily and multiple links would get filtered!)

                   1. I’ll give it a look when things settle down a bit and I can recharge a bit myself, which is going to include hopefully finishing up a second run of a JRPG series I’m working on once I’ve finally got a few more things in order. And provided the kitties don’t interfere too much as well of course! I just finished blowing some white fur out of my keyboard if that’s any indication of how much time the seal point floof spends on my desk and in my lap…

                      1. Puff therapy!

                         1. Been reading too much MHI lately – I read that as PUFF therapy and wondered what monsters you were shooting…

                            1. The only kind of monster this floof is is a snuggle monster! 🙂 The various -ese mixes might have a reputation for snobbery but this guy is one of the most affectionate pets I’ve ever had, along with his black smoke adopted big brother!

                         2. And he’s been very, very insistent on giving it to me! All while avoiding getting a picture made for his adoring fans, of course… Kitties, huh?

                      2. I’m the last Catholic to bring anyone into the faith, considering how conflicted I am. Particularly over thepopeisacommie but also because half of what grandma taught me was Judaism. (Shrug.)
                         So if you want to talk to someone who mostly thinks Himself is an Author…. well, not till mid September but I’ll be around.

                         1. Conflicted is how I feel about all of this, too. I grew up in the Methodist version of southern church culture but Baptist is the main denomination around here and they’ve both given me more than a few headaches. Definitely see to yourself and yours first, in any case, though. I’ve still got people to talk to on MeWe’s MHN, Diner, and Huns when it comes to these things and I’ll keep up the kitty pictures on my end for whenever you and the others need a floof break, too.

                      3. >> “hopefully finishing up a second run of a JRPG series I’m working on”

                         Which series, out of curiosity?

                         1. Trails/Kiseki. I’m currently going through the Geofront translation of the second arc, Trails from Zero and Trails to Azure. Getting a perfect save for transfer means beating the game with Lloyd at level 50 and all three upgraded combo crafts, so three runs of Zero total, a task made easier by fast-forward. We won’t be getting the official versions of Zero until next year and Azure until 23 (and NISA actually brought the Geofront team on board with it instead of siccing lawyers on them so props to them for that) and I managed to…acquire copies of the games before they pulled their patches. I wanted to finish Zero and Azure before going back to the third arc, Trails of Cold Steel, so I could actually understand what was happening in Crossbell during CSI-II and appreciate the visits to the region in III-IV. It’s very anime, gets into some pretty cringey tropes, and it’s not for everyone but the fans of the series are pretty diehard, in no small part due to the difficulty getting the games here. I actually named one of my kitties after the hero of Cold Steel and another after said character’s rival.

                            Anyway, if you’re interested the best way to play them is on PC and they’re readily available on Steam and GOG, though if you want to play the official versions in order you’ll want to hold off until Zero and Azure are ready. The first arc is Trails in the Sky (FC and SC are the main story while the 3rd wraps up the loose ends and prepares for the next arcs), the third is Cold Steel (I-IV), and Trails into Reverie, slated for 23, wraps up the Z/A and CS loose ends in order to get ready for the fourth arc, Kuro. Not sure what they’re going to localize that one as yet. There’s also the thematically similar but unrelated Boundless Trails: Legend of Nayuta scheduled for 23 as well. I’ve got a lot of gaming to look forward to if things don’t completely collapse one way or another. 🙂

          2. Hang in there, brother. That you’re struggling this hard says there’s something special about you. The Adversary wouldn’t trouble you so much if you weren’t capable of doing something to upset his plans.

             1. So I keep hearing, and so I keep finding myself wishing I was much less special…

          3. Understand completely A.B.! Our journeys are personal and we all need to find our own way. These mysteries of life, as we experience and learn about them, hopefully drag us closer to wisdom and our own peace. Keep looking and growing. Hang in. I enjoy your frank comments!

             1. All true, and I’ve never really had anyone in the right frame of Odd I could talk these things out with. I ended up drifting away from one of the few people I could somewhat talk about these things with over the response to Winnie the Flu (he’s a biology/physics professor if that explains anything, he does take his faith seriously but our perspectives are just too divergent when it comes to the political side of things) so I’ve been lost without a group of right-leaning Odds who take their faith seriously. I can see where the Hoyt’s Haven name came from for sure now, and glad you’ve enjoyed my contributions! I felt more than a little nervous branching out from the writing posts.

          4. feeling like the actual Trinity in my life is Loki, Tzeentch, and Nyarlathotep

             I really, really shouldn’t laugh….

             1. Heh, I figured you might get a chuckle out of that part, actually. Funny thing is the Thousand Sons is actually the faction that interests me the most from a lore and design perspective when it comes to 40K. I’m just not sure if it’s a good time right now, if it’s a good use of money given the situation, plus they seem a little difficult for a first-time tabletop player to pick up compared to the Ultramarines, Necrons, or Death Guard.

          5. I take comfort in the notion that EVERYBODY is making it up as they go along. NOBODY has a red phone on their desk connected directly to Heaven. Some guys say they do, might be best to tread carefully around guys like that.

             You can generally assume that a merciful God wouldn’t have made it impossible to do it right, so there’s no seekrit Kode. Try not to be an asshole and it’ll probably be okay. ~:D

             1. Some guys say they do, might be best to tread carefully around guys like that.

                Mostly because we’re not allowed to execute them on the spot.

                1. I think a hearty beating might be sufficient, if it immediately followed every single transgression. Execution is a Lefty thing.

                   That’s my latest book, as it happens. Heinous and unforgivable acts by a certain foreign nation were uncovered, proposed solution to the issue was to hunt the exact guys who gave the orders and beat them every time they gave another order like that. I’m working out the tools necessary to get it done now, so far there has been the purchase of a clapped-out C-130 Hercules in the deserts of Sudan with attendant “energetic negotiations” one might expect.

                   I thought of this method because the people who do things like enslave an entire ethnic group never face any sort of physical retribution for their actions. They’re either safe behind the high walls of their government protected lives, or they are suddenly dead due to being killed off by a rival. They never ever get killed off because of what they’ve done, or so it seems.

                   So I wondered what would happen if every time another kid got sold into slavery, the big moneybags guy at the top of the food chain got punched in the face. How many punches would it take for him to decide it wasn’t worth it?

                   1. I think a hearty beating might be sufficient, if it immediately followed every single transgression. Execution is a Lefty thing.

                      Claiming to have a Hotline to God easily beats pedos for damage caused. We don’t think there is anything wrong with immediate and overwhelming violence for them.

                      1. *Falsely* claiming a hotline to Himself.

                         Big difference.

                         1. If the dude can call down pillars of flame, I am inclined to believe…

                            1. There’s a reason that Himself wasn’t bothered by the death penalty for false prophecy!

                            2. Yep.

                               “Hey Eliyahu, you and your G-d suck!”
                               ((scorch))
                               “Allow me to rephrase…”

             2. All true, but it still feels like I’m blundering through a swamp in the dead of night without a map or compass – not that I can see them anyway – and there are Humboldt Folk lurking around every tree in this area of my life. Try not to be an asshole, I can do at least, though.

                1. “…it still feels like I’m blundering through a swamp in the dead of night without a map or compass…”

                   Yeah, I’m familiar. Pretty normal place to be, sadly. Being an Odd I don’t really fit on any of the bandwagons other people seem to like.

                   1. So it seems, and dating/romance is the other big area where I feel stuck in that particular swamp. Granted there’s just enough slivers of moonlight in that particular bog these days to provide some hope but it’s still a pretty treacherous path and not helped by how much the current insanity is making it hard to meet people.

    3. Look on the bright side! You could live in LA County!

       1. With the way Atlanta is growing I’m sure my area will be swallowed up by the blob, and all the crap that goes with it, within the next few years.

          1. I went to Agnes Scott College. I used to say “It’s in Decatur, GA.” Now I say, “It used to be in Decatur. Now it’s in Atlanta.”

          2. I recently lived 17 years in Sharpsburg, right between Peachtree City and Newnan. Still not bad there.
             My moves have coincidentally taken me toward warm weather and away from big cities.

             1. After 29 years in the warm, getting away from the big cities overrode that. I’d rather plow snow than deal with cities. Even shoveling the stuff is more pleasant.

                1. Amen. Rural Ontario is the bomb. Urban Ontario, thank the gods I escaped. What a bunch of sh1tweasles.

             2. I’m in the NW part of the state but Atlanta’s closing in on us here, too. I’m not in either place but when Bartow and Cherokee counties are considered part of the Atlanta area now it’s a little unsettling to contemplate, and it’s one reason I really think I need to get out of this state while I still can. Just not sure on the where, or perhaps what my most realistic options are, especially given the resources I’m likely to be working with.

20. I have recently been listening to some podcasts from last fall before the election. With the Reichstag Riot Hearings getting underway I would say the pessimists came closer to predicting our current events, but even they were often too optimistic. One of the drawbacks to living in interesting times is the necessity of paying attention to politics, a subject which is routinely depressing.

21. Cozy Mystery Alert! Steve Martin, Martin Short, and Selena Gomez are doing a cozy mystery/comedy tv series called Only Murders in the Building. There will be new eps on Hulu weekly, from August 31 on.

    The idea is that there’s a murder in an Upper West Side NYC apartment building (the old kind), and three true crime buffs happen to live there. So they join forces to make a true crime podcast about the murder… which leads them into investigating the murder… which leads them into intrigue and danger!

    The trailer looks fun. It looks like… a real murder mystery! With characters and good lighting and stuff! And honestly, I hope the true crime stuff hits the bullseye, because there’s some comedy gold buried in that hobby. The protagonists seem to be presented as goofy but not stupid, which I can deal with.

    1. Also…Steve Martin and Martin Short?!?! I’m so there! 😀

       And as a true crime buff myself (it’s astonishing how many of us there seem to be out there that didn’t know about each other until the true crime podcast explosion), I hope that’s well done too!

22. Supposedly the BATFE is preparing strike teams at 5 or 6 locations around the country to implement Biden’s gun control orders. Thing is, iirc, the BATFE has had those teams for a couple of decades. So it’s not so much the existence of those teams as it is the purposes that they’re being used for.

    1. Let’s hope they get stopped by the State Police and National Guard in states like Florida and Texas.

    2. We knew it was coming. The question is will that rouse us to action.

    3. That would last about three minutes, and then it gets bad.

    4. Has Biden seriously issued orders, or announced that he’s definitely going to? Last I’d heard was just his suggestion about restricting to single-shot guns (such as bolt-action sniper rilfes… /sigh).

       1. Would we hear if he did?

          Remember how much Obama said he learned from the newspaper.

          1. Hell, would *Biden* hear it if “he” authorized such?

       2. My experience with bolt-action rifles is they can get rounds downrange pretty quick, and you wouldn’t want to get hit with one. Lever-action is pretty quick too. .338 Marlin or .45-70? Ouchie.

          But that experience was all acquired in FreedomLand, aka The United States. Here in the Demented Dominion of Canaduh, I have a flashlight. Because I’m in a lot more danger from the cops than I am from some random drug-addict intruder.

          When planning for disaster, it is important to address the greatest threat first. Important safety tip, Canadians.

23. c4c

24. I hope things last at least long enough for me to get my own little place out in the sticks before things go really sideways. Being in a city, even a remarkably red one, makes me feel like a coyote in a boarding kennel.

    1. My family has had a farm out near El Dorado AR since 1848, about 640 acres. My grandfather built a new farm house in 1970 ( I helped build the chimney with brick salvaged from the original farmhouse). My folks updated it about 10 years ago.

       Got a call this past Sunday that someone had broken into the well-house and tried to break in to the main house. While talking to the Union County Sheriff, my dad heard from them that the county is overrun with Biden’s Mexican bandits, crime is through the roof, and that there’s not a lot they can do.

       I can’t do my job without good internet, and there’s no cable or cellular service out there. Starlink is supposed to be available by the end of the year, and if it is, Em and I may be able to move out there. My 88 year old parents can’t live out that far.

       Unfortunately, there aren’t many safe spaces left.

       1. …and Little Rock had volunteered to take its share of illegals. Well, the city management has. Nobody else wants them, but it’s not like the Little People have a voice in their government.

          I’m pretty sure there’s some Federal or Soros money linked to that. Or maybe they just want some of that DOJ crimefighter money. Or they’ve become Woke. Or, of course, all of the above.

          Then there’s a peculiar statistic… most of the murders in the Little Rock/Pulaski County area in the last few years were done by people who didn’t live there. Or even in Arkansas, in most cases.

          I’m close enough to Little Rock for it to be potential problem.

          1. Send ’em to Cazador and put ’em through the next MHI rookie class… 😛

25. Well, with all this moving going on, Yukiko has a video with exercises for “sagging face,” but it’s really about Internet back hump and stiff shoulders. She has a lot of exercises that look weird but work really well for women… and maybe for men too.

    I think she’s an excellent exercise instructor, but some of her videos have interesting camera angles, so… maybe not at work.

    1. She’s a cute one, I’ll say. ~:D

26. It’s amazing how much history those in power today ignore. The Battle of Athens is an important event never touched in schools.

    There is a switch, an old fashioned switch with bare contacts and a long wooden handle… it is corroded and stuck in the OFF position. The years of neglect have taken their toll.

    The antis; however, have been pounding on that handle for years. With each bump, thump, or splat of a new attack the verdigris has been cracking off the copper bars, the stuck rivets loosening, the handle starting to budge, and it’s just noticeable that the switch is edging toward the ON position.

    We don’t want that switch to ever turn on, but the soap box and ballot box have both been rendered useless. And the attacks on both continue.

    Something is going to have to change.

    1. Jury box and ballot box appear tampered with.

       Soap box technically still has some utility.

       1. Not so much the jury box, but a lot of lawyers and judges are in the bag.

       2. The soapbox has become little more than an excuse to put you in the courtroom.

          1. As of yet, the would be totalitarians do not have a true panopticon level of surveillance. That is a small utility, but it is still some utility.

          2. Additionally, the effers are tripping over each other.

             Putin is genuinely an evil man, not simply a Russian patriot. That evil leads him to acts that disrupt the PRC/Democrat collaboration, beyond what a senile pedophile can verbally tapdance his way to avoiding acknowledging.

             The F-16 comment was actually diagnostic; Biden probably does not recognize any military hardware more recent than the 1970s. Only the fact that we have stuff in inventory from the 1950s lets them give him something plausible to say instead of babbling about Fat Man and battleships.

             It is like trying to read a paper written by the faculty of a humanities department, while they are all committed for psychiatric evaluation, but before the meds stabilize their thinking.

             Sure, there are Americans inherently crazy enough not to see anything wrong with this. But if 70% of Americans were that crazy, we would have seen a bunch of mass suicides, going back years ago.

             So, one person quietly saying to another, in a room without means of electronic surveillance, that this shit stinks, is actually a soap box use that is hugely damaging to the regime.

             1. “So, one person quietly saying to another, in a room without means of electronic surveillance,”

                I actually agree with this; but given the IoT, finding that room is the challenge.

       3. The soapbox is being pulled out from under anyone not toeing the party line…. voices of dissent are being regulated by the gatekeepers of social media

          1. Yeah, but we keep routing around the gatekeepers. Which is one of the reasons they’re shrieking so much. They *can’t* stop the signal.

             1. THIS. We’re ungovernable.

                1. The silly bastards threw away trust, which was pretty much the only way to concentrate the level of power that they had become accustomed to using.

                   1. Yep. Well, they couldn’t play it straight because we kept noping them. So it’s our fault. If only we’d stop misbehaving, they’d stop hitting us.

          2. First, there is the hoary old chestnut about the internet treating censorship as damage and routing around it. Which still retains some truth.

             Second, dominance of centralized media is only useful if you do not continually discredit it with unnecessary lies. Unless I’ve overlooked a trend of people putting webcams in every room so that Facebook and Twitter can watch their bodily functions, there is a lot of communication which isn’t even being monitored, much less censored. USSR, Warsaw Pact, and the PRC tried to patch that vulnerability by making everyone too terrified to use those channels. That terror is not yet implemented here. So when the official channels discredit themselves, trust shifts to the back channels.

             The regime is inflicting so much damage on itself that simply speaking truth to a select few can be more than enough.

             1. Sneakernet is still A Thing. Among other options.

                1. I think the word you’re looking for is “samizdat”.

27. I had a scheduled appointment (a 6 mo. checkup) for last Friday at doc’s office. I had my vaccinations last April. I called the doc’s off last Wed. and asked if masks were “required”..they said yes. I said “Thank you for the info…please cancel my Friday appt’ and I will call in a few weeks to reschedule”. I refuse to wear masks anymore…I have been vaccinated so as not to infect any persons! I am a retired RN of 40 yrs. in healthcare; have always had yearly flu shots and all hepatitis vaccines required. I believe in the science that I read. I do not believe in “political control” through fear!

28. “Some trust in chariots and some in horses but we trust in the name of the LORD…”

    We win. They lose. Give ’em the Gospel anyway. Even if we end up like that preacher in War of the Worlds (1953).

    1. I suspect H.G. Wells was spinning in his grave over that movie. But I liked it. ( Saw it on TV. I’m not that old).

       1. Wells was a commie, iirc. Let ‘im spin!

          😛

29. Thank you, Sarah, for putting that part about your husband and romance shows. My own husband is addicted to them.
    I think it’s the intense amount of stress he’s endured for the last several years in teaching. Well, that, and our upcoming move.
    But it’s nice to know that he is not alone in vegging out to them.

    1. My father loves to read Amish romances. Mom and I try not to tease him TOO much about it.

       We do appreciate that he happily joins the annual Jane Austen movies/shows watch–and sometimes even suggests it if it’s been awhile 😀

       1. My husband loves romances for “brain on hold, just need something to distract me.”
          I can’t really bitch. Right now I’m on a true crime spree. Er…. reading.

          1. Sarah, I believe you. 😎

30. Time for common sense basketball control, to prevent all of the trillions of deaths caused by Chaos Dunks every year.

    Abolish/defund the NBA!

31. c4c

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