It’s Bob’s World. We Just Live in It

Posted on by accordingtohoyt

*Look, I’m an old woman, so let me get the health talk out of the way first. This one is definitely not auto-immune as younger son had it first — and is just getting over it after two weeks — and now Dan has caught it from me. I’m better today. Yesterday the thought of crossing the room to get a book, say, was too much effort. Today I managed the dishes, a load of laundry and intend to sort clothes. The house is a screaming pigsty, but it will wait till tomorrow. Yes, I feel like I can, but I won’t. I know better. I roasted a chicken yesterday, and we’ll eat on it for three days easy, (It’s a roaster) then make the leftover into pot pie. So…. we’re fine, and I think head is clear enough to write, as opposed to yesterday. There will be nappage. FIL still lingers between life and death. Dan saw him on his last lucid day, so that’s good. Some deaths are difficult, just as some births are. Prayers requested.– SAH*

Please, when reading this post, take in account that I’m just on the very beginning of coming back from a URI, which means depressive is a state of being.

However, over the last few months, I’ve come to observe something strange.

To give a little blog history: one of the first commenters here was BobtheRegisteredFool. I’ve come to actually think well of him over the years, and these days his comments, except for the occasional slip, not only make sense but are often amazingly insightful.

However, when he first came to us — he now admits — he wasn’t doing well mentally, emotionally and perhaps spiritually. He’s dealt with it overtime, so this is not a put down, but I’m wondering if when he came to us he was a good sensor for clown car meeting dumpster fire ahead.

I mean, when he first got here, Bob often tried to incite war with Canada. Supposing — ! — we deal with ourselves, and restore freedom, this is now almost inevitable, as they sink deeper into the morass of New and Improved Cuba! (Who knew the illusions of sixties hippies could lead to this, eh? Castro’s bastard trying to emulate daddy in the great North?) Considering that communism created starvation in tropical Cuba, surrounded by an ocean full of edibles, imagine what it will do to Canada. By the time we uncluster ourselves, it might not be so much a war, as a mercy invasion.

He also urged war with Mexico, partly to stop the drug trade. I’ll note war on the cartels is now on the agenda should Trump get elected again and this time make it stick. (I’ll note that I don’t even disagree with this. One of my last days in Denver, we got stuck behind a car with custom body work that declared the driver’s allegiance to the Sinaloa cartel. When that is out in public, imagine how bad it is.)

I don’t see where a war on cartels, doesn’t involve a war with Mexico, considering the cartels hold on Mexico.

Whether that will lead to also giving junkies the death penalty, I don’t know, I wouldn’t think so, but in Bob’s world, anything is possible.

Also, whether or not we’re going to preemptively nuke other countries, is a mystery. I mean, we probably wouldn’t do it under a Republican admin, but under this one? Your guess is as good as mine.

In fact, ladies and gentlemen, this being Bob’s world, I advise you to drink a bottle of Scotch then hit yourself on the head with a mallet, then consider what comes next.

That’s probably the truth.

I woke up this morning and looked at the Bongino Report and…. well….

With the understanding this is half in jest, half in WTF World? and a realization that this illness might indeed have come to me at the right time, because I can’t do much more than this stuff…..

Lean back and enjoy the ride. Be ready to react if some glimmer of sanity presents.

Meanwhile:

It’s Bob’s World. We just live in it.

262 thoughts on “It’s Bob’s World. We Just Live in It”

  1. My music lists do seem to be syncing up in peculiar ways. This was the one that was up when I started reading this post:

    Note, this is the first time I’ve heard that one too.

  2. It was definitely spiritually perilous for me to have the certainty that I did about knowing what was going on, and what would happen. Struggling with that certainty has been a work of years.

    If you have complete knowledge about potential human behavior, and a heavy hammer is the tool to change it, then if you ‘know’ about bad behavior, it make rational sense to use the heavy hammer. Never mind that the whole thing is based in bad assumptions.

    Forecasting difficulty is one way I have been discussing this. Recovering Technocrat is another formulation.

    When you can find the false certainty, and discard it, that I is an exercise I have found to be extremely heartening.

    Doesn’t make all ‘whitepill’ models and arguments correct. But very often means that there is a whitepill angle that does have at least some truth to it.

    1. After reading through how the disinformation state happened, it really does look like they’re trying to control the world through virtual brain worms by infecting themselves first.

      1. Ok. So now the ear worm is alternating between “the Mob Rules” and “They’re coming to take me away, HaHa”.

    2. There is a very simple fact that I found rather late in life that has always, and will always give me hope.

      The world is not utterly completely filled with evil.

      And it would be.

      If at least some of those who have suffered evil went on to perpetrate it, themselves.

      Not all, nor even most. Some.

      Because within each human soul is both the seed of absolute world ending darkness, and the seed of transcendent grace as virtue. We can choose not to perpetrate evil upon strangers. We can choose to bear up under our burdens with humility, strength, and charity.

      We can be better than we are, today, right now.

      And as long as so many people choose to do the little things, from pushing their shopping carts back in to the little cart corrals, to returning a snarl with a smile, to spoiling little children but teaching them well, to paying our bills on time and not being a burden to any other single soul.

      That there will always be goblins is a certainty. That will to evil exists within every man, woman, and child. And, when threatened or when those we love are threatened, we can do some pretty dark things in the moment.

      But there will always be a path to redemption open, with those with the eyes to see it and the strength to walk that steep, hard path.

      We’re in a pinch just now, no lie. Things are bound to get tight, here and there.

      Now’s the time to stand strong in our principles and not give in to expedient temptation. Keep working, living right, and taking care of those you choose to protect. The worth of a man is judged not only in his successes, but also when he fails. When times are hard. When things out of his control go wrong, and he’s left holding the bag.

      Stay true. Don’t give in to despair. Fat lady ain’t sung yet, folks.

      2. Thank you, Dan Lane. That was very well said.

        We can’t fix the world, but we can spiff up our little corner. We must not give in to despair. The world needs what little light we can provide. It doesn’t need to illuminate the whole world just where we are.

        1. Tonight, went grocery shopping. Started a conversation in the bakery section with a total stranger college student. A poly sci major. Made him think. Asked him if he was getting an education or an indoctrination. Talked about Mordor West’s corruption, made him think.

          One tiny pebble thrown into the gulf. A million pebbles will fill the void. We have opportunities. I call them divine appointments. All I have to do is speak and listen at the same time. We are here for a reason.

      3. There were people who waited five hours to do the right thing (and save a lot of $$) at a used tire drop-off this past weekend. They were friendly, good-natured, and willing to help when I needed to get through the lines and depart (was working a different function and got blocked in.) That’s the country I love so much. Yes, there were a few people who tried to break the rules. They got chased off – politely.

      5. And, no matter how horrible your current situation is, don’t forget the small kindnesses and courtesies. They can make all the difference to a troubled soul.

    3. I don’t know how I stumbled into your world, when I was living in a fairly sensible world well into adulthood–but–no disrespect intended–I want out to another timeline! Can you help me Bob?

      1. Bob world is possibly an emotional state of responding to the behavior of others, and if so being more sensitive can cause you to experience Bob world at an earlier point in time. What I have is some mental tools that may have also helped me reach a different way of responding to such behavioral environments.

        There are a lot of circumstances that you basically can’t change. Where this is so, you can still maybe change your reaction.

        There are very definitely circumstances that you can change. Changing those is part of changing your reactions.

        You can’t make other people behave sanely according to your sensibilities.

        You can change your emotional investment in what kinds of behavior that you expect from them.

        My basic starting point was in childhood. I made a study of information, how it could manipulate my thinking, and how those manipulations could be used to make me better prey. Many tools came out of this. One is, look at how hard wanting something is influencing my thinking, then cutting off the want. Another is having a default of no -deal, or walking away if I have any reservations, especially if I am being pressured. A third is assuming that there is an ordinary risk of no win scenarios, and the thing to do is try to pick the most spiteful and troublesome way of being killed. Fundamentally also, your own mental integrity is one of the things that you should never compromise on; compromised mental integrity can be a bit of a dead man walking condition. One has whatever principles or values are most important to one, and one should always be testing new ideas, information, or pressures to act against those. This last is how you build up the moral courage to stare down the rest of the world.

        The goal should be to have a mindset that can stare down a entire world being incorrect, and tell them that they are wrong. If that gets you killed for saying so, that is them proving it, and you win.

        In your case, I think you may be a bit too prone to assuming that you must have an ally somewhere, and therefore build up obvious enemies into allies. When you can accept deceiving yourself less about nominal allies, you potentially can have a healthier relationship of a temporary or limited ally with some person.

        Stuff is more fixable than it will seem when you are in the depths of being sick from everything. My ideas for fixes are almost certainly not gonna be a well sorted list of the best answers /for you/.

        This can lead to ‘Well, it is not anywhere near as bad as my first estimates, this is all very tractable.’ Where you find some things to change, and then making those changes results in being a lot happier in life.

        2. having a default of no -deal, or walking away if I have any reservations, especially if I am being pressured
          This is in my head, but not my heart/soul/limbic system. I know it, but I still end up with Ginsu knives and Ronco fishing reels. I am getting better, slowly.

  3. But hey, the adults are back in charge!

    The Biden rating of F in the capitol itself is interesting. Though IIRC, Biden recently had a momentary flash of competence and joined the Republicans in stopping some nutty scheme in DC (unfortunately, I can’t recall the details right now). So that might have something to do with the low rating.

  4. Canada’s relatively easy: let ’em suffer, take all refugees if they swear an oath to liberty.

    Mexico… meh. It’s either seal the border, or go in and raze all cartels and government officials and bureaucrats to the ground. The wall is easier.

    1. Well, if western Canada finally gets fed up with Little Fidel in the East, I’m just saying there’s nothing that stops us from adding a few more states, is all.

      1. Don’t include Vancouver, and possibly all of British Columbia, and I’m good with that. Still have to make a USAian oath to get in, but that shouldn’t be a problem.

          1. Heeyyy . . .Granted, Walz and his ilk are rapidly trying to turn us into South Canada, but we’re not all crazy.

        2. I asked a couple of Canadians (from Alberta) about that once, and got the impression that if it was a choice of government from Ottawa and government from DC, they’d rather stick with the devil they know. So, not before Biden leaves office, the Deep State gets cleaned up, and we somehow miraculously get a real representative government again instead of the current crop of overcredentialed unindicted miscreants and liars.

    4. The wall is easier.

      Pretending a problem doesn’t exist doesn’t make it go away in the long run.

      Our current situation is because we have spent decades pretending Mexico isn’t a problem.

      1. As for annexing Mexico. The southern border is a LOT shorter. Besides, why not just go as far annexing all of Central America, and making a few territories States? The Panama border is really short. A lot of internal cleanup required. A lot of non-food fields to burn. Per fiction, a lot of private army camps to clear out. Canada would be a lot easier in comparison, even BC.

        1. Problems:

          1) The locals south of Texas mostly don’t want anything to do with us. The ones that like us are either mostly already here, or like us to the extent we are not there.

          2) The locals south of Texas mostly have pride that would embarrass and shame old-school Southrerners. They like to fight. The dont quit civil wars after a measly 4 years. Its like the Balkans with less restraint and more stubborn.

          3) We cant bring order to, or suppress insurrection in, our own major cities, speaking the same language and having some cultural commonality, and having very, very “soft” opponents.

          In the 1989 Panama fracas, a bunch of locals shot the snot out of a SEAL platoon. Surprised, out gunned, no night vision gear, no air support, and hardly any training. the SEALS got “roughly handled”. We left before Panama could get its collective shit together. We stuck around in Iraq and Afghanistan.

          Getting the picture? We got out of the conquest business around the time the Apache called it a day, and we forgot what we remembered of conquest in 1945-1950. Absent a major change in sustained “ruthless bloodthirstiness”, we are out of the empire-building business.

          Mass-murder we can still do, because we have means that fit under our short term lack of impulse control. But conquest of our southern neighbors? Laughable. We pissed away our reputation in the Iraq and Afghanistan debacles. As intended by their architects. (spit)

          1. We cant bring order to, or suppress insurrection in, our own major cities, speaking the same language and having some cultural commonality, and having very, very “soft” opponents.</I.

            Yes we can.

            It’s not even that HARD.

            Look at the cities around Portland– the ones that told Portland to get hung when they asked to borrow police, but were going to require them to be under Portland’s rules of engagement.

            Look at all the cities where PantiFaAndCo tried to expand, when they didn’t have active support.

            Heck, look at Des Moines, which is desperate to be a grown up city like Seattle….buuut the police were allowed to do their job, the folks at the protest were not supportive of the bottle-throwers, and the counter-protesters were more likely to offer the protesters a jump if their car wouldn’t start than to jump them.
            It takes a lot of work to make the situation dangerous enough that you can get Portland, Seattle, etc style riots.

          2. Didn’t say it was a Good idea. Doesn’t help that the jungles in central America make southern swamps look like a manicured park. Just said the borders were a lot shorter.

            It speaks volumes that history has the US invading clear to Mexico City beating up the Mexican armies and government, and handing it back, at least once (I think twice, although technically second time wasn’t the “US” government). The US then didn’t want anything to do with south of current border long term.

  5. The real problem is the impending federal seizure of all economic transactions. They want power, want you to be slaves, and they’re not fucking around.

        1. When the buying of things and necessities becomes impossible for some, the grey market WILL skyrocket. This is not a good thing for a healthy nation.

          But it is more survivable than Socialism without the outlet.

          Don’t just buy gold. Buy chickens and learn to raise them properly. Eggs are selling pretty darned good about now.

        2. The Reader doesn’t do crypto. And his cash and precious metals were lost in the same tragic boating accident that took his bang sticks and associated non precious metals.

        3. I’m still not understanding how crypto is secure. As I understand it, it has a solid system for ensuring that transactions are not fraudulently recorded, but I’m not sure I understand how it anonymizes transactions or prevents entities from tracking people and their assets?

          1. Most cryptos are not anonymous in that way. There are a few that ARE, however, including Monero, PirateCoin, and to a lesser extent, Dash. There are also ways of getting to some level of anonymity by switching between different cryptos, but that’s far more esoteric than most people (to include myself) can manage.

              1. That, and the only way to take control of your assets is to get to your actual wallet file. Not impossible, but much more difficult to go after mass numbers than just nationalizing a bank.

                1. What prevents the gov’t from sending out broadcasts that accepting transactions from XYZ would be considered a criminal act? Or enforcing it if people do?

                  I understand how the distributed nature makes it difficult to forge transactions, but I don’t think a gov’t agency would need to fake one.

                  1. Then XYZ would switch to Monero, which is an entirely encrypted blockchain and untrackable. And everyone else starts transacting in multiple cryptos, not just Bitcoin, making tracking that much harder.

                    Also, even in Bitcoin, it’s trivially easy to create a new wallet address and keep on going. Sure, the transactions are trackable, but there is a limit to the amount of surveillance the government can do.

          2. That being said, government may be able to track your Bitcoin, but they cannot CONTROL it. There is no way for the government to just “take control” of the currency.

            1. They can try. If they’re that blinkered ignorant, that is. And fail in such a spectacular fashion to become an object lesson in history, too.

              All things considered, I’d rather they didn’t try. Putting all the pieces back together is a pain. And quite a few things, once broken, don’t ever get fixed right.

              Doing so would pretty well wreck the economy, but folks still gotta eat. Thus, barter, grey market activities, and effective supplanting of fed control with local control. Think banditry, gangs, and local associations.

              It’d suck. Let’s not.

              But then again, trying to talk sense to a Democrat zealot is a lot like trying to explain orbital mechanics to a weasel. The weasel just don’t give a rip and he’ll probably bite you besides.

            2. What if they set it up, with a back door? The gov has set up “secure phones” to burn org crime folks.

              Also, no encryption is uncrackable. If it was, it would be illegal. Too dangerous. They stopped bothering that PGP fellow once they figured out how to break it.

              No unbreakable ciphers. None.

          3. Crypto is all fun and games until the Feds blow up the dam that supplies your electricity.

        4. How does one access Crypto, without being seen? There is no real privacy online.

          Folks financial activities leave detectable footprints. One may have previously established a good masking pattern, but a ban on non Fed crypto is a near certainty.

          At that point, if one were to access anything unauthorized online, it will be detected if anyone bothers looking.

          And one can assume a certain degree of patience as “feed them rope”.

          I am skeptical, but perhaps too old to really understand that area. The “ultra secure phone” field is mined. (Grin)

          Just a small example. Does everyone understand how SSL Decryption works? It’s a router based “man in the middle” of the encryption path, that lets the snoop read the traffic/webpage/email. These are routinely deployed on corporate firewalls to allow inspection for malware. But other uses are possible. If “the boss” wants to snoop, you are not secure at work.

          There are countermeasures. Their are ways to counter or block countermeasures. And countercounter….

          Some folks have already prepped for such scrutiny. Others have not.

          Changing your pattern, your habits, in a big way is one flag you are worth snooping. For example, lots of extra cash suggests an extra income, unreported.

          Paging Mr Capone to the courtesy phone.

          If you intend to try to hide, better be practiced and adept before the Eye of Sauron is a thing.

          Just a small example. Joe Urb Aptdwell. Everything that gets hauled in the car looks like laundry or duffel bags, and carry that big bright soap jug.. Even groceries. Smuggle everything to become adept at smuggling, and so someone doesn’t notice suddenly your weekend basket is now daily. Do actual laundry on random days. But no groceries is also weird, yes? Oops.

          Ok. Paranoid. Nah. But if you suddenly need to hide “prep” to avoid arrest or looters, then is a crappy time to learn how.

          They bust grow-houses by snooping garbage ( why all these empty boxes of lights and fertilizer bags), and by power bills that scream “way too many lights”. Thermal scans.

          Note to peppers who have a big cache of freeze dried chow or even cans. How/where do you hide the empties from hungry trash pickers? Starving people search garbage for food, because rats and raccoons get fat from trash, which means food. And rats and coons become extinct fast. If a starving man with kids finds your empty Mountain House bags, want to bet he won’t raid your pantry? Or turn you in for “hoarding” out of spite? (To the brownshirt that always shares the take, of course)

          Yeah. Things may go there. Have plans. Trust no one. You ain’t paranoid enough, because you are still Free.

          Savor that naiveté while you can. Because winning Freedom ain’t gonna be pretty. But it is winnable.

          1. “If you intend to try to hide, better be practiced and adept before the Eye of Sauron is a thing.”

            Trust me, you’re 10 years too damn late for that.

            1. Not yet. We are so far removed from Soviet or CCP surveillance as to be on another planet.

              If we had that level of see = destroy, you and I would not be having this conversation, as neither of us is suicidal or stupid.

              Ever spend real time talking to an escapee of a real surveillance state? It’s… educational. Our current would-be masters, as terrible as they can be, are idiot savant amateurs.

              Evidence: folks here are not terrified of the glowies. We mock them. (Why hello there Comrade ZampoliGuerrero.

              Sorry. Where was I?

              Which saying so might seem to glow, but I’ll be hanged for a Lion, thank you. I’ll head- butt the f-ing hangman if that’s all I can do. But cie la guerre.

              Not nearly a police state yet. And no reason to let one occur. Not over yet, no not yet. Our Republic still functions. Just some spots of bother.

              1. Hey, spell check, that was supposed to be

                “…Comrade Zampolit! GFY!”

                Fool that i am , I’ll poke Sauron’s eye on my own, thanks.

              2. Remember that “report people violating our stupid rules” thing during Kung Flu, in New York City?

                They still got a flood of people giving them the middle finger.

                In a situation that was as biased towards obedience as your’e going to get in the US.

              3. Even the Soviet Union did not have that much surveillance.

                It’s amazing what the possibility can do. Especially since it’s too dangerous to talk of the time you weren’t caught, and so everyone knows only of the successes except for their own personal cases.

              4. The data is collected and stored automatically. The question is what motivates searching it. As usual, you assume that they are interested in mass enforcement. No. What they are interested in is selective enforcement. And the grey / black market has one major weakness: The seller may, individually, be willing to take crypto. The question is will his seller(s)? And most people want to live better through hard work. As long as they can ask “Where’s the legal income to support a business this size?”, and you can’t answer, they have you.

                “How did you afford this inventory / building / etc.?” was Capone’s downfall.

                The operating mode will need to be more like a swarm of bees (or drones), with more targets than they can swat before they are stung to death.

        5. Having any amount of what is literally nothing is very unlikely to help you in a SHTF scenario.
          Even gold is not very usable during that scenario; silver dimes are likely to be much more useful and much less likely to get you killed.

          1. Sure, presume that one exact scenario is the only possible one, then use it to denounce something that will, in fact, be useful in less dire paths. If power and the internet stay up, then having crypto will be a great deal more convenient for conducting transactions at a distance than a pocket full of silver dimes.

            But never mind that, you get to sound smart by assuming only the worst!

              1. Exactly. Also, planning on only one scenario, and one that’s highly unlikely to happen, let alone precisely how anyone envisions it, is foolish. Diversification and flexibility.

        1. Jeff, the problem is the companion proposal to declare that physical cash will no longer be “legal tender for all debts public and private. ”

          Banks won’t let you deposit it, so when you pay your taxes, you have to have traceable income via electronic money. “Where did that income come from? ” will be asked of every candidate.

      3. Oh this crap.

        This thing everyone is freaking out about isn’t a power grab; it is a looooooooooong overdue fix to the ridiculous failings of the ACH system.

        1. The government could have ‘fixed’ the failings if the ACH system with some simple regulations about the maximum time transactions take to move through the system. Instead they bypassed it and set up one completely run by the Fed. The Reader is assuming enemy action on this one.

          1. IIRC, the constitution says the federal government is the sole authority over the coining of money/establishing a national currency, so they’re within their legal rights if they decide to corral and/or squash alternative currencies. Unfortunately, the one entity we can absolutely NOT trust to manage a monetary system at this point in time is the government.

            1. The constitution also says they have to make currency out of silver or gold, so they threw out the rules and forfeit that authority as soon as they started issuing fiat money.

              Not that that will stop them, I know, but we don’t owe them any obedience on this.

  6. No Promos!!!!!! [Terrible]

    Not, we can wait a few more days for the Promos.

    Take care of yourself and Dan.

      1. May you and yours recover your health quicker than you expect, with no complications or hiccups along the way. May your Father in Law and his immediate and wider family be blessed with the strength to bear up under the trial you now face.

        May the doctors, nurses, specialists, and volunteers be blessed with grace, calm competence beyond their expectations, and the good judgement to do what is needful, when it is needed.

        May his expected passing be as pain free as possible, and may he be welcomed into the arms of his loved ones with much joy in the reunion upon the moment of his passing, knowing that he was loved and appreciated by those he cared the most for in life.

        1. This. Mr. Lane said it better than I ever could.

          I lost my father right before Thanksgiving. His passing was not an easy one; I’m grateful I could be there with him during some of his worst final hours.; I feel the gnawing ache of his absence every day.

          Gee

  7. Oh thank goodness. When I read the title of the post, I thought you were referring to Bob From NSA…

  9. He also urged war with Mexico, partly to stop the drug trade.

    In one of the late G. Harry Stine’s “Warbots” novels, a Mexican drug cartel launched a paramilitary raid across the border the main character’s unit was sent chasing them using a doctrine of “hot pursuit” that referred back to Pershing’s pursuit of Pancho Villa and supposedly permitted by a treat that had long been ignored but was technically still in force.

    I have no idea if the legal underpinnings of the story had any basis in reality but find it an interesting concept.

    1. I remember that book. It had several interesting asides and comments in it. Truth be told, I learned a fair amount about world events and flashpoints, how not to conduct military operations, and a few other things from that series.

    2. I’ve got those (at least the first ten or so) in paperback – in box in the garage. I wonder how well they hold up. I enjoyed them when they came out.

  10. Well it’s holy week. What better time to have a political persecution kick off, amiright?

    That being said, it always seemed interesting to me that the Christians had bugged out of Jerusalem right before the Romans came in and destroyed the place. Were they warned? Was it coincidence? Just a random miracle? Who knows.

    Of course we don’t have anywhere else to go because this is global in nature. So presumably the warnings and the remedies would be different.

    Just some random thoughts I had upon reading this post. Probably nothing.

    2. They were warned, and the warning was given by Jesus himself. He told his followers that there would be a terrible retribution for what the Jews did to him, and had essentially told them “when you see the standards of an Roman army (the abomination that maketh desolate) Get out! Immediately!”, There was a long enough delay that those who never took him seriously in the first place forgot about it and were caught unprepared and expecting a miraculous deliverance that wasn’t coming this time.

    3. Not all the Christians got away. And there were communities in Antioch, Edessa, Alexandria, and a few other places that carried the teachings on and spread them farther. (Full disclosure: DadRed is a student of very early Church history and Roman Imperial history. YMMV.)

  11. I’m going to pick up Starship Troopers as a comforting read in these times. I’d give up my right to vote in a heartbeat if we had a system of government like that.

      2. IIRC in that novel, servicing military (or anybody else in Federal Service) couldn’t vote.

        You gained the Right To Vote after successfully completing your Federal Service. 😉

        1. He won’t be in for much longer, though. Even the highest military rank operates under “up or out”. And since there’s no higher up, he’ll soon be out.

      1. Sister & BIL just got Starlink to replace Xfinity/Comcast. The latter’s limits were evident when their daughter worked from their home. Everyone else was kicked off. They report already better than that. They are rural. Located east of Vancouver Washington.

  13. I’ve noted before that we have today, world wide, (& preceding with a word I’ve always considered irrelevant and redundant, but, alas, using it for, I think the second time ever.) literally, a state of mass psychosis.

    Not only are the inmates running the asylum, they’re spreading the infection.

    I don’t presume to tell anyone else how to deal with today. but me, I’m preparing for the worst, hoping for the best, and establishing friendships with as many sane folks as I can.

  14. Whether that will lead to also giving junkies the death penalty, I don’t know, I wouldn’t think so, but in Bob’s world, anything is possible.

    Was just listening to the podcast of a radio show where the host was interviewing the uncle of the Target Active Shooter suicide-by-cop guy.

    If one includes “forcing the victims to use lethal force to defend themselves, because heaven forbid we use some kind of an asylum, that costs money and is hard to skim” then we’re already halfway there.

    1. Of course, some of the Gun Control Idiots want “mentally ill” people to be prevented from owning/having guns.

      But they never think about the idea that “if those people can’t own/have guns, then why aren’t they locked up in an insane asylum?”

      Mind you, even if insane people should be locked up, then it should be hard to lock somebody up.

      1. Personal individual risk; it’s not like they’re the relatives that are trying to house That Guy who is going to die on the street if SOMEONE doesn’t do it, even though he randomly goes off his rocker and tries to knife them.

        (Example from real life, incidentally; brother of a family friend started smoking pot heavily, and became psychotic, in spite of having no other risk factors.)

        That they’re more likely to be the goblin shot on the job, than the person defending themselves from a goblin, is probably my being cynical.

      2. Middle class folks who live in “good” neighborhoods figure you will go crazy and shoot them in a nutty rage, before they get popped by the “bad people” in “bad places” they avoid.

        Also a bit of projection in that miscalculation. They often harbor rage fantasies and assume the same of you.

        And some, a despicable few, don’t mind a Master, as long as he is a Good Master, fair, light with the whip, and a bit indulgent with the House staff.

        (Spit)

      3. At least some of those pushing for “mental health risk” reasons for banning gun permits likely see it as a back door way to implement gun control over everyone they don’t like. They next step for such people would be to broaden the categories of “mental health risks” until it covered everyone but their private security details.

        1. I wouldn’t put it past them to claim “wanting to own a gun/other weapon” is a sign of a “mental health risk.” Or even the sign, as in the primary reason to deny such a request.

          Ask for a sword, and they’ll probably send one of those nice jackets with those extra-long sleeves, plus a few ‘kindly volunteers’ to help you get into it.

          1. I have seen “screening” checklists– back when I was in the Navy, so fifteen to twenty years ago– that included a desire to get a gun as one of the items on very long lists of “two is troubling, three is a red flag”.

            Other things were stuff like high stress, lack of sleep, and family disruption.

            It was mocked solidly, usually to the tune of “can you get three or more items on this list that aren’t directly caused by being in the military?”

            1. The three “other things” you cited are damn near ubiquitous in the military. And listing “desire to get a gun” as a red flag for a Marine or Army grunt seems a bit insane, or at best clueless, on its own. What do they think troops do? Play tiddly winks? Sheesh…

              I wonder what genius came up with that idiocy?

              1. Same place that came up with the checklist for possible alcohol problems.

                Among those were
                1) drinking on the weekend without a plan,
                and
                2) including drinking in your plans for the weekend.

                Any answer other than “no drinking, at all” meant “alcohol problem.” And not drinking probably was a red flag for lying, or being a closet alcoholic who couldn’t have just a sniff.

                1. Any answer other than “no drinking, at all” meant “alcohol problem.” And not drinking probably was a red flag for lying, or being a closet alcoholic who couldn’t have just a sniff.
                  …………….

                  No wonder I get a double take from physicians not my general GP. It isn’t that I don’t drink. I don’t drink that often. When I do drink I don’t drink that much. Not that we go to parties where there is a lot of drinking (college is way in the past). But I’ve perfected the drink that never gets drunk, or drinks that get left somewhere, at worst plants get a lot of alcohol poisoning fertilizing. When I have a drink I am eating. My system can’t tolerate drinking otherwise.

                    3. And bourbon, rye and Scotch are grain! And vodka is either grain or potatoes! It’s all food! 🙂

                2. I’m really glad I was in the Corps in the middle ’60s; we didn’t have that sort of garbage.

                3. When I started doing DoD projects in the mid 90s, I was told flat-out by the retired military consultants I worked with that my not drinking (including after hours) was going to make me less trusted, especially by longer serving members, because that was unexpected behavior and a sign of being unfriendly / not part of the team.

                  2. I’d be in trouble then. Ran into the same problem with Forestry Crew. Didn’t help that I was under 21. I couldn’t go to bars without getting carded until well past 30 (even with gray hair showing up at age 23).

                    1) No tolerance. I get sick (I will be sick for 3 days. Not a hangover, sick, with all that implies.) I remember every minute. It doesn’t take much.
                    2) Do not like Beer. Period. There isn’t one out there I could try to make me like it.
                    3) Do not like most wines. Even the general variety I do like. I probably won’t like it specific ones because picky.
                    4) Do like Margaretta’s as long as blackberry, or raspberry, on the rocks, with no salt. (Stop, hubby says the same.)
                    5) Do like some Mike’s Hard Lemonade (Raspberry, Watermelon, and Cranberry, others either too sweet or too bitter).

                    Items #4 & #5. My limit is One. If and only if, eating a good meal. Snacks do not count.

              2. I wonder what genius came up with that idiocy?

                Probably the same ones that want you to think every discharged soldier is on a edge of a violent PTSD breakdown and so needs to not have guns.

                It’s always about the guns and how to remove them. Any justification or mechanism will do.

                1. Yep. Gun control is a gigantic exercise in begging the question. “Let’s all assume that this is always the answer. Now how do we go about achieving it?”

                2. Funny how the same folks pushing the “Vietnam vets are PTSD timebombs” thing for both of our lifetimes (better grab their guns!) are the same ones who support the side that really likes re-education camps, innit?

              3. The genius who realized that “troubled” is subjective, and only plans to selectively enforce it. You know, Leftists.

          2. There’s an old short story (by Bradbury, IIRC) along those lines, but it involved a driver’s license. Applicants were subjected to hypnosis and believed that they were experiencing a car crash. If you still wanted to get your license afterwards, you were insane and dragged away for treatment.

            1. Oh, you said ‘short story.’ Whew. Thank You, Lord.

              For the moment, at least. But for a little while, I was thinking, “This actually happened? What on God’s green earth…?”

            2. I remember that one; IIRC the end of the story had the testee ask, as he was being dragged away, “This is part of the test, right?”. And th eanswer was “We don’t know!”

              1. Yup. And the story mentions that he’s being dragged out along a well-worn set of grooves on the floor, indicating that a lot of people “fail” that test. The story was in one of my high school textbooks.

          3. There was an episode in the TV show Barnie Miller, where a psychiatrist made exactly that argument against Wojo.

            Then it was comedy. Today, it’s prophecy.

        3. All of these “reasons” to disarm you are just pretexts to disarm normal citizens..In Chicago, which has many gun laws, and many gang members with long records, the cops make no attempt to stop criminals from owning guns, which are universally available on the black market…Of course, the gangs all contribute significant money to the Democrat politicians, who have responded by allowing Chicago to become a free fire zone on the South and West sides…..

      4. They’re working on it. Red flag laws, naming 2a supporters terrorists, changing definitions in the DSM, widening the scope of diagnoses so that everyone has some kind of disorder, etc.

        They always seem to forget that such things are routinely turned on the instigators.

        1. Working on it but haven’t “reached it”.

          I’m waiting (NOT) for people to be imprisoned just by a phone call claiming that they are “Bad People”.

    2. Didn’t the AG from crazy town just charge someone with attempted murder because they wrestled the gun away from an armed attacker and ended up shooting them?

      1. Was going to, dropped charges from mass outrage.

        Parking garage attendant who, if I heard the story right, did something like yell “Hey! you!” at the guy breaking into cars in the lot, and dude pulled a gun.

        Rather than laying down and dying as he was supposed to, the attendant fought for the weapon, and the goblin got injured.

        1. Good to hear. At least they can still somewhat hear us when they do something sufficiently insane.

          Too much of their current dogma seems to revolve around thinking they can wish the world they want into existence of they pretend hard enough.

          1. …and when their delusions turn out to be crap, it’s all our fault for not pretending along with them.
            ———————————
            Does the Left drive those idiots barking mad, or were they drawn to the Left because they were already batshit crazy?

            2. I suspect it is a feedback loop.

              Suspending one’s moral compass to fit in with a group is a deeply unhealthy state. And deeply unhealthy leaders will tend to demand their supporters do that to prove they are part of the team. Which means they have a team of people who will turn on them at a pin drop. Etc etc etc.

              If it is any consolation, they likely live in as much terror of each other as we do of them. Probably more, since they’re all tied together in one big bucket. Can you imagine what it must feel like knowing your paycheck, or even life, depended on the consistency and moral leadership of members of the current first family?

              1. “Can you imagine what it must feel like knowing your paycheck, or even life,”

                Being a conservative in IT, it’s not something you imagine…. and it’s spreading. And as far as your life goes, when the medical profession is openly advocating for denying care based on beliefs, skin color, etc., well…..

        2. The person(s) who brought those charges needs to be discharged, with prejudice. People like that are the ones destroying this country and making it less secure and more unsafe.

          1. Careful– assuming the story is as told.

            There’s been a lot of cases where what was reported didn’t line up, at all, with what actually happened.

            Like that “FLORIDA SCHOOL FIRES TEACHER FOR SHOWING CLASSICAL SCULPTURE!”

            Actual story: principle at a small, private school had a long running ‘issue’ with following contractually required policies, including parental notification for all lessons involving pre-teens and nudity.

            She repeatedly failed to uphold these policies which she had agreed to, and was thus let go.

            To the outrage of the press.

            My take? Goes something like this.

            Think about the folks that would choose a school based on “every lesson involving nudity, the parents will be informed BEFORE it happens”– first on your list should be, abuse victims, it’s not a low-cost item in time or effort.
            And kids who have already been abused are exceptionally vulnerable to future predators.
            And one of the points that is hammered to death, in the classes about identifying child abuse risks that you are required to take before even volunteering with kids, is that a huge red flag is the person who just cannot stop violating rules.

            It’s a sorting mechanism. You break the little rules, so they’ll be waved away as Not A Big Deal– and if a kid objects to breaking a little rule, then they stay in the target selection group; if they object, they’re removed.

            You find someone with a track record of deciding that policies don’t apply to her? Especially when it’s policies related to informing parents?

            Well.

            No wonder the media is up in arms.

            They’ve been covering for abusers for my whole life, at least.

        3. That SOB-DA charged the victim with “unlawful possession” of the gun.

          What utter scum.

          1. Did the criminal try to claim it wasn’t his gun, it belonged to the guy who shot him?

            (Yeah, grasping at straws for that NOT being full twirl-moustache-while-laughing evil stupid.)

              1. Em is from NYC. She hasn’t been back in 20 years since she “was rescued in a Southern bridal raid.” 😎

              2. This kind of situation is the cost of various policies based on distrust of the judgement by the authorities involved. Part of why I hammer on looking for the whole story, and working on removing bad actors, rather than making knee-jerk policies.

                If the criminal did claim it was the other guy’s gun…well, criminals usually do know those kind of tricks to trigger further damage on their victims.

                And by-their-fruits political bad’ns like in New York always manage to find a way to do harm to little guys, like this:

                While “somehow” listening to their better angels when it’s time to be harsh to the career criminals.

                I’d bet five bucks and a burger that they have a fig leaf read and waiting to go.

                  1. :eyeroll:

                    The 70s called, they want “being cynical beyond sanity is clever” back. It was expired then. *

                    For starters, if it were even faintly accurate, Soros wouldn’t have to spend gobs of money to get willing idiots elected. And this stupid wouldn’t be making news for happening in NYC!

                    can you imagine being the kid who thought he was being clever with trying to be dark at World War I trench warfare veterans? That’s even better than the picture of still-touring-rock-band guy signing his name on a pretty girl, labeled “[rockstar] autographs someone’s grandma.”

        4. According to the NY Post, the attendant caught the guy peeking into cars. He pulled the guy aside to chat with him. But instead of answering questions, the suspect pulled a gun out of a bag he was carrying and shot the attendant (possibly twice). Attendant wrestled the gun away, shot the suspect, and then called the cops.

          Bragg decided to charge the attendant with attempted murder, and illegal possession of a firearm. The uproar made him back down. But this is the second time Bragg has tried to do this. He’ll keep at it.

          1. Second time we have heard of.

            You probably noticed that these guys seem to follow the same pattern of behavior as chronic abusers. (Other chronic abusers, most likely….)

            It says a lot– though none of it complementary to the press in general– that the story being in the Post makes me more likely to believe it’s something OTHER THAN a direct write up from an attorney that’s involved.
            Seem to have stumped into that News niche of occasionally doing actual reporting.

        1. “Pending further investigation.”

          If that don’t smell right to you, you’re not alone. If that makes you think “we will wait until the public outcry dies down and THEN have our way,” you ain’t the only one.

          Expect no mercy from activist prosecutors and judges. They’re not officers of the law in their own eyes, they are effectively temple zealots in service of their cult. They see themselves as righteous do-gooders rather than sheepdogs and incisive servants of the law.

        1. I wouldn’t mind seeing Bragg decorating a light pole. Except I’m not sure NYC has any light poles anymore. Aren’t all the lights mounted on buildings? Oh, I suppose you could have strange fruit dangling from trees in Central Park; but you’d have to run the gauntlet of muggers to do that.

          1. Out on the back forty there’s a dearth of lampposts. However, we make do by nailing the pelt of whatever varmint’s been harassing the sheep to the nearest wall as a warning to the other varmints.

            Could be that might work in the big city.

    3. And then they’ll try to throw the victim in prison for defending himself/herself. Yeah, Bragg backed down again. But it was only because of the uproar. The parking garage attendant should never have been In legal jeopardy.

      1. In justice, no, never should have.

        Heck of a week for this, though– I hope that the parking attendant is a Christian. He might get some comfort from noticing that Bragg comes in second to Pilate in a spine contest, and that’s one heck of a contest to lose.

      2. In the movie Red Heat there’s a scene where Arnold Schwartzenegger’s character is talking to Jim Belushi’s about the illegal drug trade:
        Arnie: “Chinese find way. Take all drug pushers and drug users and shoot them in back of head.”
        Belushi (thinks for a moment): “Ah, the politicians would never allow it.”
        Arnie: “Shoot them first.”
        While I have my own thoughs in drug use and abuse, the final line would seem to be much more widely applicable.

        1. I’d note that this is somewhat an admission against interest for me.

          There is no reason to trust that anyone conducting a ‘shoot them all’ course of remedy is not going to quickly escalate beyond those that ‘need killing’.

          Death squads are dangerous enough, potentially, that we ought to be very skeptical of allowing them to operate.

          1. It’s the Politician Conundrum. Anyone who wants that power, by definition, ought not have it. Unfortunately, only the ones who want it end up getting it, absent George Washington situations.

          2. Yup. Death Squads fill a very definite niche, and there’s a reason why they’re created and why people welcome them – at least at first. But there’s a very strong temptation to let them get out of hand. There’s always another person whose death can be justified, and if the leader of a death squad doesn’t exercise a lot of restraint, sooner or later it will start killing the innocent.

        2. That’s the French Revolution method.

          Or Marxist.

          Remember whom his character served? An “Evil Empire” as one wit tagged it.

          Vote them out of office. It’s harder, but better that way. Better yet, vote for folks who reduce the power of government. Even baby steps help.

          Just keep in mind that if it comes down to “lampposts”, the opposition have rope, too.

          And fewer scruples.

    4. Yeah, the apparent popular consensus on mental health is a travesty.

      The early stages of working up to the current level of dysfunction were a part of why I hit certain levels of unhinged on specific subjects.

      Drug use for certain substances causes mental impairment. Mental health issues are mental impairment that may be naturally occurring.

      If you refuse to have your mentally ill people handled by psych nurses in custody or confinement, you are automatically choosing to have them handled by, at best, armed cops on the streets.

      There is a lot of wishful feeling on policy, that ignores that mentally ill people are not simply dolls who will pull the choices out of the hat that will make a ‘castle in the clouds’ scheme at all live-able for anyone experiencing the costs of the mentally ill.

      Every single feasible option may suck, and be a trade off between options that we could ideally avoid.

  15. Even in Bob World, one would have trouble calling a Manhattan DA who grew up in a million dollar brownstone and went to Trinity School, Harvard College, and Harvard Law underprivileged and insinuate that he was a brother from the ‘hood. My wife grew up in the ‘hood, a mostly a Irish part, yes, but still the ‘hood. Alvin Bragg knows sweet b-gger all about being for the ‘hood. he’s just another rich lefty.

    Funny how this is all rich a—holes from NY prep schools and the Ivy’s. Just like Roosevelt’s and Wilson’s and Kennedy’s. All three ended in war, I hope this one doesn’t.

    When Adam delved and Eve span, who then was the gentleman?

    1. I know people who grew up in the ‘hood, or worked in the ‘hood. The ‘hood has rules, and understandings, and most of the residents seem more civilized than the elites who “slum around” as victims.

      1. Yep. Only the outsiders seem to glorify the “dirty people”. de haut en bas mostly.

    2. Marxism is so terribly effective at creating poverty,

      that only the affluent can afford to practice it.

      For a while, anyway. For a little while.

  17. I imagine an invasion of Canada would go one of three ways:

    (A) French style. Immediate surrender, some discussion of terms with them apologizing for taking up our time.

    (B) Russian style. Other side retreats, retreats, retreats, and lets us deal with the winter.

    (C) Tvtropes.com ‘Beware the Nice Ones.’ At first, it looks like we’re winning. Then people start disappearing. Maybe they got lost in the woods… Why do I hear ‘O Canada’ playing in a minor key? And where are all those drums coming from?

    P.S. Not meant to be serious strategic forecasts, just the funny outcomes that would be interesting in a story.

        1. Canadians. The War of 1812. Granted, the British also burned DC in retaliation for stuff we’d done. And then there was the Battle of New Orleans, fought after the war ended.

          It was an odd conflict.

          2. “In 1814, we took a little trip…”

            Sung that to my classmates once, with Dad playing acoustic bass guitar. (Homeschool co-op, hanging out at our house.) The sibling of a classmate just couldn’t stop laughing.

            Ah, memories.

            Excuse me, I’m just gonna go and memorize that song again…

      2. Given the state of the US and Canadian armies they’d be more likely to shout incorrect pronouns as insult than to use actual weapons. Only three things save us from invasion, The Atlantic and Pacific oceans and the fact that the potential invaders armies and command chains are even a worse Charlie Foxtrot than ours…

        1. Babylon Bee did a skit about that, with the Chinese Communists using EMOTIONAL DAMAGE to absolutely wreck our troops. It’d be much more funny if it weren’t so true.

          ==============================================
          “Better to die on our feet than to live on our knees.”

          1. The consolation prize is that if we DO end up having to shoot our way out of this, at least the troops we’ll be fighting won’t be the best.

            Personally, it amazes me that the regime can be so obviously afraid of armed rebellion and yet simultaneously see nothing wrong with weakening and alienating the very military they’ll be counting on to defend them. I mean, I know these guys are idiots, but that level of “didn’t think it through” seems impressive even for them…

          2. It isn’t so true.

            Conveniently left out of all the reeeeeeing from our side is that diversity training has been happening for a long time, and is not in fact the only thing on the training schedule.

            But recognizing that doesn’t paint a picture of absolute unstoppable doom, so to do so is a conservative heresy.

            1. As usual you overlooked degree. “Diversity Training ” via a BS online course is a whole different animal from a Zoom session where your willingness to keep clapping is judged live.

        3. We’re not saved from invasion at all. We’re being invaded by 5 million illegals across the Mexican border. And the number of embedded criminals, spies, saboteurs, and other bad actors is pretty high.

          1. This. Military age cohort. I speculate that the CCP already has a minimum of 2 divisions in place already. That would be roughly 20k troops. Could get very interesting.

          2. Fair enough I had considered military invasion i.e. a D-day or Inchon like operation. To a great degree the current economic/cultural invasion is a self inflicted intentional wound. The business part of the Stupid Party likes it because it helps depress wages. The Evil party likes it because over time it can offset the existing rather unpalatable (to them) “Proletariat” and replace it with one which is more comfortable with state as mother and father. Finishing a true physical border (southern preferentially) and enforcing our existing law would be a good start. Unfortunately this seems nearly is likely as hitting Megabucks multiple time in a row given our current political class.

    2. Actually, I have an idea!

      Pump large amounts of Sulfur Dioxide and ash into the stratosphere. The resultant glaciation will finish off Canada.

      (Grin)

      1. Yeah, but we’re close enough that the collateral damage from that might not be worth it… Especially for all the southern states that northerners would be migrating to in order to escape the cold.

        2. Do you really want Vermont, Mass, Conn, and New York flooding into Florida and other southern red states? Do you want Chicago anywhere near Texas? Granted, Washington State flooding into California would sink both of the them since there aren’t enough resources. But the reality is, the U.S. would have to invade Mexico for living space and cropland. It would take too long for the exposed continental shelves to be desalinated to grow anything to save the first generation reglaciated.

      2. The Reader wonders if you are confident that those glaciers, once unleashed, will stop at the Canadian border or make it to southeastern Tennessee as they did last time.

          1. The Kansas was the deepest of the three most recent (Kansan, Illinoin, Wisconsonian). The Younger Dryass doesn’t count, exactly, quite. Ish.

        2. Glaciation would also cause the sea level to drop significantly.

          New England ice bound.

          Florida doubles in size, and becomes cooler. Texas is cooler and larger.

          ( grin)

                  1. You can tell this is an old image; you’d need a second mortgage for that much bacon now….

  19. I’m glad that this is Bob’s world (either your Bob or my Bob (Dad’s a Bob))…mostly.

    Mine would be a little more interesting. And only in 25-30% in a whole “oh God, oh God we’re all going to die!” way, too!

    If there is any optimism about the insanity out there, it is that I am hoping that what we are seeing is merely the flopping of a headless chicken. Messy, sometimes even violent and can even respond to certain stimulations. But dying all the same.

    1. If I were the author of this world (serving under the One Great Author, of course), the bad guys wouldn’t be so… dumb. And embarrassing. Not all of them would have read the Evil Overlord List, but probably a significant percentage.

      And none of this ‘dress up like a baby/dog/whatever-the-frell’ for weird thrills. Who signed off on those villain outfits? Give me Sephiroth’s trenchcoat any day, or a well-tailored suit. Heck, even a jester’s costume can look intimidating if accentuated correctly. That stuff? It’s some of the purest cringe I’ve ever seen, with a hefty helping of ‘what-the-bleep.’

      As I am not, we are unfortunately stuck with the weirdness.

      1. This isn’t even weirdness. This is cheap carny-level geek “thrills”. Funny once, maybe. Frustrating and irritating and making me want to take a flamethrower to this place a second time or beyond.

      2. Young lady, do you REALLY want our enemies to be competent? I mean, OUTSIDE of fiction?

        1. sigh No. I guess not.

          But it’s just so stupid. And competent, self-serving baddies would probably do less damage overall, knowing how dangerous it is to ‘flip the switch.’

          1. To some degree think of it like Goedel’s theorem applied to baddies. As Tolkien has Theoden say ““oft evil will shall evil mar”. The mental nature of being a baddie, usually involving moderate to heavy Narcissism and psychopathy is not conducive to rationale thought, it almost seems if the classic Lawful Evil alignment of D&D really does belong in a fantasy game…

            1. And other fiction, yeah. Unless they’re managing to channel that stupidity into incessant monologuing, overly complicated plans, and stupidly complex death-traps?

              Would an evil monologue now and then bring the current crop of baddies down to earth again? If so, no one tell them. At this point, there’s little gain to be had.

              1. > “Would an evil monologue now and then bring the current crop of baddies down to earth again?”

                Didn’t Nale (from Order of the Stick) once do a bond-villain monologue to a mirror specifically to get it out of his system before executing a scheme?

                Surprisingly savvy of him, all things considered.

                1. That does sound familiar. And as I recall, Nale was the less obedient-to-cliches of the two children. Which was part of why he and his father didn’t get along.

                  I might be wrong though, it’s been a while since I read his portions of the series.

      3. Glad to see a lady your age recognizes classic gaming villain style! I’m used to a fair number of younger people into gaming not knowing who Sephiroth is even with the first part of FFVII Remake still being only a few years old!

          1. I don’t think I’ve seen that one, though I’ll have to give it a look later. I’ve just gotten too used to basically being a relic as far as gaming goes I suppose.

              1. Got my wires crossed. I meant to reply to Fox directly and tell HER that, yes, she’d shared that before.

                1. It works out either way since I’m sure she had and I either hadn’t read it or had just plain forgotten it one.

            1. Now imagine a whispy-haired, pink obsessed four year old with big, blue eyes and a lisp walking around singing “I dah bozz! I da bozz! Bewwy bewwy zoh-wee! I dah bozz!” (with random notes for each word)

                1. Resets about daily; the one time I asked for it to stop was on a road trip after about two hours straight, in completely stopped traffic with busted AC. 😀

          3. That’s definitely entertaining and I’m glad to see Sephiroth getting his place with Ganon, Bowser, and Robotnik/Eggman there! 🙂

        2. Oh believe me, this conversion is fairly recent. I faintly remembered One Winged Angel showing up on TVtropes, and supposedly being among the better kinds of boss music, so I looked it up.

          That was a couple of weeks ago. I’ve been running variations on that theme on repeat ever since, not to mention cutscenes from the Remake. I’ve even been watching playthroughs just to see people react to his cutscenes.

          He is absolutely the villain, and should be stopped. But I have to admit, he’s not hard on the eyes during boss battles.

          2. At the time of the original game’s release there definitely wasn’t anyone like him around between the hair, outfit, and the sword, which is what sold me on his design. Granted they’re both absurd weapons but I always thought Sephiroth’s Masamune was a lot cooler than Cloud’s Buster Sword. Plus when you get into his backstory there’s a reason why people say Sephiroth might be the main antagonist of FFVII but Dr. Hojo is the real villain – especially in what I’ve seen of him in Remake scenes! A Song of Joy’s got quite a few thoughts on that sicko. As far as Final Fantasy final boss themes go while I do like and respect One-Winged Angel, I always found the final boss theme from IV to be the most enjoyable of them, which helps since the boss in question is a nightmare if you don’t know how to approach the battle!

            1. The Zeromus fight music was one of the best themes from that game.

              The FFVI Atma weapon fight theme is probably my second favorite.

              1. Which is saying a lot when you consider what some of the other songs were like: The Red Wings, Theme of Love, Battle 1, Baron Castle, and Within the Giant to name a few! That was a good one, too, of course. The soundtrack is as much a part of why VI is one of the iconic FF games as anything!

            2. I don’t know if anyone here’s particularly familiar with The Witcher (the videogames, not the Netflix adaptation or the books), but there’s another villain who pops up in an expansion pack for that series.

              Dear moon and stars, the guy is terrifying. In so many ways. Not to mention an excellent musical theme/creepy nursery rhyme combination…

              1. I have the Witcher games on my Steam account but never got around to playing them. I’ll keep an eye out for him when I do get to them!

  21. I hope Trump and his lawyers turn tomorrow’s hearing into a circus. Why not? It’s already a clown show.

    “The defense moves that the New York Attorney General be required to remove his head from his rectum before making any further statements.” 😀

    1. Would it not be funny if Trump got DeSantis or a Sherrif to assign Trump as a Process Server for the State of Florida, thus to serve some Florida warrants or other such writs on DA and judge.

      (Grin)

      Let’s play Global Thermonuclear Lawfare

      1. Someone needs to start taking legal action against these people. There’s only one other way they’re ever going to stop, and that method’s a lot bloodier.

      3. Sadly, not. I was so hoping for epic, clown world, nuclear counterstrike lawfare…

        Sigh…

  23. The biggest deal with regard to classifying the cartels as terrorists, and further declaring war on them (convenient that they are finally ending funds and authorization for the War on Terror in Congress), is the number of our own politicians who will be found to be providing material support to an enemy. That’s the real reason it hasn’t happened, I think. You have the ones who are hooked up in the disgusting mess, and the ones worried about the effect such charges will have on what little public faith remains in Congress.

    Fortunately (or not, depending on your view), mister NY DA has broken the glass ceiling related to charging political opponents with a crime. Even though his charges are made-up nonsense, he may have inadvertently hosed his own party; if there are any Republican politicians with the guts to do what needs to be done (and this includes any future political appointees).

    1. “providing material support to an enemy”
      By definition, treason. And an executable offense. Provide supporting evidence that they knowingly did it, I have no problem with capitalizing their punishment.
      Just remember, cornered rats will fight.

      1. Treason was Intentionally made very hard to prove as it had been often misused in the past by the crown in English Common Law.

        Article III, Section 3, Clause 1: Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.

        The two witnesses thing is hard. Although the “or on Confession in open Court” has potential as some of these idiots would proudly blabber on about providing aid and comfort. Getting a court to let them do so and a jury to decide against makes it harder, probably easier to go the taxes route and just let them rot, but that still means controlling things not necessarily under control of those that would agree to it.

      2. To their benefit at least, the cartels are not technically our enemies until after they are formally classified as such. It might be entertaining to see how many politicians scramble to divest themselves or certain assets or contributing people/organizations.

    2. Dems did similar Stupid Things That Would Obviously Bite Them in Congress, and then screamed when — wait! It turned around and BIT THEM!

      We’re fortunate that they always act like they’ll never be out of power again, I guess?

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