Buckets of Icy Water

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

I have never been woken with a bucket of icy water to the noggin. In fact, most such I’ve seen are scenes in movies of someone pouring a bucket of ice water over the head of a drunkard.

I do, since I’m confessing, confess that I once woke my younger son by dropping a cup of ice on him. In my defense, we had an appointment and he was 13 and taller than I and impossible to wake. The result was, btw, amazing, and once I was done peeling him off the ceiling, I decided never to do that again, because eventually he might get to choose my nursing home.

Anyway…. I have seen the result of icy buckets of water in movies, and I’ve seen the result of metaphorical icy buckets of water in real life.

In movies it brings people out of the deepest unconsciousness. And in real life I’ve seen it happen a few times. You probably have too, if not in person, then at a remove through a friend of a friend. Normally it takes a good scare. Something that shakes you to the core.

There is a tendency in humans, individual or in groups, to go along to get along, which in turn gives us an inertia of the normal. “Normalcy bias.” How much normalcy bias depends, honestly on how much people’s iron rice bowl depends on their not noticing things.

That people have been red pilled at all even when it goes against interest is a sign of how out there our times are, and how horrendously insane the overculture is.

Because people are well paid not to notice malfeasance in their own in group, when noticing casts them to the out group.

A point here: while the left was never justified in assuming creativity was on the left only — since creativity is often associated with a kind of madness, whether divine or simply mad, and often descends on outcasts — it was justified in viewing the expression of non-left-wing opinions as a sign of stupidity.

No, bear with me, here. Suppose you have absolutely no principles. Or even that you have principles, but you think the left, while sometimes misguided is trying to be good and do good things for other people. Now, you’re smart enough to see that everyone who expresses one set of opinions gets promoted, fetted, called very smart, and is more or less handed gold-plated careers. This might not be true in tech (and even there open communists often got better pay for inexplicable reasons) but it was and largely still is true in just about every other field, yes, including science and research (which explains a lot) and with bells on for writing, arts, journalism, etc. Meanwhile, profess opinions that fall outside the “acceptable mainstream” which is increasingly the same as hard left, and your career is over. Ditched. If you are very very good you’ll be kept on, but regardless of the work you’re doing, you’ll be kept at a low level. You will be Cinderella, in the kitchen, working for everyone.

If you are the sort of person smart enough to notice that, but you don’t see anything wrong with what the left is doing, or see something wrong but convince yourself both sides do it, or see something wrong, but know it won’t come to that bad an ending because “it can’t happen here” or “that will never work in reality” or “insert calming phrase here” WHY wouldn’t you mouth the stuff required to make your life much easier and give you the gold plated ride to the top? And why would you not assume anyone doing otherwise was just stupid? If not stupid in their particular field (if I had a dime for everyone who said “She’s a good writer, but–“) stupid as rocks when it came to human interaction? You’d cast about for excuses. Perhaps they were uneducated and simply couldn’t guess what to say? Perhaps they were religious fanatics? Perhaps they just hated people different from themselves? Perhaps–

That is how it worked. Some of us escaped it because we had seen it play out elsewhere and because we read a lot. Some of us escaped it because of a strong religious or otherwise community. And some of us are just absolute contraries. And some of us were wide eyed idealists, who were therefore better at noticing all the contradictions early, and it bothered us extremely. Most of us needed a combination of all of those to step out of line. Because humans are social apes, and the temptation IS to conform. No, not even temptation. We all know the tale of the blue monkey. Any monkey who sticks out dies. The need therefore is to conform. For social species it is an imperative of survival to fit in.

And the left, once it had weaponized the era of mass communication — yes, it was intentional, they always in any targeted country, took over all means of mass communication, and then means of dissemination of art and literature. it was part of the subversion protocol — had that going for them. Once they had taken over that small sector of society, it was very hard for society as a whole to go up against them and/or wake up.

Hence why reading so many accounts of communist take over (or fascist. It was all Marxism, after all) is like watching a sleep walker walking towards the abyss while all attempts at waking up failed.

(I would find it hilarious that they use “woke” to symbolize the state of those who blindly parrot the lines given them without thinking and in fact with an aversion to thinking, except it’s not. Most of psychology as practiced today, save for techniques of behavior modification is bokum, but there is such a thing as a subconscious, (whatever Asimov thought) and the stuff repressed into it has a funny way of returning. And we don’t mean “funny ah ah”. This is like when in a dream you keep telling yourself you must wake up, or when you’re writing a very boring chapter and all your characters talk about how bored they are (this is a thing, btw. Known as “messages from Fred.” If you’re a writer, pay attention to it. It’s like when I get stressed and all my characters want to smoke.))

This is because humans will do practically anything, including dying, rather than stand out from the group. Because through most of our evolution, standing out from the group meant dying, and unpleasantly at that. So, humans don’t. Unless they’re Odds, Goats, Eccentrics. You know, people like us.

It’s not that most people won’t do it. It’s that most people can’t do it.

So now some of you are going: Argle bargle, Sarah, as I said, argle bargle, I told you we were doooooomed. Doomed.

Bah. Nonsense. Because societies change and revolutions happen. And some of them even short of dire. And revolutions in the era of mass communication were amazingly instructive, too. It seems that controlling everything doesn’t really allow — as to an extent people like Aldous Huxley or George Orwell thought — control of people’s minds. It allows control of what people say or show. And leaves dissenters feeling very isolated. But when due to some event people finally realize the majority feels as they do, the results are…. explosive.

But secondly, go see the verb tenses I used for having control of mass communications. You see, they HAD full control of means of communication. But they don’t now. And the ways in which it has escaped them are ways they didn’t anticipate. Some of the greatest blows to their cause have, in fact, come from what their allies or they, themselves, did trying to regain control and shove everyone back in line. Because they have put out messages they thought would rally or scare the masses, but which, instead, woke people who suddenly saw the abyss.

Arguably this started happening with Reagan’s election and his performance in office. They’d had very tight fear-control on the left: elect a “right winger” and he’ll get us in nuclear war. I mean, makes perfect sense, if you believe the only way to keep an attacker from killing you is to grovel and beg, the only way to prevent crime is to get rid of policemen, and the only way to stop war is to surrender. Since “right wingers” (None of us in the US really qualifies, but never mind) were by Marxists’ (Mostly the USSR’s, actually) definition war mongers. So, of course, they would make war immediately and it would kill little girls and daisies and stuff.

But Reagan was elected and not only didn’t we get into nuclear war, but the cold war ended peacefully.

I like to imagine what it would have been like if we’d had blogs and the internet with access to the common man then. Because it would have been amazing. You see, there was maybe these two or three years where, gloriously, everyone knew stuff like communism sucked and top down economies didn’t work.

But we didn’t have open communication. So while a lot of people actually woke up and walked away from leftism, it was quiet. It involved a lot of self-blacklisting. It involved their former colleagues thinking they’d gone mad. It wasn’t general. Not a bang, but a whimper. And in the circles where it was the rigueur, hard leftism reasserted itself via a thousand different routes: “environamentalism” “women’s issues” “Queer rights”, “Anti-colonialism” etc. While the causes themselves, in the un-Marxisted (totally a word, roll with it) version aren’t of themselves bad, these weren’t causes, but vehicles for telling everyone that the free market was terrible and that communism/socialism/leftism, while not great was still better. (With the while not great being more and more whispered as time went on.)

If you were in the know, you could see the old leftist horrors move back into top positions here and abroad, and anyone who dissented being pushed out and down, now more forcefully, since they reminded the people in power that they were in fact wrong, and that reality was in fact against them.

But the buckets of cold water continued. 9/11 was the next big one I remembered, where a lot of people woke up. Though a lot of feminists for real woke up when people they trusted and believed in said not a peep at Clinton’s abuse of a young woman over whom he stood in a position of authority.

Since then the hits keeps coming. If you manage to get in a place where people trust you, even though they are generally left, even the most “convinced” leftists will betray the cracks in their worldview, and you can see it metaphorically as a sort of a carnival mask over a face that keeps screaming silently like the painting by Edward Munch. (I always also wonder at the boomers’ love of that painting. I have wondered if it’s a message from Fred yet again.) In fact, their doubts are characterized most of all by their refusal to think. If you bring up stuff that would force them to question, examine, or apply logic, they shut down. Sometimes they shut down visibly, and sometimes they just scream and insult you to get you to go away. This is worse if they’re older.

Why do I say this betrays their doubts? Because in the sixties and seventies, when things like Freud or (eh) Margaret Mead hadn’t been debunked and exploded, they loved to discuss this stuff. They would bring up (largely made up) facts and figures, which you couldn’t counter, because your stuff wasn’t getting published. They were full of whataboutism and supposed righteous logic. Now they just want it to stop.

In the same way, they increasingly try to censor interactions and stop people talking. (The lockdowns were special in that vein and I think why they were so wedded to masks.) Because they don’t want anything to wake them up from the dream and force them to stand out from the herd. If they made a continuous sound it would be “stopthatstopthatstopthat.”

But no matter how much they suppress, repress and shout over, their very own side, their very attempts at consolidating reality, keep dumping buckets of cold water.

The terrorists filming and broadcasting themselves — gleefully — on 10/7 was one of those. It was also a genuine cross-cultural f*ck up. You see, attacking and killing lots of civilians in horrific ways is a military thing for tribal cultures. The fact that they COULD do it should be enough to make Israel surrender in fear and humiliation. They never THOUGHT of retaliation. They think we don’t kill tons of their civilians and their helpless population because we CAN’T not because we have a moral code that forbids it. (Remember Islam doesn’t believe Christ died on the cross. They think someone else was substituted for him, because dying on the cross would be humiliating. The fact we use the cross as a symbol means to them that we want to humiliate Christ. Yeah, it’s …. a very old, very tribal mind set. It can be defined as “might makes right” or “only the strong horse counts.” Whichever.)

But those images, though suppressed, woke a lot of people. And if you have feminists in need of waking, I suggest making them watch it. In fact, part of the damage control is “the Israelis faked it” which is utter bullshit and not really sticking.

And then the attempt at damage control, at making sympathy with Israel “double plus ungood” and making it stop, those ridiculous mass demonstrations, and tearing down of the hostages posters?

All of that woke more people up. I keep coming across people on twitter sadly lamenting “How has the left got this evil and irrational? We’ve never been like this before.”

These are people who are my age or a little older, and it would make me laugh, if I weren’t so busy crying.

Because they’ve been evil and stupid irrational for all of my life, and obviously so since the eighties.

There was this college professor who was earnestly asking how this could have happened, how could the left be siding with Hamass? How could all these people she loved and trusted suddenly be so eeeevile?

I actually answered that one. She might have blocked me by now, but was visible as of yesterday on Twitter/x/twix, whatever.

I pointed out her sign to leave was if no earlier, when they called a Christian-Socialist like W. a “Nazi” or when they called a squish leftist like Romney “literally Hitler” or a hundred other times. But she said nothing, because she agreed with it. Probably because she didn’t want to look too deeply. If she looked too deeply, it would show her all the evil, and then she’d have to stand out, and leave the herd. And people would rather die than that. But at some point, a bucket of water falls on you that you can’t ignore.

For her it was this, but she’ll still try to bury it. Look, she’s a college professor. If she doesn’t try to ignore it and bury it in her mind, she’ll lose her job and all her friends. I know people who are strong enough to do that, but it takes effort and well, inner strength and a devotion to the truth. Which most ordinary leftists don’t have.

However the hits keep coming. Because on one side, we’re in the end stage of “socialism/communism glorifies and rewards politically correct incompetence, which causes everything to fall apart.” This might be tolerated in China or the USSR/Russia for a while, because frankly, they have experience of neither freedom nor prosperity. But we have experience of both, even if the first was illusory at various points in the 20th century. (Also relative. We were still more free than most of the world.) So, the way things fall apart and contradict the socialist verities is unavoidable, and people tend to believe their lying eyes. (Which is, btw, how Reagan got elected in the eighties.) And the patches put on the old tired Soviet agit prop are popping faster. Hence the — giggle, point, laugh — open borders bullshit is starting to wake up even liberal bastions. As is the “let’s coddle the “homeless” because they totally just hit a hard patch” etc. And don’t get me started on the enviro insanity which now wants to forbid random things with the more or less express intent of making agriculture impossible. That will wake up a lot of people. The prospect of starving in the morning might not concentrate the mind as much as the prospect of hanging, but it’s not that far off.

The buckets of water are already lined up. They can’t help but fall. And the left’s attempts at stopping them — because they are, ultimately, at war with reality, and reality is a bitch, it always wins — just means they become extra-icy and fall extra-hard.

Yeah, it’s going to suck, because we’re not watching this from another planet, far away. But it’s not going to suck as much as it will for them. Because we can see it coming, and we’re preparing. (Right, boys and girls? Please tell me I’m right.) And because we can see reality, and therefore we can elbow them out soonish and start rebuilding.

For them? Their minds would need to be completely rebuilt. Which some people say is impossible after 45 or so (Might be later now. After all, we live healthier and longer. But still.) And they believe. Most of them actually earnestly believe the mass of contradictory shibboleths, from humanity being a plague on the Earth, to free market causing slavery and war, to… well, the entire bucket of stupidity, according to which giving up agriculture and living in grass huts would make all of us healthier, more enlightened and possibly give us psi-powers. And no one would attack us, because EVERY ONE, every single person in the world will of course do this.

So when they see their vision failing, there is nothing after. Just unending abyss.

But be not afraid. It won’t be long. (Which still can exceed my remaining life span, because history doesn’t move on human life scale.) And in case it is tomorrow (could be. Unlikely, but it could be) that everything falls apart and simultaneously implodes and explodes, do keep your clothes and weapons where you can find them in the dark.

Illegitimi non carborundum!

140 thoughts on “Buckets of Icy Water”

  1. I just “LOVE” the idea that the “Poor Little Palestinians” are suffering because they’re under “occupation” by Israel. [Sarcastic Grin]

        2. Maybe the coverage of the writers strike had it backwards:
          They weren’t worried they’d be replaced by AI, but caught using it.

            1. Hell they aren’t even Holly from Red Dwarf, they’re more Wheatley from the second Portal game.

  3. WHY wouldn’t you mouth the stuff required to make your life much easier and give you the gold plated ride to the top?

    –
    Maybe you just can’t stand the lies?

    I’m an engineer. I know that you can’t lie to the hardware. If a widget doesn’t work, all the lies in the world won’t make it work.

    Unfortunately, most Leftroids are in positions where intransigent reality can’t smack them in the face. They can lie, and make things seem to work. For a while.

    But reality never goes away. If they manage to avoid those buckets of ice water long enough, they’ll freeze into buckets of solid ice and the wake-up from that is likely to be fatal.
    ———————————
    When reality doesn’t conform to your theories, it’s not the universe that’s wrong.

    1. I couldn’t look at myself in the mirror. I took a little step towards what they wanted, and it made me feel sullied. Nope. If I sell my soul, it will be for more than success in writing. (And I won’t. Because it would kill me.)

      1. I never took even that little step, because I knew from childhood that I was marked as an outcast. For me, there was no social benefit to be had from conformity, because I could never conform enough. The truth, if I could find it and stick to it, was the only ally I had.

    2. “And some of us are just absolute contraries.”….. I…am…SO. Giggled like a school girl for 5 minutes before I could continue reading.

      And I can not stand being lied to, like almost physical hives can’t stand. Which is what has made the last 6 years so hard, and made me start really paying attention to politics, never a good thing to have my attention. Between the lies that were being shoved at me, and then stumbling across some Evil Space Princess blog that caused me to look at different area’s in a different way, yea.

      I could stand what was happening if I thought the elections had been straight, but when everyone in any sense of power said “Perfectly fine”, behaving like a 3 year old throwing a temper tantrum and NOT even offering a “It was good. Lets audit a couple of places and prove it”. They knew it was fraud and lied about it. 1 lash for each lie told would be a good start to “forgiveness”.

              1. “I’ve got an old mule and her name is Sal, Fifteen years on the Erie Canal
                She’s a good old worker and a good old pal, Fifteen years on the Erie Canal
                We’ve hauled some barges in our day, Filled with lumber, coal and hay
                And ev’ry inch of the way I know, From Albany to Buffalo”
                — Thomas S. Allen

                I’d rather have a mule than any of those pampered jades. I’d get more work out of the mule even today than we ever see out of D.C.

        2. And she’s being lenient. I’d want them naked and barefoot, tied to the tail of a donkey and being walked from New York to LA while being whipped. …. or as long as they lasted.

      3. Screw that, I’ll forgive the fucking media when they commit ritual suicide in shame because of their lies. I’ll accept nothing less. They’ve earned it with their lies on behalf of their master Satan.

      1. Computer code. (Which runs airline control towers and lots of airplane computers.) If you break the rules, they don’t bend. They break. Getting a computer science degree is basically a logic degree. Be like Spock, or the plane crashes.

        This makes the nonsense peddled by the likes of Al Gore and all the lefties make no sense to us computer programming types. Logic doesn’t allow lies.

        2. Start from incorrect premises (or bad requirements) and it allows plenty.

          And H.P. Lovecraft couldn’t come up with more unreality than a DoD requirements document.

    4. Unfortunately, you and I both know that the immutable laws of physics and biology don’t stop some people. It’s anyone’s guess how many starved because of Lysenko’s ideas about biology. And there are some who would happily emulate him in the physical sciences.

  4. The “Occupied by Israel” bullshit seems to be waning ; I was intending to reply to the next one with my growing screed about how the only ones ‘occupying Gaza” was Hamass after frauding their way into ‘office’ and then threatening anyone with death who didn’t go along. It is either fading, or the ‘fact checkers’ at Fecesbook have been keeping such things out of my feed, because now that I’m “ready”, I haven’t been seeing any.

    2. No one asks Israeli Arabs (citizens) their opinions.

      When they team up, Arabs are the third largest political party there.

      Hmm.

  5. One thing that helped the left for a long time was that a lot of people honestly believed that the left had the moral high ground.

      1. Of -course- Communists are “for the poor”. It is why they work so hard to make as many poor as possible.

      1. I ahd heard of, and have encountered, urinals with ‘decorative’ bee to aim at to minimize splash. (Ponder the Latin for bee…) Considering some horror story of restrooms, perhaps an image of a pigeon in the pot?

    3. And it’s really easy to twist Christian concepts of charity, forgiveness, and the Golden Rule into taking everything people have to give to those claimed to be “in greater need”. At the risk of making a religious comment, even the current Pope bought into that malarky.

  6. How could I stop to belive in communist lies in my 14 years living in the USSR – I remember celebrating Pinochet counter revolution and Israel victory in 1973 and the Westerners continue supporting Marxism?

  7. Not only do people want to stay in the group but they ALSO want to feel like they are the good guys. And, more importantly still, have others know they are the good guys.

    There are a lot of people who stay “progressive” because they think that progressives are the “good guys” and they need to be known as a good guy too.

    The more the masks slip, the harder it is to ignore the wolf behind it.

    Once there is a critical mass of sheep who see the wolf, the preference cascade of public opinion will commence. The masses will switch sides in a heartbeat because that’s how virtue signalers work.

    No one wanted to admit that they went along with the Nazi program once the world at large knew what it entailed. Even when they themselves actually knew and went along. They just couldn’t have it known they cooperated.

    Considering how many sheep are now going so far as to even bringing Osama Bin Laden back from the dead to laud, we may have a ways to go yet.

  8. I think the meme’s are having an effect too. Visual “believe my lying eyes”.

    Regarding ham-ass, the most recent one seen on mewe was the ham-ass fighter, gun, suicide vest, kids, babies, women, strapped with “How dare Israel attack civilians.”

    If that can’t wake up anyone, short of them being the victim (and that is coming, no idea when, but it is coming, bet on it), what will?

    2. Memes are great because there is a set up and a punch line that induces cognitive dissonance. As a counter revolutionary cognitive dissonance is my friend.

    3. Is that the Michael Ramirez cartoon? It actually got pulled from one newspaper due to a staff revolt.

      1. IDK Authors of different meme’s don’t stick with me (any names) unless it is a name I recognize.

        I’d be surprised if the meme isn’t pulled from any number of MSM newspapers, given MSM. Be surprised if it is able to stick on FB without getting challenged/pulled and the poster put in FB jail (none of the groups I follow would it be remotely appropriate, because off topic posts are *inappropriate regardless). X/Twitter it should (not that I have an account to check). I saw it on MEWE, a number of groups.

        ((*)) I’d kill a post with it in the historical graveyard FB group, because the group is about the graveyard maintenance and communication. Not that, no matter how much I think the message needs to be hammered home and spread.

    1. Ah one of the Holy Scriptures of the Huns. Nearly as revered as The Moon is a Harsh Mistress or the Defense of Fort M’Henry (all four verses thank you…).

  10. After years of hearing about it and seeing quotes from it, I finally bought and read Thomas Sowell’s “The Vision of the Anointed: Self-Congratulation as a Basis for Social Policy”. Coming up on thirty years old, and it still nails modern ‘liberal’ thought so dead-on there’s no arguing with it, the only defense is to ignore it. And, yes, reality always gets the ultimate last word.

  11. Speaking of buckets of icy water…..

    https://www.bizpacreview.com/2023/11/21/pentagon-official-at-office-overseeing-elementary-schools-arrested-in-human-trafficking-sting-1414354
    “Hovanic, 64, of Sharpsburg, Georgia, was arrested on suspicion of pandering, according to a press release the Coweta County Sheriff’s Office provided to the DCNF. Eva Tedder, administrator for the sheriff’s office, said Hovanic told the jail staff he works for the Department of Defense (DOD) located in Peachtree City, Georgia, where the Department of Defense Education Activity’s (DODEA) Americas division is located, according to the agency’s website.”

    I’ll be interested to see a) the evidence and b) what his political history is. It’s sickening that I have to even CONSIDER that.

    1. And crap like THIS is why.

      https://www.theblaze.com/news/soros-backed-da-withheld-info-about-sheriff-s-innocence-to-block-his-re-election-bid-whistleblower-retaliation-lawsuit

      “The lawsuit argued that in typical cases, the relevant law enforcement agency is immediately notified once the DA’s office has concluded it will not move forward with filing charges. Instead, in this instance, “the Declination was not provided to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department or any other law enforcement agency,” the complaint noted.”

      2. Villanueva was a Dem, but I happily voted for his reelection bid. He made all the right people very upset, and quickly came to realize that his constituents were the people, and not the County Board of Supervisors (who hated his guts). Unfortunately, there was a lot of stuff like the above, and other things (such as stories of “deputy gangs” that immediately disappeared from the news after he lost the election).

  12. “The buckets of water are already lined up. They can’t help but fall.”

    At the local level, some of the buckets are doozies. Here in San Antonio it’s a bucket of vicious dogs attacking people at random, with little or no response from the city’s Animal Control folks. After a couple of deaths and maimings, people across the city–of all political persuasions–have come to realize how ineffectual our current lax “no kill” mindset is, and they’re not putting up with it. Already one man rescued a neighbor by shooting two dogs in the street, and several lawyers jumped to his defense. The city is getting hit with the cold water AND the bucket. You can imagine how other folks are prepping for this one.

    1. Dogs are tough critters, especailly feral ones. Use buckshot or a .30 caliber rifle. A 5.56mm/.223 can work (AR-15 = “Poodle Shooter” – Jeff Cooper) but you want a good hunting softpoint load for it, not GI Ball.

      Do -not- expect a handgun to drop an attacking dog with one shot.

      1. 10MM? .50AE? .357?

        Not trying to be a complete arse (just a minor arse) but I am curious if any of those have better chances of 1-2 shot stop rather than 5-9 shot stop.

        1. The Reader thinks 9 mm 147 gr +P hollow-point freedom pellets will do fine. Problem is it takes the Hulk to handle the recoil in anything small enough to be concealable. With a full size 9 mm freedom pellet dispenser it will be fine. As with most things in life, it’s a tradeoff.

          2. “Small enough to be concealable” thoroughly depends on where you are concealing. I have seen double stack Glocks invisible on little slips of young ladies wearing the current stretchospandex styles with correct holstering.

            Now if you are going to go creative concealment a la Captain Jack at 2:24 in this, your “small enough” comment begins to make sense:

        3. The harder the pistol hits, the better the odds.

          Pop did investigations for over 50 years. He shot a few attacking dogs along the way. .38s simply don’t do the job. A .45 in the brain did, but not -immediately-.

          Dogs can shut down slow, and “bite” is the last thing to go offline.

          Assume they are as tough as an aggressive and determined human.

          Brain the poor thing if you can.

      2. but you want a good hunting softpoint load for it, not GI Ball.

        For any sort of defensive or other “for keeps” usage you should be doing that.

        Citizens are not hamstrung by ill thought out treaties operating from questionable logic. We should act like it.

    2. Same happened in Gainesville in the 70s, though no humans were maimed or killed. I was stalked by a pack on my way home one night. Then someone put out sandwiches laced with rat poison. No more pack.
      Still a bad idea; some people who were being responsible lost dogs when they let them out to pee and there were children in the neighborhood. But I could understand.

  13. As far as my in-laws go, a dive into Lake Superior is not likely to suffice get them to challenge their very blue belief system. I’m thinking of a short Robert Frost poem and that we’ll need to go with our first instincts here.

  14. My sister has a Guy Fawkes mask on the wall of her new “we’re forcing everyone back into the office because I’m in charge and I’m a dick” office. Every day we’ve committed to being transgressive. We can’t help it. We don’t have friends, and we’ve been through enough shite to be really, seriously ornery and stubborn.

    A refusal to kowtow keeps me in the spotlight at work, where employees seem to have permanent Stockholm Syndrome.

    I’d fit in if I knew how. I’d love to be a part of something instead of the odd man out. Probably not going to happen.

    1. You’re part of something, here. That’s not too much, but it is a lot more than nothing.

      I had to fill out some forms the other day. I messaged my boss, “people should know better than to ask me to fill out a field labelled ‘reason’.” He then laughed when he saw my vacation requests. Friday is “Digesting” and Christmas week is “Playing with Presents”.

      I have people disappointed in me if I don’t ask the “disruptive” question in meetings.

  15. Aside: Thank goodness for Ham-Ass’ in charge who don’t know the term “slant angle”. From the Jpost ( at https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-774446 ):

    Israel has agreed to a condition laid out by Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar to halt Israeli UAVs in the Gaza airspace for six hours on each day of the ceasefire in exchange for the release of some of the hostages under Hamas’s captivity, according to a Tuesday report by Walla.

    So for those six hours the IAF surveillance UAVs will be flying at altitude, nose to tail, in an airborne parade all the way around (except possibly over Egypt, but possibly not, given Ham-Ass ties to the Muslim Brotherhood there, which the current Egyptian government hates a lot) along the line just outside “Gaza airspace” recording everything that happens on the ground inside, trading nothing at all for some of the hostages.

    This explains the next para:

    The condition’s implementation was addressed by an Israeli official who cited statements made by the IDF and Shin Bet, stating that they have intelligence-gathering capabilities even during the ceasefire days. “We will not be blind and we’ll know what’s happening on the ground,” the official said.

    1. And won’t it be interesting to see what ridents scurry where, when the cat is supposedly elsewhere.

      Lol.

      1. I’d think it would be lawyerable too, at least as reported – thirty-six ten minute chunks randomly assigned to be UAV-free actually overhead of Gaza, adding up to six hours total each calendar day, but completely unpredictable on the ground.

  16. I predict that Ham Ass will not be able to avoid breaking the ceasefire.

    They won’t want to break their 17-0 streak.

    1. They’ve already announced one elderly hostage has died, and of course it’s Israel’s fault for their “procrastination.”

  17. according to which giving up agriculture and living in grass huts would make all of us healthier, more enlightened and possibly give us psi-powers.

    The thing that really pisses me off about this one is… This is America. Literally no one would stop them from living this way if they actually insisted on doing so.

    But no, they don’t want to follow through and live in the way that their beliefs demand.

    They want everyone else to, even if those people don’t see the benefits of living that way.

      1. All they have to do is go build their own little compound somewhere that doesn’t require building code. Or doesn’t care if you never get the final inspection on your building permit.

        There are still counties in the US where that’s possible.

  18. according to which giving up agriculture and living in grass huts would make all of us healthier, more enlightened and possibly give us psi-powers.

    The thing that really pisses me off about this one is… This is America. Literally no one would stop them from living this way if they actually insisted on doing so.

    But no, they don’t want to follow through and live in the way that their beliefs demand.

    They want everyone else to, even if those people don’t see the benefits of living that way.

  19. The Reader isn’t sure that the Great Lakes in February would provide enough ice water to shock everyone that needs shocking.

    1. The shock of the left seeing the truth, will just make them go insane. They can’t be wrong even if they are wrong because the left are the smartest in the room. So they will double down on stupidity. I am sorry many of the left can’t be saved, the only choice for them is death. And they will try and take as many people with them as they can. That is the Liberal/Communist/Progressive/Marxist way. Because in the end, the only thing Marxism represents is death and destruction, may they all burn in a hell of their own making.

      1. Think about O’Brien (the inner party apparatchik in 1984). He already knows the world is totally different from what he has been told. For reasons of power and control he FORCES his mind to accept the idiocy that the Party spews. He can not tolerate the loss of his privileges and powers and certainly doesn’t want to see the regular party or (heaven forbid!) the proles enjoying those advantages. I fear that the only shock that would free those kinds of Brahmandarin idiots is one so severe that it physically sends them into a death spiral. To steal from another story they are like the dwarfs sitting in the dark in range of a great feast saying that the feast is literally muck from the barn (from C.S. Lewis “The Last Battle”). Orphangeorge has the right of it they’ve condemned themselves to a hell of their own making and would rather rule in that hell than serve in heaven.

        1. You are correct, I fear. For humans believing is seeing. Particularly, I think, for those who have most bound up their self identity with the dogmas of the Woke Death Cult it will not be possible to alter their perception of the world without destroying their self identities. We tool using bipeds lie to ourselves all the time, and do so habitually. When the shared delusion is no longer supported some will be able to adapt, some will not.

          I am convinced that one of the wicked purposes of the Woke educational system is to so warp the developmental processes in children that they are unable to develop a self identity that is independent of the collective. Or rather, a self identity that is recursive upon the collective.

          1. Tamquam, yes they are carefully molded into compliant sheep easily led. To be outside the herd is so uncomfortable to them that the can’t take it. It is like they have been given some kind of cultural agoraphobia

          1. Not seeing a downside…

            Lake of those who saw themselves as superior is kind of a mouthful, I suppose.

          2. Gordon Lightfoot is no longer available for comment. (I’ve been listening to “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald”. Had an uncle who had a cabin on Whitefish Bay, a few miles east of the wreck. The west side of WF Point is nasty!)

            2. Great songs, but from the videos of him and comments from other folks, he seems like he had zero stage presence. Which is actually fine. If you wanted music, then you got it. If you wanted a show, go somewhere else.

  21. Remember my dad installing inside plumbing to kitchen and installing one inside bathroom. In Montana on a small family farm. In 1949.

    I never have wanted to live in a grass hut (or a mansion either) that didn’t have indoor plumbing. Not interested in going back to nature living like people all over the world still do. So take your communism and socialism and go live under it but don’t expect me to want to join. I’ll take capitalism every day and every way.

    1. Mom talks about the house they moved into in 1950 having an outhouse. They got indoor plumbing in 1951. Western Oregon.

      1. Pretty sure my grandparents didn’t get indoor plumbing until they built their new ranch house…the year my mother moved out for college. So… 1976 or ’77?

        Mom has no interest in camping, as a result.

        1. Yup Grandparents house had an outhouse in in 1966 or so until they built their new house. This was coastal Connecticut less than 100 miles from NYC. And I don’t think theirs was the last outhouse to go. I prefer plumbing and town water. Wells are a royal pain, don’t want to be my own water company.

          1. Grandparents had a well, good one. Only had to replace the pump once.

            Great Uncle had a well, a good one. Never replaced the pump. Though I’m sure the people who bought it after great uncle died, probably have. This well also still had the original hand pump on it.

            They both had good clear clean water with good pressure flow.

            Inlaws had a well. Dang near every single trip we visited, which was often, hubby was out there with his dad and brother dealing with it. Sandy volcanic alluvial soil. Among other things, was constantly getting sand/grit out of the pump mechanisms. Not particularly good flow on top of that. Hubby couldn’t be paid enough to deal with a well as our source of water.

          2. Grandparents in El Cajon had a couple of cabins besides the main house. When we visited, this was in the early 60’s, the brood slept in the cabins which had no plumbing and no heat. We had to use a bucket which was taken inside to be dumped. Did not like that system.

            Growing up in Mexico we didn’t have the concept of camping until we moved to the border and I joined the Boy Scouts. My first three day hike convinced me that Navy was the way to go.

          1. Actually, phrased that wrong.

            Anywhere living long term without appropriate plumbing … Don’t blame mom.

            1. Well, our hostess has commented that she doesn’t like camping out (ie lacking modern pumping). 😉

              2. I learned young how to deal weekends without showers, and with pit toilets. Even the occasional week, even backpacking where no pit toilets exist. But anything longer than a week, or personal car camping, involved an RV (not not even that, now). Never once considered living everyday conditions without indoor plumbing. No. Just no.

                FYI. FWIW. Showers are nirvana after 8 days backpacking.

      2. When in Willamette valley, OR, the house I lived in had indoor amenities (sink, stool, tub). But the plumbing lines ran down the outside of the back wall of the house. On the (admittedly rare) occasions that the outside temperature went significantly below freezing, things got – interesting . . .

        1. On the (admittedly rare) occasions that the outside temperature went significantly below freezing, things got – interesting . . .
          ……………..

          That is a very common problem with natural gas/propane furnace venting. And it isn’t as uncommon as I’d like. Seriously. Mom, whose furnace is in a utility closet, has an alternative drain hose she can redirect the vapor water down the tub, which is across the hall. Where as ours, goes across the attic (furnace is in attic), and down the side of the house. I don’t know what they finally did, ours hasn’t frozen in years. I know it has been a problem, lately, every year, for at least a couple of decades, and then some. We may not get much, snow, to none, but we do freeze low and hard enough to cause gas venting pipes, and water faucet outlets, to freeze, hard. Freezing outlets = no heat, until thawed. Freezing outlets = frozen pipes, which means they break, and water gushers, when thawing.

    2. Luckily I only had to deal with an outhouse and carrying water from the hand pump when we went camping at the lake. But I have photos of my grandmother’s family still plowing fields with horse in the 1940s. Horse manure may be decent for gardens, but it’s now way to fertilize square miles of farmland at a time. We go back to that, we all starve.

    1. There is one glaring…not exactly error, or even omission, but a serious downplay in that article. It says we left ‘over $7 billion’ in military hardware behind in Afghanistan. That’s true, but it’s like saying an F-14 can fly ‘over 100 miles per hour’. We left at least $85 billion of the world’s most advanced weapons and equipment to be taken and used against us by a gang of goat-raping savages. I’m sure some of those weapons made their way to Gaza in time for last month’s ‘festivities’.

      But nothing is done.

  23. Because through most of our evolution, standing out from the group meant dying, and unpleasantly at that. So, humans don’t. Unless they’re Odds, Goats, Eccentrics. You know, people like us.

    I hate “the right side of history” or “the arc of history” and similar arguments as I’ve made clear in the past.

    But, in a different discussion (on Twitter) last week I came the closest ever to making a statement about the arc of human history:

    The long story of technological progress is an increase in the ability to be independent of the band.

    I don’t mean it is a history of such independence, in no small part because while we have the technology increasingly to do it our psychology doesn’t support it. Also, each major advance in tech has a period where to get access to it you need to be tight to the band but over time the ability to distance yourself increases.

  24. I think likely most that can see such things are preparing as best they can. Some labor under circumstances that call for more circumspection than others.

    The somewhat sad reality is that the tiger so many have been riding has now stopped and they are in the process of falling off and discovering the only thing between them and the tiger…is nothing.

  25. Just because life is a little screwed up for me right now, I want to get some essential and timely topics of discussion before the assemblage of Hoydens and Huns.

    1) Happy Thanksgiving! I still have immense blessings for which I am thankful. Including this place.

    2) (singing) “You can get anything you want, at Alice’s Restaurant.” (Guitar playing….) “wait for it to come around again…”

    3) Charlie Brown Thanksgiving.

    4) WKRP “…as G-d as my witness, I thought turkeys could fly!”

    Traditions upheld!
    (Kzin grin)

  26. Accepting that which counters their previously held beliefs means that they were mistaken and/or tricked into those beliefs. And that means that they aren’t as smart and intellectual as they “know” they are. Thus, they must deny any evidence which counters previously held beliefs. And yes, fear of sticking out and losing “everything” is a huge motivator for not doing or saying anything.

  27. I just saw another stupid-ass headline:

    WE ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL AND GAZA

    Ahhh, no. You’re full of what Ox leaves behind. We are not in any way responsible for other people’s children on the other side of the world.

    We didn’t put them in that situation.
    There is no practical way for us to do anything about it.
    Except maybe to make it worse.

    Now, if you feel compelled to personally donate, or travel to Gaza and ‘help’, go for it. Don’t try using ‘The Children!’ to guilt other people into doing what you want.
    ———————————
    Some folks can be taught. Others can learn by example. The rest have to piss on the electric fence for themselves.

  28. Some of us escaped it because of a strong religious or otherwise community.

    And some of us escaped because we were so bad at social stuff that we weren’t going to fit in regardless, no matter how much we tried. I suppose that might fall under the category of really being “stupid as rocks when it comes to human interaction.” :-/

    1. The Reader strongly resembles those rocks. He learned to fake it pretty well in business situations, but won’t bring that toolbox to the rest of the world because he KNOWS it is fake.

    3. I can fake the social stuff, but it’s getting harder. I’m not sure if it’s because so many things have slid hard left, or because the older I get the less I care what someone thinks of me.

  29. > and we’re preparing. (Right, boys and girls? Please tell me I’m right.)

    It sounded like a good idea, but there was that tragic chain of canoe accidents. Took the food and fuel supplies, too. Even the little library with old-school printed books like “Where There Is No Doctor” and “Practical Blacksmithing.”

    [sigh] I guess we’ll just muddle through somehow.

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