Singing By Rote

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

When my son was in the choir, he told me when you didn’t know the words, or if you’d lost your voice just before the number, or something, you could pass by just mouthing “watermelon, watermelon, watermelon” and no one will know, in the choir that you’re not actually singing.

I feel like I was hit over the head by a writer stopping a choir so he could sing WATERMELON at the top of his voice. This, of course, is a craft error and I covered that here. It is a writing mistake. Which is why I did that on that blog.

But on top of that I found myself thinking “Do you think?” — meaning the author — “In any sense of the word? Or are you just signaling with things you memorized and that you’ve been assured it’s what every smart person thinks? And even if you thought your lecture was on point and the matter is super important, what do you think it would achieve?”

I’m not going to tell you what the book or the author was. You can read the background details for why I started reading this book in the first place.

I hit a substantial portion of the book, and the character is making fun of the names developers give to developments and how they make no sense. It could be a good funny thing, but the writer couldn’t help himself and had to say “And that’s why when developers became politicians they lied so much.”

Uh. Look, guys, until that point I thought I was reading something 20 years old at least, but at that point I went and looked at copyright and, son of a bitch, yep 2020.

And you know what? That dig didn’t need to be there, and it totally threw me out, because why would someone 100 years in the future obsess on Trump? But TDS is a hell of a drug, so fine, whatever. I continued reading.

This kept on until in the middle of a tense situation and apropos nothing the character muses on where he could retire and decides that he couldn’t possibly go to the beach, because it “would be underwater by then.”

At which point I hit my first “do you even think?” because how many times have we been assured the beaches will be underwater? And yet it isn’t 100 years from now, and yet it would be in another… 12 years? What the heck?

What this told me is that the author was just “watermeloning” and not realizing that what he was saying didn’t make any sense in the book. It was a lack of respect for his character and his story.

At this point I had some trouble convincing myself to continue reading. I realized it when I found myself not wanting to pick up the book in the morning.

Still, even though it wasn’t rocking my world, the characters were not obnoxious and the story was at least somewhat interesting, and he had four more books in the series, and I didn’t want to go look for another series to start.

And then in the middle of a chase scene — A chase scene! — the character worries that his electric car is going to be stopped for the daily Earth hour.

The. DAILY. Earth. Hour.

He doesn’t even try to hide that this comes from the ravings of a autistic Scandinavian Teen. Okay, he didn’t mention that she was autistic and borderline illiterate, as well as a massive fraud — eating food that have to be flown in — when away from the cameras or thinking she was away from the cameras. But then again if he fell for the little Greta Mountain of Tuna act, how smart is he, anyway?

But in whose adult head does it make sense that this “great idea” for “slowing global cooling” came from a kid who is not a scientist or honestly — as anyone who hears her can tell — particularly smart. The only reason anyone paid attention to her was leaning hard on the myths of the holy child, who speaks for the gods, which is something that goes back to probably pre-history. But rational sense? Not a wit.

And then, beyond the massive disrespect for his own job of entertaining us, we get into the internal contradictions of this nonense.

He goes on about how stopping air conditioning or heating for an hour won’t hurt you, and it’s for the good of the Earth. Oh, come on. Do these people actually interact with reality, at any level?

Let alone that stopping your car in the middle of something can and will put people at risk, even if it’s a regularly scheduled event, because if all cars suddenly become disabled for an hour, you know there would be people who were caught in the middle of a traffic jam and delayed, or something, and in the middle there there would be an ambulance. People would die every day for this piece of nonsense.

But let’s go into the helping the Earth thing. HOW does stopping everything for an hour help the Earth? Cars are still going to go on their merry way, and use the same energy they would have used anyway. It’s not like people will go “Oh, oops, stopped for an hour. Won’t take that trip now.”

And the heating/cooling…. Good Lord. It’s the perfect “mouthing watermelon” but accomplishing nothing “solution.” In other words, it’s the same bullshit as all the “green” solutions that have us washing our dishes three times, and using at least twice the water we’d have used otherwise. Or having to buy plastic bags, because they’ve been “banned” and in the process using twice as many bags, because those are now crap. Or sucking a drink through a paper straw, even though all the plastic pollution in the ocean is a) grossly exaggerated. b) from third world countries.

BUT the heating and cooling…. What planet is this author from? Does he not realize that if you stop the heating or cooling, you’re going to end up using more energy to get it back up/down to temperature than if you kept it at a constant, which is how modern systems manage to save energy over older ones, by keeping a constant circulation, and giving it little jots now and then to keep it even and comfortable. I mean, who does it help, if after your “holy” Earth hour “Every day!” that you get massive fines for violating, you’re going to use MORE energy to catch up again?

This is why hotels who have to put in that green-signaling scam of putting the room key in the unit to make air-conditioning run, have just started as a matter of course to give you a card to keep in the unit. Because they’re not stupid and don’t want to increase their heating/cooling bills. (Unless they’re in Europe where apparently people don’t do math.)

Look, it would be okay, if this were, say, a romance, or even a contemporary mystery, but this was science fiction. I expect authors of science fiction to be minimally acquainted with science and how things work. Or to have first readers who are.

However, more importantly, holy heck, this author is at least ten, and I think fifteen years older than I. He has to remember the “we’re all going to freeze” hysteria. Has to. Absolutely has to.

He has to remember when it pivoted smoothly to “we’re all going to bake” over one summer. And he has to remember how it’s always twelve years away.

By Al Gore’s phony prophecies we should all already have baked. There should be no snow anywhere, etc. etc.

Instead, as far as we can tell, outside urban islands, the Earth has gotten if anything a little cooler, and we have a better chance of flipping to ice age than boiling. And if we do, it has zero to do with our tech or our “decadent” western lifestyle or any of that crap. If we do it’s mostly likely because of some cycle we don’t fully understand.

Most importantly, really, how can a science fiction author have missed the fact that nuclear energy would solve all of this without phony “Earth hours” and teenage recriminations, and there’s no logical reason not to use it, unless the goal is to take down civilization, not to cool the Earth?

But on top of all this? WHAT DID HE THINK HE WAS ACCOMPLISHING?

Did he think by doing this paen to “OMG the Earth is Warmering! We must follow St. Greta Mountain of Tuna and have a Holy Earth Hour every day to appease Gaia’s chafed vagina!” was going to convince a reader who, up till then had heard this same song sung in a million books, all school books for the last 40 years, most comic books and movies, popular songs, and of course Gretas Autistic Greatest Hits Tour and now, now, in the middle of this book which is not about St. Al Gore the Manbearpig, or the Prophecies of the Tuna Mountain, now, this skeptical reader — and let’s face it, that’s me — was going to stop and go “Oh, now, now that this character from an imagined future is telling me how important this bullshit is? Now, I’ll totally believe that 100 years plus another 12 in the future it will all come to an end if we don’t live like Neolithic farmers!

Pardon me for this rant. Unlike Bill Reader’s incredible post of yesterday, this is not carefully reasoned, or historical analysis. This is just me being so fricking incredibly tired.

I’d be okay if we were having an honest exchange of ideas, an argument on different paths humanity could take. I even understand some concern on the environment, because though I think they grossly overestimate our ability to affect complex systems like climate, I don’t think we should say put a shade between us and the sun (just to mention one of those ideas from the left) without carefully considering all the pros and cons.

But dear lord. The complete lack of originality and thought in someone who is supposed to be a futurist! It’s infuriating and more than a bit scary.

My religion forbids me from assuming that some percentage of humans are really NPCs just put in to lend verisimilitude to an otherwise thin and threadbare narrative.

But sometimes… Sometimes the temptation is overwhelming.

Because here we are marshaling our best arguments, making sure we have the facts right and making sure the lecture is appropriate wherever we put it, and then double checking everything we say.

And there they are, apropos nothing, breaking into things where it makes no sense, and shrieking at the top of their voices: WATERMELON.

326 thoughts on “Singing By Rote”

  1. Pingback: How To Tell A Book From 20 Years Ago – Musings from Brian J. Noggle

  2. Spider Robinson, God love him, had/has Bush Derangement Syndrome so bad that he inserted an anti-Bush diatribe into Variable Star. (As a go-to thought after some malevolent force apparently blew up the freakin’ Sun!) And another in one of his Bad Deaths novels. So TDS in a century doesn’t faze me like it might otherwise have…

      1. Somewhere back about then. I got sick of his “How terrible a world have we made that creative people have to drug themselves to live in it?” cry. I really wanted to say “How about this: Why do a lot of creative people, who are successful and doing what they love, try to destroy themselves?”

        1. Um…. So, perhaps it is the establishment that markets the art? Or the fact all these people that are selected for acclaim are reflexive Marxists and Marx is a death cult?
          But he’d never consider that.

            1. “Night of Power” is a disgusting racist screed with added pedo. Abject fucktardary.

              1. I never read that one. I guess I’m lucky. The Callahan’ stories seemed nice…

    2. Remember when Bush was going to make himself president for life and round up all the Muslims and establish an American theocracy? Good times.

      1. Round up all the gays, too. I had to tell a Lesbian friend the idea Bush was going to put gays in camps was retarded. We haven’t talked since.

        1. Now they’re recycling the same derangement against Trump, cranked up to 11. When are the Normies going to realize that it was always a lie, and still is?

          Leftroid lies make my head hurt. How can anybody believe them?

          1. Heck, I remember when Romney was going to be the 39th Coming of Literally Hitler. Romney.

              1. Idiot Liberals, they keep promising us another Hitler but we haven’t gotten him. 👿👿

                More seriously, I think they deserve another Hitler but fortunately G*d doesn’t seem to think America deserves one.

                1. They tried in 2016 with She-itler (say it fast), but finally only delivered “PeaWitler” in 2020.

    3. That BDS diatribe, along with the clear point where I could see where Spider was “adapting” a Heinlein novel and went full on into crazy town, was why I threw the book at the wall with a great deal of force.

      Which is a pity, because it wasn’t that bad before those two points.

      1. Well, we knew from the start that he was fleshing out an unused Heinlein outline, and it was rather obvious he was using a rejected outline for Time For the Stars.

        I finished the novel, have less desire to revisit it than most of his work.

        And note that I have not seen him much since first Jeanne, then Terri, left us, and feel concern and sympathy.

  3. Certainly some cogent observations here (well, a rant somewhat disguised as and observation) and I am in full sympathy with your reluctance to continue reading. I’m reasonably certain I would feel the same and just turn to the next book in my ever-growing “to read” stack.

    But I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to pass along a sincere “LOL” for this line alone:
    “Did he think by doing this paen to “OMG the Earth is Warmering! We must follow St. Greta Mountain of Tuna and have a Holy Earth Hour every day to appease Gaia’s chafed vagina!” was going to convince a reader…”

    Thanks for my morning chuckle!

  4. The leftoids are best summed up by Adam Savage during Mythbusters – “I reject your reality and substitute my own!”
    He was somewhat joking but he has a time or two done that same thing, as do all leftoids. It’s the only way their outlook works. When reality’s facts don’t align with their worldview, reality is faulty.

  5. The cynic in me wants to answer the question “What did he think he was accomplishing?” with: He wants to get published by a trad house, and he has to get the attention of the twinkies who are the first line of rejection at said establishment. I don’t know the book, author or etc. but I do know of the allure of having someone else do all the marketing, promoting and the etc. of book publishing.

    1. Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if the obligatory OMG-Climate Change! or OMG Elected Political Leader is really a dictator was a requirement in trad publishing. One of my very favorite English mystery writers, Robert Barnard now and again had a slam against Thatcher in some of his novels from the 80s and 90s. It was rather … tiresome and predictable, just as the obligatory anti-Reagan slams were from American novels in the same era.

        2. Kit Sun Cheah observed that the China Hugos did not need government involvement. The people running the con knew what would affect their social credit scores. 

          But there’s the whole gamut, from people explicitly told they need stuff to those who couldn’t stop putting it in because it’s running on autopilot, with every shade between.

  6. The “beaches underwater” bit reminds me that the Obamas, for their lip service to the warmening mythology, bought oceanfront property just a few years back.

    1. As far as I can tell the Obama’s residence on Marthas Vinyard is off Turkeyland Cove in Edgarstown. If it is the one I think it is it is 500′-300′ inland at an elevation of less than 50′ ASL (Google map gives limited elevation data probably no more than 20′ ASL. The water is a protected cove called Edgartown Great Pond that faces the Atlantic to the south. I would expect any Cat 3 Hurricane or greater (relatively uncommon in New England but not unheard of 1 in my lifetime 3-4 including a 4+ in the 1938 hurricane in the last century) would have a 20’+ storm surge and would likely inundate the place. with their predicitons, it’ll be beachfront in 10 years a marine wildlife reef in 30. Highest points on the Vinyard are about 300′ but they are nowhere near Edgarstown. I believe they also have a Hawaii residence although those islands have much higher points. Honestly as far as I could tell any changes have been very limited over the last 150 years or so. There are homes on Cedar Island near where I grew up on Long Island Sound that have pilings as part of their construction and have been that way for over 100 years with the water height staying basically the same.

      1. Barry Soetoro came into ownership, after what was totes not a straw buyer bought it from the estate of the prior owner, of the oceanfront property on Oahu where the original 1980s Magnum PI TV show shot the Robin Masters Estate exteriors … and then promptly demolished everything on it, so he could build something much more stylish and grand, as appropriate to Barry.

        He’s now trying to wangle a way around the law that says all beaches in Hawaii are public to manage to get his little stretch blocked off from the hoi and polloi, by “fixing” the sea wall, because Barry.

        Hopefully it won’t work, since that little tide pool they used in the show several times is an ancient Hawaiian fish pond structure, and thus protected.

        1. So, the Obamas moved in and demolished something that Americans loved?

          The symbolism is a bit heavy-handed . . .

        3. Oregon has the same public beach laws. In addition public access is guarantied, even if said beach is surrounded by private property. Huge problem in small towns like Yachats https://yachats.org/ (YAH-hots), Oregon. Only exception, maybe, and no bets if they’d get away with it, would be someone from private property put staircase down a cliff to an otherwise naturally isolated beach (accessible only at low tide, not there at high tide). Not that I know of any. Generally not considered safe as those are the generally the sandstone or other composite crumbly stone, not the lava cliffs. The lava cliffs don’t tend to have beaches even at low tide.

          1. I went on a hike on Cape Lookout last summer. Lava cliffs not only don’t have beaches, they don’t have bottoms. You fall off one of those, you go down.

            (Cape Lookout is the westernmost end of a lava flow that started 200 miles east. Which is SUPER COOL.)

            1. Lava cliffs not only don’t have beaches, they don’t have bottoms. You fall off one of those, you go down.

              Yes. 100%

              I was thinking of north of Florence. Sea Lion Caves and north. Section of Hwy 101 where to the east of the road there is a cliff, look up, a long ways. West of the road 3′-ish height by 2′ wide wall (built by CC in ’30s). On the other side of that rock wall it is a long ways down to a very deep ocean, at low tide. As in deep enough that Killer Whales and Great Whites have been spotted hunting the Sea Lions in the area, along with the Gray Whale calves they can trap against the lava cliffs. (Was going to show a link, but all pictures out in the ocean. Google map layer view makes it look flat. It isn’t.)

        4. What no Pseudo Hawaiians protesting the destruction of a historical item like at the telescope construction on Mauna Kea? Looks like I shall need to borrow our Hostess’ shocked face…

          1. Good luck: I think Sarah’s shocked face is booked up for personal appearances through mid-2027.

            1. The way things are going, the Reader has a feeling that we are going to need an AI version of Sarah’s shocked face.

  7. An estimated three quarters of human CO2 emissions could be consumed by ocean fertilization using iron dust. The other major effect would be a lot of extra fish available for harvest. The cost is possibly low enough that the affected fishermen would be willing to finance it.

    They don’t do this because anti pollution treaties stand in the way. Nobody has bothered to fix the treaties and nobody is giving good reasons why. Canada enforced this with a SWAT raid on a bunch of biologists who were researching the phenomenon and provoked a record breaking Alaska salmon catch.

    This is inconsistent with the idea that the problem is merely leftists watermeloning. If only things were that simple.

    1. My response is to eliminating CO2 is they are trying to kill the trees and vegans (because vegans only eat plants). Plants “eat” CO2, otherwise known as absorbing CO2 via photosynthesis. (Yes, trees are more important than vegans, IMO. Thus listed first. 😜)

  8. That’s how they get you, you know. Do you remember “Who Framed Roger Rabbit?” when the Judge (I think) was searching for Roger Rabbit so he could dip him in the goop? He was knocking on the walls with the first half of “Shave and haircut?” No Toon could resist “Shave and a Haircut,” and Roger finally succumbs, bursting out of his hiding place to answer “Two bits!” They will one day identify (if not now) their enemies by those who demand logic.

    Besides, Earth Hour is something the Gaia worshipers would mandate. No it doesn’t make sense, but some of these people had surfers arrested during the ’20 COVID panic—for surfing, by themselves, on an empty beach. Expecting logic from such isn’t logical.

    1. But yeah, the beach thing. Wherever the ocean is, that’s the beach so the phrasing fails on its own.

      1. You can find beach remnants at significant altitudes, as the oceans used to be several hundred feet higher, relative, multiple times over the last few millions of years. Much of Florida and the Carolinas show “ancient beach sandpile” topography, -way- inland. Likewise the continental shelf shows the remnants of lower ocean coasts, now inundated.

          1. South Dakota has salt water fossils.

            It is over a thousand miles from the nearest salt water in any direction, currently.

        3. It seems like every time we hit a natural history museum or even a river rafting place, no matter where, there are maps showing the warm, shallow seas or Ice Age lakes that once covered the area.

          1. Always interesting to take a “strata tour” of the Grand Canyon. More than forty distinct layers of sedimentary rock, most of them laid down in shallow oceans.

            Along with one layer that is “lithified sand” – from when the region was a real desert to rival the modern Sahara.

        4. My grandparents lived on what used to be the beach of Lake Michigan and is now 15 miles from the shore. Us kids used to play on what was once a huge sand dune and was then a hill covered with strawberry plants. And lightning tubes. Grandpa had a small collection of fragile little tubes of fused sand created when lightning struck the old sand dune. I later learned they were a rare type of fulgurite.

          Ridge Road, on the other side of Michigan, runs along the ancient shore of Lake Erie which is now 30 miles away. There are miles of corn fields where the lake used to be.

          But, yeah, sure, Glowbull Wormening is going to destroy all life on Earth in 10 years.

          I did not know ‘Thunberg’ means ‘mountain of tuna’. Sure is appropriate, though. Everything she says sounds fishy. 😛 Almost as fishy as basing world economic policy on the ravings of an emotionally disturbed child.

        5. As crazy as it sounds to me, apparently at one point during the Jurassic, the entire planet is believed to have been the same temperature. Yes, including the poles.

          And it wasn’t cold.

        6. And also much lower – lots and lots of arable previously occupied land is now under a couple hundred feet of seawater all around the world. The current best theory as to why humanity’s ancestral remains for major stretches are so rare outside Africa is that when humans left, they hugged the then-coasts to stay near seafood and shellfish, and those then-coasts are now way under water.

          And then there’s Doggerland, the shallow sea bed between Britain and Northern Europe where they pull human civilizational bits up off the bottom with regularity.

          But basically all the continental shelf worldwide was at some point above sea level.

          1. There’s also Sundaland, the shelf that’s now the south part of the South China Sea, that looks like it was a hominin paradise with Erectus and Neanderthal and Denisovan and Sapiens and Floriensis and who knows what all jostling around and admixing for tens of thousands of years.

            Also, one of the better explanations for why Sumerian is an isolate language is that it was the only survivor of the probably many languages of what is now the Persian Gulf, that had to flee upriver to the lands of the Proto-Semitic speakers.

            1. Note that both the Black Sea and Persian Gulf inundated since the Ice Age and apparently hosted significant settlements. Jennifer Pournelle, Jerry’s daughter, has (in his words from one of his post) done research suggesting that the proto-civilization flooded in the Persian Gulf gave us the memories of Eden, and both likely contributed to the stories of the Flood. Some stories of Atlantis might be the same.

            2. Doggerland! Much of what is now the North Sea used to be above sea level, and it went under the waves not all that long ago, comparatively speaking (stone age, 5-6,000 years ago).

              1. And you lunatics lost me most of the afternoon yesterday on a rabbit hole. I found out there’s a full submerged forest about 10 miles off shore on the beach I played in as a kid.
                Eh.

                1. Oregon and Washington both have “ghost forests” along their pacific coast lines.

                  2. There’s a small one, down to a couple trees, at the far end of Turnagain Arm a few miles from Anchorage, legacy of the ’64 quake. There used to be a couple of cabins out there too, but I think they’ve fallen over by now.

    2. Rats. Looks like I missed Earth Hour this spring. I guess I’ll have to leave all the lights on for two hours next year . . .

  9. I think we are all incredibly fricking tired. And we’re going to be even more fricking tired, the closer to November we get — and after, when Biden gets frauded back in again.

    I mean, I’m voting for Trump, and I imagine my state will go for Trump, but I have no faith in the mail-in/early balloting/inter[cor]rupted countings going on in other states.

    The time for opening of the fourth box is nearing.

    1. I will vote for President Trump too. But with mail in voting, um mail in fraud (dang w/o HTML tags working can’t delete to be sarcastic), even before mail in voting, Oregon will go democrat. We haven’t had a sane, um republican, government in decades.

      1. Same in WA. Makes no difference what anybody actually votes for at this point, but I’m doing it anyway. If nothing else, at least I can MAKE them cheat.

        1. It depends on where in California, as there are still a number of conservative areas in this state. If that weten’t the case, they wouldn’t need ballot harvesting.

          Though we do sometimes get the amusing situation in which a Democratic district has too many Dems running, and they split the Dem vote too many ways, allowing Republicans to get both slots for the General Election.

      3. As a statement for Fred The Fed, OF COURSE I will be voting for the GREAT and WISE and TOTALLY NOT SENILE AND INSANE Joe.

        1. Oh. Wait. Point to FM. Hmmmm. Changed my vote. I was wrong. So, wrong. Voting for “Totally not senile and insane”, does not have dementia, Joey.

            1. Fred can stop by here and pick up my ballot. I suggest he tell no one where he’s going. I have my own shovel. 😈

              1. Fed the Fred isn’t an idiot.

                And rumor has it that he is a Fan of Sarah’s.

                Oh, rumor also has it that any Feds that visit here for any length of time either go insane or become Fans of this place.

                1. I was using “Fred the Fed” as a generic for “Fibbies or other alphabet agency dweebs trolling for victims”, as was (apparently) FM; I was unaware it concerned a specific individual.

                  1. Well, Sarah knew somebody that she or (the person) called “Fed The Fred” but I don’t know if that person visits here, professionally or otherwise.

                    One Hun “played” Fed The Fred but for reasons hasn’t for a while (Sarah knows who I’m talking about).

                    And my response above was more “kidding around” than serious. 😀

                    1. I sort of gathered that from your post; I just wanted to be clear about my intent. No assumption of anything about your post. 😊

    2. Because of course they can.

      https://dailycaller.com/2024/04/04/white-house-bureaucrats-fired-trump-admin/

      “The U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) finalized a rule that protects employees in the civil service by preventing the removal of their status and protections involuntarily, according to a press release. Under the new rule, an administration wishing to shift federal employees to a new category making them easier to fire would have to go through an elongated process, a move meant to be more time-consuming for a future president, Politico reported.”

      “Peaceful transfer of power….” Wat dat?

      1. Rules promulgated by bureaucrats are usually easily eliminated by executive order if they’re not laws passed by Congress.

        1. And eventually, it will be. Of course, there will have to be two years of court trials to get past the DC circuit, while the saboteurs are left in place wreaking havoc.

          It’s not that they WIN, it’s all the damage they’re allowed to keep doing while losing.

            1. As you say, maybe the damage is necessary to make the lesson “stick”; “What we obtain too cheaply we esteem too lightly”. (Thomas Paine?)

            2. Oh, it’s going to be brutal, all right. I thought “salting the earth” came AFTER the actual war.

              https://twitchy.com/amy-curtis/2024/04/07/san-francisco-spraying-sodium-chloride-to-combat-global-warming-n2394816

              The nation’s first outdoor test to limit global warming by increasing cloud cover launched Tuesday from the deck of a decommissioned aircraft carrier in the San Francisco Bay.

              “The experiment, which organizers didn’t widely announce to avoid public backlash, marks the acceleration of a contentious field of research known as solar radiation modification. The concept involves shooting substances such as aerosols into the sky to reflect sunlight away from the Earth.”

              Better make those gardens salt-tolerant, folks.

              1. And provide *no* food to the idiots who come up with this sort of garbage.

                “Let them eat salt.” 😡

              2. Salt is one of the things that is usually used for salting clouds.

                Here:

                Dr. Zou: The conventional cloud seeding materials include mostly hydroscopic salt mixture, which can change from salt crystals into water droplets at the right condition. The delivery of this salt is to vaporize them by ignition by a flare device. This salt vapor then will recondense as very small particles. Because the process is random and uncertain, the form and size of the particle cannot be controlled and most are probably too small to be effective cloud seeding materials.

                    1. I read it.

                      Then I read it again.

                      I don’t see anything in his post about seeding for rain. They’re trying to ‘send that Eeevul sunlight back where it came from’.

                    2. I am sure that is is what the funding says, yes, in the same location that maybe ten years ago they were doing interest lines about investigating sea-spray’s connection to cloud formation, as would have come up in a simple search to check if “put salt in the air” was a new thing.

                      Read the quote.

                      Note the conclusion that the salt in the air is going to cause issues with growing things.

                      Now think about why I would point out that salt is one of the standard things to use in trying to make it rain for crop production.

                  1. Does this goalpost moving mean you’re done screaming about how this is salting the earth and going to kill off plants?

                    Or is that only until you forget and set your hair on fire again?

                    1. Goal posts haven’t moved an inch, as usual.

                      What has happened is I have provided additional data in support of my original assertion: The government you love is conducting unauthorized experiments in geoengineering. They are not following standard practices. They are concealing what they are doing.

                      But go ahead and try to say otherwise.

                    2. So to recap:

                      Salt is commonly used to salt clouds to promote rain in drought, even per your “but it’s not the top three!” link.

                      Salting clouds isn’t known to harm gardening at all.

                      And several bonus attempts to change the subject, including failure to accurately describe what CAARE even is, in addition to the usual failure to read what is actually there on this page, much less any other.

  10. This is just a background drumbeat to reinforce their narrative. They skip over it like the character said the sky is blue. Most people don’t even hear it anymore. A good half of the people don’t have the mental ability to question it. A good chunk of the ones who could process the information were deliberately trained not to think that way. Many depend for their livelihood on not questioning it even if they aren’t true believers. Reality eventually wins at great cost.

    1. For some reason, I remember a story by a woman who had heard over and over the propaganda at the Tutsis. The day when she heard the radio describing them as cockroaches and she dismissed it as background noise — was just before the massacres.

  11. I had a discussion with my usual grocery checker at $LARGE_GROCERY_STORE. She was noticing the prevalence of unusual diseases that “just cropped up” in the past few years. I responded “I’m not saying it’s the vaxx, but it’s the vax.” Her reply was to dismiss all that as “conspiracy theory”, even after I mentioned the fiasco with the prior attempt at mRNA for the bird(?) flu.

    When she mentioned that she had gotten the not-vax and one booster, the lightbulb finally lit up in my mind. Her peace of mind requires that she dismiss the effects of the not-vax. OK, I’ll not comment on that again.

    (I’m not in a position to ask, but my nephew passed away in his mid 40s from cancer. The indications were that he had been treated, was doing fine, but it came back a few years ago. I suspect he had been persuaded/forced to get the not-vax.)

    1. Correlation is not causation. -Strong- correlation can be a strong sign to guide your choices, but at this point no one has done the needed studies either way.

      Some folks get sick and die. Always have. Always will. Just because they had a particular shot does not make the shot causative of that particular negative event. Lots of shit just happens.

      I happen to notice more shit happened over the last few years. I expect at some point a formal link will be found to at least some of it being jab related. But the “normal” is an average, not a steady-state, and clusters do occur quite naturally. Its the bane of research and studies. And it is extraordinarily well understood by statisticians and barely at all by non-statisticians.

      If we are going to say “science”, we have to follow it. Folks have neither proved effectiveness nor causation. No one has really done the studies properly either way. People are just saying (or screaming) their beliefs at this point. Not helping much.

      1. Given the deliberate corruption or destruction of the source observational data, I’m not sure it’s possible to approach several issues, such as global warming or Covid (any aspect, from origin through treatments) via scientific investigation.

        And the corruption or destruction IS a proven fact since at least 1997 and East Anglia.

            1. Plus, with Bidenflation a billion dollars just ain’t what it once was. What would have only been a $600 million disaster in 2018 is now over a $billion.

              “ONE BILLION DOLLARS!”

              1. And soon enough the supervillain will tap their fingertips together and announce they want…

                ”ONE BILLION DOLLARS!”

                …and get “Is that all?”

        2. El Gato Malo has done some very interesting analysis on the available data. He’s also pointed out how much easier it would be to do so if said data was clearly presented.

      2. There have been way too many bits of correlation that coincide with the not-vaxx rollout for me to think there’s no fire with that smoke. That and the great lengths applied by TPTB to quash dissenting views on the safety and effectiveness of the mRNA shots, as well as the origin stuff, all lead me to draw strong conclusions.

        Oldest BIL went from healthy to deceased immediately after getting a booster+flu shot. Noting my primary care doctor going from “you have to take the shot to Save Society” to “Vaccine? If you won’t mention it, I won’t mention it.” was a hell of a tell.

        That doctor was the medical complex’s “COVID Lead”, and we had a lot of spirited discussions where he was trying to get me to take the shot, and demanding to know which doctor advised me to skip it. He made a guess as to whom, and it was wrong. The relevant doctor is still at the complex while the wrongly guessed one is now retired. I don’t know if there was cause and effect. Rather liked that particular doc, too, and was considering shifting to him as a primary care doctor. Sigh.

        1. We have a good friend and neighbor – in her 80ies but looks younger – who does have health issues (as anyone that age does) and her doctor quietly advised her not to get the Covid shot. My daughter – then pregnant – was asked by her attending OB practice if she wanted to get the shot. We had already heard enough disquieting things about the danger of miscarriages, so my daughter emphatically said no – and the issue was never raised again.

          I always got sicker from the mandatory flu shot that I HAD to get when I was active duty then I did from the flu, so I figured that I’d have an easier time if I did contract the Commie Crud. (And I did … sigh. So did Wee Jamie, who had a temperature and the sniffles for about a day and a half.) Now, we are both very, very glad that we turned down the shot.

      3. I saw a headline the other day: “Increase in heart attacks in young women a mystery.”

        No, it’s not. Neither is watching healthy young sports athletes keel over in the midst of play, convulse, and die.

        I don’t need a “study” by the “experts” to tell me what’s going on. I can believe the evidence in front of my very own eyes. Just as I could look at the evidence and come to the conclusion that the 2020 flu was nothing more than a bad flu. And that getting the jab was a bad idea.

        All studies about the deadly effects of this jab have been suppressed, and will continue to be suppressed until we have a regime change, or a future monk in a Monastary after the Fall pores through old records by candlelight.

      4. “Correlation is not causation. -Strong- correlation can be a strong sign to guide your choices, but at this point no one has done the needed studies either way.”

        Gee, it’s kinda hard to find “Official Establishment Studies” in the middle of the largest fncking scam/cover-up in history by governments, military, media, big pharma and the medical community.

        Enough leaks, information, testimony and anomalies have appeared that “Trust the Science” doesn’t work anymore. Try that crap on the NPCs.

        1. Never said that, and you know it. Shame on you.

          Science is a process. Go look it up. There are no good studies of that covid vax stuff, so we have no idea what it actually does, or does not do. Fact. Almost any medication/treatment has side-effects. One balances risk versus benefits. Without the proper study framework, you are not even doing a study. It’s garbage info.

          If we are going to mock the Leftroids for Lysenko-level pseudoscience, can’t very well turn around and use different versions of it, or some other non-science.

          It’s a dumb look.

          “We don’t know, but suspect” is all we have. One can make rational decisions based on that, but say so. It’s a freaking guess.

          Were there zero athletes dropping dead five tears ago? No. Not hardly. Sudden unexplained heart failure in the very fit goes -way- back. I remember events at my first college, forty years ago. In the Army. And so on. News runs in batches of stories based on mass interests. That isn’t data. It’s barely anecdotes.

          You do understand that the “anti-vaxx” idiots “all vax is bad vax” are shit-stirring this, yes? Thus the multiple outbreaks of freaking -measels-, an easily prevented disease with a reasonably safe and effective vax. Fucking -polio- is making a comeback. Go ask someone over 70 what that terror was like.

          Not all are great for all. Not all are bad. But folks squawking like shit is confirmed when it isn’t even studied properly just makes folks sound stupid. And stupid kills.

          The covid shots are not proven safe and effective by the standard practices for such. Until they are, count me out. Neither are they proven bad, either. Insufficient data. News isn’t data. Nor are blog posts.

          Let’s not join the Leftroids by harmonizing their chorus of ignorance.

          1. Measles

            Ask my aunt and uncle about the measles. Seriously. Uncle survived. His older brother did not (which opened a lifetime of issues. Who blames the survivor for surviving? Don’t ask.) Their middle daughter was all but blind and deaf due to mom contacting measles while pregnant. Cousin is fully independent.

            1. I survived Measles as a kid. They hadn’t quite debugged the vaccine timing yet, and mine didn’t work well enough.

              1. I survived them too; two different types. And chicken pox. All late 1940s to mid 1950s. Was exposed to mumps multiple times and never got it; apparent natural immunity. Have never had any vax for any “childhood disease”, since they didn’t exist until I was no longer a child. And I’ve never had a scar from any of the (3?) vaccinations I’ve gotten; a doctor told me that probably meant I was also naturally immune to that. But if I could get my entire military shot record updated with new entries I’d do it in a heartbeat.

                2. Easier to list what I didn’t get for regular vaccinations: small pox, polio, diphtheria, and Tetanus.

                  Measles, both types, chicken pox, mumps, whooping cough, rubella, strep, multiple times, etc. Old enough that there were still chicken pox, and mumps, parties when it started going around, for the pre-first grade set, so they’d contact it before starting school. Worked for chicken pox. Didn’t for mumps. Latter went through the neighborhood when I was about 9. Nine children in 3 households, 4 were under 6.

          2. Re: the WuFlu clot shot – I am not ‘anti-vaxx’*. Present me with a tried and tested actial vaccine and I will consider taking it, especially as I embark on my seventh decade of existence. What I *am* anti is being a guinea pig for an untested genetic modification treatment.

            *Note to self: check your records; you’re probably (over?)due for your Tetanus booster.

            1. When TPTB started getting all giddy about an mRNA flu shot, complete with alpha testing (I won’t dignify their efforts by calling it a beta test), both $SPOUSE and I agreed that we prefer to let somebody else test it first. St. Fauci can have all of our annual doses for the next 10 years.

              AFAIK, I’ve had Real-Flu(tm) once in my life (Dec 22), and it was thoroughly unpleasant, but my 70 year old body handled it well enough. OTOH, my first exposure to a flu vaccine (senior year, high school) had me crawling to the bathroom because walking was out of the question.(Not nausea, needed to pee and get some water.) As memory serves, it was near as dammit to the real flu. Didn’t take that vax for about 20 years, when my ENT surgeon had a good argument for taking it. Kept it up until last the ’22 vax season.

              I’d dread an mRNA tetanus shot. Would the SOBs do it? Maybe.

              1. What’s worse is a mRNA whooping cough vaccine. Whooping cough and tetanus are generally a combined vaccine every 10 years. I have to get the whooping cough more often, or get the whooping cough. I can handle it, but nieces are having babies, who can’t. Whooping cough is something babies are vulnerable to until fully vaccinated.

                1. Ah, had to look it up, since I thought the ‘t’ in DTP was for Typhus. Nope, DTaP for dyptheria, tetanus and pertussis. My record says I got the booster in ’21, so I’m good for the while.

                  No babies in the neighborhood, though I need to remind $SPOUSE that she’s due for a booster in October.

                  1. Yes. Pertussis = Whooping Cough. I can never remember the actual name (let alone spell it).

            2. Likewise. I stay current on proven safe and effective and medically appropriate ones. Also strongly recommend same to others as appropriate.

          3. “You do understand that the “anti-vaxx” idiots “all vax is bad vax” are shit-stirring this, yes? Thus the multiple outbreaks of freaking -measels-, an easily prevented disease with a reasonably safe and effective vax. Fucking -polio- is making a comeback. Go ask someone over 70 what that terror was like.”

            This is a gold mine for the anti-vaxxers because they finally hit the fncking jack pot and happened to be dead-clock right this time.

            The establishment caused the original problem and its “solutions” made things much worse and they haven’t admitted fault to this day. It was a control and money grab by idiots with power.

            Outside of the “anti-vaxx” idiots and the establishment are plenty of smart people including medical experts. Us skeptics had been monitoring the overall situation, piecing together bits of information, digging for more, sharing, evaluating, pondering it in our hearts and heads.

            We studied the Diamond Princess situation. Some developed safer treatments. Some tallyed up the damages and collecting the evidence that has been piling up including the Pfizer SAS document dumps. Overall it’s damning. (I also do election analysis in my spare time too. Ask me how much I trust the official story on anything important…)

            And once the establishment decided that illegal immigration, protesting, rioting, liquid stores and strip clubs were fine, but surfing alone and outdoor churches were not… Not to mention the business lost, the families destroyed and the dead. And any other treatment that interfered with the Emergency rollout was banned and ridiculed.

            On a personal note, lost two close family members and my best friend due to the “official” medical treatment that enriched hospitals. After that we saved a few dozen people due to a unofficial better protocol recommended by unencumbered doctors that involved a few medications that were ridiculed by the mainstream. Stupid didn’t kill. Stupid saved more lives than “Mr. Science”.

            Combined that with the most “secure” election that was obvious the most corrupt, trust in any authority freakin’ died because the overwhelming ordure the establishment was selling didn’t pass the smell test.

            We weren’t “anti-vax”, we didn’t get taken in by the con. I’ve had all school kid vax, military vax, travel overseas vax, regular tetanus boosters even the crappy shingles double shot. I doubt that I will willingly take another vax in my life unless it’s mixed in the water or food supply unknowingly.

            Had the measles vax as a child and I was still ended up with measles at age 17. Nearly died, temp of 105 degrees. Source was an illegal alien working at a restaurant. No shit.

            You do understand we have a administration that has let 7 million plus people in from third world shit holes with no vaccines or records mandated? There’s your modern virus source.  

            And science is a process that isn’t followed if it gets in the way of profit and power. And most so-called science nowadays can’t even be replicated. Let me know when any unbiased proper studies occur when the prime participants want to conceal the evidence for 70 years.

            “The covid shots are not proven safe and effective by the standard practices for such. Until they are, count me out. Neither are they proven bad, either.”

            If the clot shots haven’t been proven bad, go get them. Get your boosters too! What are you? One of the crazy anti-vaxxers? I’ll even buy you a doughnut and a movie ticket.

            😉

            1. Measles, polio, etc. increasing wouldn’t have a THING to do with importing the unvaxxed Third World in droves. Of course not.

              1. I’m not sure who posted the meme on Tyson, but it’s something like this:

                Get vaxxed so I won’t get fired by Tyson.

                Get fired anyway.

                Illegal aliens got my job.

                They aren’t vaxxed.

                (Costco sells Foster Farms chicken. AFAIK, Tyson doesn’t make it to the Left Coast and interior counties.)

                    1. Had the same reaction for: “Hillshire, Hillshire Farm, Ball Park hotdogs, Jimmy Dean sausage”.

                    2. ‘le sigh deep’ – us, too. Fortunately, here in Texas we do have some regional options. HEB house brand, Opa’s from Fredericksburg, and there is always Granzins in New Braunfels, for in-house sausages, jerky and other meaty delights.

              2. All it takes with either is one sick tourist, either direction, to start the ball rolling. You cannot keep that shit out, so herd immunity and generally high levels of “robust health” is the only hope of prevention. Ring vaccination in outbreaks is the fallback.

                Mass immigration is another topic. Has pros and cons. Some folks lose their shit when new arrivals don’t look like them. I don’t care their ancestry. Any sane person anywhere else probably would want to be here instead of there. Most of the rest of Planet Earth is politically fucked up almost beyond repair. I sure do prefer to be here. I just insist the new arrivals follow the damn rules like everyone else.

                1. We’ve had mass uninvited immigration before. Ellis Island and other entry ports, ring a bell for anyone? Guess what? The sick were not granted entry. Either they were sent back or they went into onsite sanatorium, to get well, or frankly, die. Or even shipped off to die at specific sanatorium. Tuberculosis comes to mind. No one would let them back on a ship to be sent back, so they were shipped off to tuberculosis sanatorium to die.

                  One condition no one has mentioned that is becoming a problem now is antibiotic resistant tuberculosis. Not helped by the mass uncontrolled immigration.

            2. Had the measles vax as a child and I was still ended up with measles at age 17. Nearly died, temp of 105 degrees.

              None of the existing vaccines are 100% effective. Or as effective as touted. MMR (measles, mumps, and rubella) is a vaccine that requires boosters at age 11 (pre-middle school), and 18 (post HS), at minimum. At least that is when I remember having son get boosters. I didn’t because I had all 3 (both types of measles), usually confers lifetime immunity. Can get either measles or mumps if you’ve had them, but didn’t have a particularly bad case. The vaccine, without boosters, is considered a “light case”.

              Son never has gotten the chicken pox vaccine. He had chicken pox when he was 14 months, 3 years before vaccine was approved. Wasn’t that fun when he started school, and up through college. Every single time a note came home “Do not have a record of vaccination for chicken pox.” Reply: “Yes, you do. Having chicken pox (date), is more effective than the vaccine.” Reply back: “Easy cases don’t count!” Reply: “A fever of 104 (infant/toddler so not dangerous) and lesions everywhere. Still has scars. Not a “light” case.” (I mean everywhere: between his fingers, toes, in his ears, nose, next to eyes, in cracks where one does not want lesions. Nothing was spared. One miserable toddler.)

              Son also had whooping cough at age 12, after getting the vaccine, and boosters. Me getting it, I may or may not have been current. The booster is an every 10 year one, after 4 years or so, I forget. Doctor hadn’t said anything during a visit so should have been current. I got it because it was going around work (didn’t know it was whooping cough until son caught it from me). Open work environment, so you could hear it as people caught it, all adults. Always figured it had to be someone child brought it home from school. But the vaccination requirements makes that thought suspect. Cold or flu, not required vaccines for school age children, that makes sense. But now I think more likely contact with unvaccinated immigrants, legally entered or not. I don’t know index source. Just know it was going around the office I worked in. Also why I can say the latest cough was not whooping cough. Whooping cough, cough, not only has the wheezing sound, it is named for, even in adults, as one tries to catch your breath between coughing jags, and the tiniest bit of air in your lungs triggers another bad session, until your lungs are screaming for air, and you are crying, but it hurts from the top of your chest down to your toes. I never quite passed out, but it was close a few times. Not only that, the cough hangs around for weeks.

          4. You do understand that the “anti-vaxx” idiots “all vax is bad vax” are shit-stirring this, yes? Thus the multiple outbreaks of freaking -measels-, an easily prevented disease with a reasonably safe and effective vax. Fucking -polio- is making a comeback. Go ask someone over 70 what that terror was like.

            You do understand that claim shows up every time there’s a measles outbreak, and they carefully avoid mentioning if anyone was vaccinated until they can report it hit someone who objects to killing people for disease prevention?

            Complete with the autistic ree’ing about antivaxx “idiots” and pretending they oppose all vaccines.

            Just try finding the information about the famous Disney Land outbreak…where most of those infected were fully vaccinated. It took a too young to vaccinate kid getting it to their daycare, and from there to other locations, to reach even parity.

            Want to get folks to vaccinate, you need to listen to the problems, not scream demonizations.

            Were there zero athletes dropping dead five tears ago? No. Not hardly.

            Cute strawman.

            Always a great way to make people think you’ve got reason on your side.

            Maybe when you’re done screeching like a howler monkey, you might try poking around to test the theory that it’s all media hype.

            Maybe consider that folks think people are dropping dead for no readily apparent reason because they have noticed people dropping dead in their thirties. Sure, health nuts dropping dead isn’t unknown.
            It’s also not “Wow… I went from having heard of one or two who were known by friends of a friend, to having two or three that I actually directly know. And it’s in the last few years.”

            1. As one might guess, yes, we lost some of our buddies. My husband and I know more people our age and younger who died of Suddenly than my parents did by their 50s, in spite of having a much safer sample of jobs and same size number of folks known.

              When “working for the post office” has a higher ‘unexplained heart attack’ risk than heavy ranch work, there is a freaking problem.

          5. I read about a hospital that saw maybe 5 or 6 miscarriages a year, then got 40 within 3 months right after they started the COVID (un-)vaccines.

            “But that doesn’t prove anything!” they say. “It’s all Eeevul Anti-Vaxx Propaganda!” they say. “You just want Grandma to DIIIEEE!!” they say.

            Really? A 2700% increase right after a new, untested, unapproved product is widely administered, but there’s no connection?

            I used to live on a farm, bub. I know what bullshit smells like.

            Those ‘vaccines’ are STILL not approved. They are still being handed out under Emergency Use Authorization 4 years after the ‘Emergency!’ is over. Leftroids are still trying to whip up panic over an outbreak of the common cold that was no worse than a bad flu season. The government’s tyrannical overreaction killed 10 times more people than the virus Fauxi modified and then let get loose.

      5. IIRC, causal pathways have been proposed for heart damage, cancer, prion disease, and impaired fertility. Heart damage shows up in the adverse events data as well as a couple of smaller controlled studies. Cancer has been bandied about so much that I’m not sure what data to trust, but there’s a lot of anecdotal evidence. Prion disease shows up in the adverse events data, although the rates are still low in absolute terms. Impaired fertility shows up in both the population-level statistics and smaller controlled studies, though mercifully the damage appears to be temporary.

        I don’t remember if there were any compelling arguments that the shots make you more vulnerable to other diseases. I’d be inclined to chalk that one up to reporting bias, just because reporting bias is in our nature, but I wouldn’t be surprised if someone finds a link via the shot’s effect on the immune system.

        Caveat: I haven’t followed this issue for a few months now, so there may be more recent evidence that I’m not aware of.

        1. My dad’s heart was completely healthy, and all the valves completely open, before the vax. The excess B vitamin thing is the only bad thing that might have caused that… Or the vax.

          And I had no myopic degeneration before the vax, and then suddenly I did.

          So yeah, taking the vax was a mistake for us, although maneuvering out of it would not have been easy.

          1. I’m sorry to hear that. Rushing the vaccines in response to a perceived need was (perhaps) justifiable. Lying about the efficacy, obfuscating the safety data, and using coercion to force compliance were beyond the pale. There was a rational conversation to be had about risks and benefits, but it got utterly steamrolled by the political power grab.

            1. “Rushing the vaccines in response to a perceived need was (perhaps) justifiable.”

              The story we’ve been saturated with for almost 100 years is that when some new Twitching Awful appears, the heroic Scientist / Doctor lives on coffee and cigarettes napping on the lab floor until the cure is found. There’s no other course that would have been contemplated.

              1. Yeah, the scientific establishment leaned into that one hard, and it blew up in their faces. The long-term consequences of that loss of trust are going to be interesting, one way or another.

      6. Depends which jab. Beloved Spouse and I got the J&J specifically because it was not mRNA.

        If there’s a study that correlates mRNA vax vs. non-mRNA vax vs. unvax I’ll take a look under the hood at their stats, but anything less, i.e. which does not distinguish which vax, is a suspect study.

        1. I thought J&J was on the market for a fairly short time (cancelled because of clotting issues, though I’ve heard of one or two horrific complications). AFAIK, the mRNA should be the vast majority of the COVID shots.

          1. J&J was on the market long enough for us to get original, first booster, and second booster. At which point we said “If going to get it anyway, and have to get boosters every six months? No!” That was before finding out about the mRNA in the non J&J varities.

          2. So compare and contrast: J&J had a non-zero but actually tiny and very loudly publicized number of adverse side effects, and J&J rapidly got “paused”, then was unpaused, but it was too late as no one would stock that stick anymore, and was eventually withdrawn; but both mRNA vaxes had a non-zero, small but not really tiny especially in teen males, number of adverse side effects, were never paused or even safety-noted, and if they were ever safety reviewed those meeting notes were classified and kept securely in as box next to the Corvette in Joe’s garage.

            Why, with how differently adverse side effects were handled between the J&J and mRNA jabs, it’s almost as if the vax bureacracy was actually trying to shift everyone to get the mRNA vax.

        2. J&J also for my family. The technology was relatively new (modifying an adenovirus to express the desired protein) – but had been through several regular clinical and pre-clinical trials. As I told the family, though, it was just a “get out of jail free” card, and might give some protection for a short time.

          The mRNA CoViD “vaccines” have never had a proper trial – the one trial of the technology previous to the “pandemic” was an abysmal failure.

          Did J&J have side effects? Yes. The usual small percentage of the people vaccinated with it. Whether the side effects of the mRNA “vaccines” are more frequent, or worse, is virtually impossible to tell now. People were vaccinated willy-nilly, without any studies to give a physician some indicators of those who were prone to known side effects, and whether it was the initial vaccination, or the piling on of booster-on-booster that is causing the widespread problems is also not knowable.

          1. Plus the fact that certain subsets of the population are going to react differently to vaccines to begin with. My family got vaccinated and we were fine with it because we present a fairly standard profile reaction to vaccines. I know one family who refused because they have weird reactions to things, including some things that are often trace elements in vaccines. When they wouldn’t tell the mom what was in them aside from the active ingredients, despite her well-documented medical history, she refused.

            The moment they required them was the moment they lost me. First off, there was no justification for a one-size-fits-all mentality. Secondly, did they not KNOW that by threatening people, they’d immediately end up with people refusing because they hate coercion? (Of course they didn’t.) And thirdly, rightly pointing out that you need decades of studies for a true picture of the safety of a treatment should not be considered a conspiracy theory. It’s medical science.

          2. Dropped out off the internet, but some indication early on that mixing covid vaccines came under “not recommended”. Seriously. Since then the narrative has swung 180. Our cards explicitly have which vaccine. So I wonder if those who originally got the J&J vaccine had to subsequently get a booster of another vaccine, then had problems. Naturally PTB blame the, not following the script and using mRNA, J&J vaccine.

            1. I had the original J&J non-MRNA vax as soon as it was available. Have allergies to ingredients in the other two MRNA vaxes, so my PC recommended J&J. Did fine. Finally was forced to get a booster which was Pfizer, and promptly got COVID. Then ten months later, renal cancer shows up. I would never have known if I hadn’t been in the second car of a three car pile-up. So make of that what you will/

      7. OK, another link in the not-causation chain. Excess deaths. No one can explain why the sudden increase in excess deaths across the world, most of them in the 40-50 age range.

        if I remember correctly, the pattern started in 2022.

    2. Were your nephew’s cancer treatments and/or checkups canceled ‘to make room for the huge wave of COVID19 patients that will overwhelm our health care system’? Hospitals closed during 2020 because they weren’t allowed to provide their normal medical services. People died because doctors and hospitals were not allowed to do ‘elective procedures’ — which has a specific medical definition: any medical treatment that can be scheduled later because you’re not dying right this second. Cancer treatments, joint replacements, stents and bypasses, anything not immediately critical (or COVID19) was verboten.

      By the time such conditions were immediately critical, it was usually too late. Thousands died unnecessarily.

      So when do the heads start rolling?

      ———————————

      A good Zombie Apocalypse novel is at least as believable as anything we’ve heard out of the ‘Publick Health Authoriteez’ over the last four years.

        1. Gaining 100#’s can have it’s own consequences. For some that is higher blood preasure, higher cholesterol, and type 2 diabetes can also appear. Even possibly inability to have the needed knee surgery because of the excess weight that will be put on the repaired knee joint. Yes, I would not be happy either. Not saying will happen. Everything is based on the individual.

          Example, even though I come from a family that has history of both high blood preasure and cholesterol regardless of whether overweight or not. Though I am 100#s overweight from my low (about 70#s over for current age), my blood preasure is not high (actually very much on the low side). Cholesterol overall numbers considered high, but the bad cholesterol is considered low. My A1C is 5.5, below pre-diabetic level, but because of the hypoglycemia/reactive hypoglycemia considered pre-diabetic (RHR diagnosed when I weighed only 150#s, and just now declaring pre-diabetic? Whatever.) Yes. I want to lose the excess 70#’s. No way I should go back to 130#s or less (lowest young adult/post HS was 125#’s with normal around 132# – 135# depending on muscles, because down/up nature of working pre-sale forestry crew).

          1. All the orthopedic surgeons in my area are members of the same medical association, which has decided they won’t do a knee replacement on anyone with a BMI over 20.

            1. And no one has sued them for malpractice? Your ambulance chasers are sleeping on the job.

              2. I looked it up, and at least the feds and the ortho society consider higher BMIs acceptable, with lots of care. Complications would be fairly low at that low of a number (AFAIK, it’s at the bottom of the “healthy” range), though anorexic problems could be found.

                Glen Reynolds has had a couple of minor rants about BMI and how it punishes people who’ve put on muscle mass. (Not me; I’m just plain fat.)

                I wonder if a lawyer mentioning ADA might get their attention.

                1. BMI punishes people who are just tall, because a human’s mass is not proportional to the square of their height. That may have been less of an issue when people were shorter, like when BMI was invented.

                  However, neither does human mass scale proportional to the cube, because the depth front-to-back of the skeleton isn’t monotonically proportional to height, nor is width, although it’s not quite as disproportionate.

                  The exponent for BMI should probably be more like 2.3 or 2.4

                  1. BMI for diagnosis needs to be treated as malpractice.

                    It’s a screening mechanism; pretending that those who are basically zero chance of being a thing are the only ones not a thing is stupid.

            2. Then I am SOL because even at 130#, my BMI is over 20. I’ll never see 130# again, ever. To get below 20 BMI, I have to be below 115#s. Of coarse the calculator using is not taking into account age. At 115#s, even in my 20’s, my response would be “Are you trying to kill me?”

              Oh. Wait. They are.

              All the orthopedic surgeons in my area are members of the same medical association, which has decided they won’t do a knee replacement on anyone with a BMI over 20.

              They don’t want to do any knee replacements.

            3. At which point I’m really screwed. The FNP’s guess is that my issue is the meniscus, though the CT scans point to arthritis between the patella and the femur. I’ve lived with the latter for decades, most likely (had issues dating back to my early 30s) but if they can get the worst fixed, I’ll be happy.

              Demographics for the county run older, and some populations can make me look average (cough Klamath cough), so we’ll see. Just looked at the BMI calculator and at my lowest adult weight (185 lbs, when I was 6’2) I was at 23.8, with my doctors thinking I should probably gain some weight. Sigh. 155 pounds would do it, at which point the funeral director would have a sly smile.

              Quoth the doctor: “You do have big bones!”

            4. So only anorexic men and ultra petite women, then?

              (At 5’10” I would have to weigh 130 lbs. to get to BMI 20. I’ve never been less than 145 since I finished my growth spurt at 15, and I looked like a skeleton then.)

      2. I can’t speak to details about my nephew’s cancer. That’s a knock-on effect from some serious family conflicts. I managed to avoid pissing off either side by having as little to do with the combatants (of which one is the parent of the nephew) as possible, and by not talking details.

        My 2021 knee surgery should have had me in the hospital for a few days, but due to TPTB lockdown/COVID reservation, it was day surgery. (Crosses eyes. Could have been ugly, but we managed to get everything right, thanks to a very helpful neighbor and hospital staff going above and beyond the call of duty.)

        NB: the procedure didn’t count as elective. Was crippled in that leg, and delaying would/could have been permanent.

        1. Anymore, unless otherwise medically needed, both knee and hip surgeries, even replacement are done at the clinic, and are day procedures. Both times (3 years apart, 2011 and 2014) hubby was in for hip replacement he was there 3 days (surgery day was day 0), with an afternoon release. Technically 4 days. Had him up and walking afternoon of day 0. We found out the policy change when he was in for carpal tunnel surgery (also outpatient). Eventually both wrists.

          1. I’m getting an arthrogram tomorrow to try to figure out what all is wrong. The basic CT scans (one from 2021, one last month) show arthritis between the patella and femur, with an unknown amount of trouble in the meniscus. The radiologist’s notes imply that the arthritis is progressing; no shock, since I’ve had knee issues for years and it took the brunt of at least two nasty falls.

            I figure it’s something more than a cortisone shot; if I’m really lucky, it’s the in & out meniscus trip, though I wouldn’t be shocked at a recommendation for total knee replacement.

            The med sites say the TKR procedure can be day or inpatient. I know that reattaching the patella to the quadriceps in ’21 took longer than the surgeon planned, and dealing with scar tissue and such from that might make things more complicated. Regardless, whatever they suggest, I’m game for any suitable fix. This joint’s a right pain, mucking up daytime activities and making for eventful sleep. I’m just glad I’m not Canadian. IYKWIMAITYD.

            1. Arthrogram done. Get results in a few days. They did warn that the joint would likely feel worse afterwards, since they had to inject about 20 ml of contrast fluid.
              Had to explain why I can’t get an MRI. (Small but non-zero chance of a magnetic ear implant, due to a manufacturer’s screwup and incomplete recall, combined with nonavailable details of my 1991 procedure. Sigh.)
              Protip: If your company is supposed to make surgical implants out of stainless steel, it’s A Really Good Idea to source the Right F**king Alloy.

              1. Isn’t there any way to find out through testing whether the alloy they used was nonmagnetic?

                1. I don’t know enough about the MRI equipment to figure out if there’s a way to tell. It’s a pretty small piece of metal to begin with (I was told it was a titanium wire, though the faulty units resemble a bucket on a stick). I was refused MRI before I knew about the suspect units. (Made circa ’84, recalled ’87, with the last known implantation done in 1989. That’s a confidence builder right there. There were two hundred units sold in the USA that were never returned, and my surgeon proved to be less than stellar. She quit medicine after it took 3 tries for my other ear to get an implant that stayed working…) For extra fun, some of the production batches were sold to foreign customers, so there could be some more. No idea as to any recall stats on those.

                  And yeah, one poor soul got a bad implant and an MRI. The paper I read was silent as to the adverse reactions, though I suspect it’s how the wrong alloy fiasco was discovered.

                  TPTB at the hospital balked because I didn’t have the specifics (brand/model) on the metallic implant used. The other ear ended up with a non-metallic one. If that screwup had never happened, I would have tried the “they never made any magnetic implants!” card, but with 200 funky ones out in the wild, I would think twice, and $SPOUSE would be furious if I took that chance. If it went south, the hospital would be on the hook for any adverse reactions, ranging from painful to fatal. Nope.

                  1. Wow…

                    I strongly agree with your last; sounds like taking that sort of chance would be playing Russian roulette with your brain; apparently “metal overheats” is like saying the Pacific Ocean is “damp”. I read recently about some idiot who didn’t pay attention and had his CCW weapon in his pocket in an MRI; the results were apparently *not* pretty. Evolution In Action.

                  2. I gave it a bit of thought, and using a strong electromagnet with an audio signal might possibly work. OTOH, the research to get an experiment together is beyond me, especially with a very slender pool of those who had those implants and were told so. Cheaper to redo the implant, but my right-ear hearing is so-so, and would be degraded with yet another procedure. (Left ear sucks after 3 tries to get it right.)

                    The biggest fear I’d have is the implant being pulled free by the magnetic field(s) in an MRI. Loss of hearing would be given, and the damage would range from bloody to fatal, with survivable brain damage in the middle. No thanks.

      3. This will sound possibly weird, but I think I got lucky that I broke my wrist when I did. It was shortly after at least the most insane of the lockdown policies were being lifted here, so I was able to go to the hospital and get it set, then go in for the surgery to put in the plates / pins to keep it in the right place…

        1. I was somewhat on the cusp. Had gone to town for an amateur radio license test (went from scratch all the way to Extra class). No dine-in that night, but I could pick up a pizza. The next morning, the restaurant restrictions were lifted and some places offered dine-in breakfast. (I had leftover pizza. Still hooked on that. 🙂 )

          I blew out the knee a few days later, and saw the doc the next week. Surgery was March 1st, but TPTB hadn’t opened up restrictions in the hospital. I gather they were running at 1/3rd capacity for rooms. The surgeon said he’d have preferred I stay overnight because of potential complications/other risks, but no rooms were available. Did OK. The post-op nurse helped me into the truck, and one neighbor helped me get out of the truck and into the house. I had sufficient experience at changing dressings so no further issues, but it would have been nice to have competent pros on hand the first night.

  12. This is actually why I consciously avoid almost all new fiction (by new, I think I mean more or less the last 10 years definitively, and possibly the last 20): authors cannot help but write in their own biases. The idea of writing truly fictional worlds is perhaps a dying art: the new cycle can only right that which they know because they have been trained that this is the only view that can be written.

    To TimGillilandBooks’ point above, likely this was done to make the book more “acceptable”. The thing that I suspect most of them do not get is 1) Published is not “making money”; and 2) By inserting current day into future time, you make your book a relic that will likely not last the next 5 years, let alone the next 50.

    The best science fiction and fantasy that I have read – and continue to re-read – has total immersion in the worlds they are set in. There is little or no call back to present day, unless if is using “current day” as a jumping off point, and even then it then makes for a pretty interesting “what if” book (Maybe we could have got Pournelle’s CoDominium; the world slewed another away). But after that, they are immersed in the world that there, not the world the writer wrote in. That is what makes them re-readable, at least to me.

    New books, consumed with current “modern” problems, not so much.

      2. Tom Kratman certainly has an impressive way of including “modern” stuff in his books, in a manner that maximally explodes leftroid heads. “The Amazon Legion” tackles both gays and women as Infantry, brutally honest, and certain to annoy any but the least-irrational least-insane of Leftroids.

    2. I’ve gotten a kick out of some trade published authors are getting away with checking off the boxes needed without being “in your face”, or lecturing without detracting from the story. Almost a dig at the check list.

      1. indeed. I have been having great fun with those kinds of stories recently. Lots of authors who are writing stories that are fun to read, because they are having fun writing rather than adhering to “the rules” that choke traditional publishing.

        Though, this does not confer complete immunity. I did have to wall one webnovel of an author who is good at prose and plot because of some watermeloning. Specifically, in a story of a character who gained magic power to trade *anything* and even had the title “The Merchant,” he was given control over a city ‘s local government somewhat out of the blue, and decided that the thing that would fix the city’s problems was…. Public schools. Having had the experience of trying to teach in the socialist prison camps that masquerade as schools, I could read no more.

  13. The last time I was in Europe and needed to put a keycard in the slot to keep the lights/HVAC running, I inserted my library card and it was happy.

    1. Wait, your library card worked in the place of your room keycard—so the AC would run when you were out of the room? (It was just looking for a magnetic card, any magnetic card, I guess. Couldn’t program the AC with the passkey for the hotel; that would be nuts, and unsafe. That way they can just ship them from the factory. Kinda brilliant.)

      1. In my experience, they don’t even need to be magnetic, just the right size to fit in the slot. grocery loyalty cards work great. I’ve even just folded paper over a couple times and stuck that in there. Carnival Cruise Lines briefly went in for them in a big way for turning the cabin lights and electric on and off. Within a couple years they just stuck blank keycards in all the cabin slots, left them there permanently, and never mentioned it again

        1. Yes, most of them just have a little electrical switch that is activated when something is in the slot. It’s a heck of a lot cheaper to trigger a switch than to add in a magnetic reader or RFID chip. This way you just have an electrician wire the output to the power for the AC unit thermostat or room lights.

          1. I am by no means a road warrior any more, but I think I can safely say I have been in perhaps a dozen hotel rooms over the last year, year-and-a-half. I have never encountered this phenomenon. Maybe it’s present in other than the bottom-end hotels where we usually end up staying?

              1. Yeah, I’ve only seen it in three hotels ever. The first two were on business trips, one a Holiday Inn in the Netherlands, the second a fancy casino hotel in Las Vegas. The third was some random hotel in the US on a road trip, it was slightly upscale but not especially so, I can’t remember exact location but I think it was either in Western Pennsylvania or maybe in Georgia. Never seen it elsewhere on personal or business trips, in USA or Canada. 

            2. I was a frequent flyer at the Hilton in Medford, OR from late 2017 to just before the ’20 lockdowns, then 2-4 times a year at the Hilton owned Homewood Suites. Neither of them had such, with the suites place having both on-the-wall controls as well as at the actual unit. The Hilton strictly had a wall control, which (I’m guessing) could be remote controlled.

              The previous road trip was in 2014, and no signs of card needed. This included Motel 6, Days Inn and Ramada (both Wyndham owned).

              1. I saw most of them in Europe. I’m not sure if it was law of virtue signaling. Western Europe more than Eastern, and older hotels (like built in the 1200s, 1300s, renovated after 1648) don’t bother. Or didn’t back when I was there last.

                1. My only similar experience was at a small hotel in Wasserburg am Inn (east of Munich) in 2001-2. It had some form of heat, but no A/C nor window screens, making me a nice treat for the mosquitos “that don’t live in Bavaria”.

                  Nothing fancy about light switches or heater control (can’t remember if the rooms had thermostats. It was freakin’ cold in Dec 2001, around 0 F, a few days, but it was OK in the rooms.)

                  OTOH, the place was right pleasant in March.

                  1. mosquitos “that don’t live in Bavaria”.

                    Well, they must have commuted, then. It’s only 700 miles or so from Transylvania. I hear flying bloodsuckers are bigger there.

                    1. And they didn’t have screens at the Best Western in Sibiu, either. Made me a tad nervous.

        3. Yes, just needs to be th right shape, in order to push an electromechanical switch or block some type of optical sensor switch. I tried with a non-magnetic card one time, too, just for the heck of it and because I was curious. Alas, it did NOT address the motion sensor/timer switch on the bathroom lights, so they shut off in the middle of my long soak, and the sensor didn’t cover the tub, so I had to get out of the tub in the dark for the lights to come back on. In contrast, the elevators were left on automatic (stop and open at each floor) all weekend to accommodate Orthodox Jewish tourists. 

  15. Sarah, you have come up with a wonderful new oath for people trying to avoid casual blasphemy. Except that I’d be just too embarrassed to use that one. I’d get as far as “By Gaia’s cha–“ and just seize up.

    If you find me dropping “GCV” into future comments, you’ll know I’ve committed to a work-around.

    Republica restituendae, et, Hamas delenda est.

  16. Another reason for that writer to be singing watermelon is he’s thinking his audience *expects* nods to all the current Big Things, so he’s just making them happy. It’s what Everybody Knows and it shows he’s a member in good standing of the Correct People.

  17. Sarah mentioned Bill Reader, who I am unfamiliar with. And it’s a difficult search term! Can anyone post a link?

  18. Please oh please tell us the name of the writer so we don’t waste time and money on this annoying BS.

  20. Poor fellow obviously doesn’t realize that ocean beaches go under water all the time.  Just this past winter, Seabrook NH had off-shore winds push high tide about 6 feet higher than normal. Flooded the entire barrier sandbar the town is built on.

    https://youtu.be/PoCUczCSac8

    1. Reminds me of something that happened…I don’t know, quite a while ago now…in either New Jersey or Florida (I forget), where a popular beach eroded away over the course of a couple-three years. All the sand gone, nothing left but rocks and a bluff. At the time, people were blaming the building of beach houses, global warming, any number of things — nobody really knew what happened, but everybody “knew” some undesirable activity of humans had to be to blame.

      Well, several years later, I came across a very interesting story: the beach was back. Over the course of a year, the ocean deposited all the sand that had gone missing, plus more. As far as I’m aware, nobody knows why either event happened.

      So that’s one of the things I think of whenever people claim that The Science comprehends everything that’s going on with the massive, mind-bogglingly complex system of oceans, atmosphere, landmasses, and solar energy that interact to regulate the earth’s temperature. Much of what they think they know is wrong, and they refuse to confront the magnitude of what they don’t know and can’t predict.

      1. 97% of climate changers forget about volcanoes. One big VE7 and you better be in a bunker/ark with a decent amount of supplies and a nuclear reactor.

        1. Sometimes nature just be like that. I wish I remembered the name of the place where it happened. It was a really fascinating story.

          I tried to look it up, but couldn’t find much other than the usual “climate change omg” crap. Except that, apparently, there’s a place in Ireland where something similar has happened more than once, but in that case they do know what’s up; the sand gets deposited in sandbars and shallow bays nearby, and then picked up and dumped back on the beach due to various confluences of storms and tides.

        2. Back in the ancient days (aka the 1980s), I remember a kids science show that showed beaches in time-lapse over a year, and how they “walked” with currents as sand was moved back and forth. I suspect that’s badthink now.

        3. Happens all the time. There are locations where they have to truck in beaches every few years. Has to do with prevailing ocean currents. Oregon has more “beaches” than prior around some of the ports. Why? Because of the artificial breaker jetty’s that protect the ports. FYI, exactly where one does not want to be during storms and when sneaker waves are expected.

        4. Doubt it’s the same incident, but when I was in Commiefornia for a few years the beach at Laguna disappeared in a storm. Similar situation, right down to rock.

          Since Laguna Beach wouldn’t be Laguna Beach without a beach, they dragged in dump-truck loads of sand and rebuilt the beach.

  21. It’s one of the reasons why I can’t read most “modern” books that come out from a non-Baen publisher. You have to get past the gatekeepers in Manhattan, who are all members of the Church of Woke and Gaia. If you don’t believe in global warming, the J6 insurrection, that non-white’s can’t be racist because only white people are racist, etc, etc, etc…say goodbye to even getting past the first round of editors at a major publisher unless you’re a Big Name author.

    And sometimes even if you’re a Big Name Author, you have to have these points in your story.

        1. It’s along the same lines as the kids who sing mimicking autotune effects: It’s what they see/hear pro product doing, so it must be the thing to do.

          Given the immersion in the dirt goddess cult over the past several generations, only the most innately questioning or skeptical will have worked their way to sources of other opinions. Good on them, but now they are “The Best Train The Rest”, which is pretty steep hill of indoctrination to overcome.

  22. I don’t know the 90s author but I used to spend a lot of time in some of Eddings series. He was a child of the 1930s, and it shows: the casual assumption that “conservatives,” are backwards, ignorant and often dirty is one example, and it spills over into a contempt for formal chivalry and nobility. His characters are often very cynical and he takes a lot of jabs at the idea people can be motivated by anything but greed (perhaps I should say, “most people,” since his heroes can be selfless).

    1. There is a lot of room between the extremes of ‘naked destructive greed’ and ‘selfless’, and that is where most people live. Most people are perfectly willing to do nice things for others, expecting no payment beyond a word of thanks.

    2. I soured on Endings when I realized that there was a lot of protagonist-centered morality in his novels.

  23. I’m reminded of a book I read a few years ago in which a biker chick ends up on Barsoom where periodically she would regal the reader with politically correct opinions. The one that sticks in my memory is an anti-gun screed. I figured the author had to do that in order to get the book published because otherwise it was well written.

  24. Oh, it does irritate me so, when an unexpected religious ritual in form of an obligatory lecture (and that is what it is) throws me out of the story!

  25. “My religion forbids me from assuming that some percentage of humans are really NPCs just put in to lend verisimilitude to an otherwise thin and threadbare narrative.”

    One problem with being above average and trying to be actively aware of “real” reality is assuming most others are also the same.

    “Surely they aren’t that dumb…”

    The Lord never disappoints with a shortage of ignorant people that should have died in childhood by licking doorknobs, instead the our cup overflows. Time to ban obvious warning labels like “Do not eat ceramic plates or bowls.” or “Do not lay down in the motorway.”

    1. And “Do Not Eat” on every packet of dessicant. Of course, there’s this Tide Pods thingie, so… 😒

      1. Tide Pods, other than one or two suicide attempts, was a War of the Worlds style myth. And the suicide attempts came after folks had the media well and truly spun up.

        The desiccant thing is actually a good example of why the not-California-trial-jury warnings are there– it’s obvious when you pull it out of something. Less obvious if it’s on the floor next to the candy shelf.

        Things that seem obvious are often obvious only in the correct context– such as, why do drive-up ATMs have braille on the keypads? Because all the keypads have braille, it would be stupid to special order a part you can’t use anywhere else when it doesn’t hurt anything, even if it’s not generally useful.

        1. OK, I was unaware that the “eating Tide Pods” hype was a fraud (“myth” seems a bit mild for something which could result in multiple deaths if ignorant children believed it). As for the rest, especially regarding the Braille on various things the blind should *not* be using, all valid points. But if a young child (the only ones at risk, IMHO) found a dessicant package, do you *really* think he/she would be either capabable of, or interested in, reading the printing on it? Protection is fine, but when does it become “swaddling the people in cotton wool for their own good”? it’s a fine line, and IMHO the question is worth addressing.

          1. That anyone was doing it is the myth.

            Have you really not seen plain candy wrappers that look like desiccant packages? You need to buy more weird candy. 😀

            1. So it never happened *at all*? Any idea what moron started it?

              Nope, never seen any without obvious labels. Maybe I should get out more… 🤔

              Nah, candy is the *last* thing I need to research. 😆

          2. The only reason the Braille is there is so they can run the manufacturer with only one panel stamper template for everything instead of two, and simplify ordering.

            “Hmmm,how many blind customers will use this ATM?”

          3. When my bank added drive-through ATMs they removed the old walk-up ATM. If you don’t have a car, you have to stand in line between two cars in a drive-through lane now.

    2. I saw an ad for a camping accessory — a toilet seat that fits onto a trailer hitch. At the end was a notice:

      DO NOT USE WHILE VEHICLE IS IN MOTION

      Then there are the warnings to not put the plastic bag over your head…

      Of course, we all know why such stupid-ass warnings are needed. Some idiot will go and do that, then get a lawyer and sue you for not including the warning.

      1. Or the idiot does it and dies, then his/her relatives will sue you.

        1. Which says more about the gene pool than it does about any need for stupid-ass warnings.

          Don’t ever say “Nobody would be stupid enough to do that!” Some idiot will.

          But you can’t idiot-proof the world. There are too many idiots. They will defeat any possible idiot-proofing simply through the Infinite Number Of Monkeys principle. The minute you declare something foolproof, some damn fool comes along and proves you wrong.

          Which is why we celebrate the Darwin Awards. Go, idiots!

  26. Please tell me this travesty you were reading wasn’t written by someone with the initials N.S., who seems to have begun circling the Greenie drain in his recent works.

  27. What this told me is that the author was just “watermeloning” and not realizing that what he was saying didn’t make any sense in the book. It was a lack of respect for his character and his story.

    I have to admit – if an author could insert this kind of aside into his story that is relevant to the concerns of the society he’s portraying, that would be amazing.

    Like… the main character is talking to someone else, or reading an informational bulletin, and the character gets the ol’ conceptual whiplash as the other character/article trots out some unconscious virtue signal that is counter to the story reality.

    I’m sure it’s been done, and I just haven’t read the book. Though I do wonder if it would be recognizable as in-universe virtue signaling, or if it would just make the character spouting it look insane.

  28. Hi, I’m back again. This time it’s not just to surface for a second and disappear again; this time I need help. I hate to derail the conversation, but I can’t wait until an adjacent topic comes up again.

    Many of you will remember that a few years ago my daughter, 12 at the time, declared that she was “trans” and that her name was now “Max”. I can’t bring myself to use male pronouns for her so I’ve used “they/them” around her and her mother, and I’ve switched to “sweetie” and “kiddo” instead of reinforcing the delusion by using her boy name.

    All well and good, and we’ve all kind of managed to rub along, until two weeks ago. My ex told me that our daughter had requested permission to go on cross-sex hormones and I needed to consent.

    Which I flatly refused to do.

    I was going to have a conversation with my daughter last weekend, but I made the mistake of saying “tomorrow we need to talk” and ten minutes later she called my ex to come pick her up saying she felt sick. Uh-huh. So I haven’t been able to even find out why she feels this way. I figured she was just being an uncommunicative teenager, and also I really hate uncomfortable confrontational conversations, so I kept putting it off and didn’t ever press it.

    So a few hours ago I got served with a summons to alter our parenting plan, which would cut down on my time with my daughter from four days every two weeks to two, and most importantly would relegate all health care decisions (i.e. hormones) to solely my ex. (Oh, and would enjoin me from talking about either one of them in public. Nice.)

    So I need a lawyer. Does anyone know of a Seattle-area family court attorney who isn’t instantly going to shriek “eek a transphobe”? Are there any networks or resources who could help me find someone sympathetic?

    (Tell you one thing, I’ve been paying my ex a bunch of money in spousal support (over and above statutory child support) so she and her husband could live close by in relative comfort, and our separation agreement states very clearly that I don’t have to do that once she remarried, so I’m going to cut that off. If she’s going to declare war and try to get me canceled and ostracized from my friends and community, she can pay the price.)

    1. Oh, I forgot. My daughter is just barely 15 now. As if that matters to Seattle Childrens’ Hospital specifically or the People’s Republic of Washington generally. :-

            1. She’s a GoodLiberal™, who for the longest time was fine if we had different politics, but in the last several years of our marriage became more and more radical. The final straw was when she pronounced that it wasn’t okay for me to vote differently from her, because abortion rights was not only the most important issue, it was the only issue. And not only could I not abstain, I had to vote the same and be seen to affirm her position as well.

              So the answer is mostly “she hates me”, and is all in on any and every radical progressive cause out there.

              Honestly, I think she’s been nudging Daughter in this direction ever since Daughter told her that she was terrified of getting her period when in 5th grade (2018-19) her friends started getting theirs. And then Covid lockdowns hit right at the worst possible time so she was isolated from her friends and social group when she did get her period. Also, she came out as gay right about the same time (that’s fine by me), and started attending the online Lambert House LGBTQWERTY student support group meetings, and six weeks later wanted us to use “xer/xem” — which not even Ex would agree to. Six months after that it was “he/him” and social transition at school.

              I really wonder how much she’s been badmouthing me to Daughter ever since our divorce nine years ago. The worst thing I’ve ever said to Daughter about Ex was that I thought Ex was too paranoid over Covid.

              1. Unfortunately most people on hte right are “too nice” in family, and end up losing their kids. You need to accept the confrontation and defend your point.

              2. BTW “I’m gay” for young kids, younger than 20 or so, means “I’m afraid of the opposite sex, either organically or because my mom has passed her idiocy onto me.”

                1. Yeah, I’m aware. My childhood best friend’s wife is a child psychologist for the city school district, and the first words out of her mouth when this came up were “she’s too young to really know”.

                  And again, she attends public school in Seattle, so she’s probably been getting “if you think boys are icky then you’re gay” since age 5.

                  1. Got no good news for you. Maybe not even good advice. My ex only tried to kill me.

                    Stall, delay, defer, buy time. The kid may outgrow the worst of the stupidity foisted on her.

                    Buy the best lawyer you can. You can survive even bankruptcy. Cheap lawyers are usually insanely expensive in outcome, sometimes even fatally so. Go big.

                    Decide to fight. Then F-ing well -fight-. If only to maintain some shred of control, and to prove to her, someday, that you did care enough to fight. She may not understand it for years, but she will remember you fought for her. Use “I am fighting for you.”

                    God bless you and her and keep you and her.

                    1. All I can do is agree with this in the strongest possible way; that support alteration is ridiculous. Your ex needs a swift kick.

      3. I have no help to offer you, but your story….it is to weep. I will share it, heavily edited. (I live south of Olympia.)

    4. Hi – I’m in a similar boat, without the divorce, and with an 18yo non-binary daughter. Not a lawyer, no specific advice to give. 😦 BUT – A. go to Search “custody” on Substack which is a search result list on Parents with Inconvenient Truths about Trans (PITT) | Substack (pittparents.com) for articles on other parents in your boat. You already know that Seattle is a very liberal area. Fortunately, SO much is coming out right now about how bad the gender industry is. Search wpath on the same site – and many of those articles will come with links to original sources.
      Short list of stuff to go after – what other health diagnosis does your child have, particularly mental health? Has any of that been addressed? Seek to get that taken care of FIRST. Almost all trans kids have 1 or more mental health issues, especially ADHD, ASD, Bipolar, personality disorders – especially borderline. Most have been subject to one or more issues – bullying, ostracized, too much unsupervised screen time especially on Reddit, Tumblr, YouTube, TikTok, anime and fan fiction sites. See my own article here – The Hubris of the Clean – Sabremom (substack.com). You can also message me on FB – facebook.com/deena.campanile/ – my life is a tad hectic right now but I’m happy to answer what I can.

      1. Thank you. PITT was another one of the names that I had heard before but just couldn’t quite remember.

        Yeah, Daughter is ADHD like me, and also slightly on the autism spectrum (mostly texture/fabric issues, as far as I can tell). But I’m pretty sure that none of that has been addressed other than an Adderall prescription, because the one time I accompanied Daughter to her therapist it was all trans all the time and the condescension and shaming (of me) was palpable. One of Ex’s complaints in the petition is that I haven’t joined Daughter’s therapy, but if all it’s going to be is calling me a bigot and a Nazi (figuratively), what would be the point?

        The problem is that Ex is all in (like her therapist, like her pediatrician, like the schools, etc. etc.) and I’m not, and Daughter lives with Ex 11 days out of every 14, so I’m kind of powerless to affect her environment very much.

        1. I get it. So many other parents there in exactly the same situation – they don’t agree but the “experts” are all in, if there’s an ex – the ex is too. Read Abigail Shrier – Bad Therapy and Irreversible Damage. A list of better therapists here – https://beyondtrans.org/therapists/. Today’s PITT article made me laugh at one part – the dad had bought Irreversible Damage and told his daughter not to read it, that it would be too triggering.

          1. Unfortunately, there’s no chance of me getting Daughter to a better therapist; Ex would never agree to it and Daughter would refuse to go. Also, this is Seattle, any therapist who isn’t “yay trans” loses their license.

          2. Abigail Shrier – Bad Therapy and Irreversible Damage.

            PITT article made me laugh at one part – the dad had bought Irreversible Damage and told his daughter not to read it, that it would be too triggering.

            That works too.

            In addition something to use in court proceedings.

        2. Other side is already filing for change in custody arrangements. Going to be in the courts either way. Response (IMO) has to be you filing for 12 days you, 2 days, them, and full medical custody to you. Beside alienation (least of the problems) they are promoting sterilization of a minor, at the very least. A few other problems they are opening her to because of the cocktail of drugs that will reverse and prevent her physical maturation. Sue all the medical personnel involved too. All out war. (Not a lawyer. Just “all out war” would be my response.)

          I’ve seen this happen with a cousin twice removed (grandparent is my cousin). Transition the other way, if it matters. It is sad. I know the great-grandparents would be appalled. Doubly appalled that the reason this can all happen is because of the inheritance the great-grandparents left behind. Don’t know if any actual transitioning physically has happened because, well haven’t seen even the parents since their (transition’s) great-grandmother died.

          I also understand what you could lose too. Other side of the family. We have little to no contact with hubby’s nieces and nephews, let alone their children (only met two of at least 6 since his mom died). Then there is example of BIL, his current wife, and his son and her two sons. BIL has had no contact with his son in 35 years (since nephew turned 18), which means we have had no contact (only saw him on occasional Christmas, when dad had him for the holidays). Never met one of her sons, he forced her to give custody to his dad even before they were married. Younger son lasted 18 months, after the two were married, and he went to his dad. BIL isn’t a bad person. But he is not particularly good with kids in general. She chose him over her kids. No, our son was never left alone with them. (In comparison, our son was left with my parents, my sisters and their spouses, as well as an aunt and uncle, more than once, from infancy on, when we needed care arrangements.)

        1. Considering you’re getting eyes on the situation? That’s not something to be underestimated.

    7. I’m sorry I don’t have any resources to share, but you and your daughter are on my prayer list for a positive resolution. Your ex, too.

    8. Damn. My college roommate ended up being a family lawyer in Seattle – but when he acquired a family, he moved them all to Idaho; he saw the insanity coming there years ago.

      Not easy to get hold of him, and he may not know anyone still there if and when I do, but I’ll give it my best shot.

  29. The religion of Communism uses whatever lie it can to assuage the guilt of it’s members and to foster in their desires for ultimate control. In truth they can’t even control themselves, so how in the hell do they expect to control others. And I am about tired of their forcing their guilt on me. Now F off, all the way down F off street, until you come to F off bridge, cross that bridge and F off, until you can’t F off anymore and then F off.

    Or just grow the hell up, your childish autistic rants are worth the price of the bullet to just shut you up, don’t make me go there, you won’t like it, trust me on this. I concur, Gia’s Chaffed Vagina deserves to be in a book/T-shirt somewhere. 🤣

  30. It’s not that people are NPCs, it’s just that a lot of people don’t want the responsibility of thinking for themselves and are happy to let the collective do their thinking for them. This explains the popularity of Marxism and Islam. This also explains why some people can change their beliefs at the drop of a hat. Go along to get along.

    1. I agree. Sadly it is not a function of intelligence. My family ranges 2+ to 6 sigma. Educated wide ranging interests. Capable and succcesful.

      Out of about 30 people three besides my self are not TDS and maybe two not get vaxx.

      So about 10% think for themselves. Temperment and personality not IQ.

  31. or the three trash cans of the apocalypse at work (landfill, compost and recycle) where the maintenance folks throw all three togeather in the bin, sustainabilty my sweet fanny adams

      1. We have 3 pickups: Trash, “recyclable”, yard debris (which includes table scraps and not-bagged dog poo, and non-clay cat box clean out. I do not add any of these. Don’t want a stinky can, dog/cat stuff. Don’t want to attract raccoons, etc.), and glass. “Recyclable” in quotes, because even though picked up with a “different” truck, it isn’t separated and shipped or picked up by anything. “Recycling” goes into the landfill. Whatever. The “recycling” can is big, so we can signal by having a smallest trash can 😁

  32. You’re thinking of Robert A. Heinlein’s They where the world was a conspiracy to keep a mentally ill man unaware of his true nature. But don’t worry, you’re not the Great Glaroon. I am!;)

        1. I have it in an ebook collection titled “All You Zombies – Five Classic Stories”

  33. this is the most enjoyable, delightfully sharp edged post I have seen in years!!! Perfection, so much that it should be enshrined in H L Mencken’s Hall of Perfect Verbiage! Of course, you are too young to remember that we did indeed have an ice age, just as Leonard Nimoy warned us about, in the 70s, when the ice floes invaded all the outer states, and polar bears were wandering the frozen streets, often eating small children when the fish were unavailable due to the sub zero sea temperatures. We barely survived, and perhaps it wold have been the end of all mankind/personkind if not for the efforts of a single man, Al Gore, who performed rituals to appease the Ice Gods and caused the ice to begin melting again; then later we elected Obongo, and as he reminded us, in the day of his inauguration, the seas began to recede from their flood stages. AT least, I think that is what happened, because the MSM told me so, and we know thy never lie and are always correct. Anyway- thank you for this incredible piece of writing; if I had any kind of award to give you, I wold bestow it upon you with much pomp and circumstance.

          1. I reveal my mystical biological sex only to the chosen people, like yourself. At one time I was so obviously male that I had to have penile reduction surgery so I could wear shorts in the summer, but it was worth it all. :o)

    2. Agree with Sarah. You are a bad kitty (picture). Hilariously bad kitty. You are right. Now that I think about it, I did tunnel through snow banks back and forth to high school, then college dorm in the ’70s. Earned every penny fighting wild fire with one foot in the fire and one in snow (actually did one December. Only a few inches of snow, but there was snow. LOL). I had forgotten. (Would say up in snow uphill both ways but that is my parents and grandparents. Besides everyone have already have read we are dab smack in the middle of the, flat flood plains, only a few miles east of the Willamette River, in the Willamette Valley.)

      1. My kids actually did have to go to school, up hill, in the snow, both ways. Made them walk the three blocks to school most days, except when they had band instruments. It was down the hill, up the hill. 

        Oldest still talks about it as “such a horror” /dramatic arm over forehead over the top

        1. Same! Where I live, it’s so hilly that if you walk more than about 6 blocks in any direction, you really are going uphill both ways. (Downhill both ways, too, but we don’t speak of that.)

          1. In my maternal grandparents defense, they grew up in Montana. So, snow, deep snow, check. Grandma grew up in Red Lodge. Red Lodge is the gateway to Beartooth Pass road. While the small town itself is flat. The surrounding areas are not. Grandpa grew up further north, near Chateau. While the area is the east side of the Rocky Mountain part of the range, thus less “mountainous” the high elevation prairie is very rolling. Hidden when driving, because the roads use bridges regularly to bridge those gaps. But drive Waterton Canadian National park. You can see the effect driving outside the park, and then into Montana, if paying attention, but not actually driving the effect. Very different effect when actually drive the effect. Same high prairie terrain, but they don’t bridge the dips with bridges on the few roads. Thus his stories were trudging through snow up/down/up/down/up/down, repeat, hills to school, both ways.

        2. If we’d stayed in Longview, our child would have had to walk uphill both ways too. House was on steep side of a hill, thus up to Hillcrest, then down Hillcrest to Columbia drive, across Columbia drive down to the grade school, reverse home. Difference? Rarely snows. While Columbia Heights is more likely to get snow, than down below, still the area (right on the Columbia northwest of Portland/Vancouver) doesn’t get snow often. Even then “trudge through snow” wouldn’t be accurate. Six inches would be a stretch. More like 2 or 3 inches, max. That is if school wasn’t called off for snow day.

          Note, we lived in Longview ’79 – ’85, so based on this thread, I guess we were buried in snow.

          Seriously. We did get ash once (August ’80). And saw at at least ice once or twice a winter (we were usually on seasonal layoff, so sit in front room and watch the show). Didn’t take much. Mentioned before we learned to hide the truck in the garage, and put the car on the far side of the house. This let cars out of control slide into the driveway without hitting vehicles. Noticed current owners have the low level evergreens get huge on the upside of the driveway. Might stop anyone coming across front yard (huge oops, there is quite a drop from there to the driveway), but that wasn’t the usual entrance (usually slid across lower part of driveway at road). Going up meant gunning it from the 4-way intersection, or even lower from East Canyonview. Which meant anyone coming from West Canyonview, backed down onto East Canyonview and gunned it. We had to back out of our driveway, and back down to or beyond the intersection too. If didn’t make top making the run? Back down and try again.

          Hid the truck because where (short) Canyonview, East Canyonview, West Canyonview, meet at the intersection, at the “Y” there is the top of the start of the actual canyon. People would slide into the top of the canyon (couldn’t go far, luckily), then would see the 4×4, and come ask to be towed out. Um. No. Not unsympathetic. While damage unlikely with the slide (unless someone else oopsed while still there), usually too buried, no traction. Wrong tool. Got tired of saying no to all the “at least try”. No truck. No problem.

  35. There was a thriller writer whose works I read 15-20 years ago. She had a series set in the benighted South (very specifically “benighted”), and the primary characters lived in the city. Their lives were not happy—they were divorced, but still inclined to spend time with the ex; they had lives of danger and stress; and in general, you got the sense over the series that they really weren’t making good choices.

    Then a book had them go out to a rural area, and you could feel the authorial sneer at these people, whose lives must, MUST be ruined by their choices to adhere to their faith and not be liberal.

    I really don’t think that the author realized how utterly hilarious it was to have these deeply unhappy people sneering at other people’s choices. Or how telling it was.

    1. I did manuscript evaluations for a few years. One was sadly hilarious. The Liberal Heroine falls in love with a Conservative, who she is going to fix, she is proud of herself for knowing the menial art of sewing, which she learned from her illegal immigrant nanny who her parents magnanimously employed because they were such amazing Liberals. It went downhill from there, the author either trying to satirize the whole self-centered, racist ideology of Leftists, or so blindly oblivious that she showed her whole hand to the world.

      I do have to say it was very revealing. It was a political book, so of course she was going to use her amazing Liberality to show the Republican President that he had it all wrong…

      Etc. I tried to be kind about it, but I sincerely hope that one didn’t make the cut.

    2. There was the book where I wrote about how great it was, how subtly the author showed that MC was full of guilt and regret, by how she treated other people.

      And the author roared back at me about how the character regretted nothing, and all her choices were right, and all the opposing chars were evil!

      Yeah, hit a nerve….

  36. Ref the worship of St. Greta of Climate Changery, I once said, about some of the worship, “This is a mentally-challenged kid who’s being used by some people for political purposes, and it’s awful”. That first got me the excuse of “Well, at least she’s doing something!”(really?), then I was accused of lying about her, so linked to an article talking about her parents saying she’s autistic. THEN I was accused of ad hominem attacks because “You can’t deal with the facts of global climate change so you’re attacking the girl!”

    I gave up.

        1. Food? Who said anything about giving food away? It’s solitary, I am, and it’s the others who set out the feasts and banquets in their halls in the raths, not those of us who like to be left alone, shur. I’ll share a dram of poitín, as long as ye don’t ask for a fookin’ pot of gold. Damn’d thing’s been spent on likker. .

          1. Almost 50 years ago, we had a rainbow come down in our front yard. There was no pot. I checked.

            However, that was a Friday. The following Monday I went I to the hospital for tests, and two days later I was opened up like a trout to remove a large, benign, cyst. So I figure I got the luck, anyway.

              1. I would have been a bigger pot if I’d been stuck in the belly in fencing class.

  39. and… just on the tiny off chance anyone missed the -epic- joke by our Hostess…

    A Watermelon is a political slur –

    “Green” on the outside, but (rather squishy) “Red” on the inside.

    1. Huh. Mine’s more solid with white bits than checked, but that might be interesting. But I’m not getting the color-changing one, nope!

  41. Ayn Rand (who lectured in her novels, but it was actually appropriate [for the most part]) got some advice from her friend Isabel Paterson while writing The Fountainhead that is part of why that book has stood the test of time so well. Despite being set during very specific years, and including period detail that makes its time setting quite vivid (for instance, the Halloween party where architects showed up in costume as their most famous buildings? Actually happened, even though there was no real Cosmo-Slotnick Building), Paterson got her to cut out specific references to FDR and the New Deal.

    The removal of a specific political target allowed the novel to remain what it is, a novel of ideas, that has achieved a kind of timelessness, because the distractions of the moment were kept out of it.

    1. Given the characters and plot, the same could apply to Atlas Shrugged, although I have no idea if the same (excellent) advice was given for it.

      1. No, by that time Paterson and Rand had a rift between them, and Rand was unlikely to take advice from many at that point anyhow. In the case of Atlas, however, she made a conscious decision to write it as if the Manhattan Project (which she had researched extensively for a screenplay that was never filmed, for producer Hal Wallis) had never taken place. And, if you read the book carefully, neither did World War II, and possibly not even World War I. While she would have disdained the idea that the novel was “alternate history” or “science fiction”, it really does qualify as both. And is, as you say, a better novel for it.

        1. I’ve only read it twice, and the idea of neither war being part of the backstory never occurred to me; thanks!

          1. There’s a stronger case for no WWII than for no Great War, but the fact that there are no veterans, or discussion of “common sacrifices” that were done by everybody (especially among the nastier villains) is pretty telling.

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