Again and again these last few years, my mind turns to the part of Heinlein’s Puppet Masters where a large part of the country doesn’t realize that they’ve been invaded by aliens.
Their news are controlled. The entire apparatus of civil society, too, has been captured by the aliens (who — spoilers for a book 11 years older than I, really? — are a sort of parasite that attaches to the central nervous system and puppets the human) and therefore use all their power to enforce the idea that the aliens don’t exist and everything is normal.
When our hero, from an area that knows it’s occupied, or at least where the centers of power haven’t been captured (or totally captured) visits, it’s the little tells that let you know something is rotten. While everyone goes about their daily business, and everything is seemingly normal, it’s the little things: the pools are all closed for a reason or another, because the slugs (the name for the brain-puppeteers) can’t afford to have anyone see them, when people strip down. People are more dressed than normal. Some people wear humps under their clothes. Though as the novel demonstrates it’s often hard to figure out which of them are just a hunched back.
Yes, it’s an allegory for communism. Sure. And every time I hear that said with a sneer about “gimmick books” and “allegories” and sometimes the lip curled and the words “red scare” uttered, I want to put the idiot against the wall — no, not that way. Just grab him by the shoulders and throw him against the wall — and ask him exactly when did he (or she) decide that communists were sort of fuzzy sweet pets, who never meant no harm. Then beat them about the face and head with the Black Book of Communism. After they stop trying to be superior, I’d point out to the last … 16? 20 years, when the masks of those in public have been progressively yanked off (the most marked period being when they were all demanding we don masks, of course.) have proven that in fact the worst thing about McCarthy’s red hunt was that it was much too late. Similar to trying to expose the puppet masters when they control all the key positions.
More importantly, Heinlein was a good enough writer, that no matter with what intent he started writing, the novel reads true. As in “If this unlikely premise was true, it would go exactly this way.”
And because of that, it does significantly mimic a free country whose positions of power are taken by humans who had — alas, unlike in the Puppet Masters — willingly made themselves slave to an inhuman and evil philosophy. One that renders them less able to understand or function as human beings.
Again and again, my mind turns to it, as even a lot of the “right wing” (ridiculous term for the side to the right of Lenin, which spans such a gamut of opinions it might as well be an entire world.) say things like “contesting the election was wrong” or talk about the “insurrection” of January 6, and in general try to make out that the world is completely normal, and our normal processes are still working, and what the media reports and obsesses on has some relation to reality.
But the important thing to remember is that the masquerade has been on for a long time.
Things didn’t become glaringly in your face until 2020. But it was there, if you looked. Before entering a lot of places of power you needed to have a puppet master controlling your brain, or at least roll up a piece of cloth, put it between your shoulders and try to pass. And most places of power were hard controlled. If you knew where to look, you saw the humps, you saw the closed pools, and people wearing coats in the middle of a hot summer.
And the unified media was obviously mind-controlled and obviously all spinning the same story. Whatever the cause of the left at the moment, it was in every movie, every book, every news report, whether it be “abortion not being legal kills people” or “women must have careers” or — lately and er… abortively — a lot of propaganda for cute, cuddly illegal immigrants, who are being deported and leaving behind defenseless children. Children, I tell you!
Now it feels crazier because more people are seeing it. The happy go lucky media is still happily putting its mind-controlled morons out, to talk about the great things Biden has done, or how wonderful the economy is, or whatever the message of the day is, but most of us are watching the hump between their shoulders, and looking around at a social landscape ravaged because the aliens don’t understand humans or the economy. And the more they stomp and tell us that there are no aliens, the more obvious they are, standing there, in front of G-d and everyone with the brain-controllers between their shoulders.
I think part of the insanity and horrible sense of impending doom of the last few years is precisely that dual view, or the world the media and mass communication describes, and the increasing awareness of more and more of us of the grim and unavoidable truth beneath it.
The good news is that though we feel stupid, looking for the signs for closed pools, and the humps between shoulders, ultimately the truth wins, because reality is what doesn’t go away when you don’t believe it.
The other good news is that the masquerade is falling apart. And once you see the horrible things the puppet masters have done in the name of “our democracy” or really (just) their lust for power you can’t unsee them.
And so in the end we win. Perhaps slower than any of us wants, and yes, sure, with more casualties. But we win, the Republic wins. Government of the people for the people shall not perish from the Earth.
The masquerade is breaking. Yes, the dual view makes you crazy, but in the end it’s best for everyone.
Reality can be hard to accept and cause us to have to do things we’d rather not. But it exists, unlike the lies.
Be not afraid.
According To Hoyt 
Page Not Found?
That’s Terrible! [Twisted Grin]
*
Paul (Drak Bibliophile) Howard
*
They want every 404 to be a 403,
But want it to be a 403
Which nobody can see.
They bug me,
As they bug thee.
Break out the DDT!
🤣🤣🤣
🍵🍵🍵🍵🍵🍵🍵🍵🍵🍵
040 ERROR: Mage Not Bound
That will be stolen in a future story, just so you know.
I am unsurprised. I wonder if I will see (trip over) said story eventually.
Possibly related – I happened to see this go up in the WP notifications web page last night but it was not on the actual site. I clicked the link and got that error as well.
Maybe it was a scheduled post and WP bungled the various related aspects of such?
Got the 404 page not found error, clicking on the email link for the post this morning. Still went to accordingtohoyt (dot) com, which put the page on the latest article. Just not the way it normally does. Still could read it. Then manually (instead of auto) extend the comments to add my c4c (kinda). Not working correctly – yes. Easy get around – yes, again.
The link is some sort of tracking URL and apparently the WordPress big brother machinery has a defect.
I was part way through the article before I realized what story you were commenting on — the other one that seems like a good one to bring up in these times would be Farnham’s Freehold.
I’ve had Farnham’s Freehold screaming in my ears since the Kenyan Marxist’s eight years of horror.
Ah yes, the universe where I published the “Apocalyptic Cookbook: How to have your neighbor over for dinner.” Crying shame that it was bought out exclusively by POC from Chicago.
I don’t see any link in the article. Was it removed? Or is WordPress showing me a different article than it’s showing everyone else? At this point, I wouldn’t be surprised by any weirdness from WP.
I was talking about the link to the article contained in the “new article” email.
Ah, thanks. I get too much email already so I didn’t sign up for those. Now I understand what you and Drak were talking about.
Ditto. I always use a saved link to ATH dot com, so I was starting to go “Wait; what?!?” 😜. Thanks!
I always have AccordingToHoyt open in a tab. Got the E-mail, reloaded the page, and no new post. Stayed that way for 6 hours or so until finally ‘Masquerade’ showed up.
My children are annoyed with you.
Mommy is singing “Masquerade” from Phantom of the Opera.
Mommy can’t sing, much less as that song requires.
Masquerade!
Every face a different shade
Masquerade!
Look around—there’s another mask behind you!
Flash of mauve
Splash of puce
Fool and king
Ghoul and goose
Green and black
Queen and priest
Trace of rouge
Face of beast
Marko and Tarja been doing a lot together. If Marko could be talked into it, we need them to do a full version of Phantom from them. For giggles have Steve N Seagulls do the music.
the Berlin tune is easier to sing.
Just don’t play the Khachaturian Masquerade waltz piece – it’s heavy in the rotation on the classical station out here, and while I generally really like waltzes, that thing bugs me no end.
So am I.
And we know how that ends, with the Phantom crashing in.
I lucked out; it was only playing in my mind, since both $SPOUSE and $DOG agree that my singing is horrible.
XD Yeah, once you’ve heard it, it’s hard to not sing that song anytime the word “Masquerade” is mentioned.
I never could understand those words (and learned the song early enough to not think about looking them up)! Thank you!
The trick to get around a bad voice is to hear it in the voice it was sung, then just smile knowing you are getting the same enjoyment as the bad singer. ( It’s what I learned to do when exposed to Karaoke ). Unless it is a Vogon, then you are on your own.
Gatorade!!! Every flavor different shade, Gatorade!
*Golf clap*
That was clarifying. Shifts a few things into focus for me. Thank you. I feel better now.
And just by coincidence, while searching my Boxes O’ Books for a different volume a few days ago, I happened upon my copy of The Puppet Masters. Once I get some time off for reading from all of the other things I’m currently reading, I’ll get right on it.
(Even if the story isn’t all that comfortable. You see, I kinda like overdressing.)
Considering the temperature for the past couple of days, I could handle stripping down to a cotton loincloth. Not sure I could handle the laughter of people looking at me though.
Bravery seems pretty important right now, so much is disintegrating around our ears.
I just found a part time job where I get to work with my hands, so great joy! (They make quilting supplies.)
My sister, a professional banker–she works in the policy and procedure area as a tech writer so she has to know everything (because bankers are corrupt and dumb–the system requires it)–she’s being forced to return to the office. She’ll quit before she goes back–it’s all a disgusting lie–and she’s working with an advisor to find good remote work jobs. Columbia Bank/Umpqua Bank, they call it Columpqua now, and their CEO is a dick.
Be brave and stand up for yourself. The times are crazy as hell.
In the early ‘teens, Umpqua borged Sterling bank in our area. I had dealt with Sterling before they became a PITA, but had to work with them some years after I had closed my accounts. Seems the church used them, and we had to do treasury stuff. Royal bureaucratic nightmare as they were going under, but I was gone from that church slightly before Umpqua finished acquiring them.
Have her tell the CEO, or her Boss, whoever, if she’s at home she doesn’t see anything illegal therefor she can’t testify against them. If she’s in the office she’ll hear all the gossip and know exactly what is going on.
She told them to go F themselves. Her last day is July 1.
And…. she has electronic access to things she isn’t supposed to have access to, and is taking full advantage.
She had her one on one with her boss this morning, and she boldly told him the entire truth.
TPTB refuse to budge, and the organization will die. My sister isn’t the first senior staff to leave.
Sadly, there are a bunch of folks that think “work from home” is closer to “paid time off”. Thus they screw it up for folks with a work ethic who do much better and much more productively without walkups and boss-walk-ups, and all those “meetings” that amount to “Watch me show how -important- I am!!! 11!”
And of course if the workers are self-propelled, it is harder, much harder, to justify all those “management” / “supervisor” jobs, eh?
She and her colleagues improved productivity by some crazy amount. Made a ton of cash for the bank–they support Home Lending, which is where virtually all the income comes from. And now the tyrant CEO wants to eliminate the department entirely.
What you say is quite true–I think that mostly it’s about power, the power to force other people to do what you tell them to do.
Not that many people who think that. At least productivity for geeks goes up from home. BUT middle managers want them back in hte office.
Mare (Mary, my sister) has been there from Golf to Sterling to Umpqua to Columbia Columpqua. It was a regional bank that actually worked, and has turned into a hellscape.
For reasons in the early-mid Aughts, I had dealings with 4 banks in the area. One local, two regional, and one a S&L that got borged by Chase. Hated the latter, but I liked Sterling and the local-ish bank. Now, all those got bought. Chase pulled some crap on a CD (quote before money there >> larger than what the account paper said), but I pulled everything out as soon as I could. They lost a good chunk of business, you cranial-anal-addled idiots.
The local bank was collateral damage from the Jeld-Wen screwup. Protip for future tycoons: Make plans for your death. You ain’t gonna live forever. Mr Wendt didn’t and a lot of people paid for his mistakes.
Chase took over Washington Mutual (who’d taken over Willamette Savings). We’d had Washington Mutual when we were in Washington. When Chase came in, that was the main bank, and we also had a couple of CU. Chase promptly started charging son’s accounts a fee (because no large auto deposit). With his signed permission, I complained. Still a college student so got fees refunded, but he was less than a year from graduation. His job with auto deposit wouldn’t have met the criteria, not that we waited around. We pulled everything from Chase (not that hubby & I keep much in checking/savings, but son does. He needs to transfer his excess of expenditures (which he has very little of), cash to his outside brokerage account more often than he does). The only bank we have now, between the 3 of us, is one credit union.
Have him check with his brokerage and see if they have combined brokerage/checking accounts. I have one of those; I can buy and sell stocks, write dead-tree checks and make online payments all from the same account. No fees, because all of the money I have at that brokerage counts for the minimum balance.
When the banks lobbied to be allowed into the brokerage business, they seem not to have considered that stockbrokers could also get into banking.
Brokerage does. We have checks. I think his account does too. Just don’t use them. Transfer the money needed in to CU checking, is how we do things. Just easier/cleaner? Serious. The 22nd of every month is “How much do I need from IRA’s to pay of the major CC? Over income?” Last month it was $0 (I keep a cushion in savings). This month it is $2k. Last year we had two $10k months (1/2 of $17,500 roof replacement + “thank you Bidenomics”. Seriously it should be $0 needed.) This year we have to buy paint and pay a painter to paint the house.
Oh well, could be worse. Neighbor said they are paying $46k to re-roof their house. No, not more roof surface, same type of materials (better grade? IDK More vents? Yes. More extensive vents. Yes. We asked 3 contractors, all 3 said not needed. More underlying damage requiring a lot more plywood? Yes. Worth 2+X’s what we paid last fall? No.)
My mom is in the process of getting an insurance refund for her roof replacement that she did that was crazy expensive. (Part of it is California, but part of it is that the roof is more complicated than it should be due to a prior owner with delusions of contractorship.) She’s currently annoyed because when they requested all of the photos and documents, they forgot to ask for a copy of the work order, you know, the thing with the amount due, the amount they’re going to be paying her back.
When our metal roof failed, we brought in a company that said they would:
Which, they did. Cost $20K. WAY more than our last roof (which was laid on top of the previous one). Can’t complain about the job, just didn’t like the cost.
We got off “cheap” this time with roof replacement at 2x last one (late ’90s), for $17,500 + $200 time+materials repair, both 30 year *guaranty. Both removed the old roof down to underlying plywood. Compared to two neighbors across the street. One at $46k (included $6k for gutters), the other $43k (lots of plywood replacement needed), both fancy new design venting, both 50 year guaranty. All 3 shingle roofs.
(* Roof guaranty is a declining guaranty. So while, sure last roof was < 30 years, still 25+, didn’t pay to to back and get compensation. It wasn’t the work or the shingles that failed. No way was a 50 year guaranty worth ~2.5x more.)
After a run-in with Wells Fargo (the manager was upset that I had the nerve to call the police after somebody drained my checking account–just as I was getting ready to do a major purchase), I got the money back (strong implications that it was an inside job–no arrests we heard of, though). Considering the attitude displayed, everything stored in Wells Fargo went to a credit union. When we moved to Oregon, that stuff shifted to a local CU, since the Cali one had no local presence.
For Chase/Wamu, my mortage in San Jose was with Wamu, and when we sold there, that money went in Wamu. After the CD shenanigans, the remaining funds in Chase got pulled.
The only good news for me was that I never had to trust B of A for anything. Wells and Chase are bad enough.
Bank of Assholes? Worse than Sunbank/Sun-Trust (AKA Bun Busters).
A bank burned me, bigtime, when I was a student. I am still badmouthing them 40 years later.
“I won’t always be a broke student. You won’t sell a car loan to me, or a mortgage, or bank 20-40 years of earnings. Plus me bad-mouthing your firm for all that time. Sure you want to screw me over?”
There was a reason one of us stayed on son’s account after he turned 18. Now Chase has 3 of us bad mouthing them 14 years later. (Walking off whistling.) When son was home we went down and first he pulled everything. Then we did. Manager was not shocked. If only because, while we hadn’t seen each other in ages, she *knew me. So no problems occurred.
(* Parents grew up together, went to the same small town HS. Us 6, next generation, through middle school the families had regular long weekend get away at the coast (at great-uncles lake cabin). Got HS, wedding, and baby shower, presents from her folks, even though I hadn’t seen them in 15 years by then. In fact, I’m related to her, 4th cousin (once or twice removed) through one of her parents through dad. Heck, that small town? Related to most the HS graduates through the early ’50s, at least.)
Oh, that sounds awesome!
I had to give my employer an ultimatum. If continued employment requires I be in the office then they have my notice. I am 72 years old so it is unlikely I could find similar employment if I do leave. OTOH, I am lucky enough to have investments that should carry me through at least into my 90s.
Milk them for what you’re worth, then dump them. No freebies.
THIS. “Loyalty” is dead.
Loyalty is earned.
Every day.
Yup. One of the reasons we like my husband’s place of employment is things like “you appear to be maxing out your PTO days. Why don’t you start taking days off in the middle of the week to relax?”
That and the ever-popular “we like your work so you’re getting your salary raised.” There’s a reason he has a *career* when most of our generation does not.
Well done on many levels! Boldness and preparation being a couple of them. Well done.
My sister and BiL have prepared well. Full emergency fund for 6 months; she’s already got a coach to work with her to get remote work; she’s well set up to endure the process of finding another job.
Today’s stupidity in Corporate America: $EMPLOYER has published their “2024 Climate Report” detailing the steps they’re taking to combat “climate change.” Including detailed reports on their various types of carbon emissions, gallons of water used and recycled, total electricity used from the grid and renewable sources, and how much solid waste they generate and recycle.
$EMPLOYER is a financial services company. They move imaginary money around and support people who do. They don’t make anything physical. They have a few offices around the country. And while, as a financial services company, it makes sense to plan for risks like Watermelons (green outside, red inside) getting a further hold on the government, the level of breast-beating from a Fortune 500 company that probably generates less carbon or waste product than one small manufacturing factory is…yeah.
The only toxic waste these people generate is all the ESG and diversity announcements. And the only climate change is the fact that the natives are getting restless about working here and they’re too stupid to realize it.
It would not behoove any employee to ask:
“What fraction of that carbon, water, and electricity consumed and/or emitted was due to the gathering of these stats and then the writing of this report?”
That’s the job of pesky shareholders.
And when your far-and-away two biggest shareholders are Vanguard and Blackrock? Nobody asks.
“Fortune 500 company that probably generates less carbon or waste product than one small manufacturing factory is…yeah.”
Pre AI, that may have been true. Financial services has always needed massive power sucking data centers for their analysis; AI is even more power hungry.
Add in employee RTO commuting, business travel, the annual trip to Davos for the board, pretty soon it’s the carbon footprint of a medium sized city…
Add the energy cost to power all the current AI models and and you are talking about using enough power to run a modern country like Japan or greater….
And of course those reports have to be written on paper, so there is a record, which then includes all the process for making and printing those reports, the paper, ink, power and wages of those involved in producing those products as well as the lumberjacks who fell the tree. So in truth, all those reports are as phony as the concept of man made climate change. Please learn a modicum of science or stop voting until you do.
Don’t forget the PowerPoint presentations!
Well, $EMPLOYER is only getting into AI actually (though it’s a buzzword we hear a lot) but they are counting their proportion of our two co-located data centers against their electricity usage. Also I’m not buying for one second that they only generated 110 tons of garbage last year like they said (up from 68 in 2022). With so much of $EMPLOYER’S stuff moving out into the cloud and off-premises, I don’t know how running all their crap on a bunch of AWS servers would be counted for doing Carbon Hail Gretas.
Also, they’re trying like hell to drag people back into the office kicking and screaming after almost four years (in my case) working at home and so many of the employees, me included, are going complete Velcro Cat. (Ever tried to pick up a cat that doesn’t want to get picked up? Suddenly they weigh ten tons.)
They are doing this because the SEC and other Federal bureaucrats are forcing them to do sol it is all part of the effort by the regime to impose the Green Leap Forward “by any means necessary”.
The Community Power scam is also a two-pronged assault on liberty. It’s designed to push people into more expensive green electricity (take a look at their websites – most unethical webpage designs I’ve seen in my entire career), AND to surrender their freedom of choice to a group of government “volunteers”. And that’s not even taking into consideration that it’s also designed to destroy all fossil fueled on-demand electrical generators. The grid is already overloaded and barely able to provide power here in New England, and they’re killing off the very suppliers who are keeping us from having California style brownouts and blackouts.
Those legislators who pushed the Community Power bills through are probably all heavily invested in the companies. The bills were all written to automatically force people onto their programs (you have to work at it to opt out.) The lowest rate is a tenth of a percent lower than the fossil fueled standard rate (Eversource); which amounts to a difference of 50 cents in my monthly electrical bill. It’s unfathomable why anyone would give up their liberty for a measly 50 cents, but they did.
I think most people who don’t opt out are simply either ignorant of the ability to do so because those imposing it do everything they can to hide that fact; 2) have been deceived as to the costs and/or 3) have been utterly brainwashed by the left and its propaganda arms that the world will burn to a cinder if they don’t subject themselves to having other people completely control their lives.
Just had someone stop by house (what part of “No soliciting don’t you understand?”) because of the EWEB (utility) initiative to “go green” (already are, nothing greener than hydro power production, the dams are already there, and they are *flood control too). Because of the State passed something. Talked about why EWEB’s cost were going up the 14% announced. Yes, they did. Infrastructure between 2020 McKenzie river fires, and aging infrastructures. That solar panels installed would be a fixed rate. Don’t care. I budget $400/monthly for EWEB, for water and power. Besides no way in H E L L we are entering an agreement for unlimited payment for solar panels. If we are ever stupid enough to have to put them in? We will just pay for it. Also, for reasons, know that solar warranty is for crap. Have seen two homes put them in. Then when they had to replace their roofs never put them back on. Hubby had a chance to talk to one of the homeowners. Guy told him they had their half paid off, it wasn’t worth it to put them back on. There are reasons I’d consider solar. None of them apply to where we are living now.
(* They pull the plug on any of the large Willamette and/or McKenzie dams, we are selling and moving. There is a reason why those flood control dams exist.)
Problem number 2 with green energy. You’re paying the higher prices TWICE. You only see the higher rate. But nobody realizes that almost every one of those green energy suppliers is subsidized by tax dollars. Hence, paying twice.
Two jobs ago, I first heard the words ‘Circular Economy’ in our manufacturing company’s ESG report. Sold all the employee discount stock I had – CEO is a true believer, wants to eliminate styrofoam from our packaging – doesn’t make any actual environmental sense, just a good headline. Same guy moved a lot of production to Mexico, because apparently diesel trucks with extra weight of cardboard pollute less than styrofoam?
But ‘Circular Economy’. They #^@&ing love science, folks.
Circular economy? That’s a new one on me.
I did a bit of light reading just now, and what I could find at the top of the stack was very, very light on how exactly that whole circular thing would work. There’s a lot of great big, unaddressed assumptions lurking in those sunny little explanations.
My cynical take is that they not only don’t want to, but also can’t explain the whole thing, because there’s actually nothing in it; it’s just a hollow container for “green” ideology. Looks to me like they’ve simply dressed up the old, tired “reduce, reuse, recycle” and “sustainability” in fancy new clothes — with an added splash of “you’ll own nothing and be happy.”
The EPA website is making a whole big deal out of it, so based on that alone, I’m pretty sure it can lead nowhere good.
Well, the economy has rather been circling the drain the last four years or so.
New consultant, new buzzword.
Same poop.
One wonders how much of this climate crap is sincerely believed and how much this is just going along with the crowd. One day soon the majority will wake up and realize they don’t have to pretend anymore.
“What would you say you do here?”
Concerning Puppet Masters, I remember the scenes where the aliens dropped the “Masquerade”.
Sadly, I think our “aliens” could/would do worse if they thought they had truly won. 👿
Aye. I live in Oregon, where it’s well under the thumb of the Salem-Portland-Beijing axis.
Oh. I first read that as the Satan-Portland-Beijing axis.
Tomato, tomahto.
So did I. And I live in Oregon. Oh wait. That’s why.
Even in Portland……
https://x.com/MrAndyNgo/status/1793163160582754760
Breaking: The Schmidt show is over. Voters in the Portland, Ore. area have fired Antifa favorite
@DAMikeSchmidt. Schmidt was voted out in a disgraceful landslide defeat despite having huge cash injections of Soros money and winning over 76% of the vote in 2020.
I wonder who gets to pay the bill for his shortened shindig?
What is so amazing about leftards is they will see the Aliens as liberators stopping the evil capitalists. They would have beauty pageants showing off their aliens and demanding Alien equal rights.
“You have the right to nylon rope.
You have the right to a tall lamppost.
You have the right to remain dead.”
There are people out there who apparently genuinely believe that the Chaos Powers in Warhammer 40,000 – eldritch horrors that literally only exist to feast on your soul – are the good guys because they oppose the Imperium of Mankind, which is “fascist”.
(it’s not fascist, it’s feudal; but people automatically equate repressive authoritarianism and fascism these days)
Well, they also associate libertarianism in all forms with fascism so there’s that too.
That which opposes Comunism is Facism.
I know.
Also in The Puppet Masters: there were humans without slugs on their backs, working for the aliens.
Sam: “I would turn from killing a slug, to kill one such.”
During Covid there were a significant percentage of people would turn their neighbors in or scold them for not wear a mask while outside.
Results may vary by state or country.
But there are a metric poop-ton of HOA Karens that side with Satan if they were given even a small smig of power.
I ran across a couple of Karens-in-authority who objected to my letting my nostrils breathe O2 instead of CO2+tiny-bit-o’-O2. One was a worker type at Costco–I left his vicinity and freed my nose, while the other was at the desk of the orthopedic practice. Again, got out of sight and moved the mask.
Amusingly, at Costco, the face shield was considered acceptable. Hated the visual distortion, but the air was better. Mostly. Learned how to orient the mask for ram air when walking.
Costco once in the door only people who hassled were not employees. I asked for their Costco employee number so I could complain at the desk. They’d just stalk off. Do the same *when I took in my SD, only I asked for their “SD policing ID”. If they stuck around, then ask for their employee ID. Third option was my middle fingers work. So does the cart, I’m clumsy that way (not with Pepper around she’s small enough that they’d retaliate).
(* Stopped taking her locally during the pandemic when things were so crazy. Now retiring her from travels too. Which is going to be a real PIA. She makes things so much easier, even if she tattles to hubby.)
I’m not sure that the Costco incident happened. I was there 4 times after Despicable Kate started the mandates and when those were lifted. Seemed like an ASSistant manager type who did the Karen thing, and I was still doing 3-6 month followups for retina issues. Now it’s annual, though we’ve found it worthwhile to do semiannual Costco runs. There’s other businesses I can get that are either nonexistent in Flyover County or require too long a side trip. (John Deere mostly. Convenient to the Costco, but seriously out of the way in our county. OTOH, some businesses departed from here because of the loss of manufacturing. If I need [Thing], I make a list and wait.)
Not sure when that happened in Costco. The run-in at the ortho practice was spring(ish) 2021, so the height of the masking mandate. Physical therapy was interesting, though I could cheat with the face diaper, and the PT didn’t require mouth breathing.
OTOH, in treatment rooms/doctor’s offices, masks were frequently ignored. Ran across that in a few practices, alas not for Dr. Mengele, my primary care guy (and the main clot-shot pusher).
The thing that struck me by Jan 2023 in an actual hospital, even in ICUs, out here where the mandates were still in force under color of law was how they didn’t believe that crap either when not actually in the room with patients – when various authority figures were around masks would be in place, otherwise, not so much, and as one of the academic MDs noted, if medical caregivers carry a coffee cup through the hospital they are fully exempt from the masking mandate.
Wow! By July 2022, Dr. Mengele quietly refrained from pushing the clotshot, and masking was no longer required in most places. Not quite sure when medical orifices got cleared, but general populations was free by then.
I saw an FNP in late February, and she was wearing a mask in the early part of the visit. She noticed and apologized; the previous patient had something going on where a mask was required.
I am in Gavin’s People’s Bear Flag Republic, in Silicon Valley. We just had the entire winter declared a “Respiratory Virus Period” with mask mandates declared again for all docs and dentists and such, expiring at the end of March, but last year when I was observing inside the hospital we were still under the original mandates out here.
Recalled that 4/30/22 I was in the ER for a serious nose bleed. (Would have been a great extra for a slasher movie. Sucked in real life.) Upon discharge, as I was leaving, a staff-Karen told me that I should have been wearing a mask.
Yeah, right. Did get one on at the lobby when I was waiting for my ride.
Some time in ’23, Oregon “Health” “Authority” dropped the medical mask mandate.
Hear!!! Hear!!! I’m with Sam/Elihu on this one…
Same here; traitors are far worse than open enemies. 😒
And I’m with him.
I really should do some remedial reading in classic science fiction.
Meanwhile, Stephenie Meyer wrote a pretty decent book called The Host that has a similar premise; it’s more focused on a romance and the personal struggle of a woman who is an unwilling host to an alien, and there’s no hiding the invasion because it already succeeded, but…
Anyway, yeah…ever since TPTB unleashed the global pandemic scenario, I’ve been feeling the weird sense that I don’t inhabit the same reality as most of the people around me. It’s very disorienting.
Well worth Reading. The Invaders from the Late ’60s (68? Contemporary of Star Trek one season wonder) had some of the feel. I wonder if its writer(s) borrowed from Puppet Masters? I only saw one or two episodes as a kid well before I knew of Heinlein or Puppet Masters but I do remember it being VERY creepy. It didn’t go into syndication with only a single season. Heck if Star Trek (TOS) hadn’t had such a devoted fandom it probably would have shuffled off into obscurity as 3 seasons is not really enough to do weekday syndication (only 76 episodes you burn through all of them in 2.5-3 months preferred is 5+ seasons) for traditional TV.
Yeah, I remember that show. According to Wiki (and faint memory), it lasted a couple of seasons. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Invaders
Any resemblance between them and certain members of TPTB (Nancy, Hillary, Joe, etc) is purely accidental. At least, that’s what they say.
Now why didn’t I think to look on Wikipedia (often biased but also often has content). Looks like it was 1.5 seasons so a Spring (i.e. Jan to late May) replacement for something that tanked in 1967 and then the whole 67/68 season. I got to see it as I think my Mom liked it, though mostly for Roy Thinnes I suspect, sci-fi wasn’t her thing.
Hmm, anybody try to use a non-Google search engine today? Looking at downdetector, DDG and Bing both went down around 11PM PDT last night, and haven’t come up. Qwant is also down, but Downdetector doesn’t cover it. I think it’s based in France.
From the discussion on the DDG outage, this suspiciously corresponds to MS’s shiny new AI system rollout that’s doing “security” checks on every MS machine that got the updates.
Congratulations, Microsoft, you’ve pissed off a few (hundred million) people today.
The Reader has noted that DDG and Bing are both down this morning. He had to use Google to find something. Sigh…
I use DDG, but no update has been installed (after asking, and auto update is off), and DDG works fine.
I guess that’s what you get for using MS-WIN-BLOWS. Duck-Duck-Go works fine on Linux and MacOS.
It wasn’t on the Reader’s Linux box from Firefox earlier. It is now. It is also up now on his Win 10 box (again from Firefox).
Oh. I guess I just missed the outage?
When everything depends on one thing, it’s known as a ‘single point of failure’ and it’s lousy design practice. Also lazy. Gee, what else is built around a single point of failure?
Yeah, no Windows machines in the house, but a lot of places seemed to be using the Bing API. As of now, DDG and Qwant seem to be up.
Saw a list of the services afflicted overnight and it was longish. Sad, really.
Root cause was apparenty a fail in Bing’s API interface. Ick.
Why the hell would anybody, much less everybody, make their systems dependent on Bilge? It’s not like MicroShaft hasn’t spent the last 40 years proving to the world how shitty they are.
Will they learn anything from this f*kup? Probably not.
K.A. Applegate’s series Animorphs was my gateway drug into SciFi at a tender ten years of age and had superior plot and more interesting Puppeteer Alien Parasites than Meyer’s The Host IMHO. *spoiler alert* The heroes of the Animorphs series owe their victory in no small part to offering the rank-and-file members of the evil alien empire invading Earth a way out and the ability to choose a peaceful life away from their psycho rulers. A powerful lesson to would-be-tyrants everywhere.
I found The Host to be a fun read and better written than the Twilight series (which I also enjoyed). That said, I’d also be happy to find that there’s better out there. I haven’t done much fiction reading at all in recent years, and I’m feeling the lack.
The Host wasn’t bad, I found it a most enjoyable read, I just think Animorphs did the same thing only better, then again I’m biased by childhood nostalgia. 😆
The Patriots helped numerous Hessians trade Brown Bess for a farm.
c4c
And once again our alleged betters have chosen a SciFi Dystopia on which to model their behavior. Except this time they forgot to read the ending. The last lines of The Puppet Masters are
They chose … poorly. From the lips of one of the USAian prophets to the Authors Ears so mote it be!!! Although to be honest killing them would be a waste of perfectly good lead and copper. I say just exile them to either Gaza or Ukraine if they’re in such an all fired hurry to help. Both can probably use more inexperienced cannon fodder.
I, personally, think we HAVE been colonized by alien beings. Unfortunately, they are incorporeal and so they don’t leave easily identifiable physical signs like back humps. Since they don’t have bodies they don’t usually need ours, just our minds and wills.
But they HATE humans with a vicious will and work toward our destruction at every turn. And that is mainly how you know they are at work.
The fact that all their policies involve the death of humans either straight out killing them as in abortion to the moment of birth and beyond, MAID, or by instituting things that will result in pandemics, famine and whatnot to “save” everything except humans is the tell.
Sadly, there are more human collaborators than actual human victims of colonization because they are offered power, wealth and knowledge to sell us out.
People of religious faith and the neuro-divergent seem to be the most effective at spotting the key signs that these enemies are at work.
That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
Dang, now you’re reminding me of Andre Norton’s Witch World. That fits the Kolder to a T.
I try to re-read The Screwtape Diaries on a regular basis as a reminder.
Neurodivergent is probably an adversary meme weapon.
It was derived from a funny joke, the institute for the study of neurotypical disorder, which was somewhat a commentary on psychological consensus, and somewhat an oversight of the utility of combat teaming. neurotypical pretty strictly means not autistic.
Neurodivergent, on the other is conflating all of the mental pathologies, and presuming that they have a common mitigation in left wing intersectional activism and bureaucratic manipulation. It’s pretty strongly linked to the trans push. IE, putting all mental health issues under the umbrella of LGBT flavored activism.
Yes, ‘broken’ social behavior is functional in a situation where social behavior has been weaponized for very destructive ends. And or having something else internal seriously and individually wrong, so that it distorts perception in a specific individual way, breaks some calculated perception manipulation.
Religious faith, on the other hand, has psychological effects, that are obvious, and also ignored in the mainstream theory.
Oh i am sure they would definitely like it to be. But thinking outside the box is an actual super power.
And, as we all know, with great power comes great responsibility.
ASD handlers: “We all love how you think outside the box!”
Me: [Thinks outside of box.]
Handlers: “No no no! That doesn’t count—you’re just supposed to think outside of Mr. Goldstein’s box, not mine!”
Broken social behavior no, not standard… yeah, it’s useful now.
When the going gets weird, the weird go pro.
Yup! Off-kilter and skewed has become a survival trait.
Yeah, some of my siblings would do *anything* to fit in and be trendy and I’m glad I’ve been spared that despite my life being a complete mess in other ways.
Yeah, the assumed lockstep for “us” autists and Odds as obligatorily in “solidarity with” the nutjobs, sodomites, and narcissists of the post-sexual Revolution is what pretty well slammed the door for me on most of the Autism-Rights “cause” groups.
“to “save” everything except humans is the tell.”
But their policies also aim to destroy the rest of creation–why else try to eliminate plant food and blot out the sun?
Agree wholeheartedly, thank you for saying it.
At least in The Puppet Masters, you could squash a slug and save the person, assuming they didn’t die of shock. The condition we are in now is more like Invasion of the Body Snatchers. The replacements can’t really be rehabilitated.
That’s the one I was trying to remember; Donald Sutherland, right? He made a really creepy pod person.
Yes, though Sutherland was in the remake, not the original film.
Thanks. I don’t remember ever seeing the original, and I only saw the TV release of the remake.
Apparently, they gave his co-star a script with a different (and happier) ending, so she was genuinely shocked when he turned on her.
That’s pretty diabolical, but real reactions almost always “play” better than acted ones, so I can understand why they may have done it. Good thing she didn’t have a loaded gun…Surprise! 😉
Nó, that’s just Baldwin
So what we need is Nine-Day Fever?
If only there were one that killed Marxism and left the human intact.
There are some demons that can only be vanquished by prayer and fasting.
It can be done.
Well, Marxism handles the fasting requirement just fine….
“Oft evil will shall evil mar…..”
That is preferable but not an absolute requirement. If the process of killing the parasite also kills many of the hosts the death toll would probably still be less that that from a civil war.
I support the Society for the Thermonuclear Eradication of Marxism.
They’re the ones unleashing plagues on us.
It is interesting to watch the panic start to set in. It is also interesting to watch the leftists start to watch all their ideas fail and the destruction it is causing them and their reputations. They are losing, in hard entrenched places it is taking the double down route. But even there the backlash is mounting. Without checks and balances on power, all power, tyranny is created and the people suffer. Now the politicians themselves are starting to suffer. As each day goes on, the consequences are mounting to their one party rule and the citizens are getting very tired of it. I feel for all those trapped in Blue Cities and States. That is where all the horrors will be.
Avatar Kyoshi?
Oh, thank you! I wondered why she looked familiar (tired, it didn’t click, but every time it was like: “Why is she familiar…?”).
Off Topic, but I was reading Marion G. Harmon’s newest book titled Rising Tides which is the first book in an off-shoot series (Capes) of his Wearing The Cape series.
New and interesting characters set in his “Wearing The Cape” universe.
He added an “interesting” wrinkle to the anti-super-being mind-set.
There are people that believe that all super-beings are people possessed by extra-dimensional aliens. The aliens are extremely “good” at passing for human to the point that people who knew them before they were possessed are unable to see them as possessed.
Of course, nobody can “prove” the supers are possessed but the supers can’t prove that they aren’t possessed. [Very Big Nasty Grin]
This actually makes sense as a distorted perspective of reality inside a super heroes setting.
Mostly, we don’t see a severe cognitive decline in humans when those humans obtain super powers. Such a take would basically be out of genre, and is kinda very rare.
However, the flexibility of control that some supers have with their powers is also obviously the sort of thing that in reality, would seem to require some capacity of the brain, that might limit other functions while operating the power.
This is mostly what the genre readers are not interested in seeing, so that does not seem to be a standard take.
However, it does not make sense for an alien to necessarily be an excellent mimic of a specific human.
It would make sense for aliens bonding to a human to do the heavy lifting on the super pwoer, while leaving the human free for human stuff.
I find that I like more the notion that the ‘aliens’ are either natural symbiotes present in all humans, including normal ones, or that they are a natural unknown part of human beings in that setting.
Anyway, all of those could be perceived as ‘alien take over mimics’ if someone got their hands on a sliver of the ‘truth’, but did not correctly understand it.
Part of the “logic” is that super-powers violate natural-law thus the superbeings are “unnatural” and are somehow “destroying reality.
Of course, the believers in this nonsense are “thinking” the superbeings aren’t human so it’s OK to kill them.
Fortunately, it’s still a very minority opinion in Harmon’s world.
Brandon Sanderson’s Reckoners trilogy has superpowers that *always* turn the person evil. You find out that early on there were a few groups that got together with the idea of being superheroes. But they still all quickly went bad.
If we hadn’t pushed back, as Americans, everywhere in this country, we’d be masked to this day, forced to carry vaccine passports, and subject to digital identification. There would be no small businesses, only huge corporate ones. As happens in “Demolition Man,” all restaurants would be Taco Bell.
They missed it. They thought they had us, the brass ring of totalitarianism in their grip, and they missed. And we’re not ever going back. They’re not going to get another chance. Thank God, and keep on buying guns and ammunition.
I remember in New York they were letting looters, rapists and murderers go free by way of ‘bail reform!’ but a ‘counterfeit vaccine passport’ would get you 7 years in prison.
They have NO CLUE WHY THEY MISSED. And it scares them.
They are not nearly scared enough.
If the d8mn repeated nightmares I can’t escape are predictive… they will be. Briefly.
♪ Praise the Lord, and pass the ammunition! ♪
And another one bites the dust. My cousin after barely surviving the lockdowns and stupid rules, finally shut down his bar and grill. Stasi Witless Whitmer and her added costs upon added costs, drove him out of business. It’s also a case that not only did the high minimum wage bite him, but he also had issue finding someone to work, even at her higher base pay. But, as of late even the Bigs are having issues with all the added costs (see McD’s and Dead Lobster).
Red Lobster isn’t closing everything, just restaurants in certain states (CA being one). Don’t blame them.
The Red Lobster mess apparently goes to the chain getting acquired by pencil pushers, them selling off all the real estate (weirdly enough, they actually owned their land parcels), using the money to give bonuses to the pencil pushers, the locations then had to pay rent that they hadn’t before, then the company went to the Endless Shrimp promotion and paid their own shrimp provider per unit while the chain was losing money hand over fist.
IOW, it seems to be malice on top of stupidity.
They always had endless shrimp promo. I know because Dan loves it. We haven’t really gone except rarely with younger son, but we used to a lot more because of the promo
Wasn’t the “All you can eat shrimp” that killed them. It was “All you can eat shrimp, available every day, not just Mondays, and specific month” that killed them. Even when they raised the cost, significantly.
We do the same. It is back to Monday’s only, with cost still up. Son and husband still get the all you can eat shrimp. I will occasionally. They make money on me. I can’t eat that much. (We’re on the reward app. I usually just get an appetizer or two. Sometimes free rewards.) Don’t think they are losing money on hubby and son, anymore. Probably not making money, but not losing. There for a while son was making up for what hubby and I didn’t eat, but that has stopped over the last few years.
But agree. Does smell of “IOW, it seems to be malice on top of stupidity.”
We no longer do it, but son does. Dan is not a power eater, anymore.
golden gate capital run by a former Bain partner. That was Pierre Delecto’s firmer firm. Bain is responsible for more damage to the US than any foreign enemy.
I’ve had similar thoughts recently though I envision the parasites as more like the ones in Harry Harrison’s Planet of the Damned. I wonder if the right-thinking, honorable folks here would be horrified at releasing a plague that killed the infected.
OTOH, this is an existential war
And it’s in the public domain.
https://gutenberg.org/ebooks/21873
I’m getting this feeling, one that has been getting worse over the years, that I’m one of the few humans left, and the vampires are starting to starve to death.
It’s not going to be pretty when they finally do lose what little control they have and the blood begins to spill. I can only hope that there will only be a little bloodshed, quickly done and we can rebuild from what is left quickly.
Recycling an old joke….
“Mr. Biden, we have bad news and uh, good news, I guess.”
“The bad news?”
“Zombies attacked you economic advisers.”
“The good news?”
“They’ve starved.”
Should probably read, “Brain-eating zombies attacked your economic advisors.”
😛
That is almost certainly because of where you are living. It’s very concentrated around there.
I’m stockpiling supplies and making sure the doors are solid and secured.
If I can outlast the zombies and vampires eating each other…
I think it’s more likely to be demons than aliens but yeah something is up and has been for years. And some of these people invited the demons in willingly.
It’s hilarious to me that the leftists mostly don’t know we can see their brainslugs.
It;s not funny to me that the America of even the 1980s no longer exists, except in name.
But I know it can rise again. And even before the Darkship/Good Men books, I brlieved it would.
May God bless us all with hope, patience, and a nation once again.
Update (of sorts) on the search engine outage. The latest information seems to be that any application that uses the Bing API (including Qwant, DDG, ChatGPT, Truth) got hosed by a problem with Bing.
For realtime updates: https://downdetector.com/status/duckduckgo/ (Some indications are that they’re experiencing major load issues. Go figure. (Can I borrow somebody’s shocked face?)
Google works if you are willing to let them be evil on your data.
Huh. I thought DDG used an older version of the Google algorithm. I guess that must have changed.
From what I understand, both could be true. DDG could be using the Google stuff to collect the data, and the Bing API to put it together and handle the search inputs and results. Note that several non-search engine applications got hosed, including Truth Social and ChatGPT.
Regarding the Puppet Masters/Body Snatchers stories I would most strongly recommend the Canadian flick “They Live” from 1988. Supposed to have been about the Nixonian times gone really bad, but the Canadian gov apparently had a serious snit at the theme and banned it in Canada. Was very hard to find a copy in the VHS times. . . Somebody needs to make the glasses.
Just picked up THEY LIVE on DVD. So that’s what Democrats look like behind the masks. 😀