All The Legs, All The Pants

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

I was talking to a friend last night, and the conversation demanded that we remember something that happened in — as it happens — 2016. Both of us had the impression it had been much longer ago, because so much has happened since then. and so much of it has bordered on the unbelievable.

Things we’d not believe could have happened before 2016: Trump winning the election; how he governed; the insanity of investigations that followed; the United States of Fricking America locking up a vast portions of its citizens against all sanity, with the excuse of a foreign virus; the lies about the virus that were propagated all over the world; the 2020 election with the mysteriously appearing votes for one candidate only at 2 am; January sixth; the capital surrounded by barbed wire and with the national guard camped in; the border wide open, with our welfare system serving the invasion at a level unheard of; the administration of the auto pen, both the audacity of things attempted and how ridiculously they failed and had things rebound against them; 2024; the insanity of the last two years (too much to list, but I will); Aliens; whatever is on the news today…. (I haven’t looked yet.)

And if you’re going “None of those were difficult. They can all be logically explained by–” Duuuuuuuude.

Look, imagine going back to January 2016 and telling yourself then that Trump would win the election. Then tell yourself how he governed, as the most pro-freedom president since Reagan; then tell yourself that in 2020 we got locked up for a flu virus from China and the entire apparatus of the state was deployed to gaslight us: about the origin of the virus; about what the casualties were and how bad; about what could and could not communicate it. Culminating in an untried, objectively harmful vaccine that employers forced employees to take. Then go into the election: that bizarre curve, the reports of poll watchers (two I personally know) about being shoved out of the polls, on non-existent emergencies; and EVERYONE going along with it, partly because the BLM riots the summer before were designed to make a big impact on the psyche of various judges who were having flash backs to the sixties and seventies and leftist terrorism. Oh, it was all memorex, sure, but they’d seen it and they believed it, without noticing how the disturbances, the major ones, were confined to one city at a time, because people were transported to the next riot. But it worked. And then they panicked, which is why the capital looked like a city under siege. Oh, and why Jan 6, in trying to create an excuse to go after everyone to the right of Lenin. And if you told your jan 2016 all that and he/she hadn’t had you committed, explaining how it all fell apart in their hands would be even stranger. Like, they tried so many things and none of them really worked. Oh, they inconvenienced us. They impoverished us. They BEYOND PISSED US OFF. But they didn’t work in delivering to them their reign of a thousand years, which is what they absolutely expected. And part of it was the people they brought in…. the people! The guy who stole luggage and who, in private life liked to pretend to be a puppy for sexual purposes. (Only his life wasn’t all that private, also EW.) The nominally transgender Surgeon General who, heaven help us, for a guy makes an incredibly ugly and unconvincing woman. The concatenation of clowns and mediocrities from the VP on down. Remember when they work-shopped “Ultra Maga” because calling us “Ultra” was supposed to make people hate us? Don’t even try to tell your 2016 self about it, because he/she flat won’t believe it. That entire thing was counteracted with the phrase “Ultra Maga, Assemble!” They made us sound like super-heroes for crying in bed.

The vaccine. We still haven’t had a proper investigation of that whole plot, but it sounds like a bad science fiction plot and no way in G-d’s green Earth would I have believed it until it happened. The border. The convoys, one after the other. Offering illegals disability and full Social Security and medical coverage at the border. AND DESPITE ALL THAT the left losing in 2024. (It tells you the extent of the fraud that countering SOME of it is enough for them to lose.) And since. I’ll just say that during the executive-order-palooza right after the inauguration, we had a friend staying with us. And at about an hour in, he said “I need popcorn”. That is the most appropriate reaction to all this.

And the last two years: guys, just what USAID was apparently financing. The mind boggles. At least mine does. And all the fraud. It is entirely possible all of our deficit is fraud. And then…. and then the wealth of the left. I always assumed the left had money because they have all the millionaires. But maybe it’s the other way around? Maybe they have all the millionaires because they have money from fraud?

And note that I’m not mentioning a dozen other things that would be flat out impossible if you’d told me in 2016: Elon buying twitter! From a minor upset over twitter deplatforming The Babylon Bee. Just …. Everything that came from that.

And– and– and– AI! The space missions! The….

Just trying to list the whole thing makes me dizzy. it’s like insanity piled on improbability on top of impossibility.

Aliens. All the “secrets” about aliens are being revealed, and they can’t even get SCIENCE FICTION PEOPLE to care. We just shrug and go “Yeah, okay. Maybe there are aliens. Don’t bother us now. We’re going through some stuff.”

Terry Pratchet had an expression for when people entered a highly unlikely time line, in his books. Going down the wrong leg of the pants of time.

First I’m not sure whatever probability disruption happened in 2016 was bad. I mean, there have been some bad things, but on the whole, honestly, things are going our way, and have given us the greatest cause for hope in many a decade. But second, it must be said, it’s not ONE improbable pant leg. It’s a pant leg, after a pant leg after a pant leg. These pants obviously belong to an octopus. And eldritch one with an infinite number of legs.

The truth of course, is that it’s not a random shove into improbability.

BGE said one of the most profound things I’ve heard in my life in comments the other day when he said the way you can tell conspiracy theories is that they are too neat. Because reality isn’t.

Untold is the fact that because of mass media and mass control of how history is viewed and taught, everyone has been taught to think of history in those terms: a just so story, too neat. It’s part of the reason the right plunges into doomerism so often: because the left also thinks in those terms and tend to make sure elaborate plans that they would seem to have covered every possible event.

… It’s impossible to cover every possible event. That is the primary refutation of all the fantasies of the left, from their economic fantasies to their political ones. It’s the reason their beloved controlled economies don’t work. It’s impossible to control every event and account for every second, third or fourth order effect.

It’s possible to hide those, and to fix the story aposteriori so that it mitigates the back lash. But that toothpaste is well and truly out of the tube. Not even all their stomping and cancellations during the rule of the auto-pen could stop the signal.

They kept panicking and piling on more and more, and have created a perfect storm of improbability.

Where does it go from here? I don’t know and neither do you. People, I’ve written some pretty wild fantasy, and even I wouldn’t dare! I honestly have no idea what happens next, except for the certainty it will be impossible. At least according to what we all believed reality was until 2016.

It’s been the weirdest ride ever, and we’re still on it. And here’s the thing, these improbabilities will build and accumulate. Will all of them be good? Oh, heck no. We will take some body blows.

But we’re not int he neat controlled relative that the left themselves bought, which caused their long march through the institutions, in the belief that they could control everything and then it was game over.

Too neat and controlled by half. That’s not how the world works. And now they can’t pretend it is.

No, I have no idea what happens next, but let me tell you I’m at the edge of my seat.

On to the next leg!

266 thoughts on “All The Legs, All The Pants”

  1. Part of me says, “This is the weirdest timeline”. Then the part of me that’s read Chalker and so forth says, “Shutup-shutup-shutup, don’t give them ideas, you know how weird it could get if they tried!”

    Liked by 4 people

    1. I developed an interest in WWII, which extended back to the end of WWI. Read a bunch of books about the Armistice, the Depression, the Phony War, and the main conflict.

      Granted, historians like to present outcomes as inevitable, but from very early on the number of “it just so happened…” and “amazingly…” and “Hey Rocky, watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat!” incidents are past the bounds of belief. Almost every time, the coin flipped for the Allies against the Axis, even when the Axis had the overwhelming advantage, and even after things being reviewed after the release of the Enigma and Purple decryptions. (which, themselves, pegged the “unlikely” meter pretty hard…)

      It’s not hard to get the idea that there was a finger or two on the scale of probability. And then I wonder how many other eras of history were just as unlikely, just not as well documented.

      Liked by 4 people

      1. Many times, yes.

        But sometimes no.

        I’ve got a book called “To Lose a Battle”, by a guy named Alistair Horne, about the Battle of France, and it’s lead-up. Based on what’s written in the book, over and over again the French had interesting and surprising choices arise, and each time they made the wrong decision. Perhaps the most dramatic was the German officer who (for reasons that I won’t get into) flew in a friend’s plane against Hitler’s DIRECT orders regarding anyone who knew the plans for the upcoming invasion of France. The pilot (the friend) got confused, and ended up landing at an Allied air field. Among the officer’s possessions, the Allies discovered detailed plans for the upcoming invasion.

        The Allies decided that what should have been an intelligence coup was misinformation, and completely disregarded what had quite literally landed in their lap.

        It’s interesting the stuff you can find on both sides.

        Liked by 1 person

      2. Great Depression… Bad.

        But.. New Deal… also not so good, really.

        But.. TVA… so many dams for so much power.

        WWII… Very Bad.

        Manhattan Project… isotope separation EATS electricity.

        Oh look, all this generating capacity just sitting there.

        Can make a fellow ponder Engineered History, when a gamble can consume 1/7 of a country’s electrical generating capacity… and it’s somehow Not A (Big) Problem.

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        1. “Accepted” costs for the development of the B-29 bomber run about $3B 1945 dollars. It was just one of many bombers, built with ordinary equipment and technology. Yet the entire Manhattan Project was supposed to have cost only $1.9B.

          Really? But accounting is nowhere near as straightforward as most people think, particularly on projects that are shared or extend more than one calendar year. Apparently the War Resources Board, whose *job* it was to allocate, among other things, funding… only vaguely kept track of how much money was spent or where it went.

          There was a whole series of Congressional investigations, audits, and more than a few trials after the war, but Congress decided to stop looking before officially finding out where all the money went.

          It’s still going on. The current War Department us still missing $4T+ it can’t account for, going back to the turn of the century. Three decades across multiple administrations, and the GSA has stopped at “gee, maybe I left it in my other pants.”

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        2. Preach it Sister. This may be one crazy ass weird timeline, but in an infinity of possibilities, there is likely much worse out there. Whether the Author is a Pantser (absolute free will) or Plotter (predetermination) has been an argument since St. Augustine (and likely earlier). Just give Him His due and DON’T argue with the Plot. Fighting with the Plot gets you swallowed by whales and worse…

          Liked by 2 people

          1. I suspect God is both pantser and plotter. The future is pantser because of Schrodinger’s Cat. All possibilities exist until someone actually looks. And the decision to look is totally random, no predetermination required.

            Liked by 1 person

            1. No problem. He is omniscient, and sees in the box, at all times.

              As He is eternal as well as omniscient, so He already knows what we chose/choose. Freewill/Predestined thus are essentially meaningless and irrelevant, to us. Because we are temporal.

              Why is this difficult, or even argued?

              Liked by 1 person

            2. To this and further comments I think that the Predestination/Free will debate is a case of us asking the wrong question. Consider Light in physics. Is it a wave or a particle? And the answer is really that Light is Light. Wave and particle are models, each with flaws and good points but neither fully describes the situation. I think the great Pantser/Plotter debate is similarly flawed. Not a particularly satisfying answer, but I think Aslan’s statement in A Horse and His Boy that no one is told any story but their own gets far closer to the truth than we would like.

              Liked by 1 person

      2. Didn’t you just say don’t taunt the Happy Fun Murphy? Even talking about the Heinlein Story That Shall Not Be Named is asking for it. It’s like using The Scottish Play’s real name in a theater.

        Liked by 4 people

        1. That collection had a couple of real downers in it. Not much like his usual output. I wonder what he was going through to create “Goldfish Bowl,” for example.

          (On that note, someone has created the water sphere things. Brightly colored and lightly flavored, they’re being used to keep dementia patients hydrated, because they read like candy.)

          Liked by 1 person

    4. I like to say things are never so bad that they can’t be worse; perhaps the variation here would be things are never so weird that they can’t get weirder.

      Liked by 2 people

  2. In 1995, James Elroy published “American Tabloid”, in which he convincingly brings together the Mafia, the CIA, the Cubans, RFK, and the Democrat Party in a vast conspiracy to assassinate John Fitzgerald Kennedy. And I do mean convincingly. Every theory you’ve ever heard about how Oswald was a patsy is proven in those pages. Proven! Wrapped up neat and clean, like a Christmas present from a fine Manhattan department store.

    Elroy changed something in my head. I distrust anything that is too neat and explainable now. I’ve always been a bit cynical, but Elroy awakened in me a sixth sense of scam-dar, of grift-dar, of con-dar.

    And, for any of you in Colorado, those senses are screaming at me about the Republican candidate for Governor. May G-d have mercy in November.

    Liked by 3 people

  3. I thought it must be linked to the first test of CERN, but Grok says that was on September 8, 2008.

    (Pauses reminiscingly)

    You know, I could be on to something.

    Liked by 3 people

  5. “Maybe they have all the millionaires because they have money from fraud?”

    Isn’t this what the mafia calls a ‘made man’?

    And they don’t even offer book contracts….

    Liked by 3 people

  6. Everything will turn out well because G*d is in control.

    I just wish that I knew what He’s doing. [Crazy Grin]

    Liked by 4 people

    1. So yesterday I was talking with family, and in hindsight looking at my realizations over the 2015-2026 time frame, I identified two that were correct and which saved me a significant amount of grief overall.

      Okay, even though I do get a lot of things pretty wrong, it is not improbable for me to have correct answers.

      But these particular answers were significant enough in outcomes that I kinda doubt that they were accident, and inclined to see God’s provision in them.

      Today I am going “and then my insanity in 2016 made me start trying to back off from politics?” and one other item that I have forgotten? Even less probable.

      Liked by 1 person

    2. My brother in trolling the libs,

      I actually do remember that Trump won in 2016. Because I spent half the year insane, by the standards of my usual frame of mind.

      2016 was when I started to realize that I had been unhealthily invested in politics my entire adult life. Partly this was hindsight due to the degree of insanity I had from perceiving between May and November that a) Trump was deliberately trying to lose b) we had no way to remove him from the ballot.

      I did have some life and health changes that year.

      I also recall that Trump had campaigned through 2015.

      The 2018 election cycle was a major shock to me. I eventually processed what I perceived from that, and was basically prepared for some of the institutional failures I learned about later.

      Liked by 1 person

      1. ARgh,

        I keep on forgetting. “My brother…” was meant to be a response to Sarah, not to Paul, and I once again put one in the wrong place through carelessness.

        Liked by 1 person

      2. I had been unhealthily invested in politics my entire adult life.

        When politics is taking an unhealthy interest in YOU, you can ignore it…. but head in the sand has never worked out well.

        Liked by 1 person

          1. Like Pericles said, “Just because you’re not interested in politics, doesn’t mean politics isn’t interested in you.”

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        2. BTW it WASN’T a prospiracy. It really was a conspiracy, with China paying for everything, including starting BLM.
          Which I found out this morning (Gosh, it’s like I called it that BLM was part of it)
          BUT it didn’t work as they expected. It wasn’t game over. G-d’s thumb on the scale, sure, but ALSO humans. Humans aren’t neat widgets.

          Liked by 3 people

          1. Truth. Humans aren’t widgets.

            Expansion of this. Americans really, really, aren’t widgets. That is what the oligarchs governments, like China, Russia, etc., cannot understand. They will never understand. Trying to herd Americans is worse than trying to herd cats, to the veterinarian. They can try. They will net a few (deep blue cities and states, California, New York City, *mal-educated youth, etc.), but the rest? Not a chance.

            (*) What? Everything is not handed to me for free? What? Consequences? What is that? Not everything is learned in the classroom.

            Liked by 1 person

            1. The necessity of jobs was created by capitalism, don’t you know? Before then, no one had to work.

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          2. I think the Chinese also based their expectations on what would work in and on China and America always surprises them.

            Liked by 1 person

            2. If you haven’t already, I suggest checking out some Chinese light novels/danmei simply to look at the social interactions. “The Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation” is pretty much a class in how social pressures and scheming work over there – there’s meta that says the author wrote it part in response to internet mobbing.

              And it wouldn’t work in an American society. Just flat out would not.

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          3. I have wondered if China is playing the Opium wars/British pick a side and back them in an attempt to climb on top. Forgetting or not knowing, your enemy has to be deeply divided and weak.

            The West more like Hope and Crosby, always arguing and tussling then besting the real bad guy and going back to arguing

            Liked by 2 people

      1. What makes you think that we are NOT going through the training montage? Do not ask for something, you may get it.

        And Murphy is an optimist.

        Liked by 3 people

          1. You’ve probably already thought of this, but I think this gets to the reason why training montages are montages: the details are repetitive, boring, and probably consist mostly of trying not to crack under more strain than you thought you could bear. (Maybe what you’re getting IS useful training, minus the montage? We can hope.)

            Liked by 2 people

      2. I have asked that the Author cancel the medical melodrama and return to the previous situation comedy format. Despite some confusion in the Writer’s Room I am working my way back to the correct trouser leg.

        Liked by 1 person

    5. God, Jesus, Peter, and Moses relaxing around a table watching the Earth spin on it.

      Moses remarks, “Lord, they can’t get any stranger.”

      God looks at Moses, smirks, and says, “Hold my beer.”

      Liked by 4 people

      1. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: G-d created the willow tree because he knew He’d want aspirin when dealing with humans.

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  7. Yeah, I’d say surrealistic . . . if only so many of my favorite restaurants hadn’t gone under. Here in Texas it’s not quite a spectator sport–we all got the clot shot–and the ramifications of that haven’t all played out yet.

    Between the young people with cardiac issues and the young women miscarrying . . . the population statistics of the World, long term, could be “interesting.” Especially the birthrates and life expectancy numbers.

    Now everyone repeat after me “But birthrates were already falling” and “but the extremely elderly have such poor quality of life . . .”

    Sorry, very cynical mood this morning, with frosting of anger.

    Liked by 7 people

    1. numbers

      But we’re pretty sure most of those numbers are heavily fudged, if not outright lies. It’s been a topic here, more than once.

      For that matter, we still don’t know the effects of the coof and the vaxx for sure, because the ‘official’ numbers were fudged during the collection phase. No matter how much you analyze bad data, what comes out is just more bad data. GIGO, in other words.

      Liked by 4 people

      1. Grocery shopping at 1 am…that used to be my preferred time. Hardly anybody around, the cashiers are relaxed, there’s a crew restocking the shelves while you shop, maybe a guy riding one of those nifty floor cleaner/waxer machines… So peaceful. Just the best. Even in this relatively small town, there were two grocery stores open 24/7. No more. There is no good thing that leftists won’t ruin.

        Liked by 2 people

        3. Shopping at Walmart at 3 AM was great. Generally the only people out at 3 AM, as Terry Pratchett pointed out via Vimes, are those who must be. This makes it rather peaceful for us nyctophiles.

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          1. My shopping at Wal-Mart happened between 0100 and 0300, maybe three times a year.

            At least the local one has removed the giant shouting TV screens, though they still have the high-intensity bluish pinlights in the ceiling that give me a splitting headache.

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      2. I’m inclined to think that most places that were open 24/7 did so to try to outdo their competitors, and because retail brinksmanship is a thing, their competitors did the same, and then – this is a guess – the economics of being open 24/7 weren’t working out for them, but they couldn’t stop because if they did they thought their competitors would have an advantage, even though the economics probably weren’t working out for them either.

        So what COVID did was give then all an excuse to revert to the operating hours that made economic sense, all at once, giving an advantage to nobody.

        Which makes them cowards, in that if one store had said, “no, this doesn’t make sense, we’re not doing it anymore”, others probably would have done the same even without COVID.

        Liked by 3 people

        1. Yes, once Walmart stopped it, others followed locally with only a couple exceptions. A truck stop because it has to be open at all times and Kwik Trip. There might be one more, but it’s been a while since I just drove around town at night just to get out of the house.

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    4. I am still resoundingly boggled over a) how the national establishment news media went all out in scaring the public out of the ever-loving minds over a so-called epidemic which was only about one micron more deadly than your average flu season. It was all panic, mass hysteria, OMG-we’re all gonna DIE! … and when that was all over, the media had the brass to sort of shuffle their feet and say, “You gonna forget about all this, aren’t you? Pretty please?”

      And THEN, the national establishment news media went so far deep in the tank that I swear there must have been someone on the surface feeding them oxygen through a hose, in insisting that Joe Biden was sharp as a tack, on top of his game, working his staff into exhaustion … when anyone with eyes to see and any recollection of coping with a senile elder could see that good ol’ Scranton Joe was down to his last half a marble.

      The mainstream media has no credibility left with at least half the country.

      Liked by 5 people

      1. My working theory was “they” ( media, government, etc) did know it was an engineered virus and what got them was fear of the unknown. They feared it would be, or become, Black Death 2.0 and that drove a lot of hysteria.

        Liked by 5 people

        1. I think the CCP played the folks that had funded the Wuhan Institute. The pictures of folks collapsing on the street in the Wuhan neighborhood panicked the folks using here, using Wuhan to do something that was forbidden in the US (by Obama, of all people; when Obama thinks something is morally dubious, maybe you REALLY should lay off of it). Figuring out what actually happened is an issue; I sometimes wonder if something nastier snuck out of Wuhan Viral Institute and they let enhanced coof out as a cover story after having reigned the real issue in. Timing doesn’t quite match.

          Gain of Function is one of the techniques favored by Bio-warfare types (which combined with the fact that you can unintentionally make monster diseases) is why the US banned it. No one wants to let loose The Stands Captain Trips other than idiots or desperate nations. If you look up unreliable narrator in the dictionary there’ll be a picture of the CCP Inner Party. I suspect unless there is a USSR style collapse of China we’ll never have definitive proof one way or the other, but given the latest information one can be Certain that the CCP are up to no good and are NOT our friends, kind of like The USSR in the 50’s to 1991.

          Liked by 2 people

          1. Very little question about it. Mostly because those people who had funded the Wuhan Institute KNEW that they were funding biowarfare agent development. They expected the escaped virus to be the Big Bad Bio because that was what they were trying to develop. They didn’t realize until over a year later that what actually escaped was just a relatively weak precursor.

            Gain-of-function is a lie. It’s always weaponization of a bioagent.

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          3. Remember that COVID was always more dangerous to those with compromised lung function—and China’s air pollution over most of its population centers is equivalent to at least a pack-a-day smoking habit. Plus diseases almost always tend to be worst at the start, because the “surviving” strains are the ones where people don’t immediately keel over.

            (Anyone who brings up the 1918 flu and its “worse second wave” should also look up the adoption of aspirin timeline and the recommended doses. Just finding out that they recommended grams, when current practice is in milligrams because aspirin toxicity kicks in at the grams level, should give an idea. That was a heck of a thing for find out.)

            Liked by 1 person

            2. Hmm quick look the LD50 for aspirin (https://www.aatbio.com/resources/toxicity-lethality-median-dose-td50-ld50/aspirin having that in my search list is potentially problematic :-) ) is 200 mg/Kg. A modern aspirin (which almost no one uses anymore, even though the stuff is practically a wonder drug) is 375 mg per tablet with standard dose 2 tablets no more than 4 x a day, A 50 KG male (skinny dude 110 lbs, more the weight for a mid sized female) could have 10 grams a sitting before reaching LD50 although how quick the liver clears it out is an issue. I wonder if the failure mode for the 1918 flu included liver damage. A classic issue is folks that drink heavily often run into issues with acetaminophen/paracetamol for a similar reason but the standard dose for acetaminophen is FAR closer to the overdose range, and the liver being overworked/damaged makes that a real issue. The 1918 flu was really odd luckily we haven’t seen its like for over a century. The 1968 Hong Kong flu being about the worst, I think it was harder on the elderly than Covid was. If the 1968 flu came back, we’d be in trouble, as few under the age of 60 have immunity. The 1918 was hardest on the young and healthy if I remember right, some kind of strong immune response that old folks didn’t have.

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              1. I think that it was speculation by researchers and I read it in Gina Kolata’s book about the 1918 flu epidemic – that there was some kind of flu virus very late in the 19th century that went around; not a bad and notably killing virus – but one which was close enough to the 1918 variant that it conferred a degree of resistance/immunity to those who were old enough to have been exposed to it.
                My great-aunt Nan caught the flu as a teenager in 1918. But her mother — my great-grandmother (who trained as a nurse when that just wasn’t done by a middle-class or aristocratic lady – late in the 1870s, we think) was unaffected and was working as a volunteer nurse in an epidemic ward in Reading, England, all during that epidemic.

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        3. Seventy years of teevee news production had trained local news that, given the choice between “everyone calm down, it’s no big deal” and “OMG global catastrophe dead Chinese in the streets look at all these tents and people in masks!!”, the latter would yield better ratings and more income for the station, so of course that’s what the local news did.

          And local “Public Health” apparatchiks only saw the power they really deserved finally within their reach.

          From there on up to the national levels of media and .gov I am open to read-in or bought-off as the explanation. Or both.

          And do not get me started on the “experts” – the only ones that stood up are the people like the ones who signed the Great Barrington Declaration and bore the costs for it – MDs licenses revoked, tenured professors fired (proving tenure is a myth), those are the real heroes.

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            1. Yeah. That same switch flip between Pelosi saying everyone should definitively all go to Chinese New Year in SF Chinatown, then oh noes lock yourself in your house and avoid family members, but don;t wear masks because the professionals need them, then everyone wear masks by themselves in the shower, then everyone should go out, scream and shout, and burn things to celebrate the Feast of Saint Fentanyl.

              Gee, I wonder why experts have no authority left.

              Liked by 4 people

                1. Saw someone double masked last week. And among those who still go out in public masked out here I still see some folks wearing their handmade fabric decorative masks.

                  Liked by 1 person

      2. They can’t factor in the internet. Any of them. Here we are, people like you and I have been conversant with the internet and in the scrum for — oh, LORD — over 20 years, but the grand pubbahs of the establishment cannot compute it. Just can’t. Which is why as the rest of the world are getting more conversant with the internet their local “gentry” are also losing their grip.
        They can’t compute. And they drink their own ink, too.

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        1. Well, to be fair, the donks in power are pretty much all in their eighties now. Of course that intertubes thing is beyond them, just like their TV remotes. Where is Matlock, dammit!

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    5. Understood. Plus the young men who can’t find work/spouses or have one but not the other.

      And just as the restaurant is on the edge of paying for itself we got a water main break this morning. Arrrgh!

      Liked by 3 people

    6. This won’t help the individual deaths you know of.

      Look at the births per year. Not the “birth rate”– that you can fudge by changing how many women you “estimate” are there.

      But births per year are much harder to fudge.

      And we’ve been bouncing around the births-per-year of 1947 or so since 1947.

      The ’90s and the ’60s went up into the 4 million, but we pop down to around 3.7M really often since then with a few 3.3m.

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  9. Going back to the election of 2016. In my darker imaginings, what if HRC had won?

    Maybe, if that had happened, we would have had a global nuclear war in short order. Her time as Secretary of State was…noticeably destructive.

    Maybe we’re on the only timeline in which humans survive.

    The gov’t’s Covid denial was an attempt to obfuscate that we paid for gain-of-function research in foreign countries. It disturbs my sleep to think of…what other labs are still operating in Plausible Deniability Land with Lax Lab Practices? As we’ve seen, distance does not protect against contagious disease. If it’s too dangerous to have here, it’s too dangerous to have there.

    Liked by 4 people

    1. To clarify about the timelines, maybe every timeline happens. If no one survives on the other timeline, it collapses into the timeline with humans, as far as we are aware.

      Liked by 3 people

      1. If the multiverse is a thing, This might be the only time line in which I and therefore my kids exist. It makes me wonder if that’s why no grandkids. The timeline is normalizing.

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    2. Putin said 135 in Ukraine, last I heard. The CDC admitted at least 5.

      Neither China nor Ukraine are places I’d consider outsourcing military bioweapons to.

      Are there US-sponsored bioweapons labs in Vietnam? Albania? Mali? Colombia? And did Anthony Fauci really have the clout to do that all by himself? Even now, nobody official is asking him any serious questions.

      Liked by 5 people

      1. Okay so there’s some points on Ukrainian labs that make it make a bit more sense to me.

        So if one were interested in having analysis and testing assets in proximity to places where one suspected active bioweapons research was either ongoing or being restarted, right next door to Putinland, and a hop and skip across the ‘stans from the Middle Kingdom, would be a logical place.

        Researching countermeasures there would also make sense, as that involves actually making such bad things, hopefully logically and with lots of safeguards, so as to try and counter them.

        And distributing them so there’s not One Big Espionage or Sabotage Target is also logical.

        And finally there’s all the EX-Soviet biowarfare expertise otherwise underemployed and over educated – keeping those folks both at known locations and well paid makes sense.

        So if such a thing were happening and not just big western drug companies doing research where it’s cheaper, it looking sorta like that is plausible to me.

        Liked by 5 people

        1. Similar to “We saved the Nazi rocket scientists; look how that turned out! But, no reason to actually bring them in-country, this time.” Wink-Wink.

          Liked by 1 person

      2. Ukraine, being a breadbasket, had labs to deal with agricultural threats.

        Some of those labs were staffed by Iowans.

        Some of whom I talked about, on this blog, doing radio interviews– and Russia wasn’t really shy about actively trying to spread the biohazards.

        Liked by 1 person

      3. Ukraine has (or had, given how much things have changed in that country recently) “biolabs”. Note the lack of the word “weapon” there. Unfortunately, most people seem to automatically assumes that it’s merely silent.

        And the reason why they had biolabs is because that’s where the USSR established those particular labs. There were good reasons at the end of the Cold War to maintain them (you didn’t want a bunch of suddenly unemployed biolab researchers who might be enticed to go work in an unscrupulous lab where “weapon” isn’t silent). And as we all know, it’s extremely difficult to kill a government program once it gets going.

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        1. The US officially shut down its biological weapons programs in 1969 and signed international treaties abstaining from further research or development in 1972 and 1975. The programs at Fort Detrick and elsewhere were shut down.

          Now, it looks like they just shifted things over to the Centers for Disease Control, and instead of hiding behind barbed wire and guard towers, they operated right out in public, simply changing the name from “biological weapons” to “gain of function”, etc.

          So far, I’ve yet to see a believable explanation as to why the CDC would think increasing the virulence of influenza, H5N1, hantavirus, etc. was a good idea, particularly given that their own researchers have spoken against it for decades. There’s often some half-assed “explanation” that the more-virulent strains are useful for developing vaccinations against future outbreaks, but as far as I can tell they have a 100% failure rate at that to date.

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    3. If HRC had won, she’d have had a very short Presidency. And I probably wouldn’t be around to post this; unless I got lucky and someone acted faster. On the flip side, assuming I didn’t die during apprehension and initial incarceration, it would have been a fascinating trial, there being SO much interesting material that could be introduced as justification. But like you said, we went down a different pant leg. Thanks, God.

      Liked by 1 person

      1. You would have had to move quickly. I knew two vets who were settling their affairs and preparing to roll out before the 2016 results were posted. As it turned out, neither of them would have lived long enough to make it through a trial anyway. Cancer. Some operations become *much* easier when exfiltration isn’t part of the plan.

        Liked by 1 person

        1. Her biggest mistake was using Vince Foster to intimidate the Dales and the White House travel office staff into saying nothing to officials and not trying to object to her machinations. As I’ve said before, I got an earful from Blanche and a bit from Bill when she was working for me. Wish I’d written it all down at the time. That, and her criminal actions since then equal a conviction. Sentence deferred as long as she never achieved a government position again. Since she’ll never be President now, and she’d never stoop to playing 2nd fiddle, there’s a whole lot of people who are now off the hook.

          But I still want to go down the pants leg where we get to drive flying cars and have colonies on Luna, Mars, and the Jupiter moons, and are sending probes to the nearest star systems.

          Liked by 2 people

  10. BGE said one of the most profound things I’ve heard in my life in comments the other day when he said the way you can tell conspiracy theories is that they are too neat. Because reality isn’t.

    Sarah, you’re the one who introduced me to “prospiracy”, where conspiracy isn’t necessary because the personnel are selected for belief in a common goal.

    And that’s what leads to this.

    https://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattvespa/2026/07/16/president-trump-reveals-what-we-all-suspected-about-the-2020-election-in-primetime-address-n2679416

    Liked by 1 person

    1. It’s also what leads to this. Trump 2.0 was a chance to avoid disaster. Because we’re still playing by the Left’s rules, we’re wasting it.

      https://open.substack.com/pub/rodmartin/p/the-court-let-trump-fire-anyone-the?r=6em1o&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email

      Personnel power has two halves. One half is the power to remove an officer who will not carry out the President’s program. The other half is the power to install an officer who will.

      Now the second half comes into view. The Senate has weaponized the confirmation process to deny the President the officers the Constitution now says answer to him alone. The numbers come from the Brookings Institution, which is no friend of this administration. Trump sent 450 nominations to the Senate in the first 300 days of his second term, yet his nominees have faced the longest average confirmation delay of any president since Reagan, 145 days. That is more than 5.5 times the 26-day average under Reagan and more than double the 68-day average of Trump’s own first term.

      In the first 200 days, only 7 nominees were confirmed without cloture being invoked, and every single nominee required a final recorded vote, an all-time high per Brookings scholar Chris Piper. This is not vetting. It is a filibuster of the executive branch itself.

      Liked by 1 person

    3. “Bureaucrats in a working system don’t need to conspire. They’re like spiders sitting at points on a community web. If one of them starts doing something for the good of the web, it’s because conditions seem to call for it – and those same conditions will also move other bureaucrats, whether they know the whole story or not. It’s as if the vibrations travel along the strands of the web, and the rest of them, following their nature, start doing what must be done – all without any direct spider-to-spider communication whatsoever.”

      — Gordon R. Dickson, “The Last Master” (1984)

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      1. So far, the saving grace has been that if there’s no coordination, they keep stepping on each other. More like crabs in a bucket than spiders in a web…. the reason it’s usually only one spider per web.

        Tolkien’s Mirkwood spiders having a language was terrifying because of that. Spiders don’t hunt in packs.

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  13. Trump winning in 2016 is evidence that God looks out for children, drunks, and the United States of America. What makes it all the more delicious is that, of the candidates available, only Trump could have defeated Shrillary and Trump was the GOP nominee in large part because the democrats had made him so by pushing him forward in every news broadcast up to the republican primary. They thought he was a joke. They overlooked God’s sense of humor. I remember that election night vividly watching the dial shift toward Trump and the lamentations of their women.

    I think it’s aligned with the note about conspiracies being too neat, which is NOT original to me I think I first got it from Daniel Pipes. Too many people expect the world to be neat. HIllary would have beat any of the other candidates, but the narrative required she win in a rout, so she manufactured her defeat.

    Liked by 8 people

    1. G-d does have a MAGNIFICENT sense of humor.
      TBF your note just gave me a way to put into words. I’ve always thought that was a tell instinctively, though the way I put it was “sounds like a novel plot”. Because most plots wouldn’t work without plot armor.

      Liked by 4 people

            1. I don’t think there’ll be a shooting war. The CCP knows that its subversion is effective and has massive evidence that their military and military tech isn’t. Why go to war? Especially as the only credible threat to Xi is the military and the only thing more threatening to a tyrant than an incompetent general is a competent one. Now, should Xi up and die, things might get …. Interesting.

              Liked by 1 person

              1. Ukraine’s invasion drones might show China a way to attack Taiwan using mass of machinery rather than men.

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                1. If China drones work. IF. That’s Xi’s dilemma. Xi makes decisions bout what’s good for Xi, if he tries and fails, he’s done and he can’t have any real confidence in it working since everything they produce seems to not work as intended. Again, should Xi die, or should there be a coup — successful or not, then someone might have a go as a way to grasp the purple, but I’d be shocked if Xi risked it. Add to that that it’s not clear to me that actually taking Taiwan is in xi’s interest. Every tyrant needs a gringo and Taiwan is his gringo.

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                  1. Plus Taiwan had a recent anti-Chinese invasion exercise that apparently went off very well.

                    Also, just how many sets of bombs/actions teams are ready to take out the Three Gorges Dam? Taiwan, maybe Japan, North Korea, the CIA, Mossad…

                    Liked by 1 person

                  3. I’m basically tired, and unsure what sort of joke to make.

                    There’s all sorts of forecasts we’ve been integrating towards this year.

                    Some of which have weight.

                    I don’t know anything, I do not have a plan, and literal tomorrow will be another day. More sleep will help me do stuff, make plans, and work towards some agenda.

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                  4. Taiwan’s biggest problem right now is that the KMT – yes, the party of Chiang Kai-Shek, who’s probably rolling in his grave at the news – is heavily pro-CCP. But that position doesn’t hold much weight amongst the population at large right now.

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              2. Because a subversion campaign is by necessity a longterm thing, and the ChiComs don’t have the time. Current pop pyramid: look at the number aging out of useful work life over the next decade vs the number coming in.China Population Statistics

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                1. I dont think Xi cares bout anything other than Xi. THe risk would be entirely his and the subversion is a great story for him to tell himself, or for his courtiers to salve his ego same thing.

                  The only way, to my mind, that the demographics play is that they affect Xi’s position and I don’t think the real bite will come until after he’s dead.

                  Liked by 1 person

          2. Reports Iran is considering sending a ground assault on Kuwait.

            First thought is, “Go,ahead, make my day,” or maybe, “Feeling lucky, punk?”

            But the idea might be to provoke us into putting boots on the ground, at which point Code Pink et.al. reappear.

            Also reports Russia and/or China are giving the IRGC pointers on getting past American missile defense, which is why their missiles got through this weekend. (Though they, thank God, didn’t manage to kill lots of Americans).

            That makes me queasy.

            OTOH, the Houthis are slapping an embargo on Saudi Arabia, which may be serious get-out-the -popcorn stuff. My money there is on the Saudis.

            Liked by 2 people

            1. Invading Kuwait would require concentrating troops. And concentrated troops make excellent targets for all of the many stand-off weapons that we’ve purchased over the years. If the Iranians were reckless enough to attempt a ground attack into Kuwait, the attacking force would likely be shattered by missiles and bombs before they even crossed the border.

              Liked by 2 people

      2. I remember reading about WWII summed up as the plot of a novel. It was completely ridiculous and no one would have believed it.

        Like

        1. The best single example I know of is how some research material went from some mathematicians in Poland to lighting up the night in New Mexico with the light of ten thousand suns.

          The first couple of chapters of Richard Rhodes’ “The Making of the Atomic Bomb” read like something out of a cheesy SF pulp story. Rhodes presents the progression straight up, but it’s hard to avoid shaking your head in disbelief.

          In “Dark Sun” Rhodes covered the origins and progress of the Soviet A-bomb program, which is almost as unbelievable, and complicated by is espionage aspects.

          “Whaaaat?? Give me my leg back…”

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          1. Aye. Two books I want to re-read. Have to decide if I’m up to climbing the ladder to the shop/barn’s mezzanine/library, or go Kindle. Have to check eBook prices. [pause] That was easy, $11.99 for Atomic, $1.99 for Hydrogen. I get twitchy at Kindle prices over $10.00, but it’s no longer a hard nope, and averaging the two makes it a fair deal.

            My left knee is thrilled. 11 days to my gatekeeper appointment, then I can schedule the festivities.

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            1. Just glanced at his Energy. Between shoutouts to Global Warmaning and a [insert Dr Evil voice] 10 Billion population by 2100, I’m not going to bother.

              Like

    2. “Trump was the GOP nominee in large part because the democrats had made him so by pushing him forward in every news broadcast up to the republican primary. They thought he was a joke. ”

      This ^ right here!

      So many people forget that prior to 2016, DJ was a Democrat and there were Democrats voting on the Republican primaries to get him on the Rep ticket. They thought he was such a joke that Billerary would be a shoe-in.

      Liked by 4 people

      1. New York Democrat!

        Which, to be fair to the Trump family, going back to his great-grandfather, or further, as a business family, in New York, is a requirement.

        Liked by 1 person

        1. I was a registered Democrat when I lived in NYC, one was disenfranchised otherwise since only the Dem primary tended to matter.

          Like

      3. I remember the poll that pitted Trump, Clinton, and SMOD against each other.

        SMOD polled in the double digits

        Among independents, they were in a dead heat.

        Liked by 2 people

    3. Honestly, I went to bed that election night convinced the fix was in, and the election was just a formality. When I woke in the middle of the night and checked the results, I was elated, far more than I expected to be, since I was sure Trump was at heart a Democrat. (Still am, really. But he’s been pushed and shoved and come up stubborn.)

      And I think those people who claim that Trump is playing 3D chess when everyone else is playing checkers are wrong. He’s playing high stakes poker.

      Liked by 5 people

      1. Agree. Trump wouldn’t play chess, use 4D chess as a tool, but have others play it while others are playing checkers, but not himself.

        Not only is his fortune on the line, but his life, the fortune and lives of his entire family, from his children down through the great-grandchildren, great-great, those unborn, etc. (and probably anyone related, biologically or adopted). Playing high-stakes poker while everyone else is playing “go fish,” indeed.

        Liked by 2 people

        1. Oh. Same. Went to bed PST expecting you-know-who to have won by the “biggest margin ever!!!!!” Got up around 2 AM for, um, usual night break. Turned on TV, just for nightmares (couldn’t resist). Only to go, “OMG! OMG! OMG!” and suddenly sit down (actually, fall down) on the couch.

          Liked by 3 people

          1. I remember scrupulously paying as little attention as possible to the 2016 elections and waking up one morning in November to squint at the news sites and think “wait, we elected Vespasian?”

            Liked by 1 person

      3. Only reason I didn’t is that son wouldn’t leave the phone alone, and he told us at about 10 pm “I think Trump will win” At which point it became unbearable to go through it alone. So I threw booze in a bag and we showed up at vodkapundit’s door, booze and all, going “Can we sit with you.” And we stayed there till it was SURE.

        Liked by 2 people

      4. I voted against HRC. Then I avoid the news all day.

        When I checked the next day, I was pleasantly surprised at how pleased I was at the results.

        Liked by 1 person

    4. I’ve said before that I thought Trump was a dumocrat plant. Which made the “trying to lose” and the dumocrat party pushing him in the Republican primaries seem reasonable. I plugged my nose and voted for Trump in 2016 because he was not Shrillery*. Voted for Trump twice more because Trump. In retrospect, Trump’s sheer stubbornness should have been clear from the beginning. I just needed my nose rubbed in.

      (*) Interesting how spell check AI realizes what dumocrat and Shillery should be replaced with … Sorry spell check, spelled correctly.

      Liked by 2 people

      1. There were some odd bits early on. For example, apparently the first thing Trump did when he decided to run was call the Clintons and tell them. That seems like a courteous thing to do when you’re talking about an important politician in your state. But considering it was generally accepted that Hillary was going to be the Democratic nominee, it seems odd…

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        1. Ah. But did Trump call the Clintons to tell them? Or call to “tell” (wink, wink) them? I think the latter. Because Trump got them angry.

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      2. Hillary *really* shouldn’t have made fun of him at that dinner. He was there to write a big check for her campaign. Instead, he swapped parties and ran against her.

        Of course, she was used to saying whatever she wanted without considering pushback or fallout. The idea that DJT would be offended enough to directly oppose her would never have crossed her mind, and she probably thought Don was just being a whiny bitch until her polls started looking grim.

        [the story the news presented back then was that they were at a fundraising dinner and the discussion turned to who the other Democratic candidates might get on the primary ticket. There was the usual collection of clowns. Don suggested he might run against her. Probably as a joke, but she didn’t like that at all and carved him a new one. Not that you can find that indexed on the web now, as so often happens…]

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    2. Song is very cool. So is the artwork… but I still laugh at the silly details the clankers throw in. Like the mugs with two handles, and the handles are mismatched (one squarish, the other the more classic rounded handle shape). Plus the lone “normal” mug (normal insofar as it’s one-handled) hanging from the rafter… but hanging how, exactly? And…. does it actually have a handle? Or did its handle get mixed up with the torch bracket?

      In fact, I was so focused on the mugs that it wasn’t until just now, after I started writing the comment, to notice the stranger’s fingers. Which could have an in-story explanation if you listen to the song all the way to the end… but in reality it’s another clanker detail that’s not quite right.

      Still, I’m nitpicking for the fun of it. I really did like the song.

      Liked by 3 people

      1. I thinnk I’ve actually seen a few mugs like that? It was at a flea market….

        But heh. The fingers probably are clanker errror, but still make perfect sense to me – if you’ve seen the original cover for Dragonsbane, the dragons have 6 digits!

        Liked by 1 person

  15. Yeah, I get the 2016 thing. Feels like the Ancient Days now, only ten years but it feels like 100.

    I think this is because the world changed in 2019. The covers came off, and we saw the rigging on the game for the first time.

    Currently working on stories with characters of mine being magically transported to Valhala, the “heaven” of the old Norse where mighty warriors drink and fight all the time. I said, what if that was a scam and the whole thing was actually hell? Or maybe purgatory, at least? You work your whole life to be a great warrior, you take Odin’s Bargain, the lady on the flying horse drops you off and then… it sucks! It’s all lies. (You can imagine what my girls did there. Megatons per second, baby.)

    That’s what I think we woke up to in 2019/2020. Everything we thought we knew was wrong. And that’s why 2016 feels like 1913. It’s another age.

    Liked by 5 people

    1. So much, this. 2017-2019 was the slow boil of revelations…and then came 2020, and it went pedal to the metal. No wonder it seems like so many people broke in the last ten years. It feels like we went to bed in one timeline and woke up in an entirely different one.

      Liked by 5 people

      1. The irksome realization that they’re just damn well lying to you, and then the sobering understanding that they’re quite happy to see you die from being lied to.

        We didn’t know we were really and truly for sure in a war, but now we kind of do.

        Liked by 2 people

        1. The irksome realization that they’re just damn well lying to you,

          and that they don’t care if you know, because they’ll do what they want anyway.

          Liked by 2 people

  16. Ten years ago was my father’s last year on Earth. Looking after him was my focus, and hoo boy did I have concerns if things went wonky.

    I did not forsee half of what happened since…either broadly or personally.

    It’s been a lot. And I’m exhausted.

    Liked by 7 people

        2. I know, right? I mean, in retrospect the evidence was there…congestive heart failure plus dementia…and I still question my stewardship, even though nobody else seems to, which just feels bizarre. (Makes sense if you know me well.)

          On the flip side…suppose he lived a few more years and made it to 2020…

          Mercy arrives in disguise, sometimes.

          Liked by 3 people

          2. My uncle died in 2019 after many years of dealing MS. His wife, children, and siblings are all grateful that he didn’t pass away in 2020.

            Liked by 3 people

            2. My uncle a little over a month ago. Age 91. Ran the car into a ditch (you’d have to know their area, flat with raised roads, ditch, then fields). Had a heart attack. Did a heart attack cause the accident? Or did the accident cause the heart attack? He was in a coma, so no one knows. Died a week later. What is worse is not one expects his wife, mom’s younger sister (88), to last very long now. OTOH, she’s been frail for a while. They just had their 65th wedding anniversary this last fall.

              Like

            1. My parent’s house isn’t there any more, probably torn down by the city. Eight liens on the lot says the lawyer. Still don’t know how or if probate is going. But man, does the thought of that place being gone hurt.

              Liked by 2 people

    3. Lost my little sister, then. Fell asleep and didn’t wake up.

      And it felt like everyone was dying, for a while– Bowie? FREAKING DAVID BOWIE!?!? Alan Rickman?!?! Gene Wilder?!

      Felt like the whole world was ending.

      I was pregnant, my husband was half a country away, there were literal wolves at my folks’ door where I was staying with my parents and four small children.

      I stayed up late with the Huns for the election…and… Trump was not losing?

      He kept not losing?

      The next day, he was still… not… losing?

      I boggle still.

      Liked by 1 person

      1. I lost a good friend that way. Hit speed dial chatted with him a few minutes, he said he was tired and was going to take a nap.

        The next day I got a call; he has passed away on the couch, and his phone said the last call received was mine.

        Freaked some mutual acquaintances out, but I’m really glad we got that left few minutes of casual chat.

        Liked by 1 person

        1. Lost my paternal grandmother and aunt, her oldest daughter, exactly like this.

          Grandma went to sleep Christmas night 1987. The next morning, the oldest daughter requested her youngest daughter to see what was keeping grandma. Grandma passed away during the previous night/early morning. Just shy of 80 years old.

          The same aunt above was found sitting in a chair where she’d sat, fell asleep, did not wake up. I think her oldest daughter found her. This was a few years ago. Aunt was 87.

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          1. A relative (…I’d worry about this doxing me, but half of Kansas is related to them) was on the train home with his wife after Christmas with the kids.

            Got to their stop, and he didn’t wake up.

            Quoth the widow: “About as easy a death as possible. Little rough on the poor ticket boy that came to help me wake him up.”

            Liked by 2 people

            1. When I was going graduate research, I found, let us say, multiple similar accounts. The lesson is, if you go back in time, don’t travel by train in Kansas and Nebraska if you have undiagnosed cardiac disease or DVTs.

              Liked by 2 people

            2. Er. Mom is 91. Lives alone. Odds are, either my middle sister or I will be the ones to find her after she either doesn’t get up one morning, or takes a nap.

              Currently? Mom’s attitude is, “You better not die before I do!!!!!!!”

              FWIW. 16 days, and counting down. Need to go in and get the pre-xrays done. Was told can just come early on the pre-op appointment. But I won’t wait that long, JIC.

              Liked by 3 people

  17. With regard to the implausibility of this timeline, the Reader notes that in 2017 Trump offered the Democrats a significant amnesty for the illegals in the country if they would fund his wall in return. The Donks turned him down.

    Liked by 6 people

      1. “Because they became so accustomed to getting ‘amnesty’ every few years…”

        Or more likely because they knew the fix was in for 2020, and they were going to get everything they wanted with a bow on it.

        Liked by 3 people

    2. IIRC, it was the “Dreamers” (aka people illegally brought into the US by their parents at a very young age who had basically spent nearly all of their life in the US) that he offered the amnesty for, and not illegals in general. The Dems had been making a big deal about them, and Trump’s response was to offer *twice* the number that everyone had been talking about.

      As we know, the Dems weren’t interested.

      And these days no one talks about the “Dreamers”.

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  18. I’m reminded of, what broke my suspension of disbelief on the Honorverse was Mesa, the one with the scientist defector.

    Not that he defected; they euthanized his adoptive daughter because she went vegitative. Rather, because a system that saw people as widgets hadn’t torn itself apart in that exact way ages before.

    I almost wonder if things are going so completely bonker tops now precisely because the powers at large spent so much of their time and effort trying to suppress all those second, third and forth order effects that they ended up squeezing them out every which-way? The toothpaste is not so much out of the tube, as the tube has been under so much pressure for so long that it has popped all up and down the sides, and all the efforts stuffing it back in the cap are just sending more of it out all the other new and numerous holes?

    Liked by 5 people

    1. I think the idea was the father was unique in refusing to let it go. His wife, the girl’s adoptive mother, simply divorced him, and threw herself into her work as a coping mechanism. It was just the way things were, no use throwing yourself against a combined system and secular religion. I also suspect that many complaining parents had fatal accidents if he or she kept it up too long and wasn’t vital to some form of national interest.

      (You can see how Flint getting involved changed/weakened the original concept of Mesan society. Weber made it plain the upper levels – the alpha lines- were all marriages arranged by the Long-Range Planning Board, and the fact the Board worked hard to assure compatibility as much as they could plus allowing for divorce doesn’t erase the notion that alpha line Mesans were totally socialized into accepting their places as parts of the breeding program. Flint softened that to the point of irrelevancy).

      Liked by 2 people

      1. Flint really ruined the series for me. I walled the book and stopped reading the series when he excused the Mesan hellworld scientists of responsibility because “they’re just biologists.” Pournelle did it so much better in Birth of Fire.

        Liked by 1 person

        1. Weber did his best to salvage in the last book. His take went something like this:

          The Alignment had two parts, and the truly fanatic/evil part was hidden within the larger group. That larger group despised genetic slavery and involuntary genetic manipulation, but saw no way to stop it. When the Alliance conqueted Mesa, the ‘larger Alignment’ defected en masse and actively cooperated with anti-slavery campaigns.

          He presented the genetic manipulation as morally neutral: useful for adapting people to specific environments, evil when used for slavery/biowarfare, and so forth. One comment was if the ‘bad Alignment,’ had worked on educational programs rather than their, “We’re going to take over the galaxy and remake humans Our Way,” they would have done much better in the long run. The larger faction of the Alignment’s vison worked out similar to the society in Beyond this Horizon, with anyone being able to “optimize” his/her genome in ways that eliminated hereditary diseases/disabilities. The Detwilers and their followers are religious fanatics, and despite all their intentions to “improve” humanity, all their operations seem to require massive death tolls. Which makes Honor’s destruction of their primary military base in To End In Fire a matter of pure karma.

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    2. Who says he was the first defector? The others just didn’t have the advantage of being able to flee to a star nation like Manticore. The Solarians would have shrugged and done nothing about it, that’s quite clear. Or arranged a fatal accident for the defector themselves because he was too inconvenient to their own established interests.

      It’s a weak justification, I know. But as Dorothy said, I doubt he was the first, and I suspect there were a lot of other parents who suffered fatal “accidents”.

      Agree with Dorothy and BGE re: Flint’s weaknesses as a writer. He has some strengths, don’t get me wrong, but I have a hard time rereading his stuff, even stuff he’s collaborated on, because his weaknesses just jump off the page at me now that I’ve noticed them. For example, he tends to forgive his protagonists anything and everything just because they’re “the good guys”. Um, no. If you’re going to, say, torture someone, you’d better have a darn good reason such as a ticking time bomb… and even then it’s going to cause you issues. Tom Clancy did it better in Without Remorse: the protagonist torturing someone is portrayed as something he really shouldn’t have done. Understandable — it was revenge for his girlfriend’s gruesome murder — but wrong. Flint never seemed to understand that some things are just plain wrong. (If I’m misunderstanding him, I welcome correction).

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      1. I might not have known of the Chekists without Flint. Hence I might not have learned that the communists are suicidal fools, and working at great and studied cognitive impairment.

        He also communicated, explicitly and literally, that his Trotskyism/communism (and pro Democrat/pro tyrrany stuff) was his religion.

        Anyway, his life’s work wound up being to prove that management played a functional role in business, that the trade unionists had discounted lower than the actual utility. Managers are trust holders/carriers for the people with the money. This is shown by his trust holding for the 1632 business, and how his death changed that business a bit. It was a non-financial trust, but he made the business appear to work.

        He contributed to management science, by providing an example that overrides many many man hours of activism claiming that the individual contributors were doing everything of real importance. Which is kinda strategically useful for anti-communists, because the PMC has imploded its credibility following communism.

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        1. The irony was that he would insist that his Trotskyism was something you just didn’t get when you assumed it meant you could look at Trotsky and get an idea.

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      1. Old programmer’s joke: there are 10 kinds of people in the world. Those who can think in binary, and those who can’t.

        Liked by 2 people

  21. “The vaccine. We still haven’t had a proper investigation of that whole plot, but it sounds like a bad science fiction plot and no way in G-d’s green Earth would I have believed it until it happened.”

    –

    Number of fiction that the plot is this. One that stands out to me is (can’t remember the name or author), involves the plague.

    1. Plague is endemic in the west. — True.
    2. Pneumonic plague spreads incredibly fast. — True
    3. Historical stories/superstitions of when plague breakouts occur, that a dirty bare-foot child is seen with dead and dying rodents by various people at multiple wide flung locations. For this story, squirrels/chipmunks.
    4. Dead squirrels should be a red flag, as dead squirrels should be snatched by small predators quickly, even in cities.
    5. Rapid open travel spreads the problem before there is a known problem.

    Story based around the above premises. Starts in the Rockies. Numerous reports of dead chipmunks, dirty, barefoot, unattended feral child seen running away on trails in wilderness areas. Plague goes pneumonic quickly (plague victims happen in the west yearly, but does not go pneumonic yet). A medical researcher figures out a cure based on an existing cure. Gives it to the government for free, who gives it to pharmaceuticals for mass production and distribution. Who gets immunity for any side effects. But, turns out the side effect is blindness in some. Screaming ensues. Problem? Not the cure formula given. Instead, the cure distributed is one that failed trials because of the blindness side effect that was substituted. Because that cure could not be replicated by just anyone. Reason? Money and immunity. (In the end, fraud, so immunity revoked, justice occurs.)

    The unbelievable part was what the pharmacy companies did with a working solution. Um …

    Liked by 2 people

    1. Bits and pieces that I’ve heard are the companies did not have a working solution as of November 2020. From what I gather, there were parts of the t chain they would have been spinning up if they had something, anything, that they weren’t, until well after the election.

      I honestly wonder if they never had something they even thought would work, but decided the incoming administration wouldn’t care and would just ship whatever they sent.

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        1. Given the chaos of such things, it would not surprise me if both things were true at the same time. Remember the old ‘crock of ****” joke? Same sort of thing.

          The folks at the top totally convinced they’ve got the panecea, while the levels under them have just the the thinnest model of an solution held together with paper machete veneer. And the order rolls down to ship it, with no-one looking too hard at the product.

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          2. Fauci has reportedly been obsessed with vaccines as a solution even when demonstrably inappropriate, dating clear back to AIDS in the ’80s.

            Liked by 2 people

            1. I think that insufficiently anathematized abomination Fauci had the vaccine (or A vaccine) all along before Covid was released. Even an arrogant $^@^# like him would fear a respiratory virus getting loose if he didn’t have an ace in the hole.

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      2. The early data on SARS/MERS mRNA vax was horrid. A long line of “stopped testing before human use/after early human testing” failures, with the most successful against the viruses causing more issues than the diseases. When Trump announced fast tracking I was unconcerned at first, because somewhere I had read about the work on SARS/MERS and it having been years of “head start” research able to be modified for a new version, until I realized they were going to try and force through the mRNA versions and not go with known-to-work vaccine methods, and right after those announcements, the early data (I had found most of it at/from Baylor) disappeared from the internet. That was my cue to NOT take any of the offerings of mRNA.
        By the time I caught it, meh, middling cold with extra body pain.

        Liked by 2 people

    2. Cannot remember the guy’s first name but believe the last name was Nolan, and he was a physician.

      Plot I recall was even worse: pharmaceutical company’s cure had multiple side effects, including palsy, which they knew, but people were terrified…and it was expensive. Another researcher discovered a existing drug did just as well with no side effects…but it was cheap. And due to sheer bad luck he was killed. The drug had to be rediscovered, and was, at which point the preferred punishment for the pharmaceutical execs who suppressed it was burning them alive.

      One subplot involved a suburban couple with marital issues, and how surviving together made them a better couple.

      Another was a community where the local doctor realized just plain good nursing could save people and managed to hold the hospital/medical system together to save roughly 60% of the patients (he caught it and was one of the 40%; he was also the man who saw the dirty, feral plague child).

      Think it may have been titled, Time of the Fourth Horseman, but not totally sure as Chelsea Quinn Yarbro did a completely different book with a similar title.

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      2. Or “the Fourth Horseman“. I think you are on to something. About that time there were multiple books regarding sudden plague and how it could happen.

        Multiple people at different times saw a feral plague harbinger child. At least one was a park ranger or forester investigating reports of dead chipmunks on the trails.

        Also, the cheap, inexpensive medical version could be whipped up in batches in a home bathroom.

        Regarding the note that dead squirrels and chipmunks are not normally left lying around, being snatched by birds of prey, small predators, and even opportunistic larger animals like bears. To this day, when I see the infrequent dead squirrel in our (cause of death misjudging traffic) in the roads of the very suburban area, I think of this book.

        Hey, plague is endemic in the west, in the rodents, including squirrels and chipmunks, spread by fleas. But it is endemic in the mountains and wilderness. Not residential and towns. Although with the area problem with the “unhoused” … I wonder.

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          1. A little girl caught it off fleas from a dead squirrel in Denver back in the late 50s/early 60s.

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            1. When we moved to Manitou, the cat of the owners selling the house had it and was being treated. Same source.
              And when a squirrel zapped himself being very loving in a transformer box (well two squirrels) the disposal service refused to pick up the charred corpses due to fear of the plague.

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            2. Yes. Not unheard of. Just not as expected. OTOH, there are what, less than a dozen people a year? Mostly rural.

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      1. And again, it doesn’t have to work perfectly every time; for the gun grabbers, false positives are a feature for anarcho-tyranny.

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  26. First I’m not sure whatever probability disruption happened in 2016 was bad. I mean, there have been some bad things, but on the whole, honestly, things are going our way, and have given us the greatest cause for hope in many a decade. But second, it must be said, it’s not ONE improbable pant leg. It’s a pant leg, after a pant leg after a pant leg. These pants obviously belong to an octopus. And eldritch one with an infinite number of legs.

    We got handed a dystopia setup, and keep breaking it.

    “Oops.”

    Liked by 2 people

        1. Fox, OT but the World Aerobatic Championships will be in Mason City next month. It’s kinda fun to watch, at least the more advanced levels, if you don’t mind that the flights are in a “box” and not all over the flight line (airshow).

          Liked by 1 person

  27. It may be my age but I have become increasingly cynical. The following is my list of take-aways from the last 10 years, a list of my least favorite things:

    • the degree to which the press are prepared to do more than shade objective reporting in favor of partisan reporting. It was ever thus, the Sunday Times (UK) from the 1980’s was pretty partisan, but it is now in sharp relief.
    • the degree to which the press are cynical enough to lie, relying on people to forget what was previously said so press lies are not challenged. Ditto politicians.
    • that there are lies, damn lies, statistics and opinion polls. It is clear from the last election that polls have been weaponized. Again, it was ever thus but it seems a lot more shameless.
    • unrestrained, and unashamed, law-fare. I still cannot believe people went to jail for Jan 6th. I see nowhere explaining why none of them were armed. Given the nature of the protestors, one would have thought at least some of them would have been armed if their objective really was insurrection (don’t get me started on whether it is possible for non-state actors to overthrow the US government).
    • the degree of election interference. Suspected and now confirmed – will be interested to see how the stories develop.
    • the flow of funds from government to NGO’s to activists promoting certain ideologies.
    • the degree to which activists have changed from supporting, to promoting, activities. For example, “homeless” activists in California have been spotted erecting tents and providing directions to those tents. Activists in the UK have been spotted providing boats to cross the channel.
    • the degree to which such activists are prepared to lie – the higher moral ground gives them that right, obviously.
    • the wide adoption of socialist thought. People! I thought the 1970’s settled the awfulness of socialism. Do we have to go through it again?
    • the number of people who believe that it is reasonable to shoot/knife people with whom they disagree.
    • the number of people who are prepared to rape/assault numbers of young people on the basis that the such children are sub-human.
    • the degree to which governments are constraining free speech (to protect the children, obviously).
    • the loss of favorite authors/thinkers/… I want more books to read, and interesting conversations to have! Stop dying please.
    • increasingly smaller portion sizes. It sucks that I can no longer eat 1lb steaks and big baked potatoes (well, I can, but i know the consequences if I do). On the other hand (shudder) I have grown to like salads. I am, sadly, now a Müslifresser!

    non-exhaustive, clearly.

    Liked by 2 people

    1. For example, “homeless” activists in California have been spotted erecting tents and providing directions to those tents. Activists in the UK have been spotted providing boats to cross the channel.

      Certain people really need to be shot. Or maybe put on trial for sedition, if we’re being measured and careful.

      the number of people who believe that it is reasonable to shoot/knife people with whom they disagree.

      Oh… Wait… 😅

      Liked by 1 person

      1. well, clearly you are the exception to the rule. Your extrajudicial actions would be justified. Have at them!

        Although, there is a wonderful quote from A Man for All Seasons

        William Roper: “So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!”

        Sir Thomas More: “Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?”

        William Roper: “Yes, I’d cut down every law in England to do that!”

        Sir Thomas More: “Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned ’round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man’s laws, not God’s! And if you cut them down, and you’re just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I’d give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety’s sake!”

        Liked by 1 person

        1. I will admit that I would like to ask him if a healthy forest of laws would allow Gavin Newscum and Joey Bribem to flourish. Might get the chance.

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        2. I love that quote. That is what it comes down to in the end. Who has the capacity to dispense that rough justice, let alone the ability to do it accurately AND the capacity to recognize when it’s time to stop? (Virtually no one, that’s who.) The revolution eats its own, etc., etc.

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          1. Of course, Sir Thomas found out the hard way that those laws he relied on for shelter just might fall on him when he lets the guy with the chainsaw get to work unhindered.

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            1. He knew it was a danger.

              Or reasonably should have known. He had his daughter, who was visiting him, come to the window to see John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, and explained that Fisher’s great calm stemmed from his having faithfully served God all his life. He had served his king, and was now paying the price.

              Liked by 1 person

            2. ….yes, Nelson, that is the point.

              That those who chop down the laws to get at “in my way, thus evil” will destroy the good.

              And, as Mary pointed out, Sir Thomas knew that.

              And he did the right thing anyways.

              This is in a direct contrast to those who throw up their hands and go “fine, I’ll be evil and somehow that will be totally cool.”

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      2. and that they don’t care if you know, because they’ll do what they want anyway.

        That’s the new organizer playbook: “Don’t like what we’re doing? Unless you shoot us, we won’t stop.”

        Not the foot soldiers. The organizers like the DSA Mayor of NYC.

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    3. Basically all those cases that I have any sort of way to check if it was previously the case…. the difference is we can prove it to folks really easily.

      “No, really, this is actually happening.”

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      1. I would agree, in the 70’s and 80’s my sources of information were newspapers (mostly the Sunday Times and the Guardian) and the BBC. Despite vehement protestations that it wasn’t true, the BBC was always left-leaning. There were also various news programs, such as Panorama, which were not too political and generally of reasonable quality.

        Now, I get to read blogs like this (no I don’t read X, better things to do). I do still read the Guardian; it’s free and I get to laugh at left-wing hallucinations. I did read the BBC website until they started to ask for money. I also read sites such as Al Jazeera and Pravda; always interested to see how other people treat the same news although it can be rather predictable. In the same vein I read Wire News India, the Economist, the Spectator, various Roman Catholic news sites (got to keep an eye on the guy with the big hat), economic commentary, various technical blogs and sites, and anything else of interest.

        There is also a far greater variety of views now from people that I know; ranging from “shut up I don’t want to know, you bore” to “the frog people are conspiring to take over the planet” – ribbit. Beliefs were a lot more homogeneous, or seemed more homogeneous, when I was younger. Perhaps we just didn’t discuss such things.

        For amusement, my first exposure to the open skies of the internet was sitting in my office in England in the mid-1980’s reading Alice in Wonderland from a university somewhere in the US midwest. If only I had bought Amazon shares…

        Liked by 2 people

          1. Thank you. Always interested in new stuff, although I am not much of a cowboy (been on a horse twice, fell off twice).

            Liked by 1 person

            1. They do a lot of horse photos, and use to carry Baxter Black (may he rest in peace!)– but their main thing is our food supply, and rural folks are frequently first-edge for stupid government tricks.

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          2. Great recommendation, thank you, and I have added it to the list.

            I loved the account of the migration from Texas to Arizona. The mention of the poor lad who accidentally branded the sole of his foot and spent the night crying as a result will stay with me. I wondered why they wanted to brand their dogs. Dog rustlers? I have heard of cat kidnappers – revealed by a warehouse of cat collars – nope, not joking.

            I read a similar site written by various UK farmers/small holders. I know/knew nothing about farming so it’s an interesting read. It has been particularly enlightening about re-wilding and other environmental activities; some of which have done more harm than good. It’s another example of overly dictatorial government action – sigh.

            I have been a fan of the idea of re-wilding but realize that there are limitations. Yes, the UK did at once time have bears and wolves but I can’t see a practical means of re-introduction. Nice to see that beavers are back though.

            Liked by 2 people

  29. Ms Sarah, we thank you. You help God keep us sane. Or at least sane-adjacent.

    And we know how difficult “adult-ing” is even without a gaggle like us tagging along and the blogging and all. So please just know we’re praying for you and yours.

    Liked by 2 people

    2. It’s not you lot that worry me, it’s the malicious stalkers making credible threats. Which is part of the move (again) to yet another undisclosed location. Well, that and the kids need it. But so much work.

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  30. I suspect I never woke up from that concussion way back when, and this is all just “Future Imperfect” of my snoozin noggin.

    Then I realize that not even in my most wild fever dream, doped with really bad shrooms, could I have dreamed up Obama, Trump, Biden, Trump, Rush has a new drummer.

    Liked by 1 person

    2. It’s the last one in that list that’s got me discombobulated. I don’t know what to think. Well, I do know one thing, which is that I’m never going to see Rush play live again…not for lack of Neil, although that’s a potential factor, but because I can’t afford those ticket prices. It’s a different world, and I don’t like it.

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