July 2022 – Wilder, Wealthy, and Wise

Yet More Shenanigans

How to find a great bargain:

The whole podcast:

And a parody song by the NPCs:

Parents, Photos, And Moving Out

“Well, the part where Romeo dies is sad. But where Juliet died is sad too. But I think the saddest part of all is when Jan said ‘Who goes there?’ before Peter said ‘Hark’.” – The Brady Bunch

Definitely would have been a better show with this cast.

There’s a larger point to some of these stories that I’ll be putting out on Friday that will become obvious over time. But I want to stress this: outside of the obvious jokes, 100% of these stories are true.

I remember the first time I called Ma Wilder “mom.” I know that’s a memory that really most people don’t have, since most people don’t even know what a mom is when they call them mom. Heck, it isn’t even the earliest memory I have, which involves PEZ®, a claw-foot bathtub, and a poorly insulated electrical appliance.

I don’t recall how old I was, exactly when I first called Ma “mom”. I do recall it was a bright spring day and Ma Wilder was ironing in the laundry room. The back door was open, letting light and air in through the screen door that led to the backyard.

What Ma Wilder figured out while ironing: she had more pressing concerns.

I think what the sentence was (memory is a bit fuzzy on this, too), but I think it was something, “I’m going to go to my room, Mom,” or something like that.

I recall being a bit scared. How would she react? I was pretty sure I was supposed to call her “mom” but what if she reacted poorly? What if it made her mad?

She said, “Okay.”

And it came out of her mouth like it was normal, though, looking back on it I think even she had to hold back and concentrate on it being . . . normal.

The reason I remember this is because, unlike all those people who have to work at it, I was born a bastard. Longer version, I believe that this was the day that my adoption was finalized and I became an official Wilder rather than “that blonde kid that keeps hanging around the house and breaking a nearly endless stream of things.”

Because I did that, too. Most of the calamities that I caused were out of a sense of experimentation. For instance, one day I was watching The Brady Bunch after coming home from first grade. Now, as rankings on television programs go, The Brady Bunch was certainly the lowest tier of after-school television. Much higher was F-Troop and also Hogan’s Heroes. Of course, the gold standard was Star Trek.

Obscure fact: Ricardo Montalban had a tough time finding work after Star Trek II: No one wanted to hire an ex-Khan.

Anyway, it was The Brady Bunch that caused much of the destruction of my family’s stored memories. You see, in one episode, Greg (it was Bobby, I think) had taken a picture that proved the receiver’s foot was out of bounds on a key catch in a football game.

How did he prove this? He took a picture into a dark room, and then put it in water with some chemicals. Presto, he was able to stretch the picture and make it bigger. Why on Earth was the Wilder family making do with these little tiny 3” by 5” (2mm by 5 liter) snapshots when I could just dunk them in water in the bathroom and stretch them to make them larger.

I was no dummy! I knew that to make this work, you had to be in the dark, so I closed the door. Thankfully, this bathroom was an interior one with no windows! I put the picture in the water and tried to stretch it. No go.

Huh, looking back I could have died of exposure.

Maybe if I soaked it longer? I’m sure I waited for at least 15 seconds before my sucrose-addled brain realized the problem. Of course! It was simple! Greg had chemicals in the water that made the photo stretch!

Where could I find chemicals? Yup, mom kept them under the sink.

I added pretty much every chemical I could find under the sink to my impromptu photo embiggening water bath. I believe I probably created a stew of chemicals that would have been recognized by OSHA as not a violation of civil law, but probably regulated by the Geneva Convention as one of those pesky “war crimes”.

I took the photo and tried to stretch it. Still a no go. Well, it must be this particular photo. Why not put all of them in the sink to try to stretch them? I’m sure it’ll work.

Hmmm, no go on any of the dozens and dozens of photos that chronicled the life of my brother (it’s now obvious why his name is John Wilder, too) from birth to 8^th grade. Well, no harm, no foul, right? I’ll just let the toxic brew of chemicals water out and leave the soggy mass of soap, home cleanser, and hand lotion (I do distinctly recall adding that) covered photos dry out.

The best way to let them dry out? In a soggy mass. I’m pretty sure that when they “dried” they stuck together well enough that the only things left of my brother’s childhood are his dental records.

This was my attempt to teach my newly minted parents that I was certainly not like the other children and that, just perhaps, I shouldn’t be left alone quite so much. Silly adults.

They didn’t learn. Their next attempt was for Ma Wilder to quit her job to take care of me. There was one two-week period Ma was needed down at the bank that Pa ran to help get The Books ready for the Bank Examiners. They did what every parent would do: hire a local teenager to watch me. The first one quit after a day. The second one quit after two days.

Ma Wilder, actual quote in my room after I did this: “Do you smell something burning?”

I’m thinking that it was about this point that Ma and Pa were regretting paying that attorney all of that money to get me free and clear as their child. And I think I had broken them.

“John, would you please, after school, just come home. Make yourself a sandwich. And then sit and watch TV. For two weeks. If you do this, we’ll pay you.” The equivalent they were offering me, per day, calculates in 2022 dollars as $78.39. For a first grader. All I had to do? Just not destroy the house during those hours. I could destroy at will when I was off the clock.

This was a good deal. I accepted it, and kept my end of the bargain.

So, my first paying gig was to just restrain myself from being an insurance hazard for two weeks, for which I was paid the (2022 equivalent) sum of $783.90.

Tax free, baby.

So, they paid me. I didn’t feel slighted that they put my money into a savings account. But, what to do with all my newfound wealth? I thought about it and decided. About a month later I announced at breakfast, “I think I’m going to move out and get my own place.”

These people had all these stupid rules. It was time to fly free.

There’s nothing sweeter than a baby’s laughter. Except when it’s 3am. And you’re home alone. And you don’t have a baby.

Ma Wilder, again, didn’t react poorly. “Please tell me about your plan.”

I explained to her that I had $783.90, and I was going to go get my own apartment.

“What will you do for food?”

“I have money, $783.90 in 2022 dollars.”

She gently went through what food for a week would cost, as well as rent. She never said I couldn’t move out, but after doing the math, it turned out all the money I had would be gone in a month.

“Well, I guess I’ll stay then,” a pause, “Mom.”

Our Financial System: It Doesn’t Have To Be This Way

“So, I am to receive thirty percent for finance, for legal protection and political influence. Is that what you’re telling me?” – The Godfather

Hunter was so stoned he ate a kid’s meal at McDonald’s® yesterday. The kid’s mom was not happy.

I am a fan of capitalism, mostly. Over time it has proven to be the single best way to have people contribute. It gives them a reason – if they do well, they gain more. By combining lots of people competing fairly, the entire world gets wealthy enough to afford a full tank of gas. How we split it 8 billion ways is up to us, I guess.

It’s simple – with capitalism, people don’t try to get more of the cake, they make the cake bigger. Or they make more cakes. And it’s all voluntary, unless it’s for a gay person. I’ve been told that baking cakes for gay people is the one thing in capitalism that’s not optional.

Capitalism is so excellent that it (along with several thousand nuclear weapons) was the primary weapon that allowed the United States to not become fragmented into places like Collective Farm #1701 in the Nebraska Oblast of the Greater Soviet Union.

I saw a the Davis twins at my high school reunion. Those two sure looked the same!

However, there is a problem with pure capitalism.

Morality, or more specifically, the lack thereof.

I used to be a complete libertarian, and I thought that, generally markets would take care of any imbalances over time. They don’t. What has happened is that the economy has been warped.

When I graduated from college, I didn’t really have the vocabulary to describe the way that I felt about it, so I said, “I really don’t want to work for a financial company, I want to work for a company that makes something.” At 21, that was about all I could come up with to describe it.

Thankfully, I’ve spent more time out in the world and have come to understand what I was trying to say so inelegantly back when I was young. Here’s what I’d say today: “I don’t want to work for a company that’s a vampire leaching off the economy by providing nothing.”

Still better than Goldman Sachs®.

And that’s what a lot of the economy of the country has become. It’s led by companies that don’t fundamentally produce anything. Black Rock® financing private investors who bought hundreds of thousands of houses across the country is a great example of this. Why? To turn renters into profit centers.

They were creating no value for society, instead their entire idea was to turn a necessity – a place to live – into a profit center and create no value in doing so. And that’s the segment of society that’s increased – finance, real estate, and insurance. We make less stuff, but spend more time and effort on the segments of society that only leach off the cake, not make it bigger.

I hear the Vatican started an online bank. They call it Pa-Pal®.

I won’t argue that banking isn’t important as a way to store and fund money, but banking isn’t the purpose of the system. Banking, insurance and real estate are services to make food, to make cars, to make radios, to make planes, to make movies, and to make plants that make PEZ® dispensers.

Why is it like this?

The short answer is: because we let it be like this.

The long answer is that, since they had lots of money, they bought enough bureaucrats and legislators and judges that they changed all the rules of the game in their favor. And we let them do it.

The good news is that it wasn’t always like this. And there’s no reason that it has to be like this.

Now, I’ve seen plenty of blogs go off the rails when the writer comes up with a complex system that will be the one and only true system that will get the world out of difficulty. Uh-uh. Not this guy.

But throwing light on the problem is important, because after the system collapses (and it is collapsing) we should recognize the reason that it is collapsing and not let it get back like this again. Ever.

The signs are clear. Look at Boeing® – offshoring an entire industry to teach China how to make planes so China could learn to make planes so they could . . . make planes. I’m not sure exactly what Boeing™ makes anymore, but when they decided that having everyone else make all the parts instead of them was a good idea, they ceased to be a plane maker and began to be . . . a vampire.

Looks like Boeing® hired the Wrong Brothers?

Boeing© isn’t all the way there, but you can see it headed that way. They want the profits without making the plane. They have ceased to be a plane maker, and will take any profit that they can at any time. In a search for profits, they have lost their sense of self.

I believe there’s an old statement that covers this situation very well – “For what shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” And I think that particular quote covers a lot of the issues that we have as a country right now.

So, I guess if we have a vampire problem, we have a lot at stake.

Mr. Jones And The Lies Of Communism (And Communist Tools)

“Good morning. My name is President Taft and this is my brother-in-law Lee Harvey Oswald. This is the 35th season of our Oscar-winning radio series Prune Farming in the Ukraine.” – Penn and Teller

What sound did Stalin make when he drank water? GULAG, GULAG, GULAG

Some subjects for these columns seem to select themselves. An example is today’s topic – the movie Mr. Jones. Mr. Jones came out in 2019, and I had never heard of it until the screen saver on my television said I could watch it for free even though it did not feature James Spader. Or was that why it was free, because it was Spader-less?

I was already familiar with the titular (12-year-old me snickered) character of Gareth Jones. I was actually sort of shocked that this film was made. It was released in 2019, and is a very anti-communist film, showing that the Soviet Union was totalitarian and homicidal in a way only exceeded during Mao’s China in the twentieth century. The fact that anyone was putting money down to fund a film, especially in 2019, that was this anti-communist surprised me.

The subject of the film is Gareth Jones’ discovery and reporting of the Holodomor. I know that many of you are already familiar with the Holodomor, but a brief recap is required for context for those that aren’t familiar with it. The Holodomor was, essentially, the Soviet government giving the farmers of the Soviet Union a “going out of business” sign so he could create collectivized agriculture.

No Leftist idea is so bad that Justin won’t try it again.

Lenin had tried to corral the farmers, but he discovered fairly quickly that the Revolution doesn’t run on good intentions, and had to back off. Farmers were allowed to farm so that the Revolution could be fed. But after Lenin died, Stalin took over and decided to make a “kinder, gentler” nation.

Just kidding. Stalin started purging right and left. And as poor as everyone in the Soviet Union was, a hardscrabble farmer (wink) that made a few extra bushels of grain was considered very wealthy. They called them Kulaks. Who was a Kulak? Well, anyone with just a little more than the average peasant.

So, Stalin decided to go to war against his own people. He mobilized factory workers, gave them guns, and sent them out to root out the real enemies of the revolution. Keep this in mind when you hear about the war on farmers in Canada or the war on farmers in the Netherlands.

How does one get rid of millions of farmers but not starve the rest of the nation? Take all of the food the farmers have. All of the food. From all of the farmers. Then let them die.

I guess they won’t be having any Holland Oats anytime soon.

Yup, that was it. That was the strategy. And it worked. Bodies were collected on a regular basis, and all across the Soviet Union, millions died. Many were shipped off to the GULAG system, too. This is yet another reason the Soviet Union wasn’t the inspiration for many theme parks.

This is where Gareth Jones comes in – he was a British writer/reporter who talked himself into the Soviet Union, and talked himself into visiting the Soviet countryside, specifically in the Ukraine. What he saw wasn’t good – it was exactly the mass starvation that I wrote about in the paragraph above. If only he had read that, he could have saved himself some time and a whole lot of trouble.

But the main reason we know about the Holodomor is that Gareth Jones wrote about it. He told the outside world, so we owe him. The movie, Mr. Jones, depicts this journey across the Ukraine in a pretty unfaithful way – meant to shock the viewer, and also meant to particularly show that Ukraine was the victim. In reality, Ukraine was hit particularly badly, but millions of farmers across the U.S.S.R. outside of the Ukraine were also treated in a similar fashion.

But it will be different this time, right?

That’s one of the beefs that the Jones family had with the film – Jones never ate nor witnessed the items on the menu that the film depicts. They were also a bit miffed that they felt that his memory was used to be anti-Russian, rather than anti-Soviet. You can see a bit more here (LINK) on how the family felt. In one sense, it looks like this movie was made not because of the anti-Soviet theme, but because of the anti-Russian propaganda value. Maybe because of Trump and muh Russia collusion?

Who can say?

But one other thing to note is that the Soviets aren’t the only bad guy – there’s another: Walter Duranty. Walter Duranty is one of the scummiest people to have ever lived. The fact that he enjoyed a life of power and debauchery was only part of it.

For an example of how degenerate Duranty was, he was best buds with Aleister Crowley. They did magic together as well as drug-fueled orgies with participants of all varieties. This, of course, made him the perfect hire for the New York Times©. Duranty wrote such a glowing portrait (“there is no famine or actual starvation nor is there likely to be”) that he received a Pulitzer Prize® for his work denying the Holodomor. Duranty’s writing about the Soviet Union was influential in getting the Soviets accepted and into a cozy sleeping bag with FDR.

Some things never change . . . .

So, given that his hands are stained with the blood of literally millions of farmers, you can understand that this is probably one of the few times this sentence has ever been written in the English language: In retrospect, Duranty’s drug-fueled pederasty might be the nicest line I can write about him. Oh, wait, he’s dead. That’s something positive I can write about this vile leach that stained the lives of millions.

In the movie Mr. Jones, Duranty is depicted as just the depraved greasy worm I sketched above, so it’s got that going for it. And the family of Gareth says they got his character spot-on, that’s two for two of the main cast. Oddly, they have Jones meeting George Orwell, when in fact during all of Gareth Jones’ life Orwell was still an avowed socialist who had yet to become disillusioned by fighting with the commies in the Spanish Civil War and there’s zero evidence the two ever met.

Overall, the movie made $2.8 million at the box office, so unless they made mad bank from Blockbuster™ rentals, they ended up losing lots of cash. Again, it was an art-house anti-commie movie released into the woke world of 2019. What did they expect?

My birds were stuck together. I took them to the vet – he said he couldn’t help – it was toucan fusing.

So, do I recommend it? Dunno. It wasn’t bad. I probably wouldn’t watch it again because it’s a “one-time” movie and did not have James Spader in it.

New Special Hit Single

Forgot to mention! We’re still doing the podcast, and here’s the hit single that’s on it if you don’t have time to listen to the full podcast:

Here’s the full podcast. Every Wednesday (well, most every Wednesday) we’re live at 9pm Eastern at The Mrs.’ channel.

And one more clip:

The Lie of Living Your Best Life (now including cookies)

“Smoking marijuana, eating Cheetos® and masturbating does not constitute plans in my book.” – Breaking Bad

In a constantly downward spiral, Kermit finally found the downside in living his best life.

I thought I’d take a bit of a night off, here’s something that many current readers might not have seen . . . .

A few weeks ago my daughter, Alia S. Wilder was in town. We were in the middle of preparing dinner of steak, steak, and more steak for the grill when I saw Alia diving face first into a plate of cookies.

When she came up for air I asked innocently, “I thought you were on the keto diet?”

I did notice a mood change when I was on the keto diet: I got tired of cheese and my only joy in life consisted of watching television shows about murder.

“No, she said, “I’m living my best life.” I could even hear the italics in her voice. It’s amazing how well font choice carries in my kitchen. I think it’s the tile.

John Wilder: “Umm, what exactly does ‘my best life’ mean?” I thought I could tell by context, but I wanted to give her a chance to explain.

Alia S. Wilder: “It’s living your life by being who you are naturally. It’s doing what you want.”

I slowly shook my head. That’s exactly what I thought it was. Cue volcano erupting:

One of the nice things about being a parent is that you can be honest with your children when they are being utterly foolish. This was one of those times.

My first words were: “You know this is going to go into the blog, right?”

Is this why they hold the neighborhood block party when we leave for vacation?

I then started a tirade. As this was the second time that I’d met her boyfriend, you’d think I’d hold back to give a good impression that I was a nice, genteel father who wears cardigan sweaters and puts on loafers and talks to hand puppets as if they were real. You’d be wrong, and I tried the hand puppet thing, but one of my personalities thought it was creepy. No, Mr. Rogers© wasn’t here that night. I let loose with a full broadside worthy of Nelson’s fleet at Trafalgar.

I was a horrible pirate captain. They told me, “The cannon be ready,” and I responded “are.”

“You realize that’s the single stupidest piece of advice you’ve ever been given, right?” I continued, not even having gotten warmed up yet. “It’s the advice a teenager thinks up in the shower and then considers it a deep thought because, well they’re a teenager in middle school, and middle school age children are the single stupidest subspecies ever set loose on planet Earth.” I paused for breath. You need decent lung capacity if you’re going to go into full rage enhanced by spittle.

I continued. “Why is it stupid? Because people are awful. You’re awful. I’m awful. We have to work each minute to NOT do what we’d like, because what we’d like to do, if left only to our own desires is . . . also awful. You, me, every single one of us.”

I could feel the full rolling boil starting.

“Living my best life is the strategy of a three-year-old that wants to eat an entire box of Oreos® at one sitting and then lie about it and blame the poodle. Living my best life combines all of the worst ideas of abandoning duty, honor, and responsibility in only four words: ‘living my best life.’ Oh, I decided not to work today. I’m living my best life. I decided that I would rather spend my money on avocado-flavored non-fat organic vaping juice rather than baby formula. I’m living my best life. I don’t care if I offended you, I have to speak my truth when living my best life. Oh, I’m sorry Western Civilization, we can’t go back to the Moon and advance the human race to the stars because I’m busy shopping. I’m living my best life.”

What came to my mind during this tirade conversation were the words of the dead French scientist, mathematician, religious philosopher and part-time Uber driver Blaise Pascal:

“Man’s greatness comes from knowing that he is wretched: a tree does not know it is wretched. Thus, it is wretched to know that one is wretched, but there is greatness in knowing that one is wretched.”

In this quote when Pascal wrote “wretched,” he meant, “of inferior quality; bad.”

Follow your nose, it always knows. Specifically all about pressure, mathematics, and designing a computer by the age of 19, in 17^th Century France.

Pascal didn’t think mankind was naturally awful, he knew that mankind was naturally awful: prideful, selfish, lustful, mean, and greedy. I’m not sure how Pascal got that idea, maybe he was picked on about nose size when he was in middle school. But he was correct. We’re inferior. But our greatness comes not from that obvious inferior quality, it comes from knowing that you’re awful, and then not being awful.

If we know that we’re awful, we can do something about it. If we think that being awful is okay, that we can live our best life, then it’s an excuse to be awful. In fact, it’s worse than that. Aleister Crowley wrote, “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law,” which has been appropriated by the Church of Satan® and correctly interpreted to mean . . . do whatever you want to do.

Apparently living your best life allows you to dress like Dr. Evil on a regular basis.

One particular website (not gonna given ‘em a link, they’re the first one listed when you Google® “living my best life”) has a list, which includes the following gems of personally corrosive advice on how to live your best life (note, my comments are in italics):

Do what you want – let your inner three-year-old make all your decisions.
Speak your truth – not the truth, your truth since hearing the actual, real truth from other people might make you sad.
Practice sacred self-love – and everyone should celebrate you for your sacred self-love since you deserve to live your best life because you suffered so much because of your (INSERT VICTIM STATUS QUALIFICATION HERE).

Not all of the advice on the website was horrible, but most of it was shallower than the gene pool that produced Johnny Depp your typical congressman.

So, under this philosophy, if I’m fat, the problem isn’t that I’m fat and should have fewer cookies: the problem is the world is fataphobic.
If I think I’m a cat, the problem isn’t that I’m delusional: the problem is that the world is transspeciesphobic.
If I think that being an American has nothing to do with the values and norms of the last 300 years: the problem is your problem for being tied to the past.

When the cookies ran out, the monster came out.

So, in summary, living your best life is nothing more than permission to be the very worst person you can be. All that being said, Alia S. Wilder really does make some tasty cookies.

The Best Post You’ll Read Today About Almost Anything

“You don’t know what cold is. I once survived an entire week trapped in a Swiss glacier eating nothing but frozen Neanderthal. To this day, I can’t stand the taste of early hominid.” – Futurama

So, after 232 ties in a row . . . Gung decided that “rock beats skull”.

Usually, I write about money and finance and the shenanigans going on in the world now. I thought I’d deviate from that formula for several reasons. First, I’d like to have some good news about the financial world, and that didn’t happen this week, unless Biden had a brief moment of lucidity and finally figured out that the sanctions are actually hurting us more than Russia. (Checks news.) Nope.

Second, on Monday I wrote about collective vengeance. It was, in modern Western Civilization, an anachronism that is rapidly returning. The post talked about how I had grown up in shell where collective punishment simply didn’t exist and that it was rapidly returning.

I’ll note that my youthful innocence on collective punishment didn’t extend forever, but the point of the post was that the Left fed on collective punishment – I might write more about that in the future, since (last time I checked) I still seem to have an infinite amount of words combinations left.

I am, however, very aware that collective punishment was at one time the norm. Reading in the Bible, when the wall of Jericho came down, not a single person was supposed to be left alive, so historically in a story we all know, collective punishment was a thing.

Why don’t the Amish complain when people make fun of them on the Internet? Amish: “What’s an Internet?”

I’ve written about things even farther back in history, and (perhaps) why people are the way they are based on tribe sizes in a theory that I think is entirely unique (read this because it’s awesome) until someone shows me that it was already written about the year I was born. I’m still irritated that Newton figured out F=ma when I was only six. Conversely, wouldn’t it be a hoot if an Internet humorist actually figured out why people are nuts?

Third, this post is really related to Monday’s post, and it shows this: collective punishment may be actively written into our DNA, and only during brief moments of history (as brought about by Western Civilization and its particular individualist elements) is it not the norm.

I’ll start this rather unusual post with a concept that many a familiar with: the Uncanny Valley.

The Uncanny Valley is that weird place that we get when something looks human, but isn’t. An example would be CGI that looks like a human, but there’s something in the CGI that makes us step back because we process the simple equation: it looks a lot like a human, but it’s not human.

Well, it’s nice that the spirit of Yoko lives on. Except this one takes out a monarchy that started in 1066.

Zombies are a perfect example. For me, that idea that something that is so close to human is propelled by an intelligence that is certainly not human is one of the scariest ideas.

Why? Why do things that inhabit the Uncanny Valley between human and observably not-human give us the creeps? The Uncanny Valley implies that at some point in human history, there was something that looked like us, and wasn’t us. It must have been a very, very big deal if tens of thousands of years later it still can inhabit our collective memory and produce a (general) revulsion and fear.

What was it that did that?

I’m sure they had a very complicated order at Starbucks®.

I’m thinking that maybe, just maybe, it was the Neanderthals. This was spurred on by the book Them+Us by Danny Vendramini. He’s got a website here (LINK) and the image of the Neanderthal below is from his site, which he allows based on terms that seem to have disappeared, so, I’m thinking Fair Use covers it all.

I like the book. Spoiler, Them is the Neanderthal, and Us is, well, our ancestors.

He starts the book by attempting to reconstruct what a Neanderthal really looked like. For most of my life, what I’ve seen were the pictures of people who, with just a wee bit of barbering, you could toss into a suit and they’d be at home at the floor of the New York Stock Exchange®.

Vendramini thinks not. First, he thought that they might have been covered with hair. What’s his evidence? The first part of his evidence is that there is no evidence that they could make clothing of anything more than the most basic “throw an animal skin over your shoulders” type. So, how do you keep warm?

Hair. Hair is the norm for mammals in the world, except for people (sorry, Italians). So Danny (sorry, Vendramini is too many letters to type again and again) came to the logical conclusion that, like other primates, Neanderthals inhabiting Europe and the Near East would be quite hairy.

Pretty much no one argues that Neanderthal was about six times as strong as modern man, or even of the beta version of homo sapiens that existed at that time, so about a 431 times stronger than a typical soy-latte-based ambisexual® Leftist.

But Neanderthal wasn’t just strong, he was smart. Neanderthals made things, like spears. Like stone blades. Like stone axes. Hmm, I’m seeing a pattern here. I don’t see any mochachinos.

Based on the size of their eyes, Danny thinks they were huge. What needs huge eyes? Things that hunt in low light. So, Vendramini thinks that Neanderthals might have been low-light, nocturnal predators. What else would low-light nocturnal predators have? An amazing sense of smell, so there’s no reason to have a nose like ours – a nose like a pug.

And eyes? The most efficient eyes for low-light hunting are slit-pupil eyes – like a cat. The brow ridge? It shielded the eyes during the day – and the eyes were much higher than a normal human, like where our forehead is. So, huge eyes in the forehead with slit pupils. Not scary, right?

Okay, I’ve finally found something scarier than my ex-wife.

Oh, every bit of evidence says that Neanderthal ate meat, so he was a carnivore. But he also ate . . . Neanderthals. So, he was a cannibal. Eating puny humans? That’s pretty easy if you’ve eaten Neanderthal. Probably more tender, too.

Neanderthal lived in the forest. Oh the forest, my dear, is lovely, dark and deep . . . . One anthropologist described Neanderthal as this: wolves with knives. So imagine that there are wolves in your neighborhood that are at least six times stronger than Arnold Schwarzenegger at his peak. And they are as smart as a human. And they have knives.

Think that might help you sleep at night?

So, our ancestors, say, 50,000 years ago were wonderfully happy, living in a world where they were the king. It was Eden-like. Garden-like. Hmm.

Anyway, one day they wander across a border and find? Neanderthals that want to eat them. Or, make babies with them. Yup, they could make babies with humans, and between 1-3% of your DNA comes from nocturnal, cannibal, predators, unless your DNA is entirely from Africa.

So, when a Neanderthal group of hunters found a human group, it was the equivalent of a college party: sex and food. I’m not sure what order makes it better.

This, of course, baked our noodles. It made it necessary for us to become smarter. Vendramini suggests that this was the stepping out of the Garden which required us to have the knowledge, skills and brainpower to fight the Neanderthal, to beat them, and to become much better.

Does one hate the stone that hones us? I think not. Note: my beard is better, but my abs need work.

It describes the Uncanny Valley in many respects. What are the myths of our monsters? Werewolves and vampires and cannibals and (Biblically) the Men of Renown (look it up). It also explains our instinctive fear of the dark, where the huge, strong, cannibal near-human that can smell you from two counties over might be hiding waiting to get frisky or to turn you into a snack.

But we fought back. The mark of a conquering civilization is the Y-chromosome, because, well, dudes give that part. As I read it, the Y-chromosome in humanity is, human. In the end, we won. But they changed us even as we eliminated them. It’s likely we did our own collective punishment and killed off all human males that looked too much like the enemy – too Neanderthal. So, yeah, collective punishment.

And this also provides an explanation for the Uncanny Valley, and why it is generally the source of the ultimate horror and fear that humanity feels. But we won.

There’s drinking, fighting, and death and drinking and fighting. I think this is an insurance company’s nightmare.

As Western Civilization fades, the barriers to collective punishment fade as well. So, sleep with one eye open, gripping your pillow tight . . .

And we’ll win again.

Collective Punishment: It’s The Plan Of The Left

“Could be race memory stored in the collective unconscious. I wouldn’t rule out clairvoyance or telepathic contact either.” – Ghostbusters (’84)

Reminder to Leftists: the Geneva Convention is not a checklist.

One of the things that I was raised with was the idea of individual responsibility. That didn’t come from society – it came from Ma and Pa. If I drew on the hardwood floor under the bed in ink I’d blown out of ballpoint pens? Like a dozen ballpoint pens?

It was on me. And when it was found, it was my responsibility to scrub it until the ink came off. I could add in another few dozen things I did, but what parent doesn’t remember coming home and seeing the family photo collection curling up because their six-year-old thought he could make bigger copies by stretching them in water? I mean, it worked in the darkrooms on the TV shows. I mixed in all of the cleaning chemicals under the sink because it seemed odd that the pictures weren’t stretching.

And those are not the worst examples of my behavior – not even close.

I once told a joke about the Hindenburg. It didn’t land well.

For society as well, that seemed to be the rule. While groups might have different attributes, if someone broke a law and was convicted, they didn’t send grandparents and children and uncles and nephews to jail – they sent the guy who broke the law to jail.

Certainly, families may have felt shame, but the person who did the crime did the time.

That is so deeply ingrained in me that it took me quite a while to understand that viewpoint is no longer the default in Western Civilization, but rather it is on its way to becoming a quaint anachronism. What’s replacing it?

Collective guilt. You can see that nearly everywhere, and the 1619 Project®, the BLM™ and reparations movements, anti-Christian movements, and others are proof. Reparations: people who did no wrong paying people who weren’t injured 150 years ago.

When Elizabeth Warren canceled her presidential campaign, it wasn’t the first race she had to leave. (meme not original)

The theory is rather simple – every person related to someone who did something in the past is guilty. The idea is that groups are collectively sinful and must be punished collectively. This is certainly not an idea that is enshrined in the West. Oh, sure, the town of Mudstinklebottom was been put to the torch because the Earl Hootertinkletwerp of Snottlyford was not amused because his trousers weren’t pressed properly. But these examples of collective punishment are rightly viewed as atrocities, not a “how to” guide.

And I wasn’t at a single one of them. And neither were you. As I wrote last week, no one alive should feel even the smallest amount of The Guilt® that is featured on display every day in our world.

But yet, the statue of Thomas Jefferson has to come down because the things he did, which were considered normal back in 1780, are now realized to have been morally abhorrent. The genius of the man, the founding of the University of Virginia, drafting the Declaration of Independence, and inventing sno-cones can’t be thrown aside based on the moral lens of 2022.

I named my daughter after Thomas Jefferson. About 250 years after.

The real idea for the destruction of American (and Western) history loops straight back to the tactic collective punishment. Dismantling the heroes of a civilization, the men and women who saw farther and did more is just part of the punishment – and more on that in a minute.

The Left hates Western Civilization and wants to bring it down. The Guilt is simply one of the tools of the Left, in order to have the battle end even without a fight. It’s demoralization, and it’s part of the playbook. But it is intended on a collective basis. Who is the guilty party? Based on what I know of my readership, if you’re reading this, you can nearly be assured that the coming collective punishment is intended for you. And this collective punishment is indeed a tool of the Left. If you’re not familiar with the Left’s regular use of collective punishment, here’s a taste from your humble author (LINK).

But news of the broom really swept the nation.

Because, as I’ve written before, the aim of the Left is to win before the first battle is joined. To do that, they have to make us hate our past. Why?

In order that the enemy (us) will accept collective guilt. Again, I’m a poor test subject because I feel zero guilt about you can’t effectively punish a people if they have pride in their past, and pride in themselves. If every American was evil, and the country was founded on that evil, then everything the country has done since then must be evil, too, right?

Sadly, there are many Americans who have utterly fallen for this concept. They blame themselves for actions that they have never taken, for thoughts they have never felt, and for crimes that they have never committed. And the Left wants to take down, to erase all of it.

I’m working less at the cat shelter – they reduced meowers.

Why? Because they believe, deeply, in collective guilt, and the West has been tried and convicted as far as they are concerned. The sentence, if they can carry it out, is death. As has been said before, the Left hates you and wants you dead.

Yes, I still believe in individual responsibility and individual guilt – Ma and Pa Wilder certainly taught me that. So I guess most of the Leftists should have individual trials. And individual punishment.

Being Happier: Two Ways

“It’s not the money I’ll miss. It’s just all the stuff.” – The Jerk

What’s the difference between my dog and Amber Heard? My dog has never made a mess on a bed.

Most of the time when people think about being happy, it’s about things that they want to add to their lives. They want to get a new car. To buy a new house. To get a new iPhone®.

That list is mainly about things: stuff. It’s not surprising. $285 billion was spent on advertising in the United States in 2021 (this sounds high to me, but I found it in two different sources). Digital ads alone were over $150 billion of that. And every one of those ad dollars was spent for one reason – to make the person who saw the ad unhappy.

Advertising, to work, has to create enough discontent to make someone pull a wallet out and make a purchase. “Oh, that looks like a great PEZ® dispenser! I’m sad I don’t have it.” And, yet, when I finally get that limited edition Sturmgeschütz (StuG) 40 Ausf. F/8 PEZ® dispenser, I can finally be really happy. Hey, I didn’t choose the StuG life, the StuG life chose me.

Would the StuG have looked better wearing a tank top?

The reality is, though, that it would briefly bring me some joy, and then I’d put it with my Founding Fathers PEZ© dispenser collection that The Mrs. got me for Christmas in 2012, and notice it from time to time. So, in one sense, (some) things that initially bring us joy also just end up cluttering our lives. Oh, I wear my grandfather’s ring daily, but how much do I need to have that Helix® concert t-shirt from 1994?

The purpose of advertising is to make the hollowest promise of all: money for joy. Sure, if I had the choice I’d rather be rich and unhappy than poor and unhappy, because the food is so much better. But unhappy is still unhappy.

Who steals from rich college students to give to poor college students? Ramen Hood.

So, the advertising and “stuff” is a problem. Since I haven’t watched commercial TV in almost three years, most ads I get are fairly poorly targeted online and spur very little discontent, since half the time I’m not even sure what the ad is for anymore. It seems like the current standard for naming companies is to take a noun or verb, mangle it, and add something silly at the end. So when I see an ad for Vomitorius® I have no idea if that’s a food delivery service or a shoe designed specifically for left-handed hermaphrodites.

So, I’m happier here not by addition, but by subtraction. It’s hard to be brought into a state of discontent by ads I never see. Or don’t understand.

What else is making people unhappy?

Another thing that’s driving us nuts is what we’re being sold in popular culture. Popular culture right now seems to be based on some sort of variation on a single, simple theme: if it feels good, do it. And it seems to be getting worse, especially in the last ten or so years.

I got surprised at work by an inspection of the leafy vegetables in the produce department. No one expects the spinach inquisition.

If it feels good, do it is, of course, is a just a version of what Aleister Crowley (a candidate for most unpleasant man, ever) said, “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law.” And Crowley appeared to love the darkest sides of humanity. Heck, Crowley was a person that makes Hillary Clinton look like an amateur when it comes to the evil department.

This philosophy has been the driving force in culture for decades because it’s an easy sale – unlimited pleasure: all you have to do is ignore your values. This idea is implanted deep into the media: songs, movies, television, and even the news. Most of the time we don’t notice it for the same reason a fish doesn’t notice water – it’s all around us.

All of the behaviors that come from Crowley’s statement have had a horrible impact. It turns man from a person that reasons, delays gratification, and looks to a set of enduring values into a creature that is driven by the pleasures of the moment, no matter what form they may take or what consequences that might mean. So, I guess that brings Bill Clinton into the equation, too.

What do you get if you cross Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton? Found in your cell, unresponsive.

Though it might seem like doing whatever we want whenever we want should make people happy, the result is almost always the opposite. True happiness, deep happiness comes from the opposite of the pleasures of the moment.

I’ll give an example: kids.

Kids are awful. They start out as useless blobs of flesh that smell bad. They take too much time. And then it gets worse. The time and emotional investment I have in just my son Pugsley alone has probably cost years of my life. I know it has cost tens of thousands of dollars in food alone, and that was just this week.

And I wouldn’t change any of it, especially now since he’s dropped out of the “being a total tool” phase. Raising kids has been the biggest battle of my life, and has also provided me the biggest rewards and the most happiness.

There is a new workout – you knock on every door in the neighborhood and talk to each neighbor. It’s called, “Jehovah’s Fitness”.

The things that are worthwhile, the things that provide the greatest joy aren’t easy, and you can’t buy them at Amazon®. The important things are difficult. The important things require discipline. The important things don’t happen all at once.

And, generally, the most important things can’t be taken away from you. And no one will remember you for your iPhone©, or your house, or a car.

Well, unless it was a really nice car or house.

Economics In 2022, A Picture Book

“Stay classy, San Diego!” – Anchorman

I think the Chairman of the Federal Reserve® is required by law to drive a Fiat®.

Recently, part of the revolution has been televised . . . the Dutch government has decided that farming is evil because it keeps people from eating bugs and living in the pods: