Making Leftists Radical: Compassion, Internet Cats, and Feminists With No Sense of Humor

“It’s mercy, compassion, and forgiveness I lack.  Not rationality.” – Kill Bill, Volume 1

awake.jpg

That’s awake, not “woke.”

Repost from 2019 . . .

Here’s a fable:

There was a little girl going to school in Japan.  Near her place in the classroom there was a cocoon that the teacher had brought in to illustrate the life cycle of the butterfly, and it was hanging right next to her every day.  For a whole week, nothing had happened, but then she noticed the cocoon shaking.  She could see that the caterpillar had completed its transformation. 

What bothered the girl so very much was that the butterfly was struggling to get out of the cocoon.  Finally, exhausting all of the patience that a seven year old has, she helped the butterfly by ever so gently tearing open the cocoon so it could get free.

To her surprise, rather than flying, the butterfly fell out of the cocoon and onto the floor of the school room.  She gasped.

The teacher walked over and looked at the butterfly helplessly writhing on the floor.  It was clear the butterfly would never be able to fly.

“Did you help the butterfly out of the cocoon?”

The little girl, through eyes that were filling with tears, nodded.

The teacher explained, “It is only through struggling to get out of the cocoon that the butterfly gets enough strength to fly.”

This is one of my favorite stories.  I can’t recall where I originally heard or read it.

I’d often tell that story to people that reported to me when they were facing a particularly difficult time at work.  I’m sure it just made some of them mad – they wanted me to solve their problems.  I refused, perhaps giving them hints on places they should look to find the answer.

One of my goals was to get the work done for the company, sure.  But I also wanted to take the time to get the person developed – for me that was a moral imperative.  My biggest goal was that everyone who reported to me became a more capable person – and I knew that didn’t happen without the struggle.  Oh sure, I could have told Ted where the fire extinguisher was, but that would have deprived him of the struggle to find it.  And one of his eyebrows finally did grow back.

That’s how I mostly have used the story, to show the importance of struggle.  But there’s another and perhaps more central moral to this story:

misplaced compassion kills.

The Mrs. recently found an article that really, for me, answered the question about why the Left is turning so radical, so quickly.  The article is by Zach Goldberg, and you can find it here (LINK), although he takes the data in a different direction than I do for his article.  Goldberg has an interesting Twitter® feed (LINK) as well.  The graphs in this post are mostly from either the article or his Twitter© feed.

It’s always nice when ¡Science!® is able to provide an insight on the problems of the world.  I started with the story about compassion.  When psychologists do studies of Leftists, they find that Leftists score higher in compassion than the norm – a lot higher.  Well, some Leftists.

marx.jpg

Karl Marx had only a very short career as a clown at children’s parties.  After he was fired, he insisted that true children’s parties had never been tried.

Does that mean that people on the Right don’t care?  Not at all.  The data shows that people on the Right give more to charity and also volunteer more hours, so it’s clear that people on the Right care.  But they don’t get all mushy and aren’t dominated by their feelings.

It turns out there are differences as well among Leftists based on race.  One major bias that almost all people from all time have had is in-group preference.  You like your family more than your brother’s family.  You like your cousin better than you like your neighbor.  You like people in your town more than people who live in the next town over – that’s why Friday night high school football games are so big in small towns.

This makes sense at almost every point in history – it’s rare for you to be living in France and think “Wow, that German flag flying the Eiffel Tower is such a neat thing to see.”  In-group bias is normal.  It’s why Americans rooted for team U.S.A. in the Women’s World Cup® even though soccer is a vastly inferior game to tic-tac-toe.

monopoly.jpg

Thankfully I’ve reached the “Dad’s asleep in the recliner” stage when the Monopoly® board comes out.

White leftists, however, have somehow become biased against . . . white people.  It’s like being born a guy and not liking that you were born a guy . . . oh.  Nevermind.

ingroup2.jpg

As you can see, there is exactly one group that detests itself and prefers other groups. 

But this isn’t the norm.  And this isn’t how the Left has been for years.  Data shows quite nicely that they didn’t used to be this way – as late as 2010, 20% of white Leftists thought that increasing border security was a good idea.  2018?  Less than 5%.

It’s clear the Left has become more radical and the Right has (more or less) remained the same.

pew.png

Republicans have stayed pretty steady on the border.  Not so with white liberals.

What happened in 2010?

Twitter® and Facebook©.

facebookleft.jpg

Who would have thought that Leftist extremism starts with Grandma posting cat memes on Facebook®?

The user bases of these social networks took off in 2010.  There is one thing that social networks want – your attention.  They best way to get that attention?  Show you content that creates an emotional response.  Cats and babies are great – they make people laugh and go “aww.”  But to a Leftist, to keep their attention – show them things that create outrage by violating their sense of compassion.

aocsad.jpg

I hear her next initiative will be to forgive all the Electoral College student loan debt.

The Twitter®, Facebook©, and YouTube™ video suggestion algorithms have become the Democrat® brand.  Social media is a particularly useful programming device.  These algorithms are used every day to pull the Left farther Left.  Why does this impact white Leftists in particular?  They spend more time on social media than the rest of the Left.  But they’re enough – white leftists are about 25% of the electorate.  And they do have money.  And they hate the Right.

Through this lens, the reasons for the bans become clear – even though the algorithm mutes voices on the Right, the most effective voices must be silenced.  Arguments counter to the narrative have to be stopped.  As has recently become quite clear – the Left owns social media and will clear out clear, articulate voices on the Right given any excuse.  The chance is too great that these voices will interfere with the programming.  An example:

Portlandia is funny, and there are more bookstore clips that are even funnier – this was just the most “safe for work” one I could find.

Portlandia was a series on IFC® for 8 seasons.  It mocked (fairly gently) the Leftist culture of Portland.  It’s certain that the stars and most of the writers of the show are of the Left.  But the things that the show made fun of can no longer be made fun of.  Feminism was often the butt of good-natured jokes, but the feminist bookstore that several skits were shot in broke ties with the show after they decided they didn’t want to be made fun of – at all.  What had been funny even to the Left in 2010 was by 2016 unacceptable.  Feminism could no longer be a laughing matter, nor could any other Leftist narrative.

In 2019, Portland has lost its sense of humor and replaced it with outrage.  Antifa regularly assembles a mob of hundreds to shut down any speech it disagrees with through violence.  Their compassion drives them to shed blood, but it doesn’t stop there.  This same compassion compels the Left to want to give every illegal alien free health care, and a quick pathway to citizenship.  In turn, that drives the 144,000 illegals to want to come here – and that was just in June of 2019.  That’s a 10,000 person Caravan every other day.

All of this is caused by misplaced compassion, programmed by social media via algorithms.  Certainly it’s all a coincidence, right?  It’s not like large corporations owned and run by Leftists would have a political motive, right?

Aliens: The Fakest Thing Ever?

“Crazy people can be very persuasive.” – The X-Files

Do werewolves live in warehouses?

I’ve enjoyed Scott Adams for years – the first time I saw his strips were on office photocopypasta in the 1990s where his brand of humor really hit home with folks at the place I was working.  So, he’s an awesome cartoonist, and very funny.  We’d say things like, “Dilbert’s just like me!” but then realize that we were in color and three dimensional.

Adams also picked Trump as a walk-in winner in 2016 way ahead of the crowd, but was dead wrong on the ‘Rona and the Vaxx®, so he’s not an oracle or a cult leader.  But he does have interesting thoughts and I like reading him, and his podcast, while not good as mine, seems to have attracted a slightly larger audience.

So, when he tossed these Tweets® (or are they Xeets™ now??) up I thought I’d share them.  Here are the rest:

I’ll admit, I’ve been fascinated by UFOs (the old name before they got fancy and started calling them UAPs) since I was a kid.  I’ve been following the unfolding story since the “Tic-Tac®” videos came out in 2017 because any version of an answer for what was observed was interesting.  Either the United States had amazing tech beyond anything, .gov is faking it, or it was something that fell into that big bucket of “aliens and demons and interdimensional beings – oh, my!”

Scott presents the idea that this subject is being brought up at the very moment that lots (and I mean a record number) of other things are brewing in the news:

  • We live in a nation at the brink of civil conflict,
  • White House Resident Joe Biden is facing a presidential scandal, with amazing evidence, that is the biggest since Watergate,
  • We might be seeing a soft coup against Biden right now as the Left wants to jettison him for someone else,
  • (Not anyone else, since no one wants Kamala),
  • Adding a janitor at Mar-A-Largo© to the list of people who are indicted along with Trump because he helped move boxes (really),
  • Hunter seems to have lost more cocaine,
  • Prices for luxuries like food have jumped, and are set to jump again as the Ukraine Conflict enters day 5,000, and
  • Payments for interest on the national debt are starting to be higher than Johnny Depp.

What’s the difference between Hunter Biden and his prostitutes?  His prostitutes probably pay at least some taxes.

Is there something to distract us from?  Yup.

Everything.

Why?  Because that list above isn’t even close to being complete.

This is the danger.  Scott describes it as a secret war, but I’m not sure that there are even two sides, since the FBI, CIA, and most other (but not all) organizations are tied back to supporting the Left.

I bought my ex a big diamond ring.  She said, “Thanks, but we really need a new car.”  Me:  “But they don’t sell fake cars.”

So, is all this fake, the biggest and fakest thing ever?

I don’t know.  It would make sense that it was.  The Soviets Russians seem to have their “it’s all a lie” face on and China’s doing, well, whatever it is that China does when no one’s watching.  Maybe hate-eating a box of Twinkies®?

And as we see all of the shiny, sparkly news going on, keep in mind the important things – your faith, your family, and your friends.  There’s a lot of news that we get that we simply cannot do anything with, that for many of us is nothing more than a signal of what’s going on in the greater world.

We need to come together, find like-minded folks who share your values, and be ready for the changes that are coming in the world, because if they’re using aliens to distract us, well, they must be very scared indeed.

I’m glad that Hillary didn’t win, because then so many people would have moved to Benghazi, because at least there she’d leave them alone.

Don’t let it make you fret, and certainly don’t let it control your mood.

Because Scott is right from the standpoint that we have to keep living our lives, yet keep an eye out for the real story.

So enjoy that kitten while you can – they grow up so fast.

Don’t Ask Why People Are Poor. Ask Why They’re Wealthy.

“Some actually value wealth of knowledge over material wealth, Harper.” – Andromeda

My butler just quit his job here at my stately home.  He said he refused to be ordered around in that manor.

I find it sort of hilarious that economists spend a lot of time fretting about what causes poverty.  I love economics, but often think that they create pocket universes to study that have no real connection to the here and now.  I think that’s called sniffing their own . . . uh . . . emissions.

But sometimes it’s not just economists who ask the wrong question.  As bad as they are, the worst offenders are politicians.  Let’s start with the dumbest question that has been asked in my lifetime (at least in the United States):

“What causes poverty?”

That’s letting Whoopi Goldberg loose in a chocolate factory stupid.  It doesn’t help the chocolate and leaves Whoopi sticky and needing an insulin shot.

But why is that a stupid question?

Because poverty is the dominant condition of humanity everywhere since we didn’t have two rocks to fight over.  People throughout history have been devastatingly, living in mud hut, sleeping in straw beds filled with more bedbugs than straw.  Mary and Joseph had to walk uphill, both ways, to get to the manger.

That’s a joke that keeps you coming back for myrrh.

Only in rare times, and only for a small percentage of the population of the world have some humans felt prosperity.  Fewer still have felt prosperity for most of their lives.  Fewer still experienced enough wealth in their society for them to think that wealth was normal, and poverty was the exception.  We call them Pampered Coastal Elite Leftists.

Why?  Because every farmer in the Midwest, every rancher in the High Plains, and every shrimper in the Gulf (among many, many others) knows how close they are to failure, and how close poverty is, especially if a free-range Whoopi Goldberg is free to eat and trample their crops.

Ma Wilder was impacted by the Depression (she was a lot older than my biological Mom, I was adopted) to the point that, living up on Wilder Mountain she’d save aluminum foil and old pickle jars and have enough food for six months because, “You just never know when you’ll need it.”  It was kinda cute until she made us re-use Q-Tips®.

The Wolf is always at the door.

I couldn’t find the wolf, which I guess makes it a where-wolf.

So, the question to ask isn’t “what makes people poor”.  We can see that as all the systems around us break down like they are now when morons are at the helm.

We should ask the important question:  “What makes us wealthy?”

That’s a much better question to ask, since LBJ’s War on Poverty has just subsidized being poor and created a permanent underclass of voters for Leftists to farm, dependent on the Left for a constant stream of handouts.  If you were late to Leftist language class, that’s their word for “compassion”.

So, what makes us wealthy?  I can only go from history in those places where the world has deviated from the “nasty, brutish, and short” version of life to that “shining city on the hill”.  What matters?

The first thing that comes to mind is Liberty, tempered with Virtue.

When a kangaroo gets hurt, it requires a hop-eration.

Liberty is important, but Virtue tempers Liberty and creates a boundary, otherwise Opium and Fentanyl Den™ would be the new Waffle House®.  Or is that the existing Waffle House© after 2am?

What Liberty does is provides options, for millions of people to make individual decisions on how to better serve fellow citizens.  Virtue means that they shouldn’t destroy their fellow citizens in the process, since that’s generally bad for business.  I guess that cigarette companies have found that it’s okay if you kill them slowly after decades.

Not only that, it’s regulation.  Who loves regulation?  Big companies.  Regulations make it hard for small companies to start, make it hard for them to compete, but increases their profit margin.  I mean, I would have loved to compete with Pfizer® with my “Super Saline Covid Injection” that didn’t cause myocarditis, but they would probably want to make sure mine was entirely WD-40® free.

Which would still likely have been better for people than the mRNA Vaxx.  But who is counting?  Not the CDC®.

What else?

I hear Senator Mitch McConnell stole my rabbit.  Mitch better have my bunny.

Intelligence.  If you ask ChatGPT® about the correlation between intelligence and national prosperity it blows a fuse.  Bing™ chimes right in:  “There is a correlation between IQ and economic prosperity.  A one point increase in IQ is associate with a 4% increase in welfare for the average country.  High IQ is associated with high per-capita GDP and fast economic growth, as well as more equal income distribution.”

Ouch!  That’ a truth bomb that most folks don’t want to hear.  IQ is not really something that anyone can change for the better.  Sure, I can drink a few shots of Jim Beam® and take mine down, but what I’ve got, is what I’ve got, from birth.

But smart people in an economy can keep a more stable economy, and can better grow a complex economy than a group of people who don’t know what vowels are.  Sure, I’d like to think that groups of dumb people could get together and solve the nuclear fusion problem, but I’ve met dumb people – they can’t figure out how to split a restaurant tab without a knife fight then a follow-up sacrifice of a live chicken to Gorto the Destructor god.

Or I could have just said, “Imagine Haiti” and everyone would know what I meant.

Why is Haiti spelled without an “e”?  Simple.  They hate e.

Again, I’m not blaming Haitians for making Haiti, well, Haiti, but if you want to cry, go look over the difference in income between Haiti and the Dominican Republic.  I’ll save you the time – the Dominican Republic has nine times the per capita income, despite being on the same exact island.  The data I found (on the ‘net, mind you) has the Dominican Republic has an average IQ of 80.  Haiti has an average IQ of 67.

Haiti has an average intellectual capacity (if this data is correct) at the level where Social Security would consider them disabled (on average).

Having great resources?  That doesn’t appear to help.  It’s the System.  It’s the People.  If Hong Kong and Singapore can create wealth out of zero resources in a location that almost anyone in the United States would consider so crowded they’d have to make an appointment to change their mind, it’s not space, it’s not stuff.

We can change our laws to allow more Liberty and increase Virtue and reverse the trends away from the nonsense of the last fifty years that encourage large corporate growth at the expense of the People.

But if we change out our People?

Who are we?  Will we see the continuation of turning our cities into Haiti on the half shell?

Studies of the genetics of dead Romans (LINK) showed that “intelligence increased from the Neolithic Era (Z= -0.77) to the Iron Age (Z= 0.86), declines after the Republic Period and during the Imperial Period (Z= -0.27).”

Why did Rome fall?  Many reasons.  It lost Liberty, it lost Virtue, and it replaced Romans with people who weren’t Romans.

Wonder if we’ll learn this time around?

FBI: Time To Break It Up And Put Them On Trial

“We’re gonna need some more FBI guys, I guess.” – Die Hard

The Mrs. is a lot like an FBI agent.  She never asks a question she doesn’t already know the answer to.

When I was just a wee Wilder, I began to doubt the government.

I was fairly young when I heard about the secret files that J. Edgar kept on powerful people in order so that he could maintain his perch atop the FBI® that he had created.  Hoover had spent decades developing not only a United States Police Force, but the aptly-named Hoover sucked up all the data on people that he could.  Hoover likely gave favors to hundreds of people by not sharing their dirty secrets so that he could maintain his perch.  It was so bad that I think Hoover even invented the Memory Foam® mattress so he could blackmail people.

Hoover also was a genius at self-promotion.  He made the “G-Men” a meme in the 1930s, trying to set up a propaganda campaign to convince the American public that the FBI®, instead of being an unnecessary internal police and propaganda forum, was instead just like Superman™ – the paragon of truth, justice, and the American way®.  Oddly, both of those ideas are fiction.

Superman® challenged Chuck Norris to a fight.  Loser had to wear their underwear on the outside.

Instead, the agents have spent their time illegally wiretapping (over 7,000 times by 1985, who knows how many more now) American civilians.  The FBI© was more than happy to also jump in and get involved in:

  • the ATF© created quagmire in Waco,
  • entrapment of the innocent Randy Weaver at Ruby Ridge and the murder of several people in his family,
  • failure to investigate the massive Chinese investments in financing Bill Clinton in 1996 (ever wonder how they got all that access??),
  • having an agent (Robert Hanssen) who was utterly in the pocket of the Soviets and, later, Russia,
  • editing Wikipedia® to make the FBI™ look better,
  • covering-up the Hillary Clinton® e-mail scandal,
  • warrants to tap Trump’s campaign,
  • Andrew McCabe,
  • Pete Strzok, who never should have gotten a clearance based on the number of consecutive consonants in his last name without a vowel,
  • using personal data (DMV photos) for a vast database,
  • “losing” Hunter Biden’s laptop,
  • despite having certainty that the Hunter Biden laptop data was 100% real, contained evidence of multiple crimes, and misled and intentionally tried to suppress laptop information by lying that it was hacked, despite knowing that it wasn’t.

Everything in italics above is from the last 10 years.  This is another reason not to trust Italians, I guess.  But in the last decade it’s almost all extremely partisan in nature, showing that the FBI™ could probably just be renamed the Grand Enforcement, Support, Tyranny and Police Organization (GESTaPO) of the Democratic Party.  As the Leftists keep whining, they want to safeguard “Our Democracy”.  Sounds very good until you being to understand that “Our” doesn’t include you or me.

In a moment of clarity, the FBI decided to dedicate themselves to the mission of fighting crime.  Just kidding.

I do know that FBI® has done some good things in the past, especially when it came to rooting out commies after World War II.  Say what you want about Hoover, but he did hate commies.  But as it stands here in 2023, the FBI© has become a liability for anyone who is actually interested in freedom.

The problem comes from breaking the Constitution.  The idea of Federalism is that we don’t have parallel laws, we have a single set of laws.  If the state regulates insurance or regulates mustache length, why should the Feds do it, too?  Well, what about kidnapping?  That’s one that can cross state lines, right?

The Lindbergh kidnapping case led to a law that let the FBI® look into kidnappings.

Did you know you can fit 34 bananas in a kangaroo pouch?  Also?  I have a lifetime ban from the zoo.

The big idea was to look at crimes and figure out how to get involved.  It turns out, the Federal government which was intentionally small because the Founding Fathers mainly just wanted to be left alone to mostly do what they wanted, as long as it didn’t violate state, county or city law.  Federal law?  There were a few back in the day (see:  Whiskey Rebellion) but most laws were local.  Murder someone and have it be a Federal issue?

Not going to happen.

Well, back in 1787 it wasn’t going to happen.  But after decades of creeping laws encouraged by propaganda, the FBI™ only strengthened with time.  Like a camel with a nose under the tent, the FBI© now looks into (spins wheel) things they don’t like (not illegal things, mind you, just things the FBI© didn’t like) said on the Internet.

My puns aren’t listed as a war crime.  Yet.

The last example is real – the FBI worked with social networks and Internet companies to stop the spread of information that would be damaging to the Democratic party.

The FBI® is now a fully partisan appendage of state power.  It always existed to support itself, but now it explicitly exists to support parties and politicians instead of the American people.

The fact that this doesn’t surprise anyone is perhaps the most telling thing about where we are as a people.  The FBI™ is shown to be institutionally corrupt at the highest and lowest levels and (probably) irretrievably partisan for the Left and . . . no one is surprised.

Hmm, wonder why I’m getting all these hits from Washington and Langley?

Neil Armstrong’s Secret Moon Diary, Revealed at Last

“The Moon Unit will be divided into two divisions:  Moon Unit Alpha and Moon Unit Zappa.” – Austin Powers:  The Spy Who Shagged Me

There’s always that one kid who won’t smile in the team picture.

(Repost from 2019)

I was at a garage sale the other day when I came across a small leather-bound journal in a box filled with Tupperware®.  Embossed on the worn cover was a now faded and flecked NASA logo that had once been a solid, shiny gold.  In the lower right-hand corner I noticed, so faded they were barely visible, two initials:  N.A.  I flipped through and saw page after page of journal entries in what I assumed to be Neil Armstrong’s printed writing.  I quickly paid the $2.50 price on the orange sticker on the book.

Here are the journal entries:

7/14/69, 21:00:00 GMT

Countdown begins.  I will admit to being a bit excited.  A rocket launch is never a routine event.  They’ve kept us busy though, re-practicing procedures, re-reviewing maps of the Sea of Tranquility, and, for Buzz Aldrin, eating meals consisting entirely of re-fried beans.  He says it’s for luck.  Michael Collins continues to be . . . Michael Collins.  I’m not sure I’ve ever seen him smile.  Or blink.

7/16/69, 07:22:15 GMT

Last shower, shave and breakfast.  Collins doesn’t eat anything, stares blankly ahead – I guess that’s the way he deals with stress.  Buzz had 16 cups of coffee – I counted them – and about thirty eggs.  “For luck.”

two.jpg

Fun fact:  your car insurance may cover you if you’ve got a rental, but generally not if you leave the United States.

7/16/69, 13:00:00 GMT

Ignition of the main engines, then 17 long seconds later, liftoff as the Saturn V slowly moves past the tower.  The first stage burns for three minutes, total, and then stage two kicks in after a brief lull, and burns for nearly six minutes.  Two minutes later, we’re in orbit.  All of this is exactly as planned, exactly as written down in the procedures.  Eleven minutes for Apollo 11 to enter orbit.  That’s got to be a good omen.

For the first time in the mission, we’ve got some time to kill.  I can’t stop smiling.  Collins continues to stare directly ahead.  “Mike, are you doing okay?”

He slowly turned his head towards me:  “All of my systems are operating at nominal levels.”  He then turned his head back towards the controls.

Does he blink?  I’m interrupted by groaning coming from Buzz.

“Oh, man, I’m hurting.  I didn’t think about the pressure differential.”  He’s holding his stomach.

The pressure inside the Apollo Command Module, Columbia, is only 5psi, or the pressure at the top of Mount Everest.  At sea level on Earth, the pressure is 15psi, or three times as much.  We don’t pass out, because the atmosphere is 100% oxygen.

Apparently the food that Buzz ate is causing him discomfort.  A minute later, Buzz sighs.

It smells horrible.  I said, “Oh, Buzz, how could you?”  My eyes are watering.  Eggs and beans.  The smell is nearly incapacitating.

Even Collins jumped in, “My nasal sensors detect a significant increase in organic gasses in the atmosphere.”

three.jpg

Collins was rechargeable, thankfully.

Mission Control:  “Apollo, are you alright up there?  We have just monitored a significant increase in methane in the cabin?  If this keeps up, your atmosphere will become explosive.  Do you have a situation?”

Buzz sighs again.

7/16/69, 16:16:16 GMT

Translunar injection burn started – that’s the boost that gets us to the Moon.  Six minutes later, we’re on the way.  Thankfully Buzz’s extravehicular emissions end about an hour later and the atmospheric scrubbers manage to keep the atmosphere safe until Buzz is finished.

7/16/69, 16:56:03 GMT

While we’re on the way, it’s time to dock with the Lunar Module.  It’s in that last stage that boosted us to the Moon.  Buzz then gets an idea.

“Hey, let’s change the name of the Lunar Module from Eagle to something else.  How about we name it something funny, like Soviets Suck?”

I’m against this.  “Buzz . . . we can’t do that.  NASA already has the t-shirts printed.”

Buzz continues, “Okay, let’s vote on it.  All in favor?”  Only Buzz raised his hand.

Collins added, still staring straight ahead:  “This violates mission parameters.”

7/17/69, 00:04:00 GMT

We go on television four times over the next two days.  Collins follows the NASA script exactly, word for word.  Aldrin brings up his new product, Aldrin’s Hair Care for Men®, along with Aldrin Cola© and Aldrin Paste™, which I believe to either be toothpaste or silverware polish.  I think it must be toothpaste because he says it’s perfect for astronauts – “it’s zero cavity.”  NASA has a private radio conversation with him after the first time he promotes his products.

four.jpg

The long distance rates shut that particular business down.

We can hear his side of the conversation:  “What are you going to do, send NASA police up here and put me in NASA jail?  Ha!”

It’s about this point that Buzz starts to try to read over my shoulder as I write in this journal.  He pretends he’s not looking when I catch him.

7/19/69, 17:27:47 GMT

Lunar orbit.  We’ll spend about a day here while we get ready to go down to the Moon.  I’m starting to get a little irritated with Aldrin.  First, there’s the humming.  He won’t stop humming the theme to the Wild, Wild West®.  Then, there’s his ear hair.  Doesn’t he know that it’s there?  It’s this one, long, 2 inch hair coming out of his ear.

If that wasn’t bad enough, I swear I hear a faint whirring, as if from small electric motors and gears from Collins during sleep period.  Maybe it’s the space ship.  I hope it’s the space ship.

7/20/69, 17:44:00 GMT

Lunar Module undocked.  When we said goodbye to Collins, Buzz made a joke, “Hey, don’t go out joyriding while we’re gone!”  Collins said, “No.  I will be in rest mode while you are gone to conserve supplies.”  Come to think of it, I haven’t seen Michael eat during the trip so far.

7/20/69, 20:17:39 GMT

The Soviets Suck Eagle has landed!  This is the first gravity we’ve had in days.  Aldrin immediately takes the opportunity to, umm, do things that are easier in gravity.  The Lunar Module doesn’t have a vent fan, but we will dump the atmosphere when it’s time for our EVA.  Which can’t come soon enough.

7/21/69, 02:56:15 GMT

First step on the Moon!  On one hand, it’s pretty exciting.  On the other, the responsibility is pretty big.  Buzz follows behind me after about twenty minutes.  He’s sulking – we rock-paper-scissored for the chance to go first, and he lost.  He always, and I mean always throws rock.  Speaking of which, it’s time to collect a few.

five

Heck, we can’t even do it since we’ve started using the metric system a little.    

7/21/69, 05:11:13 GMT

The walk on the Moon is complete.  We’re supposed to sleep, but we’re on the Moon.  Buzz tries to tell spooky stories, but I’ve heard the one about the hook on the spaceship door before.  He tries to make it scarier by thumping on the wall of the Soviets Suck Eagle.  I remind him that even though the wall is supposed to be tougher than a steel beer can, we left the duct tape on Columbia.

six.jpg

Thankfully we were AAA members.

We’re supposed to sleep.  Aldrin is laying down on the floor, and I’m propped up on the ascent engine cover.  Not really sleeping, neither is Buzz.  Finally Buzz stops humming the Wild Wild West® theme, only to start humming “In the Year 2525.”  This is not much better.

This was the number one song as Apollo 11 lifted off.  Even the Moon wasn’t far enough away to escape it.

“Neil, we need women astronauts.”

“Why, Buzz?”

“Those sandwiches aren’t going to make themselves.”

He’s not done.

“The next time I dump a girl, I know what I’m gonna say.”

“What, Buzz?”

“I need more space.”

Neither of us sleep at all that night, though I do come to the conclusion that there is no jurisdiction that I could be convicted in if I were to kill Buzz.

armstrong2.jpg

Yeah, I know.  I’m mad, too.

7/21/69, 17:54:00 GMT

Liftoff from the Moon!  Heading home.

eight.jpg

“No, you’re upside down.”

7/21/69, 21:35:00 GMT

We’ve docked with the Columbia.  As we open the hatch we see that Michael Collins is in the same exact position that he was when we left.  It was as if he’d never moved.

“Welcome back, fellow humans.  Was your excursion enjoyable?”

Buzz responded, “It was like any spacewalk, Collins.  No pressure.  Get it?  No pressure!”

Collins stared blankly and then said, “I am not programmed to respond in that area.”

Getting back into the Columbia was pretty rough.  It smelled like swamp and wet dog, and that was after Buzz had already been gone a day.  Ugh.  Why did Aldrin choose so many space tacos and burritos for dinner?

7/22/69, 04:55:42 GMT

We fire our engine to return to Earth.  Two and a half days to home.  Did Aldrin really order refried beans with every meal?

nine.jpg

If I my rice is too dry, do I put it in a bag of cellphones?

7/24/69, 16:50:35 GMT

Splashdown.  I never thought that smelling air would be so wonderful.  I couldn’t wait to open the hatch to the Columbia.  A deep breath with 100% less Aldrin.

7/24/69, 19:58:00 GMT

In quarantine – Collins, Aldrin and I are stuck here so we don’t start an epidemic of space pox.  I can certainly understand why we would want to quarantine aliens so they didn’t bring in epidemics of disease.

ten.jpg

There was a two-drink minimum.

8/10/69, 20:00:00 GMT

Release from quarantine.  I’m outta here.  Maybe I shouldn’t share this journal, after all.  Perhaps it’s best if history remembers the official story . . . .

eleven.jpg

100% heroes.

Okay, yes, this was parody, or at least that’s what my law firm, Dewy, Cheatum and Howe suggests I say.  Outside of my supposition that Michael Collins is really a robot, none of this is true.  The Apollo astronauts represented the best of us in our nation at the time, men able to go into space, yet with enough humility to understand that their achievement was made possible by 400,000 other Americans working together to design everything from their underwear to the F-1 engines of the Saturn V to the food that they’d eat during the three weeks they spent in quarantine after returning to Earth.

An aside, they really did have problems with bad smells and space gas.  NASA even calculated to see if the gas would build up enough methane to cause the ship to explode.

How Feminism Is Destroying The West, One Virgin At A Time

“Wait a minute. Connie Swail? Don’t you mean The Virgin Connie Swail?” – Dragnet (1987)

I slept with a rich girl who was a bit of a tramp once.  Got lobsters.

I’ve had several posts about how sex and economics are intertwined more tightly than a bachelor weekend at Bill Clinton’s place.  It is one of the more misunderstood parts of what is slowly destroying the family in the West.  This, in turn, will gradually destroy the economics of the West.  Without the culture of the West, the West effectively disappears.

This post will be pretty heavy on pictures and memes, almost all of which are as-found.

Let’s take a step back to 1776.  I would love to do that in reality, and (in future posts) we’ll look to see how close we are to that.  But back to the people that were there the first time.  They were, mostly, pretty young.  Sure, there were old dogs like Ben Franklin, but Jefferson was only 33.  Madison, who would steer the Constitution to completion just over a decade later, was only 25.

Man, John Marshall must have had a hard 20 years on him.

Men were young (even though, yes, the paintings above weren’t done in 1776), yet doing amazing and important things.  George Washington was 57 years old at his inauguration, which is astonishing since our likely presidential candidates in 2024 will be a combined 741 years old.

Back then, most men could find a woman and get married, sometimes once or twice (when wife 1.0 died in childbirth).  This led to a certain stability, combined with the family economic structure.  In this case, most families were Corporate Families – everybody worked, and everybody pitched in to keep things going.  The reason that schools had spring breaks wasn’t to go to drink tequila in Cancun and go “woo” but to help plant.  Summers were off to work the farm.  And fall breaks were necessary for the harvest.

Kids were small farm implements, which is why families had lots of them.  Divorces:  uncommon.  Religion:  common. 

Sadly, not a bikini graph.

In my lifetime, the Wilder Family has generally always existed in the tan area, including great-grandparents with a male breadwinner, though Great-grandpa and great-grandma McWilder ran an inn near a railroad where they only rarely killed and ate unsuspecting guests.

The golden age of the Male Breadwinner model was between 1900 and somewhere between 1960 and 1970.  I’d note that around 1920 when women got the right to vote that the decline in Male Bread started, though it really began in earnest at the Great Depression.

At least Canada knows the score.

During World War II, there was a need for female labor as many men were given multi-year European and Pacific Island vacations. When the war was over, the decline continued at the same pace as the dual income model became the norm.

Until feminism and Leftism infected society at large leading to the steepest decline in stable family economic structures.  This predated the economic decline of the United States, which I date to 1970-1973.  Gee, I wonder if they could be related?

Now, Dual-Earner is the predominant economic model, with Female Breadwinner starting to make itself known.

New York Times Headline, 2025:  Fathers’ Day:  Women and Minorities Most Impacted.

Are there any economic or societal consequences to this change in the economic composition of the family?  Why, yes.  It’s killing society.  It’s killing the kids.

The kids even have a name for it:  No Girlfriend, No Work.  There are other names, such as No Heir, No Work.  It seems that young men have become utterly uninvested in society because they don’t have a girlfriend, nor the prospects of one.  Things like Tinder® haven’t helped.  As noted below, one young man was on Tinder® 3 and a half years.  Nearly 40,000 swipes.  2 matches.  Zero dates.

What?  What’s going on?

In their youth, women are all fighting over the smallest number of men, the 9’s and 10’s.  Since on a slow night, a 9 man will hook up with a 5, the 5 now thinks she’s worthy of at least a 9.  Consider a 5 man?

No way.

This is not unique.  This is not cultural.  This is built into the innate preference of women to date up for offspring, and men to create as many offspring as they can.  Here’s an example out of China (LINK) where an (American) teacher gave varying treats to a mixed class of boys and girls.  On the first day, the girls got to pick first, and picked the best treats.  The girls shared only with the two most popular boys, ignoring all of the rest.  On the second day, the boys got to pick first, randomly.  The treats were randomly distributed among the boys, so the girls interacted with all of the boys and everyone was happier.

When women pick, the distribution is (at least) skewed like the graph below, if not more skewed.

Most 22-year-old girls can have an 8+, if it’s 2am and the 8+ is drunk enough.

What are the results?  Virginity in boys (not girls) is rising.  Dating is going down among people who should definitely be dating.

As difficult as that is for guys, women use it as a golden ticket (again, in their early 20s) for fun and prizes:

But when these same women hit their thirties, the game is over.  The 9s and 10s are either married to 9s and 10s, or they’re dating 22-year-olds.  Just ask Leonardo DiCaprio.

Leo’s max age for dating is 25.  And he’ll get 25-year-old 9s and 10s until he’s 75.  Look at Al Pacino, who can barely walk:

I’m sure they’re super compatible, since she was born when he was only 53. 

The woman who was in dozens if not hundreds of relationships in her 20s with the hottest of men will only settle in her mid to late thirties with a man who meets her qualifications.  Those men who would have met those qualifications, being fit, making great money?

They’re married.  They have kids, and that 5 (or less than 5) would rather be a drunken wine aunt then settle.  Women use youth, beauty, and relative chastity to capture worthy men.  If those are wasted on huge numbers of Chads?  Off to the wine and cat farm with an empty womb.  And the military will fight for that “right”, too.

I’m old enough to remember when the military was supposed to kill foreign enemies, not American babies.

Just like most things, this has a very, very simple solution.  To be clear, the solution will be implemented when the circumstances require it.  Oddly, the women will be happier, too.  And we can finally stop listening to women complain about body shaming.

Welcome To The Brave, New, Military

“Well, I’m sorry if you heard “Disneyland,” but I distinctly said, “military school.” – The Simpsons

Which historical period has the nicest shirts?  The Iron Age.

The primary factor in the success of any military organization is the quality of the people who run it and lead it.  Over the course of only five years, the level of trust in the United States military has dropped from 70% to less than half.  If the military was composed entirely women, I guess they could get divorced again and get the other half.

Why?

There are multiple reasons.  The first is that the Right has generally been more supportive of the military.  This was because the commies hated the military in the 1960s because it was stopping the worldwide spread of communism.  This resulted in a visceral and continual hate of the Left for all things .mil.  And, not everyone hates all of the Leftists.  Heck, I haven’t met all of them yet.

With an all-volunteer force after the draft ended, the sorting primarily drew two types of people – those that wanted to serve with honor and those that didn’t have any other place to go.  The sorting made a military that was strongly but not uniformly on the Right – 36% of post 9/11 vets are on the Right per a 2012 Pew® survey, and just 21% on the Left.

What did the Roman say when his ex was eaten by a lion?  Gladiator.

That leaves a big chunk in the middle, but is considerably more Right than society as a whole – at that time 34% of the general public described themselves as Democrats and 23% Republican.  The military has been (at least in America) a place where the service was apolitical, but the sense was on the Right.

In 2018 the numbers had gotten even larger, according to the Military Times® 45% of troops supported Republicans, and 28% supported Democrats.  In a 2015 survey from the Washington Post©, the Marines and the Air Force were apparently significantly more on the Right (at that time) than the Army or Navy.

I’m thinking all that is changing, and rapidly.  Weirdly, the more competent a person is, the more they tend to have Right-leaning views.  The fewer mental illnesses?  Again, the more Right-leaning.  And you’d have to be both crazy and incompetent to join the military in 2023.

Let me explain . . . .

I recall a quote from the late actor Ron Silver when he was at the Clinton inauguration back in 1992.  He saw the jets flying over and his visceral reaction was anger.  He hated the military.  But, he said, “I realized that those were our jets now.”

Ron used to live a hand-to-mouth existence.  Then someone told him about silverware.

When the Left says “Our Democracy” they mean just that, “Ours” as in it belongs to the Left.  Any outcome that doesn’t favor Leftists isn’t democracy by their definition.

I took The Boy on a tour of several colleges, including one of the academies.  I think he had the chops to get in and succeed.  He looked around and decided to go to Midwestia State.  The scholarship was pretty good, but he was vaguely concerned about the academy.  He didn’t explain why.

After the aftermath of COVID where students were being kicked out of the academies if they didn’t have the proper vaccination, well, I could see he made the right choice.  I’ve also seen briefing papers, PowerPoints®, and pictures that make it clear that .mil is now becoming thoroughly woke.

When the Right is in charge, the military is what it is meant for:  a tool to be used in war to kill people and break things, or help in extraordinary crisis like a hurricane or tsunami.  To the Right, the military not meant to be a social conditioning program to spout propaganda to the American people or the soldiers themselves.  Why do you think the Obama administration made it a point to purge hundreds of senior officers?  Because it was a fashion show?

Well, to be fair he’s also probably a Vice Admiral.

But the primary purpose of the military to the Left is the same as the purpose of anything to the Left.  Just like “Our” Democracy has nothing to do with you or me, the major mission of any FedGov body is to follow the ideology of the Left, secure power for the Left, and indoctrinate for the Left.

We’ve seen that with the absurdity of the gymnastics the FBI® and the DOJ™ have been doing to keep Hunter Biden out of the slammer for things that would put mere mortals like us into a Federal penitentiary for years, their working to control what ideas you can see, and their unswerving desire to disarm the public that they’re supposed to be serving.

But back to the military.  Recruiting is down, only 75% of recruits can make it out of a basic training and the various services have started “pre-basic” to take marginal candidates and help them do things like get in moderately decent shape or pass the ASVAB.  It’s the second part that’s scary – the last time FedGov lowered mental standards in the 1960s, they found that McNamara’s Morons they died at triple the rate of qualified soldiers, and took many of their fellow soldiers with them.

Forrest Gump wasn’t entirely fictional, but in reality he was the one who generally got Lt. Dan blown up.

I hear his password is 1Forrest1.

80% of people who sign up for the armed forces are from families that have members who served in the armed forces.  Those same relatives are now telling the kids to not sign up.  They’re not.  Despite more than doubling the pool of recruits by resetting the moral, mental, physical, and virtue requirements for admission to “breathing” because the numbers are collapsing.

It will get worse from here.

The systems and wonder weapons that the United States has collectively bet on are complicated.  They require tough, strong, motivated troops to use them properly and they have to work together – it’s not a game of Call of Warcraft™ or Grand Theft Duty©.

As our Navy ships run into each other and kill sailors because, seriously, the female officer wasn’t on speaking terms with another female aboard the urine and trash-bottle filled command center.  I’m not making this up (LINK).

“Well she needs to apologize first.”

Thankfully, we’ll never need a functioning military and can just get by with an indoctrination and jobs program.

Wait, did someone in Rome say that, too?

What Wal-Mart Taught Me About Being Happy

“Dredd, there’s no way in.  Are you even listening to me?  We can’t just knock on the wall and say “Hello, Cursed Earth Pizza”.” – Judge Dredd

If I had a nickel for every time I’d been cursed by a one-eyed Romanian gypsy after midnight at a 7-11®, I’d have two nickels.  That isn’t a lot of money, but still weird that it happened twice.

I remember when we lived in Houston, we went shopping in Wal-Mart®.  Once.  We walked into the store and it was simply depressing.  Not a person in the place seemed happy to be there.  The clerks at checkout seemed to be quite angry, to the point where I wondered if the store’s policy required them to rub six tablespoons of Frank’s Red Hot® on their genitals before each shift.

It also showed on the shelves:  towels, instead of being neatly stacked, were on the shelves in a random and sloppy way.  There was residual trash in the shopping cart that we selected.  Why not pick a different cart?  Do I have a fetish for pushing trash around in a shopping cart?  No, there was some sort of trash in each cart.  I chose one, on purpose, that didn’t have liquid-y trash in it.

When my dog is cold, is he a chilly dog?

As is recall (and it’s been nearly two decades ago now) we were there to buy something kid-related that the store we normally shopped at didn’t have, so we had to trek all of the way to the back of the store to see the most random assortment of mis-stocked shelves that made me wonder if this Wal-Mart© had a store policy against hiring anyone with OCD.

I seem to recall we did buy something, and quickly left.

We never went back.  The store wasn’t in a bad section of town, but it seemed oddly . . . cursed.  It’s like they built the whole store over the pit where the hospital used to bury all the severed limbs that they amputated when the leeches and bloodletting didn’t work.

I’ve thought about that Wal-Mart© more than the one time I visited it.  The place seemed so . . . off it’s hard to describe.  It just made me want to leave that store faster than the Secret Service closes an investigation into exactly whose cocaine was in the White House.

After moving to Modern Mayberry, the experiences in Wal-Mart® was drastically different.  It’s a small detail, but when I go in there, the towels are always neatly folded and stacked.  There is no, and I mean zero trash in the carts and the floors are always entirely spotless.

Where’s Arnold’s favorite spot in a Wal-Mart™?  Aisle B.  Back.

And the people who shop there and the employees who work there seem happier.  Sure, some of the employees grumbled, but they grumble at me because I’ve known them for years.  The checkouts are fast and efficient, and if the store policy requires rubbing anything into their crotch, it’s not Frank’s Red Hot®.

I don’t mind going to Wal-Mart™ in Modern Mayberry because it’s not a gloomy place.  It seems to be a happy one.  People smile while they buy their ham and mayonnaise and potatoes and chicken thighs.  They’re polite to one another, and I’ve seen more than one adult talk to a kid they didn’t know to tell them to stop shenanigans in the aisles.  And I’ve done it myself.

And the kids stop the shenanigans.

Wal-Mart© isn’t home, but it is a hometown store here.

I think part of the reason that Wal-Mart™ here is different in Houston is that none of us are anonymous.  We walk into the store and see people we know.  Be a jerk to a clerk?  That might just be your friend’s kid who is just having a bad day.

Congrats Whitney, you’ve been drug free for years now!

The other part is I think there is a much greater sense of community in a place like Modern Mayberry.  We’ve been here a decade, and while I’m not the new kid on the block, many people I come into contact with have been here for generations.  Oops!  That makes them sound like vampires.  But parts of The Mrs.’ family have been in this area at least since the 1890s.  When Pugsley goes out with people, we ask “who” since you can generally infer if the family is trouble just through the last name.

We never let him hang out with anyone named Clinton.  I mean, the parties are great, but bad things happen if you get on their bad side.

I knew someone would want an Epstein joke, and I didn’t want to leave them hanging.

But all of that aside – what I’ve found to be a good idea is to avoid places that suck.  No, I don’t think that Wal-Mart© in Houston was cursed, but I do think that the people in there didn’t like their work, and didn’t want to be there.  They were unhappy.  They were victims.

In my experience, people on the Right are happier (by far!) than people on the Left.  In study after study, it’s weird that people on the Right are more tolerant of the viewpoints of others.  One recent study (LINK) of college kids (is it bad that I assumed their species?) showed that Leftists absolutely hate people on the Right and are scared to be exposed to their ideas.  62% of Leftists said they would probably or definitely not room with a normal person.  28% of students on the Right said they were fine rooming with a commie.

Leftists also show much higher rates of mental problems (I could link a study, but you have search engines and also know Leftists) and are generally far less competent.  I think the “far less competent is why they’re Leftists in the first place.

My county voted 85% for Trump, so by inference we’re happier, more competent, and far more tolerant than any Leftist enclave.

What do you call an Italian Chad?  An Alfredo male.

Regardless, once again the pathway to being happy proves to be devastatingly simple:  avoid cities, be on the Right, be competent, and don’t put Frank’s Red Hot® down your pants.