John – Page 74 – Wilder, Wealthy, and Wise

Texas Power Outages, Global Warming, And At Least One Bikini

“You want a prediction about the weather? You’re asking the wrong Phil. I’ll give you a winter prediction. It’s gonna be cold, it’s gonna be grey, and it’s gonna last you for the rest of your life.” – Groundhog Day

Pugsley said it was so cold in the house that it was at absolute zero. I said, “That’s 0K.”

It has been cold. Really cold. The good thing about that is that I like the cold. It’s rarely cold enough for me – even now my fingers are nearly numb blocks of flesh mashing the keyboard and only occasionally hitting the right key.

Almost cold enough, but as I reach up I find that I still have feeling in my jaw and cheeks, so I’m not quite there.

But Texas is. Today at lunch The Mrs. and I were discussing that it was colder in Anchorage, Alaska than in Houston, Texas. That made me think. And then I ended up wondering if it was too cold for Jeff Bezos to sleep in his undies, or if he needed his pajamazon?

Okay, back to Texas.

When we lived in Houston, I was shocked at the really poor design of the homes – sure they were fine for 95°F (2°C) and 95% humidity, but the house we lived in (and many I had seen when we were looking for a home to buy) had bare copper pipe running on the outside of the house. The spigots outside were so poorly insulated that just walking by them with a decently cold beer would cause them to freeze and split.

If asbestos is bad, imagine if it were asworstos.

And that’s just one problem.

The bigger problem is that Texas is supposed to be an energy source. Oil gets pumped there, sure. But the pipelines for all of that natural gas that is produced in Texas? All of those pipelines head out of state. Texas is silly with natural gas, and produces far more than it uses.

Natural gas has historically been used to heat houses. It’s relatively abundant, quick and simple to ignite, and generally relatively cheap*. It’s great for hot water heaters. It’s wonderful for forced air heaters, like we have here at Casa Wilder. Heck, in the 1970’s (I read once) they passed a law that restricted the use of natural gas so that its convenient, safe heat could be used by homeowners voters to heat their houses.

And one oil company was going to make renewable crude from insect urine. It think it was BP.

But somewhere that philosophy changed – mainly when natural gas became abundant with fracking, and when Global Warming® activists became obsessed with coal. Natural gas puts a lot less carbon into the air than coal per Btu (kiloparsec). So, it became common to build industrial plants that used natural gas for heat, as well as power plants that used natural gas instead of coal.

Natural gas is pretty nifty when you use it for a power plant. That same property of nearly instant heat is there, so if you use natural gas to drive an engine, for example, you can pretty efficiently use that fuel to generate electricity quickly. To start up a coal electrical generating plant takes a long time. To start up a natural gas electrical generating plant?

Super fast and easy, at least by comparison.

When The Mrs. and I met, I felt quite a spark. Who knew she had a Taser®?

But what happens when all of those Texas houses, not built for cold, crank up the natural gas heater? What happens when the people who use electricity to heat their house crank that up at the same time? And, what happens when all of those wind turbines that are supposed to be generating electricity become electricity sinks, since many of them have electric heaters to prevent the gears and bits from freezing up and breaking? And the wind isn’t blowing?

The system fails.

An aside:

As I wrote this, I realized that my heater hadn’t gone on for, oh, seven degrees. The internal temperature in the house had dropped to 57°F (2°C). Not good. As I went to my trusty heater, I found it flashing a series of codes over and over again like an autistic R2-D2™.

In the past, this was a failed part called a “flame roll out sensor” which appears to fail much more often than the penny I replace it with. Just kidding! I use stripped wire. Also kidding. I really don’t mess with the heater more than changing the filter every decade or so (Pugsley changes it twice yearly) and flipping the breaker on and off and then poking about the insides like an Albanian strip-mall lawyer trying to fix a copier.

Which, oddly enough, works. I know that there is some sort of computer logic that was finally satisfied – such as, “the gas is no longer explosive enough to launch Wilder into space in the most pathetic attempt to emulate Elon Musk since Wilder founded a company named Space Y.”

I make jokes about air conditioners, but not heaters. That’s not cool.

My guess? The gas pressure dropped a bit. Which never happens, except in February, 2021. I’ve never seen this particular error code, except the one time that I missed the exhaust portal near Yavin 4.

So, we have Texas, proud producer of natural gas, and now, neurotic consumer of natural gas. And we have all of these Texas generating stations that need . . . natural gas. And we have all of these Texas homes that need electricity to run the electric heaters (our house in Texas was one of those).

The system fails. Power goes out.

But the Germans are going to build a car in Texas. It will be called the Audi Neighbor™.

Thankfully the cold won’t last forever. And this is a cold that, in some places, has broken records that were 122 years old, so it’s not the usual sort of winter storm in any respect.

But it does show us the limit of our systems.

Dang. The heater is working again. I can feel my fingers now.

*One source I saw showed spot prices up 24,000% (LINK), from $4.00 per million Btu last week to $999 yesterday.

Courage: The Biggest Present A Parent Can Give

“Now, be careful, Fry. And if you kill anyone, make sure to eat their heart to gain their courage. Their rich, tasty courage.” – Futurama

The French never go on holidays, only retreats.

The biggest pleasure of being a father is the education of my children. This opportunity varies. Pugsley and The Boy are the sons of an increasingly rare commodity in 2021: they are children of an intact family.

The Boy and Pugsley are the children of me and my wife, The Mrs. That’s rare because many, many children are raised by families that are broken or blended in 2021. Or, raised in a home with no natural parent.

Like me, an adopted kid.

I was fortunate. Even though I was adopted, my parents, Ma and Pa Wilder, were a common front. Pa Wilder knew he could enforce discipline with the same effect as Ma Wilder. That’s an aside, but it’s important. Men learn how to be men from their fathers. No matter how brave and stunning a Mom is, no Mother is, or ever will be, a Father.

The plus side? Every bag of chips is family-sized if you’re adopted.

So I feel especially good that I’ve had the opportunity to raise my boys with the full backing and support of The Mrs. The idea that Pugsley could play me against The Mrs.? Or vice versa?

That would never happen.

Even if The Mrs. and I were diametrically opposed, the idea that we would overrule each other in front of a kid? Nope. There was no way that The Mrs. and I could be split. Even if we disagreed – that disagreement would be kept to ourselves until we had a knife fight to determine who was right.

What, you don’t do trial by combat at your house? If you’re a first timer, make sure you have a suture kit available. They’re cheap, and neither The Mrs. or I go for the eyes, so we have that going for us.

Raising boys isn’t easy – the only thing it’s easier than is raising girls. From my experience, every boy passes through a gate – a gate where they engage in a fight with their father. This gate is narrow.

With each of my boys, the fight was one I considered existential: to make them men worthy of being called a man is a process. And it consists of fighting the impulses that are natural to a boy. Every 12 year old considers themselves the wisest man since Solomon, and considers their father the dullest man since Mr. Bean®.

Why couldn’t Helen Keller drive? Because she was a woman.

I have thought about it, and the most important message have I fought (in some cases for years) to put into the skulls of my sons is simple:

That courage is important.
That courage is useless unless in service of virtue.
That virtue is useless unless in service of a Higher Good.

I know, I’ve tossed around several posts about virtue that don’t explicitly state that a Higher Good is important. Virtue is important. But virtue must have a Higher Good to be, well, Virtue. (Atheists that are regular readers have a Wilder Exemption Card – you’re not Evil like the other ones.)

Tonight, Pugsley and I sat in the hot tub at Stately Wilder Manor. Pugsley is currently in the mindset where he would love to own a Mustang® Shelby© 350 or a Lamborghini™ Huracán Performante®. Thus, he has discovered Top Gear™/Grand Tour©. These are shows that are hosted by three British guys: Richard Hammond, James May, Jeremy Clarkson.

A hammer has lots of uses: it can pay for a taxi ride, a dinner, or a can of Monster® energy drink from 7-11©.

Jeremy Clarkson is the big, brash guy. He’s also an amazing presenter. For reasons that will become apparent if you watch it (and you should) Mr. Clarkson put together a documentary on the Victoria Cross.

It’s here.

The idea of watching men be courageous is important. It’s perhaps more important now than at any time in our history, because there has been an attempt to systematically erase courage.

Why?

The answer is simple. Courage is an individual action. The idea that individuals have a place in society is the anathema of the Left. It’s the anathema of Globalism. Everyone is a simple cog in the machinery of the world. You exist only for the glory of the collective.

Leftists (and Globalists) feel the world doesn’t need or want individuals with courage. The world needs individuals that do what they’re told, when they’re told to do it. No other action is acceptable – only the action approved by the collective. The convenience store clerk must be fired when they commit the crime of heroism to save a customer. Individual heroism? Courage fighting against evil?

Completely unacceptable.

I heard about this guy who donated a kidney and was a hero – so why is it that when I donate five I’m charged with a felony?

The world has, in many respects, moved away from individuals. Have an adversary? Hit them with missiles from a Predator® drone that is piloted by a guy sitting in a video game chair half a world away. Where is the heroism in that?

There isn’t any.

Okay. Maybe a little heroism. Just as much heroism as there is in properly filing documents associated with statistics of average foot size of Vietnam veterans from Vail or Valdez or Valdosta. So, not much.

What’s required for heroism? What’s required for courage? This is especially irritating, since most definitions of courage floated on the Internet are filled with corporate weasel words. It seems that properly filing a TPS® report when the temperature of the office was not exactly between 72°F and 74°F (2.3 kg and 3.7 dl) would qualify for the definition of modern courage. Yes. Everyone wants to live in a mall.

I got into a fight changing levels at a mall. It escalated quickly.

Honestly, most of the definitions I find of courage on the Internet make me feel that the weasels that have tried to define it are the opposite of courageous. They’re tepid things that promote the most mundane and boring of actions to the exalted level of “courage.” Go to work and do your job?

You’re a hero. You’re courageous.

I reject that. I would say that courage requires these elements:

First: Actions that are true heroism are done without regard to self. One Victoria Cross nominee was denied the award because the plane he was piloting (while he was bleeding to death) would save him, too, if he landed it properly.
Second: Devotion to duty and those around you. This, particularly, drives modern Leftists nuts. The first devotion must be the Leftism, whatever that means on any particular day. Devotion to a higher power? Devotion to the people around you?
Third: Personal danger. It may be as small as the idea of being embarrassed (for tiny amounts of courage), but for actual courage? Let’s be real. Standing up on a top of a hill when surrounded by 6,000 screaming enemies and throwing grenades until you run out? That’s courageous. The stuff that most people peddle today as courage . . . isn’t.

One definition had, “has to be scared.” Nope. Sorry. Pissed off is close enough. I imagine that 50% of the people we’d all agree are courageous were just plain mad.

There are lots of examples of people who showed great courage simply because they were angry. They had lost friends. They were unwilling to take one step back. Fear isn’t an element of courage – fear is the enemy of courage.

“You’ve heard of animals chewing off a leg to escape a trap? There’s an animal kind of trick. A human would remain in the trap, endure the pain, feigning death that he might kill the trapper and remove a threat to his kind.”

That’s courage. Bonus points if you can name the book.

The Mrs. said she wanted to spice up the bedroom. I hope she likes paprika.

Here’s the big lie, the thing that they want you to believe: the era of courage is over. The ideas of individuals don’t matter. The actions of individuals don’t matter.

As long as humanity survives, the actions of individuals will always matter. As long as fathers teach sons, the era for courage isn’t over.

That’s why I play this game. Courage matters. Virtue matters. A Higher Power matters. Those are the things that make men. That’s why I love this part of the game. One way a man lives on are in the values he leaves to his sons.

Every time I have the opportunity to help my boys, I know I’m winning.

Always remember: We’re not done. This isn’t over.

Purpose, Virtue, Starlets, And Inexplicable Comments About Italy

“I disagree with what you said about the underlying theme of chapter eight in this book. It’s really not about man’s struggle with double-sided tape. It’s a metaphor for the Mesopotamian social hierarchy during the Bronze Age.” – Homestarrunner

The easiest way to get gold, silver, and bronze Olympic medals? Kleptomania.

One theme I keep returning to in this blog is purpose. I have a friend (you’re shocked, I know) and we talk from time to time. One observation that he’s made is that they’ve done studies of people who have won medals in competitions like the Olympics®. You’d think that the person who was happiest was the person who won gold.

It’s not. It’s not the person who won silver, either.

It’s the person who won bronze.

Third place? Well, they know it wasn’t a fluke that they didn’t win. There is that “second place” guy who pops that illusion bubble. But they made it to the big show, and, heck, they’re third. Not bad!

Bronze is the Libertarian Party of medals.

The person who wins silver is usually very, very unhappy. Why? Every minute of the day they have to wonder:

What if I had worked just a little harder each day?
What if I had listened to my coach?
What if I hadn’t spent the night before the Olympic© finals at the strip club drinking tequila shooters with Crystal and Svetlana?

Little things like that begin to nag at them. Plus they get Brady Cake:

Tom Brady is so old . . . he won his first Super Bowl® while the world was still in Standard Definition.

So, gold medal winners should be happy, right?

Some really aren’t happy. They’ve climbed the mountain. They’ve spent, in some cases, tens of thousands of hours in practice at the highest level. They’ve skipped going to parties when others were having fun. They lived, in some cases, like monks to climb to the greatest levels of human performance.

Some of them get there and ask . . .

Is this all there is?

Those folks who ask that question were working for the wrong purpose. Their idea wasn’t to be the World PEZ® Flicking Champion, it was someone else’s idea.

So they went with it.

Don’t say this three times fast.

You can see those folks, especially a few years after the Olympics®. They’re the ones that are on the third DUI or are the 4’6” gymnast that looks like they’ve swallowed a refrigerator. Which, I will say, does make tumbling easier. If you call rolling “tumbling.” Meghan McCain does, especially if it’s toward a buffet.

So, what about those people who win a gold medal and are just fine? What’s different?

They have purpose. Their sport was only a part of their purpose, and was only a part of what drove them. They are centered, and the biggest part of their purpose isn’t achievement. Achievement is a byproduct.

The folks who win and don’t self-destruct have a purpose, and a purpose rooted in virtue.

To be clear, very, very, very clear:

Virtue does not guarantee victory. At all.

Virtue (and a purpose rooted in virtue) just makes victory bearable.

Why do so many early twentysomethings mentally implode when they achieve fame and stardom and immense wealth? That’s an easy question – they find themselves in a world with no real restraints. The real question is why don’t more starlets become headlines? I’m pretty sure Miley Cyrus isn’t in a good mental place.

In Europe, she’s known as Kilometery Cyrus.

In one respect, not being wealthy and famous is a great substitute for willpower: you can’t end up dead in a hotel room in Thailand surrounded by heroin, empty take-out boxes of food, bottles of Captain Morgan’s Spiced Rum, and vats of industrial-strength skin cream if you have to get to your steady job.

A mortgage and car payments have probably saved a lot of dads uncomfortable phone calls from the Italian Government as to why their 22-year-old was found “improving” the Sistine Chapel painting. Thankfully, back then they charged the fines in something called “lira”, which is just like money but is instead made of colorful Christmas wrapping paper.

An aside, things to trust Italians on:

Food.
Wine.
Car body design.

Things not to trust Italians on:

Anything you need tomorrow.
Anything electronic or electric.
Anything where the oil or engine coolant is supposed to stay on the inside.
Anything remotely resembling fiscal discipline.

Italians are great at soccer – you change sides halfway through.

And, apparently, never trust John Wilder to wander off on a tangent on a Friday post. I’ll get back to virtue and purpose, and promise not to wander too far again this post.

I’ve written several posts about Virtue. It’s been a common theme. Here are a few:

Kardashians, Hairy Bikinis, Elvis, Wealth, and Virtue

Roman Virtues and Western Civilization, Complete with Monty Python

Ben Franklin and his Thirteen Virtues

Why Character Just Might Be A Better Indicator Of Marriage Stability Than What Her Butt Looks Like

Regrets? Don’t Regret Anything, Unless You Want Me To Slap You When You Are Old.

So, have a purpose. Live your virtue. And when you have high achievement, when you win the gold, when you achieve amazing business success? You’re ready to deal with it.

I’ve heard of a village in Africa where they’re dealing with a drought and thirst. I hope they “Get Well Soon.”

But let’s say that you don’t win the gold. You don’t have amazing business success. Virtue allows you to be ready to deal with that, too.

Or you could just win a bronze medal and have a mortgage?

Nah, go for the virtue. You’ll eventually pay the mortgage off.

The Funniest Article You’ve Ever Read About Bon Jovi And The Everything Bubble

“Yeah, it was like, even though Bubbles was Bubbles, he was two people at the same time as bein’ Bubbles. He was trying to be this other person that wasn’t Bubbles, but he was still Bubbles.” – Trailer Park Boys

What was Schrödinger’s favorite Bon Jovi song? Wanted Dead or Alive.

Euphoria. The name even sounds good. It comes from the Greek “Eu” meaning “quite slippery and frictionless” and the Greek “phoros” which means “wet”. A direct translation is “Slippery When Wet,” as noted by the great Italian philosopher, Giovanni Bongiovi.

If you’ve ever been to a college party you’ve seen the application of euphoria over common sense, especially in the hours between 11 P.M. and 1 A.M. It’s at that time that the liquor has hit several partygoers like a Canadian baboon on a yak crotch. They have ambition. They have a limitless lack of common sense.

There is no tomorrow! Party on!

And euphoria has had several pleasant outcomes: more than one happy accident of a child has turned up nine months after the euphoria ended. Let’s face it – if every child was planned, there’d be six or so people living in the United States.

Justin Trudeau’s parents decided they don’t want kids anymore. Who is going to tell Justin?

Euphoria has even allowed people to exceed what they themselves ever thought possible. When throwing common sense to the wind, sometimes the outer limits of human performance are defined – we find out what it is that we can really do.

More often than not? We end up flat on our faces. That can be its own victory, but it’s often part of a longer story.

The real interesting part is when euphoria meets money. That’s when we get stupid, and we start convincing ourselves of crazy things.

The biggest crazy thing of my life was the Dotcom Bubble. That was amazing. Companies were formed in days and then ended up being “worth” ten million dollars a week later, without ever producing a product. Heck, it wasn’t just producing a product – they didn’t even know what product they were going to produce.

Spanish coders like to use Si++.

Several of my friends were caught up in the front end of one Dotcom venture. They were flown to a kickoff party. The band at the kickoff party? Hall and Oates®. Sure, Hall and Oates™ were 20 years past their prime, but, still, the kickoff was for the idea of installing some fiber optic cables.

It wasn’t even that large of a project. I’m not sure if they ever built any fiber optics. But when I asked if I could be at the party my boss said, “I can’t go for that.” (Sorry jokes aside, they really did hire Hall and Oates© for the party.)

How much oat could Hall and Oates haul if Hall and Oates hauled oats?

Another friend sold his website for a total of $50,000,000. The website was making a profit – about $1,000 a month. Of course, the kicker was that he sold his website for $50,000,000 in Alta-Vista® stock that he couldn’t sell for a year.

Oops.

Don’t cry for him – he didn’t have enough money to retire, but he had enough that he took three years off to hike and relax.

Euphoria makes people do crazy things.

The second crazy thing that happened in my life was the Housing Bubble. When I was looking for one loan, I was told that I qualified to borrow ten times my annual income.

“Why would you offer me that kind of money? I could never pay it back.”

The Loan Officer responded, “Yeah, I know, but you qualify for it. So the computer tells me I have to offer it to you.”

We all know how well that ended.

Thankfully they allowed me to finish the “Alan Parsons Project” I was working on.

Through this, Citigroup® has maintained a panic/euphoria model. The idea is that there is a way to measure what investors think about the market. Are they panicked? Or are they as giddy as drunken freshmen at their first college kegger.

If investors are skittish, the idea is that stocks are a bargain. People are afraid of stocks and would be happy to sell them to you. It’s the idea of buying when blood is in the street.

But if investors are euphoric, then the prices for things are too high. How high? Double-digit high.

Looks like party central!

Right now, Citigroup’s® panic/euphoria model is flashing “Slippery When Wet and Three Tequila Shooters.” It’s higher than the Dotcom® Bubble. It’s much higher than the excesses of the Housing Bubble.

It’s the Everything Bubble. And investors are still three sheets to the wind, knee-walking, too-loud singing, drunk.

This makes sense, too. Presidents love to pop the bubble in the first year of their first term. It’s not like people will remember the pain three years from now, if they’re able to manage growth and restart the economy. Besides, you can blame the pain on the last guy.

I guess he swallowed a few on that “steel horse” he rides.

There is ample incentive for Biden to crater the market. There is ample incentive for him to crater employment, too. In both of those things, he can restart the clock and claim growth from worst that 2021 or 2022 brings to us.

If we’re lucky, all we get is a hangover. I don’t think anyone wants this baby.

Civil War 2.0 Weather Report: A Bridge Too Far?

“War, war, war! This war talk’s spoiling all the fun at every party this spring. I get so bored I could scream!” – Gone With The Wind

No change this month. We’ll see what February brings . . .

Common violence. Organized violence is occurring monthly.
Opposing sides develop governing/war structures. Just in case.
Common violence that is generally deemed by governmental authorities as justified based on ideology.
Open War.

We remain in the gray zone between step 9. and step 10. I thought seriously about rolling back the clock to five minutes to midnight. Violence is down, since the Left has seriously decided to clamp down on their useful idiots of BLM® and Antifa™. The Right has (so far) not been any sort of a serious threat to anyone. The hijinks that took place at the Capitol was closer to the football team painting something naughty on a water tower than any sort of real insurrection.

But then I reviewed the stories that I’m covering this issue. Nope. The Left wants to calm down the Far Left, but only so it can turn its full attention to the Right. The pressure will continue.

The Right offers nothing to the Left. It is comprised of nationalists – people who worry more about the nation than a group of foreigners. The Right doesn’t hate the foreigners – it just worries about Americans first. And the Right, more today than ever, worries about wanting a free capitalist system to make the lives of Americans better – not a free capitalist system for the sake of the system itself.

I currently put the total at (this is my best approximation, since no one tracks the death toll from rebellion-related violence) 650 out of the 1,000 required for the international civil war definition.

As close as we are to the precipice of war, be careful. Things could change at any minute.

In this issue: Front Matter – A Bridge Too Far – Violence And Censorship Update – The Scouring Of The Shire Armed Services – Updated Civil War 2.0 Index – The Full Power Of The State – Links

Front Matter

Welcome to the latest issue of the Civil War II Weather Report. These posts are different than the other posts at Wilder Wealthy and Wise and consist of smaller segments covering multiple topics around the single focus of Civil War 2.0, on the first or second Monday of every month. I’ve created a page (LINK) for links to all of the past issues. Also, feel free to subscribe and you’ll get every post delivered to your inbox, M-W-F at 7:30 Eastern, free of charge.

A Bridge Too Far

Operation Market Garden in World War II is the origin of this particular phrase. The idea was a quick run to Arnhem to open up the main portion of Germany so that Berlin could be taken by December, 1944.

It failed. It was an (overly) ambitious airborne assault on a series of bridges that would have allowed for an attack into Germany – Eisenhower approved it, not because he thought it would work, but because it was a part of a general offensive.

I hear most bridges speak Span-ish.

A Bridge Too Far would be an apt description of the Sabika Sheikh Firearm Licensing and Registration Act. Thankfully, the chances of this travesty being enacted are small. This act, however, is a dream list of Leftists everywhere:

Universal gun registration.
Psychiatric tests, including input from your ex. We all know how stable those relationships can be.
$800 fee for “insurance”
All magazines of greater than 10 rounds would be illegal.
Huge penalties for noncompliance.
And so, so, much more . . . .

I won’t go into more details, because, as I said, this particular bill won’t become law. I think that even the far Left in Congress knows that passing this would be a de facto declaration of war on 80 million-plus American Citizens.

Just because it fails this time, don’t think that this isn’t exactly what they want. It may be a bridge too far now, but their general offensive will continue.

Violence And Censorship Update

Time Magazine® (LINK) is happily showing off, step-by-step, how a group of unelected hardcore Leftists from unions coordinated with Leftists in Tech, Hollywood® and:

“Their work touched every aspect of the election. They got states to change voting systems and laws and helped secure hundreds of millions in public and private funding. They fended off voter-suppression lawsuits, recruited armies of poll workers and got millions of people to vote by mail for the first time. They successfully pressured social media companies to take a harder line against disinformation and used data-driven strategies to fight viral smears.”

Viral smears includes, of course, actual reporting of (for instance) Hunter Biden’s corruption and dissolute lifestyle – where “they” got The New York Daily News© kicked off of Twitter®. The idea was that there was no rule that they wouldn’t try to change (Constitutionally or not) in order to make sure that Trump would lose. Or that the system was set up so that they could manufacture enough votes for Biden to win.

What’s worse than 1,000 conspiracy theorists? A real conspiracy.

Censored? You and me. And it’s ongoing – one Tweet® that included a direct quote from the Time© story was identified by Twitter® as disinformation. Let that sink in.

It would be wrong, apparently, to think there was a secret conspiracy to defeat Trump.

Even when the conspirators spend 6,500 words in Time Magazine™ admitting it.

The Scouring Of The Shire Armed Services

The Secretary of Defense has just issued a 60 day stand down to combat “extremism” in the ranks. What’s extreme? No one has said. It could be a Tweet® that is now no longer in favor that a soldier made years ago.

So far, the III-percenter® logo has been identified as “extremist” and has been identified as something that has to go. No tattoos, no t-shirts, and I’d assume no posters.

The Left is afraid – a large percentage of those arrested related to the Capitol Hill incident (so far) have been veterans – 14% was a number that I saw. Of those, 8% were Marines, so the article I read said, “Of special concern are the elite units.”

So, the purges will start.

What ideologies will be purged?

Social Justice™? Certainly not! Despite the fact that it requires communism to implement, it’s the current ideology of the powers in charge.
Black Lives Matter©? Absolutely not! How could an ideology that has the support of the entire Fortune 500© be wrong? Besides, those weren’t riots, they were peaceful protests.
Antifa®? What wrong with being Anti-Fascist? Huh? What’s fascism? Fascism is whatever is to the Left of Antifa™.

Nope. Not those.

Updated Civil War II Index

The Civil War II graphs are an attempt to measure four factors that might make Civil War II more likely, in real-time. They are broken up into Violence, Political Instability, Economic Outlook, and Illegal Alien Crossings. As each of these is difficult to measure, I’ve created for three of the four metrics some leading indicators that lead to the index. On illegal aliens, I’m just using government figures, or I would be, if they published any this month.

Violence:

Up is more violent, and to no one’s surprise, violence jumped again in January.

Political Instability:

Up is more unstable. Instability jumped significantly – getting Trump out has not made things better.

Economic:

January showed a major jump. I’d expect a market crash sooner than later – politically it’s best to get those out early in an administration.

Illegal Aliens:

No data this month. Has FedGov decided to stop publishing it?

The Full Power Of The State

I’ve documented above how the Left is taking over or already has taken over communications, social media, the military, and the voting process. That’s not enough.

Recently, the Bank of America® was requested by the FBI to provide information on its customers. What sort of information? Well, all of it, if the customer met this very broad list:

Customers confirmed as transacting, either through bank account debit card or credit card purchases in Washington, D.C. between 1/5 and 1/6.
Purchases made for Hotel/Airbnb RSVPs in DC, VA, and MD after 1/6.
Any purchase of weapons or at a weapons-related merchant between 1/7 and their upcoming suspected stay in D.C. area around Inauguration Day.
Airline related purchases since 1/6.

And, no, not everything had to click to get you on the list, but still, 211 people managed to make the list. Bank of America™ wasn’t required to give this information without a proper warrant. But Bank of America© did.

At least one citizen was questioned by the FBI based on this information.

The FBI even has a patron saint: St. Francis of CCTV.

So, now it’s not only the Federal government’s amazing ability to listen to you, follow you on social media, and track your every movement. Now they enlist banks to participate in closing the loop. Unless you pay in cash, they have a list of every transaction you make.

So, pay in cash?

Have you tried to do that with a rental car? Have you tried to do that with an airline ticket? Tried to check into a Holiday Inn Express®?

They might take cash, but they’ll need to see a credit card, first.

How else would you leave a perfect record for the FBI?

LINKS

As usual, links this month are courtesy of Ricky. Thanks so much!!

PUNDITRY

https://www.newstatesman.com/world/2021/01/american-civil-war

https://www.thearticle.com/is-this-the-last-battle-of-the-american-civil-war

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-02-01/capitol-riot-trump-four-corners-sarah-ferguson/13098356

https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/security/news/2021/01/19/494758/united-states-early-days-domestic-insurgency/

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2021/01/how-close-did-us-come-successful-coup/617709/

https://www.rt.com/op-ed/512483-second-us-civil-war/

POLLS

https://today.yougov.com/topics/politics/articles-reports/2021/01/07/US-capitol-trump-poll

https://www.axios.com/poll-america-falling-apart-4a13376f-f962-46e3-8e2c-174d396f25d1.html

https://www.businessinsider.com/many-people-united-states-believe-cold-civil-war-survey-2021-1

https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/news/2021/02/01/civil-war-during-trumps-pre-riot-speech-parler-talk-grew-darker/4297165001/

POLITICS

https://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/news/congressman-paul-gosar-oath-keepers-militia-civil-war-jim-arroyo-11529183

https://amgreatness.com/2021/01/09/we-are-perilously-close-to-a-civil-war-it-is-our-job-to-stop-it/

PREPARATIONS

https://www.al.com/news/2021/01/some-republicans-call-for-second-civil-war-citizens-take-arms.html

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2021/01/boogaloo-prepare-civil-war/617683/

https://www.ajc.com/news/militia-alliance-in-georgia-signals-new-phase-for-extremist-paramilitaries/UD2JMQV5A5EABHHAKBQZBK2IVY/

https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/internet/increasingly-militant-parler-refugees-anxious-qanon-adherents-prep-doomsday-n1254775

(SECRET) POLICING

https://summit.news/2021/01/20/leftists-call-for-new-secret-police-force-to-spy-on-trump-supporters/

https://caityjohnstone.medium.com/viral-trumpsnewarmy-video-is-liberals-at-their-craziest-and-scariest-aee81d5deeb1

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/01/this-site-posted-every-face-from-parlers-capitol-hill-insurrection-videos/

https://facesoftheriot.com/#

PERSPECTIVES

https://www.city-journal.org/html/why-robespierre-chose-terror-12935.html

https://blogs.prio.org/2021/02/can-we-predict-civil-war/

https://theweek.com/articles/960957/worstcase-scenario-americas-immediate-future

#AlexandriaOcasioSmollett, The Caption Contest

“Shake, a hoax is a humorous or malicious deception. And this is clearly not that.” – Aqua Teen Hunger Force

Okay, I’m sick. I had written one scathing bon mot after another in my head today about this subject. But I’m sick. I’m going to bed after I post this. Instead, we’ll have a fill in the blank caption contest. Let’s keep it PG, folks.

CAPTION A: _________

CAPTION B: _______________

CAPTION C: ________________

CAPTION D: __________________

CAPTION E: _______________

CAPTION F: __________________

GameStop: The Tip Of The Corruption Iceberg

“And pruned the hedges of many small villages.” – Three Amigos

Amazing what happens when you find the world is corrupt . . . .

GameStop®.

In a world filled with COVID-19 shutdowns and Internet sites where you can download nearly any game ever made for low prices, it seemed like a sure thing that GameStop™ would fail. Except . . . people liked going. The profits weren’t through the roof, and the business model was older. Heck, the last time I was in a GameStop™ was over eight years ago, and about half the shelf space was pop-culture memorabilia and nerd toys, not games.

Never mess with weaponized autism.

Seeing this, the Wizards of Wall Street® decided to “short” GameStop™. I’ll explain what that is, and I promise you my analogy will be far funnier than what CNN© does unintentionally – and that’s a high bar.

Let’s pretend that you and I are friends. You brought the latest Pac-Man© cartridge game. Since you trust me, you lend it to me.

Addled on Monster™ Energy Drink© and chicken tendies, I waddle down to the local GameStop©. Since there is a relative shortage of Pac-Man™, GameStop™ offers me $50 for the cartridge. I pocket it and go home.

Two months later, you sober up and remember I borrowed your vidya game, and ask for it back. I waddle my greasy fingers down to GameStop© and buy a used cartridge. It’s not the original one that you lent me, sure, but you’ll never know the difference, not with your hygiene.

Since Atari© has made a metric buttload of additional Pac-Man© cartridges, the price to buy a used version is now $30. I buy it. I give it back to you. I pocket the $20, and no one is the wiser.

Last week was like no other . . .

That’s a short sale. I borrowed a commodity – one Pac-Man© video game cartridge (minor wear and tear excluded) is functionally exactly the same as any other Pac-Man™ cartridge.

That’s (sort of) what the hedge funds were trying to do with the shares of GameStop©, but with one crucial difference: the price went up. And they sold more shares of GameStop™ than exist.

That can happen in two ways. The first is legal. If I owned 100 shares of GameStop©, my broker could loan them to someone going short. They’re selling legal, actual shares. I might really, really, like GameStop™, so maybe I buy 100 more.

My account says that I have 200 shares of GameStop© now. I think I have 200 shares of GameStop™, but in reality, my broker only has 100. The same thing happens in a fractional reserve bank (like your bank) in that if you put $100 in, the bank might loan it all out. You think you have $100, but that $100 was loaned to someone. Just like shorting a stock, it sounds illegal, but it’s not.

So how does that work with my previous analogy?

Ahh, in a perfect world.

It’s exactly the same. If the price of Pac-Man© goes from $50 to $30, then I make $20. But if there’s a fire at the Pac-Man© cartridge plant in Roswell, New Mexico (because they use alien slave-labor from Arcturus to make them), and the price goes up to $100?

I’m out $50. But how often do the Arcturans revolt? Not often.

So, we’ve seen how my little deal could go wrong. But how wrong could it get? Infinitely wrong. Let’s say that I do this with 1000 Pac-Man© games, since it’s a sure thing. So, GameStop© gives me $50,000. Now I just sit and wait.

Yup, the hedgies lost billions.

But the fire thing happens. And since everyone else sold all of their friend’s Pac-Man© games before the factory caught fire, the price goes up. Way up. Like up twenty times in price. Let’s see, 20 times $50 is . . . $1,000 a copy. So now, since I borrowed that $50,000 in hopes of making $20,000 when the price went down, I’m actually in really bad shape.

I owe 1000 games times $1,000 dollars. I owe my friends, collectively, $1,000,000.

Ooops.

Musk is no fan of short sellers since they tried to destroy Tesla® a few years ago.

This is what the hedge funds did. And since (I believe) some of them are what is known as a “market-maker” they have 21 days to come up with those games (shares). 21 days is forever, so don’t worry about those billionaires – most of them are still billionaires – they just will have to wait until next month to buy that second volcano island death lair.

This is the situation that the Reddit© group r/wallstreetbets found – GameStop© was horribly oversold by hedge funds, and just a few people buying could start pushing the price up.

At one point, one of the r/wallstreetbets early investors in the short squeeze was up $48,000,000. That’s not a typo.

With a short, there’s a lot of power as the price goes up. The Hedge Fund Leech that runs the hedge fund starts to get nervous, and adds to the buying pressure as he tries to buy stocks to “cover his short.” This actually increases the price, sometimes causing it to go upward. A lot upward.

If that was all that happened, it would have been an amusing story. Wall Street Leeches get one-upped by message-board posters. Ha ha!

Something wonderful about that, right?

But that’s not all that happened. Immediately, the news media, (some) trading houses (most notably Robinhood©) and the talking heads began talking about how this was bad. The people who normally distort the economy and screw over the middle class don’t really like it when the weapons that they use are used against them.

Google®? Not on your side.

Well, actually none of them are on your side.

Huh. And they invest big dollars for that privilege. How much money have they given Janet Yellen, Secretary of the Treasury? A lot.

Whose side is Joltin’ Janet on? Not yours.

Last week on Thursday and Friday the powers that be told the markets to “shut down” the Internet Freedom Party raid on the financial leaches. In fact, several articles extolled how the Hedge Fund Leeches were the real heroes.

I’m feeling so sorry for him!

It’s a big game, but you and I are not supposed to play. You’re supposed to buy shares in your 401K so the Hedge Fund Leeches can take your money and collude with each other to own the economy. The free market is, in principle, a great thing. People buy and sell. The market allows the prices to be shared by all.

Well, I used to be the guy in front.

But Monday? Someone spent a quarter billion dollars to depress GameStop©. It’s analyzed here (thanks to r/wallstreetbets):

Also, people forget this: there were Hedge Funds on the other side of the deal. Vampires don’t need prices to go down, they can also make money when prices are going up.

Who knew that Karen ran the SEC?

No. Big players distort prices, they sell and buy options to make money on stocks that they intend to dump for short term profits after manipulating the markets. That this financial vampirism actually destroys companies, jobs, and communities?

And they will call you anything to make a buck.

Who cares? Not the Wall Street Hedge Leeches. Here’s Tucker Carlson with a discussion about one Wall Street Hedge Leach destroying an entire town in Nebraska. For a few million bucks. They would do that to you, your family, and everyone you know for a 2% return.

If you’re not mad, you’re not paying attention.

None of this is financial advice, you hosers. So, take off, eh. All of the memes are “as found” on the Internet.

How To Spot Propaganda

“PBS, the propaganda wing of Bill and Melinda Gates.” – The Office

Okay, and what does anyone do with two new “tote bags” every year? How many objects do you need to tote?

This is a repost . . . oddly enough, exactly the same time last year I had similar thoughts to the post I was working on, and at 2 AM it made more sense to repost this one than finish the new one.

I used to listen to National Public Radio® (NPR™) on the way to work. Sure, I like music, but the local radio stations are simply horrible. NPR© had a good mix of news and information. Of course it was left-leaning: it’s in the name – “Public” radio – and at least 55% comes from reliably liberal sources like universities, foundations, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting™, and Fedgov. But it was left-leaning in the “Kinda Feminist Grandma Who Just Didn’t Want To Be Called Sweetie At Work” way, and not in the “All Who Oppose Us Will Be Re-Educated or Shot for Comrade Sanders” way.

Listening to them wasn’t new for me – I’d done so during the latter part of the years when W was president, and during many of the Obama years. There was a detectable liberal bias, which was understandable given that they have trouble with the capitalist system. Why, one time when I was tending bar, an anthropologist, a philosopher, and a journalist walked in. I said, “Hey, Brad. Still no job?”

Arizona State University and Texas A&M recently did a study about bias in journalism and found that 4.4% of financial journalists described themselves as “somewhat or very” conservative. The totals for those that identified as “somewhat or very” liberal? 58.5%. If you wondered why the journalists were crying on election night back in November of 2016, this is it.

Journalists are lefties, and they’re surrounded by other lefties, and probably don’t even know anyone who would claim to be on the Right. And those in the study were only financial journalists, who one would expect to be somewhat more “conservative” than journalists as a whole since they could probably do basic addition.

I guess I was fine listening to NPR© because I felt I was good at filtering out the bias that I heard. A lot of news is just facts, and listening to NPR™ was good because I liked to get a second version of the news – and sometimes the stories that NPR® brought up were utterly different than I’d see on my regular run around the web. It was nice having the variety.

The decision to stop listening to NPR© was gradual, but I certainly remember the first big day that led me down this path – it was August 2, 2016 when then-candidate Trump was giving a speech at a rally. A woman had a baby at the rally, and the baby cried. Trump said, “Don’t worry about it, you know? It’s young and beautiful and healthy, and that’s what we want.”

Not too much later on in that same rally, the baby cried again. If you watch the video, it’s hilarious – Trump says, “Actually, I was only kidding, you can get the baby out of here.” You can clearly hear in his voice he’s kidding. In reality, anyone who wasn’t looking for something, anything to smear Trump would have heard the joke. You can watch the video – NPR© did put it up (LINK). But when the story was read on air? “Trump Hates Babies And Wants To Deport All Of Them, Probably to Mars.”

But, Unlikely Voice of Reason, Washington Post® (LINK) came to the rescue with this quote: She [the mother – J.W.] said that she decided to leave the auditorium on her own because “it’s the considerate thing to do for others around, trying to listen or for those presenting,” adding that “it was blatantly obvious he was joking.”

Who would write and report a story like that? A deranged person. A person looking for something, anything to hang on Trump. It was pure propaganda, but a clumsy sort of propaganda that only someone who had it in for Trump would report.

Rumor has it that if Bernie Sanders sees his shadow on Groundhog Day, he’ll avoid the Clintons for six more weeks.

That was the first strike – and several more went by, and I found that I simply could no longer stand listening to the distortions popping out of NPR™. I doubt that NPR© is better now, but even if they were, why would I bother? I have a better cell phone now and listen to podcasts on the drive to work.

In a one-dimensional world, I’d still have the choice of NPR® or the local rock DJ telling really stupid stories about their fart collection or I could spend the drive time listening to a CD. But we now have access to a vast array of news, so if you go poking and prodding, you can debunk the propaganda if you smell it. And, boy, there’s plenty left. It’s gone beyond distortions to become propaganda.

That’s Biddle in the middle with the fiddle near the griddle while his puppy has a piddle.

The power in propaganda is in creating a common worldview. It’s herding. If everyone believes the same thing, then why argue about facts? And that’s also the danger of propaganda. One of the early propaganda theorists (besides, of course, Edward Bernays) was William Biddle, member of the Minbari Hair Club for Men© pictured above. Biddle’s ideas on how to make propaganda work include:

Rely on emotions, never argue. Almost all decisions, no matter how rational we think we are, are based on emotion. Every single actual transformative change in our lives is built on emotion. The Mrs. recently emailed me pictures of our first date, but I couldn’t open them. I guess I have trouble with emotional attachments.
Cast propaganda into the pattern of “we” versus an “enemy”. This is derived, at least in part, from emotions. Everyone has a fear of the other, of those that aren’t like them. If the Left didn’t have an enemy, it would have to manufacture one to make propaganda work. And if I am president, we will arm all our troops with acid to destroy the enemy base.
Direct suggestion through using repetition in slogans or phrases. Simple phrases, repeated often, replace the truth. “I like Ike.” You may or may not like Eisenhower, but it’s easy to say, easy to remember, and easy to repeat. If Biddle were lecturing in 2020, I’m sure he’d understand the power of memes in driving public viewpoint. But if Biddle were speaking to you in 2020, you’d probably be horrified because a corpse dead for 47 years makes a terrible lecturer and often stutters.

Morgan Freeman: Today Chester learned that chanting “U-S-A” at the illegal alien march was a mistake.

Reach groups as well as individuals. Getting individuals to agree is easy, but why convert people retail when you get more going wholesale? Thankfully, I can dress differently so I can look like everyone else.
Indirectly appealing to emotion through cloaking propaganda as entertainment or news media coverage. I had a friend – I know, crazy, right? – who would never directly try to convince upper management of anything. He’d leave clues – breadcrumbs – so that upper management would come to the right conclusion, his conclusion, without him stating his conclusion directly. But there certainly isn’t a reason that Thor™ is going to be replaced by a woman, is there?
Biddle emphasized the importance of the propagandist being hidden when conveying their messages. If the Left thought that Trump wanted them to eat vegetables, half the vegans in the United States would go on a full-carnivore diet and begin stalking cows. If you’re trying to do propaganda, don’t mix the message with the messenger.

And after PETA armed the Cows, this happened.

What Biddle missed was herding. As opinions change, people must be herded to follow the new opinion – outliers must be ruthlessly outcast. The pleasant part for propagandists is that people will tend to self police. You’ve probably heard that crabs stuck in a bucket trying to get out will pull any crab that gets out back into the bucket with them. I have no idea if crabs do that, because my relationship with crabs involves steam, fancy vice grips, and a cup filled with liquid butter.

Kim Jong Un loves Stephen King books – he’s a fearless reader.

Stephen King only wishes that he was stuck with crabs. Wait, that came out wrong. Anyway, Mr. King made the epic error of arguing that with his votes for the Oscars®, that diversity didn’t matter, only quality. In any universe where rational people discuss things, that’s an entirely reasonable statement. But in Hollywood©? Not a chance (LINK). If Twitter™ could burn people at the stake, it would be very warm in Mr. King’s house tonight.

And if they only reported it on NPR®? I’d never hear it. Unless it was during pledge drive. Why is it always pledge drive?

Health, Media, And Distrust

“That’s because there’s no logical reason Vitamin C would cure polio.” – House, M.D.

What’s worse than misplacing your keys? Polio.

I really don’t have to tell you how deep the distrust in society is today. In many cases, it is for good and heckin’ valid reasons. That will be the theme for the next three posts, starting with today’s post.

Media distrust is at all-time highs in the United States. There’s an old Soviet joke about their newspapers, Pravda (which means “Truth” in English) and Izvestia (which means “The News” in English):

“There’s no truth in Pravda and no news in Izvestia.”

Especially in 2020 and (now) in 2021, our news has been so corrupted as to make Stalin jealous. Sadly, this has consequences.

I’ll start off by stating the obvious: COVID-19 is a real disease. There have been fatalities. If you read Aesop’s blog (LINK), you can get a firsthand account of his dealing with it as a medical professional. It isn’t pleasant reading, but it is truth, and when it comes to COVID-19, I trust Aesop more than the CDC. Also? I’d rather read the unpleasant truth than pretty little lies, any day.

Editor: “I want that fable on my desk, AESOP!”

It also isn’t pleasant when he comes over to this place and (validly) punches me in the mouth with all of the subtlety of a Devil Dog storming a German trench when I get my medical stuff wrong. I actually appreciate that since I want the truth to get out, regardless of ideological consequence. (Though sometimes it stings. And I’m sure he’ll remind me to get the shingles vaccine when I get older.)

But yet . . . Dr. Anthony Fauci said this on March 8, 2020:

“There’s no reason to be walking around with a mask. When you’re in the middle of an outbreak, wearing a mask might make people feel a little bit better and it might even block a droplet, but it’s not providing the perfect protection that people think that it is. And, often, there are unintended consequences — people keep fiddling with the mask and they keep touching their face.”

Remember, no matter how useless you think you are, there’s always Dr. Fauci.

On April 3, 2020, Fauci changed his story:

On masks, he said, “If everybody does that, we’re each protecting each other.”

Fair enough, people change their minds, right? But it later came out that the context of the first statement was built on a lie: “ . . . masks were not recommended for the general public, as authorities were trying to prevent a mask shortage for health workers . . . .”

How hard is it to say . . . “We don’t know. Masks might work. But right now there’s a shortage and we’re asking you to save those masks that are available for health workers”?

It’s not hard. And it’s honest. When they lie to you, that tells you what they think of you.

Now, Fauci recently (January 2021) said that maybe you should wear two masks. In his case that makes sense – one for each of his faces.

I can now tell if a person has a mustache even if they have a mask on. I guess I’m hairivoyant.

Now we end up with the COVID-19 vaccine.

To be clear: I’m not an anti-vaxxer. My kids have all of their shots – that’s why they get the tag from the vet.

What, the tags are for the dogs?

Oops. No wonder Pugsley tries to keep hiding his collar and bell and rabies tag under his t-shirt when he goes to school.

Additionally, there is clear evidence that some vaccines have done some significant amounts of good:

Smallpox has been eradicated – like my jokes, it’s a killer. But smallpox is like one of my obscure jokes – no one gets it anymore.
Polio? What’s that?
Others: Measles and mumps were (for a time) eradicated in the United States, though the number of lives saved annually due to measles might be as low as 400 a year due to the vaccine (LINK) and may be half that or less. Also? The biggest decline in measles deaths took place years before the vaccine was released.

Oh, wait, I guess I just asked.

But let’s go back to polio. While the vaccine was new, one batch had polio that wasn’t “killed” and it infected hundreds of thousands of kids. Another version was contaminated with SV-40, a virus from monkeys (it was a relic of how the vaccine was produced) that produces cancer in some lab critters. SV-40 DNA has been found in various cancers in humans, including non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, though it’s considered controversial to say that the polio vaccine triggered those cancers.

Was it worth it to get rid of polio?

I can sit back in 2021 and easily say, “Sure, those aren’t my kids.” A few parents from 1954 might want to have words with me, though.

Now, the current vaccine is of a type that’s entirely new. It uses strands of RNA (biological spaghetti that transfers information on how your squishy parts are made) to trigger an immune response by making your immune system sensitive to proteins that are a part of the ‘Rona.

A good idea? Sure!

A good idea to try on the fly with millions of people in a science experiment?

Hmmm, now I’m not so sure.

Would I want Pugsley to get the vaccine? At his current age, there is a 0% chance of death if he catches the ‘Rona. Most likely, he’d never even know he had it. If I expand his age group to include the few unhealthy kids in their 20s that caught it and died, the chances of death, if he got it, is 0.001%. For him, driving to school is far, far, more dangerous.

Would I want my son to take a vaccine of an entirely new type when the chances of side effects killing him are by definition equal to (zero is equal to) or greater than his current risk profile from the WuFlu?

Probably not.

What isn’t helping is that discussion of any subject related to COVID-19 is censored on YouTube® if it doesn’t say exactly what Dr. Fauci thinks. And, as we have established, what he says is demonstrably not guaranteed to be the truth. It might be, but we already know one thing: the man will lie to us.

Did Hank Aaron die as a result of the Coronavirus vaccine he so publicly took?

I have no idea.

Who would I trust to tell me yes or no, that the vaccine is safe?

I have no idea.

There’s even a toll in California for tying your shoe. Knot fare.

The radio spouted a daily COVID-19 death toll until the minute Joe Biden was sworn in. Now? Not at all. The only stories I hear now are (mainly) positive vaccine stories.

I just wish we had more Pravda in our Izvestia.

Pyramids, Captain Kirk, And Skills

“Seven days ago one of my satellites over Antarctica discovered a pyramid.” – Alien vs. Predator

A friend tried to rope me into a pyramid scam. “Don’t you want to be your own boss,” he asked me. “No, I hate working for jerks.”

When I graduated from college, I graduated at the same time as one of my close friends. The employment market was only so-so, but we both managed to grab jobs in a town near the college. Whereas my job was, um, more rough and tumble (I was a rodeo clown at for chubby people at the Golden Corral® – my worst day was when Megan McCain and Oprah showed up together), my friend’s job ended up being at a suit and tie kind of place. Thankfully, we still were working in the same city, and we got together frequently.

One night he asked a question over Buffalo wings and too many beers: “Where did they go?”

“What? Where did who go?”

“All the old guys. I mean, I go to work, and I see that there are dozens of people less than thirty. Then, maybe twenty percent are between thirty and forty. After forty? It’s a wasteland. Hardly anyone but upper management is over forty.”

I thought about his question. Where did they go? The company I was working at (and most of the companies I’ve worked at since then) had a similar pyramid shape. Some have been steeper, and some shallower, but all have had that shape.

I have a good construction joke, but I’m still working on it.

So, where did they go?

Well, they didn’t retire – not from the company they were at – they didn’t make nearly enough to retire at 27 and live on the island with Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin, Kurt Cobain and Robert Johnson.

Nope. The vanished people were gone. Where? Somewhere else. Some other industry, some other career. It was uno, dos, and then they vanished without a tres.

Probably the biggest reason for that pyramid shape is that younger people cost less. Do they know less? Sure, but inexpensive is an attribute all of its own.

But any hierarchical organization has fewer slots for leaders than for followers. The armed forces are a similar example. I once made the acquaintance of a (no kidding) Captain Kirk. Now, this Captain Kirk wasn’t in Starfleet®, he was in the United States Army. And he was sweating for promotion.

Captain Kirk was denied promotion. I’m thinking that someone the Pentagon saw that Captain Kirk was trying to be promoted to Major Kirk, and that there was no way that the Army would ever give up the numerical superiority they had over the Navy in their number of Captain Kirks.

No, not this Kirk.

The armed forces are a classic example of that pyramid structure: there are fewer generals than colonels, and fewer colonels than majors. And, if officers (in a certain range) fail to be promoted a certain number of times?

Well, there’s the door. So, Captain Kirk soon enough was in the private sector, and I lost track of him from there. I think he got lost somewhere in the Veridian System.

Most (but not all) companies are built upon this pyramid model. I’ve seen high-end consulting firms where it’s a paradise for everyone born in the Eisenhower era, but those are the exception, not the rule. Plus, they charge enough to pay for the most expensive video-streaming service ever: college during Corona.

So, the rub is that for many, the rule is up or out.

What to do?

Invest in the one thing that can never be taken away from you: your skills.

My poor reading skills cost me a career in sex-worker management. On the bright side, now I own a warehouse.

In 2017 I would have given a completely different list of skills than 2021. It would have been far more dull and predictable. But 2021? 2021 is like a tarot card reader’s business: unpredictable. Part of it will come down to plain dumb luck and good timing.

I’d suggest:

Have general skills. General skills are widely applicable and get a job quickly in lots of different locations. Teacher. Tom Brady’s tooth polisher.
Or, have skills that are so specific that they are nearly impossible to replicate. (Specific skills require a time and a place. I’m sure that all of the folks working on the Keystone XL pipeline had great skills. Until those skills aren’t needed.) If you want a great choice for the Biden year, I’d suggest a carbon-neutral way to turn cash into Democratic votes. Oh, wait, they’ve got that figured out.
Protip: growth industries will be the ones that the Left loves for the next two years, at least. If it’s green and fuzzy, the Left will fill it full of money. I’m thinking of investing in pool tables.
Have skills that can’t be done remotely from a foreign country. Right now, that includes teaching. I’m sure there are more, but I’ve been at a loss since Biden figured out how to be the president from China.
Have skills where a certification that a foreigner can’t get are required. Top secret clearances are nice. I’m working on a top-secret project to ferment honey to make ethanol for cars. The project is all on a mead-to-know basis.

To be fair, I had an addiction to stealing traffic lights. But I could stop whenever I wanted to.

A lot of the suggestions above would have made the 2017 list.

In 2021, however, I must stress that the world might get a lot more, um, basic than we’re used to. The reason that my Great-Great-Grandma McWilder (GGGMcW) did fine during the Great Depression was she knew how to make clothes from cloth, a needle, and thread. And if the cloth wasn’t big enough for a dress? It was big enough to be made into part of a hand-made quilt. Like Jean-Luc Picard, she could make it sew.

GGGMcW also knew how to raise chickens. And raise a garden. Probably 30% or more of the calories they ate came from the backyard – as he added soil to the garden, I’m sure he said, “so, the plot thickens.” But Great-Great-Grandpa McWilder was no slouch, either. He didn’t have a great repair shop, but the man fixed every aspect of his house, by himself. Roof leaked?

It was his job to fix. Ants? His to kill. Broken suitcase handle? His to fix.

Honestly, I don’t recall them buying anything much more than flour, sugar, bread, chicken, and hamburger and the occasional vegetable. I don’t think the area was friendly to corn so I think they got that in cans. They would have grown more vegetables, but they weren’t from Okra-homa.

I installed a beer tap in my house – now The Mrs. complains that she can’t take a shower.

But there was more. The Great-Greats were also tied into their community, and had been there a decade. The connections they had bonded them to the community. How so? During the Depression they raised another child from a family that couldn’t afford to feed the kid.

The pyramid is real. In many ways opportunities may diminish over time. But life goes on, so keep investing in the skills that you might need.

All of them. Because you have no idea what the future might bring.