Are We In The Middle Of A Planned Revolution? Yes.

“Day 93 under the dome.  With necessities growing dangerously low, who knows what spark will set off this powder keg?” – The Simpsons Movie

I saw two men in matching outfits so I asked them if they were gay.  Turns out that doesn’t make the NYPD happy.

A phenomenon that has sweep the world in the early 21st century has been the “Color Revolution”.  This is characterized by a “grassroots” movement whose aim was theoretically to create a liberal Western democracy on the European model.  An example would be most Western European countries, with the exception of the Islamic Caliphate of France.

What methods were used in these “peaceful” revolutions?

  • Leadership by Non-Governmental Organizations Civil Disobedience
  • Civil Disorder/Disobedience/Protests
  • Total Lack of Chill
  • Use of the Internet to Organize
  • Heavy “Student” Participation

When I read that list, I see a single conclusion:  the CIA did it, sometimes with the help of George Soros.

Probably one of the first places that this method was used was the Soviet Union.  All of the “spontaneous” protests at the beginning were likely anything but spontaneous.  The wonderful part of this type of operation is that if it works, great, an enemy is off the board.  If it doesn’t?  Everyone involved can put on their “so sorry that happened to you, buddy” face while preparing for the next one.

To be fair, I don’t think that most of the people that were trying to get the Soviet Union to collapse thought it was going to work as well and as completely and as quickly as it did.  One minute, the Soviets were all “Viktor Drago” and the next they were all “Trotsky after meeting an icepick”.

What do you call a man with an ice pick in his head?  Anything you want – he clearly doesn’t control the security apparatus of the USSR.

But there is more at play here.  Ricky emailed me an article from 2014 that talked in depth about Color Revolutions and their mechanics by Andrew Korybko which inspired this post.  You can find that article here.

The Color Revolution Model: An Exposé of the Core Mechanics

When we look at a Color Revolution, it’s like looking at an iceberg:  you only see the bit above the water but miss entirely the part that’s going to cause James Cameron to make a billion dollars and inflict those stupid Avatar™ movies on us.  No, Color Revolutions are years in the making and start with:

Ideology:  In the Color Revolutions to date, all of them have been based on the attempt to create a Western-liberal style of government, hence my suggestion that this was the CIA attempting to export “freedom” to a group of people who have consistently and convincingly desired to not be free.  Sure, some Egyptians want to live in a Western-style democracy, but most of them don’t.  Hell, most of the Muslims that have moved to Western Europe don’t want, at all, a Western-style democracy.

They want Sharia law, they want a government based in Islam, and they want all the wealth that the Western-style liberal democracies seem to create.  They want to live in Cairo on the Thames, not the actual, crappy Cairo on the Nile.  Why did Egypt’s Color Revolution fail?  Why did Libya’s?  Why did Syria’s?

They didn’t want that Western liberal democracy ideology, they just wanted the stuff.

Telling a good joke about the French Revolution is all about the execution.

Cash:  As NASA astronaut Gus Grissom said in the movie The Right Stuff, “No bucks, no Buck Rodgers®.”  In a Color Revolution you could say, “No simoleons, no Napoleons”.  That’s as close as I can get unless I retcon Stalin’s first name to Moolah.

But money has to come from somewhere, and most of the people that make up these Color Revolutions are poor college students who live on ramen and despair.

Where did BLM get money?  According to the Claremont Institute (LINK), Microsoft® pledged $244,400,000 to Black Lives Matter.  Black Lives Matter is a Marxist organization pushing radical GloboLeftElite disruption.

Microsoft© is funding a Color Revolution

Against . . . you.

That’s a pickup line that could work for Boeing, too.

People:  There is always an inner circle of leaders of the Color Revolution, probably hand-picked by the funders.  The are willing and passionate about the Color Revolution, primarily because they see themselves as the ones who will get power after the event.  Because someone has to drink the Kool-Aid®, there are also followers.  Those are broken into two groups – the troops and the members of general public that are sympathetic to the revolutionaries.

Propaganda:  First, the message is crafted.  It is prepared in advance for the moment it will be communicated, and the People mobilized.  The propaganda may already be in place, sitting on websites prepared by and for the movement.  It may have been trained into the foot soldiers of the Color Revolution.  Regardless, the message gets out, and the goal is to get sympathy and support as the revolt proceeds.  In the United States, mainstream media is fully onboard with the GloboLeftistElite plans – would anyone be surprised to find out that ABC® gave Kamala the debate questions?  And answers?

I do think the debate about Mobius strips is a bit one-sided.

Spark:  Once all of the above are in place and ready to go, all that’s needed is a spark.  George Floyd, for instance was a spark.  It wasn’t George Floyd, it was that there was a video of a dying junkie that met the needs of the Color Revolution, which was already prepared and ready to go, complete with Ideology, Cash, People and Propaganda, complete with a complicit media to fan the fiery but non-violent flames.

Once these all came together, Floyd’s death was chosen and someone, somewhere, said, “Perfect.  Go.”  It doesn’t matter that Floyd was going to die due to the incredible amounts of drugs in his system.  All that mattered was what the video showed of his on-camera death.

Korybko suggested, back in 2014, that examples of these Sparks included (all of these are direct quotes):

  • A rigged election
  • The jailing of an opposition leader
  • The signing of (or failure to sign) a controversial piece of legislation
  • A government crackdown against the opposition or the imposition of martial law
  • Declaring or being involved in an unpopular war

Of the three Sparks that Korybko suggested, the top almost certainly happened in 2020, and the second and fourth are being implemented in some fashion against Trump and/or his supporters.  The list is, obviously, not exhaustive, and the event need never have happened in reality, as long as people can be convinced it happened.

After the event, the protests start.  And grow.  And spread.  In retrospect, it’s easy to see that the Floyd Protests were an attempted Color Revolution in the United States that was called off after the mechanisms to secure the 2020 election for Biden were in place, and, perhaps a warning of sorts to Biden that he’d best do what he was told if he could remember.

I was listening to a podcast tonight and Eric Weinstein noted that he had been assured that Biden does not have access to “the football” and that the United States is currently being run by a committee of the powerful.  The same committee, no doubt, that has put Kamala at the brink of power.  Note that Biden only dropped out after the (first) failed assassination of Trump.

Occupy Wall Street challenged the money powers of New York (not sure who was funding them, China?).  This was not to be allowed, so, to counter it, Trayvon Martin was used as a Spark, moving on to the “Gentle Giant” Michael Brown, and finally to George Floyd.

The fact that the clear self-defense shooting of Trayvon Martin was used to get the hippies and AntiFa® out of New York and have them start protesting for black people instead of against bankers.  I guess the bankers got scared, and hippies and AntiFa® have a short attention span, or their leaders just like money.  They had to have something to do, and since it’s always easy to stir up a racial fight, that’s what the bankers picked, because a class fight might have endangered actual bankers.

One stolen joke is a coincidence, two is a pattern.  Thirty is an Amy Schumer standup routine.

These movements aren’t popular, and aren’t spontaneous, though they’re staged to appear so.  They aren’t even permanent – most countries that have had a Color Revolution revert to their old styles of government with just a little bit of time and often a lot of chaos.  Egypt went from its military government to a very brief “democracy” and then right back to a military government because that’s what Egyptians seem to want.

This may sound as crazy as predicting the fall of the Soviet Union in 1989, but the government of the United States is nearing collapse, and the Color Revolution technique, or something like it, is being employed against you and funded by people like Microsoft® to guide the fall into, they hope, a situation where bankers can frolic freely.

That’s the rub – the importation of the endless hordes of illegals, the economic devastation of inflation and the contrived energy and housing crises and continual cultural provocations are cracks, big ones, setting the stage for a major change.  And, again, each and every one of them is intentional, and it’s gone far enough that I still believe we’re entering the danger window in 2025, with the early to middle 2030s the most likely time when the final Spark hits.

Beyond the Spark?

It’s up to us.

The Debate

“Mr. Rooney, Ferris is home and he’s very ill.  I debated even leaving him.” – Ferris Bueller’s Day Off

Who won the presidential debate last night?  People who didn’t watch.

As my father said when the cows got into the marijuana, “Son, the steaks are high.”

That’s how I’d describe the Trump/Kamala debate.  Apparently, they’ve never met, so her charge that Trump put a wet finger in her ear and said “Wet Willie Brown” is certainly false.  One of the rules is that Kamala has a two-drink minimum.

I decided I’d just blog about the debate instead.  Since I’m going to get into the hot tub later with a cigar and maybe a scotch, today’s post will be, unfortunately, written while sober.

Notes:  I like the muted microphone idea.  It stops the debate for being a shouting match, though I wish they would give the candidates an array of condiments they could throw at each other.  Regardless, here is my (partially made up) transcript.

But she’d be happy to force you to take it.

My biggest hope?  That Trump says, “Be quiet or I’ll spank you, you disrespectful little turnip.”

Showtime!

Kamala walks to Don.  I think she would have peed on him to show dominance, but she couldn’t lift her leg up, or Hindu tradition prevents it.

First question:

Are people better off than four years ago?

Kamala:  “I understand the problem and I have no idea what to do about it.  I’m going to say absolutely nothing, but then attack Trump.”

Trump:  “No sales tax, other countries will pay for the wall, took billions and billions from Chi-nah.  We’ve had a terrible economy, worse than ever seen since ever.  We’ve had people stream into this country from mental institutions, and even Baltimore.”

Kamala:  “Worst epidemic, worst unemployment and personally burned the Constitution after farting on the Statue of Liberty.”

Trump:  “Cut taxes, make the greatest economy, ever, and then Kamala ate a baby.  Alive.  At Central Park.  I was there.”

Kamala:  “I’ve memorized a thing about the economy.  Here it is.”

Trump:  “She has no plan.  It’s four sentences – run spot run.”  I wish I had made that up, but that was Trump’s line, it’s hilarious.

You want to add tariffs, and that might cost more money.  Why do you hate America?

Trump:  “They kept my tariffs, because I made the best tariffs, and now people can’t afford bacon.”

Kamala:  “There was a trade deficit, and Trump sold chips to China, and the United States should win the race against China.”  It really didn’t say anything in the answer, but it was well said, much better than her normal word salad.

Trump:  “Taiwan sold chips to Chi-nah.  Immigration is bad.  She’s a Marxist.”  (Actually, one of Trump’s passionate answers, and pretty articulate and less hand-wavy than usual.

President Trump you were against abortion and then for abortion and why do you hate women?

Trump:  “Six Supreme Court justices got Roe v. Wade out of the states, and now states can make a decision and people can make a vote.  Ohio and Kansas were okay with killing kids.”

Kamala:  “Trump is a liar.  He’s the devil.  Women have to leave a state to kill a baby, and can’t even do it at their home state.  I might sign a bill making baby killing legal everywhere.”

Trump:  “Kamala’s a liar.  And stupid.  And incompetent at government.”

Kamala:  “Any woman should be able to kill any baby whenever.  Perhaps up until college.”  Kamala is making it personal, and looking at Trump as an accuser.  Trump doesn’t fall for this.

Trump:  “She’s a liar.  Everybody knows it.”

The microphones are not always turned off during the answers of the other candidate.

It’s hard to make a good abortion joke, but leave it to the Left.

Why did you let just a few illegal people in?

Kamala:  “I want to stop drugs from coming in.”  She starting to slur her words.  “Trump didn’t approve the bill and that’s because he hates you and you should go to his stupid rally.”

Trump:  “There’s no reason to go to her rallies.  People don’t leave my rallies.  People want to take their country back.  What they have done with allowing millions and millions into our country, they’re eating the cats, they’re eating the pets.”  This has happened, but ABC News disagreed.

Kamala:  (first giggle) “Talk about extreme!  The very worst republicans love me.”  Kamala is actually effectively getting under Trump’s skin at this point.

Trump:  “I fired them.”

Perhaps he’s upset because that was Fang-Fang’s dinner?

How can you send all of these illegals back?

Trump:  “They allowed terrorists, drug dealers, criminals and Venezuelans in.  Their crime is down.  But they’re destroying the fabric of our country.” (no humor added on this comment)

Kamala:  (next giggle, more slurring) “This is rich!  Trump is a criminal and awful, and I have answers, I promise.”

Trump:  “It’s a political prosecution.”  Really good answer here.

Kamala:  “Trump would kill your children if he were back in the White House.”

Kamala, you flip flop, so please explain why you have such a good reason to flip flop?

Kamala:  “After I was against oil, I was for oil.  I want everyone to have houses, because that won’t increase inflation, but we’ll need to need to import labor to make them.  And this friend I had in high school who is totally not made up was sexually assaulted.  I want to help people not be mean like Trump.”

Trump:  “I am so very rich.  Fracking?  She’s been against fracking and the police (even Sting) and – I’m talking now – does that sound familiar? – and wants to turn do transgender surgery on illegal aliens.”

Transgender surgery for even alien-aliens, would be my bet.  But ALF as a woman?

Mr. President, why did you start an insurrection and why do you regret it?

Trump:  “Peacefully and patriotically.  You left that out.  When are the illegals going to be prosecuted?  When are the people who burned down Minneapolis going to be prosecuted?”

Mr. President, why don’t you say you regret this?

Trump:  “I didn’t do anything to regret.”

Kamala:  “I was at the Capitol.  The President wanted to desecrate the nation’s Capitol because he hates you and Donald Trump hates Jews.”  Trump does not take the bait to stare back at her, which people would take as threatening.

Trump:  “Why is she now doing anything on the border?  Biden can close the border, he’s not.”

Mr. President, why won’t you say you lost the election we stole fair and square?

Trump:  “The illegals are trying to vote.”  Kamala does not look remotely happy and ABC pulls away from the split screen.

Why does Donald Trump want to stop illegals from voting?

Kamala:  “Donald Trump should accept the fact that we stole the election fair and square.”

Trump:  “Victor Orban – why is the world blowing up?  The most respected and most feared president was Trump.  Kamala didn’t get a single vote.  She failed.”

Israel and Palestine aren’t getting along, tell us a made-up way that you’d solve it?

Kamala:  “War is bad.  We shouldn’t have one.  I really like Israel, though.”

Trump:  “It never would have started.  Russia wouldn’t have invaded Ukraine.  Kamala hates Israel.  But, Kamala also hates Arabs.  And probably hates kittens.”

Kamala:  “I love Israel.  Trump is weak and loves dictators.”

Trump:  “Putin endorses Kamala.”

Commercial Break – A commercial for feminine products.  Who knew women were filled with blue liquid?

Mr. President, you could solve Ukraine in 24 hours?

Trump:  “We’ve spent $250 billion in Ukraine because Biden won’t ask Europe.  I can call Putin and Zelinsky and settle it.  I’ll do a deal.  It would be a great deal.  We could have World War III.”

Kamala:  “You’re running against me.  Putin wants to take over all of the Starbucks™ in Europe.  No cappuccino for anyone.  And Poland.  You want to give up Poland.”

Trump:  “Quiet, please.  Putin would be sitting in Moscow, and don’t forget he has nuclear weapons.  Kamala was sent to negotiate peace, and three days later?  War.  She’s worse than Biden.  She is a horrible negotiator.”

Kamala:  “I’m going to say a lot of things about Trump, to avoid talking about how I failed negotiating in Ukraine.”

Trump:  “I got Europeans to pay for NATO.”

Kamala was a lot more prepared than she was the first time around.

Do you regret what happened in Afghanistan?

Kamala:  “We got out of Afghanistan.  Trump’s deal in Afghanistan was the worst.  Trump invited terrorists to Camp David, America’s most holy place.”

Trump:  “My agreement was good, the Afghanistan withdrawal was horrible.”

President Trump, why are you a racist?

Trump:  “I’m not.”

Kamala:  “He is.”

Trump:  “She’s horrible.”

Kamala:  “He’s horrible.”

Trump:  “She’s horrible.”

(Hosts utterly losing control)

President Trump, how are you going to fix healthcare?

Trump:  “I saved Obamacare, but it wasn’t great, but I’m trying to find a better one.””

Oh, wonderful Kamala, how can you say something about healthcare that conforms to the answer you memorized?

Kamala:  “I’m not going to take your guns.  And I know people who have been sick and we want Obamacare to get even better.  And healthcare is a right.”

Trump:  “Kamala wants everyone on government insurance.”

What would you do to stop climate change?

Kamala:  “Climate change is horrible and I have invested $1 trillion in clean energy with my donors and opened factories around the world.”

Trump:  “Kamala loves Chi-nha.  They’ve destroyed business and manufacturing, and Biden got paid off by China and Ukraine?  They are crooks.”

Commercial Break – Debate sponsored by Crazy Z’s Unpainted Ukraine, for the best in discount barely used weapons.

Closing Statements:

Kamala:  “We’re not going back to low prices.  I’ve never had a real job.  We need me as a president.”

Trump:  “Here are the wonderful things she’s going to do, but she hasn’t done it.  Why hasn’t she done it?  I can rebuild America.  I can make it better, faster.  I’ll call it the six-million-dollar country.”

Overall, Trump was Trump, and this was probably his best debate of all of them during three elections.    Kamala, however, didn’t look like the blithering idiot that she is, since it looks like they got her off the sauce long enough to do debate prep.

If you liked Trump, you still like Trump.  If you liked Kamala, you’re probably not a regular reader, but you probably still like Kamala and are relieved that she didn’t Biden-out with disjointed word salads.  I think Team Kamala will be happy enough with this performance that they’ll trot her out for a few very carefully scripted interviews.

There will not be another debate.

How will the normies take it?  Not a clear victory either way, and the undecided mainly don’t watch these things, so it’ll be decided by what news they hear between the “top hits of the 80s, and more” and what they’re paying for gasoline.

Or, by the people who count the votes in big cities in swing states.

Stay tuned, and I suggest spending election night at a mountaintop restaurant, where the steaks will be high.

Distractions, Pascal, And Postman

“This is your life, and it’s ending one minute at a time.” – Fight Club

I then started a summer camp for people who wanted to be plastic surgeons.  Arts and Grafts was very popular.

Distractions.

Blaise Pascal wrote about them in his book Pensées, which is French and means “reflections” and is pronounced “Hamwich” because the French never properly figured out that sounds in words should be connected in some fashion to the letters used.

Pascal was a mathematician, a physicist, and invented the laptop computer, which was initially a plank of wood.  In reality, he did some of the foundational work that showed that atmospheric pressure varied with altitude, even has a unit named after him.

Pascal was also a philosopher, and thought a whole bunch about Christianity.  This was back before the “let’s get a cappuccino and listen to Pastor Dave talk about why God wants lesbian ministers” type of church, and instead when there were debates on how salvation occurred and if free will was a thing.

Thankfully it didn’t take them too long to clean the kettle out, though they did ask me where I got six gallons.

Pascal wrote:  “Distraction is the only thing that consoles us for our miseries.  Yet, it is, itself, the greatest of our miseries.”

And, although he’s dead, Pascal was entirely correct.  We see it all around us right now.

Distraction is seductive.  I remember we were on a family vacation and stopped at a Denny’s® to get breakfast.  There was a line, and about 30 people (mainly families) were waiting.

As I looked, every eye was focused on a phone – 30 people sitting next to each other, yet distracted by whatever it was that they were looking at.  They had escaped reality, and also escaped talking to each other, almost as if they were addicted to the distractions coming to them over their iPhones®.

In reality, many of them probably are technically addicted to those phones.  Much of the internet, even back then, was built on the premise of stimulating dopamine to create engagement with the phone, and not with the world surrounding us.

Such a wonderful society we have to take pills to deal with it.  Meme as found.

Were those people worried about their bills, their jobs, or their immortal soul?  Nah.  They were distracted by flappy bird games or Faceborg™ or InstaChat©.  They were allowing the moments of their lives to drain away into that sea of distraction rather than confront reality.

They did have bills.  Their jobs sucked.  Their immortal soul was in peril.  But that’s difficult to think about, so it’s much easier to look at pretty colors and cat videos for ten seconds before flipping to the next infotainment bite.  The distraction was total.

Is it any wonder that coping skills have been drastically impacted in the generation raised on the distraction of phones?  Kids can’t cope because they’re never forced to confront themselves until the stakes are high.  This creates a group of victims.

I hate victims.  A lot.  They’re whiney and they suck every bit of energy out of the room, like psychic vampires.  Oh, wait, I just described The View.  Huh.

If you ever feel uninformed, remember that some people get their news from The View.

Absolutely, there are people who are in situations that are far beyond their control.  And, absolutely there are people who don’t deserve what fate has given them.  However, when I look at people who have self-control, who have looked fate in the eye and said, “Yeah, so what?  I’m still standing here, chump,” I feel admiration.

Neil Postman was a professor and writer, but then he died.  Perhaps his best-known work is Amusing Ourselves to Death, written in 1985.  The Mrs. introduced me to it not long after we met, and I knew she was a keeper.  In it, Postman talks about the impact of amusement.  Amusement is close enough to distraction for our purposes and both Postman and Pascal are dead, so they can’t put up too much of a fight.

Again, Postman wrote about this in 1985, well before the every distraction, every place, all at once monster of the smartphone appeared.  In it, Postman identified television as a drug.  If so, it’s a gateway drug like aspirin, and the Internet is heroin.

Part of distraction is that it discourages the formation of complete thoughts.  I think at least partially that’s part of the inspiration for this place, since I want to create and bring forth ideas that people might not think about, or might have forgotten in all frenzy of flashing lights, free porn, and distractions of Instabook© and Facegram™.

If idiots could fly, TikTok® would be an airport.

It’s a world where, “Excuse me, I’m talking” becomes a replacement for actual thought and people thinking deeply about issues like old Pascal becomes rarer and rarer.  A side effect is that the information we get becomes information we can’t take action on.  Want to complain to your congressman?  How would you even contact them?  How would you get their attention?  Hell, getting the attention of an HOA is nearly impossible in some subdivisions.

Instead, you’ll complain to your neighbor.

Worse, though, is the impact that’s happening to our youth.  The lesson that bad crap is going to happen to them so they need to learn deal with it simply isn’t taught because they just distract themselves away from the Truth they don’t want to consider.  It’s not their fault – their brain is optimized to live in villages, and we distract them with the hardest hitting drug in history:  the smartphone.

Failure is an option.  And failure is a teacher, but when the teacher is fired and replaced with social media?  The lesson is muted or ignored.

I bought a book called “How to Hug”, but it turned out to be volume seven of an encyclopedia.

How did Pascal manage to deal with being a religious philosopher, a mathematician, and a physicist?

I guess Pascal was good at avoiding distraction and dealing with pressure.

Cold AC, Hot Showers, And Bad Economics

“Baseball.  Cold showers.  Margaret Thatcher naked on a cold day.” – Austin Powers, International Man of Mystery

Also, a home DNA testing kit is apparently a poor baby shower gift.

It has been years since The Mrs. and I fought over setting the thermostat.  In summer, we both like it cold, and in winter, we both like it cold.

However, it has been much more of a recent battle on the thermostat with the kids.  Partially this is because they fundamentally didn’t know how the heater or air conditioner worked:  at our house, the unit is either on, or it’s off.

That’s probably the case at your house, too unless you have a fancy system.  The way most air conditioners work is that, when turned on, they’re at their maximum output.  Which is also their minimum output.  My air conditioner is never partly on – it’s either on or it’s off.  Period.

What this means is that if I want the room to be 70°F (3 milli-Coulombs) and you turn it to 62°F, it won’t get colder faster.  Instead, it’ll keep plowing down until it reaches 62°F (1.2 picoparsecs/square meter) if that’s a temperature that it can possibly reach.  Some days it gets hot here in Modern Mayberry, and the AC does just stay on, cooling as best as it can.

If I started an air conditioning repair business for congress, I’d call it AC/DC.

Regardless, when that would happen I would walk into a room on a day where it was 98°F (33mega electron Volts) outside and see my family huddled under blankets while frost began to form on the inside of the house because Pugsley wanted it colder, faster and set the thermostat to “freezer”.

The reason this happens is because of the timing of the feedback – the temperature of the house doesn’t immediately change, so the reaction of someone who doesn’t understand the system and wants immediate gratification is to keep cranking the dial downward.  As a dad, all I can think is, “Man, that isn’t cool.”

After the first brush with a too hot or too cold shower, we quickly absorb the feedback loop that after turning the shower in, we have to wait for the water to change, and if we move the lever too far to the “hot” side because the water is cold at the start, unpleasant things will happen.

That’s a fairly quick loop and sudden cold or hot is a fairly quick teacher.

I think step five is the hardest.

But a much longer loop would be certain parts of our economy.  Sure, if the Fed® changes the interest rate, immediately interest rates change across the country because the Fed™ artificially drives those rates.  So, that’s like your shower, except the Fed© asks us to assume the position so it can use that interest rate to compound us.

Other things, though, by nature have a much longer response time.  Sure, the price of oil cratering can immediately send ten thousand fracking workers to the unemployment line, which is an immediate response.  But soaring oil prices?

Responding to those requires time and investment.  First, suitable land for drilling has to be acquired, along with permits and leases.  After that, a rig has to be found, and a crew has to be found for the rig, and half of the people that used to be on it won’t go back because they’re tired of the 120 hours this week and zero hours a week for months after the price of oil goes to $40 a barrel.

Then, pipe is needed.  And to move it, trucks, truck drivers, pipelines, et cetera.  This takes years to build – Exxon® once noted that their projects are built on multi-decade scales.  That’s a slow change, and often Exxon™ plods along in down years because they know that prices will eventually head back up.

The reason Saudi Arabia has so much money isn’t the crude oil sales, they just don’t let their women spend it.

Politicians, however are impatient, since voters are impatient, and so politicians want results.  Now.  Explaining that having a fracking ban will decrease the amount of oil available which, in turn, will raise prices is beyond the understanding of the average GloboLeftist politician.

The reason is that they have no fundamental understanding of how our economy works and where those segments of the economy with a time delay are located.  They simply think, “We’ll mandate that cars get 250 miles per gallon and are so safe that a fusion bomb ignited next to one will only scratch the paint.”

I mean, it’s worth it if it saves even one life, right?

The fact that these mandates are beyond the bounds of thermodynamics doesn’t matter to them.  They don’t understand what thermodynamics is, and I can barely imagine trying to explain it to a GloboLeftist politician:

John Wilder:  “Okay, we’re going to discuss entropy, which is the idea that systems go from a state of order to a state of disorder.  With me?”

Alexandria Ocasio Cortez:  “Huh?  Why are you in my house at midnight?”

JW:  “Let me try a different approach.  How many pairs of shoes do you have, Ms. Cortez?”

AOC:  “Oh, like 40 or 50?”

JW:  “Good.  Now, what’s the worst thing about having 40 or 50 pairs of shoes?”

AOC:  “I don’t know?  That they smell like my feet?”

JW:  “Well . . . . okay.  But is it hard to keep them organized?”

AOC:  “OH!  Totally!  I mean, l generally just keep them in a pile in the guest bedroom, but that makes them hard to find when I need to go to work.”

JW:  “Right!  The amount of disorder increases!”

AOC:  “Oh, I get it!!!  Beer must be really bad for entropy, because when I was a bartender people would get drunk and disorderly all the time!”

JW:  “And let’s not talk about your shower, because I’m pretty sure that with your housekeeping skills and the length of your hair, the drain probably looks like you shave wookies® in there.  Besides do you know how an air conditioner works?”

AOC:  “In this house, we’re environmentally conscious – no air conditioner.  Instead?  Only Fans®.”

I hear wookie® steaks are often Chewie.

Politicians make decisions on a regular basis that have very few short-term impacts, but that may have economically disastrous long-term impacts.

Longer term decisions include:

  • tax policy which drives investment decisions and can kill industries,
  • Social Security and Medicare, in which cash is taken, spent, and then the next generation is saddled with the repayment obligations,
  • immigration policy, which changes the population and workforce over decades,
  • tariffs, which determine winners and losers, and
  • many other things that you or I could name if we just spent 10 minutes thinking about it.

Each of these has a feedback loop that’s measured in decades.  The demise of tariffs and replacement with income tax, for instance, gradually resulted in the industrial might of the United States being dismantled and shipped overseas where labor was cheaper.

I’d make a joke about offshore drilling, but many of those are crude.

Now, we don’t know how to make those things anymore, all because of long feedback loops.

But since I’ve learned about Global Warming, I’ve decided to keep my air conditioning on all the time.  I know I can’t save the planet all by myself, but I’ll do my best.

Change, Batman, Male Prostitutes, And Bears

“You were looking for a way to change your life.  You could not do this on your own.” – Fight Club

My Chinese friend gave me an iPad.  I just love homemade presents!

I can tell when I’m really ready for change.  I don’t think about it.  I don’t plan it.

I do it.  I become it.

Instantly.

How can I tell when I’m not ready to change?

I think about it.  I plan it.  I consider ideas like, “starting Monday, I’m going to . . . “

Then Monday comes around.  Meh.  There’s always next Monday.

Change is instantaneous, it’s a drag racer (I mean cars, not men in dresses that for some unspecified reason like to read to children) after the pedal has been pushed to the floor and the car is launched.  The desire to change?  That lingers and hangs around on the couch, eating curly fries and thinking about what it one day might do.

Shame on you if you haven’t heard of Fred Garvin, Male Prostitute, who offers professional hygiene, discretion, and animal gratification.

One of my friends when I was living in Alaska shared this story:

Wife:  “I’m leaving.”

Husband:  “What, what the hell?  You’re leaving me?”

Wife:  “No.  I’m leaving Alaska.  I’m moving.”

Husband:  “Why?  I thought that, while we had our ups and downs, our marriage is pretty good.”

Wife:  “No.  I’m not leaving you, I’m leaving Alaska.  It’s fine if you want to come, too.”

My friend (who I will call Tim since that’s his name) said that this was a constant pattern that he had seen.  Perfectly happy couple, and then one day, bam, the wife said she was outta there, done with Alaska except for the rearview mirror.  He said it generally happened about 20 years after the couple had moved to Alaska.  Sometimes 19 years.

Do mimes with invisible walls have obstacle illusions?

He had no idea why it happened, but it was frequent enough that he’d seen the pattern play out again and again.

Now that, my friends, is change.

Another example more relevant to me is biking.  I used to bike a lot, and I know from experience that the only thing that is as insufferable as a gay vegan-Democrat-Crossfit® enthusiast is a bicyclist.  But when I decided that I was going to use biking as an exercise to get into better shape (which worked) I went all in.  No, I didn’t buy the silly jersey or the clip on shoes or a bike that weighed .03 ounces (351 kiloPascals), but I did buy the gear I needed to be good enough to lose some weight.  Hell, I wasn’t racing, I wanted a heavy bike so I had to work my fat ass harder.

So, after 5,000 plus bike miles a year for two years, I found I lost approximately 10 pounds.

Why didn’t the bear go to college?  Because bears don’t go to college.

Hmmm, I guess I can’t ride my bike faster than my fork, but when I was on my bike, even though I was far from a world-record anything, I was training as hard as any world-class athlete.  Just not as long, and just without the talent that they had.  I mean, I was dedicated, but there was no way I was gonna cut my testicle off like Lance Armstrong.

But, again, the change was instantaneous.  Just as instantaneous as when I decided to stop biking because I noticed it was causing some damage to my body, and having a bad ankle wasn’t worth losing 10 pounds.

One day, bicyclist.

The next day?

Not.

So, change itself is instant.  And also predictable – it always has and always will require just three simple things, as Ludwig von Mises (who is dead) wrote:

A Vision of a Better State

A Path to Get to the Better State

A Belief That My Action Along the Path Will Get Me to the Better State

If you have Vision, Path, and Belief, you change.  If I don’t have them, even if I’m missing just one of them, I don’t change.  At all.  I just sit on my couch eating curly fries.

Anyone can want to change, in fact I’m sure we all want to change.  But until we get those three simple keys, we won’t.

When my youngest was five, The Mrs. and I asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up, he said, “Batman”.  Now he wonders why we won’t take him to the theater.

Why do people who have heart attacks sometimes become fitness devotees?  Because they now have A Vision of a Better State – not being dead next year.  They have A Path to Get to the Better State – exercise and eating right.  They now have A Belief That Their Action Along the Path Will Get Them to the Better State – their doctor told them, and now they’re paying attention.

That’s a rather extreme example, but it’s one that gets raised all the time.

I think the reasons that more people don’t make changes comes from a few simple reasons:

Despair:  They don’t believe that anything that they do can change the situation that they’re in so they don’t even dwell on a better state or look for a path.  They’ve given up.

Not Looking:  They simply won’t open their eyes to the possibility of something different, or feel guilt, and also can’t see a way, even if it’s abundantly clear to others.

Apathy:  They don’t care.  Curly fries are easy.  Work is hard.

Sometimes change is a conscious choice, but I’ll also admit that sometimes change is forced upon you like the Alaskan husband from Tim’s story above.

If you have something you want to change, change it.  You can’t make yourself younger, but you can make yourself stronger than you are today.  If you want more money, you can’t write yourself checks based on an IOU that you wrote to yourself (like the government does) but you can earn more or save more or both.  I guarantee it.

My grandfather once told me it was worth it to spend money on good stereo speakers.  That was sound advice.

Once I asked a friend (not Tim) to write a sentence of their choice as small as they could.  They did.  Then, I said, write it again, and make it smaller this time.

They did.  Generally, the power is within us to do amazing things, but we have to first believe.  You can choose change, or it can choose you.

But what you and I do with that?  It’s up to us.

Kamala: The NPC Candidate

“This isn’t a video game.  There are no extra lives.” – Edge of Tomorrow

Kamala posted a commercial to YouTube®, I tried to reply, but just like Kamala the comments were disabled.  (Memes and content mostly “as found”)

Kamala Harris has invented a new type of presidential candidacy – one based on being absolutely nothing.  Seriously.  She has stated exactly one position publicly:  “No tax on tips” which is precisely the position staked out by Donald Trump two months ago.  I guess we should give Kamala this one, since she’s no stranger to a variety of tips.

Oh, sure, Mr. Trump’s trademark is being “short on details” so that he can leverage a win, but based on 2016, what really outraged the GloboLeft is that Trump actually tried to follow through on many of his positions.  One thing that Trump won’t be to voters is a surprise, but I think Kamala is so unknown as to be a surprise, and not a good one.

Kamala’s first interview question:  “Describe yourself in one word.”  Kamala:  “Vague.”  Interviewer:  “Can you elaborate?”  Kamala:  “Possibly.”

Why?

She’s pulling what I’ll call an “Ultra-Clinton” approach to her candidacy.  Back when Hillary first ran for senate in 2000, I was expecting that, finally, she’d have to address the public.  There wasn’t any way, I naively thought, that she could duck the people for an entire election.  I mean, without killing them.

Whoops.  While Hillary did do carefully staged and vetted “listening tour” events, what she didn’t do was meet with anyone but fawning press.  She successfully avoided all genuine interaction with people so she wouldn’t have to kill time.  Of course, Hillary was well known to be a GloboLeft accomplice, so it wasn’t any surprise when the New York machine churned out a senate seat for her to launch an eventual presidential campaign.

Kamala Harris, though, is another matter.  She is the ultimate in vapor.  What, exactly, does she stand for?  Apparently, no taxes on tips.  But beyond that, she is a ghost.

Is she Indian or black?  Yes, though my guess is that more of her ancestors owned slaves than were slaves.

I guess if she doesn’t owe reparations, nobody does.

Is she for or against illegals scurrying across the border in unending streams?

Yes.  She wants to be seen as “tough on immigration” at the same time she promises to “let every illegal sitting in detention out on day one”.

Is she against inflation?  You bet she is, and on day one of her administration she’ll do something (the something is not mentioned) to stop it.  Why the Biden/Harris administration can’t stop it right here and now isn’t discussed and no one asks here that question, since that would be mean or something.  As usual, the Bee nails it:

If honesty is the best policy, I guess Kamala’s normally uses the second-best policy.

Interviews?  Trump sits down to a multi-hour open and candid conversation with Elon Musk, and sits for interview after interview.  Kamala?  She might sit for an interview sometime by the end of the month.  Maybe.  If they can keep her off the gin for that long.

And Trump’s request for three debates?

Well, there’s just one on the schedule, and that’s enough for Kamala, at least in August.  Heck, in September I’m not so certain that Paperwork American Judge Juan Merchan won’t slap Trump in irons and send him to prison.  Oh, sure, he’ll get out on an appeal shortly thereafter, but don’t count that possibility out.  This election is a circus, and we’re far short of the finale.

They did a study of how often Kamala was drunk.  The results were staggering.

But what is known is that Kamala is really attempting to appeal to a select group of voters:  those who aren’t paying attention and who will vote for a candidate based on what they feel.

Kamala has no need to preen for the hard-core GloboLeftists that want to hang Trump because they don’t like his face.  They’re going to show up for her even if she changes her tune to being pro-life and wants to start distributing AR-15s to every citizen.  They’d vote for her, because what they believe in is based only on what the latest talking points are from the DNC.  These people are Non-Player Characters (NPC) because they’re programmed by the mainstream news or by whatever the talking head night joke men tell them to believe.

What, really, is an NPC?

Since humans are social creature, there is an inherent tendency in many people to follow.  In the past, this made sense.  The number of people, say, a French peasant would have seen in their life was small, and they derived their beliefs by what was presented to them other people, rather than any other source.

This variety of NPC is popular in the UK, and in the United States too!  Talk about diversity!

Women, especially, were subject to this effect.  An example proving that was the number of war brides that American troops returned home with from Germany.  I don’t have the total from Germany, but over 300,000 war brides came from Europe, many speaking little English, to the United States.  These women immediately married men of the armed forces that had bombed and terrorized them for years because everyone said they were in charge now.

See?  NPC.

But as family groups become fractured due to no-fault divorce and a system that gives women cash and prizes for divorcing men, and as people become uprooted chasing economic success in areas far from where they grew up, they became reliant on a different tribe:  mass media.

No one is entirely immune, but some are entirely dependent on mass media for their opinions.  A close-knit family, longstanding friends, family stories and novels and other idea intrusions (like this blog) serve as counter-programming to the NPC soup that many live in.  The more you’re divorced from Infocancer like The View, the greater your immune system, and the less of an NPC you are.

This phrase must have tested highly with the NPC species Karenus Manageriusspeakum.

Kamala is not for you.  Kamala is for the NPC.

Kamala has to appeal (or pretend to appeal) to the middle.  These are the people who aren’t on the GloboLeft, and aren’t on the TradRight.  They just want to grill and enjoy the sunset and consume mass media.  Be aware, this how they were built – to follow.  Immersive multi-media that’s fed from a screen and doesn’t require any critical thought is what they desire.

For the NPC the TV or TikTok™ is their tribal sense of purpose.  Along with a lot of drugs.

How the NPC class copes.

The difficulty for Kamala is that for many of these people the last four years have been hell.  Their businesses have been closed (if they own a business) and their paychecks have dwindled in the face of ever-present inflation.  They’ve seen awful riots, they’ve seen this weird transgender explosion that they don’t much like, and now they notice huge numbers of people who moved into their neighborhood and don’t speak any English staring at them when they fill their gas tank.  They know they’re supposed to like them, but also have a tingling sense that these aren’t refugees or immigrants.  They’re becoming worried that this is an invader class.

Huh.  Wrongly think.  Get on board, citizen!

Kamala has to appeal to those people to win.  She can’t do it on record, so the best option is to run against anything she has ever stood for, or at least pretend to run against that.  She can say anything in front of any group, and will wait for the networks and search engines to run interference for her so that she can fulfill her strategy to win the White House.

How?  Kamala intends to be the first NPC candidate, standing for nothing, with no real substance except a desire for power with the media as her staunchest friend and defender.  Let’s get this woman some more gin!

Will Great Britain Rise Again?

“They chose to murder and steal.” – The Dark Knight

Notes:  All memes are as found, and no podcast tomorrow – The Mrs. has to catch some sleep.

Alice Smith is a reciprocal follow on X®.  She’s the great-great-great-granddaughter of Scottish economist Adam Smith, and is a good person to follow (@TheAliceSmith) if you’re already following the most important account on X™, @wilderbyfar.  She’s from the UK, and had the absolutely best post I’ve seen on the current sickness that’s destroying the West:

Doesn’t that say it all?

Immigration to the West (Europe plus the US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand) has nothing to do with freedom or our culture for most immigrants.  It’s merely about the stuff.

The sickness?

It’s from the GloboLeftElite attempting to brainwash the world into thinking that:

  • There is no difference between a man and a woman,
  • Anyone can be a man or a woman,
  • There are no intrinsic differences between races and ethnicities,
  • No one can pretend to be a different race unless it’s been okayed in advance even though all races are the same,
  • White people should somehow feel shame for their race even though all races are the same,
  • There is no difference between people of differing I.Q.,
  • People who are wealthy merely “won a lottery”, and,
  • Every culture is valid.

It’s the last one that we should talk about right now.

I’m not particularly interested in going on a culture jihad, so, perhaps all cultures are “valid.”  I suppose, if cannibal, rape-y, stone age tribes are your thing, I guess you could call it valid.

But all cultures are certainly not equal in things like freedom, justice, morality, and economic output.

Here, for centuries, the West has been far ahead of the world.  Europe was free-ish (feudalistically speaking) since the Black Death, which greatly changed the relationship between serf and local lord.

And in a continent that was freer than any in the world, there was a place that was freer yet:  Great Britain.  Great Britain had a really big advantage:  after the year 1066, it really was never invaded by a external enemy army.  Sure, you could make a case the culture has been subverted by outside forces (and I will below) but not by force of arms.

This isolation as an island nestled right next to Europe allowed a strange development – yeoman farmers who were encouraged to take up the longbow and become soldiers so that while the English lost land in France, there was never a doubt about them losing England.  The Scotts in the north were much the same, being hard-headed independent herders, they had to be strong, and were used to fighting both against and with other Scotts as well as the English.  And, yes, that’s a complement. (I’m partially Scot myself).

This isolation of individually armed individuals set up an independent society with no safety nets.  If you were too poor, stupid, or drunk to make enough money to live, you died.  If your lord decided he wanted something out of line, well, your +3 longbow could outrank his +1 armor at a distance.  As a result, Britain’s I.Q. rose over the course of centuries because the culture itself winnowed out stupid people, yet the strong, stubborn sense of independence remained.

Even the song “Rule, Britannia!” has the following lyrics:

“Rule, Britannia! rule the waves;
“Britons never will be slaves.”

This is a very, very different culture than that of the current people who opened the floodgates to Great Britain – they were unabashedly Globalist and Leftist, hated everything that Great Britain stood for, and were more than willing to start the migration into Great Britain.  I’d be lying to say that none of them pulled their weight – in some cases Britain got some of the best from their home countries, hence the term “brain drain”, but this was the exception rather than the norm.  Most of the immigrants to the UK have been a net negative to the country.

But no outside army ever conquered Britain.  Except the army of beggars that have invaded it have done something that no one thought possible – united the Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland – against the onslaught.  What does it take to get people who have been fighting each other for centuries to hold hands, literally, and march together?

Whatever it is, it sounds Evil to me.

And it is.  Evil.  Brought directly to the shores of Great Britain by GloboLeftists in misguided altruism and the GloboLeftistElite out of a calculated bid to displace inconvenient people who don’t want to be replaced.

There reaches a point where something so awful happens that a culture revolts:  it says, “That’s enough.”  In the United States for transgender acceptance, it was the murder of six children by a trans killer so crazed that they still won’t release her manifesto.  That was enough.  The GloboLeftistElite wanted to try to hide it (see how autocomplete will try to take you to murders of transgenders, but not murders by transgenders).  These murders is why Bud Light™ is Bud Deadtome© for so many consumers.

It appears that the United Kingdom (Great Britain plus Northern Ireland) has had enough of murderous vultures in their society.  The cause?  The murder of three girls, ages 6, 7 and 9 at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in a town called Southport.  By knife.  By a 17-year-old that had no place being in the United Kingdom in the first place.

English people had watched as rape gangs of organized sexual assault on at minimum 1400 young women that was denied to even exist in Rotherham because the victims were mainly white and the perpetrators were of privileged minority status – Pakistani, mostly.

This was covered up at a national level.  Filing cabinets full of the data on the case mysteriously disappeared.  That was never solved.

But would it matter?  Probably not:

Some of those convicted (many weren’t even tried) got as little as 2 years.  Britons can get more time for being mean with words.

Oh, and the last one?  She was posting Bible verses.

That set the situation, along with other, repeated, ongoing murders and rapes by people not fit to live in any sort of civilized society.  These three final murders were enough.

The response of the Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, was exactly what you would expect from a member of the GloboLeftElite:  he blamed the people pushing back against unrestrained and unrestricted illegals swarming the United Kingdom.  And if you complained online, even if you were more likely to be arrested than the illegals swarming the streets with swords and machetes.

They’re now calling him “two-tier Keir”, since his justice has two tiers:  a harsh one for actual English, Scots, Welsh, and Irish and one where all acts by any minority are ignored.  Probably because Starmer hates his own people, because he hates himself.

I guess that’s easier.

The United Kingdom has found a point where they say, No More.

This is coming soon to a country near you.

Oh, and if they offer the type of deal below?  We should take it.  Because it’s not about the stuff.

At all.

Civil War 2.0, A Chaotic Month

“I knew your brother would send assassins.” – Gladiator

I would tell a joke about my time travelling experiences, but you guys didn’t like it.

  1. Those who have an opposing ideology are considered evil.
  2. People actively avoid being near those of opposing ideology.  Might move from communities or states just because of ideology.
  3. Common violence. Organized violence is occurring monthly.
  4. Common violence that is generally deemed by governmental authorities as justified based on ideology.
  5. Opposing sides develop governing/war structures. Just in case.
  6. Open War.

Volume VI, Issue 3

All memes except for the clock and graphs are “as found”.  I’ve kept the Clock O’Doom at the same place – though it will notch up quickly if there are any signs of the TradRight stiffening up.

This is a moving situation, and things are changing quickly.  The advice remains.  Avoid crowds.  Get out of cities.  Now.  A year too soon is better than one day too late.

In this issue:  Front Matter – Destabilization – Violence and Censorship Update – Biden’s Misery Index – Updated Civil War 2.0 Index – Kamala – 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, subscribe because you’ll join nearly 850 other people and get every single Wilder post delivered to your inbox, M-W-F at or before 7:30AM Eastern, free of charge.

Civil War Weather Report Previous Posts

Destabilization

I’ll start with a couple of my own quotes from last month’s Civil War 2.0 Weather Report:

July will be an even more eventful month, if my guess is right.

This level of political intrigue is the highest since 1859 or so, and it’s quite clear that the glue that holds the country together is nearly gone, and this is a signpost on the way to Civil War 2.0. 

The attempted assassination of Donald Trump was a surprise, and certainly not one that I had anticipated.  In the immediate aftermath, Trump’s popularity soared as people saw the raw response to the event from Trump in one of the most iconic photographs of my lifetime, his fist raised in defiance.

Trump is certainly a showman.

As the details of the event continue, it looks like the Secret Service was doing its job as well as Boeing®’s Starliner™ design team.

The other thing the assassination attempt did was show how pathetic the attempt to prosecute the January 6 “insurrectionists” that were so ill-behaved that most of them used trash receptacles for their water bottles.  Comparing the two events shows how silly, vindictive, and political the prosecution of the protesters was and is.

Immediately the political attacks restarted on Trump.  He was Cheeto® Hitler™, and still is in their minds.  Many of them were in open despair that the shooter had missed.

What followed?  Joe Biden dropping out of the race.  Joe was done, but his last middle finger to Obama, who I believe is the one who pushed for the June debate and pushed for Joe to be booted, wanted someone else, anyone else, other than the retarded girl-child with a love of vodka known as Kamala to be the nominee.

Obama lost, and Kackela Harris will soon be voted in by the Democratic delegates as their first candidate that never received a single primary vote, and was selected by a senile man as a revenge choice.

All of that screams stability.

Just kidding.  Of all of the strange and destabilizing things we’ve seen so far, I would lay money we’ve yet to see the strangest part of this election season, and it will be more destabilizing even than what we’ve seen just this July.

Violence and Censorship Update

Well, there’s this:

Which resulted in proof that you don’t hate the media enough:

And also proof that the constant drumbeat has made GloboLeftists evil or crazy.  Or both:

And the GloboLeftElite try to hide what we all saw:

But don’t bet on Bing™ to be unbiased:

And here are things they’re also attempting to memoryhole, including billionaire Alex Soros with a bullet hole and forty-seven dollars.  Hmmm, Trump, if elected would be the 47th President:

And Prince Harry shows why July 4 is still important:

And here are things that the GloboLeftistElite don’t want you to think about:

But there are Bright spots:

Biden/Harris Misery Index

If Democratic economic policy had a face:

Let’s take a look to see how we’ve done this month . . . .

Yup, up again.  It’s like there’s a pattern here . . .

More to come:

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 combine to become the index.  On illegal aliens, I’m just using government figures.

Violence:

Violence is up.  I wonder if Chicago’s Democratic National Convention is going to spike temperatures?  Maybe they’ll play some soothing music?

Political Instability:

Up is more unstable, and it is slightly down.  I expect this fall to drop.

Economic:

The economy looks to be juiced, but thankfully we have housing options.

Illegal Aliens:

July is showing as down, again, since (my take) the .gov folks are just making up numbers now.

Kamala

I was going to write a bit more, but I’m a bit under the weather, so here are some related memes, in order:

LINKS

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

Bad Guys

https://x.com/GangHits/status/1818705002023530940

https://x.com/GangHits/status/1818801077308809307

https://x.com/GangHits/status/1816613118056837285

https://x.com/DaRealMonch/status/1817987959922250083

https://x.com/GangHits/status/1817614424141857175

https://x.com/Glock_Topickz/status/1815899177596903814

https://x.com/GangHits/status/1816611210214731827

 

Good Guys

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/89EFTHojJRw

 

One Guy

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cgrlrzw5550o

 

Body Count

https://dnyuz.com/2024/07/25/kids-a-growing-number-of-americans-say-no-thanks/

https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/07/22/how-the-origins-of-americas-immigrants-have-changed-since-1850/

https://x.com/EYakoby/status/1817731127672779239

https://reason.com/2024/06/15/house-passes-bill-to-automatically-register-young-men-for-the-draft/

https://themilitant.com/2024/08/02/congress-discusses-upgrading-the-draft-and-conscription-of-women/

https://www.newsweek.com/us-army-military-women-draft-conscription-1916238

 

Vote Count

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1184621/presidential-election-voter-turnout-rate-state/

https://www.cnn.com/2024/07/29/politics/voter-rolls-ballot-challenges-true-the-vote-elections/index.html

https://apnews.com/article/election-2024-voter-roll-challenges-explainer-36c5596361f4596f245ffeee7b138764

https://dentonrc.com/elections/conservative-group-has-challenged-17-000-names-on-voter-rolls-in-denton-county/article_71d1993e-4ec8-11ef-bd2b-5fd65c628b62.html

https://azmirror.com/briefs/republicans-sue-to-purge-at-least-500000-people-from-arizonas-voter-rolls/

 

Civil War

https://theconversation.com/one-inch-from-a-potential-civil-war-near-miss-in-trump-shooting-is-also-a-close-call-for-american-democracy-234628

https://radaronline.com/p/trump-shooter-suicide-mission-trigger-second-civil-war/

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/jul/23/ohio-republican-trump-civil-war

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2024/07/trump-vance-civil-war-gop-political-violence/

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/trump-civil-war-talk-1235066760/

https://www.dreadcentral.com/news/508690/this-controversial-record-breaking-thriller-is-again-the-most-watched-movie-on-amazon/

https://www.counterpunch.org/2024/07/29/how-civil-wars-start/

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/01/movies/war-game-documentary-review.html

https://www.thebulwark.com/p/democracy-suffer-quiet-death-simulated-trump

Gen X, Gen Z, And The Crisis Of The Soul

“And then we’ll all have a Christening for Rosemary’s baby.” – Last Action Hero

They call me “The Exorcist” at the liquor store.  After I leave, all the spirits are gone.

The kids today have a lot of challenges.  Generation Z and Generation Alpha have had a very significantly different childhood than most people reading this post.

For me growing up as a Gen X kid, we were very, very free.  I regularly came home to an empty house when I was in kindergarten.  The first time I let myself into my house with my own key, I was in third grade.  The first time I stayed overnight by myself (in winter, no less) I was in fourth or fifth grade.  By the time I was in high school I didn’t even see a parent three or four nights a week most weeks since I was going to school in an apartment about fifty miles from Wilder Mountain.

I certainly didn’t raise myself, but Gen X was pretty free range.  We left the house when we got up, and got home, dirty, muddy, and sunburned when the photodetector turned the yard light on because that was Ma Wilder’s definition of ‘dark’ in the ‘be home by dark’ direction.

Life is like a warranty – it runs out at the worst time possible.

I certainly used several of my free hours to do things that were things my warning label said not to do, and certainly would have voided my manufacturer’s warranty had I goofed up.

We were also pretty awful to each other, at least in middle school.  I have long maintained that kids in middle school are the worst people on the planet:  they have learned how to bully people by digging at their deepest insecurities, but they haven’t learned enough empathy to not do that.  See?  Absolute worst people on the planet.  I know, I was one of them.

I won’t dwell much on my specifics for this post – this isn’t about me, but about a generation that was given great independence from the start.  Many, many generations had it far worse than Gen X, since at no point when I was 8 did Pa Wilder seriously mention selling me off to the mines to move explosives so that valuable miners wouldn’t be injured.  Again, he may have mentioned it, but not seriously.

You’d think that being the first generation born after the pill was invented and abortion was entered into the sacraments of the Left, that Gen X would have been the most wanted generation in history.

No, not really.

What’s Gump’s password?  1Forest1.

Many parents that were often more interested in themselves during the “Me” decade of the 1970s.  In fact, Gen X was born at the intersection on a great societal upheaval of Woman’s Lib convincing women they didn’t want to be mothers.  Or wives.  That was also the beginning of the cult of the no-fault divorce as well.

Society’s feelings are often transmitted in the media, and let’s look at the roster of Gen X villains:

  • The baby from Rosemary’s Baby was a Gen X baby.
  • So was Damien from The Omen
  • So was Regan The Exorcist.
  • Although Michael Myers from Halloween was technically a Boomer, when he first appears he’s a kid, the same age as Gen X at the time. Same with Jason Voorhees.
  • Who opens the door in Poltergeist? Gen X.
  • The vampires in The Lost Boys? Gen X.
  • Everybody in Scream.
  • Oh, and when we grew up? The Faculty.
  • I think the shark from Jaws was a Boomer, so we’re off the hook on that one.

I started downloading Jaws the other day, but my computer keeps dying after one megabyte.

I don’t know what it was about Gen X that made people think of Satan when they thought about us.  I’m pretty sure that other kids weren’t quite as bad as I was.  Except Damien.

I can’t speak for other generations, but I’m not going to complain about my experience being a part of Gen X.  Yes, I was bullied, but I got tougher.  Yes, my parents gave me a lot of freedom, but Pa Wilder missed very few wrestling matches and rarely missed a varsity football game, even when a three-hour drive was involved.  I knew I was loved.

Coming out of high school, I felt (and still feel) that the limiting factor to my life is . . . me.  I feel the ball is in my hands.

From observation, kids today (on average) don’t have near the opportunity to be free range that we as Gen X did.  And, at least around Modern Mayberry, they aren’t bullied.  People are nice.  The kids are nice.

Maybe . . . too nice?

The best thing about taking money by bullying kids is you can buy yourself something nice.

We have created a fundamentally different generation with Gen Z and Gen Alpha.  Heck, what’s the best way to ground a member of Gen Alpha?  To make him go outside and hang with his friends in real life, away from his electronics.

I sense (and I could be wrong) that a lot of Gen Z and Gen Alpha has never had to face real adversity.  Instead, they’ve lived their lives with a sense of impending dread and massive confusion amidst the greatest material and information wealth the world has ever seen.  Starvation in the United States, and, for the first time ever, in the world, is virtually unknown.

World hunger?

It’s a solved problem.  There is more than enough food for everyone in the world right now, and the only starvation that occurs happens in war zones or is politically motivated.

Yet the GloboLeftElite has put into the minds of the kids today that the world is doomed.  They’re feeling higher levels of depression than kids from the Great Depression.  Suicide is their second highest cause of death.

Gen X had “You’ve Got Another Thing Comin’”, while Gen Z and Gen Alpha have “All Good Girls Go To Hell”.

Yet, my generation had Mutually Assured Destruction while Gen Z and Gen Alpha have Climate Change.  At least the Soviets were the bad guys in MAD, but in Climate Change?  Every human is the villain, oh, and we’re deeply in debt, robots and immigrants are going to take their jobs.

Gen X is so old our Social Security number is in Roman numerals.

Gen Z and Gen Alpha have been taught to hate themselves and humanity, and it’s so bad that they don’t want to have kids.

More than anything, this is a crisis of the spirit.  My generation was vilified as the Anti-Christ incarnate, and we responded by getting married and having children and getting by in life.

Did we make it?  Yes, I think we did.  Will they make it?  I think so, though, for many, their road is tougher than ours.  Weak men make hard times, and I think that’s where we’re at.

But, hey, think of all the great memes they’ll make!

It’s Joever. What next?

“And after your glorious coup, what then?” – Gladiator

I hadn’t planned on tackling the Fall of the House of Biden today, but, hey, an opportunity is an opportunity.  As it is, I think that the world has provided a rich set of memetic information that will more than cover the situation.  All of these are “as found”.

First, do you think Joe knew he’d be stepping down today?  Here’s the foreshadowing:

That brings us up to the end of the campaign.  How did that go?

The results seemed to catch even those close to Biden by surprise:

Lots of folks seem to think the nomination is a done deal for Kamala.  Obama, pointedly, did not endorse her.

Why did Obama not endorse Kamala?  Well, reasons, probably including that she is likely the stupidest person to ever run for Washington, with more baggage than the Lusitania, all combined with all of the charisma of ¡Jeb!:

I think she thinks the quote above is profound, because she keeps repeating it.

The pain . . . !

But what are the other complications?

Not gonna lie, it would be funny to start this program:

What if Joe doesn’t remember?

And what if Darth Clinton returns?  I’d say never get involved in a land war in Asia or play a game against a Clinton when power is on the line.  That does leave me with one question: